Diary · of · a · Gadfly

Last final is tomorrow in American history. Yay! I'll be very glad to get that over with. Loathe pro-slavery arguments. Grrr.
I've already signed up for classes for Fall.. so that's done.
Am doing managing editor for the Daily Cougar during the summer, and am back to opinion ed during the fall.  BUT, we're working to create a new position exclusively for editing and assembling web content for the paper.  Heh.  I like having awesome ideas. They make me happy.

Things to do this summer:
Get head back in the game of kicking ass at writing and organizing for the editorial gig.
Make some money to pay things off, vacation, and rebuild my cushion. Haven't had security since we paid for my ex's car to be fixed. -grin-
Renew passport
Take a real vacation
Work on awesome story ideas and decide whether I want to get setup to do freelance work
Replace brakes
Reconnect with friends. 

This is a recent pic of me at a banquet (I missed a meeting and they made me the MC).  -grin-
This happens more often than I'd like to admit. 

I feel better about lots of things...but I still really need to go back to the gym.  I'm fierce. Fierce! -giggle-
I really like this dress.  -smile-

My summer schedule includes:
Burning Flipside on Memorial Weekend, featuring the great Chai Throwdown between me and Angel. Dude!!!
ApolloCon
Seattle for my birthday.  :-)
Recording new Lager Rhythms album... squeeee!!!!

I've been giving some real thought to rejoining the Cam at reset.  Heh.. we'll see. 

That's about it for me til Friday. :-)

 

Love this piece... started off as a Gullah chant, kept alive as a playground song. Recorded for the Library of Congress in 1939 byHerbert Halpert in Byhalia, Mississippi as sung by Christine and Katherine Shipp.
This one is done by Feist.
Earworm! With history!

Hee.

I want to kick a LOT of ass at what I do. Sometimes, given that I don't have all the training for it, that's an exercise in pain-in-the-ass.
I'm double-majoring in journalism and anthropology, at this point. They tell you you fall in love during college...but they don't tell you it's sometimes with fields of study. More. More fields of study.

My brain is geared for anthro, I ask the right questions as an instinct, and think in ways that work for that field.
But there is a drive I have for persnicketiness (yes, it's totally a word, trust me) and digging for the why and the story of things, events and people that works for journalism.

I'm also enough my mother's child to be stubborn, and enough my owndamnself to be determinedly idealistic. Apparently I, like a bromeliad, can sustain myself on air if there's a promise of nutrients ahead. (bad habit, leaves you hungry)

So. Given that the newspaper economy is flaking apart like so much ash, I am writing now. I am working a paper now, while I can, while they'll still let me.

And it is "let me." I love what I do. I love finding people's stories. it works for me on a level that is like blood flowing — it's from the primitive lizardy hindbrain and fulfills something fundamental in me.

I feel like I'm getting away with something that they pay me to do this.
Granted, I'm not getting away with much... I have a second job and the paper pays more in satisfaction than in money, but it's enough that I can continue to do it with only one day a week working elsewhere.

Except during the summer. We get paid per publication day, and we downgrade to twice a week during the summer. Luckily, I've got a summer gig lined up to do day work for an estate sale maven in town. So three jobs, for a little while, and a fantastic number of pocket vacations and a giant wonderful week with people I adore.

Summer trips:
Burning Flipside: end of May
SoonerCon: Beginning of June
ApolloCon: end of June
Seattle: June 30-July 8

I'm leaving town a lot. I've found I'll work if I'm anywhere near it, so fleeing is the only option.
If any of you are interested in the work writing I do, you can peek at it either on the Daily Cougar Web site, or on my wordpress blog, under "Shai Mohammed."

It's morning... and time for cereal and tea. Tea!!

Okay. I've been moving crap around in my wee lifeboat on the prairie all morning long.

More space, better organization, and I'm in a damn fine mood for not having really had food for most of the day...just haven't stopped to eat...I like momentum!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMBgSfQI49E

Change IS as good as a feast. I want to take a nap on my newly comfy bed. :-)

The Ides of may thus far, have brought change. Good change that's work, but worth it.

Yay.

:-)

Hey folks! Anyone who's free tonight for a few hours, and is willing to fold lots of paper, please let us know.

There's a precipitously immediate mailout for regional con-related stuff, and we need to fold a gob of flyers tonight in order to send them to the folks running said mailout. Help!!

The where is TBA, but the when is tonight. Cross-posted to Apollocon. :-)

FYI, this is Ben Schlitt posting for Shaista who is on the road to Pi Lounge and Bar. She plans to celebrate the end of finals for the semester.

Pi Lounge and Bar is at:

911 Franklin St
Houston, TX 77002
(713) 228-2990

Or see this link to google maps:
http://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=U0I&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=pi+lounge+and+bar,&near=Houston,+TX&fb=1&view=text&latlng=7926906335570779727#

What Be Your Nerd Type? Your Result: Literature Nerd   Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works. It's okay. I understand.
Drama Nerd
Musician
Artistic Nerd
Social Nerd
Gamer/Computer Nerd
Anime Nerd
Science/Math Nerd
What Be Your Nerd Type? Quizzes for MySpace

New years resolution received: Use more crisco and better handcuffs.
New year's resolution, personal: have at least one drunken, possibly semi-erotic game of scrabble in the next year. (Because I'm a dork. ;-p )
I'm a dork, because a drunken scrabble game (NOT a la Jackie Chan) sounds strangely hot to me.
Am sort of sore, due to return to gym, and a good solid workout...and craziness last night. Car wreck on the corner of my abode. Woke me right up as I was falling asleep...no rest for the remainder of the night. :-(
Yeesh. And I'm tipsy. Bed now. ZZ.

I'm sitting here in tears of rage and mourning. Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader of pakistan has been killed in what is being deemed a terrorist attack at a political rally. The details of whether it is a sniper or a suicide bomb attack is as yet undetermined.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/28/world/asia/28pakistan.html?pagewanted=2&_r=2&ref=world

I am stunned, and horrified, and there are no words for the sadness I feel. Because I didn't just lose a woman with the biggest balls since Indira Ghandi, I have just lost the last vestiges of feeling or cultural justification for extreme muslim politics. No. This is abhorrent craven cowardice. Sharia can BITE me. The prophet's wives and daughter were revered members of the movement in early islam. They were independent, sovereign people. Any people who fear women so much that they have to silence, cover and shame them into nothingness cannot contain anything worthwhile enough to balance that. Sorry. There is no god worth worshipping who condones cowardice and fascism. I don't care what you call it. That's what it is. I say to the women of Pakistan and any other country in the grip of a cultural struggle with sharia lobbyists....leave. Or fight, or pull a Lysistrata. Defend yourselves. Learn political struggle, and unite in groups. Or prepare to join the ranks of silent dead women, whether they have a pulse or no. Tepper was right. Today, this action...makes her entirely justified in her worries of 'Raising the Stones' The death of Bhutto was monstrous. Only people who have CHOSEN to become monsters would find it appropriate or seek to justify it in any way. Right now I feel that they should be hunted and put down like the rabid dogs they are. Given the parameters of trial etc...because we are not monsters. But only because of that.
The political equivalent of Stenta Thillion died today. The world is smaller and less hopeful a place for many women because of it, and for the decent men who would respect them as equals.
I cannot respect that action. I cannot condone it. I cannot see it as a valid thing to do. I want to weep for what hate and cowardice has done for a religion that started off as one of education, patience and tolerance. This is the muslim dark age, and here are the Inquisition, judge jury and executioners...monsters all. This is a perversion of my childhood. It's a violation of everything I hold dear about organized religion, of the poetry of faith, of the love of the world that ties us together. They are damned men. By their actions and their cowardice htey chop the world up into bits, leaving out the beauty and the challenge of existence, because it scares them. Life isn't easy. People aren't easy. They're not supposed to be. Hiding from that and claiming that you are pious is spitting in the face of the world that is a gift to you. Hide from your own ass. Crawl under your own bed, squalling and whimpering in the face of creation. Let me and mine live, you bastards.

This is why I have to do school. Because these are my people. My cousins live in that city. i've been there. My last name is Mohammed. There's no way that I can cleanse this taint from my culture. All I can do is to make sure that people understand and remember. God.

Hope your world is wonderful. I just got back from company christmas party, which was fun.
In the spirit of the holidays, I wish you joy.

And Bill Nighy. ;-)



Hee!!