Random Ramblings

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Dorm Assignment
I finally got mine -- I'll be in my first-choice dorm; one which is all singles by default. I told MOLL*E, and her reply was a purr.

Current Mood: happy

We Are the Champions
Thanks to everyone who replied to my post of June 8th. I was able to track down all but three of the books and used them as references. I also managed to incorporate information from

esmerel and

studentbane's write-ups in. Sadly, LJ comments weren't approved sources, but with the write-ups for starters, I was able to find mentions thereof in the references I did find.

The paper got 100/100 points, with the comment "I love this paper. It simply couldn't be better in my opinion. You have taken this assignment and run with it. This is right on the $ as far as the style and historical detail is concerned. You've done a fine job of seamlessly incorporating the historic facts into the story. Congrats.".

Thank you all again. I would've handed in a paper either way, but without all of your awesome recommendations it wouldn't have been nearly as thorough.

Current Mood: Squee!

Dreamwidth
I've set up a backup account on Dreamwidth for those who are interested. The username is willowisp, and the bio/interests/etc will look eerily similar.

Meet MOLL*E
I don't yet know my dorm assignment (the waiting is driving me nuts), but I do know that no matter which one I end up in, cats are not allowed. The first time I was in college mom took care of Thena and would drive up with her on weekends. Much as I would love to do the same with Heidi or Sean, it's just not feasible, and besides, they'll need each other while Andy's at work. So, in desperation, I sought online and found... robo-kitty. Robo-kitty looks quite real, meows, purrs, and moves its head and tail. While they originally came in three colors, they've been discontinued and the only one I could find was gray with golden-orange eyes. I had it shipped to my sister in Syracuse so she could hang on to it for me until I come in August.

While visiting Syracuse we opened up robo-kitty and put in batteries. It was a hit, and I soon realized it was a she. She was a great comfort after my last talk with my biological father. Anyway, I brought her home with me since she fit nicely in my backpack. There are some cute pictures of Heidi and Sean meeting her at our gallery.

Mom especially adored it, since she hasn't gotten a cat since Noia died (Noia was the one who always beat me up when I visited mom). I found a used white robo-kitty which Pamela and I are going to get for mom. Meanwhile, I finally came up with a name for robo-kitty.

MOLL*E, pronounced like "Molly", stands for "Meowing Oddly Life-Like Entity".

( Sample Photo )

Why yes, I did like the movie WALL*E. Why do you ask?

Current Mood: silly

Yet Another Meme (Ignore at Will)
The problem with Livejournal is that we all think we are so close, but really, we know nothing about each other. Hence, I want you to ask me something you think you should know about me. Something that should be obvious, but you have no idea about. Then post this in your LJ and find out what people don’t know about you.

Replies to this are not screened. If you have a question and don't want to advertise that you asked it, send me mail at willowisp at livejournal dot com. Also let me know if you want the answer to be public.

Book(s) For an Upcoming Paper
Since I may have only mentioned this on Facebook and Twitter, quick update: I'm taking a summer course prior to attending SUNY Oswego full-time in the fall. The course is called Western Theatre: Edification or Entertainment?

For an upcoming paper I need to write a first-person account of a Londoner in late 16th or early 17th century attending one of Shakespeare's plays at the Globe. The professor doesn't want a synopsis of the play, but he does want information on the staging thereof. He also wants detail on where I live, how I get to the theatre, what it's like, concessions, and so on. Last but not least, we need three sources, not including the textbooks.

Even though the paper is a ways in the future, I'd like to get started in research. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to recommend media, especially books, which give a good historical perspective of life in that time period. The professor pointed us to a site which is a virtual tour of the Globe theatre, so I'm more interested in the other aspects of life at that time. Any and all recommendations are welcome and will be greatly appreciated.

Now if only I could use

studentbane's well-researched Cthulu meets Victorian England RPG as a source...

Trip Report (May 29th-June 4th 09)
Borrowing formatting from

druidsfire

( The good )
( The bad )
( The ugly )

Already Causing Trouble
And on the first day class is officially in session, too. I'm visiting my sister starting on Friday and staying until June 4th, and the module ends on June 2nd. I have no idea if I'll have reliable access while I'm there, so I took the end-of-module quiz. To my dismay I missed one part of a four-part question, but in rereading the notes determined that it was somewhat unclear. I wrote to the professor, and he agreed, so I now have a perfect score. I bet he's going to dread seeing email from me as the summer wears on.

For a Friend
For those following me who know

da_zhuang (Clay), you can probably safely skip the rest of this post. For everyone else:

Clay is applying for a 6-month stint as a webcaster for a winery (this is very oversimplified). The catch is, the initial screening run is a popularity contest. If you have a few spare minutes, please watch his introduction here and vote for him. You do need to give an email address to verify your vote, but the option to join the mailing list is opt-in rather than opt-out, and I've not received any mail from them aside from the initial "please verify your vote".

Spam/Scam Me Sunday
My Oswego email account has been deathly still since the former owner was informed that her mail was not getting to her. The one exception was a campus-wide announcement about some moronic coward(s) spray-painting swastikas on a dorm. Today it's been relatively hopping, though, with two scams hitting my inbox.

The first began with "This is to notify the entire people (sic) of the University that we would (sic) be upgrading our server for improved service delivery in the next few days", and instructing me to send my username and password "in order to keep your account still active after the upgrade". It's pretty sloppy; they didn't even bother trying to forge the From line.

The other was probably a money laundering scam. It purported itself to be from monster.com, though the reply-to was a gmail address. The salient points were that it would be work from home, 10 hours/week, with a base salary of 1600/month and commissions of up to 6k/month. All I need to do is have an existing bank account and be willing to process payments with it.

Appropriate abuse reports have been filed, etc. I don't even want to think of how many people fell for the bloody things, though. Stupid scammers.

Current Mood: cranky

Attack of teh Cutes
Andy and I have been visiting

esmerel,

merlinofchaos, and their daughter, Sprout, since Wednesday. I flew home today; Andy is still there for the conference which was the original reason for the visit. We have got to spend longer there; it went by much too quickly. Plus, a bunch of people we would have liked to see were out of town.

Sproutling is far too adorable for anyone's good. She's about one-and-a-half years old with big dark eyes and a dazzling smile. She's learning ASL, and it's fun watching her sign, even if I only picked up a few of the words (don't quiz me on it). Her mother claims she sucks out souls to fuel her cuteness, and I don't think that's a bad theory. I had always maintained that children get all their energy by draining it directly from adults, and the cute engine theory is fairly close.

I also saw

denyse, her husband, and their son, who was also unduly cute. He's a bit younger than Sprout so isn't quite as precocious, but I imagine a time is not long off when he will be a little whirlwind as well. It was good to finally meet Denyse and Magnus and put faces to the names, even if their son was a little overwhelmed by all the people.

Finally, we got to see

tyee and her two daughters. The eldest is a little older than Sprout, though I didn't get to see much of her since she spent the time playing with Sprout. The younger one is just barely walking right now and seems to be quiet and intense. She's also persistent; today she was fascinated by my sleeve and kept grabbing it despite Tyee's best efforts. I may have been encouraging the little one by laughing, but it was really cute.

I forgot to take pictures, but I left the camera with

callicrates. Hopefully he remembered to get a few. Meanwhile, Heidi and Sean have not been quite as clingy as I'd expected, which is good in that there's less of a chance I'll trip over them. Still, I took a nap when I got home, and when I woke up I had a furry orange blanket and Heidi was curled up by me. I miss Andy, but this is a short conference, so I'll see him soon.

Good Deed of the Week
Since taking over my current email address at SUNY Oswego, I've been getting mail for the former owner. Nothing personal, but facebook notifications, software updates, and so on. I visited several facebook communities and sent the maintainers email to let them know the address was outdated, but got no replies (big surprise there). I tried to get in touch with facebook itself, but they make it very hard, if not impossible, to send in support requests.

Today I got mail from Verizon wireless saying that changes had been applied successfully to a certain phone number. After notifying Verizon via their website about the wrong email address, I called the number listed in the e-mail. She didn't know how to change email preferences in facebook, so I looked it up for her.

I forwarded all of the mail I've received so far to her Verizon address, and hopefully she'll be able to update such that Verizon itself will send the notifications to her new address. Hopefully also I'll stop getting her email, which will be nice when I'm waiting for something to arrive at that address -- I won't get so many false positives.

Wireless Web Cams
Does anyone have experience with wireless web cams? If so, were they good or bad? Are there any particular brands or models you recommend for or against, and why?

The Yard
Yesterday and today we had contractors come in and look at our yard. While it isn't that big, or perhaps because it isn't that big, it is being overwhelmed with the shrubbery. Our chitalpa (I was calling it a catalpa, but it is apparently a cross-bred tree between catalpa and another, possibly desert willow?) is also seriously encroaching on our driveway and in our courtyard.

Both guys really sounded like they know what they're doing. One of them is specifically a tree doc, but he'd be willing to prune the roses and such as well. The other one does residential landscaping and maintenance. My impulse is to go with the arborist for the chitalpa and the landscaper for the rest.

We got a spoken estimate from the landscapers, though they charge for written estimates (the charge is deducted from the yardwork if you end up having it done with their company). We're waiting on the estimate from the arborist. Hopefully once we have both in hand we can get things rolling so they're done within the window for spring plant care.

Hmmmm...
I Am A: Lawful Neutral Human Druid (6th Level)
( Details )

Must've Been a Hiccup
Nope, not the earthquake which just happened; I'm not in California. However, the USPS came through again and delivered the dorm room deposit check today. Of course it was sent priority and Andy mailed it on Saturday, so there was no chance they would have attempted to deliver it on Saturday.

I'm hoping that everything else can be done online from now on.

Hurry Up and Wait
The subject line refers to the sum total of what I can do now with regards to college. I can't register dorm preferences until April 13th and I can't register for classes until May 4th. My adviser won't get my folder until late April. The only variable now is when the check I'm sending out tomorrow (a Saturday, so they can't attempt to deliver it on Saturday) will arrive. The check is a room deposit, so that I can put in my dorm preference on the first day possible (first minutes possible, if I can help it).

I just need to keep reminding myself that even though I can't do anything more at the moment, that the truly important stuff is done. My credits didn't expire, I was accepted, and I heard from the head of the Gen Ed department himself that I only need one course to finish up that portion of my education. Even if the courses I need for my major and minor fill up, I'll have someone who can help me figure out some alternative. And even if I don't get the dorm I want, at least I'll be back in Oswego.

Final Major Hurdle Cleared
The check finally made it to Oswego... a day after I noticed the option to pay online and used it. I should have noticed it sooner, but I rather wish it had been mentioned somewhere. At any rate, the voided check is on its way back to us, and that's dealt with.

( The final circumstance which would have kept me from attending SUNY Oswego is no longer an issue. I will be using the Gen Ed requirements from when I attended. )

My Oswego email account was created today, and will be live within 24 hours. Hopefully at that point I can finally register for my dorm. The other day, before I discovered the auto-pay specifically for the deposit, at one point it looked like the notice for the check had not been delivered. I called the dorm folks about the deadline I was afraid I might miss. In the course of the conversation I found out that the dorm building I want to stay in has 140 rooms, only 40 or so which have been filled at this point. Here's hoping there's still room for me once my email is live and I can put in my dorm request.

Post Office Fail
Despite having marked the "Do not deliver on Saturday or holiday" box, the post office attempted delivery today. I called to see if I could schedule the redelivery myself and she apologized about the mistake, but said that USPS rules are that the recipient and only the recipient can do so. Requests for same day redelivery must be made by 2am local time, and the office is closed until 9am on Monday. I don't know if they will send someone to pick it up or if it will be delayed until Tuesday.

Unfortunately the registration cycle is started upon receipt of the deposit, and I can't do anything until they get it. In the long run one day probably will not result in the end of the world, but things like dorm room assignments are based on when the housing deposit is received, and I can't make the housing deposit until the registration process is triggered. The deadline for the housing deposit is March 27th, so I'm a little antsy about timing.

Current Mood: cranky