Blog-related cartoons

This is my new favorite blog-related cartoon. I think that it's from Natalie Dee:

This one is good, too:

Blogboy

Tonight Joseph asked to do a blog post about funny jack-o-lanterns. (Check out his spelling--it is really getting much easier to interpret!) When he finished, he announced that he wanted to write a poem about Halloween which can be seen at the end of his blog entry. To elucidate the poet's intentions, I have included a video of the poem read aloud. Sam has pointed out that Joseph's poem is rather like an inverted haiku in structure.

gloing lit apon the grawnd
stiks move and glavs grab
on haloeen niiete

Kid blogs

Check out Sam and Joseph's blogs! Both kids took pictures at the 3rd Sunday Market and posted them on their blogs. Also new this school year: rather than dictating, Joseph has started doing his own blogging!

One of us*

Sigh... It finally happened. I lost my link to Web of Science, the best scientific search engine of them all. I have been logging in using my UC Riverside account for the last 9 months, but today my account was rejected. Illinois State University is a relatively small school: it has a patchwork of lesser academic search engines and subscribes to only about half of the journals that I need.

Also, I have 52 days until my site license for JMP expires, and I have to decide whether to wrangle a new license, try to figure out how to get SPSS to do my bidding (I have SPSS, but it and I have a love-hate relationship), or return to the dreaded (but omnipotent) SAS.
So UCR has cut me off. I would guess that my UCR email account will disappear soon, so everyone please use my ISU (ilstu) email account.

I suppose that I was just a little bit smug when I got here with my doctorate from a big UC school with seemingly limitless access to resources. I also had good hair and decently fashionable clothes. Well, now I have no Web of Science, no unlimited journal access or stats software. I have lost my tan. Also, all of my clothes are worn out and I can't replace them. So, I am no longer big city; I am just as Normal as everyone else.

*

Why is my desk the center of the universe?

As part of the graduation and leaving process, I consolidated and organized all of my work and home office files to minimize redundancy and inefficiency. I also dumped my file cabinet full of papers in favor of pdfs. Now, if I have a wireless signal, I can work pretty much anywhere. This week I abandoned crashy EndNote for Bookends (http://www.sonnysoftware.com/) as my reference software. Bookends lets you download citations and abstracts and also attach pdfs to your references and sort them in whatever groupings you want. I strongly recommend it over EndNote!

When I moved to Normal, I set up a nice home work space for myself in Danny's office. My desk is in a picture window with plenty of light. I think that the fact that people are constantly passing by my window motivates me to be (or at least look) busy. (Also, I have to remember to sit like a lady when I wear a skirt.) Lately, however, I have noticed that I have been having trouble getting work done at my desk at home. The assorted gremlins hiding under my desk and sleeping in the curtains may explain this problem. I have always had a rule that no one (other than me) is allowed to put anything on my desk, or take anything off of my desk. I guess that I should have also stipulated that no one is allowed to put anything under my desk either. The kids like to set up a fort of pillows under my desk so that they can wave to all the ISU students passing by. The dog also likes to wedge himself under the desk to watch squirrels.

My desk; desk gremlins; curtain gremlin



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