KJ

Working/Not Working

Fri, 25 Apr 2025 20:18:21 GMT

I'm attending my first (and possibly last, depending on how things go) education research conference, AERA in Denver, CO. I was meant to present, and although we decided it would be weird for me to represent the project in an official way, my employer had already covered my membership, conference registration, and plane tickets, so I decided it was worth covering the hotel and food costs myself to go anyway. I'm now about halfway through (arrived Wednesday evening, leaving Sunday morning) and it's pretty good so far. Besides the session I was scheduled to attend, I've kept it pretty low key, watching mostly talks involving my soon-to-be-former coworkers and taking the opportunity to connect with them. There's also an informal happy hour scheduled for this afternoon, and I'm looking forward to that. I should be doing more networking with people I don't know, but anyone who's gone to a con with me knows that I'm not very good at instigating such connections myself -- I do way better if I'm introduced to someone, or have some other reason to strike up a conversation with them. I am at least posted up in the convention center rather than retreating to my room. I may not meet anyone this way either, but at least here there's some chance.

Since I'm picking sessions based on presenter, I've learned about a variety of topics: civic learning, AI in education research, federal funding for schools identified as needing extra support, college preparation and supports for students from diverse backgrounds. Of course, the current actions of the federal government hang like a cloud over every single one: so much of this work is or has been supported by the Department of Education, and the new rules and drastic changes are felt by everyone here, even though most of the attendees are still employed. The opening session on Wednesday evening was a discussion of the state of higher education, and it was equal parts stirring and sobering. All that said, I'm glad I'm here, even if I don't end up making any significant new connections. It's nice to see people, and to feel how happy they are to see me, and to feel like I can still be part of this world if that's what I decide I want.

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Update

Wed, 26 Mar 2025 00:00:16 GMT

So, hello. It's been a long time. Years, really, since I've posted or participated in fandom or public online activity in any consistent fashion. I apologize for basically falling off the face of the earth, in terms of keeping up my online relationships and fannish connections. There are a lot of reasons for this, and I'll probably share some of them eventually, but for the moment, I'm here with news: I've been laid off from my federal contracting job of nearly 10 years.

( Details behind the cut. )

Anyway, I received notice two weeks ago; I'm on paid administrative leave through early May, and then will receive my accumulated vacation pay and (probably) somewhere between 1-2 months of severance. I am extremely fortunate that our financial situation is such that I don't need to find a new job right away (and it's a terrible time to look for work in my field anyway, with a situation this unstable), so I consider myself to be on an unplanned sabbatical. For now, my biggest task (besides resting and recharging) is figuring out how to spend my time in the short run. I find the structure of paid employment really helpful; without that, my days could evaporate into a haze of sitting around the house. Options that come to mind include travel (some of which is already tentatively planned, like BMC reunion and WorldCon), writing, reading (I've barely read any books the last few years), professional development, and activism. One complicating factor is that T is also not working (he got laid off in 2018 and ultimately decided to retire), so he's almost always around, and I have to factor him into my daily schedule in a way I haven't when I've been between jobs in the past.

Obviously I am very behind on my reading here, but one way I hope to structure my time is to get back into the habit of reading, commenting, and posting. In this time of chaos and uncertainty, one important thing we can do is build and maintain our connections, and coming back to my DW community is one way for me to start that process. So if you are also feeling lost or blindsided, or just want to chat, feel free to reach out. I will do my best to be here.

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Is This Thing On?: Five Things Make an Extremely Belated Post

Fri, 12 May 2023 17:21:17 GMT

Well, hello. There's no way I'm going to catch up on over six months of life in one DW post, so I'm not even going to try. But the highlights:

( Work stuff )
2022 was a bit of a year for me on the health front. ( Health and medical stuff. )
So yeah, I turned 50 in March. Time comes for us all. I didn't get my act together for as much of a celebration as I might have liked, but my friends R & S hosted a birthday brunch for me along with enf, whose birthday is the day after mine. Then T and I hopped up to Napa for the day where we had a fancy lunch and bought many tasty treats, and it was a gorgeous day, a welcome respite from the five million storms we had this winter (maybe you've heard about those; fortunately we live in a neighborhood that isn't at risk of floods or mudslides, but there were a lot of messes around us and I sure got tired of rain).
We continue to live in pandemic mode, even though much of the world has moved on. I do still wear a mask in most indoor settings and avoid indoor restaurant dining as much as possible (T won't do it at all). Maybe it's not necessary, but the fact is that, between cautious behavior and good fortune, I still haven't gotten COVID (as far as I know), and I would prefer to keep it that way. And it's not a big deal for me to wear a mask on transit, or in the grocery store, or at the theater, etc., even if most other people aren't. T's unwillingness to dine indoors, even in the worst weather, is starting to become a concern, but now that spring is upon us it will hopefully be less of an issue for awhile. The bigger deal is that I've finally coaxed him back onto an airplane, and we're going to take our first two real vacations since September 2019: Hawaii at the end of the month, and Maine for a friend's wedding in July. I am super excited for both of these trips and can't believe that Hawaii is only about two weeks away! Unfortunately, though, the trip conflicts with WisCon, so I won't be attending in person. It was a tough decision but ultimately it made the most sense for me. I do plan to attend at least some events virtually.
CW for pet loss and cancer. ( About Tori )

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RTO

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 06:43:17 GMT

As planned, I went "back" to the office last week, on Tuesday, so it's now been just over a week of commuting and working in a space that's not my home. "Back" goes in quotes because it's actually not the office where I worked before (same employer, new office), so it feels less like a return and more like starting something entirely new. My previous office was in suburban San Mateo (a suburb about 15 miles south of here); the new space is in downtown Oakland, right on top of a BART station and very near the city government offices. It's an easy transit ride and in the middle of an urban core, which suits me far more the previous set-up. The downside is that almost no one else is there -- right now there are only two other people coming in on a regular basis, so I wonder if we're going to lose this office, too. I hope not, because I do not and have never preferred working from home. But we'll see what happens. I'm less there for the community and more there for the change of scenery, and so far I feel like it's working in terms of letting me leave my work at the office a little more. Whether that translates into feeling more comfortable doing creative work in my home office remains to be seen. Not yet, but it's still early.

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Five things make a post, March 2022 edition

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 01:24:17 GMT

I remembered to get some Hugo nominations in yesterday before the deadline, yay! I definitely forgot last year, and I think I might have missed it the year before, too, so I feel relatively proud of myself (even if I left a whole lot of categories blank).
Speaking of SFF convention-adjacent topics, I also booked a plane ticket to Wiscon. This is perhaps overly optimistic, but I decided it was worth it. (The flight isn't refundable, but I can change it without penalty.) I entirely understand if folks are unable or unwilling to attend in person, but maybe I will see some of you there? Very curious as to how the hybrid model they're running will work out.
In other news of things happening in person, I have jury duty at the end of the month. Originally they wanted me in January, but that was a big fat no. So I pushed it forward two months, on the theory that the Omicron wave would have passed and whatever might come next wouldn't be here yet. So far, so good.
More optimistically, I also let my workplace know that I'll be going back in person starting April 11th. After several attempts to pick a reopening date, my employer finally threw up its hands and said "Come back if you want, but if you want to stay remote some or all of the time, that's fine too, just let us know." So I want to give it a try. It's good to know that I can always bail back to being remote, either temporarily or for good, if it becomes necessary. I'll have an enclosed office, and my employer still requires vaccination (we're a government contractor) and masks in common areas, all of which makes me feel better.
We're what feels like about halfway through Horizon Forbidden West. My intentions to gameblog it have utterly failed, in part because I'd rather play the game than write about it, and in part because it's so hard to know what to flag in terms of spoilers in an open world game. I will say more though. We are both enjoying it, more or less. It's not quite the revelation HZD was, but that's a high bar. I do enjoy many of the new characters.

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Renovations

Mon, 04 Oct 2021 04:25:54 GMT

We spent much of this weekend moving furniture around, and so I'm now writing from you from my temporary office, which is also our temporary bedroom as well as the permanent living room. The bed was the last thing to move; by the time it was in place, it had gotten dark enough that I wasn't able to take a good picture, so I'll document the whole thing tomorrow. It'll be interesting to see how this works out. My workplace is now only a few steps from T's side of the bed, and he often sleeps much later than when I start working -- not to mention that the kitchen is just on the other side of the room. It's challenging enough to work from home in an open-plan condo when you have some space separation. We'll see how it goes. I might ask about temporarily going into the office while this construction project is going on (we're replacing the upstairs carpet with a lovely oak engineered hardwood) -- I already went in one day last week, on the day the flooring materials were delivered, and it worked out pretty well.

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Adjusted again

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 15:33:04 GMT

My employer announced yesterday that our return to office plans have been delayed indefinitely, from "sometime after Labor Day" to "we'll have another announcement in late October." This is fine, except I'd been sort of counting on being able to go into the office in September, when T is planning to redo our upstairs floor (replacing carpet with hardwood). This is a project we were supposed to do last summer and have been talking about for years, so I am reluctant to put it off any further (the carpet is ugly, falling apart, and possibly the source of our long-running moth infestation), but working from home with a construction site overhead is not my idea of a good time. So we'll see what happens.

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Do I have five things? Let's see.

Fri, 07 May 2021 02:30:52 GMT

I finished Fugitive Telemetry, the new Murderbot novella, and immediately felt the need to read Network Effect again. Not that I didn't enjoy the new one -- I definitely did -- but it felt more like backstory than a prequel, and it made me want to revisit all that tasty, tasty character development.
I've been in 2.5 hour meetings every morning for a project management training at work. It's a year-long program that traditionally kicks off with an in-person event at our main office in DC; I was originally nominated for it last year, but it took them until now to figure out how to transition it to a virtual event. It's working pretty well, although it's a long time to be on Zoom, especially multiple days in a row. It's been interesting, and I can see how it will be applicable not just to my dayjob work but to some of my fandom projects as well. But today was the first of two days on finance and budgeting and I can already feel myself start to glaze over. After this week, I'll be assigned a mentor and there will be various follow-up sessions throughout the year. I do hope we're able to do an in-person event at some point -- it's always nice to meet my distant co-workers face to face.
Speaking of distant co-workers, it's now been over a month that I'm not assigned to an office and am officially "remote". It's weird. I don't like it. I hope we find out who gets to be assigned to the Oakland office soon.
In other media news, we finally started The Mandalorian. We're enjoying it, but T is unmoved by The Child and its cuteness. I am flabbergasted by this.
One week and two days to Palm Springs! I can't wait.

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Updates

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 01:32:47 GMT

( Vaccine news )

( Dayjob news )

( WorldCon news )

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Change

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 02:12:36 GMT

So a work thing that I hadn't mentioned here is that my office needs to move. The landlords decided they wanted to convert the land to residential, so they're kicking us out in June 2021. We found out about this upcoming change a little over a year ago now. There was much discussion about where the new office would be, but nothing concrete happened for a long time.

Then, in April, my organization bought another company, also with offices all over the country, one of them in Oakland.

You may see where this is going, but in fact people were quite blindsided when it was announced today that the organization won't be replacing our existing office space. So we have a choice: go remote, or work in the Oakland office.

As far as my personal working life is concerned, the choice is an easy one. The other office is downtown, extremely close to public transit, and a reverse commute for me. Our current space is in a suburban office park, I have to drive, and it's not walking distance to anything. But this is going to be a much harder choice for some of my coworkers, and no matter what, it's going to change who I work with and how.

The weirdest thing of all is that we're still working from home, and it was recently announced that they don't expect us to go back into offices at all until at least next July. So regardless of what people decide, we'll never be the same community working in the same office again. And that makes me sad. Stupid pandemic.

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Remote

Tue, 04 Aug 2020 15:34:42 GMT

Last week, my employer announced that we will not be returning to our offices in 2020. And the implication was not that we'll be back at the beginning of the year -- to the contrary, the lease on one of our offices is expiring in January 2021, and the email said the organization will work with any employees who still have offices there to help them get their stuff back. (The lease ending isn't a surprise; staff have been moving out of that building for at least a year now.)

It seemed inevitable, in a way; once Google [announced that employees would be working remotely until next July](), with Apple soon to follow, I have to imagine the dominoes will fall for the rest of the text companies and any other business where work can be conducted, wholly or in part, from anywhere with an internet connection. Still, I wasn't ready to hear that I'll be working from my house for at least another six months, and I need to really figure out how to create a better work space for myself. What I have isn't terrible, but there's much room for improvement. I've already put in a request for a second monitor, with a webcam -- I've been using the webcam on my laptop, as well as treating the laptop screen as my "second monitor", and it puts my neck and back into an awkward position for hours at a time. Even worse is my desk, which I truly hate. It's rickety, it's somehow both too small and too large, and I don't have a decent flat surface for writing. Also, the built-in keyboard tray is much too high. I've long wanted to replace it, and this will be my impetus to do so -- I just need to figure out with what, and also how to choose a desk without being able to sit it and see how it feels. Unfortunately, unlike with the monitor and any other tech equipment, for the desk I'm on my own. Time to poke around the Ikea website and other online furniture options and see what I can find.

Any recommendations?

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Five things make a post

Sun, 26 Apr 2020 00:18:33 GMT

T's favorite boba tea place was completely closed until recently, so he bought some tea leaves so we could experiment with making our own. They released a cookbook recently, and today we finally had the ingredients together to attempt a raspberry-pineapple tea fresca, which is maybe my favorite of their drinks (and a seasonal offering which they haven't offered in over a year). It's a little early for fresh raspberries, so we had to add a little extra sugar syrup, but for a first try with the wrong brand of tea, we came pretty close! It's nice to make treats for ourselves when it's harder to go pick something up.
Today brings probably the most gorgeous weather since this whole thing started, so we took a walk down to the farmer's market at the Ferry Building. Making that trek on a day with nice weather was probably not the best plan from a shopping point of view -- I think that's the most people I've seen in one place since FogCon. But it still felt more comfortable to me than the last time we went to Safeway: being in open air, plenty of space to pass people at a distance, lines well labeled with six-foot gaps. We didn't buy anything, so it ended up being more of an exercise trip than a shopping trip (although we did stop by a fancy market on the walk home to get the raspberries and a couple of other things we couldn't buy at Whole Foods on Friday), but it was good to be out for sun and fresh air.
After finishing Horizon Zero Dawn, I moved on to Persona 5: Royal, which T and I will be playing together. We're only a few days in, and if I recall we're mostly or entirely on rails for awhile, but it was lovely just to step back into that world again. The new content is being introduced slowly so far, just a couple of scenes at this point, but I look forward to both that and to re-meeting all my old friends again.
Working at home continues to be about the same. I'm very glad I'm only expected to put in an average of six hours a day rather than eight. (That's my normal work schedule, not anything special because of the COVID-19 situation. My five-year anniversary with this organization was last week, which blows my mind a little. Remember when this was a short-term gig that was supposed to be over in three months? Actually, you might not, because I talk so little about my dayjob here, but I assure you that was the situation when I started. Now I'm a regular employee, getting raises and higher levels of responsibility, and I was even nominated for a promotion (which I didn't get, but I'm well positioned for the next cycle, so fingers crossed). I've never thought I would prefer working at home, and I can now say with absolute certainty that I'd rather be in an office, but I'm glad it continues to be an option.
I did a Zoom call with some family yesterday -- my parents, my dad's two sisters, and my 14-year-old nephew, who I haven't seen in person since he was... 10? No, nine, five years ago, when my brother (his dad) graduated from college. I've had very little contact with him over the years, so it was really pleasant to have a bit of actual conversation with him. We're hoping he can come to California for my parents' 50th wedding anniversary, which is in June 2021. Let's hope that family gatherings, at least, can be happening by then. I've heard multiple people say that lock-down has put them in better touch with their family than ever before, now that we've moved to a norm of online video chat, so maybe that can be true of us, too.

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A thing I have learned about working from home

Tue, 31 Mar 2020 01:38:46 GMT

I can stay pretty focused up through my lunch break, regardless of when I decide to take it.

It gets much, much harder after I come back, no matter what time it is or how long the break lasted.

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Well, so much for posting more

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 06:11:00 GMT

It turns out that when the desk where I do my writing is also the desk where I do my dayjob six hours every weekday, it's much harder to convince myself that writing, even something fun like a DW post or some meta, is something I want to do. At the very least, I want to take a substantial break in between, and at least for the moment what I end up doing in that break is playing Horizon Zero Dawn.

I've been meaning to play HZD for awhile now, thanks to strong recs from many friends and also T, who played it twice when it first came out. Turns out that it's a perfect shelter-in-place activity. I won't say much in detail for now, just that the gameplay is pretty fun, the story is engaging, and Aloy -- played by the wonderful Ashly Burch -- is an excellent character whom I love. I look forward to uncovering the remaining mysteries of the apocalypse.

As for everything else, I'm getting by. T and I remain healthy so far as we know. All the data suggest that shelter-in-place is working in California; although it's too early to make any sweeping statements, the hope that there's a point to this exercise makes me feel better about doing it. Working at home is going well enough, although it's confirmed my sense that I'd really rather be in the office, despite the convenience of no commute and easy access to my kitty. Tori has attended several meetings now, including one where I was teaching some of my colleagues how to do a mail merge, and I decided that they didn't need to look at me while I was juggling MS Office programs. So I titled my camera toward the perch by my desk where she hangs out, and she got to be the star of the show. My socialization so far has mostly been with work colleagues, but my regular Sunday TV nights have resumed, with our second one next week. My first D&D session is tomorrow, too! We've made like four trips to some grocery store or another in the last week, which I know is too much. I guess it take time to figure out how much food is enough when you eat literally every meal at home.

I hope you are all staying safe and as well as can be expected. Virtual hugs to everyone who would like them!

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Here we go

Fri, 13 Mar 2020 19:59:45 GMT

It was pretty obvious that this was going to happen, but my dayjob officially called it today: all staff will be required to work from home indefinitely, effective Monday morning.

With a bunch of help from T, I spent the last half hour or so getting myself set up at my desk, so I can switch between my work laptop and personal laptop with little trouble. I'm not really a fan of working from home, but of course I see the necessity. So I'll do my best, just like the rest of us.

This whole thing started with the cancellation of all office social events, including a game night on Tuesday. So a group of us played pictionary online at https://www.drawasaurus.org, and it was an excellent way to blow off some steam. We decided to keep it going, and now we have online gaming hours scheduled for three days next week -- more pictionary, Codeword, and charades, which ought to be entertaining via webcam. Whatever we can do to keep building community in isolation is certainly a good thing.

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Quiet

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 04:31:04 GMT

It's been awhile since I worked the day before Thanksgiving, and I'd forgotten how empty the place can get around the holidays. If there were even ten people in the office, I'd be surprised. I half expected to see some tumbleweed roll by my cube.

But I had a few things to do, so I did them. I bailed around 1pm, grabbed some lunch, then came home to meet T at our preferred boba tea place. I might do a little more work from home, but more likely I will kick back with my milk tea, do some writing, relax before I have to start my cooking for the night.

Edit: oops, forgot to hit post. The cooking began sooner than expected (see today's #livebaking thread for more details), so that and eating leftover spaghetti and meatballs for dinner is all I've done tonight. But that's fine, as long as I get the writing in eventually.

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Working for a living

Sat, 16 Nov 2019 08:46:41 GMT

I think I've mentioned a couple of times here that I've been working at the same non-profit research organization for a few years now, in a job status that is typically intended to be short term -- for new hires on probation, or going on or off parental leave, or on their way out the door (like to retire or go back to school) but they don't want to give all their projects up just yet, or hired to work specifically on a short term project. I was in that last category when I started, working on two specific projects for three or four months, but people kept finding more work for me to do, and I started looking for more work on my own, and before I knew it I'd been with the organization for over four years with no plans to leave in sight.

And although I've quite enjoyed the flexibility of being an hourly employee who can take time off at a moment's notice, I'm also not eligible for benefits, and we've gotten to the place where we will save a whole lot of money if we can be on my employer's health insurance. So I've requested a change in status, and today it was approved. As of December 1st, I'll be a salaried employee working at 50% time, and I hope eventually to move up to 75%.

It's a good organization, and good work, even if not quite what I imagined doing with my life ten or even five years ago. I get to do research, and hang out with great people, and the organization treats us fairly well as these things go. I'll miss my flexible schedule, but I'm looking forward to paid holidays and being eligible for professional development and raises (I actually got a small one immediately with the status change; most of it will be eaten up by the insurance costs, but our overall finances will still come out ahead overall). So overall I'm good with it, although it'll be an adjustment. As always, we'll see how it goes.

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Poof!

Fri, 16 Aug 2019 00:54:04 GMT

I disappeared, but I have returned. We went to LA for about a week. The main event was the scattering of my in-laws ashes, so it was a sort-of mix of family obligations and relaxing vacation. On the way back, we stopped overnight in the Monterey area, then spent a day there doing 17-Mile-Drive and going to Point Lobos Nature Reserve. I've been both places, but not for a very, very, very long time, and T had never been to either. The scenery was gorgeous, and we saw many birds and seals, as well as a few otters bobbing around in the kelp (sadly too far away to get a good look or any pictures, but just knowing that I am in the presence of otters makes me happy). T got some seal pics, which I will share once they're ready. I put a few bird pics on Twitter.

Now I am home, probably until the end of September although I'm hoping to get together a houseboating trip sometime before then. Work is ramping up again, though -- my main project was ending, so I lined up some new ones, and then they all got going at once. Isn't that always the way? I even had to turn a couple of interesting things down.

But anyway, I'm glad I got at least one bit of a summer vacation, even if it wasn't entirely a vacation.

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Endings and Not-endings

Sat, 22 Dec 2018 01:50:18 GMT

A week ago, the for-profit art college where I used to work closed down. It was announced awhile ago, to give the school time to teach out the last few cohorts, but I'd forgotten that the closure was imminent until former co-workers started posting their farewell messages last week. The for-profit education sector is in big trouble right now, and properly so, and I'm not sorry to be long gone from that place (those of you who've been around for awhile probably remember how ready I was to be laid off -- can you believe that was over six years ago now? I've not-worked there almost longer than I ever worked there at this point), but it's still sad, for everyone who ever went there and all of us who were a part of that community.

In much happier news, T and I have now been together 20 years, as of Tuesday. (We count our dating anniversary from our second date, which was to his office holiday party at a science museum.) Although we didn't get married until 2004, I still find this anniversary significant, because we've been together continuously, solidly, ever since. Through all the ups and downs, I have never regretted choosing him, and that he chose me, and that we keep choosing each other every day. Here's to 20 more, I hope.

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Five things, take two

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 07:30:11 GMT

1. After a few days off, the rain is back today. Perhaps this means winter is finally upon us? We can only hope.

2. The downside of rain: potholes. There's a section of Highway 101 that basically disintegrates every time we get heavy rain (between Mid-Stick and SFO, for those of you who might be familiar with the area), but this is a level up. That stretch of road is on my commute to work; there is, in fact, an excellent chance that I drove over this stretch of pavement earlier today. Today in reasons I'm glad we didn't repeal the gas tax....

3. Normally work would be winding down for the holidays about now, but thanks to my main project and a few other things, I'm as busy as I've ever been. And next week I'm out of town for a meeting in Long Beach.

4. Still, today I let my project team know that I'm planning to be out the entire week between Christmas and New Year. It's fairly ridiculous that any office expects people to work during that time. When I worked for a dotcom, we got that whole week off without pay. Much more civilized.

5. On Sunday, I went to a craft fair and got a couple of necklaces, some soap, a couple of gifts, and this adorable owl laptop sticker. I can already tell it will make me smile for much time to come.

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Ooof

Thu, 08 Nov 2018 06:19:32 GMT

I said yes to too many projects at work, and then had to take today off for a doctor's appointment, and while I was hoping not to work tomorrow either, I'm starting to feel the weight of a lot to do and not much time to do it.

I haven't said too much about my work situation here in the last few years, have I? To the point that I would excuse pretty much anyone who follows me from knowing anything about it at all. I work for a social and behavioral science research organization, as a research associate. I got the job because a friend knew that I was wrapping up a short-term gig, so she brought me on to help with a couple of research projects over the spring and summer, probably about three months worth of work.

That was in April 2015.

The arrangement has never become more formalized -- I'm still an hourly employee who works only when there is work for me to do, averaging about half-time -- often less, occasionally a lot more. But the longer I stay, the easier it is to find projects, and the more likely the projects are to be interesting. So it's become pretty stable, and yet I can't shake the feeling that I might just walk away from it any day. Basically, it feels like a weird blend of temporary and permanent, which makes it difficult to talk about. So I've kind of set it aside as a topic for online conversation. Which is itself weird, because venting or chatting about work was something I used to do a lot here.

Anyway, my time was already close to booked up, when I was suddenly approached with two very different projects that I couldn't really turn down, because they both sounded really interesting. So I said yes, and then suddenly my other three projects all heated up, and now I am busy busy busy. At a time of year where I would really rather be winding down. But I guess that's the price I pay for having a flexible schedule. Sometimes, that comes due with a busy month, or more realistically a busy six weeks, and I'm right in the thick of them. Hopefully my creative plans don't suffer too much.

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Travels and stuff

Mon, 26 Mar 2018 22:50:56 GMT

I'm in Orange County for all-day work meetings (with no free time, unfortunately). It's a project at my workplace that has three meetings a year, throughout California, and I attend to help take notes. Fortunately the meetings are interesting, even if the venues are not (the other two I attended were in San Bernardino and Placerville, which if you are not familiar I can promise you are not exactly hotspots).

I got my prompts for Children of the Stone (the DA dwarf fanwork exchange) and I want to write all of them. All. Of. Them. I am so excited to see everything that comes out of this project.

Not much else to report at the moment. I hope you are all enjoying/have enjoyed your Monday!

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Interior decorating

Fri, 01 Apr 2016 00:48:23 GMT

I finally got around to taking my collection of work decorations into the office, and yesterday I put most of them up in my cube. I guess that means this is my job now.

I've talked about this position a little bit under lock, but not generally and not in any detail. About a year ago, I was working on contract for a tech company, but the work was wrapping up (actually, it wrapped up about a month before the contract officially ended). When I mentioned this to my friend D, she asked if I would be interested in taking on some part-time work for her organization, a social science research non-profit. It took a few weeks of back and forth and wrangling with the main office, but I came on at about half time to work on two projects. Those projects ended, and then other ones came along, and it's been going on like that ever since. I recently signed on with a project that includes hours at least through the end of the year, and I took that as a sign that I should start thinking more-long term.

At the moment I'm an hourly employee, working on projects as they come up. My title is Research Associate, which in this organization can also mean secretary, but so far I've managed to focus mostly on projects that use my librarian talents: literature reviews, constructing search terms, reviewing documents for relevance and categorizing them, even a bit of writing. I've talked with HR and my manager from time to time about formalizing my position, but I suspect that would mean taking on more of the grunt-level administrative tasks. Also, I like the flexibility of being able to work more when there's more work to do, and less if things or slow and/or there are other things going on in my life (travel, vet appointments, etc.). Going permanent also probably mean giving up on finding librarian work, at least for now. I haven't actually applied for a librarian position in awhile, so I suppose that's just a formality, but I want to preserve the option.

So, that's the status. Even if not my dream job, it's interesting work, and I'm hoping I get the opportunity to learn more about the social sciences and non-profit land. In particular, I'd like to get some experience with grant writing, since that's one of the easiest ways to make money as a freelance writer, and I continue to think about moving more in that direction. It's pretty good, and if it ever stops being so, it will be easy enough to move on. I've also continued doing personal assistant work for another friend (I recently finished cataloging his library!), generally one day a week. So it all chugs along. Maybe someday I'll want to kick the career back up a notch, but for now I'm fine for that to take a back seat to other things in my life.

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That was the day that was

Sat, 21 Nov 2015 08:35:21 GMT

I'd hoped to finish my epic comparative religion post today (the Chantry vs Yevon), but it's turning out even more epic than I planned, so you get a random life update instead.

Biggest news is that I got new contacts to try out, with a change in prescription for the first time in probably a decade. My left eye has gotten worse by almost a whole diopter (was 7.0, now 7.75), but my eye doctor was concerned that too strong a prescription would mess up my close-up vision, so the new lens is a 7.5. Even that is making a huge difference, I think. The next test will be working a full day at a computer screen, see how it does with eye strain, but at this point I think it's pretty likely that I'll make the switch, and maybe even update my glasses.

Worked my casual job today, just a couple of hours in the afternoon. My current project is cataloging his book collection, which is immensely satisfying. Then it was concert time, which went pretty well. One more show on Sunday and then I'm free for awhile, which will be nice.

Right now I'm watching Larry Wilmore on Stephen Colbert, which is both entertaining and jarring. I was always more of a Daily Show fan than Colbert Report, but I really, really like what Wilmore is doing with The Nightly Show, especially now that they've figured out that a smaller panel with a shorter segment works better. He's got a strong voice, and he does a good job of bringing diverse points of view together and giving people room to make their points without letting anything get out of hand.

What I haven't gotten to watch yet is Jessica Jones. T is also interested, which is good for togetherness but bad because it means I won't be able to marathon it (he's not a fan of binge watching). Hopefully I'll keep from getting spoiled too badly.

Guess that's about it for tonight. I hope to get back on track with real posting tomorrow.

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Under the wire

Fri, 13 Nov 2015 08:17:24 GMT

The long meta post I was going to put up today (about Dragon Age dwarves) didn't get completed to anywhere near my satisfaction -- I didn't even think about dwarf Inquisitors yet -- so I'm now holding that until tomorrow. (BTW, there's still plenty of room to request post topics!) So you get a quick post-for-the-sake of posting instead.

Today was good -- normally I work my part-time job Tuesday through Thursday, but this week I had a meeting on Monday. So I was off today instead, and will also be off tomorrow, and my only obligations were a lovely dinner with friends and a brief meeting with a freelance writing client. (Did I mention I have an occasional freelance writing gig? I have a graphic designer friend who sometimes asks me to write copy. I really enjoy it, actually, and have contemplated finding more work along these lines, but that's probably another blog post.) It was really nice to have a whole morning and most of an afternoon to relax, and the same will be true of tomorrow. Although it would be nice to have more money coming in, there real benefits to having flexible jobs, and not worrying about filling out a full 40-hour work week.

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