Whistle while you work

Hmm, somehow this recurrent whirlwind of activity keeps pulling me away from posting. Or perhaps it's just not a high enough priority yet. Anyway, I've been working really hard on the extraction software for the Immigrant Ancestors Project. Spent seven hours on Saturday and almost ten hours on Monday working on the icons for the software, and they're looking very nice. Lately I've been working on the batch maker, specifically the field format editor (all using XML). It's a lot of fun. And this morning I got a raise! :)

Also, I got the editorial job I applied for last week and started work this morning. I'm currently editing a dissertation on wilderness treatment programs (health care). Interesting stuff. :)

Other than that, this morning I cut up some index cards into eight parts and turned them into Burmese alphabet flashcards, then emptied out a floss container and use it to carry them around with me. (The idea, I must admit, is not mine; a friend recommended it to me a few weeks ago.)

Freaky Saturday

Okay, so here's some weirdness for you. When I left for the bus stop this morning, the microwave dial was set to the highest setting (which is where I always leave it). When I got back today, it was set to Defrost. The really weird thing is that this is the third time it's happened since my roommates moved out. Freaky! Nothing was stolen, though. The last time it happened I thought it might have been myself sleepwalking, but this time it couldn't have been me. What's going on here?

Mirror, mirror, on the wall

At work I've been spending some time trying to make icons for our new extraction software. For the last few days I simply couldn't come up with anything -- it was like a tremendous brick wall looming before me and I didn't have a key because there wasn't even a door. Today, however, I said a little prayer and then checked out some icon websites (mainly Jakub Steiner's). After my lunch break I sat down at the computer and started drawing some sketches. Ideas started flowing and I quickly opened Illustrator and began work. It was as if I was a completely different person, watching myself create art as I'd never done before. Here is the result (though I hasten to mention that they're not finished by any means):





I also found some really neat books on kid's books at the library, namely Martin Salisbury's Illustrating Children's Books and Julie Cummins's Children's Book Illustration and Design. I'll post my sketches and other artwork as they arrive.

The pen and the pauper

Today was a most interesting day. It began in a fairly ordinary manner, but then in the middle of the afternoon I watched a documentary on the new mural in the juvenile section of the library. In that short half-hour two things were impressed upon me: first, that I really need to learn how to paint, and second, that my outlet for art will be fulfilled in illustrating children's books. I don't necessarily mean that I'm going to go into illustration (at least I don't think so), but the kind of art that I've been dying to do is illustrations for children's books, I've now realized.

So, I went to the bookstore after work determined to get some painting supplies. I had no idea paint and brushes could be so expensive. :) I ended up getting a two-dollar set of Crayola watercolors, figuring that I had better do some research before I start buying expensive paints. When I got home I tried my hand at it and WOW was it fun! Even though it was kind of frustrating not to be able to be as definitive with my lines (the water kept making it all runny), it was still terrifically enjoyable and I can't wait to start with acrylics and oils. Of course, I don't really have any idea what I'm doing, so maybe I'll try to find some painting classes around here...

And now for the second part of my interesting day. Shortly after I finished painting, two of my mission friends came over to visit. One of them had brought a book with her, Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea, and she began reading a chapter of it to us. The passage sparked several threads of interesting conversation, and halfway through it I thought to myself, "We ought to do this more often." When the chapter came to an end, my other friend said, "We should start a book club." And when we all realized that we'd all been thinking of that very same thing, the excitement took root and we made plans. Here's the list of books we came up with (we're estimating two weeks per book, at least for the rest of the summer):

1. The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
   
2. Go Forward With Faith: The Biography of Gordon B. Hinckley, by Sheri L. Dew
   
3. The Giver, by Lois Lowry
   
4. A mystery, yet to be determined, by Agatha Christie
   
5. Mere Christianity, by C.S. Lewis
   
6. Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner
   
7. The Five Languages of Love: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate, by Gary Chapman
   

We're also going to read and discuss children's books and we're thinking about writing and illustrating a children's book in Thai and English. I get goosebumps just thinking about it. :)

Net Junkies Anonymous

I hopped onboard Schwa today. It's a student linguistics journal here on campus, focusing on all sorts of interesting stuff like dialects. I also applied for a job as an editorial assistant for the fall (I do enjoy my programming job, but sooner or later I need to start working in the field I actually intend to go into :)).

I realized today that one of the main reasons all my free time seems to evaporate is that I waste an awful lot of time surfing around on the web. I hadn't really thought much of it until today, but I realized that whenever I'm bored and even when I'm not, I automatically turn to the Internet. Sure, it's fun to read about new stuff and it's kind of like exploring the world, but I think I'm addicted. There are tons of interesting websites out there and as my interests grow I keep finding more and more (on architecture or origami or British English or whatnot), yes. But as I've been contemplating the idea of not spending so much time on the computer, a wonderful vision of freedom and "real life" has swept into my soul. I would actually have time to read books and do all the creative things I've been waiting to do. So, from here on out I'm going to be severely limiting my time on the web, and we'll see what happens. I wonder if I'll get withdrawals. ;)

Twiddle-dee twiddle-dum

Hmm, I'm not doing so well on the post-every-day or even every-other-day thing. Where to begin? I'm just working, rewriting the extraction software for the Immigrant Ancestors Project. I got a letter from the Church Music department yesterday -- "Will I Leave a Legacy?" didn't place. But that's okay; it was only my first song, and it didn't even have the third verse when I submitted it. Haven't spent much time on the guitar lately, unfortunately. Ah, rats, the garbage man just went by and I forgot to take the garbage cans out to the front. ~sigh~

Come on, it's only been a week

It's been a while. But, more importantly, school is over! No more homework till September. :D So, lately I've mainly been working and preparing for finals. I designed a new website at work: Irish Mormon History. This morning I downloaded Microsoft's Acrylic, too, to see what it was like. I only played around with it for a few minutes but I must say that I really, really like the B-spline curves. If only Adobe would add them to Illustrator... I'll write more about Acrylic as I continue to test it out.

Added five new languages to my Moroni 10:3-5 page. In the process, I realized that I've completely neglected all the links to language websites on Blank Slate for the past three years. It's time to change that. I'll also be spending the summer finding copies of the Book of Mormon in the 70-odd languages I don't have and adding them to the page. (I've got a Korean one right now but haven't yet been able to try entering the characters through OS X's symbol palette.)

On the same token, I got an e-mail from my mission president a few days ago asking for some assistance in developing Burmese language resources. I'll chronicle my experiences in learning Burmese (and developing some basic training materials) over the summer. Should be a lot of fun. :)

Oh, the มติชน dictionary is available at MatichonBook.com.

"Press on"

"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent. The slogan 'press on' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race."
- Calvin Coolidge

Word on the street has it that there's a new Thai dictionary out, the พจนานุกรม ฉบับมติชน. Chulabook.com doesn't have it, but I'll keep looking and I'll post a link when I do find it.

So, lately I've reverted to my electric razor, because cutting myself every day got rather boring, and it took forever. But last night one of my friends convinced me that the Mach3 was the way to go, so I got one and this morning I found that it really does live up to its reputation. I still have to use the electric razor for my mustache/goatee area (I wonder if that part of the face has an official name...), because it's really hard to get that area with a manual razor, but that's okay with me.

Finally, at work we're moving to XML. I'd been thinking about it for the past couple of weeks, and it is now a necessity. Once we complete the move and clean up the extraction software, we'll be ready to have volunteers start extracting records again.

I have a question: does cramming four or five subjects into one post feel jarring? Or should I rather make four or five posts?

David and Goliath

To continue along yesterday's thought, let me add that I do have an agenda. It is this: Seeing the flood of filth and poison that cascades out of Hollywood, I want to make a stand for good. The fight between good and evil is real, and one of the very potent and very visible battlefields is the media (especially movies). "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing" (Edmund Burke). Can I sit here bemoaning the lack of morals in the media and yet do nothing? Boycotting Hollywood is all well and good, but people do watch movies and the trend seems to be that if there aren't any good movies, they'll watch bad ones. Good, wholesome family values need to be protected and put back in public where they belong.

I do realize that Hollywood is a juggernaut, a Goliath of sorts. And I am just one voice. But there are others, too, both LDS and of other faiths, who are already fighting against this dragon. Will we be able to completely rid the world of this evil? Certainly not, and it will undoubtedly get even more powerful as the end of the world draws near, but we can make a difference in the lives of many people. By small and simple means are great things brought to pass.

Think big

Today I watched The Book of Mormon Movie. Hmm, how shall I phrase this? It was...lacking. I had hoped that it would indeed be a spectacular epic, but alas, 'twas not to be. In fact, it was almost embarrassing. The script wasn't very good (mixing the archaic speech with the colloquial was a bad idea -- one way or the other, please), the lighting wasn't very well done in several of the scenes, the acting was not very believable, and it didn't really do justice to the book. As I was watching it, I kept thinking to myself, "You could do so much better than this." And why not? I read this quote today:

"Make no little plans. They have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency. Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us. Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty. Think big." (Chicago architect Daniel Hudson Burnham, 1846-1912)

I also read an article by Kieth Merrill: Where Are the Great Mormon Movies? Part 1 and Part 2. Could my future lie in screenwriting? It is an intriguing idea. The voice of common sense inside me says, "What on earth are you thinking?!? You, make movies? Yeah, right. Whatever. Go back to the small stuff -- go hole up in a library or in some publishing company where you belong." And yet I read quotes like the one above and yes, I do dare to think big. I already know that many of the people I tell this to are going to laugh at me and, shaking their finger, proceed to inform me how slim the odds of success are and all that. I've heard it before. (I guess I'm prone to these fantasies of greatness. :)) I will not sit still and let opportunities crumble and die unused, discarded in the rubble of my past. Instead I will build -- I will do things that would stagger those who came before. I will think big.

Bloglines of Penzance

Discovered Bloglines. To tell the truth, I stumbled across it a couple of months ago, but back then the idea of a web-based aggregator seemed stupid. Now I see I was wrong. :) Not only that, but I also found a slew of book blogs and language blogs that I had no idea existed. It has been a mini Christmas for me today. :) One of the very interesting blog entries I read was If readers were horses... at the Litblog Co-Op.

Last night I went to the Pirates of Penzance performance here at BYU, the first time I'd ever seen it. It was splendid! You do have to be open to the absurdity of course, but the puns and wordplay are terrifically fun. I'm coming to the realization that my English vocabulary hasn't really been increasing in the past few years -- in fact, I feel like it's vanishing. The remedy: more reading. I found yesterday that the place where we're moving in August is only one street away from the city library. I still get goosebumps just thinking about it. :)