cry havoc

Like I ever follow that rule.

1) Applying for various things online. You want a lesson in how NOT to design a form? Apply online. You'll see every damn example possible of The Worst Way To Design A Form, aka, Utter Unusability. Ohmygawd, it seriously burnssssss ussss, it doess.

2) Anyway, applying online, and it's common now to include a link to social profile. FB, Linkedin, whatever. Fine. Not so keen on the forms that not only want you to attach resume and cover letter... but also a head shot? I'm not applying to be a goddamn runway model here. But the phrasing sure makes it sound like if I don't include it, I'm gonna get penalized. (And even if they don't mean to penalize, I bet there's an unconscious penalty all the same.)

3) Job description that says, "we have a great sense of humor, but don't work here if you're easily offended". I'm not easily offended, I just find racism, sexism, and homophobia offensive. If you're lampshading the potential for a new hire to be offended, you've got bigger problems than whether I know all the languages you want. Next!

4) Watching the 2011 Journey to the West, despite the mediocre subtitles that are timed to PAL and require almost constant tweaking with VLC's subtitle synchronizer. Whew, no wonder CP was a little taken aback the first time we watched Saiyuki.

5) There is a certain irony that I'm watching JttW on my right-hand screen, and for the entirety of episode 9, the left-hand screen had a shot of Sanzo. I'd just started ep10, and the wallpaper changed... to Son Goku.

6) If Hakkai in Saiyuki made people froth at the mouth for being so different in the English dub, because he's just not like that, whew. The difference between Engdub-Hakkai and Japdub-Hakkai is nothing compared to the difference between Sanzo and Sanzang. The more I watch, the more I'm like a) I think I liked Sanzo better, and b) so that's why CP went from taken aback to jaw-dropping when the gun came out.

7) Not that I mind Sanzang. He is kind of growing on me, but I did enjoy the first six or seven episodes the most, when it was All About Monkey.

8) I can't help but feel -- no idea why, just do -- that it's almost like Monkey's a completely different story that somehow got shoehorned into the historical story of Tripitaka. And then the storytellers had to figure out how to make it work. Just a strange kind of tension. Dunno.

9) Still a little in shock that I finished two books in three months. Maybe in future the secret is to spend six months ahead of time daydreaming the entire story from start to finish. I didn't have the "and then something happens" lurch at the high point this time, but knew exactly where the story was going and just had to write it. Every story before this, I've left that third-quarter "and then something happens" and then I get there and have no idea how to proceed (or have a glaring plothole that can't be duct-taped shut for love or money).

10) I wrote a small plugin for forms. Yay me! And then Github crashed, which has given me plenty of time to rethink the value of posting my small plugin. Ah, here comes the second-guessing.

11) I can't decide whether I should edit book 1 & book 2 and then start book 3, or do book 3 and then go back and edit all three in a streak. Not to mention I haven't even a clue what kind of logline to do for each, and haven't even tried to write teasers.

12) I have realized that I don't care whether or not there's a market for these three stories. Maybe no one wants to read a fantasy about a young transgender character making hir way through the world, finding love, conquering evil, and overcoming hardship to become happy. It's possible there's just not a market for that, but I tried to pay attention to the market on everything I'd written before now, and that got me nowhere. Screw it. I'll just write what I want, and when I'm done, I'll move on. I'm not quitting my day job for this, after all.

[ps: I look folks off the story-filter if they hadn't replied in a while, rather than keep spamming, especially those of you who I know are really swamped right now. I've exported to one master doc that I can output as pdf. PM me if you want it.]

Went back to gym yesterday, complained to manager, and was set up with second trainer for meeting this morning to come up with workout plan. At one point he suggested kettlebells. Which, to be honest, I had no idea what they were. All I knew was that they're something used by crazy people. Like, say, my sole exposure (the aforementioned mongrelheart) being someone who's clearly crazy (in a good way) about athleticism, and when someone crazy like that complains about kettlebells and, uhm, something to do with kettlebells, I make a note that kettlebells = mad-crazy. Turns out they're just round weights with a single handle, instead of the old dumbbell types with the weight on either end of a handle. Oh. Okay. Not so much with the mad-crazy. (Clearly the mad-crazy is just M all on her own.)

Talking to the manager, I finally said (not quite losing my temper but close) that I felt like I'd been patronized (although the trainer's a nice guy so I'm sure he didn't intend to insult me, so much as just carry on with his assumptions about What Women Really Want, or something). When I'd asked about why the plan was for working out twice a week, what else was I supposed to do? The trainer had said, take classes. I told the manager (and told him I'd told the trainer) that if I wanted to do classes, I would've bloody well just done classes and skipped the cost of seeing a trainer. When I explained I don't even want to work with a trainer regularly -- just someone to check in on -- the manager wanted to know why it mattered. I said, because it's like the off-season: the coach gives you goals, and you go away and work towards them, and come back after so long, having met those goals and gone further.

(To the trainer today, I explained it's also because my brain says, "you should be stronger than this!" and my body says, "woah, it's been awhile." Having a trainer follow me around at this point is more humiliation and frustration than positive reinforcement. I need to get to a point where my heart and core are stronger, then I won't feel like a useless lump if/when I work with a trainer.)

Today's new phrase: skinny-fat. I was explaining about my joints, that I can't do the elliptical or the upright bike, or the leg press or squats/lunges, because it makes my knees grind. I can hear the last shreds of cartilege grinding, and while it doesn't hurt per se, it's a clear warning that if I keep going, the coming hurt will put me on my ass, possibly long-term. But! I can walk up stairs without a problem, I can walk all day, and there's no pain. My joints don't ache or swell or any of that stuff. It's just that I don't have much cartilege. So if I can go up the stairs, I guess that means I could try the stairmaster. The trainer scoffed and said, "don't bother with that. All it'll do is make you skinny-fat." (As in, weighing less because what you've got is lightweight fat, not powerful muscle.)

We never did figure out what's the opposite of 'skinny-fat'. Curvy-strong?

ETA: in unrelated news, got a copy of Bite of China, a Chinese show on regional cuisine. (First two episodes subbed in english; more coming, I hear.) OMG. Do not watch if you are even remotely hungry. Sooooooo good. Soooooo droolworthy.

Reason #4 for losing weight: so I can travel overseas and gain it all back by eating my way through various countries & cuisines. Except India. I love Indian cuisine, but I just don't think even with all my dedication that I'd ever be able to handle the spice-heat. When Indian friends say they made their family's dish "mild" just for me, and it still brings me to tears... it's probably a sign. Visiting India would probably be a lot of smelling but avoiding the tasting. Although come to think of it, Thailand would probably be in the same category. Which is okay; first on my list is Taiwan, then Japan, and I'd probably need a decade just for China alone...

I've finally put a finger on what has me so entranced when watching media (shows, animation, etc) that's in a different language. At first, I thought: this is a kind of astonishment. Then I censored myself immediately, because wow, that sounds offensive -- if you twist it to the side, it could be saying: "wow, people have entirely different languages and they still communicate such complex ideas" which is not at all what I mean.

I've probably told some of you this story before, but when I lived in France, I recall spending the afternoon with a teacher's two children. Aged, hm, three and five, maybe? They had a globe, and one of them asked where I lived, so I put a finger on their hometown, and another on mine. There was a lot of blue-colored map between the two places, and the kids were suitably impressed.

However, somehow this raised the question of why (in their opinion) I couldn't speak French as well as the other adults they knew. Maybe, they appeared to be reasoning, it was because Americans were bad at talking. I said no, in America, we speak English.

Long pause. Skeptical looks.

"No, you speak French," they said. "Everyone speaks French."

"Not in the United States," I replied. "There, we don't speak French. We speak English."

Skeptical looks turned to absolute disdain, because now they were quite certain I was putting them on. There went all my credibility.

Later I asked their mom, who said that it's a developmental stage, related to the size of the kid's world, and the fact that they assume what they see around them is an example of everything, everywhere. It takes time and experience before we start to realize the world is a much bigger place than our little corner of it.

Watching foreign shows, or trying to read a manga in Taiwanese (or, ugh, Cantonese), makes me feel like my world has gotten even bigger. Or maybe it's that it makes me feel just that many times smaller. Like: these people are talking, and there's a whole way of writing, of conjugating verbs, of expressing the self, and I understand none of it. Chances are, I will never understand more than maybe "please" and "thank you" and "yes" and "no" and how to say "hello" on the phone. If that much. But people express ideas and emotions and my corner -- the English corner -- has no impact, no value, in this conversation.

( It's a kind of reminder of humility. )

This is partially leading off my post from this morning. I had the pleasure of chatting with someone, yesterday, who does the same thing I do, job-wise. If you realized how few of us are actually around (for all that our job may sound awfully necessary, most corporations don't seem to agree), then you'd realize also what a rare pleasure it was to talk to someone who totally gets it.

Think of web application creation as a balancing act between two extremes: there's the design (what it looks like, what it does on the page, all the way to colors and fonts and whether you get a thank-you note when you're done), and there's the development (the code, basically). Designers don't code, and coders don't design, for the most part, and IMO/IME this has less to do with any integral dislike between them... so much as the fact that both sides require a lot of expertise. It is not half as easy as you may think it is, to code the backend of an application, or even to do a nicely-turned out page of CSS and Javascript on the frontend. Nor is it half so easy as you might think it is to come up with the buttons and the corners and the logos and the whatever else in Photoshop or Illustrator or Fireworks or whatever is the in-thing this week. These are areas that, to do well, do require a fair bit of training and experience -- and by then, you're probably firmly into the perspective of your area of expertise.

( I'm the person in the middle. )

$result = mysql_query("SELECT `termid` FROM connected_texts");
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_BOTH)) {
    $orig_term_tax_id = $row['termid'];
    $result2 = mysql_query("SELECT * FROM term_relationships WHERE `term_taxonomy_id` = '$orig_term_tax_id'");
    while ($row2 = mysql_fetch_array($result2, MYSQL_BOTH)) {
        $objectid_textid = $row2[0];
        if (!$bookpart) {
            $result3= mysql_query("SELECT `bookpart` FROM `texts` WHERE `textid`='$objectid_textid'");
            while ($row3 = mysql_fetch_array($result3, MYSQL_BOTH)) {
                $bookpart = $row3['bookpart'];
                if ($bookpart == '1') {
                $bookno = $objectid_textid;
                $result4= mysql_query("UPDATE connected_texts SET `textid` = '$bookno' WHERE `termid` = '$orig_term_tax_id'");
                }
            }
        }
        $result3= mysql_query("SELECT `bookpart` FROM `texts` WHERE `textid`='$objectid_textid'");
        while ($row3 = mysql_fetch_array($result3, MYSQL_BOTH)) {
            $result4= mysql_query("UPDATE texts SET `book` = '$bookno' WHERE `textid` = '$objectid_textid'");
        }
    }
    $bookpart = '';
}

It's amazing what your brain can do when it's not got two tons of unhappy perched on top.

Over the past two or three weeks, there've been an awful lot of people subscribing suddenly. *shifty eyes* I'm not entirely certain who to blame who to thank. Instead, if you don't mind, please use this thread to introduce yourself.

poll results for readers' choices:
story/narrative analysis 93.1%
snark and rants 82.8%
fandom meta: 86.2%
fiction critiques 79.3%

The odd comments here and there about kitchens made me stop and think of what we've done so far -- as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I am, finally, beginning to think it just might not be a giant robot. Yay.

Well, for starters, we replaced every appliance but the fridge (which is probably only a year or two old); the rest -- double oven, dishwasher, and stovetop -- were all avocado and seriously on their last legs. No, seriously: the dishwasher didn't work, the ovens didn't heat, and the stove-top had only two working eyes. I'd say of the money we've spent in the past year and a little more, the biggest amount was probably on those three things (but that was also, undoubtedly, the best spent).

( Let's see what else -- and a lot of this is total guestimate, since it's not like I tracked it at the time. )

I can not believe it's been that much spent, so far. Can anyone tell me if we came out ahead? Anyone?

Oh, man, do I feel like an idiot. Yesterday had a great interview, and clearly the manager adored me, but I waffled when we spoke at the end -- I didn't expect her to broach the subject of pay scale, not while I was still processing whether the intangibles of the job were worth less cash-in-hand. Naturally, today my mother calls out of the blue. I told her about the interview and my internal waffling over possible job with pay cut, and she says, "you do realize... don't you... that the conversion rate between contract position to employee position is thirty percent?"

( So, I ran the numbers. And I'm listing them here because I know there are younger women on my flist, and you're going to be educated and armed, whether you like it or not. Sit still! You WILL be informed! )

Oi. My flist has exploded in the past week. *shifty look at flist* Seems I've got two choices: either say hello and suggest everyone introduce themselves, or give long thought to cutting back on the attention-getting snark. Here goes. *long thought* Okay! That was hard! Enough of that.

( Step right up, don't be shy. )

TOTAL RAISED: $1,000... that's 100,000 words. I'm closing it out now, or I'll be writing for two months, people! ;D

1. Koji ma Oshi
   DONE: 32K alloted, 34K words completed [story incomplete but at stopping place]
   with thanks to: Ravensilver, Gail, Rochan01, Infini T, CeeDee, and Mayo
   
   
2. 17.5K -- Tetractys
   
   • 10K, Gail
     
   • 5K, Tripsoverhercats
     
   • 2.5K, Rochan01
   
   
3. 15.5K Restraint of Desire
   
   • 7.5K, Ravensilver
     
   • 5K, Tripsoverhercats
     
   • 3K, Mikkeneko
   
   
4. 12.5K -- Howl
   
   • 7.5K, Ravensilver
     
   • 5K, Gail
   
   
5. 10K -- Echoes & Postscripts
   
   • 7.5K, Ravensilver
     
   • 2.5K, CeeDee
   
   
6. 12.5K -- Of Cats & Wolves II
   
   • 10K, Gail
     
   • 2.5K, Infini T

12/3/05: WORD COUNT SO FAR: 26.5K

Once again, many many thanks to all who contributed, and thank you for letting me feel like I got to help, in some way.

For those of you looking for GW writers, an incomplete list of the ones on my flist - let me know if I'm missing anyone - and a link to their post with the details of their participation:

chiya
windsorblue
amejisuto
rurounitriv
cozzybob

:D