I'm actually pleased as can be. I just looked at my stats and tracker for this little piece of drivel that I do every day and found that I have had five reads each from France and Russia, two from Britain, many from the US and a couple from Romania and India. Never in my wildest imagination did I think people from around the world would look in on this.
Of course, if I'm going to be perfectly honest, I didn't think anyone would read it more than once - so thank you if you've come back a time or two (or three or four...).
I just hope that this is entertaining, a little bit of pleasure in an otherwise ordinary day. For myself, I enjoy doing this. As I've said before, it's a bit like writing notes and letters to my mother. It's satisfying and pleasurable to slice and dice my days - no matter how good, bad, awkward or just plain there.
For instance, this was a fun and interesting week.
That voice over I was trying to do? It's still not done. I had a bit of privacy Thursday afternoon and I got started going through it, advancing the slides and talking. Then realized a couple of those slides stay on the screen for an awfully long time while I drone. I needed something more, something to liven it up and drive home the points.
Five new slides later... What can I say? I'm a writer. It's never good enough.
I did discover that my personal laptop has a better microphone than my work laptop. The clarity is better, which means those poor people who have to sit through this will hear my slightly nasal drone all that much more clearly! There's also not that annoying hum from the fan I got with my work laptop.
Since the first classroom session isn't until week after next, and I know that one of my work roomies is out next week, I'll wait for a time when I have the place to myself (there are only five of us here) and then do my drone. Worst case scenario is I take the script home with me and do the recording in the privacy of my bedroom.
The saga and quest continue into next week.
On Wednesday I was co-running a meeting when I lost wifi connection to our servers. That was no fun at all. The data I had captured to that point - almost an hour into the meeting - went pfft. Gone.
I hate moments like that - when the heart stops and everything clenches as you think oh SHIT! It happens to everyone at one time or another. That is the one and only consolation in that time. I wasn't the first and I won't be the last and I offer my useless pity to anyone to whom it does happen.
The funny(?) thing was that while I was having a severe case of heart failure, one of the people at the table kept pointing to a minor change they had requested.
They asked once while I was in atrial fibrillation.
They asked again when the EKG monitor was flatlined.
The third time they asked testily, I looked over and said, "I'm not worried about that right now. I'm worried about the three blank lines under it."
Oh, yeah. The data that had been there and was now gone? What was that? Was it important? Yeah, probably, or it wouldn't have been there in the first place.
Fortunately, it was an online sessions with my computer screen shared, so everyone participating saw when it happened. This way there's no finger pointing (which also happens whenever there's a large group - at least one person will try), but it means we do have to go through the hassle and headache of trying to remember what we said.
I'm not looking forward to those sit-downs, but I'll meet with each department and resurrect what we can. The good news on that is that I didn't lose anything really critical. It's important, but not utterly critical to the finished project.
I've also already let everyone who was there know the info is really gone. Just confirming what they all saw, so there will be no surprises when we meet as a group and start over. Or if someone does act surprised, I can at least point them to the e-mail I sent after the meeting and after trying to recover what I could (thank God for back-ups!).
At least I know what I'm doing Monday and Tuesday next week. Four groups, four sit-downs and four resurrections before our next group meeting on Wednesday. Most of these don't take that long, anyway, so it's just a matter of making sure that I get them done. Or we'll be back to where we were last Wednesday with gaps and holes and missing information.
In the meantime, my plans this weekend are to edit and edit and edit. The massive kinda-sorta half rewrite of 'Moments' (my post from the other day) has gotten started. I'm all the way through Chapter One! I've started Chapter Two! I don't even know how many chapters I have left, but I'm down from 119,059 words to 118,800 something. It's not a lot, but it's a start.
As a pain-poke - you know, you get a wound and just have to poke it: 'does it still hurt?' 'Ouch! Heck yeah, it still hurts!' 'Wonder if it hurts now?' 'Ouch!' - I read a bit more of my story last night. Under all the excess and adverbs, it is a good story, so I just have to clear the weeds and brush so the flowers can glisten in the sun. That's going to be my primary focus this weekend.
While I do that, you go off and have a lovely day!
Best~
Philippa
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