There are some nice benefits to working for the government (Drew) or an educational institution (me).  You get most statuatory holidays off.  When I first started working out of college I loved working on stat holidays to gain the 2.5x pay amount for hours worked.  If you met all the prerequisites for stat pay and managed to please the gods and get scheduled off took the day off you’d be paid as if you’d gone to work that day.  But if you bowed down to the world of slave labour then working a stat holiday could result in a fancy night out to dinner or a new item for the home.  After a few years I was promoted to a management position with salary instead of hourly wages.  Gone were the days of working stats for extra money.  Instead we got stats off.  If we worked them we were entitled to days in lieu.  Since I worked for an American company with a different series of stats than Canada, we often worked our stats and used our days in lieu on US stats because the company was shut down on those days.  While the not so new job is salary it is a Canadian company and I get stats off again.  Wheeee!

Nathan Fillion sent a call out to the members of a strange race Serenify flans (aka browncoats) asking for our help in impacting a viral-social voting experience.  Except, he used cooler words:

“Ladies and gentlemen of the Interweb. Help a sweet lady out? I’m currently working alongside Felicia Day. Many of you know her as a Potential Slayer. I know her as Penny (you’ll find out soon!). 

Tiny, talented, and tenacious. She’s put together a show, and if we all go take a looky and vote for her, she’ll be so much happier and stop slapping me around on set. Tiny slaps. From tiny hands…”

So, go check out The Guild episodes and then toddle over to the Yahoo! Video Awards and vote!

Go.  Watch.  Giggle.  Vote.  My work here is done.

I had this wonderful idea to explore collaboration and community through online courses and to draft a proposal for the upcoming ISSoTL conference in the fall. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

For a research method I’d considered opening a voluntary survey of online students. Knowing where I could find a few dozen who might be interested in participating (my fellow classmates), I started working on the survey instrument and contacted my instructors to notify them of what I’d like to do and ask permission. Profs are willing to allow me to request voluntary participation in the survey if it passes the Ethics Review Board. All human subject research requires ERB approvals so that was always the next step in the process.

This morning I downloaded the ERB forms and started reviewing them. Being a neophyte when it comes to research – this would be my first project as the lead researcher – the approval forms seem a bit like greek at the moment and I’m struggling to remember what my original “question” was. My survey instrument, which needs to be included as part of the ERB application, now seems to be completely flawed and I have to sit down, regroup, and try to reframe both the original research question and ensure that the survey questions are a good fit.

Remind me again why this was such a good idea?

I have a feeling that everything won’t be in place in time to complete the proposal application for ISSoTL but I’m still going to try and get my ducks in a row. If I can complete the project I’m certain I’ll learn lots. And if it’s not complete in time for ISSoTL, there might be a more appropriate place to present the end results.

School update: Paper #3 was submitted today. Keep your fingers and toes crossed.

Many years ago I dyed my hair red. I kept it that colour for a few years. Most of the coworkers I met after that time automatically assumed I was a natural redhead and had no idea I’d been dying it. Apparently the skin tones of a blonde are similar to those of a redhead. It wasn’t until I had my head shaved for a charity event that my coworkers learned I was blonde and not a redhead.

I’m 1/4 Irish – my gran on my mum’s side of the family -and 3/4 Scots. The only explanation I have for the blonde hair and blue eyes is that someone in my family tree couldn’t run fast enough when the Norse invaders came calling many hundreds of years ago. Likely multiple someones over multiple generations. Ooh, dad always hated it when I said that…

For Halloween 2007, I dyed my hair red again. Since it’s gotten such a positive reaction, I’ve given up on letting my roots grow out and have decided to by another bottle of dye and recolour it red. I’m heading home to SJ in a few weeks and my mum hasn’t seen me with red hair in many moons. It’ll be interesting to see her reaction.

Beats having to shave my head again to let the natural colour grow back…

I’ve decided to take a night off – no surprise on a friday really – and just sit back and veg instead of worrying about school.  I received my history paper feedback and some of it was really good (the feedback, not the paper) and can be used to correct errors in the third one before I submit it.  Unfortunately, a large chunk is based on assumptions and since I’ve never been anything but opinionated, I wrote what I like to think of a detailed disagreement to the prof’s points and submitted them this afternoon.  It won’t change my grade but maybe he’ll start to understand that everyone is entitled to their opinions – especially on a position piece – and just because someone doesn’t agree with his, they’re not automatically invalidated.

This is why I need beer.