The mysterious case of the plant waterer

Feb 4, 2010 by Rochelle

I have this lovely plant that I inherited from my old boss when she quit. Sad she didn’t want to take it with her. I think maybe she had inherited it too. I took over it’s care, and I’ll be honest with you, I’m not the best plant owner, as you’ll see later in this post.

Well…over the past eight years it’s had it’s good days and it’s bad days. Mostly because I forget to water it. Poor thing. There was a really great period of time when I used to share an office with one of my student assistants. She had tons of plants and so she kept her eye on this little guy too.

Since then, I’ve been up in my own office and the plant just chills in the window. I would water every now and again and it was doing pretty well. Then a couple of months ago I noticed something odd. Not only did my plant look amazingly alive and well, but there was a mysterious bottle of water next to it.

February 2010

Ok….

I figured I must have placed it there. I am notoriously bad at bringing drinks into my office and letting them fester.

But I wasn’t sure. So I left it there to see what would happen.

Sure enough, the water in the bottle would deplete and then I’d come in the next day and it would be refilled!

So somebody, I don’t know who, is sneaking into my office to water my plant. I’ve asked around and there are no answers. Perhaps it’s the cleaning staff? But I sort of doubt it. They are are really short staffed and just overwhelmed. Perhaps it’s a secret watering gnome?

Maybe it’s my plant? Could it have magical powers?

Anyway, I know there’s got to be an explanation about it, but truthfully I want to stay in the dark. I love coming in each day to see the water bottle and my very healthy plant. I feel like the answer may disappointment me.

So if you’re out there secret plant waterer…THANK YOU!

And since we’re talking about plants, I thought I would come full circle with the Bamboo saga. Read this post to familiarize yourself…

Basically, Amanda got me the bamboo as an engagement present. The plant thrived, until Brian and I broke up, and then it dwindled. Mostly because the cats kept getting at it. So I brought it to my office and tried to revive it, but there was no hope. It was gone.

February 2010

So I kept the dead plant around (am I a hoarder?) and decided that once my divorce was final I would put the plant to rest. How dramatic is that? Sure enough, I somehow remembered that little idea, and so the day after I got my divorce papers I did just that. Goodbye bamboo. I think I’ll replace you with another bamboo.

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I actually went out (kinda) on a Friday night!

Jan 16, 2010 by Rochelle

Or this post could have been titled “My Great Photography Fail.”

A long, long time ago…2003-2004ish, maybe, I hired my first real student assistant, Andy. He was a bit of a non-traditional student, who had gone half way through college and then joined the Peace Corps and did good deeds (and got Malaria. Twice.). When I hired him, he was back from his dutiful stint and trying to finish up his degree. We had good times, and we had bad times, as I tried to figure out my footing as a supervisor, which is something I continue to struggle with at times.

Anyway, he graduated and moved away with his girlfriend Kerry, who is now his wife, to New Haven so she could go to Yale for graduate school. These days, they’re living in Oklahoma. He’s a firefighter and has his own web design business, and she works for the parks service, or something like that.

So with all of that lead up, it’s probably obvious who I went out with last night. Andy made some strong connections with a lot of folks at ITS while he worked for me, and even played on our softball team. So we had a group of 18 last night that filled up an entire back room at the Walnut Brewery in downtown Boulder.

Andy and Kerry were great to visit with. They seem really happy together and are such nice, down-to-earth folks that there was no awkward haven’t seen you in a long time phase to break through.

My favorite part of the night was when Andy told me that the skills he learned working for me has made a huge impact on his life and he thanked me for it. I was so delighted to hear that! I always try to help my student assistants understand that their job with me is gonna be one that they can draw from for years to come. Sadly, I’ve had a couple students who never grasped that and chose to prioritize other activities and less meaningful jobs over their position with my department. They get it now that they’ve graduated and are coming back to me often for advice and references.

The biggest disappointment was that I didn’t take any pictures. No pictures, even though I had my camera in my purse, and even though I thought about doing it a couple of times. I just didn’t have the nerve. That is something I have to get over.

So when I came home, I had a little bit of fun making a picture to showcase the moment. Yay for Photoshop, Project Runway, and HGTV to take me into the wee hours of the night.

Rochelle, Andy, and Kerry in cartoon format.

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Best of 09: Workshop or Conference

Dec 6, 2009 by Rochelle

This year I attended a monthly leadership seminar and a few conferences, one I even helped organize. While all of those were helpful, they weren’t inspirational or motivational, which is sad. So it’s hard for me to pick from those. Instead, what’s been one of the best things for my job is getting serious about CSS, and I can thank a few things for that, but mostly CSS-Tricks. I did a few of the tutorials that Chris publishes and I can’t tell you how much it helped CSS really click for me. I’m really grateful for that, and it’s actually inspired me more than ever to do a better job and take the time to code pages well. Thanks Chris!

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Hardcore

Nov 20, 2009 by Rochelle

Long time no blog! Eek!

You should actually take that as a good sign though. It means that all of my writing energy has been poured into my NaNoWriMo book! Last weekend, I finally got the breakthrough I was looking for and I have seriously increased my word count. That being said, I am still massively behind, at only 19,000 words. But I’m not afraid anymore. I feel rather confident that I can get it done, and I’m quickly falling in love with my story.

Falling in love with my story makes me happy, but it makes me worry about the other novel I’ve been working on for a year. I have already invested 300 pages into it and I am still determined to finish it. I’m pretty good and splitting my attention, but I must be honest and say that I am currently obsessed with what I’m working on now and the influences that I’ve been accessing to motivate me. I have a whole new music collection that I’ve been listening to as I write that is completely different from my other book (Click here to see it). I’m not going to lie. A lot of these songs come from Grey’s Anatomy and I think that’s a great thing. There’s a reason why the show uses these songs, because it evokes emotions and allows scenes to play out very well.

So anyway, if you’re wondering what I will be doing the rest of the month, you can bet it’s writing. I’m attacking this NaNoWriMo challenge hardcore!

Speaking of hardcore…I have some other things to report.

As you may recall from 2008, I am a Twilight fan. I shouldn’t be so ashamed about this. I have a strong philosophy of “to each their own.” My hugest pet peeve is when people who have their own nerdy, fringe, or even super popular interest are critical of one of the things I like. This comes out like crazy in the workplace. I happen to work with a lot of lovable nerds that love Sci-Fi, etc., that have literally gone to conventions, and some that love playing WoW and spend a good chunk of their free time doing that. So you would think that I wouldn’t get grief when I mention Days of Our Lives right? I totally do. It’s the most fucking obnoxious thing in the world when people do that and the most hypocritical. Star Trek is not my thing. I barely tolerated the movie and thought it was only okay. I’ll never own it or go to a midnight show for the sequel (actually, I might, because I like going to midnight shows of things). But I have a friend who loves it and I would never try to bring him down. Thankfully, he doesn’t try to bring me down either and totally grasps the “to each their own” philosophy.

So if you’re about to roll your eyes at the next part of this post, because I talk about Twilight. Spare me. It takes so much more effort to hate something than to just accept that some people like it. And if you think that hating on something that is popular, especially amongst women (which I would argue is part of the problem), makes you somehow superior or cool, it doesn’t. It makes you seem insecure.

Life is hard, and so it should be celebrated when anyone can have a ton of fun loving something in the fictional/escapism realm. To-each-their-fucking-own.

Last night I went to the Twilight double feature with my sister and my friend Michelle. It was a blast! We saw Twilight at 9 and then New Moon at midnight. It was a great time and I’m going again tonight with a larger group of friends. Is New Moon the greatest movie ever? Hell no. Do I care? Not one bit. Because I have fun watching it and living in that world for two hours.

So I guess you could call me hardcore for Twlight.

But do you know what you should actually call me hardcore for….

Grey’s Anatomy.

Because even though I got home at 2:45 in the morning and I had to be at work by 9 this morning, I stayed up and watched the new episode of Grey’s Anatomy at 3 in the morning. HARDCORE.

Truthfully, I am not actually hardcore for any of these things. I personally know people that actually attend Days of Our Lives fan events, went to the New Moon premier in Los Angeles, and make montages of Grey’s. And while it’s unlikely that I’ll ever go that far, I could never discredit or mock those girls for being passionate about something they love.

So the next time you’re working hard at hating American Idol, soap operas, Nicholas Sparks, fan fiction, Star Wars, WoW, Lady Gaga, or High School Musical….remember, it’s all for fun and life is too short to stop the fun.

PS……

Grey’s turned out way better than I thought it would for Cristina and Owen last night! I hate that a love triangle is coming, but at least this episode made me pretty happy:

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Oct 29 2009: Snow Queen

Oct 29, 2009 by Rochelle

Once again, while all the schools (and colleges) around the Boulder campus closed for the snow storm, my place of employment was open. Seriously? But it all turned out okay. There was very little traffic on the way in (since a lot of smart people stayed home anyway). And work was light and easy.

When I got home, I snapped some pictures of the snow. I love it. Especially this time of year, because it’s not terribly cold.

Oct 29 2009: Snow Queen