I’m not someone who prides herself on her leadership skills, though I know I have some…

…BUT - today I have been placed in charge of one rather large project at work, which I cannot divulge but which is pretty damn cool and which I am really excited about. It’s a pretty sweet deal and I am jazzed. I’ll get to work with cool people I don’t normally get to work with, so that’s a plus in and of itself, and it’s something that will really be a great experience and a LOT of learning, too.

Additionally, during Information Policy class tonight, we had to start our first group project. Over the course of our discussion of policies and research and legal precedents (for a certain issue we’re discussing regarding freedom of speech and unreasonable search/seizure), I was asked to be our group leader and coordinate the whole project, compile the information that my group members will send, etc. Excited about that, too. I’m a control-freak, so it suits me just fine to be the one who makes sure things get done in time.

On the downside, I didn’t have dinner tonight since I worked until after 6 and didn’t have a train home until 6:51, got to the station at 7:44 then got home at 7:52. Class began at 8, and ended at almost 10:30 with our group discussion taking longer. So. I just had some orange juice (only a little since I would wake up with nasty acid feeling in my tummy otherwise) and a Kashi multi-grain bar thingie.

But I have to get to bed, get up early, go to the bank, get money, go to work, work until 3:30, take the early train home, arrive at 4:20, meet with my friend Elizabeth and then go over to my old workplace (though not inside) to meet with my former co-workers for a girls’ night/keep in touch dinner gathering. Since I’ll be right near the wicked cool yarn store, I might stop in and get something gorgeous, just for the hell of it. Knit myself a really long thin scarf out of some silken yarn, perhaps? I made one for my brother’s girlfriend that went over well, so I can make one for myself and for my friend Theresa and maybe a few other select individuals.

All right. Eyes are burning and watering. Too much computer screen. Time to remove the mascara and head to bed.

I discovered this a few year’s ago and I don’t think it belonged to iVillage then, but I’m glad I found it again. It’s just a fun little “toy”, though I can see how it might be handy if you were looking to name a baby, pick a pseudonym or go into witness protection.

http://www.babynamewizard.com/

Here’s a screenshot of the “Eva” results:

I recommend you visit and try searching for some names like Lexus (yes, the car) and Infiniti (ditto.) It’s incredible.

Owie owie owie.
Every time I blink my eyes, it hurts. Sigh.
I’ll just write what’s on my mind and head to bed.

Here’s one thing I’m thinking about adding to the site… a product review page/rampant consumerism segment.

I’m always trying new stuff - new shampoo, new toothpaste, new hand cream, new mascara, new snack food, new candle, new allergy eyedrops, etc. It might be an interesting feature for people looking for independent reviews of products, and it gives me a chance to feel helpful. Because I do enjoy that. For example, tonight I went to the pharmacy to get my sleeping pill prescription. While I was waiting for it to be filled, I needed to get two things: eye drops and hand cream for bad dry winter skin.

I got Similisan Allergy Eyedrops (homeopathic, but sold at CVS) and Burt’s Bees Shea Butter Hand Repair Creme. I’ve used the eyedrops before and I know they’re good, so I bought them again. The Hand Repair Creme was a wildcard purchase. I’ve tried some products by Burt’s Bees and hated them; I’ve tried others and been OK with them. This one goes in the “love it!” category.

Now, I am getting to sleep.

Quotes from “Party Girl” which I watched again after class tonight and while researching for my paper.

Mary: Do you know the story of Sisyphus?
Leo: Who?
Mary: Sisyphus. It’s a myth about this guy who had to roll or push this incredibly huge rock up this steep mountain. Every time he would get to the top of this mountain the rock would roll down again. He would watch this and walk back down the mountain and do it all over again. Forever.
Leo: Drag.
Mary: It’s a metaphor for life, Leo. It’s famous. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Leo: Bullshit. He’s miserable.
Mary: He doesn’t have to be. He accepts his fate.
Leo: You’re telling me if your name is Syphilis and you spend your life lugging a f**king rock up a hill you wouldn’t be miserable?

And her imaginary retort to her godmother when Mary mis-shelves a book and her godmother tells her that even a monkey was able to learn the Dewey Decimal System:

Mary: I may have made a mistake, but that is no reason to patronize me. It is dismaying that your expectations are based on the performance of a lesser primate, and also revelatory of a managerial style that is sadly lacking. Is it any wonder then, that I have chosen not to learn the intricacies of an antiquated and idiotic system? I think not!

Now I am tired. Also, I really want it to rain, but it’s not looking like that’s going to happen anytime this week. Sigh.

Sooo… one of the articles I was assigned to read for tomorrow night’s class is called “INDEXING AND ACCESS FOR DIGITAL LIBRARIES AND THE INTERNET: HUMAN, DATABASE, AND DOMAIN FACTORS” by Marcia Bates. If’n you wanna read it, here’s the URL.

I honestly did find it really interesting. Here’s the part that made me go, “Hmm?” though.
It’s like “The X-Files” of information science or something… The Resnikoff-Dolby 30:1 Rule

Here’s an excerpt about the Rule:

In examining the Resnikoff-Dolby 30:1 rule we will discover an even more striking and hard-to-credit statistical pattern, which is nonetheless backed up by considerable data.

… Howard Resnikoff and James Dolby researched the statistical properties of information stores and access mechanisms to those stores. Again and again, they found values in the range of 28.5:1 to 30:1 as the ratio of the size of one access level to another. For mathematical reasons, they used K=29.55 as the likely true figure for their constant, but they and I will use 30 for simplicity’s sake in most cases. They found from their data:

• A book title is 1/30 the length of a table of contents in characters on average (Resnikoff & Dolby, 1972, p. 10).
• A table of contents is 1/30 the length of a back of the book index on average (p. 10).
• A back of the book index is 1/30 the length of the text of a book on average (p. 10).
•An abstract is 1/30 the length of the technical paper it represents on average (p. 10).
• Card catalogs had one guide card for every 30 cards on average. Average number of cards per tray was 30,2 or about 900 (p. 10).
• Based on a sample of over 3,000 four-year college classes, average class size was 29.3 (p. 22).

All these results suggest that human beings process information in such a way as to move through levels of access that operate in 30:1 ratios. Resnikoff and Dolby did not use this term, but I think a good name for it would be:Information Transfer Exchange Ratio. Something about these size relationships is natural and comfortable for human beings to absorb and process information. Consequently, the pattern shows up over and over again.

Yeah. I don’t know about that, but the second article we read had additional evidence supporting those findings. It’s beginning to get really really interesting even beyond this, though.

While I was doing my reading, I had the TV on to block out the noise of the household. What did I have on? The SciFi Channel. Yeah, I’ll admit it. I was watching (and continue to be watching) the three-hour Stargate SG-1 thing they do every Monday night. Normally, the commercials are precisely what you’d expect on a SciFi Channel - commercials for upcoming sci-fi/action movies, those same releases on DVD, fast food, cars, video games and video game systems, and the occasional personal hygiene product. They’re not targeted AT ALL.

Now, with this goddamn “holiday” coming up, what do I hear all of a sudden? The song that’s now affiliated with the match.com commercials… “This Will Be (An Everlasting Love)” by Natalie Cole. Yes, that’s right. They’ve decided that NOW is the perfect time to target the lonely-nerdy-desperate-for-attention-and-affection sci-fi geeks. Oh, yes. The language used in the commercial was also particularly cloying and SOO targeted and manipulative!!! It made me rather angry.

First off, you have your cute couples, holding hands, smiling, making puppy dog faces at each other against a white background talking about how amazing it was that they met for the first time through match.com even though they lived 5 minutes away from each other, or that they found their soulmate halfway around the world (um… greencard??) Then the spokesdude says something to the effect of, “Your perfect match is out there somewhere - the one person who will love you for the real you…”

UGH!!! I visited the site to see if his exact words were re-printed somewhere. Here’s a gem off the FAQ”

Question: How much does it cost to become a subscriber?

Answer: It depends on which plan you choose*. We have a 1-month plan, 3-month plan, and a 6-month plan. You can check out prices by clicking here. *Prices do not include miscellaneous expenses usually associated with Match.com dates, such as flowers, chocolates, stuffed animals that shake and sing love songs, the occasional diamond ring, etc.

I didn’t write that. That’s their little joke. Clearly meant for… the ladies. Hee-hee. You’ll get flowers! Chocolate! Stuffed animals! And maybe, just maybe, YOU’LL GET THE RING! THE RING!! THE RING!!!

Goodness knows that’s the most important part of a relationship leading up to marriage… the flowers (that die), the chocolate (that can make you fat or diabetic), the stuffed animals (assembled by sweatshop or child labor in a third world country and that will become more junk that you’ll hang onto for sentimental reasons you damn packrat!) and, of course, the diamond ring (conflict or blood diamonds from Sierra Leone, of course.)

The whole holiday, really. But I love the targeted advertising to the sci-fi geeks. That’s right, Poindexter. Sign up for match.com and you will find a girl who will love the real you - the socially awkward, Warcraft-obsessed, White Castle-eating, hygiene deficient and generally self-important you that you hide from the rest of the world so effectively*. She’ll love that guy - once you fill out the match.com questionnaire. Dude, she’s going to turn out to be Angelina Jolie’s blonde doppelganger and love playing Warcraft WITH you and will never tire of watching that Leeeeeroy Jenkins clip.

*Just a note: other than the socially awkwardness, hygiene deficiency and self-importance, the other characteristics are not damning. My little brother likes White Castle. I like my little brother. He has a girlfriend.

Anyway… I’m done with this for tonight. Don’t think I’m oblivious to the massive amounts of contradiction in tonight’s post - I start off talking about library science and some obscure ratio, make an X-Files reference then rail against sci-fi geeks (while I was watching the Sci-Fi Channel) and online dating… well, that last part isn’t contradictory or hypocritical because I don’t do it, so I can make fun of it blameslessly. Oh, yes.

Shit. It’s 11:00. I didn’t notice how much time had passed. I have to get my ass to bed so I don’t oversleep like I did today. Though I had a good excuse today… the alarms didn’t go off since we had a brown-out or something. My brother woke up 3 hours late. I was better off; I actually got to work on time.

Not watching the Superbowl. That’s for damn sure.

I AM, however, installing an older version of iTunes (5.0.1) on my computer since the newest version (6.0.2) has been crashing on me all the time. I don’t even use it to sync my iPod - just to buy music - and still, it is wretched. Also, if I want to get music I’ve PURCHASED LEGALLY through iTunes onto a CD, the stupid DRM protected format (.m4a, .m4p) of songs on iTunes won’t burn onto a CD without using iTunes to burn it and even then it’s problematic since it won’t combine .mp3 and .m4a formats together on a disc. I don’t use iTunes to burn CDs. I use Nero. I don’t use iTunes other than to access the music store.

Hence, I downloaded another program called JHymn which ties into your iTunes account to make sure you are authorized to “strip” the songs of their digital rights encoding and allows you to convert them to .mp3 format and make a mix CD for your car or whatever with the music you have legally purchased. However, it seems Apple grew wise to this software - though JHymn does take pains to make sure you’re legit in the music store before stripping your songs - and decided that with the newest version of the iTunes software, it would change it’s encoding protocol to nullify the effects of JHymn.

Bastages, is all I have to say. Thankfully, I only bought two songs in the new version of iTunes because - guess what? - song downloaded in the newest format are not compatible with JHymn and I’ll have to purchase them AGAIN to get them in a strippable version.

Dude. It’s only 7:20, but I feel like I’ve been awake for soooo long. It’s probably because I got up at 9 a.m. and have been running around all day with my brother helping him shop for things for his new apartment… sheets, mattress, bed, towels, hamper, vacuum cleaner, pots/pans, knives, shower curtains, etc… he’s not domestically inclined.

Anyway. Tomorrow and Tuesday I am bossless at work. I have lots of stuff to work on, though, so it will be fine. I’m even going to bring my earphones and a mix CD and listen to music while I work on my spreadsheets, InDesign documents and email email email. It should be fun.

Update: BASTARDS! I can’t even purchase songs using a version lower than 6.0!! Forget this. It’s a good thing I only had $2 worth of credit left in the music store from my last iTunes giftcard. What crap! I still love my iPod though. I will find ways to feed her. Well, as soon as I get her a new battery next week. Pobrecita.

I can’t get the archive style sheet for the new bookblog to reflect the same look as the main page. Arrrgh. The HTML portion of things is fine, apparently, but I’m missing something - and I’m certain it’s obvious and easy to someone who’s an honest-to-goodness web programmer, tech-savvy designer or Movable Type/CSS expert.

No point getting stressed over it, though. It won’t solve anything. I’ll sleep on it and perhaps wake up in the morning, flip through the O’Reilly CSS Pocket Reference guide I have here in front of me (quite literally - leaning against my keyboard) and figure it out.

I watched “Shaun of the Dead” with my brother and his girlfriend tonight. We baked brownies with little pieces of Andes mint candies sprinkled all over them. I had some Earl Grey tea. It was a nice, quiet evening.

I didn’t start my paper - but with good reason. The entire class got an email from the professor indicating that since she was unable to participate fully in this week’s online lecture and give us direction regarding the paper (due Feb. 16th) that we would recap this Thursday and the paper will now be due Feb. 23rd. She’s going to divide us up into groups and have us do an “exercise” to grow accustomed to policy recommendation and analysis.

Since I have a copy of the group assignment, I might take an hour or so tomorrow to see what kind of information about pre-existing policy, legal decisions, etc. I can find on the group topic. The whole online grad school thing is actually pretty cool in this regard: if I connect to the school library via proxy server, I can access all the awesome resources they subscribe to for free. That includes things like the Wiley Interscience database, the OCLC catalog, WorldCat and lots of other subscription-based services that the university subscribes to and that are, consequently, open to me as an FSU distance-learning student. It’s like a whole other world of research goodies!!!

But much geekier research goodies than I’d find elsewhere. I mean, I printed out an article from the Depression & Anxiety Journal entitled, “Are There Gender Differences in Objective and Subjective Sleep Measures? A Study of Insomniacs and Healthy Controls”, as well as one called, “Blogarians - A New Breed of Librarians.” That one is pretty interesting, though written several years ago.

It’s stopped raining, unfortunately, and I didn’t have any reason to set foot outside the house during the rainy part of this evening… and it would’ve been too dark to photograph my umbrella anyway. Boo hiss. This whole week is going to be cold and sunny. I guess I’ll have to check the 10-day forecast and see when my umbrella will be utilized… possible snow showers Friday and Sunday. OK. I can work with that. If it gets warmer or stays as mild as it has been, that’s rain.

You know what’s interesting? I was telling my parents how I got a really good review at work, and how I did well on my first grad school assignment. Rather than being happy for me or showing the tiniest bit of pride or simply saying, “well done”, my father said, “Let’s get you back down to earth - how are you going to pay for next semester? How are you doing with your credit card debt? Have you saved up any money for a car or to move out? Because you know your brother’s moving out in a week.” I just sighed and walked away.

It’s pretty shitty of him/them (my mother was there; didn’t say anything good and just asked me how I’d pay for car insurance). I mean, if *I* as the overachiever can’t impress them or make them proud or even moderately happy in a purely PARENTAL way, how must my siblings - who have a hellish road paved for them by my overachieving ass - feel? Or maybe they don’t care? I don’t know. It brings me down, though. Then they complain that I don’t tell them what’s going on in my life… and I feel I have good reason. The promise of misery.

If I share something that’s made me happy, they’ll make damn sure that they bring me down off of my little cotton ball of a cloud and make me feel shitty for feeling happy about *anything* when my life is clearly full of so many bigger problems that should prevent me from feeling any pride or happiness about anything I do. It’s been this way all my life and only now am I realizing how harmful, unfair and emotionally/mentally draining it is.

If I got a B, why wasn’t it an A?
If I got an A, why wasn’t it an A+?
If I got on the honor roll, why not the HIGH honor roll?
If I got a promotion, why wasn’t it to a better position?
If I got a new job, why isn’t the salary higher?
If I got on the Dean’s List, why wasn’t I offered more scholarship money?
If I lost 10 pounds, why wasn’t it 20 or 30 or 40?
If I made a good dinner, why wasn’t it low-fat or why didn’t it have more garlic or why did I foolishly spend money on artisan cheese?

When I got the highest possible score on the AP exams I took (a 5) or was the only kid in my school district to score a 12 on the district writing sample or got bunches of scholarships or moved out into my own place when I was 23, I heard nothing. That was as it should be and deserves no mention.

No wonder I’ve got some issues with self-esteem, accepting praise or compliments, and - oh, yeah - clinical depression. Sure - fine - same old bullshit, blaming it on the parents. I know that the depression and most of the other things are not their fault exclusively, but they certainly didn’t help and they’re not helping now… too bad parents don’t take an oath like doctors or police. “First, do no harm” - or the “protect and serve” bit. No, I’m not saying that parents should “serve” their children, but they shouldn’t treat them like crap either.

Considering that, is it really any wonder that I don’t want to have children? Natural, adopted or otherwise? It’s HARD work. It’s a lot of responsibility. For the same reasons I don’t want to be a heart surgeon, neurosurgeon, EMT, etc. I don’t want to be a parent; someone else’s life is in my hands. And not for the few hours it takes to complete a procedure where I have a staff to assist me and remind me not to leave a clamp or a sponge in someone’s abdomen… it’s for the rest of your life… you are responsible for that person - your child - in some way.

I have the utmost respect for people who fully realize this and choose to take this upon themselves - knowing it won’t be easy, knowing it will be a struggle in more than one way, and knowing that it’s a life-altering choice. I have the most bitter disgust for people who do it without thinking and then subject their children to lives of neglect, disinterest and sometimes, unfortunately, abuse.

My parents, after all is said and done, did a good job with me and my siblings. None of us are derelicts, addicts, abusers, or in jail. We’re all smart, relatively sociable and pretty well turned-out. And we’re totally f’ed up in the head, too. You don’t grow up with parents fighting all the time and always threatening to divorce each other (perhaps just as harmful and negative as an actual divorce) and making accusations and being abusive (all in front of the kids, mind you) and using you as go-betweens without developing some sort of insecurities and issues. Hell - maybe some people emerge totally unscathed just because they’re stronger and not sensitive. But I am who I am and my siblings are who they are… like it or lump it.

Too much. Blathering. Stopping now. I’m 27. I shouldn’t care anymore.

I didn’t get up until noon. Oops.

But I woke up inspired! And here’s what I did: http://www.researchgirl.com/bol/

That’s right - I designed the new bookblog page. I haven’t taken it live yet and relinked everything to this page simply because I want to make sure there’s more content before it’s out there getting action. However, I think it’s fairly lovely. The look isn’t consistent with the rest of the site, but I wanted it to be a bit more literary and bookish. I will alter it a little and add some linkage back to the researchgirl home and researchgirl rants, etc.

I’m going to get my LibraryThing feed on there, as well as additional “reading lists” and links to book sites of interest. There is a lot to link it to, so it should be a fairly dynamic and content-rich section of the site - as well as a taste of things to come, if all goes well in the future.

So… I’m off to work on that a bit more.

OK. I don’t care how old you are. Go see “Nanny McPhee.”

“Brokeback Mountain” didn’t get me choked up or teary, but this did. It made my friend Elizabeth cry - but we also laughed our asses off.

Emma Thompson - amazing (albeit w/prosthetic nose and warts and unibrow and snaggletooth).
Colin Firth - gorgeous and amazing.
Angela Lansbury - hilarious (albeit w/prosthetic nose).
Kelly MacDonald - just lovely… and she was great in “Gosford Park” as well.
Derek Jacobi - great little role.

The set design and costumes and makeup were G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S. The colors just astounded me, as did the whole story. It’s truly magical; I haven’t seen a movie that’s this, well, charming in a long long time.

I must acquire the books upon which this movie was based - and adapted into a screenplay by Emma Thompson herself. Though I shouldn’t be surprised - she’s a brilliant woman and actress and has adapted “Pride and Prejudice”, “Sense and Sensibility” and “Wit” to screenplays already. Old hat at this point, I would imagine.

Emma Thompson, you have my admiration! You’ve done right by Jane Austen AND Nanny McPhee/Nurse Matilda, and that means you’ve done right by researchgirl.

As an FYI to interested parties: it’s based on the “Nurse Matilda” books by Christianna Brand. A quick visit to Amazon revealed that they have a “Complete Tales of Nurse Matilda” hardcover which I have just ordered. Luckily, the only movie tie-in feature is a small sticker on the cover which I will remove promptly! I’m a purist like that.

After the movie, I had tea with Elizabeth and we sat talking and laughing and watching our tea buds unfold (she got some awesome white tea that’s tied into little blossoms that “bloom” when they are immersed in hot water) until almost 2 in the morning. I drove home, got my second wind, and here I am. I’m going to read for a while… and then tomorrow wake up before noon so I can get some money from the bank, perhaps go buy a new pair of pants (yup - my psychiatrist pointed out that I’ve lost weight - yay!**), and then dive into paper-writing since the APA style guide arrived yesterday and I am ready to go.

**His bit of wisdom for tonight regarding some emotional stuff I’ve been contending with lately was, “You cannot hold back the tsunami with your two hands.” This is quite possibly the most abstruse and “Zen-like” thing he’s ever said. No matter - I understood it in context.

A pretty good finish to a week that started off rougher than most.

While driving home, I was stuck behind a beige Lexus SUV with the license plate “SPESH L”. I was disgusted. And at that moment, they started to play a Dave Matthews song on the radio.

This, ladies and gentlemen, was very close to hell for me.

In fantastically fabulous news, I received my umbrella from the UK today!

When I take it out in the rain to deflower it, I’ll take a picture from undearneath the dome so you can experience it vicariously.

Additional fantastic news - I had my three-month review at work today and it was *glowing* and I am rather happy to hear that I have great organizational and communication skills, that everyone likes working with me, that I am proactive and independent and have a great attitude and am capable and intuitive and all sorts of other things that make me really happy to be working where I’m working and working for the people I’m working for.

Also, we had this review over lunch, so I enjoyed some seared mahi-mahi with charred tomatoes and jalapeno tartar sauce. Mmmm. For a girl who’s not a fish person, this was delightful and delicious.

Now, off to the doctor and then a movie with Elizabeth…