doctoral candidate in rhetoric and scientific and technical communication
Archive for May, 2006
profiled
05 years ago
My Vegas trip was full of profiling. I really believe this to be true.
As I approached Hoover Dam, at the border between Arizona and Nevada, I had to pull over with all of the other cars. We went through this little check point.
The guys waved my car through. However, they pulled over a truck full of dark-haired men and had them out of the car and opening up the covered backend area so they could see what was in there.
The thing is, though, that I have darkly-tinted windows and a closed trunk on my car. Who is to say I wouldn’t have something in there? I didn’t, of course, but who’s to say I wouldn’t.
As I drove up to the Bellagio to go to the Ansel Adams exhibit, there were security guards stopping cars to look inside.
They waved me through. However, they had stopped the car before me and had them open their trunk.
While I didn’t get to see the people in the car before mine, I had the distinct feeling that we were being profiled.
It happened again on my way back across the Hoover Dam.
This was disturbing to me. I felt like there was serious discrimination going on during this trip. It made me wonder how it would be to look different or to be male.
How would I feel about being pulled over for how I looked?
I’d be hurt. I’d be upset.
I wouldn’t show it (because who knows what they’d do if I did that) but I think I would still feel that way.
blogs & more blogs
0
Work has been busier than heck and I think it’s only going to get worse before we all see the light at the end of the tunnel.
But…
We still find time to laugh and have fun.
I think that’s so important. We reallly enjoy one another’s company in this department.
I told someone, who is going to apply for a position in the department, that this is the best job I’ve ever had. Someone else who knew me at my previous position said that I’m glowing and when I talk about my job, I light up.
It’s because I like it. I really do.
Yeah, I groan about certain things (mostly the phones) but that’s just to relieve some of the stress of the day-to-day things we do.
Today, we had a conference for service professionals (that’s a job category that I happen to fall within). The theme was “High Tech in a High Touch World” (or something like that). We were asked to do presentations for other service professionals to help them understand more about the technical world.
Well, my expertise has become blogs (happily, I might add). I enjoy social software and social networking and having several blogs doesn’t hurt, either.
I was wearing a short little skirt today and I came out to do my presentation and said, “I’m the blog cheerleader.” Heh. That got some laughs.
Around 30 people showed up for this presentation. They seemed interested. They had great questions and seemed to want to know how to promote blogs personally and professionally. I was excited about it. I like that people are interested in doing what we do for fun.
I was nervous because I’m not super comfortable in front of people but I guess that doesn’t show. I was told that I’m talkative and happy and know how to get the groups interested. I was told that people really enjoy my sessions when I give them.
That’s nice to hear even when there is this big gulp factor going on inside of me and a part of me saying, “Don’t say anything stupid…don’t say anything stupid!”
Next week, we have another conference that is based on emerging technologies, pedagogies, assessments, and tools. I’ll be giving my blog training again – this time to people from all over the state.
I hope my status as blog cheerleader stands.
walking to a beat
05 years ago
I went to the Ansel Adams exhibit at the Bellagio in Las Vegas.
It was amazing.
I almost started crying. I was so touched by so many of the images and by his words. Incredible. Absolutely incredible.
He photographed people. In fact, his people shots are absolutely amazing. One image of Georgia O’Keefe blew me away. The way he captured her personality was so real that I could practically hear her laughing through the photograph. He made me want to know her even more.
But this is the thing that really touched me. I have had comments on my photographs that have sometimes struck me as the viewer not understanding what I was trying to do. Some of the things Adams did are the very things that I do. Some of his results were very similar to the results I get. And yet, by fellow photobloggers, they are considered flaws in the photography.
I think that what the exhibit taught me is that I want to be true to myself. If I do post-processing in Photoshop or PaintShopPro or shoot at a different angle or try something that is a bit off compared to others, I’m okay with that. If I’m not happy with what I’m doing and if I’m just trying to please everyone else so that I’ll fit in with the crowd, what good is that going to do for me? I’d be miserable.
When people I admire (online and/or off) tell me that they like something, that is when I’m truly touched. For instance, recently the graphic design manager in my department told me that I had a good eye and she liked some of my work. She even used one of my photographs in an advertisement for a paper she helps with. That really made me smile. Or when my boss, who has a degree in photography, says that she likes my photographs and wants to go out shooting with me (we are going out to the Petrified Forest on Saturday – with Willow), I’m wowed by that.
This is beyond family. These are people who don’t have to say they like my work but do.
Ansel Adams loved my part of the world, much as I do. He took photographs of some of the very same things that I’ve shot, myself.
He was a photographer that beat his own drum.
If there is nothing else that I take from that excursion, it is that. I can beat my own drum and be proud of that.
bike to work week
0
Today started the flagstaffbiking.org bike to work week. I decided to take part in it.
I didn’t ride all the way from my house. That’s too far for me and I’m not in good enough shape for that (it’s about 20 miles each way). Instead, I parked my car at my brother’s house in town and biked in from there (about 5 miles each way).
The ride this morning was beautiful. The air was perfect and the weather was spectacular. People on the trail were smiling, ringing their bells, and saying good morning. However, there are a LOT of hills going there. I didn’t realize how hilly my town is until this morning.
I used to ride this route all of the time but, I think, that in my youth, it didn’t seem so bad. Now that I’m old, I think I feel the hills much more.
The ride home was lovely until the last mile – and omigosh that last mile was rough. It was steep. I didn’t realize how steep it was when I was riding out this morning.
The worst thing about it was that some young men yelled out their window that I had a fat butt. Well, thank god they can point out the obvious. Good for them.
Idiots.
I’m going to do every other day and, hopefully, by July, build up to all 5 days.
By the end of summer, I’d like to be able to ride from my house into town. That’s my goal.
at twenty-eight
05 years ago
american life in poetry: column 059
by ted kooser, u.s. poet laureate
Contrary to the glamorized accounts we often read about the lives of single women, Amy Fleury, a native of Kansas, presents us with a realistic, affirmative picture. Her poem playfully presents her life as serendipitous, yet she doesn’t shy away from acknowledging loneliness.
At Twenty-Eight
It seems I get by on more luck than sense,
not the kind brought on by knuckle to wood,
breath on dice, or pennies found in the mud.
I shimmy and slip by on pure fool chance.
At turns charmed and cursed, a girl knows romance
as coffee, red wine, and books; solitude
she counts as daylight virtue and muted
evenings, the inventory of absence.
But this is no sorry spinster story,
just the way days string together a life.
Sometimes I eat soup right out of the pan.
Sometimes I don’t care if I will marry.
I dance in my kitchen on Friday nights,
singing like only a lucky girl can.
“At Twenty-Eight” by Amy Fleury is reprinted from “Beautiful Trouble,” Southern Illinois University Press, 2004, by permission of the author. The poem was originally published in Southern Poetry Review, Volume 41:2, Fall/Winter 2002. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
crashing down
0
I’ve been so tired. I haven’t wanted to go out and take pictures at all. I have gone out a little but I’m worn out. I don’t know why.
So, I’ve been sleeping most of my time that I’m not at the conference.
Monday night I fell asleep at about 8:30. I fell asleep in my clothes and woke up about an hour later, changed, then went to bed properly.
About 2 a.m., I hear a noise that made me think an airplane was crashing into the building. It had a whirring sound and was so loud that it made me jump out of bed.
I jumped.
And was shaking.
I was scared.
I was looking out the window trying to figure out what was going on. I couldn’t see anything, even under the bright lights of Las Vegas.
The next morning I turned on my old friend, NPR, the one thing I can count on to tell me what in the heck happened during the night.
Did I dream it? Was it some awful nightmare because I was in a strange place?
There was an old hotel between the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio, the Boardwalk. It was the original hotel on the Strip with a roller-coaster. It was supposed to be playing off the theme of a Santa Monica or Atlantic City Boardwalk. It was fun.
And old.
And they imploded it at 2 a.m.
2 friggin’ a.m.
And no one told us it was going to happen.
Way uncool.
But part of a my Vegas experience.
Tuesday May 9, 2006
0
Hah.
The drive over was lovely. Really. I love that drive.
I got to Hoover Dam and pulled over to take some photographs. I get back in my car and…nothing. My battery is dead.
Fortunately, my brother had given me a portable jumper so I could jump start my car.
I get into Vegas. It stops again. I have a dead battery. I go to a Super Walmart. 2 1/2 hour wait. They tell me where Sears is. They don’t have an auto section. They point me to another Sears.
I get there. I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, they take me back to show me my battery (it had cracked along the entire top of it and leaked all over). Then I go back in and wait some more.
Finally, $70 poorer, I make it to my hotel.
Internet access costs more. I don’t pay for it thinking that the conference hotel will have access.
I get to conference and they have computers for e-mail but no wifi. And then I find a wifi room but no one can connect (not just me – everyone is having trouble).
Argh.
The Vegas of old, where you could get dinner for under $5, is gone. No longer. Dinner starts at $15 in most places and goes up quickly from there.
However, the hotels are spectacular. Really amazing. The architecture is out of this world. Who needs to go to Paris, New York, or Venice? They are all right here. Heh.
Yesterday I sat next to a woman from France. She said the hotel was nicer than the city – cleaner, nicer. That made me laugh.
The Bellagio has an Ansel Adams showing going on. I’m going over there today sometime. I can’t wait.
oasis
0Hah.
The drive over was lovely. Really. I love that drive.
I got to Hoover Dam and pulled over to take some photographs. I get back in my car and…nothing. My battery is dead.
Fortunately, my brother had given me a portable jumper so I could jump start my car.
I get into Vegas. It stops again. I have a dead battery. I go to a Super Walmart. 2 1/2 hour wait. They tell me where Sears is. They don’t have an auto section. They point me to another Sears.
I get there. I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, they take me back to show me my battery (it had cracked along the entire top of it and leaked all over). Then I go back in and wait some more.
Finally, $70 poorer, I make it to my hotel.
Internet access costs more. I don’t pay for it thinking that the conference hotel will have access.
I get to conference and they have computers for e-mail but no wifi. And then I find a wifi room but no one can connect (not just me – everyone is having trouble).
Argh.
The Vegas of old, where you could get dinner for under $5, is gone. No longer. Dinner starts at $15 in most places and goes up quickly from there.
However, the hotels are spectacular. Really amazing. The architecture is out of this world. Who needs to go to Paris, New York, or Venice? They are all right here. Heh.
Yesterday I sat next to a woman from France. She said the hotel was nicer than the city – cleaner, nicer. That made me laugh.
The Bellagio has an Ansel Adams showing going on. I’m going over there today sometime. I can’t wait.
on the road again
0
I’m off on another trip.
This week I’m heading to Las Vegas for the society for technical communication conference. (Yes, I’m a geek – bona fide.)
Since Vegas is less than 5 hours from here, I’m driving. I figured that would give me the leisure to stop, photograph, check things out. Even though I’ve been to Vegas a lot (and even lived there in my high school years), I never tire of photographing the drive. There are always cool things to see.
So, I’m off to network with other geeky writer/editor types.
I’ll be photographing the bright lights of Vegas.
And, as you know, what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas…
…unless you blog.
Heh.
Friday May 5, 2006
0
Originally posted on my main site: life inchoate.
How closely do you consider the words that you use in your blog? Or your e-mail? Or your IM? Or in your handwritten letters?
I think that in each of these cases, you might consider your word choices a bit differently.
I know that I think about what I’m going to write in a handwritten letter because it takes time. I don’t want to mess it up and have to start over, wasting a piece of paper.
In IM, I shoot things off and then think later. In e-mail, depending on who it is going to, I may shoot it off – but if it’s a serious work situation, I think about it carefully, usually letting it sit in my draft box for a little while before sending it.
I usually contemplate what I’m going to write in my blog for a day or so and then put it down here.
I am thinking about this subject this morning, though, because of something I heard on NPR.
I heard 2 different reporters talking about the shake up in the Blair administration. One reporter said that Blair was bringing trusted people home to be closer to him to assist him. She said that Jack Straw was coming home from foreign service to help Blair with the Parliament.
The next reporter stated, “Straw Replaced!”
They are two very different connotations. They mean very different things.
People were moved around. Straw’s position is now different than it was yesterday. Was his role as Foreign Secretary filled by someone else? Yes (Margaret Beckett, btw, the first woman to fill that position). Was he ousted? Not in any way. He has a new position. That’s not being replaced. That’s being moved.
I think it’s important to think critically about the way we use words. We may say one thing and mean another entirely.