25 September 2008

Brief update

I had an interview about 2 weeks ago, for a job, and the recruiter told me they'd get back to me the next week. Well, that was last week, and I still haven't heard anything. So I'm trying to find a plan B, which looks mostly to be trying to find another job that sucks less. I'm halfway considering applying for a chemistry job, doing LC/MS and separation chemistry, though I was never very good at determining chemical structures from spectrographs, and I haven't even thought about that for 10 years, so I've forgotten most everything. But it never hurts to apply, and the worst they can do is not contact me for an interview. Though I have no idea where I'd come up with references at this point. It's been years since I worked in chemistry.

I'm going out to San Francisco for a small convention this weekend. I'm only going because one of my favorite writers is going to be there and signing books. So I'm gonna hang with friends and stuff.

My sister's coming to visit in a couple weeks. She's taking the train down, which is about as expensive as driving right now. Except that means she won't have to sit in DC traffic. Trade off, I'd say. Then we're heading out to Charlotte to go to the Renaissance Festival.

13 September 2008

Trying a new tool

I upgraded to Firefox 3 on the laptop, and a plug-in called "ScribeFire" was recommended. It's supposed to make blogging easy, so I thought I'd try it out. Let's see how it works, shall we?

05 September 2008

Dragon*Con 2008

I had loads of fun.

I met an online friend for the first time, and she's nifty.

I didn't win the costume contest, but that's OK. I had fun. And I made a pretty swank hat.

I participated in a writing workshop, where I learned a lot, and I've got an idea percolating in my head. I should probably do something like revise the huge story I have finished, but I've been bored with it lately, unfortunately. I didn't plan it out; I just started writing. Which means I'll have to go back and edit the shit out of it, which is pretty damn daunting, I have to say. It means I have to sit down and plot the stupid thing.

I went to see George Takei (Mr Sulu on original Star Trek) talk. He's really cool, and I got some good photos. Because his talk was so good, I decided I had to get his autograph -- and I've never got anyone's autograph before. (Well, except when I went to a reading by Neil Gaiman and I got him to sign his new book for Ben's birthday. He's also an exceptionally awesome person.)

Mostly I hung out with friends, perused the con, and drank some. Oh, I was on a panel about Lois McMaster Bujold's books. It was fun - we got to talk about our favorite characters in our favorite books :D Then I was talking with the track director afterwards, and I asked if they'd done a panel on CJ Cherryh, another of my favorite authors, and she said, "No, would you like to moderate one next year?" *sigh* I sure could, since I've got 2 full shelves of her books, and there are certainly themes worth exploring (feminism, aliens, human psychology.) I dropped the track director an email letting her know I'm still interested, but I understand if she doesn't get back to me for a while, since the con just ended and she doesn't want to think about next year yet.

So now I'm NOT SEWING for at least 6 months (except putting the finishing touches on my costume for the con in 3 weeks, which won't take long.) I plan to build my model kits, practice spinning, WRITE, and get some exercise in. Also crochet, since I have a partially-finished shrug. Not sewing is going to be great.

I've already picked out the next costume I'm going to make, though, so I can be researching and finding materials. It'll be a military uniform.