Anyway, I’m still convinced only my friends read this blog, or people I know from Internet forums and whatnot. Maybe some random Googlers who need to know famous sports figures’ religious statuses. Stati. Whatever. And I have always been afraid to ask lurkers to comment because I’m pretty sure there aren’t any. I was prepared to comment on my own lurker post so as to not look too pathetic. “Hi, I’m Kate from Lynchburg! Longtime reader!” That sounds authentic, right? Anyway, I NO LONGER HAVE TO DO THAT!!!! Someone I don’t know likes this blog! I’m WINNING.

By the way, I meant that in the Santana sense, not that other guy. Come on now.

In conclusion, to answer this post, I have an illustration.

Fozzie Bear	SupaYen

Thanks for the award and keep on being supa!*

*I will not be passing along the Blog With Substance Award, alas. I am really bad at chain letters, too.

PS, if you are a reader of this blog and we’ve never spoken and you feel like delurking, feel free. If not, that Kate in Lynchburg is pretty awesome.

PPS, if you are one of those people who keep writing to advertise on this blog or to sponsor a post or to trade links, pay no attention to this post! NO ONE READS THIS BLOG, YOU HEAR ME?

PPPS, last one I swear. That girl Janice in the band Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem was always my favorite muppet. Or else Beaker, Dr. Bunsen Honeydew’s hapless assistant.

Becca, in an undated photo

No, I lied, this is the last thing: thanks for reading, everyone. Especially because this has so many fewer love scenes than my fiction did.

Title a slight mangling of a lyric from (yes, I am aware that it is a remake):
R.E.M. – Superman

So let’s address these, not because those people will ever come back but because they intrigued me. Lots of people like Jewish iconography even if they’re not so (see Esther, nee Madonna or Sarah Palin) and I can’t be sure why this person wanted to do this, but why not? I more get, “can I do X if I am Jewish” rather than “can I do Y Jewish thing if I’m not Jewish.” Maybe this person thinks it would be insensitive? I don’t think it is. It’s nice to ask but I don’t think you even had to. Mazal tov!

The second one interested me because it was a question I actually asked, although not on this blog. When I did my disaster demo lesson, I wondered what to do. It was obvious to me that I wasn’t getting the job and I was pretty sure at that moment that the job was beyond me. I really wanted to leave the session by saying, “OK, so we both know how that went. If we ever run into each other in educational circles, let’s pretend we don’t know each other, shall we?”

But I have been brought up to be polite and although the real reason behind the thank you note is actually to say, “in summary, pick me! Pick me!”, ostensibly, it’s supposed to thank the employer for giving you a chance at the gig. So what do you do when the former no longer exists? I didn’t want them to even think I considered myself having a ghost of a chance. I wanted them to know that I am good enough to perceive when a lesson doesn’t go well. So I wrote it as a strict thank you note: “Thank you for giving me the opportunity to conduct a demo lesson at [redacted] School as well as for the constructive and helpful feedback. It was great to visit and see all the wonderful things you are accomplishing at [redacted].”

Of course, the feedback was all, “this is why you sucked” while I nodded along, but it really was constructive and helpful. Later, I got the official “we’ve decided to go in another direction. The direction of someone to whom we don’t need to explain why they suck” letter. But I was glad I had sent an honest thank you. Of course, if I see them again, I’ll be pretending I don’t know them.

Next post, I’ll be telling you all about my meticulously planned, “if this is Tuesday, it must be Saskatoon,” vacation. It even has a spreadsheet, because I am just that organized. But if that doesn’t happen to work out, anyone know a good resort near here?

Sly and the Family Stone – Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)

Instead, this year, I’d like to use this comment which I found in my spam bin:

Indeed. See, even if I hadn’t found it there, I’d have known that couldn’t be real. Unless it was from me, telling myself I needed better content. Or at least more of it. But I know you, my three faithful readers, will understand that it’s been a busy year. Still, I couldn’t have imagined when I started blogging five years ago that the blog would take the turns it has, because so many unexpected things have happened since then. Here’s another thing I hadn’t predicted: five year olds must have really outgrown Sesame Street, as look at the lame candle they have for five up there. The other four were way nicer. I may have to come up with a new motif should I make it to six.

I gave a guest lecture last week (well, two, but it was the same lecture, just two different sections) in my friend Seaspray’s class which consisted of teachers from around the country. I got to talk about one of my favorite subjects, technology, and what is now pretty much my life’s work: getting kids engaged in the classroom through the use of it. I talked a little about blogs and one of the things I wanted to touch on (I’m not sure that I did; it was all a blur) was how kids can find their voices through blogging. Later, for another purpose, I read back through some old posts on this site and I realized that it’s taken me a while to find mine. In the beginning, I used what I call my “game show host” voice, which I also try to channel a bit when I’m teaching, but it’s a performance and not real. I mean, it’s part of me for sure, but it’s not totally authentic. These days, I think I’ve hit a voice that would make you think if you met me, “yeah, that’s the girl from the blog.” Or maybe I’ve just become more of a game show host. Who knows. The other thing I tell teachers is that you can trace a student’s progress by the quality of their writing in a linear system like a blog. I can’t speak about quality, but I am delighted to have my blog stand in as a journal to tell me how I was thinking at any given time and what was going on. It was enormous fun looking back and remembering my life through the posts on this site. Even the bad times sounded great, but that may just be the game show filter.

Anyway, I wanted more than any year before to thank you, my readers, linkers, and commenters. Without you checking back to see if I’d written something, I might not actually have written anything these past months. If you are wondering why I read back, it wasn’t sentimentality, it was to add a new category and then I had to go back and find all the posts that matched. But I really love doing that and especially seeing all the comments – you people are smart and funny and it’s an honor to have you stick around for that one post an eon. I don’t know if I’ll be able to blog for a decade or if blogging will still exist then, even, but making it halfway there has been an awesome journey and I’m glad you were here with me.

In conclusion, while I was sitting on this post (I got distracted by some good movies on TCM), I got yet another comment in my spam bin and its imperfect English seemed to be a good statement about how I feel about all my posts once they’re written.

Me too, spambot, me too.

Spoon – Take The Fifth

Still, if there is a particular need for rugelach and you give me enough notice, I may be able to work it in occasionally, just let me know. Hopefully, you’ll be able to anticipate your pastry needs several weeks in advance. Thanks to everyone for making it such a successful baking year! I kept a careful spreadsheet (duh) and I cleared quite a bit all in spare hours between readings, so it worked out beyond my greatest hopes. You all rock!

Secondly, about that whole thesis. Originally, when I was studying how we live on the Internet in general, it was a fabulous excuse to do an ethnographic study on an online forum of which I have been a longtime member. Now that I have switched up my program a bit to be more education-minded, it’s no longer a good fit for the work I’m doing. Instead, I am pondering (with the help of my advisor) a study of iPads in the classroom. Since I’ve been assigned to work on that project for and by my placement school anyway, and I love gadgets, that also seems an attractive option for me. But either way, it means I will not be doing the online community study. Don’t cry! I did complete a project for a class last year on that site and it was fairly extensive and turned out beautifully. In fact, I kid you not, people have stopped me in the hallway to say they saw it and loved it. I am considering getting it published somewhere but, well, we’ll see how that goes. The professor who originally suggested that to me is extremely busy and there’s only so much prodding I can do. So whether you will see it or not remains an open question. Still, I was able to get the desire to analyze this community out of my system and in a way, it’s a relief. Now I can just be a participant without worrying about tainting my data.

And, lastly, on the iPad tip, now that I have my loaner, I was able to test this site’s mobile theme on it and it works fine. It’s not exactly optimized for the device, but the plugin authors say they are working on that for the next version so hopefully it will have more bells and whistles, and maybe even more extensive excerpts of each post on the home page, which is my biggest complaint. Because seriously, my opening lines seem to have not much to do with the actual posts and it makes things appear kind of comical. Sort of like those songs which have titles seemingly plucked out of the ether. Bizarre Love Triangle? Does that song have anything to do with a bizarre love triangle? Sex Type Thing? What is that, even? Man, that should have been my opening line.

Anyway, my posts are like a journey, a journey to a faraway place… in the middle seat of coach. And like that journey, they start with confusion and boredom and end with exhaustion and nausea. But should you be bored waiting on that long, long line to vote today, grab your iPad and give it a whirl. I am at least as entertaining as the ass of the person in front of you.

Anyway, title comes from nowhere – that’s the joke! Oh, I slay me.

INXS – Not Enough Time

It’s funny that soon after I sent this tweet out, I had the evening I did. I ran a program with various speakers and one particularly difficult professor decided to hijack the whole show. Not only is he willful and controlling, he’s about 80 years old and can talk until we’re all 80 years old. When I insisted on getting the two speakers he had skipped up on the stage he gave me the look of death. And the speakers looked like they’d rather die than contradict him. But it had been promised and so I fended off all his efforts to change the entire planned program. When someone asked me how I could bring myself to do it, all I could say was, “holy Jesus fuck, I have dealt with rock stars more diva-like than this guy.” So, you know, maybe there really isn’t much difference at all.

Speaking of change, just to call attention to two new blogs on my blogroll. My pal Jenny with whom I did the Philly Komen made a similar move to mine, quit her job, and is back to school this semester. I wish her all the joy I have had and none of the broke-assedness. You can follow her adventures at, where else, Hated My Job, Left, Now What?.

Also, the artist formerly known as DuchessJane (no symbol available on my keyboard), is now blogging with no mediating identity at Lambic Pentameter. This is something I know I’ve discussed on this blog many, many times: identity and the Internet. So kudos for making a tough decision and braving the final frontier, blogging under one’s own name.

Lastly but not leastly, as you may have noticed from the tweet, I have an iPad to play with, but it is the property of the school where I’m interning. While I haven’t been able to put porn on personalize it, I have noticed once again how assy this blog looks on this thing and maybe now I can figure that all out for those blessed with iPads. By the way, the iPad is awesome for occupying yourself while talky elderly professors go off on long-winded tangents. Don’t ask me how I know.

This title is because there’s no particular theme to this post. The Who were charming to meet and not diva-like at all. Of course, I met them for four seconds. From Odds and Sods:

The Who – Long Live Rock

Title comes from:
Joe Jackson – Sunday Papers

Hahahahaha, that would be ridonculous to expect Deas to send me that, wouldn’t it? Except she already did and for no reason except that she’s teh awesome, as we say in the US with our lesser educations. I mean, look at this bounty!*

*there was no Bounty. But look at the Coffee Crisps!

How classy does this program look? Even the tennis is fancier in England.

And you can’t see from this angle, but this thing is like a book, with big glossy pages. It is seriously stunning, like the sun shining on Centre Court. Which never happens but you follow me, I’m sure.

Here are the three best aspects of receiving this in my mailbox today.

1. I was really hungry and desiring of chocolate (but that could have been any day, admittedly).
2. The heatwave just broke and so I did not find a chocopuddle at the bottom of said mailbox.
3. I sort of knew Canadian food items would be coming but I had NO IDEA there would be a Wimbledon program! I was so excited that I clutched it to my chest and hugged it. I’m a little embarrassed about this, so let’s just keep that part between us.

Anyway, xoxo and thanks so much, Deas (and Mr. Deas, who I assume toted it home). I owe you 5,001 expired Metrocards!

And to the writers of my 4,999 other comments (if you’re wondering why the comment count is higher, it counts crazy spam comments, too), thank you all for being the other half if not more of this blog! Because if a post is published in the forest and no one comments… the computer is probably being eaten by monkeys.

Title is the slogan of Canada Post and means, according to the handy Queen’s English provided, “From anywhere… to anyone.” Which could also be the slogan of this blog. Or Measles/Mumps/Rubella.

It is true, I will use any excuse to link to this exciting Canadian artist.
Loverboy – Turn Me Loose.

I also deleted the Napster Links FAQ page as those no longer work. Because they suck. I may update it at some point but if/when it ever comes back, it will probably state something about how Napster sucks. You can consider that a sneak preview.

But back to the About page. The blog info has mostly stayed the same although I took out old references to features I no longer feature and utilities I no longer utilize. One interesting thing I noticed, and this is only the second time I’ve ever changed this page in four years, is that I always make the change in June. In fact, this one is a day off from being exactly three years to the day after the last change. And the page was originally set up in June of 2006. What is it about soul-sucking heat that makes me feel the need to tweak my blog?

And now, a week later, it’s July and we’re due for yet another heat wave. But this is OK, or at least somewhat, as this week begins my new mini-semester and unlike last month, my classes are in a physical place, a physically air-conditioned place. It’s not that I don’t have A/C, it’s that I’m too cheap to run it, and since I already pay huge tuition dollars to my school, they might as well cool me, too.

Today is a holiday for most people, but for me, it’s just another summer day without much to do except think about moving to Alaska for the season. But I hope everyone had a wonderful Fourth and has an enjoyable day off to come. If you are vacationing in New York, as many people seem to be, come visit me at Starbucks where I’ll be nursing a tall ice coffee and contemplating whether it really is less expensive than a day’s electricity. I suspect….. not.

Nirvana – About A Girl

I think the one about my life change was easily one of my favorites of all time to write (and re-read), but I’m also enamored of the Depeche Mode one with its snippet soundtrack, and my two part series, Guided Tour of Becca’s Baltimore. That had a soundtrack too, you just couldn’t hear it.

And now, a link free paragraph. Lots of times, I wonder if there is a natural point for a blog to end, not because I want mine to be over, but because I worry that I never will end it. Sometimes, weeks pass where I have nothing significant to say or I am too busy writing things that someone will grade to post anything here. This is the sort of obvious place to say, “I never imagined I’d still be blogging four years later!” But I did. In fact, until some other, better medium comes up, I can’t imagine not having this place to connect with people. Other forms have come up like Twitter and Facebook and Buzz and they have their place. But they are not like this place. So thanks everyone for reading and commenting and connecting with me. If elected, I promise to do my best to actually update my sad and old “About” page as well as my outdated Blogroll. God bless the Internet!

By the way, it appears after three+ years of letting me post songs for free, Napster has revised their site and business model. Which means that not only can I not post Midge Ure’s Four as I had hoped to, but that all my links, nearly four years of them, are broken. Super. I will look for a better solution; yet another campaign promise.

No, actually, it’s a blog that takes a lot less effort and yet still fulfills some need in me to vomit the stuff that exists in my brain into a format best read on the Internet. So it’s a tumblog, one of those short blogs that just lets you post media or links or text. Mine’s for videos. Videos from the alternative 80′s of my youth. Because sometimes I’ll remember a song so good that it MUST BE HEARD. I aim to post a new one every night between midnight and 1am and it helps that I have 12 queued already (who knows if I’ll be too busy reading about asynchronous CMC online learning some night when you want a video? God knows, I certainly won’t be sleeping).

If you’re the type who looks at iPod Song of the Week (remember those? ~sigh~) and clicks the “close browser tab” button, this new blog is not for you. If you really did sigh when you read that first sentence or you listened to WLIR or KROQ back in the day (people who find this blog by Googling “Larry the Duck,” I’m talking to you) you may want to check it out and/or add it to your feed reader.

This is the least I could do and still feel like a blogger whilst sleeping three hours a night and reading 300 pages a day. And really, what’s the distinction between day and night anyway? Not much these days.

I went through my entire song collection to find a title for the tumblog and this one just kept sticking there. Ironically, when I went to find it to post as my first video, I discovered there was no video. Typical!

Here it is from Lala.

And here’s my new, better updated, music blog. I’ve set it up for no comments… you’ll be too busy reliving your youth.

http://areeverything.tumblr.com/