Another Question

During class someone took us to an image site that had government photos, only I can't find it. Can anyone send me that?

The reason for this question is the fail of a group project that I'm working on for my editorial style class. Of three of us, the one who volunteered to design the newsletter failed miserably. I'm curious if any government images might work in my and my other partners attempt to fix the horrible-ness of it all.

We're in graduate school, by now I woul dhave thought everyone I worked iwth in a group would pull their weight. If someone had a conflict I would have thought they'd inform someone so they could pick up the slack.

I'm really infuriated. Frustrated. And I wanted to spend my last night in WV hanging out with my mom. Instead, I'm doing what I can from here to prepare to spend hours in the Design Lab tomorrow. Really fantastic.

Cheers,
LV

Phantom Line

Question: Does anyone know the poem from which "I screamed O City" comes? I think that's the line, it might not be quite right. Because I can't place it. I think I knew at one time, but just now it is gone. I ask because I wrote a poem using this line for a class and now I want/need to know its origin.


Cheers,
LV

Revisioning

The trouble with revising during the semester is that I haven't spent enough time away from my own writing. Really, when I look at it to revise it I feel like I'm getting stuck with someone on the train for 10 hours that has habits that correlate to all of my pet peeves: they scrape their teeth on their fork as they eat, they stretch into my seat, maybe they even smell. It may be that they are nice and interesting and have other fine qualities, but 10 hours on a train ride isn't the likely place to discover them. Nor is three months packed in with the same texts the likely place for me to find something true about them. Good or bad, by the end of the semester I can't tell. It's all junk and I have only more junk to add to it. Next summer I'll look at my writing, and the revisions, and have something useful to say about them. But right now? Right now it's all bollox.

Cheers,
LV

Seriously, America?

In just a few days I'll be flying home. Oh, where is my ship? Where are the days of climbing aboard a wooden vessel and getting some wind in the canvas and eating weevils in the hard tack?

But seriously. I'm concerned. Not just about the body scanners (which I will refuse, if it comes to it) but the aggressive get-a-grope they are calling a pat down. I'm worried that Maryland appears to have some sort of law that states that  no one is allowed to videotape police officers--or someone is interpreting it that way. And apparently Illinois really does. I'm concerned that Oklahoma's amendment stating that all judges would have to adhere only to state and federal law (as opposed to any foreign law) is being challenged. I'm concerned that illegal immigrants can get driver's licenses. I'm concerned that a New Jersey judge upheld a man's right to rape and beat his wife under Sharia law. (Note: It was later overturned in appeals.) And I'm concerned that we want to continue drilling off-shore. I don't know where to begin with the horror. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed and furious.

What's happening out there?

Cheers,
LV

All That Jazz

Right now I'm freezing in my mother's study. She keeps the house well under 70 degrees. However, I am also munching on  a sneak preview of tomorrow's turkey. At least, the first. There shall be two at this year's festivities. This does not out-do the year we had three at the same meal. Still, despite the deliciousness I find it hard to concentrate on anything but the possibility of my toes freezing off. If only there were a seal to gut and then live inside.

Did I take it too far? Did I lose you? If it was only a near-thing or you've come back I promise to keep the carnage to a minimum.

Technically I celebrated Thanksgiving yesterday with m'dad and sisters and his wife in Elkins, WV. There was only a single turkey and I was slightly warmer. Today, after we'd eaten breakfast, we got into a debate on politics from Mrs. Palin and President Obama to the Health Care plan, immigration, and body scans. I started the argument on a throw away joke. Silly of me as I am a loner in that house, at least without my boyfriend around. Oh, holidays, what would you be like if I wasn't being attacked by a bunch of rabid hyenas? Even when I agree with them, I still feel under attack.

And yet I prefer this to conversations of the personal variety. A writer in a household with math and science people is, you can imagine, an enigma. I'm constantly under their construction. One day, they believe, I'll be fixed and instead of living surrounded by books I will succumb to numbers and matched furniture and the ability to survive in an office.

Oh, how foolish. How very, very foolish.

I hope your holidays only involve the deaths of those you plan to eat. Not that I'm advocating cannibalism, mind you.

Gobble!
LV

I Don't Have to Use Java!

I discovered APdivs. I discovered a fantastical website that taught me about APdivs. You, the people who will eventually see my website, will be able to drag and drop text wherever ya want. This is going to be a blast. And I will not have to learn Java. Let us all rejoice.

In fact, I don't know if I could have done it. Perhaps if I was actually going to be in town all week, or had access to Dreamweaver, I would have figured it out. But the APdivs are ultimately easier. As for my progress, I've designed the way I want the pages to look, although I need to go back in and fix spacing issues. I've worked out the bugs I encountered with the APdivs and think (hope, pray) that when I get back from West Virginia it will just be a matter of tweaking the pages I've layed out and inputting the APdivs. That shouldn't take more than one long session in the lab, so that I can then user test the site, so that I can then be done for the semester. Right? Of course, right. I hope. I really, really hope.

Cheers,
LV

A short note on the upcoming festivities seemed in order.

I fly to the WV tomorrow! I'm so very excited. There will be two Thanksgivings and one baby shower. (I hope I will not be forced to hug the baby belly as I was the last time I was in. This time it will be ever so much larger.) I'm also hoping for a trip to see one of my very best friends and trips to a couple of my old jobs to visit people. All this while finishing the massive amounts of project homework I still have to do. (As do we all, I know. Crazy semester's end.) It makes me sleepy just thinking about it. Sometimes, I wish I were my cat or my dogs. Then I remember that they lick themselves and throwup hairballs and I realize how nice it is to have hands and use tools. I hope your holiday week is filled with revelations.

Cheers,
LV