Those last 100 words are the hardest

Here's a shot of Linda putting the final touches on her 50,000-word effort for NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month. With a good 7 hours to spare.



Excuse me while I go keep my eye on the best seller list.

(December 3 addition) Check out the great story about Linda's efforts in the Online Gargoyle!

Fussy about fonts

Today Mr. Beesley was laughing at right-hand-website-design-man Adam, whose shower was spoiled by inconsistent font-ness on his bar of Dial soap. Adam sent me this image as proof.



He was particularly bothered by the nonconforming a. I personally am glad we have Adam's keen eye and sound sensibility on our student web team.

Speaking of funny fonts, I love how Natalie enhanced our Teen Tech Week poster with these awesome background colors.

Throwing out the baby

Scott sent me a link to this article about school officials, teachers, and librarians banning Wikipedia. One librarian even posted a "Just Say No to Wikipedia" sign above the computers in the school library. Sigh. Is No really the only answer? How about It depends? How will the information be used? Can it be corroborated in other sources? Lots of folks have spoken quite eloquently (or at least passionately) on this topic, including Doug and Stephen (who says that banning Wikipedia is "moronic"). Banning Wikipedia outright, without teaching about its innards and acknowledging its impact, seems like a real lost opportunity.

Okay, on a lighter note, here's one for all the fans of the television show 24 -- the unaired 1994 pilot, in which Jack Bauer saves the world with AOL 3.0. Thanks to my colleague Mr. Smith for the tip.

Thanksgiving break

...starts tomorrow after a mere half-day of school. I'm going to spend some time re-reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series, hoping to get a clue about the current controversy. I think my background leaves me missing far too many cultural and religious references. These books are more than ten years old and have survived until now without raising front-page-worthy headlines. The release of the movie seems to have dredged up all the concern. Hmm.

As a cheerfully offensive antidote, maybe I'll also get a chance to watch this season's episodes of The Librarians, now available on the Australian show's website.

"God loves all his children, but particularly those who return their books on time."
Frances O'Brien, Head Librarian

Edward vs. Jacob

Now you can express your feelings on this matter with buttons, t-shirts, and other swag purchased from Zazzle.com. There's a Jacob Black page and an Edward Cullen page.



Not a fan of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series? Take a look at the Harry Potter page instead. Thanks to Beth and the YALSA blog for alerting me to Zazzle.

And on an entirely different topic, check out Runelle's fifteen minutes in this week's Inside Illinois "On the Job" column!

Is this in my job description?

This morning I had to stand guard in the lounge, all for the good of artistic license and a Computer Literacy 2 project. Subfreshman Carl will be portrayed in this triumphant pose (in a new version of the board game Snakes and Ladders), having crossed the threshold of the upper-classmen-only lounge.



My job was to make sure that this didn't happen to him:

I really want to find a way to use this in class

Especially after a new stretch of teaching semi-comatose students how to use the online catalog. Trouble is, we're living in a hybrid world. That catalog and its funky old categories lead to 10-whopping-million volumes. There's just too much good stuff there to ignore. So I try to make it more appealing by using ten-dollar words like metadata. Sometimes it even works.

Thanks, Alice, for the lead to Michael Wesch's Digital Ethnography project at Kansas State University.

Free rice and vocabulary improvement

Buck managed to sleep through a rather loud scene at the computers that would normally have raised my eyebrows. But, except for Danny (who was playing online chess), everyone else was absorbed with Freerice.com. For every correct answer on a vocabulary quiz, 10 grains of rice are donated to the United Nations World Food Programme. How could I object? Try it. You won't be able to stop.

Confusion

Someone needs to tell Kat and Serena that Halloween is over.



Okay, the getup was for theater arts class. But aren't they cute?

On the other hand, today Jack and Michael showed me how I could really confuse myself (or someone else) in the future. At FutureMe.org, you can send yourself an e-mail message that won't arrive for years, even decades. Lots of people probably know about this, since a book of messages marked "public" has been published. I think it's cool that Amazon is currently suggesting A Lifetime of Secrets: A Postsecret Book by Frank Warren as a companion purchase. Warren invited people to send him decorated postcards bearing a secret they've never told anyone. In both cases, the messages are anonymous. People are simply given an opportunity to unburden themselves of the past or express a hope for the future.

What would you tell your future self?

Back from all that conference-going

Nice to be home. And how better to celebrate than by taking a chair buddy picture? I believe Celinda and Sophie are also dance buddies.