bugsii

I worked from home today again.  I am preparing a presentation for the Ohio Association for Gifted Children in the fall and I found this cool presentation tool to use.  It’s called prezi and it’s an alternative to PowerPoint that let’s you see the big picture and zoom in and out and all over the place.  I will definitely be using this more often.  If you want to see the presentation click here and then use the arrows in the bottom right hand corner to click through the presentation.  When you get to the black box, it’s a movie, so you have to click on it to play it.  Fun stuff!

This morning was my last official OSU yoga class.  I walked to class this morning and it was such a beautiful day.  I never want summer to end.  After class, I came home and finished rereading the first Harry Potter on the porch.  I wish every morning was exactly like this one.

Then, class was a bit stressful.  With technology, things always go wrong, and it wasn’t any different tonight.  It was also the last class for that group, so there were a lot of last minute details to work out.  I got out a little late and just missed my bus.  Poor pitiful me.  Tomorrow’s the last class for the other group, then just grading… Sigh, almost there.

Today, I had a presentation to do at ODE on digital tools for collaboration.  I had somehow put it out of my mind all weekend, which was good because I didn’t worry about it… until last night when I remembered and then had a terrible night’s sleep.  And all morning at work, as I was trying to get other things done, I was worrying about my presentation.  I was all tense and nervous, but by the time I had to present I had calmed myself down enough to do a fairly decent job.  I even had my voice shaking under control!  It helped that there were only about 8 people that showed up to the presentation, but even so, it wasn’t terrible.  My work friends that came even said I didn’t seem nervous!  I really like talking about this stuff, so maybe that helped too.  When it was over though, I got really tired.  The adrenaline from the nerves were no longer keeping me all twisted up and I felt like I need some food and a cot.  The cot never arrived, but it was no time before I was off to class.  Only one more long day for the summer and I am done for a while!

P.S.  I’m trying to stay positive, so I’m not going to tell you that the busride to school was so slow that I decided to get out and walk.  The second I stepped out, it started to rain and I was ten minutes late for class.  But, I’m not going to talk about that.  Almost done!

This morning, I stumbled out of bed to find Julie getting ready to go for a run.  Today’s not a day I run, but I don’t get to run in tandem much any more, so I decided to throw my stinky running clothes on and go anyway.  We did a few laps around Jackon Park and then we did some of my made-up DIY yoga in the grass.  Aside from trying to avoid goose poop, it was very relaxing.  When we got home, Julie had pulled out her and Mark’s old tapes from back in the day.  The crowning jewel…

Thriller!

Others we found included EnVogue, old Mariah Carey, Aerosmith, Boys II Men, Michael Bolten (Mark!) and New Kids.  So, we started popping them in and having a dance party.  I mean, really, what else could we have done?  This was all before 10am, too.

Kickin' it old school

The whole reason I was in Canton was to go to a party thrown by our old friends the Rossetti’s.  Allison got married in Chicago and Mike turned 60.  There were lots of people there and we had a good time.  Here are some scenes from the party.

Me and Julie eating outside

Katie and Marky

Big Mark and Dan playing some new cornhole/bocce type game

Allison and hubby, Martin

Mike blowing out his candles (and a nice shot of Ally and Martin's cake too)

From Cincy, we headed up to to Canton.  The drive felt unusually long, but I really can’t complain, since Dan drives the whole time.  When we got in, Julie had a nice meal planned of soup and pasta.  Then, Mom and Guido showed up with some more food and we ate our butts off.  And when we were finished, we walked down to the ice cream stand to eat our butts off a little more.  Now, we’re watching a scary movie.  And I’m scared.

Last night, we drove to Dan’s parents house in Cincinnati.  Dan wanted to spend a few nights with his Dad working on his Angelone Arcade project.

I got up this morning and had a nice 5 mile run around the neighborhood.  The weather is unusually mild right now, so it was a good run.  Then, I hung out with Katie and Cole, who had spent the night last night too.  Katie read me a story (she’s doing really well) and I read Cole part of a story (he was more interested in talking about the pictures than the actual story).  I also braided Katie’s hair.  Then, we had some lunch and Jess and Jeff came to hang out for a bit.

When they left, I spent the afternoon writing letters to the editors of various educational technology journals.  The professor I’m working on my article with thinks it’s a good idea to send query letters.  This is because when you submit an article to a journal, it can take as much as 6 months for them to get back to you and you are only allowed to submit to one journal at a time (ridiculous).  So, if you write to the editor and explain your idea, they can give you a “Sure, pass it on” or a “I don’t think it will work for this journal.”  It’s actually helpful to get the nos because then you don’t need to send them and wait for nothing.  It’s a good idea, but it took some time.  I’m excited to hear back, but of course, the editor could also just ignore my query.  Hmm.  We’ll see.

For dinner, Joyce made a yummy ravioli lasagna and then we went to The Cone for some ice cream.  It was a good day.

I’m conducting a pilot study on female bloggers in academia and I sent out interview questions today.  I’m a participant in my own study, so I also interviewed myself.  I might as well post my interview because, hey, it’s about my blog, so why not?

Why do you blog?

I blog because I like to tell stories and have conversations that I don’t necessarily get to tell or have all the time.  My blog gives me a chance to keep those stories and have those conversations in a place where people I know or don’t know can see them and maybe even comment on them.  I also blog because I don’t live close to my family and I like them to be able to visit my life.  I also blog because it helps me tease out ideas.  Once in awhile, after a class or after reading an article, I’ll blog to clarify my thinking.  I also blog, I think, to connect with other people, to feel more connected in general.

Why did you begin to blog?

Initially I began to blog to keep in touch with friends and family that I moved away from.  I wanted to document my new and exciting experience in a doctoral program and I wanted them to be able to come on my adventure with me.

How did you learn how to create a blog?

I created a blog a couple of years ago when I was in a Masters program for Educational Technology and we were talking about them.  It was sort of a practice blog and I only ever posted twice, but that’s I guess when I learned how to do it.  When I started the blogger blog I just played around and played around until I figured it out.  I would click on all the tabs and then everything within the tabs to get familiar with it.  Sometimes, if I wanted to do something I couldn’t find, I would search Google.  Once, I wanted to make a tag cloud and that wasn’t standard in blogger, so I searched Google, found directions on another guy’s blog and pasted some code he had.  I just learn as I go.  If I see something on someone else’s blog that I like, I’ll try to figure out how to do it.  My husband helps me out a lot too because he’s in the IT field.  Like when I switched everything from blogger to wordpress, he had to help because I started hosting it in a server that wasn’t free.

How do you decide what to blog about?

At the beginning, I used to just blog about my day.  Then, I started to blog about just a single part of my day that I thought was particularly interesting.  As time goes on though, I try to blog everyday, but I blog about anything that strikes my fancy.  If I find a new tool, I’ll blog about it.  If, I have a pet peeve, I’ll blog about it.  If I have an opinion on a topic, I’ll blog about that too.  I think in some ways it’s starting to resemble what I used to think a blog was before I started one and starting to resemble a journal less.  Part of my deicison, too, is what not to blog about.  I blog about personal things sometimes, but I never say bad things about people in my life (even when I am thinking them) because I don’t want something like that to live on in perpetuity.  Also, I’ll blog about classes, but only good things or very generally.  I am never negative about classes or professors because I am worried they will see it.

What do you like to blog most about?

I like to tell stories the best (especially funny stories).  So, when I have a good story to tell, I could just write forever.

What does your blog say about you?

I think my blog probably says that I’m a cheery, friendly, sarcastic, commentator of sorts, but I think the cheery part is sort of a lie.  I think it’s a pretty good representation of my thoughts and the events of my life, but not of my mood.  I’ve had really bad days and reading my blog, you wouldn’t know it.

In what ways do you use your blogs?

I use my blog as a form of representation.  I feel like I’m sort of constructing my life as it evolves.  I don’t think I’ll ever be done and I think that this is an interesting artifact of how I represent myself at the moment.  I use my blog to voice my opinions, to tell my story, and to give myself depth (maybe?).  I use my blog to keep in touch with people who know me, to entertain strangers, and to entertain myself.  I’ve recently been thinking that I use my blog as record for my future kids.  I think this will be cool for them to see our life before they were around.

What other blogs do you read most?  Why?

I have a friend, Vicki, that is getting her PhD in English right now and I always read hers because she’s a good writer and I am interested in what she is doing and how the PhD is going.  I also read dooce.com.  It was recommended by a student in one of my classes.  It’s about a mom who just had her second child and is snarky and hilarious.  She writes in a way that makes me feel like I know her.  Those are my top two.  I also read danah boyd’s blog, apophenia, because she’s a strong female academic that I aspire to be like and she posts interesting things related to technology.  I also read a blog called Fat Free Vegan Kitchen.  It’s a food blog and she posts recipes.  She’s a mom in Alabama and she tells stories about her family and what they like and don’t like, which helps me if I try to cook something vegetarian for Dan.  I’m also interested in vegetarian food.

Who comments on your blog?

Only friends and family comment on my blog.  Vicki, my old running pal Bri, a teacher friend named Jen, my brother Ben and his friend Matt, my mom, and occasionally some other people in Matt’s family and my Aunt Ann and my cousin Beth, but I think that’s it.  I think I had a stranger once, but I can’t remember right now.

Who reads your blog?  How do you know?

Mostly family and friends read my blog.  There are some strangers, but only a few are frequent visitors.  I know because I installed google analytics and can see how many hits I’ve had in each city, state and country.  Ohio always has the most, then Texas (where my Aunt and Vicki are), then New York (where my Uncle is), then California (I have a couple of friends), then Oregon (where my cousin is) and random other states like Pennsylvania and Virginia (I have some cousins there too).  I also have people in other countries once in awhile, but they might have just visited on accident when searching google for something.

Who do you want to read your blog?

I want friends and family to read my blog, but I wouldn’t mind having a huge slew of readers so that I could put some ads up and live off of it like dooce.com does.  Even though I know my blog is public, sometimes I get nervous when people that I don’t know very well read it and then reference it to me.  I think it’s because the me on my blog is pretty casual and if the person is from class where I tend to be more serious, it just makes me nervous, like they have an insider’s view on my life and I can’t act all serious because they can be like, “Yeah, I read your blog on Harry Potter, good one.”   I guess because in real life I can hold back on telling people things and when they’ve read my blog, they already know a lot, so it’s harder to go through the normal easing into getting to know each other thing.  I guess that’s all to say that my blog is meant for family and friends, but I want a wider readership, but when that happens it sort of messes with regular social interaction for me.

What have you learned from writing a blog?

I have learned to be more reflective and positive. I have also learned to write for a large audience, holding back when appropriate.  I’ve learned to pay attention to my day and to things I am interested in, so that I can have more interesting blog posts.  I think I’ve also learned that I am not consistent and my ideas and opinions can change depending on the day, my mood or getting a new piece of information, so this makes me feel both more comfortable with putting up my thoughts (because they are what they are that day), but also less comfortable (because I might think something else the next day).

Have their been any unexpected outcomes as a result of writing a blog?

My mom calls me less, which I thought was strange at first, but I guess she gets her fix on the blog.  I think I might get called less in general, but I’m not sure it’s because people think I’m busy or if they already know what’s going on with me because of my blog.  Sometimes this is a good thing, but sometimes it’s not.  Another unexpected outcome is the one I mentioned under “who do you want to read your blog?”  I also wonder sometimes if any students, professors, friends, read this and think differently of me because of it, but that’s hard to know.

Is there anything else you want me to know about your blog?

I really love to blog.  I could never keep a journal before because it felt like it was for nothing.  Now, I know people are reading my posts and it keeps me wanting to post interesting things and keep everyone up to date on my life.

This is my step-nephew, Judah.  He loves Harry Potter too, and he’ll pinch you if you don’t like him!

Yesterday was a long day.  I worked from 6am-2:30pm, then had class from 3:30-7:18pm, then I came home and ran and showered.  Even though I was tired, I was also too excited to wait to see the new Harry Potter movie.  It’s really everyone on facebook’s fault for being all “Harry Potter was awesome!” and “Going to see Harry tonight!”  I got jealous and felt like a little kid that just couldn’t make myself wait.  So, we decided to go to the 9:45 show.  We got there at 9:15 and it was sold out, so we had to go to the 10:20 show, which was fine, but the movie is 2 and a half hours long, which put us home at about 1 in the morning.

Spoiler alert:  It depends on how much you care, but you might not want to hear what I thought of the movie.

I loved the movie, but I think it’s hard when you have read all the books, and sort of fallen in love with the characters, not to love seeing the story play out on screen.  I thought the movie was well done, interesting, funny, and made sense.  They added in some humor that I don’t think was in the book (I read it a long time ago), but it worked for me.  What I thought they left out was how very scary that year at Hogwarts was supposed to be.  It was terrifying to go out, everyone was afraid, and I think the funny stuff sort of downplayed that part of the story (which was really important).  Also, Dan and I both thought that the story seemed really “simple.”  They had some parts condensed a little, which makes sense for the movie, but makes the story seem less complex.

I thought Ron was really funny and I loved, loved Luna (that lion hat was awesome!), but her character was sort of left out too.  I forgot that the burrow burned in this one and that made me pretty sad (because I want to live there when I grow up).  The scene in the cave at the end was exactly how I pictured it.  But, I thought Dumbledore’s funeral type thing was a little lame.  And, I swear there was a huge fight scene at the end?  No?  Didn’t Fred or George get an ear blown off and didn’t people die?  Ah, I need to go read the book again, but really, aren’t the books always better?

And, how long am I going to have to wait for the next one??  It better not be this long again!

This is how my Mondays and Tuesdays have been going… work, class, yoga, class.  Then on Wednesdays and Thursdays it repeats… work, class, yoga, class.  In between, I have been grading and writing my paper.  Today, I am realizing that I only have four more days of that cycle and then… I’m going to Disney World!  For real.

I am learning so many new and cool tools from teaching these classes on tech integration, and I love it.  One of them is picnik.  It’s a free, web-based image editor where you can crop, resize, but also write on, put filters on (like black and white, or neon light type things) images.  AND, it even has “stickers” to put on your picture and borders and things like that.  It’s fun to play with.  They also have a collage function, so you can make a neat collage.  As I was making sure I could use the tool, I made this:

Then, I really got crazy with the stickers and made this:

Yep, that’s a centaur because I have Harry Potter on the brain.  Yay for technology!