By Mel, on December 23rd, 2011
Good morning everyone,
I’m sorry to say when I updated wordpress on the main domain earlier this week, it somehow ate my subdomain. I cannot logon to the subdomain, when you try to load anything but the main page of the subdomain you get this 500 error. Unfortunately with Christmas, I’m not going to be able to work on fixing my subdomain until maybe next weekend or the weekend after.
I’m not sure how this happened because they’re two separate installations of wordpress. I’ve tried deleting all my plugins, and nothing. I’ll be trying returning to 2010 to see if that does anything, but it seems to be a major error. I think I will need to delete and recreate the subdomain. Stay tuned for updates.
~ Melissa
By Mel, on October 12th, 2011
So, just chickening in, so to speak  (and chickening is a deliberate word play on checking in, not a typo).
We’re on week 2 of me actually attending class and it’s gone well. So far so good anyway. I did one assignment and am working on the midterm since it’s a 10 week quarter, week 3 means midterms (which is just a take home essay) and week 4 means turning it in for this class. It’s simple too. I just need to write two rather long paragraphs, one on why languages change and one on words that came into Spanish from Arabic. Then Fin. (Spanish for the end… pronounced feen).
Also, I’ve been sneakily working on my college application essays, by brainstorming and making lists why each school would be good for me and by writing out what I want to study if I go to a school with a linguistic focus or if I go to a school with a lit focus. The list-making has really helped to clarify which schools would be a good match for me and which wouldn’t so that’s definitely progress.
So, we’ll keep sneaking in bits of that here and there and see how it goes with the applying.
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On the exercise front, I have been incredibly lazy, but I have squeezed in micro-bits of yoga here and there which is a bit less lazy, but otherwise, no exercise for me. Tonight I will be going to my class at the gym, which I haven’t been to in a few weeks. Also, I’ve been sneaking in a couple squats here and there, but I feel like I need to get in a lot of strength training and possibly go jogging occasionally.
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I’ve been having issues with my novel posting appropriately. I’ve gotten two “missed schedules” two or three weeks in a row. I’ve installed a plugin that’s supposed to fix it and we’ll see in a few minutes whether it posts properly or if I have to do it manually. If it doesn’t, then I might be backing things up, then editing my chron file. It sounds like it’s something that has to do with the new WP upgrade. Okay, or I could have just waited a few minutes to post. Just a few minutes later and bam, plugin seems to have worked like a charm. I apologize to anyone who tried to read last week where it didn’t work.
By Mel, on September 28th, 2011
I am auditing a class this quarter, that is to say I am taking it without academic credit. As a nerdette the class is on “History of the Spanish Language” and because I want to go to grad-school it is an grad level course. Getting my feet wet that sort of thing.
Different schools have different procedures for auditing classes, so for one of the local universities, the procedure is you ask the professor and if the professor says yes you get to audit the class.
For the one that’s closer to my house and work, you ask the professor, if the professor says yes, you fill out all this crazy paper work, then pay the same per-unit cost as a fully enrolled student – to get zero credit. Ick.
So, I went with option 1 (which incidentally is the better school). Also, choosing option 1 may be the source of my problem. I emailed the professor in July. Bought my book. Waited until about a week and half before the quarter started, and emailed the professor if I needed anything (and to make sure he hadn’t forgotten he gave me the okay).
Then, I double and triple checked the classroom before I went, but I had this niggling fear, that I was going to show up and the professor would change his mind or that I would be in the wrong place.
Option # 2. Bingo. I spent 20 minutes waiting in the classroom it said on the registration guide. I asked the girl working the information desk if she could see where it had been moved to, no. I checked his office. I checked the classroom again in case there was a note. Nothing. Finally I drove home at the peak of rush hour, then I emailed the professor. He emailed me back not ten minutes later (while class was still supposed to be in session) the room number.If I had a smartphone or my ipod had been charged I could have emailed him and gotten the answer and gone to the class instead of feeling like an idiot.
Ah, well such is life. Anyway, he added me to the class website and I now have access to the additional materials, the syllabus, and any messages he sends out. Including the room change message.
Such is life
On the plus side, the additional reading is fascinating. I spent 15 dollars to have it printed and bound at kinkos last night and then read it when I got home.
And I had one of my major fears happen about auditing this course, that I would be left out in the cold one way or another. I was, and you know what, it wasn’t so bad. I faced it and dealt with it. And now I have access to the course. Life is good. I must run now before I catch the bus.
Question for the lurker/commenters – Have you ever had a worse case scenario happen and found out it wasn’t as bad as you thought?
By Mel, on September 14th, 2011
I think I drew myself into a corner here. Literally. I got all stuck in my head that I had to draw another comic before I could post again. The drawing, which was just a fun way of blowing off steam became a "should" and well, that changes the nature of it doesn't it?
Well, enoughs enough with being stuck with that. Let's say I'm going to move forward with this blog and you might get a comic or you might now with each post. And then you'll just have to see how it goes. I'm not resigning this blog to blogivion, just getting going on another gear if you will.
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So, updates on the adventure front… I have a half marathon coming up in 3 weeks. Specialized Steve decided to do it, last week, so we're doing it.
I'll be applying to grad schools this weekend – or starting to. I'm auditing a class starting on the 26th and am a little nervous.
I've been out of school for five years! I haven't used my Spanish regularly in 5 years (well spoken, I do write my journal in Spanish every day, but writing a journal is a lot different than writing a research paper on the history of the Spanish language or that sort of thing). This is hugely frightening, now throw in that I haven't told my family and we're looking at doom and gloom forecasts.
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So, how do we deal with these huge scary issues?
To be honest, I'm not really sure. I've been experiencing super fatigue lately, apathy at/about work, and oddly anger at some really old stuff. This may be my mind's way of running away from these issues or addressing it in other ways. So, it may be time for a bit of introspection and figuring out what's going on with this. There might be monster talks going on. There also may be a small amount of avoidance that needs fixing, in a good way of course.
And after Specialized Steve reads this he'll think I'm even more nuts than he already thinks I am
By Mel, on August 3rd, 2011
Again, no episodes today, today’s post is about my adventure at the Vineman this weekend. I’m learning to be more self aware from Havi’s blog, and also to write things down where I can refer to them later. So I’ll link to my review of the Vineman.
So, Specialized Steve and I did not finish the Vineman this weekend.
You had to finish the 2nd loop of the run by 9 pm (2.4 swim, 112 bike, and about mile 17 of the marathon). I finished the second loop about 9:30 and he finished about 15 minutes behind me. So, we managed about 132 instead of 140.6.
My feet were angry and my calf locked up.
It turns out Steven was right and that we didn’t train enough.
Personally, I think I lost the race about two miles into lap 2 of the run when I realized/did some math/ that I was cutting it super close on the 9pm cut off time. I think my brain said you can’t do it there, and my calf locking up was just part of that.
Still, I learned a lot, I worked hard, and I am optimistic that next time I will do better. I just have to train more and prep more.
Also, it is very odd swimming in a river where your arm disappears into the murk and you can’t see beyond your elbow. I got kicked and hit so many times because I couldn’t see anyone was there.
By Mel, on July 27th, 2011
Well, I’m sorry, there are no comics today.
I’m kind of stoked/freaked out/distracted about this whole Vineman is 3 days away thing.
Three days. Three. 3.
At 6:30 am this Saturday I will embark on a one hundred and forty mile adventure that will last (hopefully only) 15 hours, plus or minus half an hour. I will swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 (that’s like from Sacramento to Tahoe!), and then just for fun afterwards run a marathon.
And, oddly enough, this is what I do for fun. It fills me with joy and terror to know that my very first ironman is approaching.
Also, in writing news, I will be embarking on AugNoWriMo/CampNaNo next month. So tons o’ fun. 50,000 words and a rough draft of the sequel to my NaNo 2011, The Day the Lights Went Out.
In a writerly thought, don’t be surprised when the characters Will and Mark are combined into one person in the sequel. In the editing/reposting, I’ve come to realize that there’s no meaningful purpose to having two characters where one would do.
By Mel, on July 22nd, 2011
By Mel, on July 13th, 2011
By Mel, on July 7th, 2011
Because we’ve all heard the advice to question assumpshins – or because Nerdette got it into her head that she could figure out who told them to attack her if she caught one to question. My favorite one to question is obviously that a good job lands you in the gray land of the cubicle sea.
By Mel, on June 29th, 2011
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Mel the Nerdette 
What? That's me riding a whale. Find out more about me.
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