They weren't mentioned here (other than on the calendar) but last week was packed full of important days in our family -- Hale's 2nd birthday, Mom's XXth birthday, and our 4th anniversary. We've got some great pictures of Hale's party that -- when I make time for it -- will find a spot in an album. We also have a couple of movies of the kids (including Hale blowing out his candles) that are just too cute.
NOTE: removed link to calendar.
... critical of the way in which people speak or write? It isn't because I do either perfectly, I'll admit. Frankly, I don't know the answer; but someone uses the wrong verb tense or plays musical chairs with am-is-are-was-were and my ears instantly perk up.
What brought this up was an article I read today on dive into mark about final edits to Mark Pilgrim's upcoming book. Here are some of his writing habits that the copy editor flagged:
from The first thing we do, let's shoot all the copy editors
Here are the main things I've learned so far:
- I use "have to" when I mean "need to."
- I misplace the word "only." Instead of "you can only walk through a stream once," the copy editor prefers "you can walk through a stream only once."
- I use "lots" when I mean "a lot."
- I use "which" when I mean "that."
- I overuse footnotes to be cute. This is a bad habit I picked up from the interactive fiction version of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and the infamous footnote 12.
- I use "like" when I mean "such as."
- I use "then" immediately after a comma, when I mean "and then."
- I overuse semicolons for no particular reason except that I've always liked them.
- I use "note" when I mean "notice", and vice-versa.
- I use "we" when I mean "you." "As we saw in the previous chapter..." "We'll work through this example line by line." And so forth. Apparently we won't be working through this example. You will be working through this example; I will be in the Bahamas drinking my royalty check.
From my book writing experience [should be published yet this summer] it is a little unnerving when I think something sounds just right and my editor doesn't. But ultimately, I am the writer, he/they are the publishers; therefore I'll put my ego aside and just consider it a job! If I wanted complete control, well, I'd have to publish/market/whatever the book myself.
The second comment to Mark's article (prescriptive grammarian) is a classic quote from some gentleman's linguistic lecture. Worth the time you'll take to read it.
For my EdTEC 670 course, I am required to create and keep up an online portolio of my work, in this case surrounding technology policy issues. If you are interested at all in taking a look, you can find the page here:
Portfolio: Kevin Jordan - EdTec 670
UPDATE: the url has changed. The correct one is reflected here.
Back about two months ago I wrote about financial aid and the steps I was taking to try and secure some. Offhandedly I mentioned stopping by our local Community Foundation, and I'm glad I did. Through them I was able to secure a low-interest loan (Ferber) and a scholarship that should cover most -- if not all -- of the summer session costs. Also, I've been offered an assistantship starting this Fall that would cover tuition (not fees) and also pay a small stipend. I'll probably have to take a cut in pay at work to be able to have time to do the assistantship, but -- who knows -- it might work out!
On the flip-side, I haven't gotten the FAFSA application done yet. I've been too lazy to crawl up into the attic and get my 1099 from last year...
After a five-year wait, school starts back up for me tomorrow at Ball State University. This class, Technology Policy and Pedagogy, should be an interesting start to the summer. It is one of three classes I'll be taking -- Multicultural Ethics and Educational Informatics/Technology Leadership being the other two. Should be a decent load, I think.
These classes are on route to a Masters of Arts in Secondary Education; EdSec is a 30 credit hour program. Along the way, I'll filter in 5 undergraduate (15 hours) math courses that I didn't test out of, and possibly some work towards the Educational Technology Masters. This last part will help prepare me for the cognate requirements of a doctoral program.
I'm excited -- with trepidation -- about throwing myself back into schoolwork. What are your experiences with school + family?
Not that I'll ever get around to it, but I am so upset with the fact that my Palm Tungsten C cannot wirelessly sync with my Mac I was thinking about writing my own software to do it. A quick search on Google turned up the following bit of Perl (my language of choice) that would at very least let me access the AddressBook in OS X. I'll record it here for posterity as a step in the right direction.
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
use Mac::Glue qw(:glue);
use Mac::Apps::Launch;
my $glue=Mac::Glue->new('Address Book',bundle=>'com.apple.AddressBook');
my $id=$glue->{ID};
if(!IsRunning($id)) {
LaunchApps($glue->{ID}) or die $^E;
$glue->close($glue->prop('window')) or warn $^E;
}
my $q=shift;
print "Querying AddressBook...\n";
my [at]people=$glue->obj('people')->get;
foreach my $entry (@people) {
my [at]emails=$entry->prop('email')->get;
next unless [at]emails;
foreach my $email (@emails) {
my $addr=$email->prop('value')->get;
my $name=$entry->prop('name')->get;
print "$addr\t$name\t",$email->prop('label')->get,"\n"
if $name =~ /$q/ || $addr =~ /$q/;
}
# my($addr)=$entry->prop('address')->get;
# next unless $addr;
# print $addr->prop('street')->get,"\n";
# print $addr->prop('city')->get," ";
# print $addr->prop('state')->get," ";
# print $addr->prop('zip')->get,"\n";
}
exit 0;
If anyone happens upon this page and already knows of software or code that allows for network sync with Macs, please leave a comment!
UPDATE: fixed my code listing using this script: SimpleCode
