Happy Veterans' Day!

In my life, there aren't that many veterans, but my grandpa was one. My dad's best friend from high school is also one. He is just about to retire from the Army. These are two pretty awesome people in my estimation.

My grandpa could be a bit of a grouch to other people, but he's one of the hardest working and smartest people I have ever known. He was in the Airforce. He's passsed on.

John, my dad's friend, is literally one of the nicest people I've ever met in my life. If you're thinking Army stereotype in your head, John in a short guy who played the lead in Westside Story in high school. He kept that hidden from my dad since my dad can be a bit of a turd about those sorts of things. John hasn't lost a bit of his sappy warm fuzziness in all his years in the Army. He's awesome, and I'm glad my dad has that friend who is so loyal and committed to their friendship despite moving all around the world.

So, how am I celebrating Veterans' Day? I work for the state, so I have today off. In celebration, I'm packing to move. Two boxes of kitchen stuff have been packed up this morning. I already had all my books, CDs, board games, and yarn packed up weeks ago. Mom should get here about 8pm. We'll lounge for the night, and tomorrow we'll load everything in a Uhaul and move me away from this place. Yay for that!

I'm going to help train my replacement next week, so I'll still be living in my apartment, just without my stuff. Woohoo to a few days on the floor with a sleeping bag.

I'm also celebrating by anxiously awaiting to hear about that potential job. I would imagine today is the first possible day I could hear back. I hope it's today. I can't imagine waiting through the weekend into next week.

If I get the job, I'll be nervous that my lack of aviation knowledge will make me less of a kickass employee than I would like to be. I imagine I could catch on pretty quickly, but I'll be asking a lot of questions early on. I keep trying to remind myself that most people have to ask a lot of questions when they start a new job. That's normal. That's part of starting a new job.

If I don't get the job, I will be bummed at having to continue applying for jobs. I've put off applying with the having to move and all, but I will need to kick it in high gear after I'm done at CPW.

Phase 2 of Application Done

I turned in that load of work. I just decided, no more second guessing, so I turned it in. We'll see what happens.

I'm nervous.

If I don't get this, it's because I don't know enough about aviation, which would be a pretty fair reason not to hire me.

I'd like to have a job though. There is only one other job that I'm still waiting to hear back from. The rest have all been rejections.

A Plug for My Mom

My mom is pretty cool, so I do what I can for her.

The school where she teaches 3rd grade is trying for $50,000 grant from Clorox to help jumpstart their STEM program. They are way behind in the polls. Please vote for them!

You can vote by text AND online once a day up through December 9th. That means you alone can offer 62 votes for her school before time is up.

Text clorox6297 to 44144 AND vote online for Skyview Elementary.

...I used to teach swimming lessons to some of the kids in the picture. The tallest one was definitely in my pollywog class at age 2.

Reasoning with Vampires

The blog Reasoning with Vampires has had a lot of time on my facebook newsfeed lately. My friends Mariya and Megan are both hooked. As far as my friends go, these two have values at pretty opposite extremes from one another. What they have in common is an interest in scifi and fantasy--this is, of course, part of why they are my friends.

Reasoning with Vampires is a blog devised by a Twilight despiser. Having had a conversation with my boss about why I am against Twilight, I thought I would check it out to see what I could share with her about how Twilight teaches girls that there is nothing more important than having a boyfriend.

This post below is not one I would share with my boss, but it is one that connected with my interests.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that Stephanie Meyer can identify an independent clause and knows that a semi-colon can go between two of them. Most people don't know that. I do take issue with her over-use of this punctuation mark in connecting unrelated sentences.

I once heard the director of the Writing Center at Kansas State tell a student that a semi-colon is a last resort punctuation mark. If you're inclined to use it, find the relationship between the sentences involved and try to use a conjunction to show that relationship--a subordinating or coordinating conjunction will do the trick.

I'm not quite that strict with my semi-colon policies because I like the semi-colon; I don't want to see it fall out of use. Sometimes the rhythm requires the semi-colon rather than some sort of conjunction. But I only use semi-colons in places where I would be tempted to use a run-on, meaning only in places where the two independent clauses form a single effect to me. That's the only time a semi-colon should be used to fuse two independent clauses together into a single sentence.

Semi-colons create sentence marriage, which should only be entered upon in cases of serious mutual idea committment.

Shame on you, Stephanie Meyer, for encouraging unhealthy relationships between girls and vampires and between clauses. It's just not right.

Making a Plan Stan

So, I have a ton to do at work since I was sick last week. I'm planning to work 10 hour days this week to make up for last week.

I also have to accomplish the job application tasks for one job, and they are pretty demanding tasks. Mostly, I'm pretty impressed with the hiring practices for this company. This is going to be a lot of work, but they are successfully giving me a reasonable sense of the work and expectations for this job. It also helps them to weed out anyone who doesn't really want the job. This is too much work for someone who is on the fence.

The tasks are broken up. Task 1 involves reading and writing 5 questions (with correct and distracting multiple choice answers) for two different chapters, totalling 10 questions. Task two is a proofreading assignment. Task 3 is to review and respond to customer questions, and task 4 is a research task. I have to look at the expectations, and collect the materials I would use to accomplish the task, but I don't actually have to do it.

My plan is to work this in phases. So last night, I did half of task 1 and all of task two. Essentially, I read 1 chapter, wrote 5 questions, and did all of the proofreading. Tonight I will try to do the other half of task 1 and task 3. If I have enough energy, I will also try to do task 4, but I'm not sure that will happen. I would really like to get all of them done asap, but with my workload, that would burn me out and probably reduce the quality of my work.

I also need to look back through what I've already created and remove any Oxford commas that I might have accidentally included. I noticed almost right away that this company uses an Oxford free style, but that doesn't mean my MLA brain automatically put that knowledge to use. Best double check. On a positive note, they have utterly convinced me that I will not be bored at this job. Until I make steep jumps up the learning curve for the subject matter, I will be using my brain more than I did in grad school, I think. Should be good.

Well...it's time to head to work.

Job Application Tasks

The final hoop to get this job sounds like a lot of work. Why did I work a 10 hour day today? ...without a break.

I have to write questions, do a proofreading task, deal with potential customer questions, and accomplish a research and development task. Ugh. Feeling a bit less confident now.

...just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming.

Song of the Day (or Week)

You may or may not know that I am a huge fan of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Last year, a bunch of popular artists did covers of the music, and some of it is really great.

I've always thought "Sally's Song" was hauntingly beautiful, and the amazing Amy Lee does it wonderfully. She increases the hauntingness of it.



I think I may actually prefer Fiona Apple's Version, though. Not sure. Her voice captures dark and brooding pretty well.



A lot of people prefer the original Catherine O'Hara. I'm not really one of those people, but I did love her version before I'd heard the new ones.



Also, this one is worth seeing, especially for the great makeup work.

Anxiety Girl!!!

My friend Amy used to refer to herself as anxiety girl throughout grad school, and several times I felt her pain. But man, oh, man am I feeling it now.



I swear the original source for this image is an online t-shirt company, but I can't find it, so this photo came from the facebook page for "Anxiety Girl."

I'm not sure she's a true representative though. Look at that confident posture! Shouldn't she be curled up in the fetal position, spurning food, and all activity? That's kind of what I'd like to be doing right now. Blergh.

Nerd Love Posters

Oh Twitter, you provide me with lots of great entertainment. Like these great nerd love posters.

My particular favorite is the one below.