So there’s the choice in life:
One either grows, or one decays;
Grow or die—I think we should grow.
We either muster
the courage to go
Or we risk the possibility of stagnation and decay.
—Robert Zubrin
August Projects
Lately I’ve been editing more, considering the accessibility of my writing, trying to simplify. This is why I haven’t posted updates about new content every day, as I did before. I may switch to just documenting my updates weekly; that’ll be much more manageable, and give me space to consistently reflect on successes and failures (which are just funny-looking successes).
Writing
I haven’t focused solely on editing—what a drab life that would be, never creating—but my new writing is in safer, smaller projects:
I’m also entering a short story contest on Wattpad. So that’s taking up the space in my head—my creative thinking time. I’d like to return to Our Cat Overlords, NecroBlogger, Quest for Chicken, and Wyvia soon.
Editing
Whereas my larger projects—novels and big blogs—have been relegated to organization, proofing, and restructuring:
I never thought I’d list a fanfiction piece, like Rydia’s Last Cure, as a larger project; it brings me joy to think of it that way. And it brings me joy because I didn’t think I knew how to prioritize “I’m creating this for fun” anymore. I thought depression stole that away.
I’m considering another month-long blogging challenge for Cleo’s Autism Awareness in November, but I haven’t for-sure decided that’ll be my NaBloPoMo target yet.
Researching
I love watching YouTube. I feel like YouTube is the quickest way to travel through time—to the great minds of the past; to the TED Talks highlighting the future.
I was watching a video today by Richard Feynman called “Why Two Magnets Repel Each Other?” and it really was more about (a) how to answer “why” questions, and (b) how background knowledge affects how far a “why” chain of questions can go; and I suppose that’s why I like learning new things from everywhere—to expand my “why” capabilities.
Preparing to Teach
Tomorrow I have an orientation at a new campus in the same district, Clovis Community College. I’ll be teaching one class in Clovis, the other in Fresno. I’ll also play-test two textbooks, The Little Seagull Handbook (at Fresno) and Squeeze the Sponge (at Clovis), so I can compare-contrast a traditional, accepted textbook vs. a new, humor-based textbook for English Composition. I’m also teaching one of my favorite novels, Lathe of Heaven.
7 Songs from Graduate School
“What music do you listen to?”
I’m always nondescript with this question. It makes me horribly nervous.
But I need to find good music for my wedding, so I thought it’s time to open Pandora’s Box. I’m making positive energy songs over at Wivia; meanwhile, I’m letting the negative energy songs have equal attention, but over here at my root blog.
These are 7 songs I listened to at least weekly during graduate school (i.e., the favs):
Joyful & Veerful
I veered off track from the prewriting and update buttons I made with WordSwag on Monday because I needed to chase down some big ideas that crept up on me:
- Rewriting an Idea, where I plan how to focus on Emergence No. 7 by finishing a first draft; then rewriting for accessibility;
- Zeros & Ones, the fourteenth chapter of Emergence No. 7;
- 55 Recent Overstimulations, where I categorize stimuli based on sensory input to track sensitivity;
- Seven Building Blocks for American Catseye.
Also updated Paper.li, which in its free account state, doesn’t allow viewing of back issues; but if I turn it into a professional account, it will allow the storage of past papers.
Fishy marriage stuff happened a lot today: