Annoyance

A few weeks ago, a Certain Author (who shall remain nameless), started a mini-contest on her blog. She had a whole stack of books with foreign covers that she didn't recognize--and they were HER books! So she said that whoever could tell her what each book was--either accurately or in a way that entertained her--would get an autographed copy of the book of their choice.

So I spent a few hours digging around the Interwebs, looking up foreign words and trying to translate--titles don't always get translated directly, so sometimes I had to extrapolate and interpret--these titles, a couple of which were in CYRILLIC. And I got almost ALL of them done and I'm fairly certain they were all correct.

Today, Said Author has posted the winners--three people who "entertained" her the most. What? What happened to GETTING THEM RIGHT? Well, apparently, since she had no freaking clue what they were anyway, accuracy wasn't an issue. And here I thought she WANTED to know which books she had in her possession. Wasn't that the whole POINT?

Apparently not.

So now I'm kinda mad. And even madder about the increasing amount of politics on her blog. So much so that I'm not really sure I'll buy one of her books ever again. Luckily, she's never been one of my absolute favorite authors, just one I enjoy occasionally.

*grumble*

In other news, THREE AND A HALF WEEKS TIL THANKSGIVING BREAK. I can hardly wait. I'm exhausted. Six classes really is too much for one person. It's getting to the point where I'm considering skipping C.S.I. on Thursday nights because it doesn't come on until 9:00 and I want to be in bed by 9:30 at the LATEST. I'm still keeping up with everything, but it's taking a lot more preplanning and writing stuff down because my brain can't hold everything anymore. W.E. compared it to a fragmented hard drive--there's so much stuff coming in that I can't sort it, so it's all just ending up wherever there's room. I need to run a defragger, but I must be running some weird OS cause I can't figure out how to do it.

*cry*

More later.

Another Great Quote

I'm talking to my Buffy-Boards friends in our IRC channel, and we started discussing our jobs. One guy mentioned that he'd posted pictures of his desk in the boards. . . .

"Or one of my desks.

I'm ambideskural."

:)

More later.

Funny And Not

Yesterday I was talking to one of the GTFs, who is semi-fluent in German, and we were discussing reading vs. speaking a language. I mentioned that, the way I'm learning, I'm only learning to read, and if I tried to speak it, I'd probably have horrid pronunciation. Which led to the awesomest quote of the day:
"I'm pretty good at pronuncing. . . . I'm a great pronuncer! I pronunce well!"

Hahahaha.

This, however, is less funny and more depressing. I clicked on the link at the bottom and discovered that Frank Beamer, coach of the Virginia Tech Hokies, makes over $2 million a year. While, according to this chart, the most I can aspire to is about $80K per year (on average).

I hate sports.

More later.

Revision Finished!

I literally JUST finished hack-and-slashing Arven out of the last of Healing the Elder and sent those chapters off to the Critters people who are reading it for me. Only two this time around, but they seem to be reasonable, well-read people who won't drive me up the wall with their comments, but will give me their honest opinions and help me make it better.

I can't give you a comparison word count cause I forgot to do initial word counts for several chapters, but the final word count stands at 73,707. That's crap. I'm hoping the FINAL final word count will be around 80,000. The Critters people will hopefully be able to suggest places where I can elaborate and add to the word count legitimately, not with fluff.

Now I--amazingly enough--have NOTHING to do until I get home, where I have 3 more papers to read for my junior college students. I'll probably start planning my Intro to Research and British Lit classes that I'll be teaching next semester.

More later.

Festivals and Birthdays

Yesterday was fun. The university was having its annual festival, based (loosely) on Scottish Highland markets. I spent a few hours up there, got to see a Highland cow (a really small one), have some Italian ice (yummy) and bought a really pretty necklace--a sterling silver Celtic knot with an amethyst in the middle. I also got to show off my new books to W.E.

Then W.E. and I went and had lunch, and I got my hair cut. It's about chin length now. It's a bit shorter than I wanted, but I think it's cute.

Then we came home and vegged for awhile--I finished a book and started a new one, absolutely refusing to do any work (which means I get to do it today, but that's okay). At about 8 PM, we handed over to Crazy Anime Girl's house for her birthday party. It was a lot of fun; lots of talking, great food, hanging out with friends and meeting new ones, and trying to entice the kitty to not hate me anymore. I had my very first sip of alcohol (Bailey's mint something or other--it was gross) but otherwise hung out with the non-drinking crowd. I think eventually I'll have to learn how to drink (without getting completely sh!t-faced), just in case I'm required to drink socially at some point. I'm actually not looking forward to it, cause in order to learn my limits, I'll have to cross them, and I don't really want to be drunk.

It was a really fun day, and a nice break from the constant slamming of grading. Speaking of which, I had to calculate midterm grades for my university students on Friday, and I've got at least 6 people flunking my class. Sigh.

More later.

Book Review: The Devil Inside

This story had amazing potential, but that potential was, unfortunately, buried underneath constant graphic, gratuitous sexual acts and thoughts. I'm hardly a prude, but there was sex going on long before I'd gotten to know the characters, let alone get invested in them. And the author used terminology (and situations) better suited to erotica than a Dell-imprinted fantasy novel.

The protagonist was barely likable and brought most of her problems on herself--but didn't really learn from them. The protagonist's boyfriend was a prop for sexual play and a hostage the protagonist cared about, though I was never fully convinced that she really loved him, despite her constant protests that she did. The one sexual pairing I would have been interested in never occurred, though it may in future books. However, I have no intention to buy or read any more of this series.

4/10

More later.

WOOT!

My article about Sherri S. Tepper's The Gate to Women's Country has been accepted by The Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts and will be out in the December issue, volume 19.1. I will be a published scholarly writer!

Yay!

More later.

Of Picnics & Sunburns

Yesterday was W.E.'s company picnic. I'm not much of a big-crowd person, so I wouldn't even have gone . . . if W.E. hadn't been running it. The other member of the HR team quit on Wednesday, leaving him with the job of gathering her planning and finishing it up . . . in 3 days. I think he did an awesome job.

But because he was running it, I had to go help. I got to supervise the temps they hired for the day (so none--or few--of the actual employees had to work) while they set up, made lunch, and watched the kids play on the bouncy stuff. I also got free frozen lemonade, a free milkshake, and a free cupcake because I was TECHNICALLY staff for the day (albeit unpaid staff).

Everything was great--if tiring--until about 2 PM. And then the heat set in. I had to go sit down and drink some water, and then discovered the nasty sunburn I'd managed to acquire. I felt really horrible because I didn't help much after that. I just felt too icky.

But the picnic went really well, and we're hoping for a great reward (which I can't really talk about just yet, but let's just say that if it happens, we'll have a huge party) if the boss and VP of HR think it went well, too.

AND I finished all my grading on Friday, so I have nothing to do today besides go to the store and fold laundry. FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOOM! :D

More later.