Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Nerdiness
Jody and Michelle wanted to do a poker potluck for New Year’s Eve, but their little guy (seen in the picture) got pneumonia. So they rescheduled for January 31st to ring in … February. It was a ton of fun and I did really good at poker. Well, at first. Then Kevin dominated.
From L-R: Kevin, Hannah, Aaron, Jody, Jack, Michelle, and Sean
Last night I went to the “Message Center” CM project at Rox’s house. It was fun! We made a 12 calendar pages to display in the mini-everyday display. I was a bit off my game to be honest. I had a hard time pasting down straight and following the directions. I chalk it up to being tired from a long week of work. At the last project I went to I was the first to be done, way before everyone else. Last night I was the last. Thankfully, I didn’t mess up writing dates on calendar – I hate doing that and I have before in the other calendar projects I’ve done in the past.
Just in time to display January for a day.
I’m happy to get back into scrapbooking. Project 365 has definitely helped. These one-night projects have also really helped. So I’ve decided that I need to set up shop in my apartment for traditional scrapbooking. I’m going to try and utilize my gigantic whicker trunk that’s by my kitchen table, and then go purchase some decorative white storage drawers, and a basket or two (if you know me, you know that I’m a sucker for baskets). So I thought I might go out to today and see what I can find that won’t break the bank.
I also have to cook today! I’m going to a poker potluck tonight at my friends Jody and Michelle’s house. I work with Jody and his wife works on campus too. They are great. I’m going to make some spinach artichoke dip for the event, and truly I cannot wait to enjoy some of it. I haven’t made the dip in like a year, so I’ve got high hopes for it being everything I remembered it to be.
read more
Tonight I went to a Creative Memories project to assemble these adorable calendar pages for use in this display frame. I struggled tonight and was one of the slower croppers, which was a lot unlike the last project I worked on when I was the fastest. It was a fun night and I really liked this project and the end result.
Just in time to display January for a day.
I took this photo today when I was walking back to work from my French class. The archway connects the UMC and Chemistry building. Just past the archway is a small terrace that overlooks the site of our new Fine Arts building, which is under construction.
I wonder how many times in the past 12 years I've passed under it?
So as you may have noticed I’ve been using Twitter, which “is a social networking and micro-blogging service that allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (otherwise known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length.” I’m pulling in my Twitter feed to this blog, over on the right.
I had a hard time picturing what the real benefit of Twitter would be. What would I get from it? And it’s actually turned out to be great little tool for a few different reasons.
For me it began with one Twitter account. I’ve been “following” (sounds creepy doesn’t?) a few friends from my personal life and a couple of bloggers that I like to keep up with, as well as some news tweets. Keeping up with friends has been one of the greatest parts. I’m not a big fan of instant messaging. I feel like it’s too time-consuming and immediate. For example, my friend Bret is on Twitter. When we are instant messaging it becomes this long drawn out back and forth. But on Twitter, I see what he’s up to and can choose to reply to it or not. It’s a lot like Facebook statuses, but more private and more frequent. I find myself really enjoying that aspect of it a lot.
Then I got a second Twitter account and this one is for work. Let me back up a bit. It turns out that all of my colleagues that report to my boss have totally been providing him with weekly reports for months now. He told us he wanted us to do that last summer. Well I did it a couple of times and then forgot, and then forgot some more, and then I never heard about them and had no idea that these were actually coming to be. So in our staff meeting on Tuesday he handed out a compiled report from the previous week. Oops. So I told him I would get on it. I think he was giving me a break because he knows how much I’ve got going and how I can’t just delegate it to some manager below me. Plus, I don’t really have data to pull easily (like call center stats and contacts). My reports are narrative. So I decided I needed to get on that. But how? What is a good way of keeping track of work, notions, strategies, and conversations? And furthermore keeping track of what my student is up to.
Twitter of course! So I set up a twitter account for my student and me. Using the “Twhirl” desktop app makes logging much easier. And because I now follow my student’s account, I can see when she gets in (no more Time Sheet e-mails!) and when she leaves. Then I can see what she’s working on and when things get done. So far it has been working out spectacularly for both of us. Being free from e-mail updates between us is great.
Then last night I decided to get a third Twitter account, this time just for me and not for anyone else (set to private), so I can just jot down and keep track of the ideas I have or feelings. It’s only been a few hours but I already have three tweets there about the story I’m writing. Sometimes I come up with dialog between my characters or where my story is going when I’m in a meeting or walking to the car, just on the fly. Before I lose it, I can jot it down on Twitter. And since there are obviously some great iPhone apps for Twitter, I can do it from anywhere at anytime.
So yeah, I dig Twitter. Anyone who wants to join me, you can follow me at ninepoems.
Tweet-tweet!
:-)
the guy in the back omg
I wish.
