seattlejo.com

So for the first time since I joined the NANOWRIMO site, I’m a winner. The flexible schedule  of being a student and the lack of employment gave me the time I needed to easily reach my goal.  Of course its pretty much a  freewrite novel, without a whole lot of direction and depth. But its written and since I still feel like I’m in recovery after a long period of not doing anyh real creative writing I’m glad to have reached the goal of 50,000 words.
What next? Well part of the story could be cut out and cleaned up into something that is more interesting fit for human consumption. Or i could take one of the other stories that is rattling around my brain and write that.

Anyway hooray! I’m a winner!

As I read through my rss feeds I note that there are a number of posts about Black Friday.
How to organize yourself!
How to get the best deals!
How to find the sales!

I used to love going to the mall on Black Friday. Not so much for the sales, as I have little patient for standing in line, no instead for the sheer delight of watching that many people interact in the public sphere and enjoying the energy.

Others tout this as Buy Nothing Day.
This is supported by adbusters and is touted as the day for environmentalists, activists and concerned citizens who  want to see over consumption end.
Sounds good. After all, this is my second quarter in an environmental class and I can see how it would be needed. On the other hand, I’m not sure reducing consumption really needs an ad campaign and billboards. This would make more sense as a grass roots effort with an educational arm instead of a shiny marketing campaign with public demonstrations.

And another is claiming this should be Make Something Day
A day to sit down and make something yourself. A step up from the  Buy Handmade pledge for me as it does encourage getting out there and making your own stuff, not just buying someone else’s stuff. Use what you’ve got though, no need to go over board and buy into a new craft right?

So what will you be observing this year? Does your budget drive you to Black Friday sales? (My lack of a budget absolves me of taking part)
Will you be self righteously buying nothing?   or will you be making something for the effort of making something and not just for the pure joy of it?

I think I’ll get Miss Bit started on some small soapmaking with me. I saw a plan where you make soap sheets and cut them out with cookie cutters, then sandwich them together to make decorative soaps.  But thats more to do with having a schools out activity then anything else.

Dear Professor #1,

Please make class mean something today. I’m tired of the lack of feedback, and would like to feel like I’m learning something. It might be easier for you to just push back all our due dates, but to be honest, I’d prefer feedback on the work instead of more time to do future work.

—–

Dear Professor #2,

A quiz next week? Are you nuts? You’ve only lectured for half a class session on any material for this quiz. What are you testing us on?

—

Dear Miss Obama underwear,

Don’t presume to speak for the whole class.  When the guest lecture admits that this issue is a non partisnial one  and that politics shouldnt be brought up, crying out that “This is Obama country” just makes me want to spork you.

–

Dear Guest Lecturer,

Why shouldn’t people take responsibility for their purchases. Buying  new electronic gadets is a luxury. Disposing of them properly shouldn’t be.

And seriously? “You shouldn’t freecycle electronics because you don’t know how they will be disposed of next.

Lastly, he’s a politician, not a messiah. Saying “Well yes there are complicated regulations that need to be dealt with for E-Waste and it’s not completely up to the executive branch” was good. But then saying “But he’s Obama who knows?” make you sound like an idiot.  Do you really think it would be appropriate for him to overstep the bounds of his office just to work on your issue?

—-

Dear Classmate,

Thanks. You keep me sane. I’m totally making you vegan pastries before the quarter is over.

Promise.

—

I walked in, unsure of what I was going to find.
<first the job>
You see, I’ve been offered a job, at UW Technology starting Monday, and before I start, I want to verify the earliest I can get into the Tower after dropping Miss Bit off.  Testing the buses this morning tells me if I drop her off right at 8:45, I can make it to the tower early enough for a 9:30 start.

I decided it made sense if I brought my laptop and picked a coffee shop to work in for a while. So I loaded up my Mac book and opted to come to Mosaic in Wallingford. i knew that I could ride most of the way to the tower to test the time, then get off and wander over for coffee.

<the coffee house>
Why Mosaic Coffee? Well I’d come across their “Den” for meeting space when I was looking for a place to hold my next session of Meal Planning and Grocery Shopping 101.  It’s a non profit , church run space. The price being free for using their meeting space is really attractive. (I looked into maybe using my church basement but the fee was out of my price range*).

<So? It’s that cool?>
First its a No price cafe, meaning you pay based on what you think your item is worth. I don’t mind paying what my drip coffee is worth and am glad to be able to try out a cafe that has that agenda.

Second, the space is big, warm and a strange but comforting mixture of cozy and bright.
I was worried when I walked in and the first thing that I smelled was patchouli, but the scent went away pretty quickly.

Third, they brew Fidalgo bay coffee. Local coffee from my favorite roaster. How can it be bad? 

<Geek>
I’m a church geek sometimes. I’m fascinated by this in part because it is a church coffee shop. Beyond the pricing thing, and some chairs scattered around that look like they belong in a church. Beyond that, it just looks like a nice coffee house. There are nice tiffany lamps, leather coouches, and jazz music being played. I wonder  if this works for them as soft evangalism or if they just consider it a service for the community.

Anyway, I’m in love!

*Yes paying for space goes against the Seattle Free School Mantra, I figured if I had to pay for the space I would either remove the free school name from the class for that session or I would just call it a personal donation.

Hows school going you ask?

Well I’m still thrilled with the campus, the bus ride is ok, though I’m not as productive during that time as I could be. My Environmental Issues class is a bit of a review so its not ground shattering for me. I’m enjoying the professor though and like the class.

During my interdisciplinary inquiry class we’re doing an assignment that as far as I can tell is the equivalent of academic masturbation. You know, getting all worked up  for  no point. We’ve developed our research question and have spent a lot of time in pursuit of this research. We are writing two  proposals on it, 3 essays  and  giving a presentation.

For research we arent going to be doing.

The point is to teach us all about  the process so we don’t get lost in the details, but is still feels like we’re working ourselves up for nothing. Well almost all of us. My friend Debbie is going to be working with our prof next quarter and actually working on her research.

Speaking of masturbation, my topic is Being who you aren’t : How do anonymous online communities encourage the assumption of roles different from real life roles  and roles assumed in  non anonymous online communities?

This is of course sparked by my recent foray into Second Life I’m terribly intriqued by the landscape provided and the activities that are gravitated towards. As I told my classmates I visit the NOAA Science Island : empty, the Vassar campus : empty, Spanky’s Sex Club? full.

As if you were surprised. I just think there is some good research that could be done with these kind of communities. (Second Life is not unique, I know of other communities that have the same issue, its something about electronic anonymity)

I’ve been singing They Might Be Giants to Mhari and playing No! for her.
After listening to it for a while I asked tongue in cheek.
“Where do they make balloons?”
“In a factory. I saw it on Mr Rogers.”

She’s so practical!

It was bound to happen. Perhaps we’d just gotten lucky in the past 11 months that Miss Bit has been with us. Today that luck ran out. While out at the Childrens Museaum she had a spill at the fake taco stand and wacked herself in the eye, pretty badly.

We went to the bathroom to try to clean her up, but finding no towels we headed to the second bathroom. Midway there we were greeted by a manager who walked us over behind one of the desks and pulled out their first aid kit, the got me a wet towel and i cleaned her up.  The cut was deep, but a few butterfly bandages and a bandaid over it and it was covered.  The cut was pretty deep, so after filling out the accident report I called Patrick and left a voicemail. We wandered over to the taco stand where she showed me the counter she had hit herslef on. and we went back to call Patrick again.

Since she was calm, we made the call to play for a little longer, then head to his office. Once there he looked at the cut and made the call. A trip to Urgent Care World was in the works. She was a brave girl, and while scared turned out to be a trooper the whole time. 3 hours later we walked out, 5 , 1 teddy bear and one coloring book richer.

What a day. I’m exhausted at this point and very worried about that little girl. Bumps happen, but you have to remember, I’m a new parent. I dont know what to expect all the time, and I’m always questioning my judgement. Should I have insisted Patrick pick us up right away for urgent care? Should I wrap her in bubble wrap?  Was the decision made really the right one? I’ll be honest, I give her some independence at the Childrens Museuam. I confine her to one “themed” area, and check on her every 10-15 minutes. Today I was out of the room as she got hurt. Was that the wrong thing? Should I have been following her every step?  She’s been very proud of the little independence she’s been cultivating.

At least she’s ok, and she will be ok. Being a parent isnt easy.

From Blog Photos

I’m spending my day in the Central Library downtown, until I have to go pick Miss Bit up from school. Its like a candy store of media, all available to me. (Well for now. We may be seeing fines shortly from a video taken out and a book eaten by the basement living room.)
i have coffee, lunch that is being covertly eaten, and a stack of magazines to check out. I even found a thanksgiving recipe from The November 1997 issue of vegetarian times. that I want to make. (It was a blast flipping through the copies of VT from 1997, I used to have them all.)

With all the groupthink posts I’ve made I bet you can guess how i feel about this.

On Wednesday I finally got out to the Taize service held at the University UCC church. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while. The idea of a chanted service followed by a communal soup dinner, sounds delightful. I arrived a little bit early, and initially had some difficulty  getting into the building.

Once in I was greeted by a small group of folks, a total of 8 ended up showing up for the service. They introduced themselves and  I got to listen to their small talk as we waited for the beginning of the service. As the start time neared we wandered into the chapel. There was some commentary that since so and so was missing  that I could fill in as cantor ?!? I kinda just shook my head and said, I don’t think so.

Luckily the girl who was the cantor showed up.  I fumbled through the service, having some problems finding my footing and trying to figure out what was going on. At one point during the silence I wondered if I was supposed to be doing something to break the silence, was it really supposed to go this long, had  I  missed something? We also participated in communion, with each person offering communion to the person next to them. Kind of nerve wracking as you try to hold the bread and the cup and remember the right words to say, plus to remember the name of the person next to you!

For a girl who is comfortable in really any sort of UCC service, I was really thrown for a loop. This was all new to me. Afterwards we sat down and had a nice supper of curried sweet potato soup wiith mushrooms.  We went around the table , talked about our days and what was new with us. They signled me out and asked about me and made me feel welcomed. It was the best community experience yet.

I’ll be going back, it’s a small service and I look forward to being part of the community going forward.