Even though I wasn’t out very late last night, I gloriously slept in this morning, my alarm waking me up at 10:00.
I received two “writing affirmations” via e-mail today. Writing affirmations are particularly powerful for me, not only because they affirm what I’m passionate about, but because they often totally surprise me. You just never know how people are going to react to, or be affected by, your words.
The one Myra wrote on Tuesday had a surprise element to it. I mean, I thought that what I wrote about the girl on the cell phone, and the lady waiting for her boyfriend who was in the bathroom, was so ordinary, and yet it connected with her on some deeper level.
And these two affirmations that I received today were a surprise like that, too. The article to which they both refer is one that I had to write as a result of having received a $1000 scholarship to attend The 54th Annual STC Conference in May. I wasn’t particularly enamored with the article myself, and in fact, wondered if it didn’t come across as more of an assignment than something I was happy to write.
However, again, the writing “worked” (about which I’m thrilled) for these two readers:
| John,
You are THE best! Loved the article. It was like having a little conversation with you. Great tone and good information. Sarah |
| Hi John,
Thank you very much! This is a great article, and we’re appreciative to have it. I will publish it in the upcoming Carolina Communiqué, which will come out at the end of September. Thanks again, |
I was off from IBM today, but did a couple hours worth of work—responding to a question Shruti asked about one of my markup comments, and listened in on an Edit for Quality (EFQ) from 2:00–3:00.
T-minus-five days and counting. Yes, school really is around the corner. This is the first semester ever (and, ironically, it’s my last semester) that I’ve ever received communication from the professor before class started, and this time I received mail from the professors of both classes that I’m taking! What are the chances? (100%, I’d say now.)
Here’s the one from my ENG 583: Verbal Data Analysis professor.
| Subject: Verbal Data Analysis – Day 1 Agenda
Hi, everyone. It’s time to start thinking about the upcoming semester. You’ll (hopefully) be happy to know that I am nearly done finalizing the day-by-day schedule for the class. The point of this email is to say that with a class like this, it is absolutely imperative to get your final projects up and going early in the semester. Try not to worry about it, but if we are going to keep on track, you are going to need some data in your hands by the start of the fifth week. So, to help us get to that point, I need to give everyone an assignment for the first night of class. Think of 1-2 possible sources of verbal data (e.g., conversations, texts, websites, email exchanges, etc.) that you would like to study. Be prepared to talk about why that verbal data would be interesting and to whom. I’ll see you next Thursday. Best, |
I’m taking this 3-hour credit class as only a 2-hour credit class through an arrangement with the instructor, as I only need 5 hours instead of 6 hours this semester to satisfy my degree requirements. (I’m getting the other three credit hours this semester taking my final “required” course of the program.)
To that end, Jason and I agreed that I would attend all of the classes in this course, but instead of having to come up with my own project, I am going to apply the verbal data analysis techniques we’re going to learn toward research data that he has already collected. A win/win for both of us.
And the one from my ENG 515: Rhetoric of Science and Technology professor.
| Subject: ENG 515 Notes
Hello all– I am looking forwarding to seeing/meeting all of you next week! The web site for the course should be available now at http://courses.ncsu.edu/eng515/lec/001/. Prior to coming to class, please take a few minutes to review the course web site, especially the syllabus page. I also want to alert you that I will be asking you to watch a movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know?,” prior to coming to class on Wednesday, August 29 (the second week of classes). You can see this information on the schedule page of the web site, but I thought I would give you advance notice so that you can arrange to see the movie. It should be readily available from any movie rental company, but you can also see it in the Media Lab in the D.H. Hill Library. You are not allowed to check the movie out of the library, but they have facilities there where you can watch it. Please be sure to watch the movie all the way to the end. . .past the credits! Later in the semester (October 17) we will discuss another movie, “Thank You For Smoking,” which is also available in the Media Lab. Please let me know if you have any difficulty accessing the site or see any broken links or other errors. Susan |
There’s good news and bad news about the movies noted herein.
The good news is that I’ve already seen both of them. I saw What the Bleep Do We Know on March 25, 2005.
How do I know? Because I haven’t missed a day of blogging in over four years and I’ve marked all the movies that I’ve seen as movie memories. I also see that I wasn’t overly impressed with this movie. Grrrrr!
I saw Thank You For Smoking on April 14, 2006. My feeling about this movie was: I liked this movie pretty much, but didn’t love it. It was a nice diversion for an hour-and-a-half, and was cleverly done. It also made you think, which is always a bonus.
The bad news is that, depending on what we’re going to have to do as a result of watching these movies, I don’t believe I remember enough about either one of them to not have to watch them again.
I spent a couple of hours at Helios today, and then I had dinner at The Borough.
After that, Iwent to Flex for some free pool and Video Showtunes. I played three games of pool with Geromy. He won 2 and I won one. We played regular pool, not “shit pool.”
Joe didn’t make it out until close to midnight, and he was hungry, so I just met him at The Borough. I didn’t have another dinner—just an appetizer of six hushpuppies, of which I ate three.
Being an avid and regular obituary reader, of course I noticed that Merv Griffin died last week. I remember reading the short announcement with nothing in it to indicate he left a partner or that he was gay at all. “Wasn’t he gay? I thought to myself.
Thank goodness that a discussion forum I followed had a pointer to this article: Merv Griffin died a closeted homosexual. It’s nice to know I’m not completely losing it.
As I said about myself when I came out at age 35, “How sad it would have been to have lived my entire life as someone I wasn’t.” Looks like Merv did. Hopefully he was “okay” with that himself.