Workshop = Vacation

My summer vacation plans happen to consist of a workshop in Texas on using Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop, and probably some Macromedia Fireworks, too. The workshop lasts for about five days, but involves hands on building projects using these various softwares. Sadly, this workshop that is job related has me excited in part because I'm viewing it as a vacation--I don't have to help people while I'm there. I get to ask for help learning cool technology. Since I already have a basic knowledge of almost everything the workshop will cover, I'm hoping to sharpen my skills through actually using the programs intensively, and I'm also glad for the opportunity to have some dedicated people who are there to help me learn to use the programs better. The only better vacation for me is last summer's archaeological field school I attended in Mexico. My idea of vacation inevitably involves work of some kind--there's very little division between self and work for me. I imagine that will cause trouble in the future, but for now, it works for me.

Return from absentia

So while surfing Flickr I happened to find the one tag that only applies to two pictures--"schizophrenic." And one of the pics is a sketch drawn of the Flickr member by a schizophrenic, and in the commentary he mentions that he's blogged it. Since today has been marked by a distinct lack of katharsis I click on it, thinking he will mention something of the tragic poetry of this mentally ill man sketching to survive in a Starbucks. This is what I think of. A broken throwaway person sitting in a coffee shop just like every other corporate cutout, his mind cracked like old pavement. A lot of people think schizophrenia is multiple-personality disorder, a misconception almost totally Hollywood's fault, but the truth is that MPD involves several people in your skull and schizophrenia is an attempt for one very shattered mind to survive. Often schizophrenia is hereditary, but sometimes it's a regression mechanism to protect whatever implements are left from massive trauma.

Speaking to the human being in me, the idea of a schizophrenic artist sketching people in a Starbucks is horribly sad. It makes me wonder why it is that he's in thi position. Why his brain split open, and if he was a better sketch artist beforehand. Then there's the very idea that he is drawing strangers. Regular people. A desire.

Or his own eulogy. Think about it. When he's dead and gone (probably a suicide), what kind of mark will he have left on the world? Will there be anyone left to speak for him? Could they do justice to his last few days, drawing strangers on throwaway scraps of his throwaway life?

This is what I'm thinking about when I read this guy's blog entry. Is that what he's thinking about?

No, he's a self-important asshole pseudohipster that, I swear to God, lists his occupation as "provocateur."

It's a shame you can't fax an ass-whupping.

Tutankhamun

CT scans of the mummy of King Tutankhamun not only reavealed that he wasn't murdered, but also allowed for the creation of a detailed facial reconstruction.

Conversations I'm not ready to have yet


  1. Speaking to USF about why I didn't get accepted to their graduate program.

  2. Speaking to USC about why I didn't get accepted to their graduate program (at least I already know that they only accepted 3 archaeologists into their program... so long as there weren't only 4 archaeology students applying, I feel pretty good about that one).

  3. Speaking to my undergraduate advisor about why I didn't get accepted to any programs. Well, I think that's what he wants to talk about. I've only spoken with him briefly, and he wants to talk later about... grad school or something? The subject line of the e-mail said "Confused," which may or may not bode well for the conversation.


Is it so wrong to be terrified and intimidated by speaking to someone in the field you want to enter yourself? About entering that field? I feel so inadequate to begin with, I'd rather not have more reasons to feel inadequate. I give myself plenty. I was kind of hoping writing an anonymous post about this would help me get the courage to hit the reply button on that e-mail and set up a time to talk.

Coffee. Coffee will help. I'll get a cup of coffee.

Unitarian Jihad, take two.

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: The Atom Bomb of Warm Humanitarianism.


Get yours.


Unitarian Jihad

My Unitarian Jihad Name is: The Neutron Bomb of Moderation.


Get yours.



I found a link to that over at Odette's blog, Vulan's Peak. I find myself duly amused.

Something old, something new

Turns out, as I've thought before, a blog would probably be a good format for online publishing of an epistolary novel. I would like to write my own, and I am in fact in the process of doing so, although "novel" might be a bit of an overstatement of my own project. However, in the mean time, I am fascinated by this particular project, where someone has decided to publish Bram Stoker's Dracula via a blog, posting installments on the same dates as the entries in Jonathon Harker's journal in the novel. There will also be posts that are a commentary on the novel, the project, and the process right there with the novel itself. Is it just me, or does this sound like an exciting idea? I love it.