rochelle.mazar.ca

Well, I’m at work, I’m connected via U of T ethernet with my own computer, finally (yay!), and the official reasoning for this is because I have fireworks and I can do fun image editing for the website, but really I just want be able to screw around with stuff at work with my own computer. It’s true that I do work for the website on here, though. And I’d love to do more. Our website is SO boring, have a look. But now I’m staying around just because another staff member is trying to send an attachment and is having trouble, so I’m the moral support. I love this not doing real work thing. Terrible. I promise to get to it as soon as her attachment is sent safely. Really, really, I promise.

Had a great time last night with jason and salmon at the Duke…woohooo! Fun talk, wonderful time. Funny waiter, even. I got a free iced tea. He probably thought I was the designated driver…ha ha ha. I came home and wrote a bot help file for the triangle kids…and I think I’ve already seen some of the fruits of my labours…

And now it’s Friday again. I can’t remember what means anymore….

Okay, you know you’re in Toronto when…

Just now, I was coming up in the elevator with a guy holding a bag of his new purchases. And, I swear to god, he rode up the first 21 floors pulling the price tags off and eating them. EATING THEM. Surreal.

Well, I’m at work, and I finished the work I gave myself to do for this shift, and I don’t feel like starting in on something new. Terrible. And I still have an hour and a half to go. I’ve decided that there is only one way of dealing with bad days…buy products from Lush (I mean, don’t they make millions from the fact that days like this exist?), get a new moisturizer, oh, and I need a new conditioner, and a new pair of earrings, and maybe a pizza. Or chinese food. Something like that. Pizza is very comforting though, maybe I should run with that. And I’ll wander through my favourite kitchen store. They always have fun things. OH! I should get some plants for the balcony too. Oh, there are ways to ward off the sad days, oh yes. And I can power the economy at the same time. New body care products, jewelry, a cute new top would be nice too, and fun food I don’t have to prepare. And plants. That could work. Don’t fight it, right? Embrace it. Loll around in it. Rub it into your skin and dance around. Yes, I can do this.

Heard on CBC radio this morning:

“A phd student is technically still a child.”
(In reference to divorce settlements and finanical support, but a beautiful statement nonetheless.)

Well, talk about how different websites look from OS to OS…now I’m in Unix and this sucker is STRANGE looking. Well, I’m here trying to be helpful with the triangle kids, but salmon’s got it pretty much tied up…great tutorial, the kids are loving it. We’re actually 6 minutes late for their break…and they don’t even mind. 🙂

Many new ideas for changing Bingen…I can hardly pull myself away from it.

Great success with the keyword bot….here’s a sample:

One of the judges asks, “Is it not true that you seduced Tom Twostone to come to your bed against his will?”
Sarah says, “Ha ha ha! I don’t know what you’re talking about. I wouldn’t bring Fat Tom into my bed.”
Elizabeth [whispers to Hildegarde]: Oh, we all know she was sleeping with Fat Tom…he talked about her charms far and wide. What a faithless whore!

I love the way I have the authority speaking, asking the official questions (people who come from a distance and don’t know any of the players, only the witnesses responses), the witch representing herself, and the neighbourhood response from Elizabeth. And when you try to talk….

You find yourself overcome by the mood of the crowd, and without really being aware of it, you shout, “She’s a witch! Burn her! Burn her!”
Sarah says, “Och, you fool!”
Elizabeth whispers, “We need to kill her! She’s a threat to all of us!”

Every time I work on a new room, I learn more and I’m happier with what I’m doing. Now, we’ll see what I learn from the next one…

Melissa’s shower is *tomorrow*, not Sunday. Sheesh. I should keep better tabs on when I have to be places. Now I’m meeting Blake at 10:30am at Davisville station so I can hitch a ride with her to Guelph. And then on to the shower. Bah. I guess I should get to bed.

Guacamole report: a little bowl of the stuff is sitting next to me as we speak. Not bad, not bad. 🙂 Definitely a good addition to my summer diet. Tomatoes, avacados, cucumbers, peaches, berries, what else do you need?

And, as I listen to the radio while I eat my dinner, I simply must comment about that as well. The Ontario government, constantly in search of people to demonize, has decided that in order to get welfare, people must not only get drug tested, but must pass a literacy test. Our premier needs one of those.

And….I just fixed my bots. I just fixed my bots. I mean, I programmed something that actually fixed the problems I’ve been having with my bots. Wow. I can solve programming problems. I’m so stunned. I feel like a different person now. 🙂

New computer at work. Must say, blogger looks nicer on this computer (windows) than it does on my computer (mac). I actually have bold and italics options here. Though, I’m pretty adept at adding html tags, so it’s not such a big deal….why oh why do they short change the mac user? Jealousy. Sheer jealousy. Well, trying to work and help out the triangle kids from a distance today….tricky. Very tricky. It’s rather difficult to direct a MOO conversation. People started making MSN comparisons, that that sort of thing. Bah. That so grates on me. Possibly because I can’t STAND chat clients and I’m so partial to moo.

I think….I think…my avacados might be ripe today. So tonight it going to be my first attempt at making guacamole. Oh me oh my.

Ah…..wonderful day. Just fabulous. I don’t know what temperature we hit today, but it feels like summer. I’m in full summer regalia today: peasant shirt, shorts, birkenstocks. I am so woefully lacking in summer clothing. Now that I’ve slimmed down so much of late, I have so many more options…I’m thinking about sneaking down to Old Navy shortly to go look around for some cute things. My shorts are hanging off me. I’m not sure whether to be pleased of horrified.

And the triangle class did well today…we confused them to start with, but they got to do some fairly simple stuff in the end, though they’re already looking to doing things that are increasingly complicated. We have seats and room noises, a bot (gasp!) and one of the kids wants a version of the plague in her room. (It only too me 7 years to manage to get around to writing a verb…and this kid wants to do it after 3 days. Typical.) I’m very excited to see what they’re projects are going to look like.

Thinking about marginalia again today…this is kind of what it looks like in my head, when I think about what would be cool for marginalia inMOO.

So, we’ve got our text side, with the bots giving detail, and interactivity, and all that good stuff, the GUI window with the images and all of that, and maybe icons on objects that you can drag onto the little marginalia window, that will insert maybe some short notes about the object for reference (maybe the author of the object writes this) and then gives the reader the chance to make notes about this, that are saved after your session is done. Or in process. Something. Yes, this is a faked screenshot. 🙂

Oh beautiful day, again….turns out (ha ha, Richard) we did actually hit 30 degrees yesterday. It’s 26 degrees now at 11am, no doubt it’s going to get even warmer. Definitely a shorts day. Or a short skirt day. Might have to go with skirt. salmon and I are really looking forward to today with the triangle kids. Today the project is building rooms, and two of our 9 pupils have already built fairly extensively. We may recruit them has helpers, if needed. I can’t wait to see what these kids are going to produce, they’re really creative and interesting, and they’re really getting into MOOspace in a very immersive kind of way, they understand the concept better than I (at least) thought they would. Here we go…

Another successful day with the triangle kids. Though…we did discover that the @messages we were trying to get the kids to set sometimes don’t actually work. (Good to know.) But, we’re on to more exciting projects on Thursday. (Wednesdays off!) Happy May Day!

Heee…funny event last night….Janine and I went out for a bite late last night (always good conversation there, though she thinks I tease her too much, probably true), and afterwards we watched a movie on my very very crappy vcr. She was just standing out on my balcony at one point, looking around, and then she looked down. Her car was parked directly below. There was a truck parked right in front of her. She shouted, “they’re towing my car! they’re towing my car!” and ran out to the elevator, in her socks. I threw her some shoes. Then I watched her from the balcony come outside, running at top speed, and stopping in front of the car, staring. I laughed and laughed. It wasn’t a tow truck. It was just a regular truck. Parked. She could hear me laughing from 26 floors down. So, no actual drama, just fake drama last night.

I’m just getting ready to go off to the computer lab to meet with the triangle kids again. I’m so excited, I can’t wait to see how it goes today.

We had a great time with the triangle kids on achieve today. Simply fabulous. Truly an amazing experience. I can’t wait to see what they produce….

I did some good work on the Martin Luther section of bingen. Now I have a Martin Luther bot, who responds to keywords, which are triggered by room noises, that represents Charles V, his advisers, and a series of cardinals. And they all ask him about his theological stance, and he answers them. Example:

A red-robed cardinal points at Luther and says, “You have been rumoured to deny the use of works. Do you really believe that bad men will be redeemed in Christ? Men without charity, men without compassion?”
Martin Luther says, “Good works do not make a good Christian, but a good Christian does good works. The soul is justified by faith alone, not by any works.”
One of the clerks shouts, “What are you trying to accomplish, Dr. Luther? Do you want to be branded a heretic and excommunicated?”
Martin Luther says, “I want to see reform, sir. I want to see the church return to its early purity. I love the church, sir, I love God and I love Germany. I want to see us all follow the precepts laid down by Jesus to us. I want us to be saved.”
One of the cardinals asks, “Meaningless? Confirmation is meaningless?”
Martin Luther says, “If confirmation brings our youth closer to the church and closer to God, we may certainly continue to use it as a means to an end, but it does not figure in the Bible, and therefore is not a sacrament.”
The crowd roars with surprise and enthusiasm.
One of the bishops shouts, “Are you calling the Pope the AntiChrist?”
Martin Luther says, “I say what I am prompted to by what I have learned in studying the Bible. I will say no more than that.”
The Emperor Charles the V, with a thick Spanish accent, notes, “So, Dr. Luther. You agree that infants require baptism for salvation?”
Martin Luther [to Hildegarde]: Yes, your Honour, I do accept that babes should feel the blessed waters of baptism.
One of the Emperor’s aides, asks, “What about confirmation? Do you believe in this sacrament?”
Martin Luther says, “Yet another meaningless ritual.”
Someone from the crowd shouts, “What about the saints? Do you deny them too?”
Martin Luther [to Hildegarde]: The saints were good people, and we should try to emulate their goodness when we can, but saints cannot intercede for us on behalf of God. We must pray to God alone.
Someone in the crowd jostles you.

I’m unclear why Luther insists on responding to the chair in the room instead of just generally. But it still works. And now to bed!

I’ve been pulling apart and reconstructing bots today at achieve, with Brin’s help. So the place should be ready for the students tomorrow. Bots take forever to put together, but I think have a couple of successful ones. Now at least they respond properly to the plague messages. My other goal today was to move Martin Luther out of the church and put him into a disputation with the Catholic hierarchy instead. A little more dramatic and interesting. I haven’t started on that yet, but I guess now’s as good a time as any.

I had a fabulous time at Jason’s party….along with being social and eating strange and exotic foods, I got to talk shop with Jason, Emma and salmon, concurrently and consecutively. Emma had a great idea: she says that I should carry a moo concept book around with me…I seem to be getting a reputation for being a random idea generator, and I should probably write some of this stuff down so it doesn’t get lost in the shuffle.

The Technology of the Book
Something I was thinking about on the walk from the subway to home: the advantages of the techonology of the book. What are they? The historical monograph, for example, as an option, rather than a requirement. What are the perks? They’re relatively cheap, they can be both text-based and graphical. They are portable, and you can stop and start accessing the content at your ease. You can write your own notes and questions in the margins, making it your version of the technology. Though, granted, most people reading historical monographs have them on loan from a library, making the comments option slightly more problematic. Other elements of the book as technology: linear progression of ideas (from page 1 to page 356), though these ideas are usually subheaded and are browsable; traditional interface is familiar to the user and needs no introduction. Usability based primarily on the programmer’s ability to sub-divide and clearly mark content, as well as good content writing. The historical monograph is best defined as an argument, addressing the arguments of those before, but primarily a monologue defending the validity of a particular thesis.

How can my historical presentation fulfill these functions, and be still more?

What a day. I mean, really. And I hardly got out of bed. I woke up this morning and got to work on a scavenger hunt for the triangle project. That took forever, mostly because I had to sort through a lot of the stuff on achieve to find as many elements of the place to show off, and to find ways to have students learn how to use some of the basic commands to manage in the place. Of course this meant I tweaked my own project some as well. I fixed up some bits that had been bothering me. Some I just simplified, because I had started to do too much. And at the same time Jason decided it was time I got a second character on achieve for testing purposes. I’m thrilled.

I’ve always wanted a second identity. 🙂 I’ve baptized her Rapunzel, and this is what she looks like. I love these images, I had a whole book on these flower fairies when I was a kid. There’s something about them that I find very appealing. I wish I could post them all.

My sister called to tell me that she bought my bridesmaid dress for me. It’s blue, with, of course, spaghetti straps. (What else would it have?) I’m glad that’s taken care of. I didn’t know what I was going to do.

Fun and Funded
Well…so on the way out to my meeting with Adrienne Hood (the historian with a clue about the internet and thing technical), I checked my mail. There, next to my rejection from SSHRC (Social Studies and Humanities Research Council, the national government’s answer to funding wacko academics like me, but not me in particular) was a slim letter from the Ontario government. I assumed this was my rejection from them. I was wrong. They’re offering me 15 grand for next year. I fell down. External funding means I get to leave the history department if it comes to that. Probably means I have a better chance of getting a SSHRC later on. Wicked. This means I worry about nothing next year….I can’t believe I’m that happy about 15 grand. I could make more working at mcdonald’s, but it does solve a lot of problems. No loan for me. Yay! Thank, Mike Harris. Bah.

Well, so I had this meeting with Adrienne Hood, and it went swimmingly. She told me lots about the politics of what I’m proposing, and who I should tread gently on. Since she doesn’t know me from Eve, I’m terribly impressed with her openness and kindness. Wonderful.

And then I met up with salmon for dinner, and we worked on some planning for the triangle project. We’re going to be helping a group of students through a 3-week workshop that involves developing projects on achieve. Honestly I think I still only half understand what they’re doing. I mean, I love achieve, and I can I think of lots of good ways to do projects and evaluation in moo, but I’m not sure why these students are there. I think there are lots of good reasons for students to be there, but I’m not sure I’ve figured out why these ones are. We do moo tutorial for a while, and then the start an online research project that they build on the moo. I’m curious to see how this will go. I’m looking forward to it. And it’s always fun to work with salmon in any context. And she’s really on right now, after the conference. Her brain has yet to stop buzzing. I could hear it at the dinner table.

Onward and upward….I can’t remember what I have to do tomorrow. All I know is that Contact is on at 8pm. Why do I remember only the really important details?

I was checking out the student-made websites for Adrienne Hood’s material culture class. There were many that were interesting, including one about bras which got my attention. The liberal use of flash makes for very pretty pages, but they have some content, too. I guess I’ll have to learn to use flash. Off to a meeting…

I wrote a very long update about all the details of yesterday when I got home (late) last night, but somehow the whole thing was lost. Frustrating. So I’ll try to rewrite the key points.

1) I had a meeting with Prof. Terpstra today. We went over everything; me and school, me and the department, me and comps, me and my family, my medical issues, everything. And he had some pretty insightful things to say. He’s a great, great man and I’m glad I went to him. I know it’s odd that I went to him *first* though, I didn’t exactly mean to do that. But he thinks the problem with this year, and why I want to move departments, is because the work I’m doing in history right now is boring and not very creative. I’m just reading and not writing, I’m not feeling very cutting edge. He thinks the reason I’m glomming on to this tech stuff (my words, not him) is because it’s creative, and it gets me the rush of doing something really avant garde, and that’s really doing something and going somewhere. I think he’s on to something. I have always sort of followed along with whoever seemed to be doing something interesting, whoever was pushing the envelope. But anyway, he doesn’t think I’d have a hope in hell of ever getting a job in a history department if I were to switch, no matter what. Everyone has a different take on that issue. Interesting. We’re thinking that a joint degree would be best. So that’s got to be my next project. I have some people to call and such.

2) After that, I had a good cry (tough, tough conversations to have, even though prof. Terpstra was really very wonderful to me), and I went up to see Jason and Emma, who were presenting VASE to…well, someone. There were various displays of technologies up in Robarts, I think they all shared the same funding. So I tried to be helpful there. That was very long and very intense. And while I was there I ran into Adrienne Hood, and we had a good conversation. She says she’s been trying to bring technology into the history department, and has had NO positive response. She says this year her request was met with ‘There’s no place for history in that,’ and ‘there’s no student interest’. So in a way this is the best and the worst time for me to bring this up. So that was interesting.

3) After that…we went and helped emma pick out a GUITAR! And it’s BLUE! How beautiful! We made sure she had a decent capo and a bunch of picks, though she swears she doesn’t want to strum. And she’s already making good use of the internet to learn songs and chords. We’re starting a band, we’ll call it: Emma and the Conquistadors.

4) And THEN, Jason and Yuka took us for dinner at a Mexican place. We had fajitas. 🙂 And emma and yuka made bunny faces at each other. And after that we went back to jason and yuka’s and played guitar until jason kicked us out. Ever so fun. Emma’s fingers hurt when she types today. What a star.

So, there you have it. The complete update after all. And today: handing in my application to OISE. Yay!