blank pages

Oy, it's been (almost) a week since my last post?  I'm hereby making an early new year's resolution to blog more often.

Until I started blogging, I didn't really write much - was never one to write in journals or diaries (is there a difference?).  My previous work life didn't require it, and that was fine with me too.  But now I enjoy it, and I enjoy helping tutees with writing too.

This is good since I need to do quite a bit of writing now for school.  So I don't mind it, but I'll blame that for my lack of blogging.  Too much of a good thing and all that.

And this week, I got an e-mail in my university account offering "custom writing services" a.k.a cheating.
The note listed several reasons to use the service

• tight deadlines
• writing papers prevents you from attending social functions
• papers due the next morning, but you haven't started any
• no time to sit and focus on research
• working on papers bores you

Serilously?  I'm not naive enough to not know that there are students who pay others to do assignments for them.  This is the first time anyone has hit me up, though. Their note mentions that the are available on Facebook, WhatsApp, Kik, WeChat, Line and Skype".  Geesh, they're everywhere.

They advertise writing assistants who *help* students write papers, but  the not-so-fine-print advertises that they will

"...confidently provide papers that are original, delivered punctually, and which conform to the writing style of you university/college and that all communications will maintain the highest level of confidentiality..."

Sure sounds like cheating to me.   I did an internet search and found all kinds of others. Okay, maybe I am a bit naive about just how many such services exist.  I'm curious as to how many customers they have.

In the meantime, I, for one, will continue to do my own work, responsibly and punctually!

working it out

I've been tagged!  Sorta...

Riot Kitty did this meme and tagged everybody, then Joey did it and tagged everybody, so I think I'm somewhere in that Venn diagram intersection.

It's a meme for writers.  I don't really consider myself a "writer", but like Joey says, if you have a blog, it counts.  So, here goes.


1) What are you currently working on?
Oh, y'know... laundry and stuff.  But, I think this question was actually addressing writing projects. *ahem*.  

Interestingly enough, I do a fair amount of writing for school, which is a bit different than typical engineering coursework. But it's a management program, so I guess we're supposed to be able to articulate and communicate techie things.  Instead of having to answer questions that start with, "What is the solution to..." or "Find the result of...", my classwork asks things that start with "Discuss..." or "Elaborate on..." or "Describe..."

For that, I think the rambling on the blog has been helpful.  Many years ago, when I first started blogging, I remember Wolfgang asking what I was doing.  I told him, "I'm maintaining my skills for talking to grownups".  


2) How does your work differ from others in the same genre?
Back to this blog - I'm not sure I really have a genre.  I started blogging when we first moved here, and our kids were little, and I didn't know anyone.  I named it "AbbyNormal" because I often felt out of place as a housewife in white collar suburbia.  I don't fit the soccer mom stereotype,  and I'm totally content about that.

It was later that I learned of blogs of specific genres.  Mom blogs, running blogs, fish keeping blogs, bicycling blogs, cooking blogs, travel blogs, movie blogs...  Mine can be any of those on a given day.  

The thing I like about blogging is that I think it's made me more observant.  There are funny, interesting, thought provoking, inspiring, sweet things happening all around us.  Having a blog helps me to be more aware of them.  I do avoid blogging about divisive issues like politics or religion, although I do have pretty strong opinions.  




Ferzample, I stopped for a pit stop at my friendly local bike shop on the commute home today (really, they encourage such things.  Who am I to argue?).  I snapped a pic of their tp holder for no other reason than to post it here.  Cute, eh?  It's a head tube with front forks, complete with quick release!









3) Why do you write what you write?
So readers would not  mistake me for a typical white collar suburban soccer mom?  That's kind of what's going on, I suppose.  My white collar housewife-of-suburbia rebellion.

It's also a nice way to meet other bloggers with similar interests.  Can't get that with a private journal.


4) Describe your writing process.
Blog posts are usually the result of experiencing something that I deem as blogworthy.  Maybe it's a trip with the family, or achievement of some goal, or some stupid mishap, or a search for advice.  Like I said, having a blog helps me think about being more observant and/or creative which leads me to appreciating "little things" that I might not otherwise appreciate....

like getting stung by a %&#*ing bee and losing the use of my hand for a couple of days.   It's a "make this fun" challenge!


YOUR turn.  If you read this and you have a blog... You're IT!!

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recapitulation

When I was younger, I didn't really give a whole lot of thought to being old.  I thought I would be forever young.  Getting older was for all those sad conformists.

Somewhere in the time/space continuum, my thoughts about getting older changed.  I noticed that I began feeling like my time here on earth was numbered, like my life was slowly being drained from my body and there was NOTHING I could do about it.

I swear I could hear the hands of time tick... tick... ticking away.  Getting louder and louder.

I tried to take my thoughts elsewhere.  I tried to think "happy thoughts" to make the feelings of doom go away.  "Visualize, just visualize", I told myself.  Visualize a better state of mind.  A timeless state... yeah...

It didn't really work, though.  The images that formed in my failed visualizations were like those time-lapse videos that show vibrant plants drooping, wilting, browning, drying up, blowing away.  Dust to dust.

Drat, if only I could go back to those carefree moments when I was younger and wasn't under these suffocating thoughts of my pending demise.  What was it that had changed?  Where had I gotten this negative attitude?  Where had I lost control?  I'd go back to that point and make better decisions.

I would go back and decide to, instead, go to cashier number 9 instead of cashier number 7.  Yet cashier number 7 had looked so promising, so I forgave myself for the bad choice I'd made.

As it turned out, cashier 7 was a gaping time-sucking abyss.

Cashier 7 with only one other customer.  One other customer who had a boat load of groceries.  A boat load of groceries that he tried to pay for with some sort of mystery card.  Some sort of mystery card that required a photo ID.  A photo ID he didn't have,  that matched the information on the mystery card... mystery card... mystery card... (*echoes from the time-sucking abyss*)

A manager was called, the problem cleared up.  All the while, my life was slowly draining.  I was getting older.

Finally, I shuffled my old lady self to cashier 7.  Cashier 7 rang up my must-have-passed-the-expiration-dates-by-now foodstuffs.

"OH, hold on", cashier 7 commanded. "I'm out of receipt tape..."

I wanted so badly to go back about 15 minutes to when I was younger.

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From this week's Mama Kat's writing prompt:

"Write something that begins and ends with the words "When I was younger"
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thought you saw me wink, no

I just learned that its NaBloPoMo! (National Blog Posting Month)   Even if you too did not know it was NaBloPoMo, aren't you glad to know now?  If just to say it out loud?




Each day, a writing prompt is posted.  I'm going to jump on the bandwagon even though we're 10 days in already.  Today's prompt is:

What is your secret (or not-so-secret) passion?

I would like to reveal a secret passion.  My not-so-secret passions have been gabbed about enough here I think.  I mean, come on, for one, I have jackets for my feet!

One of  my other passions, which might not be that much of a secret, is that I love to people watch.  "People watch" written together like that is a verb, right?  It doesn't sound correct to say that I love to watch people.  That sounds a bit creepy.

So yeah.  Some people go to the mall to shop or "hook up" (teenagers!).  I go to people watch.  Some people like to hit museums and get all cultured.  I usually find the people more interesting than the exhibits.  Restaurants, coffee shops, libraries, boring meetings - all fertile ground!

In that sense, my moonlighting job as a crossing guard is wonderfully indulging.  When I'm not escorting the little people across the street, I'm watching the motorists.  Some are harried, probably late for work.  Some are eating and/or drinking.  Multi-tasking moms on cell phones, burley city employees in fashionable (moreso than mine!) orange vests, sleepy parents driving kids to school, friendly waving strangers, grumpy commuters, rebellious motorcyclists in their biker leather glory,  young dangerous-looking guys, and we can't forget the occassional traffic cop - I watch the watchers too.

And this is why I also enjoy reading blogs so much.  It's just another form of people watching.  Watching from the inside. 

What's your (PG-13) secret passion?
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secret thing on the side

One day last week, a woman contacted my tutor e-mail looking for an English/Writing tutor.  She explained that she was not a student, but that she had to do a fair amount of proofreading and editing for her "PR" job and that she wasn't very confident in her skills.

I told her I thought I could help her get up to snuff and to contact me if she wanted to set up tutor sessions.  So yesterday, I received another e-mail.  In that one, she had cut and pasted a rather wordy sentence and asked if I could fix it.

I figured she was checking up on my editing skills before deciding to hire me.  I found a couple of errors and fixed them, but also revised it altogether to something I thought made it easier to understand.

We continued to e-mail back and forth (I was just sitting here in my "office", drawing a french horn...).  Would I be available to do more revising over the computer?  Did I have a per-page rate?  Could I do that and tutor her in addition?  Her e-mails "sounded" anxious, about keeping her job ("I just signed a lease.. and I'm single!")It became clear to me that she was at work at the time, and the original sentence she'd sent was one she was supposed to fix. 

Okay, so this isn't a typical tutor request, but it sounded kind of fun - sort of a "help desk" / "ask the expert" mode.  I could see her sitting at her PR job, turning in newly revised and edited documents with her supervisors being none the wiser!

Ghost writer.  Something new for the resume'.  Just in time for Halloween.
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missives

What I actually wrote:

Dear Coach (of x-country),

Wolfgang didn't have transportation to Black Forest on Saturday 9/18. He ran 5 miles on his own.

Abby Normal


What my mind wrote:

Dear Coach (of x-country),

Neither my husband nor I was the least bit willing to drive Wolfgang 35 miles in order for him to run a 5-mile shake out run with the team on Saturday 9/18. He ran a perfectly good shake out run by simply going out the back door and returning 5 miles later.

Although there was breakfast at someone's house later, we suspect this is just a ploy by you to get lots of free food during x-country season, cleverly disguised as "team building". In my high school days, team building consisted of diligently straining and striving and struggling and sweating and toiling and exerting with my teammates. It was running up hills while carrying a large rock in each hand. It was running down dirt trails while right on the cusp between control and complete lack of control. It was crashing and falling in the cinders. It was blisters. It was scabs. It was occassionally holding each other's hair... just in case. It was the natural bonding that occurs between teammates who win together or lose together or suffer together and scar their knees together. All of that to be followed by water from the spicket, nothing more.

Not breakfast at someone's air-conditioned home and photos snapped by cell phones that get uploaded on facebook pages after.

XOxoXoxO,
Abby Normal


Okay, maybe my mind got a BIT carried away... but the first paragraph stays.
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writing good

The fourth leg is there. I can see part of it. I don't, however, know if it is a girl coyote or a boy coyote. That would take more work.
Speaking of work, I'm about to grade some essays. Before starting my evaluations, I like to warm my brain up with a few basic rules. Join me?
1. Always avoid aliteration

2. Prepositions are not words to end sentences with.

3. Avoid cliches like the plague.

4. Eschew ampersands & abbreviations, etc.

5. Parenthetical remarks (however relevant) are unnecessary.

6. It is wrong to ever split an infinitive.

7. Foreign words and phrases are not apropros.

8. One should never generalize.

9. Eliminate quotations. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "I hate quotations. Tell me what you know."

10. Comparisons are as bad as cliches.

11. Don't be redundant, don't use more words than necessary, it's highly superfluous.

12. Profanity sucks.

13. Be more or less specific.

14. Understatement is always best.

15. Exaggeration is a billion times worse than understatement.

16. One-word sentences? Eliminate!

17. Analogies in writing are like feathers on a snake.

18. The passive voice is to be avoided.

19. Employ the vernacular

20. Who needs rhetorical questions?

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it has a name!

My name is Abby, and I do not have pretty writing.

The first step is to recognize that there is a problem. Terri recently posted a blog entry done in her neat, friendly handwriting and urged others to do likewise. Ugh, do I dare put readers through the torture?

Now I don't think too much about this, this "disability" of mine. It usually only causes me consternation when I need to write a personal note of some sort, like a thank-you. A thank-you should be handwritten and authentic and pretty. I try, but it seems the harder I try, the worse it gets.

I actually keep a written journal, but I don't worry about anyone finding it and reading it, because it's so illegible, even I can't read it.

BUT, I recently learned that there's a name for this! I'm not alone!

Graphomotor function is the use of the neuromuscular system in the fingers and hands to effectively maneuver a pen or pencil and put letters and words on paper. People with graphomotor problems struggle with this, especially as assignment length increases. This function affects the ability to keep pace with the flow of ideas.

Yes, that's me! Graphomotor function - "the deeply mysterious and too often elusive form of motor ability needed for writing." - Mel Levine, M.D. - problem.

And I'm a teacher now. My biggest obstacle in my teacher training was writing legibly on the whiteboard. My trainer just tells me to "practice practice practice"... "and, write in BLOCK LETTERS". So that's what I do. I have a whiteboard in my house for practice. It's getting better.

I know a lot of people who just say, "I have bad handwriting", and it seems that maybe they're just lazy, but I can attest to the struggles these people have with legible writing. Like I said, the harder I try to write prettily, the uglier it gets. And yes, the longer the note gets, the more it looks like sh*t on a shingle. And yes, my hand just can't keep up with what my brain's trying to say. *sigh*



So, to all the Graphomos out there (is that a proper label?). You are not alone!
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