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Most days I bus around with little problem. Today was the antithesis  of that. In the morning I opted to try  the 48/16/41/372 route. Yes its four buses but it brings me around the North end  instead of going though the UW Seattle campus. The 16 was late. Really Really late. But I made my connection to the 41 with no problem. And ended up on the same 372 I would have gotten on had I just stayed on the 48.

Then on the way home my connections didn’t connect. It’s something that happens very rarely. In fact its the first time between this quarter and fall quarter that the buses ran late enough that I was late to pick up Miss Bit. Some of it was chance, some of it was making the wrong bus choice when I got to the transit center. (the 75/5 would have been quicker, i think.)

Lastly on the way home from swim lessons, the 48 just stopped coming. When we got out of the locker room I checked onebus and saw that buses were running at about 25-26 minutes to the stop we needed. So we stopped for ice cream. Checked again 22-23 minutes. Waited 10 minutes. Still read 22-23 minutes. We walked stop to stop towards home, checking the bus time  which stayed at 22-23 minutes.  Apparently on the tracker showed that the 48 was backed up at least an hour. (And no word from KCNews about any issue  with the 48 route)

Anyway, it’s days like today that make me wonder how to renew my bus karma. Clearly things fell out of wack somewhere.

The number of books I have read has vastly increased since the kindle application became available for the ipod touch. I’ve downloaded dozens of the free books available, and have sucked them into my brain with a straw.
I’ve made my way through romance novels so syrupy sweet I thought I was going to choke. I wandered through a New-Agey novel that baffled me into oblivion. I immersed myself in two science fiction novels that have me begging for the next books in the series.

I’ve yet to buy a book though. I don’t buy books often. I typically get things from the library, shifting a list of nearly 100 books on hold, rotating what I’m ready to read depending on what my workload for the quarter is looking like. So I’m faced with this quandry. I’ve got this great tool that was enabling me to read books while on the bus back and forth from school, but I’m almost out of books to read.
I could always go the way of Jane Austen and start reading the Gutenburg books available. They are free, and there are more then a few classics I should give a reread. On the other hand, I like the idea of getting the new books, of supporting the new media that I’m enjoying. Even if it kills me to pay $9.99 for a book I will never hold in paper format. **

Digital media is challenging that way. I’ve overcome the idea of buying movies and music, books are the next frontier I guess. I’m holding out hope that NetLibrary and Digital Overdrive are able to make the leap so I can check library books out on my ipod. It would save all this wibbling.

**I’ve come to the realization that most Authors must serve the story not the audience. Considering the amount of time it takes to produce a book compared with the cost of two lattes… well If someone compared my work unworthy the price of two lattes I’d probably cry.

Homework doing on a Monday night.

From hidden

I’ve talked a bit about losing my laptops and the loss of photos and portfolio work etc.
I’m still working on getting my music back and wondered if anyone would want to donate a mix cd or two to the cause? It would help me build my library again and give me a taste of what you listen to.
Share please? I can share my address if you want to do a real CD or I can download a virtual one.

From Photos

One of the classes I am most excited about this quarter is called “The future of Chick Lit: Games Virtual Worlds and online communities for girls. ” One of the assignments for the course is a weekly journal entry, and to facilitate that I’ve created a new blog. (I’m not ready to direct my prof to look here, I’m sure you can understand.) I think in the long term I’ll set up wordpress on my  student space but for the meantime I’ve got a little spot over at blogger.

Girl Gamer Jo – Expect it to be my journal entries for class as well as some other general entries about my gaming experiences in general.  I’ve got a first post up, and you’re welcome to join me there.

April is special because it is my birthday month. Between school fieldtrips and classes celebrating will be a little hard around the actual day of my birthday, but I think that I’ll have small moments of celebration all month long.

So what have I been up to this month..

School: I finished up the quarter about midway through the month, then waiting for my grades.  Looking back at the quarter I have to say that I appreciate the challenge of Becca’s classes, and feel like I got pushed to work harder, and write better.  That’s not often the case.  Final Grades?

• Science Methods and Practices : 3.8
• Intro to Restoration Ecology 3.9
• The Visual Art of Biology 4.0

Not bad huh? The new quarter started on the 30th. I’ll share with you my initial thoughts next week.

Home: The end of the quarter meant that I’l back to being home again in the evening.  I’m pleased by this. Back to making dinner every night, and with my weekend schedule changed too I’ll be back to my regular grocery shopping schedule. I tried Amazon Fresh for the first time this week, and have to say that I was pleased overall. I’m interested to try their predawn service, where I can order stuff the  night before and have it on my doorstep before 6am. This could be handy when we are out of milk.

Work: I’ve volunteered to look over some of our training documentation, and give my suggestions. I figure it doesnt hurt to put my experience to work, at least a little bit.  I’m only working 10 hours a week this quarter, not because of the number of classes I have but simply because I couldn’t get shift hours when I could work. The Sunday shift went quickly, and so did the evening shifts. I could work 5-8 an evening or two, but there just aren’t shifts available.  I’m not really lamenting the loss of income, after all fall term I had no income at all.

Crafting: So I did finish the art projects for last quarter, and now have some time to pick up other projects. In specific I’ll return to the socks I’m working on and the maple syrup sweater. I never did pull off the craft exchange last month, so I’ll need to reschedule it. Oh and I stamped up some cute file folders to use for my classes this quarter and a couple of bookmarks.

In vaguely craftish stuff, I also got a neat picture of the cherry blossoms down the street.