Yvette's Inner Geek Blog

I’m a habitual list-maker. Cleaning up my desk and perpetually seemingly-hurricane-stricken office always yields small piles of post-its with notes I’ve written to myself: to-do lists; names and phone numbers and addresses; small phrases that inspire a story I didn’t have time to write; spontaneous categorization that is forgotten as soon as it’s recorded; doodles and diagrams, etc.

Many of them I feel I need to keep at least until I compile the data and ideas somewhere more permanent. Notes scribbled with expired relevance can be safely thrown away. Sometimes I’ll come across a note that isn’t easy to categorize because I don’t know what it means. Take this one that I found tonight:

Paper
Stationery
Blog about
Story prompt
Top Priority

That’s it. I can tell you that I wrote this note sometime in the fall, but I’ve forgotten why. Paper could mean anything. Stationery could indicate that this is a “to buy” list since I’ve had somewhat recent thoughts about what a shame it is that I don’t hand-write letters anymore and perhaps having some decent stationery would change that.

(All the stationery I have is a few holdover pieces from my childhood that I could use ironically, but would otherwise defeat the purpose and feel of real stationery that reflects who I am today.)

But the inclusion of the action words Blog about confuse me. Blog about what? Stationery? Or a Story prompt? And what is Top Priority? Why is that at the bottom of the list? I have no idea, and I’ve been mulling it over in the back of my head for a couple hours now. I don’t believe it will come to me.

And so I’ve placed that post-it note in the recycling bin to make room for future lists and ideas—hoping that its meaning was simply displaced instead of being lost forever.

It’s day 35. I’ve definitely solidified a blogging habit, even if sometimes I groan as midnight approaches because I don’t feel like I have anything interesting to say.

(That’s when I pull up my “to blog about” bookmarks folder that I built up while not blogging this past fall. It’s helped me with content and/or inspiration.)

There are two important things about this newly formed blogging habit o’ mine:

1. I am writing something every day for myself and for public consumption (and possibly entertainment, on a good day).
2. I have set a goal for myself and am dedicated to achieving it.

Kind of obvious, right? Even though I’m only 9.5% through the challenge, I’ve already accomplished something that I’ve never accomplished before—blogging every day for a month. It’s been awkward, fun, and straining at times. But I’m sending a message to myself that says, Hey! You’re doing it! and Hey! You can probably do all those other things that seem too hard or like too much work if you set your mind to it.

Not exactly earth-shattering revelations, I know. But accomplishing this minor one-month goal has rewarded me with confidence, which has in turn rewarded me with motivation in general. I guess I just needed to find the right challenge.

Maybe that’s why it’s called a personal challenge. Durrrrr.

Just dragged myself out of bed to post a quick entry. I actually met my goal and blogged every day in January, so I’m not too keen on slipping up my 365-day challenge now!

I started composing one in my head earlier, but it’s been a busy day and I’ve had a pinched nerve (probably caused by a knot on my left shoulder/neck) and been really tired. I made BBQ chicken salad based on this recipe for dinner tonight, except with olives and served over spinach. Tasty! Then Ben and I watched the movie 9 and he rubbed my neck until I cried out in pain and then fell asleep on the couch.  I’m a very exciting person!

This is my Québécois great-grandfather Napoleon Comartin in 1926. Everyone should have a relative named Napoleon. Builds character!

I think his portrait is interesting because the artist had some great dimensional shading on the face, but the shirt and tie look flat. I’m guessing the medium is oil pastels? Not entirely sure on that.

This image is a restored version that my dad commissioned a few years ago. The original drawing (which I currently have) was around the house when I was a kid, but its oddly-shaped frame is gone now and it looks like it’s been around the block a few times.

My dad didn’t know that I would develop the skills to do photo restoration, otherwise I’m sure he would have let me do it. One of these days I’m going to have to scan the original and see how my restoration compares to this one.

When a disaster hits like yesterday’s 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, I feel weird blogging about it. It’s cliché. It’s bourgeois for me to sit here in a quiet living room with heat and electricity and cupboards full of food, typing away on a luxury computer about a devastating situation that has nothing to do with me directly and vice versa.

But I do feel the need to add one more voice to the internet-sphere in this regard: Pat Robertson is a giant douche. Way to immediately blame this level of devastation on “a pact to the devil” that was supposedly made 200 years ago. (I guess he would know.)

Whether or not I have the “right” to talk about it, the idea of 100,000 people dead in one earthquake terrifies me. A dormant fault line especially strikes a nerve because I live on a fault line here in Utah. Will I still be alive, will I still live here, will I be in town, will I be asleep, will I be naked when a quake does eventually strike my neighborhood? Will I die, or will I stand helplessly by as others die? Will I be a traumatized victim or survive without a scratch? Will I be cowardly or altruistic? This is the stuff of nightmares.

I empathize with the people affected by this earthquake and by previous disasters (both natural and man-made). I also feel guilty because I am relieved. For me, right now, right here, everything seems normal. I feel like turning off the ubiquitous media coverage and doing something else. I’m a little thirsty, so maybe I’ll go grab a cold glass of fresh water. I’m a little tired, so maybe I’ll go curl up in my comfortable bed. I’m a little existential right now, so maybe I’ll be thankful that, at least for now, my life has not been turned upside down.

There is just something quintessentially geeky about an a capella group doing show choir-y moves to an all-male version of Lady Gaga’s Pokerface. And doing it WELL, I might add!

That will help hold me over until Glee starts up again in April. I was surprised how much I like that show, though it’s not really that surprising because it’s pretty amazing. The hyper-stereotyped characters crack me up! But I could do with fewer musical numbers, even though duh, I know that’s half the point of the show. And I want to smack Will Schuester most of the time.

I was in show choir in my small high school (it was my dream, I should probably mention) though I was a very average dancer and certainly not one of the “popular kids” in the group. Which is kind of sad when you think about it. Most of us were in band, choir, show choir, and the school’s various theatrical performances together. Still, I had fun and it gave me a place to fit in and fall in love with guys who I didn’t realize were gay. Promoters of abstinence-only education should take note that homosexuality in high school increases virginity rates among straight teens! At least in cases like mine.

I have a “first world” problem. It’s a problem that people in third world countries* would probably love to have because it involves an excess of food. Specifically, food that is purchased but not eaten before it goes bad.

But first I should tell you that I don’t really think it’s a problem, per say. Yes, I admit to buying fresh fruit and vegetables, and on rare occasions meat, that goes bad before it is consumed. Usually it’s a banana or two** from a bunch, a few inner stalks of celery, or a whole cucumber that gets buried in the crisper drawer and forgotten until it’s too late. That’s not too bad, right? Maybe you do it too?

Well, in Ben’s mind, when even a single banana has to be thrown away, it is more than a minor regret.

Nevermind that I do most of the grocery shopping and the two of us usually manage to eat a 4-or-5-banana-bunch within a couple days without incident. It’s not like I buy a bunch of bananas and think to myself, “these are going to smell great when they’re rotting on the countertop underneath a pile of unopened mail!”

Letting a single banana go to waste is apparently a Shameful Travestry. Worse than buying something because it’s cute, worse than stealing, worse than killing another human being. Each crime is a festering black wound on my body that would even make biblical lepers cringe.  Each crime demonstrates my deep-seated desire to plunge us carelessly into financial ruin.

And that’s all information I get just from the red-hot look he gives me before vocalizing this little pet peeve of his! (It’s an impressive power, when you think about it.)

So. Guess who went grocery shopping early last week and bought a bunch of bananas? Ben. And guess who said he was going to eat that last banana when it was looking too brown and spotty for my taste? Ben. And guess who, a couple days ago when it was clear to me that The Rotting Banana was going to have to be thrown away, puffed up his chest and said “I’M GOING TO EAT IT DON’T THROW IT AWAY” and put it in the fridge? Ben and his annoying sidekick, Pride.

Tonight, Ben pulled out a frying pan and said he was going to make a Bananas Foster-ish dessert for himself with The Rotting Banana. I shook my head at the lengths he was going to avoid hypocrisy and went to my office to blog about this fiasco. A few moments later, he appeared in my doorway and said with a scrunched face, “fine, you win.”

Is it okay that I cackled a bit and was delighted by his willingness to admit his fallibility? And then blogged about it? I don’t blog with the express purpose of embarrassing my loving husband or pointing out his faults, but this time I just had to share my fruitful victory (HAR HAR!). I leave you with the state The Rotting Banana when Ben made the (wise) decision to finally toss it:

* Are there actually any countries considered “second world?” I can’t seem to think of any examples.

** Sometimes I’ll use the ripening-too-fast bananas to make banana bread, but I don’t always have the time or motivation. I don’t like wasting food either, really!

Because last semester was so much fun, *twitch twitch* I registered for 19 credit hours again. HA! Not gonna happen.

I figured out which class I’m going to drop to bring that down to 16 credit hours. That still leaves me with plenty to potentially learn. And remember how I said this semester would be easier because I’m not going to be learning any new software programs? Forecasting FAIL. Here’s my courseload for the Spring semester:

• 3D Modeling and Animation Essentials (where I will tackle the heavyweight Maya software and try not cry in the process. So glad I took Drawing I from the art department over the summer so I have some basic artistic concepts down)
• Flash II (with a different prof than I had for Flash I, and thankfully it will require far less work)
• Web Content Management (learning how to build a website server-side-on-up in Joomla! and then in either WordPress or Drupal)
• Interaction Design (learning how to design sites and devices with more user-friendly structures)
• Advanced Topics in Digital Media Design (learning Adobe Illustrator and its applications for the web)

The topic of that last class with the generic name was a mystery to me until the first class today. I probably could have called and asked, but hellooooo, way too much effort. All information for the Digital Media department should be available online, right? Apparently there was some snafu with the scheduling and the class wasn’t actually supposed to be taught this semester, so I really lucked out by taking a chance and registering for it. I finally get to learn Illustrator! Now I take my skills from “pathetic novice because of that damn pen tool” to the soaring heights of “amateur hack.” At least that’s what I’m hoping for!

The interaction design class worried me initially because we were split into groups that we will work with the entire semester. I’ve been in a few group disaster scenarios, probably like everyone else, and am never excited about group work in a classroom setting. But my group seems good so far. The professor made us play Apples to Apples with our group for the last 25 minutes, which was bizarre at first—but its purpose was more than an ice breaker. After a few minutes of playing, the prof told 3 of my 4 of my group members to play the game as if they were a different age. One 9, one 14, and the other 75. It was interesting how my gameplay changed, considering that the point of the game is to cater to the “judge” of the round. I think I’m going to like that class.

Going back to school has really turned the bummer of being laid off into a kickass thing for me.

My first day of school is tomorrow. Again. If I’ve calculated correctly, this will be my 25th first day of school since I started kindergarten. I’m counting each semester of college in there as having one first day so the numbers may look a little inflated. It’s not like I’ve been going to school for 25 straight years. I mean, I’m not in a PhD program…

I’m registered for 19 credit hours again in all Digtial Media classes at Utah Valley University, but I’m pretty certain that’s going to drop to a more reasonable 16. I just need to attend a couple classes first to decide which one goes. I won’t be learning new languages or intense programs like last semester (Adobe Flash and ActionScript, I’m looking at you) so I think overall my semester will be more conducive to blogging, freelancing, and you know, general sanity.

I haven’t addressed what happened to make me stop blogging a few months ago. Basically it started with a seriously intense Flash class, and two weeks into the semester I’d compounded my initial struggle to learn the program with two failing quiz scores. That’s very unlike me, and I was dramatically distraught (I’m a girl, I’d also like to call hormones on this one). I almost dropped the class, but I really wanted to learn Flash… and dropping it would screw up my graduation plan. The professor was great and encouraged me to stick with it. I came to terms with the possibility of a potential poor (but passing) grade and gave it a go. I’ve never worked harder in a class before, and there’s no doubt that I learned a ton. I managed an A- so I guess it paid off.

My Flash professor has turned into my favorite professor at UVU. I had another fall semester class with him (Advanced Photoshop) that required a ton of work as well, but for me it was mostly dedicating the time to do it. I actually have decent study habits now. Quite the change from College 1.0. Anyway, I had 4 other 3-credit-hour classes and a weekly lecture series that required nine 2-page papers. It was a challenge to keep pace and my blogging and social life suffered.

Oddly, I picked up cross-stitching at the end of the summer and keeping up with that helped me stay sane. I craved the rhythmic needle movement and loved seeing little details reveal themselves as I went along. All of my classes required computer programs, so when I wasn’t doing homework, I didn’t want to be staring at my monitor.

It’s important to note that I’m doing subversive cross-stitching. Fun stuff, not the vomit-inducing crap that might typically come to mind at the mention of cross stitch. I was influenced by my friend Marie, maker of the hot zombie chick embroidery, and also by the awesome Subversive Cross Stitch book by Julie Jackson. Marie prefers freeform embroidery, but so far I’ve been very happy following a set cross-stitch pattern and having predictable results. Like these! It’s good left brain activity that doesn’t make my right brain jealous.

Okay, so I still need to iron and frame them. Baby steps, people. I haven’t scanned my first project from the Subversive book yet, and I have a Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy pattern in the works right now. Hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up with school, cross-stitch, AND blogging this semester.

I better post this. Midnight is fast approaching and I have lots more to do before I can go to bed. Holy crap, I’m over 1% through my blog-every-day challenge! Inconceivable! Yay.

It’s too bad I screwed up 2009 by not blogging the last half of it. I’m not one to make a list of New Year’s Resolutions, at least not publicly, due to my tendency toward self-hatred if I don’t successfully resolve them. (Resolve? Is that what it’s called when you win?)

But I am happy to report that the one resolution I made last year (item 8 in last year’s update vomit) has been RESOLVED. I did *not* watch the ball drop on TV, nor did I watch any portion of the ultimately disappointing “Rockin’ New Year’s Eve” with Dick Clark’s head.  So, in light of this unexpected success, I have decided to set one goal for 2010. Drumroll, eyeroll, whatever… here it is:

To blog every single day in 2010.

Now, I almost just changed that to blogging 365 times in the year, just to give myself a little room to breathe, but that’s an example of me bending the rules up front to prepare myself for eventual failure. I’ve been unable thus far to write 50,000 words in 30 days for NaNoWriMo, or even blog for 30 straight days for NaBloPoMo.

This is definitely going to be a challenge. But it’s a goal, not a resolution. Sure, I’m also making the informal resolution with myself to “make healthier lifestyle choices” (i.e. lose some fucking weight already), but I already fucked that up this morning my ringing in 2010 with coffee and a brownie for breakfast. Go me. And I’m still buried under my continued failure to produce a new website for innergeek.us, let alone update the geek test. So. This one goal I have for 2010 doesn’t involve any specifics or require much in the way of perfection. It will be an exercise in follow-through for me that I think will be helpful. And maybe along the way I’ll attack some of my other non-official goals.

If you’re inclined to support my 2010 goal, I would greatly appreciate it if you would comment on individual blog entries from time to time. That helps my motivation. Of course, feel free to be a lurker and just hang around all quiet and creepy to watch the pain and impending disaster. Everyone loves a train wreck. Either way, I’m happy to have company for the ride ahead.

There! 0.274% of the way toward reaching my goal! Oh, God.