elanya

I had a dream last night, though I don't remember it super clearly and it was not to begin with super linear. I may not even be remembering them in order - I am not super sure whether the UART or the home bits came first. It involved a few different elements:

UART:
I was working at A&M for a different museum there. We were having a staff meeting. One of the other women was trying to track down record for an old purchase. They'd bought a bunch of prints for resale, I think, and were trying to find out details, because some information that was now relevant was missing. I suggested talking to Cathy, my old boss, while I was thinking (but not saying) that we really ought to be part of UART. Cathy had been here long enough to remember that time and might know something about it, I suggested. The woman was ambivalent.

I later ran into Cathy in the hall. She was dressed sort of like McGonagal from the movies minus the witch hat. She initially seemed pleased to find out I was working there again, but then we talked about my citizenship. We talked about how expensive it had been to hire me as a Canadian, but I hadn't had to pay for it. Now I was a dual citizen (I'm not). She was mad at me for a: not having to pay and b: not having to choose. It came out that she had been forced to choose.

Home:
I was still living with Wererogue and Longpig and the kids, but we were in Moncton, in my maternal grandparents' old neighborhood, and kind of in their old house. It was late winter/early spring, and not too much snow left on the ground. I'd gone with were rogue to pick up the kids from school, which was down the road and around the corner by the park. We looked back and they were gone - we found them Krazy Karpeting down a very small hill. Wererogue told them that he was disappointed they hadn't listened, and that he had been planning to take them sledding on a bigger hill, but now they weren't going to be able to do that. They could go home or keep sledding where they were (it was a really tiny tiny hill, not even snow bank size). They were disappointed. At some point, Longpig managed to set the Karpet on fire from friction because there wasn't enough snow?

When I got home, there was a package. I didn't know what it was, but was told it might be Longpig's possum. Apparently the oven might have been leaking some kind of poison gas, and the way to tell was to keep a small possum in there and monitor it. To do so you should wear full surgical gear made out of maple (??). The possum had died.

Diablotin Jedi:
So I was also Denise, my Diablotin character, and she was a Jedi Padawan. Ander, her mobster-mentor in the game, was her Master. This connected to the earlier fragments in a few ways: when forced to choose earlier, I'd decided that the most important part of my identity was Rat, which is the House that Denise and Ander both belong to. We were dealing with these glass necklaces/fragments that had been part of that purchase where the records were missing. The glass was green with some purple, kind of like fluoride in mineral form. It had words impressed into some of the fragments, but either they weren't actually legible or I just don't remember them at all.

Ander was looking into one of these, and he had found out something, but wouldn't tell me because it was too dangerous. Possibly this related to some cryptic stuff Cathy told me as well? Something about this cause him to die in my arms, and it was very sad. It also somehow related to the possum, if only metaphorically? I don't remember/can't make sense of it now.

I managed to chase down the people who were dealing in this glass to The Docks (What docks? Who even knows, it was very generic). I had a fight with one dude, who had some kind of light saber whip. Obi-Wan Kenobi (Clone Wars vintage) showed up and helped me fight, also telling me that I shouldn't be there, that I didn't understand, that I would get myself killed, and so on. I was all 'but they killed my master!' of course, because Denise really would be a terrible Jedi. We (I) managed to beat the first guy.

The second guy ether ate or absorbed one of these pieces of ...ghost glass? it gave him glowing green wings. He gloated that we couldn't really defeat him. The first guy, who I had very throughly light-sabered, also started glowing green around his chest (the wound? I'm not sure now), and coming back to life.

Then I woke up and I don't know at all how anything resolved! Very frustrating!

Overall, I slept for crap and my back was killing me all night :/

I am terrible at regular updates. It is known.

Works proceeds. It is worky. I have a clearer idea of what all I need to be doing and in what order, though, which is nice. Right now I am working on the Pomona glass, which is really pretty, especially the stuff in the Cornflower patter. I'll put an example piece below ( this cut )

We are planning on doing a Zombie Walk this fall to raise money for the conservation of outdoor sculptures that need a little professional TLC, and we've started filming some promo videos for it, with the student film group Aggie SWAMP (I have no idea what that stands for though ;p). The first one has been released, and you can see it behind ( this cut )

What else is worth reporting in my life... I've been playing around a lot with Storium, which is an online story game thingy that is currently running a big Kickstarter Campaign. If you contribute (or if you just get invited by someone running a game) you can play with the beta stuff. I am in....too many 'test' games, and am running one myself, which is a sort of neolithic Fantasy sort of deal. Sort of a mashup of "stone age" technologies plus spirits and curses and so on. So far so good. I keep threatening to have the party attacked by rabid, plague infested wolverines, a.k.a. plaguerines. They don't like that very much, for some reason. I need to move things a long in that game soon. Maybe if I finish the data entry for the box I'm working on now I'll do it before I leave. There is no reason I shouldn't really, unless I get super lazy! Or if this entry goes longer than expected! If you are on Storium, (possibly if you aren't?) and are curious, you can see the game so far here.

Still working on the Assassin's Creed IV let's play - I'll let people know when it is up! I think we're close with the first episode. Or, if you count like a programmer/wererogue, the 0th episode ;p

What else, what else. Do you want to know what TV I'm watching? Hannibal, Person of Interest... I guess that's about it at the moment. I don't know if I'd watching either without the external social motivators, but we all know how terrible I am at watching things on my own (I'm terrible and I don't). I'm sure there is a ton of good TV out there worth watching but, enh. I'd rather write, or chat/hangout with peeps (online or off), or game. I saw and enjoyed the new Captain America movie, or course. I was pleased at Natasha's necklace. I loved Sam. It gave me its intended feels punches, especially the final stinger, but I think I find them less overwhelming than some. I'm generally pretty reserved, feelswise (this may be an understatement).

( And speaking of feels, this is where things turn to introspective musings )

The galleries are now open and their new exhibits are up, wooh!

Well the Forsyth, anyway, where I work. The Stark Galleries is still installing their super awesome Patent Model show. I have walked around it though (I'm physically still located there for Reasons that I may write about at some point), and I have to say that it is pretty much a Steampunk's wet dream - all wacky inventions and aged wood and brass gears - gears that *do things*! It is really neat in and of itself, but I think it could provide some great inspiration for people who are interested in Steampunk stuff - I'll see if we are allowed to take pictures and maybe post some later if I can.

At Forsyth, these are the first exhibits where I have done a lot of cataloguing before the show, and I am pretty familiar with all the objects on display, which is cool. Forsyth has downloadable brochures on the exhibits that show a few of the pieces, which is convenient for my purposes since the vast majority of you are not local and are never going to be able to come and see them :p All the pictures in the brochures were take by me, so you can have a sense of what else I have been up to at work.

Here are some links to the Forsyth exhibits. There are links to the pdf brochures at the bottom of each page:

Come to the Table: American Pressed Glass
Aurene: Steuben's Iridescent Pressed Glass
(There is also a new paperweight display in the Learning Gallery but there's not much I can show you on that front).

For anyone who *is* local, the information on the Stark exhibitions can be found over here. Because they are traveling exhibits, we don't have as much online information about the objects, but we do have some nice brochures, I believe, for both.


(I am blogging from work! But I totally consider this relevant and don't feel a bit guilty >.>)

I was re-listening to The traveler (Night Vale ep 17), and realized that it actually described my today pretty well. I mean, I go through a lot of latex gloves at work anyway, but today was a bit of an ordeal @_@ maybe that is why I'm so wiped today - that + bees :p

To recap my life briefly - I work in a glass museum. It's really cool. I have spent the past... 3 or four weeks, maybe? Cataloging Steuben art glass. It's fucking gorgeous. If you want an idea of what it is like... ( Pictures of shinies under the cut! )

Anyway, I usually unpack a box, take all my notes, put all my notes into the database, take picture, process all the pictures, and re-pack all the things. That is pretty much all there is to my job most of the time. Sometimes I do a little minor conservation or labeling/relabeling for variety.

Today I was helping/doing a photoshoot for some marketing materials for some of the exhibits going up after Christmas. This meant getting out about ten different boxes, some of which I haven't gotten to and so are packed horribly, and pulling one thing out of each box, moving all the stuff into the other room, setting up all the photo stuff in the studio, working with the marketing lady to get shots of all of these things that are much fancier than I usually do (the shots I take are generally nice, but they are mostly for identification purposes, whereas these will be on postcards and in brochures and such). Anyway, it was a lot more intensive, and I was kneeling on concrete pretty much all afternoon to get all the photos. I think we more or less got all the shots we needed, but it was after 5 when we finished and I didn't look at them all yet. I also have to put everything away tomorrow, including dealing with all the stuff that came out of really poorly packed boxes that no one has looked at in at least 5 years and possibly more like 10 :p

As for the latex gloves, fingerprints leave permanent marks on glass really easily - especially fancy art glass that has had various surface treatments applied to make it iridescent and such - and we have gloves (technically nitrite and not latex) to keep from getting prints on. You can't use the white cotton ones that are okay for other art handling because they are too slippery. But the gloves get warm - especially when you are doing photography with hot lights - and I went through a lot of them because my hands were sweating so much, yum!

So all in all, my Monday was long and tiring, but didn't harm me, and I went through a lot of gloves. Thanks, Night Vale!

I'm sure there must be people out there who wonder and don't know, right?

Well, I am officially defending my dissertation on May 29. I more or less printed out the committee copies and will distribute them on Monday. Then I just need to write the abstract and acknowledgments. Oh and the defense presentation, I suppose :p

After that... I'll have about a week or so before I start my new job! Wooh! I have a one year position at the Forsyth Gallery as a cataloger. The way I am thinking, this will give me a year to try and do things like get syllabi together, maybe get an article published, submit my dissertation for publication (maybe), and basically try and get everything I can ready to be more eligible for the academic job circuit. Everything except teach, anyway :p And this way I'll have some decent museums experience under my belt and can start looking at those sorts of positions as well, or at least have other options if I can't find a decent academic job or risk falling into the adjunct trap after a few years.

I think that is really all of the big news. I'm still living in the same place. The pets are well. I'm still writing little bits and pieces. Maybe this year I will also make more serious efforts to get some fiction published? I think I may try and revive some of my older works in progress as well, or at least see if I can't bring them to some kind of reasonable conclusion (mostly thinking about my Romulan fic). If I intersperse it with other things I'm working on I think that will help me keep momentum all around, and then I can be producing stuff that maybe someone will be more interested in reading than my other stories. I like to think I am a pretty good writer, I'm just terrible at writing to capture audiences - if only I would write things people actually want to read! :p But maybe that is just an excuse :p

Um... I think that's about it, really. Finishing the Diss should be a bigger deal, but it really doesn't feel it. There have been moments of adrenalin rush and anxiety, but mostly I am relaxed to indifferent. Maybe it just hasn't settled in? Maybe its because I never isolated myself socially as much as some people finishing up, so it doesn't feel like as much of a release? I feel like I should feel more accomplished, I suppose.

I think part of it is that I fear a similar reaction to my fiction writing, where I think it is good and interesting (I also don't hate my topic as much as I've been told I should at this point), but no one else is interested. I guess we'll see. I'm interested to hear comments from my committee, at least - I'm not completely disengaged, or anything, but it mostly feels like the end of an inevitable process rather than overcoming any kind of challenge. Maybe I just don't feel like I have been challenged enough - my chair's comments were almost entirely copy-editing notes (and they were not extensive). I don't have that much faith in my brilliance though. Enh.

I feel like I should reward myself for getting it printed out today, even if I didn't get it turned in. I thought about ordering pizza, but I have pulled pork in the crockpot. Maybe I'll just make Nutella popcorn again.

I don't have to go to work this morning - I'm not scheduled for Fridays. But.... I'm going anyway!

Today the three finalists in the school's Sculpture Competition, to create a suspended piece to hand outside the hallway of the new gallery entrance, are presenting their ideas to the jury. They'll get voted on, and once everything goes through the various approval channels (yay bureaucracy -_-) they'll be announced to the public. Since I'm gallery staff, I'm allowed to sit in on the presentations - there will even be snacks ^-^ I'm really excited to see what the three have come up with - two individuals and one group. If you're curious, their names are here on the gallery website and you can google them. I don't have time to give you links, alas!

After they're over, I'm going to head over to Northgate and grab lunch (burger craving @_@) and pick up a package (My dad overnighted me some chicken bones, hee!) at Fed Ex. And then to the gym with Megan for swimming!

So... yes, I'm partly posting this so anyone I normally chat with in the morning won't be wondering where I am, since I'm unlikely to be online again until around 2:30 my time, or later :3

But also I'm excited!

In other news, I am making dissertation progress slowly but steadily. I am almost through with this big ridiculous huge lit review/theory chapter, which is the going to be the hardest part. I really want it out of my hair soon, so I can go back to flitting between other things that still need doing. Like more data analysis ;_;

I have a ton of drabbles to write though, to give me writing breaks, so things are generally looking pretty good around here :)