Allison

It has rained steadily here for most of the day.  People at work complained, people out and about looked miserable and hurried, the weather forecaster on the radio apologised, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

I really like a rainy day.  I always feel better - for many reasons.  it washes the allergens out of the air - fewer sniffles!  The cool humidity that comes with spring rain is just what my sinuses seem to like, and my skin - no itches inside or out!  I like the cool light and the soft sounds and the energy of all the growing things just drinking up the moisture and moving it around, and the petrichor.  I like that people are mostly less bouncy and extraverted on wet days.  I like needing to wear my scarf, I like the refreshing wake-up splatter of water on my skin as I go between buildings.  I like watching the office ducklings splashing around and discovering puddles (we have two broods of ducklings in the courtyard of our building again this year...).

Yesterday and today I met with project students - yesterday there was a mixture of serious personal issues and students being unhappy about random things and students who needed to be carefully coaxed into thinking or who were basically asking how little they could get away with (and a couple of great ones who will be fun to work with, but sadly they came first in the running order so I was left pretty drained after the office hours).  Today several no-showed (and I did some useful research-related emailing and stuff in the gaps) and the ones who did show were positive and prepared for conversation and acted like they appreciated my suggestions - and they all actually took notes during the meeting.  Sometimes even if I directly tell a student to get out their notebook or phone and make notes, they don't.  It bugs me... because I just KNOW they'll be back asking the same question in a week or a month's time. 

I also did some grading (sigh.  Final year students, given a very clear brief - your essay must do these three things - over 50% so far have just not done at least one of the three things.  And the student who wrote an answer to a question about trees using oysters as their example.  And they clearly knew the oyster was not a tree, but assumed it would do.  Coursework, not an exam...), and some writing - I host a small writing group most weeks where I book a seminar room in a different building on campus for a couple of hours and set alarms for writing periods and provide biscuits, and anyone who wants to comes for a write and a coffee break and chat in the middle.  Sometimes people come and mark if they're desperate for time, mostly they do research writing.  Mostly its attended by people on fixed term contracts and post-docs, but there are also some mid-career people like me who struggle to put writing ahead of student drop-ins and emails or just are looking for a bit of the collegiality we lost with our tearoom.  Today we had mini shortbreads shaped like scotty-dogs (writing group is a good excuse to buy fun or fancy biscuits to share) and the coffee break conversation was mostly about how to organise your research notebook, with much admiring of one person's multi-tiered indexing system, and I edited the latest version of ProblemChild2 which is actually a coherent new draft now and wrote about 500 words of a grant idea, whilst the rain splattered on the window in a very cosy way - this afternoon was probably the most fun I've had at work for a good long time!

Of course there were niggles - bureaucracy is everywhere.  Student X was ill at the time an assessment was due, and applied to be allowed to take it in the summer exam period (which is mostly for resits).  This was authorised by the Centralised Student Service, who control all assessment matters now.  Student X asked the CSS when their assignment would be due.  CSS said to ask his tutor last week.  His tutor said to ask me as the assignment was for my module.  I asked our local-unit exams administrator.  They said that I have to ask CSS.  I asked CSS.  They said they will make decisions about those things next week and inform the students directly.  I asked CSS why they had told the student to ask the tutor (and when they would inform me so I could, you know, arrange to get the work marked within a short timeframe sometime in August when people won't be here).  They said, because the tutor will set the date.  I said, but isn't that what you decide next week?  They said, yes, we will tell the tutor which date to set, and then the student will have to ask the tutor for the date.  But I said don't you tell the student?  They said, well, yes, but we don't write to them or email them, we just inform them when they log in to the VLE.  [apparently all students know instinctively to log into the VLE regularly when away from NorthernCity and outside of teaching term.  Especially students already having problems].  Being polite through this exchange definitely earned me some scotty dog biscuits!  But it's actually so absurd as to be funny.

Hoping for more of this kind of rainy day in the coming weeks!

giddygirlie:

outofcharactersuburb:

bestyoutubevideos:

Manatee drinking water from a hose. So that’s what it’s mouth looks like.

Okay. For the last time: THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MANATEE. I’ve spent the last twenty-five years trying to dispel the manatee myth and just when I feel like I’m finally gaining ground, here comes THIS propaganda. Can you seriously not recognize a waterborne baby Predator when you see one?

My vacation plans include snorkeling with the manatees and I’m only telling you this so that Erin can start baking up conspiracy theories now.

I grew up in Gulf Breeze, Florida, and every year my classroom would have an enormous fundraiser to help Save The Manatees. Because apparently motorboats were just plowing into manatees (commonly referred to, at least in that part of the country, as Sea Cows) and they were getting bludgeoned by propellers. Which is horrible! Fucking deplorable, obviously! So every year we’d adopt a manatee named Smokey or Ringo or Coco and every year I’d go door-to-door selling exorbitant wrapping paper or giant plastic tubs of cheddar cheese food or generic chocolate turtles so my class could make sure Bandit got the aftercare treatment that he needed. 

For no shit, like eight years. Maybe nine. I don’t remember. I didn’t keep a spreadsheet. But here’s the thing: I have never in my entire life actually laid my eyeballs on a goddamned manatee. Not in a zoo, not in a coastal preserve, not in an aquarium, not off the coasts of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, California, Texas, Louisiana, or any number of foreign beaches, not in a swimming pool, not on a farm, NOWHERE. Nowhere! 

I loudly, staunchly, unapologetically, and unpopularly maintain that the manatee is a creature of fiction devised by the Santa Rosa County school system in an ingenious effort to pad their enrollment budget.

THE MANATEE IS THE YETI OF THE SEA. 

I have a couple words of advice in fact. For starters: BE DELIBERATE. Don’t make sketchy hash lines. It’s sloppy and looks like shit unless you’re trying to make a texture. That’s a mistake. Give it a couple practice traces in the air above the paper before you make an actual line… feel it out. Take it one line at a time.

If you feel like you can’t make the whole line in one pass (our wrists only have about 75 degrees of a fine range from a neutral position… maybe 130 from an extended position.) then find a good place to pull up from the line and break it into smaller pieces… BUT NO MORE THAN ABSOLUTELY NEEDED. Treat your pen like a bird swooping down across a lake and then back up again. When you make a line, commit yourself to it. Pay attention.

Using a fat line weight makes it easier to pull clean lines, but don’t use it as a crutch. A lot of times it’s the thin detail lines that really add depth to your piece. The fat lines are just the backbone.

You can always go back into a fat line with a thinner line and clean it up, I do this on ends constantly.

Pay attention to directional lines in what you’re drawing. Everything has a flow, flow with it. For example: lines run in all directions on a human face, but only certain ways per area. Really look, and see which way they’re supposed to go.

I could go on for hours about this because I’m very dedicated to line work, but that’s enough for a tumblr broadcast. Practice makes better, and you’ll never amount to anything without real effort. Never stop drawing.

fuckyeahtraditionaltattoos:

Will Sheldon - Brooklyn 

MATANGI - Tantric form of Saraswati seated at the 5th chakra at the psychic center in the throat. Matangi gives the power creativity, music and knowledge of the fine arts.  She removes all disharmony and brings wisdom. - Robert Ryan 2013

Vaishnava Christ. Representing the years unmentioned in the bible when Christ studied Vedanta at Jagannath Puri in Orissa India.  Robert Ryan -Electric Tattoo-2013

While many discussions about climate change focus on how it will affect the future of mankind, photographer Mitch Dobrowner's work reminds us that nature is indifferent to human activity. Dobrowner has a solo show coming up at Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles titled "Storms," a series of monochromatic digital photos that evoke an intense feeling of the sublime. "Landscapes are living eco systems and environments. They have existed well before, and will hopefully be here way beyond the time we are here," said Dobrowner of his work in his artist statement. The sweeping storm clouds, captured in their paralyzing beauty, overpower the surface of the Earth. Take a look at some of Mitch Dobrowner's work from "Storms" after the jump and see the exibition at Kopeikin Gallery September 7 through October 26.

An X-files tattoo I got to make the other day. Thanks so much Andrew!

Tron/ Losingshape.com

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