The Primrose Path

You Are a Practical Realist

You are a bit tentative when it comes to new experiences. You have to push yourself to try new things, but once you do, you love the adventure. You like to think that people see you as dramatic and fascinating. You do your best to seem mysterious. You are a very realistic person. You see the world as it is, flaws and all. Right now, stress occasionally makes you feel trapped in your life. You usually have a clear perspective on things though! Overall, your life is very peaceful - if not a little solitary. Much of what goes on goes on in your head. You feel like the fate of the future partially rests in your hands. You believe you need to help make the world a better place.

Flash Interviews <--- www.flashinterviews.com

Dr. Wright, a creative writing professor I work with and for at APSU, has a new project going. It's exploring the off-the-cuff, impromptu interview as a blending of both the non-fiction and flash genres of writing.

Currently, there's one start-up question posted so far (answer in 40 words or less, don't stop to think!) and lots of neat things are ensuing in the comments. Stop by and check it out? It's a lot of fun, it's great for writing skills, and it would be a big help for the project. :)

(PS - It's hosted on WordPress, but you don't need a WordPress account to join in.)

Borrowed from lotesseflower:

Go here. Keep refreshing until you've collected five quotes that really resonate with you, then post them to your journal.

1. A book burrows into your life in a very profound way because the experience of reading is not passive.
Erica Jong, O Magazine, 2003

2.The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is 'look under foot.' You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think.
John Burroughs (1837 - 1921)

3. Give to every other human being every right that you claim for yourself.
Robert Ingersoll (1833 - 1899)

4. 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 alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

5. There is nothing new under the sun but there are lots of old things we don't know.
Ambrose Bierce (1842 - 1914), The Devil's Dictionary

For anyone intersted, you can watch a deep brain stimulation surgery being preformed live at Vanderbilt on May 28th from 4-5 pm by going here: OR Live.


More information may be found here. :)

So, I have just purchased a 'ranch-style tuna salad sandwich' for lunch.

What the hell does that mean?! Should it be single-storied and assymetrically designed?

The returns on an editing/writing-related job search done where I currently live versus the same search done in places like New York or Chicago is...dismaying. Not surprising. But dismaying.

In honour of Shakespeare's birthday:

( Some photos I took in Stratford and never posted )



Much Ado About Nothing

Beatrice: I wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick:
nobody marks you.
Benedick: What, my dear Lady Disdain! are you yet living?
Beatrice: Is it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet food to
feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to
disdain, if you come in her presence.
Benedick: Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all
ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart
that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with
a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your
humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man
swear he loves me.
Benedick: God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or
other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.
Beatrice: Scratching could not make it worse, an 'twere such a face as yours
were.
Benedick: Well, you are a rare parrot-teacher.
Beatrice: A bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.
Benedick: I would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so good a continuer. But keep your way, i' God's name; I have done.
Beatrice: You always end with a jade's trick: I know you of old.

And, because he's a favourite, some Feste from Twelfth Night:

Cesario: Dost thou live by thy music, friend?
Feste: No, sir, I live by the church.
Cesario: Art thou a churchman?
Feste: No such matter, sir: I do live by the church; for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.

Feste: Good madonna, why mournest thou?
Olivia: Good fool, for my brother's death.
Feste: I think his soul is in hell, madonna.
Olivia: I know his soul is in heaven, fool.
Feste: The more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother's soul being in heaven.

I did a really bad job of keeping this list in 2007. But I'm going to keep trying and one of these years, I'll get it right! :)



Stuff I Read in 2008:

10. Burning Bright -
Tracy Chevalier
Ok, so I'm not yet halfway through this one, but I felt the need to alert you to its presence anyway. New Chevalier novel = muchmuch happiness in my little world. Now with the added awesomeness of William Blake!!

9. White Night (Dresden Files series)-
Jim Butcher

I've been waiting and waiting for this one in paperback and at last! 'tis here. Without delving into spoilers (although I think Dresden fans seeing this likely read the book before I did), there's one plot point that makes me go a little "....eh? Seriously?" but overall Jim Butcher continues to get more awesome. The next installment, Small Favours, just came out in hardback; I think I'll have to attack the library rather than wait this one out.

8. Mr. Monk and the two Assistants -
Lee Goldberg

I had no idea there even were Monk books till I ran across one. After reading some fairly miszed reviews on Amazon, I was wary, but still curious, so I picked up this one. Surprisingly good! Not exactly world-class mystery fiction here, but it was a lot of fun. :) If you're a fan of the show, you'll probably find the books a good read.

7. Geisha, a Life -
Iwasaki Mineko, translated and editied by Rande Brown

The autobiography of a lady who was once of Japan's premiere gieko. Fascinating story, and the translator does a fantastic job preserving her charming voice.


6. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
On the off change there's anyone later to this party than me, I must warn you that there are now spoilers for this in the comments.

Yes, finally. Just finished this one last night. I read it, I think, in a little less than 48 hours. Easily a favourite of the series. I could say a lot of glowing things about this book, and I only have one real complaint: I'd have been happier having not read the epilogue. It's a little depressing to see that even a war didn't change certain attitudes.


4,5. Dragons of the Dwarven Depths, Dragons of the Highlord Skies
Margaret Weiss, Tracy Hickman

I don't have much use for most of the three billion other Dragnolance novels, but I still have a soft spot for the original War of the Lance trilogy and its characters. The authors of the original three (Weiss & Hickman) are in the process of writing a second trilogy that intertwines with the first. Dwarven Depths is the first; it deals primarily with Tanis, Sturm, Tass, and Flint's journey to Thorbardin, which is mentioned but never seen in Autumn Twilight. Highlord Skies primarily follows Kitiara - a very nice treatment of her character. The third and final volume, Dragons of an Hourglass Mage, isn't out yet. Three guesses who it's about. If you're a fan of the original Dragons trilogy, these are worth the read.

1,2,3. The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, The Amber Spyglass
Phillip Pullman
(though to be fair, I started the first one in December)

The debut of the movie version of The Golden Compass prompted me to start re-reading the series, which is an old favourite. Shortly after I finished this first one, I got to see the film version, which I already talked about over here. :)

For those of you unaware, a content strike has been proposed for this Friday, March 21 (beginning, in some places, today).

The 24-hour strike will begin at the following times for the following locations:

Thursday, March 20, 2:00 PM -- Honolulu
Thursday, March 20, 4:00 PM -- Anchorage
Thursday, March 20, 5:00 PM -- San Francisco; Los Angeles
Thursday, March 20, 6:00 PM -- Mexico City; Denver
Thursday, March 20, 7:00 PM -- Chicago
Thursday, March 20, 8:00 PM -- Montreal; New York
Thursday, March 20, 9:00 PM -- Buenos Aires
Midnight -- London
Friday, March 21, 1:00 AM -- Paris
Friday, March 21, 2:00 AM -- Istanbul
Friday, March 21, 3:00 AM -- Moscow
Friday, March 21, 4:00 AM -- Dubai
Friday, March 21, 5:00 AM -- Islamabad
Friday, March 21, 6:00 AM -- Bangladesh
Friday, March 21, 7:00 AM -- Bangkok
Friday, March 21, 8:00 AM -- Singapore
Friday, March 21, 9:00 AM -- Tokyo
Friday, March 21, 10:00 AM -- Brisbane
Friday, March 21, 11:00 AM -- Sydney
Friday, March 21, 12 Noon -- Suva

And it includes not logging onto the site at all, for posting, commenting, or even just reading, in order to have the best effect.

'But why?' you ask. The best and most complete answer I've found is darkrosetiger's post here. It also includes a very telling interview with our new owners.

LJ was intended to be content and communication-driven; if we wanted another MySpace or Facebook, we'd be at those sites instead.


For a run-down of and discussion on 6A and SUP's past transgressions, I direct you to stewardess's post here.

But as the great philospher Jagger once said, "You can't always get what you want." Perhaps espially in a money-making environment. To that end,reddwarfer raises this point:


Yeah, sure, it'd be nice if they cared about our opinions or didn't go back on their promises or if they appreciated their customer bases. But it isn't mandatory. Most of us would never think of acting similarly in regards to any service or product we receive from any other business if said business started acting in a way we didn't like.

We'd normally either put up with it or go somewhere else.



Well, yeah. But where?

She also raises the excetionally valid point that there is so much content being generated about the content strike - " People that haven't posted in AGES are posting about not posting" - that we're probably overshadowing our own selves here. And yet here I am, adding to the mass of posts on the lack of posts. But LJ is about communication, and I'm better at the "talking about it" part than I am at passive resistance. That's not to say I won't be taking part in the content strike - but I have to tell you about it first. :)

When it comes down to it, we're stuck between a rock and a hard place here: bad decisions and changes we don't want to put up with versus having no real place to go. And if The Powers that Be know we won't go despite what they've already done, don't our threats lose some power? Why keep trying?

You can't always get what you want. But if you try sometimes...well, you know the rest.


I'll see you Monday.

Me: Neurology scheduling, this is Ashley.

Some Guy: Ashley! Good! I think I spoke to you this morning...except your name was Amanda...


No. No, it really wasn't.

In direct correlation to this post, I saw a headline for an article that turned out to be on the exact same subject (Prince Harry being pulled from Afghanistan) - but the headline read "Prince Hary Pulled," and I spent a very puzzled moment wondering why Prince Harry's, er, 'evening activities' are headline-worthy before realizing the article was in USA Today. Safe to say that one would get a little lost in translation. :)

"I cancelled my son, Emma's, appointment with the doctor on Wednesday and you're calling me to reschedule for him."

Except it was her daughter Emma. And this lady called me.

(I would've thought it was a slip of the tongue if she'd just said "son" once, but she referred to Emma as "he" and "him" and "my son" throughout the conversation, even when I said she.)

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means...

So, after hearing it in countless songs, movies, tv shows, and random conversations on the street, I finally let my curiousity get the better of me. I just had to know what the hell "shorty" meant and how on earth it has ended up with contextual definition of "hot girl," or possibly just "girl," full stop.

I am no wiser on how this came to be, unfortunately (slang etymology, anyone?), but ye olde Urban Dictionary had several definition offerings. My hands-down favourite:

Shorty, n.

"A term contrived by some asshole or group of assholes to mean a sexy or attractive female.

A term I wouldn't ever use to describe a girlfriend, close female companion or a desirable female with whom I'd like to get better acquainted.

I buy mah shorty diamonds and call her shorty because she is very sexy yet has the brains of a turtle and thinks shorty is a cute adorable term instead of what it really is.

Another mindless slang invented by people that live their lives in dance clubs."

Wow. You know you're out of touch when you read a CNN headline that says, "UK pulls Harry out of Afghanistan," and it takes you a good 15-20 seconds to realize they mean Prince Harry and not Harry Potter.

Apparently the shiny new word o' the week here at the clinic is 'excellent.' This has been handed down from...I don't know who exactly, our PR people or the folk in Patient Advocacy. We're to work this word into convsersation as much as (if not more than) humanly possibly:

"Hi, there! Are you having an excellent morning? How was your visit here today? Excellent? What could we do next time that would make your visit even more excellent? Thanks for your input, you have an excellent day!"


The basic concept here - better patient satisfaction, or "customer service" - is not at all a bad one. It's great for all involved, especially in a medical setting. But my basic take on customer service, in retail, medical, or any other field, is this: Be helpful. Be friendly. Don't be an ass.

And that's it. It doesn't need fancy buzz words, stupid catch phrases, or complicated anagrams that I must spend time learning (I could've used that time to better familiarize myself with CPAP equipment, which patients might find infinitely more useful, but no matter) and parrot back to any visiting official at any given time. Millions of dollars are paid each year to people and companies for coming up with new and exciting ways to train people in the same thing my mother drilled into my head from an early age: Be helpful, friendly, and not an ass. Or, according to my grandmother's old school approach, treat others as you want to be treated.

Why is this so complicated?

"Neurology, this is Ashley."

"Good morning, how are you?"

"....fine, and how are you?"

"Doin' okay. You guys have ice there yet?"

"Um, no, not here."

"Well, we do, they just cancelled school for today..."

"......"

"So, what do you need first?"


Um...an explanation for you're calling a neuro clinic to discuss the weather?

See that face? *points at icon* There are days when I make that face a lot...

Pretty much everyone knows that today is Valentine's Day. What you might not know is that it's also the tenth anniversary of Eve Ensler'sV-Day crusade.

From the website:
V-Day is a global movement to stop violence against women and girls.
V-Day is a catalyst that promotes creative events to increase awareness,
raise money and revitalize the spirit of existing anti-violence
organizations. V-Day generates broader attention for the fight to
stop violence against women and girls, including rapt, battery, incest,
female genital mutilation (FGM) and sexual slavery.


For anyone interested and local to the Nashville area, Eve Ensler (also author of The Vagine MonogloguesM) will be speaking at the Vanderbilt Student Life Center at 7 pm on 2/18/08.

1. Pick 15 of your favorite movies.
2. Go to IMDb and find a quote from each movie.
3. Post them here for everyone to guess.
4. Strike it out when someone guesses correctly, and put who guessed it and the movie.
5. NO GOOGLING/using IMDb search functions. Sure, you can cheat, but what's the fun in that?

It took me longer than I expected to come up with a list of 15 movies I'd call "favourite"...


( But here they are )

If I start talking about work grievances, I won't stop, so I'll just not start instead. Suffice to say this particular journey has gone as far as it can, and plans have been made to walk away instead of walking into the same brick wall.

Appointment with orthopedist on Tuesday, yay! There is talk of an MRI as well. Onward goes my quest for knowledge.

So, after seeing it bandied about endlessly in on-line forums, I finally got frustrated enough with not knowing what it mean to google this mysterious tl;dr.

Oh, come on. You're kidding me, right?


For those of you, like me, who didn't know what this ridiculous bit of abbreviation was, it stands for "too long; didn't read."

I'd love to see how this would fly in a classroom setting:

"Ashley, where's that Chaucer paper you're meant to have written?"
"Yeah, about that...um, Canterbury Tales? tl;dr. Sorry."


Beyond what it says about the attention span of the average internet user...isn't it a little silly? Is it really necessary to leave a comment solely to say that what the original poster wrote (or, in some cases, merely the article they linked to) was too long and therefore went unread? If you're not going to read what someone has to say for such a silly reason, is it really worth anyone's time to tell them that?


Geez, internets.

Ah, violent wind storms. Driving home through the neighbourhood tonight was like driving through the remains of an Epic Battle fought by large, plastic trash containers.


In other news, after 4 days of sharp, stabby uncomfortableness in my left shoulder (and eight years of general shoulder joint pain, shut up), I finally took myself to the doctor. An hour later, I left with an rx for an anti-inflammatory, an order for some x-rays, and the knowledge that I have "surprisingly good reflexes." The doctor will likely send me to an orthopedic specialist, but she wants to see the x-rays first.

It took a little over half an hour to get my prescription filled, so I chatted with my mom for a while. She is well, Grandmother is well, Steve is...only slightly less well than his usual.

( Cut for medical-ness of a somewhat personal nature. )

Grad school applications, GRE scores, and one letter of recommendation are in! Two more letters, and then they can send me my acceptance letter. Aaaany time now. :)

I made a pair of pants last week. Actual, wearable pants. Yes, the one article of clothing that has thwarted me for years and made previously readable sewing instructions morph into incomprehensible Greek has finally submitted to my will. Mostly because of my grandmother's tutorial. :) But still! I have committed pantsery Huzzah!!