Category: Uncategorized

Writing prompts can be helpful and confining at the same time. On a daily basis, I might not necessarily have a clear writing subject, so I search for a writing prompt. Of course, most writing prompts I find seem to be of a personal nature — not quite what I’d choose to publish in my professional blog. Herein lies my dilemma. I click the button to regenerate the prompts until I find something suitable. When I find something suitable, half the time I don’t really have any good ideas to follow up with a good string of words. Rather than choosing a prompt to stumble through, I click again only to find the same chain of privacy invading prompts — sometimes an already generated prompt, even! I suppose this should serve as a sign to use more creativity, shouldn’t it? Writers are expected to be creative, regardless of whether or not they are “creative writers.” Perhaps tomorrow I’ll think of an excellent topic.

Blue. Green. Brown. Hazel. Blood-shot. Bright. Glassy. Many words describe the appearance of one’s eyes. In some cultures, we look into each other’s eyes to instill fear, intimidation, feelings of love, trust, attention, etc. We count the number of times a politician blinks to see who’s the more honest of the two debating issues of healthcare, military, and taxes. We use eye color to identify ourselves. We use the eyes to identify underlying diseases. Some even call eyes “the window to the soul.” Eyes can vary in shades, flecked with several colors unique to each individual. Eyes show the world when we are tired, sad, happy, angry, drunk, on drugs, healthy, or just plain existing. People flirt by winking at a prospective mate. We take in our surroundings with our eyes. We find pleasant sights and horrific sights. We survey danger in order to flee or protect. The eyes are an incredible pair of organs.

…but that doesn’t mean people can’t check out the site at least. A hotel here in town is hosting a wedding cake competition to raise money for the St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.

http://www.letseatcakefundraiser.com/

Obviously, it’s for a great cause. I’m thinking about shelling out the $25 for a ticket to go see some lovely cakes and enjoy samples. We shall see! ;D

How many times do you find yourself lamenting over the social injustices you see in the world, yet you quickly ask yourself the title question? All too often, I hear people utter this question before they return to their daily activities. Do you know what happens next? Nothing changes. The same problem continues, people think that one person can’t make a difference, lather, rinse, repeat. I find this horribly depressing, especially seeing as how the globally economy has spiraled into a dark, scary pit.

But what CAN you do? Simple — get off your hands, open your mouth, and fight. I’m not talking about fighting with your fists. On the contrary, I’m asking you to fight with your words. For starters, did you know that our government is in place to do our bidding? If you’ve been sitting at home on election day, you haven’t been exercising your right to tell the government what you’d like them to do. Constituents like you and I can write and/ or call our representatives on every level — local, county, state, even federal government is within your reach. Asides from contacting our representatives, we can also join forces with like-minded people. The ASPCA is an entire group of people working to ensure that animals are treated well. The AARP functions as a group to help better the 50+ crowd. Mothers Against Drunk Driver obviously are a group of mothers fighting against drunk driving. The point is that you can find a group of like-minded people to further your cause.

Obviously, things won’t change overnight — but wouldn’t it be worth the effort to see the world become a better place?

So, I apparently got so caught up in birthday and Halloween festitivities that I completely forgot to renew my domain name. That was rather embarrassing and frustrating, especially since I never received a reminder email. I know the expiration date, but I really do count on those reminders. I guess I’ll just have to make my own in order to cut out the middle man.

Obviously, we’re back online.

I must agree with Mark Twain: “Don’t let schooling interfere with your education.” In my case, it’s not so much my current school so much as my lack of schooling. I’m not entirely sure what I plan to do about graduate school at this stage of my life, but I do know I want to learn all I can about electracy. With the consent of Dr. Ulmer, I’ve chosen to “take” his courses on my own free time without concern for the technicalities of acceptance and admission into a graduate school.

For my first order of business, I intend to read and review Dr. Ulmer’s sites and blog. Reading what he has done will prove to be enriching, educating, inspiring, and above all telling of the projects I’ll be updated and/ or undertaking. Secondly, I need to locate the books — a few are actually in the on campus libraries. Luckily, I enjoy the benefit of the UF libraries as a UF employee, so it would appear that I have the luxury of reading these books for free. As I have a… “discrepancy” with the county library, I’ll have to wait to clear that up before utilizing it for the remaining books I can’t find on campus. Suffice it to say I need to stop forgetting to drop off that book to the book mobile. Next, I’ll take notes from the books much like I did in Ulmer’s classes. Finally, I’ll revisit my projects from Internet Literature and Hypermedia to either update what I currently have or build from scratch.

As it stands, I have much to read and so much more to learn. And with that, I realize my auto-time has already been set back an hour. Didn’t WP get the memo that we won’t get our hour back until November 9th?

Regrettably, I am 100% guilty of blog neglect. It would seem I work in phases of writing activity. Perhaps I could blame an increase in my work load between mid-August and late-September, but I’m merely grasping for a scapegoat when I should only blame myself.

While directing a professor to the chair of the English department to find technical writing students to edit papers, I decided to check in on Dr. Ulmer, my favorite English professor. Okay, let’s be honest — my all-around favorite professor. I discovered that he’s created a blog, of course in typical fashion as well. I’ve been inspired to sit down, review his course syllabi, start revamping my MyStory, and taking on new projects. I certainly could use the direction, and Dr. Ulmer is a pioneer on the subject matter. After all, he did coin the term “electracy.” I consider myself extremely lucky to have had the opportunity to take his classes.

I’ve been inspired to sit and write a bit more after reviewing a couple pages of his blog, so hopefully I will manage to be more productive with my writing in the coming days and weeks.

It would seem my theme is incompatible with widgets. However, I’ve not found another theme that appeals to my aesthetic and professional needs. It would seem I need widgets in order to add any extra buttons to my sidebar. Now really this just means I need to spend some time reading what coding needs to be added, implement it into my current theme, and I should have no more issues. What this does not take into account is my extreme ability to procrastinate on even the most mundane of tasks. So what’s a procrastination queen to do? Until I take the time to apply myself, I suppose we’ll be staring at the donation button in entry format, won’t we?