Hello MB! Oxlin here. I was watching some Nerdfighter videos on the internet, which made me think how it is really cool that the Green brothers have all these projects, tangible things they have created. I would like to make some projects, but sometimes I have a hard time keeping track of them, or having ideas of what to create. I thought it would make sense to have a thread for that. Feel free to use this for collaboration, posting ideas of what to make, track your progress in a large project, etc.
Patience, Please
This site is under reconstruction and will look strange for a while. We regret the inconvenience.
Projects I’m considering starting:
A blog about cool math ideas
Creating a necklace
Actually creating the place of discussion/learning I talked about on what is next.
Actually creating some of my museum-related ideas? (possibly to be accomplished in grad school.
Sideblogs on External Blogging Site I am thinking of creating even though I do not have time to update my personal one more than once a week:
“Records Broken”, a collection of photos and scans of entries from past Guinness World Records books that feature information that has changed since. “The extremes of our changing world, the changes in our extreme world” would be an awesome tagline.
A blog focused on debunking the fake posts that seem to be so very popular on External Blogging Site, possibly geared towards paranormal ones and done somewhat in-character as a monster hunter character with a quasi-RP element. (“I’ll admit the photos looked promising. While I’ve never known Yetis to range that far, it wasn’t impossible. But in this business it pays to do your research before packing your bags. And a quick Internet search brought me to the opinion that a plane flight to the Urals was a waste of good money. Would have been hard enough getting the crossbow through customs anyway… [segue into standard post explaining how a quick Google would have brought up proof it was fake]”)
The tone of the debunking blog sounds a lot like the tone of emails my college’s ITS department sends out about phishing and email scams. They’re pretty funny and it definitely makes me read them more.
Oh, that sounds fun. What kind of things do they say?
Quick examples I found in my email: “Another example of phishing sent to me this week. We’ve received so many this week I have to attribute it to the bad weather back east. Perhaps I should start trending them to see if weather affects the number of phishing or spam messages. Who’s good at statistics?”
“Okay, you know the routine. Below is the email. This is like one of those puzzles in the Highlight Magazine in the dentist offices where you have to circle what doesn’t belong in a picture.”
“Is it the Social Security Administration? Or is it Phineas Phishbody, an evil lurker waiting to wrest your hard won credit score from you?”
Each is followed by a phishing email forwarded to her by a student, along with how you could tell it’s a fake.
They’re just so snarky!
That is awesome. I love it.
I started the blog about a week ago and I’ve already learned so much from doing the research into each of the posts.
I think my favorite lines that I’ve written as Ripley so far have been:
(About a “19th century vampire-hunting kit” sold at auction that the auction house admitted was assembled in the late 20th century from Victorian-era artifacts)
“Speaking as one with experience in this field, when one is preparing to face vampires, the age of one’s equipment is nowhere near as important as it being WELL-CONSTRUCTED (including proper blessings on holy items) and WELL-MAINTAINED.While I understand the appeal a “vintage†kit may have to hunters who consider themselves connoisseurs, such a thing is in no way necessary to successful vampire-slaying and, going for auction at such high prices— this kit was sold for 6,000 British Pounds or 8,000 US Dollars— they are often out of the price range of many hunters.
But you know it is with hipsters… *sigh*”
(About a golden poison dart frog)
“That is the cutest thing I have ever seen that could kill me and everyone else in the room.”
(Her introduction, explaining how one should always check to see if shocking news on the Internet is really true)
“I can’t tell you HOW many times I’ve dashed off to some suburban locale with a top-of-the-line Spengler-Venkman-Stanz containment unit and only discovered after hours of tearing the place apart that it’s completely devoid of psychokinetic energy and the only ghosts the building ever had were the result of Photoshop! Flying to Kathmandu only to discover the Yeti video that set off your chase was just a promotion for the latest found footage opus— Oh, the sheer embarrassment!”
My vet school IT is getting progressively more snarky about the phishing emails (that have apparently surged in number, although I’ve only gotten 2 (although this is the first time I’ve gotten any, in 7 years of going here)) that are being received by us. Although not near as snarky as your examples.
((They have, historically, however, gotten that snarky about the recurring campus wifi issues, Blackboard (the website) issues, and connectivity issues with the veterinary computer database we use for all of our electronic records at school))
How does “The Casefiles of Ripley Hix” sound as a blog title? A combination of the surnames of the two most famous early-20th-century “oddity” cartoonists.
I have a sudden, inexplicable urge to take up knitting. I think that when I go home for spring break, I’ll go to the store and buy some yarn, and then when I come back to school I’ll bring the yarn and knitting needles I already have at home back to school. And then I can knit while watching Netflix.
Knitflix. It will be glorious.
I want to do something to make money selling my art. Possibly a little online shop with pins/keychains/prints/whatever. Simply doing art commissions might be more profitable, but also more stressful.
I want to release a small EP of electronic drabbles to help me learn my way around FL Studio. Right now, my primary issue is that I’m not very good at planning out songs. Fingers crossed!
I just finished a track!
Way to go! #progress
I WISH TO RULE THE ISLAND OF TRASH FLOATING IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN
actual goals I have, non-work-related edition:
-write a website for my friend playing video games
-finish writing NaNoWriMo 2014, maybe edit this time around?
-??????? to be determined
There’s a comic book about that very premise, I believe. It’s called Great Pacific.
*SLAMS FIST ON TABLE*
I GREATLY WISH TO JOIN YOU IN THIS ENDEAVOR
Yes, Thor.
Projects on the horizon:
-Over spring break I want to familiarize myself with my mom’s DSLR and take some cool pictures in the process
-During April want to do Script Frenzy and 30 Days of Biking. I just googled Script Fenzy and apparently it’s no longer an official thing but do I care? No. I will write my script. 30 Days of Biking is exactly what it sounds like and still an official thing.
I did familiarize myself with my mom’s DSLR over spring break but I was too busy soaking up the glory of California to get too putsy with it.
Script frenzy didn’t happen (surprise) and 30 days of biking is at about a 70% success rate? I realized that I much prefer walking over biking for short distances but I have biked to some places I ordinarily would’ve taken the bus/light rail to which has been cool.
Project: find a story to serve as a theme for the March random thread, which starts on Sunday.
Alice in Wonderland? Though I’m sure you’ve considered it already.
Moomins! Chrestomanci! The Mabinogion. The Ramayana.
Julius Caesar. Beware the Ides of March!
I second the Ramayana or Mabinogion!
Hm, Choklit Orange may have something to say about the Ramayana.
If you end up not having time, I’ve drafted a post that can be used for any month, about my favorite children’s book (which no one else seems to ever have heard about–but knowing Musers, I’ll bet a bunch of people here have read it). I’m fine with this one waiting until after March though if you have other ideas~
Attack Of The Smart Pies. Obviously. (I still have it…somewhere….)
Project: finally be able to do push-ups again. Throw a little celebration for myself for every multiple of 5 I can do in a row. (so at 5, 10, 15, etc.)
Also, very connected project: exercise at least twice a week. My body is telling me that it would rather move more.
One of my projects is training for a 10K. Ish – I actually want to run a 12K on the first Sunday of May, which is the length and day of my city’s giant annual road race (40,000+ runners). I’ve never actually run in all the years I lived there, weirdly enough. I won’t physically be home, so I’ll just plan out a 12K course somewhere here and be there in spirit. Anyways, I’m doing a 10K training program because those exist, and I’ll just add some extra distance at the very end.
As for other projects, I’ve actually been trying to figure out what would make a good project. I really want to dive into some non-mandatory (i.e. not school) project type thing – something exciting, different, interesting. I’m not sure what fits in there, though.
One idea I had was learning how to identify plants, since whenever I walk around campus, I’m amazed by how many cool and different plants there are. I’ve even thought about making a [social network site] page telling people about the plants that are on this campus. First I have to figure out what’s here, though, which is surprisingly difficult because plant guides tend to be regional, while the plants on this campus come from literally all over the world. I’m still working on that…
DID SOMEONE SAY PLANT IDENTIFICATION
yeah yeah yeah!! it is so fun to be able to point to plants & know what they are, esp scientific names. Have you said before where you go to school (it’s fine if you prefer to keep it off the internet though)? even if a lot of the plants are non-native, you can always start regional at least & get a feel for the different families–which will help you narrow down what the non-native ones might be!
for trees, there is also this cool app called LeafSnap–you take a picture of a leaf on a white background (piece of paper) & it uses the photo to try to match the silhouette to tree leaf examples in its database. it can keep a catalogue of everything you’ve seen too if you want. it’s only for North America at the moment I think, last time I looked most of the data was east coast but probably more has been added since.
sorry my research the last year & a half has all been in plant phylogenetics. it almost never comes up in conversation so I must SIEZE ANY CHANCE
speaking of I should do a life update post over on an appropriate thread I’ll go do that
TELL ME EVERYTHING
I hoped posting here would spark a “OMG I KNOW ALL ABOUT PLANTS” comment from somebody, so yay!
I go to Pomona College in Claremont, CA. We have a beautifully-landscaped campus with plants from seemingly everywhere, although they’ve actually been putting in more native plants lately so maybe a Southern California plant guide would be worth a look. We also have a native plants club that has done some plantings. And I feel like I should talk with a plant-focused professor too.
Yeah, a families approach seems like a good way to go at it without getting overwhelmed. I’ve thus far been looking at learnplantsnow. com /start-learning-plants/ which has handy definitions and a “Plant Profile Sheet” to fill out when I’m looking at something. I found some cool-looking flowers to start with. That site only describes five families, though (albeit common ones). Any suggestions for more resources or plans of attack?
LeafSnap sounds really cool! I was hoping there was something out there like an app which would be a dichotomous key for every plant ever but unfortunately that seems too complicated to exist.
I’d love to hear all your thoughts on this!
well hey!! that’s actually not far (well… not far by my standards being like “within 4 hours”) from the area I’ll be moving to for my new plant job, which will deal mostly with things in the Mojave desert. While you’re closer to the coast so it will be a bit different (that der rainshadow effect!!), I am just gonna copy/paste at you the list of guides my internship suggested for the region. Don’t feel like you have to look into all of these or anything (oh god even I have not done that) but if you’re feeling lost & wondering where to start, this may help you!
__________
Field Guides
You may wish to purchase some field guides for your stay here. While we generally recommend any of the Peterson Field Guide Series, the following are a few more specific suggestions.
No one plant book covers the entire southwest, or even the entire Mojave Desert. However, one book contains good dichotomous keys for most plants in the Mojave Desert:
The Jepson Desert Manual, edited by Bruce G. Bladwin, Steve Boyd, Barbara J. Ertter,
Robert W. Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti, and Dieter H. Wilken.
More general plant guides that list some of the common species are numerous:
A Field Guide to the Plants of Arizona by Anne Orth Epple
Mojave Desert Wildflowers by Jon Stewart
Desert Wildflowers of North America by Ronald J. Taylor
The series of books published by the Southwest Parks and Monuments Association:
Shrubs and Trees of the Southwest Deserts by J.E. Bowers
Flowers of the Southwest Mountains by L.P. Arnberger
Shrubs and Trees of the Southwest Uplands by F.H. Elmore
Flowers of the Southwest Deserts by N.N. Dodge and J. R. Janish Flowers and Shrubs of the Mojave Desert by J.E. Bowers and B. Wignall
__________
They mention up there that the Peterson guides are generally always reliable–I used the Peterson midwest shrubs & wildflower guide for my classes and found it to be pretty nice & simple to follow. Using a dichotomous key requites a bit of terminology knowledge, but that one I think had helpful pictures to explain. Basically, it gives you checklists of things like “leaf margin” (are the edges of the leaves smooth or spiky), “leaf shape” (is the leaf round or pointy), “leaves opposite or alternate” (do they go in pairs up the stem across from each other or do they stagger like a spiral staircase), “number of petals”, etc! When you’ve narrowed it down, it gives you a page range with several possibilities and you can flip to that section to look at pictures.
(now that I remember it. there is an app that does this for butterflies and maybe plants? my mom told me about it I have not tried it. I will look into that more myself a bit maybe I forgot about it completely until this moment.)
So it’s not super difficult–you’ll pick up terminology pretty fast and even if you don’t get it quite right you can take a couple tries to figure out stuff. fun fun!
On the more sciency-side, one thing I do reccomend is looking up some of the major families and their defining characteristics. Even start at the higher level, monocot vs eudicots–these are the two major classes of flowering plants. Monocots have petals, stamens, etc in sets of 3’s (3, 6 most commonly), leaf veins run parallel up the leaves (think cattails or grass); while eudicots have petals etc in sets of 4 and branching leaf veins (maple or oak leaves). Now you can already impress people by pointing to something and be able to say “oh yeah that’s totally a monocot” !
But by focusing on just morphological stuff, you can get identifying traits for most families you’re likely to come across
some will always be tricky/a pain but just ignore those until you decide you wanna tackle probelm things.
otherwise honestly: here is a pic of the main parts of a plant. it will take you 2 days to memorize tops if you don’t try very hard.
http :// ag.arizona. edu/pubs/garden/mg/botany/images/p3large . gif
(its not actually a gif)
that’s most of what you need for plant identification.
a fun trivia tip: leaves always have axils, or “axilary buds.” if you don’t see one, look farther down the “stem” to where it meets the main stem because it might just be a large complicated leaf. woooo~
And here I meant to just write a quick sentence & pop off again, but my words got away with me. Oh well! plants are fun! hope any of this is useful or interesting!! I’m expecting the Jepson manual to arrive tomorrow so I can let you know how I find it too.
I’m hoping to make lots of headway on my EP this spring break, even though I have snow make-up days. I’ve got it mostly planned out: the current plan is five songs plus a bonus track.
I’m a complete beginner and it won’t hold much in the way of quality, but hey, everyone has to start somewhere, right?
I finished the EP! Advance reviews are calling it “good”.
I’m currently working on my senior exit project for English-creative writing. I’m writing a middle grade/YA novella (exactly which category it will fall under remains to be seen). For the project I need a minimum of 40 pages, double spaced, and I currently have 37. There is also a big chunk of story info missing from the beginning, so I have no fears of being under the page minimum. The 1st draft is due this Friday. Here’s to getting behind on other homework to try and fill in the beginning and revise what I have. (beginnings are so blasted frustrating! I don’t want to just info-dump.)
apartment hunt, moved from R&P as this seemed more appropriate:
We saw three places today.
First we liked, it was huge for NYC (despite it being mid-renovation and not actually livable, the broker claimed it’d be ready May 1 but I suspect that was optimistic/he seemed kind of sketchy tbh), we said we’d sign an application but he called to confirm that it was still open and… it wasn’t.
Second we were iffy about location since it wasn’t as pleasant a neighborhood to wander around, mostly houses/offices as opposed to stores (also we got off at the wrong subway stop because of the excessive construction this weekend and had to walk almost a mile to get there), but the apartment itself was nice. it’s expensive (at the top of my price range, utilities not included, so actually slightly over what i want to pay when that’s factored in) and not available until June/mid-May at the earliest, so I can’t move until then, but it’s about as close to Manhattan as you can get and not be in Manhattan, and it was fairly sizable keeping that in mind. I had trouble picturing myself there because it was clear that other people were still living there. But overall, it was a nice place, despite the lack of closets.
Third was in Brooklyn, so it took us an hour and a half to get there. (it’s only about 20 min from my workplace… but in the opposite direction from where I live now.) It wasn’t that nice. It had a beautiful view of Manhattan but there was no vent for the gas stove (?????) and the hot water wasn’t hot when we tested it. Also the bedroom was only just barely large enough to fit our bed if there was nothing else in the room – I could stretch out my arms and reach both walls – so it wasn’t really a one bedroom so much as a studio with aspirations.
I emailed the broker for the second apartment and said we’d like to put in an application. I probably should’ve done it when we saw it, but the third place we saw really put into perspective how nice the other two were. Hopefully he responds – if not, we’ll keep looking, I guess.
Second place was taken.
Seeing at least one more place today. Update to follow!
good luck!
update 2:
first place we saw today was ok, but it was on the fourth floor with no elevator or trash chute on that floor and had a view of the next door apartment’s brick wall despite us being able to see the Chrysler building & much of midtown Manhattan from the street. (the apartment was in Queens… the really close part of Queens, though) To get there we had to walk past a few blocks of barbed wire backs of buildings which didn’t seem heavily trafficked, which was kind of a deal breaker for me, who walks home alone at night.
Second place we saw today was in a neighborhood that was having a street fair just outside the subway. I really liked that, and that the walk to the place was along blocks with people and stores. The apartment itself was on the sixth floor, no air conditioning but yes elevator, which hugely impressed me since it was the only place we’d seen with an elevator. There weren’t a ton of power outlets but there was a fair amount of space and I thought it was really nice. I’m frantically trying to get the paperwork together to apply and have it reserved for us before someone else does. It was a bit expensive for the neighborhood, but worth it in my opinion. (i’m hopelessly bourgeoisie though, so grain of salt there)
signing the lease on the fifth place tomorrow (after two days of frantic paperwork and two of ominous silence), wish me luck!
Congratulations on finding a place!! Yaay!
congratulations!
Unsatisfied with releasing just one EP this spring, I have started extensive progress on a second one, with the goal to release it on or before my seventeenth birthday (May 28). Once I’ve finished composing everything, I’ll need to record some parts, do some synth work, and then work on digitally mixing and messing with it.
It will be titled SHADOW PEOPLE.
I’ve got two new-ish projects that I’m trying to kick into gear:
1) Senior Thesis
A.k.a. The 25-page monster. I’ve got 6 pages so far (which only took me about two weeks -.-) and I need to flesh out a few examples, proofread those pages and send them to my advisor. Ideally, I’d love to be finished writing by the end of May so that I just have to go over stuff like formatting and corrections in June (^= exam hell time), but for that I really need to pick up the pace. Gah.
2) Exercising (and eating like a normal human being)
I’m trying to start jogging regularly again and do a few exercises (sit-ups, push-ups,…) often to get back into shape. Coupled with that is a resolution to stop subsiding on Burger King and sugary soft-drinks. For some reason, this has been making me insanely grumpy- is it possible to be addicted to cola? I’ve been drinking coffee and/or green tea instead so it can’t been the caffeine. I hope it’ll stop after a while.
Update on projects: Knitflix will likely commence this weekend (planning to go to Michael’s on Saturday or Sunday), though as I have two midterms next week and a thesis due May 15th (which I have still barely started somehow?? oh god so much code that needs to be written) it will likely actually begin in a couple weeks.
Knitflix is a way better name than Crochetflix. I’m envious.
Unsolicited advice: If you ever need inspiration, Ravelry and Pinterest are both useful resouces. Free patterns are everywhere online, and can be very good. Don’t sweat gauge too much, it’ll probably come out fine. Oh, and good yarn is worth it.
…at least, these all hold true in crochet. I don’t actually knit, so I may be leading you slightly astray.
Haha, thanks! I’m just making a scarf right now, so we’ll see how that goes I suppose.
apartment hunt, part 2: actually moving there (brought to you as part of the actually becoming a real adult series)
bought a minimal set of necessary furnishings for the new place (card table, folding chair, air mattress, microwave, etc.) and mom’s driving us down today with them. emailed two moving companies yesterday to get quotes on moving our large things e.g. bed and bookshelves – I think one left me a voicemail but I’m nervous to check it and too busy now anyway. still don’t have keys – picking those up when I get there, nervous about that.
internet people should come set up our internet around 3pm, which means I can actually live there. miraculously, Time Warner costs less and works better in NYC than in upstate NY.
all moved in!
for values of “moved in” involving an inflated air mattress and internet and power, as well as a microwave that hasn’t been plugged in yet and no food other than peanut butter, coffee and soymilk, a large amount of leftover meats from dinner, and a loaf of almond bread. (There’s a lot of places that have takeout here, I’ll be fine)
Congratulations!
Planning on writing a senior thesis which will involve also creating a museum exhibit about the meta-concept of representation and representability and cultural restrictions and museum practice restrictions and I’m really excited about it!
Also I run the museum student group and we’re trying to do one on the anthropology of brewing and we just wrote a like, 12-page proposal, so if I play my cards right and stay on top of things I could graduate next May with two exhibits under my belt, hire me to do cool things
Awesome! I’d love to hear more about that. If you want advice/thoughts on museums and/or museum studies, I’ve got a BA in anthropology with a minor in museum studies and I’ll be starting a MA in Museum and Field Studies this fall.
I actually super super do. I’m thinking about applying to grad programs in museum studies and/or public history and/or public humanities and/or history and/or museum anthropology but I have no idea how to research them or figure out what I should be using to make decisions about what programs are right for me. My undergraduate degree is in (will be in, I graduate next May) anthropology.
Okay! So let me know if you have other questions, but I’ll try to answer many of them. The Smithsonian has a great list of museum studies programs on their website – that’s mostly what I used to apply to grad schools. There are three (ish) kinds of programs you’ll probably be looking at as far as museum studies programs go. One type is getting an MA or PhD in just anthropology, no museum studies at all. This is probably more the route you should go if you think you want to be a curator or if you absolutely love some area of anthropology and have a thesis already picked out in it. Second, you can go for an MA/PhD in anthro (or history, or art history) and take a museum studies certificate. The certificate is kind of like a minor. You’re mostly taking your anthro classes and you probably still have a thesis in anthro, but you’re taking some museum studies courses on the side. (occasionally you can do the certificate without any other courses, but usually you have to do the MA/PhD as well or already have one). Thirdly, and what I’m doing, is getting an MA in Museum Studies. (This is probably also where getting an MA in Public History goes) (Museum Studies degrees don’t usually come in PhD form (except in England it seems)). There are multiple schools which offer other courses besides just museum studies courses, which is what I was looking for. I wanted some graduate level training in the areas of content I plan to be working with in a museum, as well as the usual collections management, exhibit design, etc.
Questions for you: What museum studies courses have you taken? What areas of museums are you interested in working in/what do you know about the areas of museums (I can elaborate, but I want to know what to talk about…)? I can also go into more about my MA program, though I haven’t actually started yet.
Oxlin – This Smithsonian list looks great and comprehensive, thank you! How did you decide which ones sounded worth looking into more (for you)?
I don’t think I’m interested in a PhD at this time–I’m not confident enough that I’m interested in a single very specific field to commit to spending the years and effort on it. I’d rather get an MA and then go back to school if a PhD program starts to seem interesting or professionally advantageous. I’m also not sure about an MA in anthropology (or history or public history) vs. museum studies. What different directions do these degrees typically take people in, career-wise?
I’ve taken a course called “Anthropology in/of the Museum.” I could probably post the syllabus if you want to see it. Also your standard anthropology classes. I’m really interested in exhibit development and particularly in narrative–I think I’d prefer to be working with content creation or maybe interpretation in an anthropology, natural history, or history museum. I like linguistic anthropology particularly and also areas of anthropology dealing with power dynamics and giving voice to groups that typically are less heard. (I’m also interested in oral history and the like.) My favorite area of history I guess is probably the last couple decades of the 1800s and first couple of the 1900s, e.g. dawn of ‘modernism’? I don’t really know what I’m doing or thinking about haha. Not sure how to focus this more, yet.
I’d also love to hear more about your MA program! Thanks so much, oxlin.
I suppose I decided based on the projects you can see down below. I’m super into NAGPRA and collections management as well, but the projects that I want to do in grad school and continue to do afterwards are all focused around education and exhibit/program development. This is an area where I have enough cool project ideas that I have so many I could do. (And if you don’t have any cool project ideas now, they will likely come if you keep engaging in interesting places both as an intern/volunteer/worker, but also as a tourist. The Science Gardens idea literally came from a taxi cab in Oxford that passed by Paul, my college friend and I as we went about our day. Inspiration comes from everywhere.)
That is your first question answered. I will get to the rest soon.
Okay, more question answering time!
“What different directions do these degrees typically take people in, career-wise?”
Within museums, the PhDs are becoming the curators of very specific areas. This would be if you had an area like “I want to study Japanese print making and its influence on 20th century [fill in the blank]” You might end up the curator of Japanese Art at a museum after that.
After poking the American Association of Museums’ website, there seem to be some jobs labled “curator” posted at smaller museums (and even some bigger ones!) that just want an MA in either a subject area (like Japanese art) or in the running of museums.
Depending on your focus area, an MA in Museum Studies could lead to a role in the museum’s administration, caring for a collection, creating exhibits, any number of things. MAs in Museum Studies tend to have much more of a focus on the logistics of museum-running.
However, as much as I just said all that, those degrees don’t necessarily lead to a specific career. You may end up somewhere entirely different, in museums or otherwise!
I don’t know if it’s exactly what you’re looking for for your project, but I would recommend “Who Owns America’s Past?”, a book about controversies the Smithsonian has faced related to exhibits about history.
SHADOW PEOPLE progress:
I’m finished with composing 4 out of 5 songs. The other one is nearly done being composed.
I need to record trombone and flute parts for two tracks, and I’ll do that as soon as I can borrow a Zoom recorder from my friend (Saturday at the latest). After that I have to master the tracks, which is something I don’t have much experience with, but it’ll be fun.
One of the tracks was kind of an afterthought but I showed it to my music teacher and he loved it. He said it was portfolio material for when I apply to universities. So that’s exciting.
Project updates:
Make a necklace: Success! So far I’ve made three. Turns out this is rather fun.
Blog about math: need to keep working at this. This is rather hard for me.
Space like on What is next: I should actually work on this too.
Grad school ideas: Well, I’m working on going to grad school/doing all the things I need to do to sign up for courses. But! Let me tell you about the ideas I want to execute while in grad school (or after.)
Idea one: Science garden. Like a sculpture garden but for science with playground-esque exhibits you can touch and interact with showing you science. Also plants and trees etc.
Idea two: bringing museum stuff to hospitals. Bringing interesting info/something to look at to hospitals
Idea three: math and art programming. math in whatever subject of museum is.
So some of those are harder to execute than others but I’m excited about all of them!
All these projects sound REALLY COOL!
I would love to visit a science garden!
Update on blog about math/webcomic about math! I went to the house of my friend with a wacom tablet and now there is about 3/4 of a webcomic draft done! Draft, not final. I’d have to make it prettier, and it’ll still be very “this is the first comic you’ve ever drawn, isn’t it?” but it’ll be about math and people seem to think the math explanation makes sense so – success!
Nice! Can’t wait to see it!
EP update:
I’m mostly done with about 4 of the songs, but the fifth one is giving me trouble to the point where I almost want to cut it out. Does anyone have a copy of FL studio who would be willing to swap email addresses via GAPA-approved methods? I feel like a critical echo chamber and need a second opinion.
In other music-making news, my friends and I recorded some Free Jazz. That was fun.
Knitflix update: I have used up a skein of variegated yarn making a regular old scarf (using only the knit stitch) and, to finish off the skein, made a small dishcloth, taught myself how to purl, and attempted cabling for the first time.
Because I am insane, I promptly went out and bought a bunch of supplies to make a cabled scarf that looks like DNA (google “DNA scarf” and it should be the first result as well as the first Ravelry result), which seems… hard. Really hard. We’ll see how it goes, I guess.
I looked up that scarf, and it looks very cool! Good luck! I’ve never tried cabling before, despite knitting on and off for the past several years. Is it very difficult?
A simple cable is manageable enough, but the challenge is when you have more intricate ones and a lot of complicated other stuff in the pattern.
What Agent Lightning said. I’m progressing through this scarf very slowly and have had to rip it out a couple times, but I think I’m getting the hang of it. My goal is to finish it by July… even though I have no need for a scarf in July.
In case anyone cares, here is what the scarf looks like so far!
http://i.imgur.com/kNPzm2Q.jpg
Very cool!
Nice!
Thanks, Kai and Sel! I will post updates every so often, I guess. I’ve made a couple of alterations since then, but I don’t bother to rip out rows, so I guess it’s just evolving.
SHADOW PEOPLE comes out in a week! Except for some last minute tweaking, I’m finished with all the tracks. I’ve made cover art and am finalizing track titles.
Projects update:
I successfully ran my 12k (post 10) in early May! I had a very discouraging few weeks of training before that, since the Nike app I was using had me doing hour+ runs several times a week, and I realized belatedly that I just didn’t have time for that. (Or that it wasn’t a high enough priority for me to make the time for it.) So I had missed several long runs in a row in the weeks leading up to my self-imposed race day. I was really discouraged and down on myself, but in the end I decided to run it anyways, walk whatever I had to, and enjoy the fact that I was fit enough to run any of it. And, you know what, I ran the majority of it, much more than I expected, and was so glad I did! I’m hoping to somehow pick up a finishers T-shirt from the corresponding race in my hometown and modify it slightly to commemorate my victory. Definite success on this project.
The biggest project I’m working on now is editing the final paper I wrote for my Spanish class last semester. I loved writing it, as it’s on a topic of great personal importance to me – the identities around language and culture of dual-immersion program graduates, of which I am one. And it was a HUGE accomplishment, being about 20 pages long in Spanish, the longest research paper I’ve ever written and in my second language to boot. So even though it’s summer, I don’t mind editing it, and I’m also working on a translation for my parents and other English-speakers.
Other, smaller projects…memorizing poems (currently Pudiera ser by Alfonsina Storni, see Poems & Songs thread in a few minutes, and the Gettysburg Address – any suggestions for future attempts?). Reading a lot. Hopefully getting into my neighborhood soon to learn about trees (Jade, the complexity of plants has intimidated me, so for now I just want to familiarize myself with local trees). I want my dad to re-teach me how to sail, on slightly bigger boats than I learned on when I was a kid. Oh, and packing light for my Costa Rica study abroad program in a few weeks!
SHADOW PEOPLE just released! It’s… less than professional. Which shows in a couple places. But I think overall it’s definitely my strongest stuff yet.
Scarf update, picking up from where I left off!
http://i.imgur.com/0gobAck.jpg
Looks really neat!
Thanks! It’s not perfect, but I’m pretty proud of it.
Wow, that’s so impressive. Did you know how to knit before you started your Knitflix project? How difficult/easy was it to learn?
I sort of knew how to knit. MARFwarrior taught me a really long time ago (like, 8 years ago?? holy crap we are old) and I made a hat with this round knitting thing, but it was a pretty terrible hat and had holes and stuff. I picked up the needles again mid-high school, but apparently the stuff in rolling chair wheels, if you get yarn caught in them, will dye the yarn black. So my white yarn I was trying to use was ruined, and I gave up until now.
This is my first serious attempt at knitting, and I had to re-look everything up, and it’s not hard at all! You just have to pay close attention to detail (e.g. notice if you’ve dropped or added a stitch accidentally), be patient, and either forgive your mistakes or keep going and let them stay there. The good thing about knitting is that it’s a fairly mindless fine-motor-control task, which makes it good for stress relief, and at the end you can see that you made something!
Thanks! I’ve always wanted to learn how to knit/crochet/similar, and now I very badly want a DNA scarf like yours. It’s just the kind of subtly-science-y accessory I’d wear.
(Speaking of which, did you see May Britt Moser’s neuron-decorated dress for the Nobel Prize award ceremony?)
Ah yes, and on the Netflix side of things, I have finished Archer season 6 (not on Netflix but close enough) and have started the Good Eats collection that is now on there. I also watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s the other day and enjoyed it (except for the super-racist Japanese neighbor)!
I have been posting here a lot lately! Anyway, I just submitted a final-ish draft of my senior paper thing (I know I said it was due May 15th but due to severe technical errors it got pushed back to now) and sent it to a bunch of people asking for suggestions for revision. If there are no major suggestions, I guess I’ll be done; otherwise, I’ll revise it and turn it in by the last day of finals (June 9 or 10).
Woo! Feels good to be done with the draft. Also feels good to have finally figured out both RNA-seq software and how the eff to add bibliographies to LaTeX files.
Math webcomic progress update!
So last Friday I started inking, and tonight I’m nearly done with inking! Yay! And my friend pointed out that hair tutorials exist, so one character has much better hair now. I’m still really bad at drawing the other character’s hair, but ah well. I’m really enjoying making this.
Today I finally sent off the edited version of my final Spanish project to my professor! The professor sent me feedback after school ended, but this project is so personally significant to me that I’ve steadily put a lot of time in since, making some large revisions. I’m also going to send copies of this edited version (both in English and Spanish) to a very prominent professor in the field, who I was in touch with earlier during the project and who asked to see it when I was done. Yay!
SFTDP: do any MuseBloggers use HabitRPG? It’s gamification for habit formation and I feel like it might be useful for some of you on your projects. You can have habits (positive or negative), dailies, and to-dos, and for positive things you complete you get EXP and gold towards building up your character’s equipment and skills. There are also party and quest features, though I haven’t tried those yet because I’m currently playing alone. It really works, too – I’d been struggling for months to floss and meditate daily, and now I’m on an 18 day streak on both for the 18 days since I started playing. I also had a to-do checklist that really motivated me to finish the editing project I mentioned above, since completing the to-do becomes more and more lucrative (in EXP and gold) the more you have been procrastinating on it. It’s a cool site.
I finished the first page!!!! (or rather zeroth as it is a math webcomic after all) and now I’ve made a blog to put it up on. but I want a header and a background and a profile picture before I actually update it. But sooonnnn!
Math comic update: First page is colored and posted!
Math comic update: The beginnings of page two have been sketched out on my friend’s tablet!
Knitflix update! (I will update both the knit and the flix part, just because.)
Knit: I have finished the DNA scarf! And, at the suggestion of a couple of my coworkers, I have started work on DNA socks for my mentor, who wears socks with sandals daily.
Pictures:
The scarf:
http://i.imgur.com/4EY79ql.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/erIIies.jpg
The beginnings of socks:
http://i.imgur.com/wj8lAZi.jpg
flix: I started (and finished) Orange Is the New Black, which I very much enjoyed, especially because I knew pretty much nothing about it going into it other than the facts that Laverne Cox was in it and that it’s based on a true story. Since then, the Boy and I have started on the X-Files (which he is way more into than I am; it kind of terrifies me, but he loves the aliens) and, independently, I started Mad Men (another show I knew nothing about going into, other than that the main character’s name was Don Draper and something about Lucky Strikes).
Welp my friend and I just decided to make a zine so that’s happening as soon as band camp is over. Anyone have experience in zine making?
Also there were composer spots open to make tracks for a homestuck fan album so I figured “why not?” and applied.
Also I heard from her friend that the sax instructor giving lessons at Local Music Store quit so I’m applying for that. Which involved making a resume, and will involve driving over there at my dinner break during band camp tomorrow.
Also I have to apply to colleges soon. Eep.
seconding the request for zine advice! I have a zine idea that I’ve been bouncing around for a while and zero idea where to start.
What is your zine idea? Mine is basically whatever art and collages my friend and I can procure, all showcasing a poem I wrote.
Essentially I got a cakeload of college promotional materials in the mail when I was in high school, and I’ve hardly thrown any of them away. The plan is to use them in collages to make a zine about senior year/the college application process.
Ooooh, if you ever complete it, I’d love a PDF!
Oh absolutely! I can’t stress enough the degree to which it’s still in planning stages, but I’d love to share it eventually.
(I’d like to see yours as well!)