How much is too much?

Well, it's been months and months since I've posted here. I look at the link on my iGoogle home page every day, and think to myself, "The last post talks about spring arriving, and here it is the dead of winter. I really should write something. But what?"

Something that's been percolating in the back of my brain has to do with all the connectivity we have in this modern age. Take me, for example. I have six email addresses and three telephone numbers, one of which is, of course, a cell phone with text messaging. I'm on Facebook, Ning, LinkedIn, Twitter. I have a blog, (actually two), a Bloglines account to manage my RSS feeds, and a web page. I'm sure if I thought about it, I'd have other things I could list, too.

But how much of that do I actually USE? Well, email, for sure. And I use all six of those accounts for various things - one is for my friends & family, one is my "accounts" address - when you have to use an email address to sign up for things (like Facebook) which I check less frequently (though I DO check it) - one is my work address, one is for my youth theatre group, and the other is sort of part work-related/part personal.

As for the rest - I get on Facebook infrequently, because it's blocked at work (yeah, I know I have a filter override password, but I don't like using it for something like that) and it loads really slowly at home for some reason. Takes forever sometimes! I have almost never used LinkedIn, and I follow some folks on Twitter (Sockington the cat is my personal favorite), though I seldom tweet myself.

I do tend to use Ning a lot; we use it for theatre-related things. It's a great way to set up a communication network for the kids in our show casts (thank you, Stephen Miller, for that wonderful idea!). We can post schedules, pictures, videos, exchange ideas, send messages. Works great!

The RSS feeds are useful; I do check my Bloglines, but once again, I need to pare that down. There are some feeds on there that seemed like a good idea at one time, but I don't look at them.

Some days, though, I simply feel overwhelmed by all the technology and, paradoxically, guilty that I don't use it more efficiently and effectively. Perhaps that's why I was so intrigued to hear about the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine when I was listening to NPR on the way to work yesterday. Apparently I'm not the only one feeling overcome by the thought of being caught in the Web!

How Did That Happen?

How on earth did it get to be February already? Two-thirds of the way through, at that, and I haven't posted anything since New Year's Eve. Yikes!

Well, it HAS been busy. "Prelude to a Kiss" took up a lot of my time. But that's been over for two weeks now (I think), so I shouldn't have any excuses, should I?

I'm going to take a page out of Gail's book and set this up to do my Facebook notes. Consolidation is a wonderful thing! And further, I'm finally going to do the "25 Random Things About Me" thing that my co-workers have been doing. I might be late to the party, but that doesn't mean I can't have a good time, right?

Okay, here goes:

1. I have always loved to read. Even before I actually learned to read, I would see my parents reading, especially my mother and I wanted to do it, too. My mom told me that I would learn when I went to school, and I looked forward to that day so fervently - when I came home after the first day of first grade (I didn't go to Kindergarten) I was crushed because we hadn't learned to read that first day!
2. In spite of the fact that I don't have any issues in telling people facts about myself, I am really a pretty private person. There are only a very few people in my life to whom I have ever really opened up and shared my deepest, most private thoughts and feelings.
3. My mom has been dead for almost 15 years and I still miss her every day. She was one of those to whom I referred in #2...
4. Most people think of me as a cat person, and I DO love my cats, but I grew up with dogs and really didn't like cats all that well as a kid. That was mostly because a) my dad hated cats and b) my great-aunt Mary had a cat that was old and cranky and scratched me once because I was trying to pet her. (The cat, not my Aunt.) It wasn't until I had graduated from college and moved in with my friend Terri and her cats that I discovered that I really did love cats! But if I were home more, I'd have dogs, too. I'm glad that John shares his dogs with me!
5. My obsession with giant pandas is actually a fairly recent phenomenon...within the past 4 years or so, and it grew out of my love for cats. I had been watching a litter of cheetah cubs at the National Zoo on their webcam and discovered the Pandacam by accident; they were watching Mei Xiang for a possible pregnancy at the time. A few months later Tai Shan was born...and I was hooked!
6. I love computer and video games. Once I start, I have a hard time stopping!
7. I have two entire shelves of a bookcase devoted to books by and about J.R.R. Tolkien.
8. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer. My best friend was a very talented artist and we teamed up - I wrote, she illustrated. Somewhere I still have some of those stories - could be scary!
9. In addition to wanting to be a writer, in 6th grade I knew I wanted to be a teacher. But it wasn't till jr. year in high school that I decided for sure I wanted to teach music. Up to that point I couldn't decide whether I wanted to teach biology or music.
10. I learned how to play chess in the 7th grade to impress a boy. (Don't laugh; he's probably a nuclear physicist or something like that now!) That didn't last very long, but I still remember how to play chess...
11. When I was in college, my friends and I had Canasta tournaments on Saturday nights. (Yes, I was just a wild party animal.) Hmmm...I DON'T remember how to play Canasta.
12. I am easily startled, but not easily frightened.
13. I have never lived alone, but I know I wouldn't mind it at all. I actually rather enjoy being alone.
14.I started drinking coffee on a regular basis when I was about 12. It was a bonding thing with my mom.
15. I have three sisters and no brothers, but I have always wanted a brother. When I was little I usedto ask Santa for an older brother every year until I figured out the logistics of that...then I decided that a little one was better than nothing. Never got one, though, even though I offered several times to trade one of my younger sisters with a good friend for one of her brothers.
16. When I was in 4th grade my best friend went home sick from school with what we thought was a cold. That was on a Monday, I think...by Wednesday she was in the hospital; Thursday evening my mom went to visit her for me (kids weren't allowed); Friday morning my mother told me over breakfast that Claire had died. I remember that it was Friday the 13th of October and she apparently had some rare disease that no one had ever heard of before.
17. I don't walk properly. I walk toe-to-heel instead of heel-to-toe unless I'm really thinking about it.
18. My first "real" job was as a clerk-typist in an insurance company. I have also worked playing background music in a men's club (listen, it was the club my dad went to, so there was nothing shady about it), as a waitress, as a cashier/sales person in women's clothing and children's shoes, as a music teacher, as a computer lab manager, as an instructional support person. That's pretty much it...but interestingly enough, all my jobs have required working with some sort of keyboard. Too bad I never took typing!
19. The first show I was ever in was "Oklahoma!" when I was in 10th grade. Up till that point I was much too shy to audition for anything, and only did it because my best friend talked me into it. (If she'd only know what she was starting...)
20. Although I got my driver's license when I was 16, I never really drove much till I was 21. ( Of course, I didn't pass the driver's test the first time, but that's a whole story in itself.) I just didn't really have any need to drive till I moved away from home, and I didn't really like it all that well. In fact, I never really felt comfortable driving till I was about 30 - when I had to drive back and forth from Albany while I was working on my Master's degree.
21. Pet peeves: people taking up two parking spaces, leaving cabinet doors open, rude and inconsiderate behavior in general. Want to send me over the edge? Mis-shelve books...
22. I love shoes and hats, but I seldom wear hats and I only wear about three different pairs of shoes most of the time.
23. I don't mind bugs, snakes, or most rodents. Mice don't bother me, though I don't particularly care for them in the house, but there's something about rats that creep me out. I think it's the tails...I don't like possums, either, and they have the same kind of tails.
24. Up until I was about 40, I had an unreasonable fear of bridges. I couldn't drive over one without a racing heart and sweaty knuckles; I was practically paralyzed walking over one (and I had to walk over one to get to school); I had nightmares about them. I'm not sure why the fear went away, but it did...now I barely even notice if I'm going over one.
25. When I was in college I studied harp. Wish I still played...though I don't really know where I'd put one if I did!

So there you have it. Happy New Year, a month or so late, and happy February!

This & That

So I haven't been posting lately for a couple of reasons:

1) My life has been entirely consumed by the current theatre production ("Evita")
2) I've been spending time writing on Facebook instead

As to the former, there's one more show to go. Two weekends, as usual - and this time it's with a twist, as we had two different actresses playing Eva Peron. The woman who was originally cast ended up with a conflict so that we had the understudy do it the second weekend.

What's so interesting about all that is that when we did the auditions and the casting, John, the director, was very divided about which of the two he was going to cast. One of them (last weekend) was more operatic and actually kind of resembled Eva Peron (but not with blond hair). The other was much more of a Broadway type and looked more like Patti LuPone playing Eva Peron. He agonized and said, "But I want them both!" - and apparently someone in the Universe was listening and granted his wish.

So. Having said all that - we've had five good productions, and I have expanded my technology repertoire to include a semi-mastery of a very cool product called Sinfonia®. It's a system that allows you to have a full orchestra at your fingertips even when you don't have the room for the entire group! Check it out here. I had a great time using it!

Now, as for Facebook - well, let's just say that I'm up to 31 friends and I think it's very fun! I've talked to folks I haven't seen in years. And it's all because some of my colleagues created accounts there and I submitted to peer pressure and logged on, too.

:-)

In panda news...there's a new little guy at the Atlanta Zoo! Mei Lan has a little brother, and Lun Lun is just as wonderful a mother this time around.

A moment away from the server

Just needed a break from rebuilding a software installation. I'm totally redoing the WebOPAC - moving it from one version to a newer version, and unfortunately, that doesn't just mean an upgrade of the software. It's a whole new install, and then each of the 40+ sites needs to be individually rebuilt, the links changed on the web page, their visual OPACs transferred from the old to the new, etc. Tedious work. The installation resisted me for a long time and didn't want to work properly, but I finally got it to see my point of view. It does, however, still occasionally stop working just to show me it can.

Random thoughts:
Yes, there is justification for my having a Wii. Truly. Educause says so.

Busy week last week; I was out of the office to work on the kids' theatre stuff I do every summer. This year we actually ran two productions, which went VERY well! The kids were fabulous and I think they had a good time. I did too, all in all, but boy, was I tired when it was all over! I'm not sure I'm recovered still.

Panda watchers everywhere are zeroed in on the National Zoo in Washington and the Atlanta Zoo (in Atlanta, of course) to see whether Mei Xiang and Lun Lun, respectively, will "bear" another cub this year! Pandas go through all the symptoms of pregnancy whether or not they are actually expecting, so we'll just have to wait for a birth or cessation of symptoms. I'm hoping that Tai Shan (Washington) and Mei Lan (Atlanta) will both have new siblings this year! The other two zoos in the U.S. that have giant pandas, San Diego and Memphis, are out of the running - San Diego's Bai Yun is still nursing Zhen Zhen, and Ya Ya, the female in Memphis, didn't go into estrus this year. Well, she's still young!


In the meantime, we can look forward to a 1 year birthday celebration for little Zhen in San Diego on August 3rd!

:-)

Monday, Monday

School's almost out. For me, that means a lot of end-of-the-year questions, like which reports should be run for final statistics and that sort of thing. Other than that, it's fairly quiet, which is why I thought today would be a fine day to take as a vacation day and recover from a VERY busy weekend.

Here's the thing...I'm working on two shows at once. Well, actually three. Our kids' theatre group had 67 kids audition, so we split them into two groups and are doing two shows. It's kind of mind-boggling...I'm not so sure we should've done it, but there you are.

The other show doesn't go up till this fall, but we're getting a head start on it now; it's "Evita" and that's a pretty massive show. Had auditions this past weekend, and between the three days of auditions for that and an all-morning rehearsal for the kids' shows, I was pretty beat. So, as I said, I opted to stay home and sleep.

I should have known better. It seems that every time I think it's going to be quiet and I can take a day, something happens. Today it was server issues. Had to log on via VPN to reset a server. Of course, I always foolishly check my email, and there was a pretty full inbox today, even though when I left last Friday I had it down to three.

So I've got plenty to do tomorrow. First thing I need to do is make that the troubleshooting sheet I left with Kelli is up-to-date and that she remembers to actually use it! :-)

Yikes!

Here it is almost the end of May, and I haven't posted anything for ages. It's been SUCH a busy month...finished "The Odd Couple" (female version) for Elmira Little Theatre (I was Mickey the Cop) and am preparing for the kids' summer show ("Kokonut Island" makes a reprise this year) as well as ELT's fall show - "Evita." More on that to come, I'm sure!

Work-wise, May usually brings plenty of inventories (yes, my trigger finger is sore!) and preparation for the end of the year. Evaluations, all that. A couple of classes, and lots of catalog cleanup and tedious type work!

Of course I've been following the plight of the Giant Pandas in China who were affected by the recent terrible earthquake, especially those at the Wolong Nature Reserve, which was very close to the epicenter of the quake. Amazingly, only two pandas were injured, and six escaped, but five were either recaptured or wandered back. There's one still missing, though. Hope they find it soon! All the panda houses were damaged or destroyed, and sadly, five staff were killed at the reserve.

If you're interested in finding out more about the pandas or helping out with the people & pandas in China, visit the Pandas International website. They have great pictures and information. The National Zoo and the San Diego Zoo also have good information and links.


Happy May!

(The six pandas on the left were moved from the Wolong Reserve to another reserve that was less affected by the earthquake.)

Who's organized?

Ah, a dreary and rainy Monday. What better way to start the week?

I need to take a break from tedious detail work, so thought I'd pop on here - it's been too long since I posted anything! Seems like I'm always catching up with something.

Well, Thanksgiving is over, and now we have the crescendo toward Christmas. Am I ready? Not even close! I was at Jo-Ann Fabrics last week waiting to have fabric cut and the woman in front of me (who was buying tulle to wrap baskets) allowed as how when the baskets were wrapped she had all her Christmas stuff done. BEFORE THANKSGIVING. That's just wrong.

Ah, how I aspire to that sort of forethought and organization! If I were that organized, my house would be clean, my desk would be clean, and I would have time to wrap baskets, too. As it is, I'm still in the "what are we going to get so-and-so for Christmas?" stage.

What's kind of funny, though, is that a lot of people look at me and think I'm organized. I guess there are all sorts of organization; I can put a catalog in order without thinking twice and I can really plan something out if I put my mind to it. For example, I'm stage managing for our next theatre production (On Golden Pond) and I've got organizing for a show down to a science. My notes are all in order and I have all the information collated, color coded, and coordinated. The director thinks I'm highly efficient (and so far in this case, I am); I think I might even scare him a little.

With all the organizational tools there are in this day and age, why is it that I can't organize gift giving for Christmas? One of my former supervisors did her shopping all year round; as she found stuff she would buy it for the various people on her list and put it away in these nice little bins she had specifically for that purpose. The thing with that is that you need a) the bins b) the place to store them and c) to remember that you had put stuff away. I tried that technique once (minus the bins, unfortunately) and ended up with multiple things for certain people. I also forgot I had put gifts away and found them the following year, which sort of worked, too, but it kind of defeated the purpose.

Oh, well, I guess I should just be grateful that I can organize some things well and leave it at that. Who wants to be totally organized? That doesn't leave any room for spontaneity - and what fun would life be without that?

In other news - they're naming the little girl panda at the San Diego Zoo today!

Back into life

It's been forever since I've been on here; today seemed like a good day to catch up, as I just need to get some things out of me...

August flew by in a flurry of activity; getting patrons loaded into school catalogs and beginning-of-school year stuff ready. It also heralded the beginning of rehearsals for Elmira Little Theatre's show The Full Monty, in which I had the incredible good fortune to play Jeanette Burmeister.

September was no less hectic; it seemed as though I was never going to catch up. School in session means lots of email and phone calls; training sessions for new library staff, informational packets, meetings...and more time to work on Monty....

All in all, it's been an exhausting, exhilarating, emotional month and a half or so. Working with the amazing cast and crew of Monty has been an experience which I never imagined. It was a time to reconnect with former theatre friends, a time to deepen friendships which already existed, and, best of all, to make new friends. This show has claimed a piece of my soul...and that makes it that much harder to come back to work and reality.

May you all be fortunate enough to live such a dream!