dream out loud

Recently I got tipped about a new web site which has a tool that analyzes a block of your text, then tells you which author you “write like.”

I don’t know who could pass up a chance to play around on this web site. I hop on over and first paste a block from a recent blog entry. I have to admit, I almost feel a little bit nervous as I click the big “Analyze” button. Something like the feeling you get when you hand a finished exam to a teacher and he or she gives it a once over while you’re still standing there. My first result? Margaret Atwood. I am quite pleased with this but always a supporter of a bigger sample size, I start to paste a few more paragraphs. I intentionally choose what I consider to be a few different styles.

Second try? Cory Doctorow. This was a blog about my “identity crisis” in China. I don’t know who this Cory Doctorow is but my friend Wikipedia offers a bit of insight. Hmm… okay, I’m alright with being similar to this guy.

Third try. Dan Brown. Aaaaghh… I run screaming.

Fourth try. Stephenie Meyer. I am as annoyed as a vampire who needs blood. Or something like that.

Thankfully, my next three pieces from my blog return Cory Doctorow. I am satisfied with that at first. Then, I realize that when I write to my blog, it’s kind of a casual tone which it sounds like Cory might. So I look for the only pieces of academic writing on my hard drive. The first paragraph of my Master’s thesis reminds this analyzer of Vladimir Nabokov. Shocking. My graduate school admissions essay? Jonathan Swift. A part of a huge curriculum project I wrote is like the writing of H. P. Lovecraft. This last one is particularly hilarious because the paragraph I used described the developmental age of eight year olds.

Were there any lessons learned from the 30 minutes I wasted fooled around on this web site? I would say… 1) I have multiple personality disorder, 2) I write like Cory Doctorow 3) My thesis might be as strange as Lolita 4) This web site doesn’t really work.

This is so funny. I used to check dpreview.com for tips and inspiration for my photography. I haven’t done so in very long time due to… well, life. It’s busy. They have this “Challenge” that I used to look at, and sometimes enter. Well, I just logged into the site after not checking it in almost a year and I see that I was #8 in the top ten runner-ups in of the challenges I entered. The challenge was “The Daily Round.” See it here. It’s not one of my best photos in terms of quality, color, etc, though.

Growing up Asian means that not wasting (and by proxy, saving) is just second nature. Whether it is food, water, electricity, clothing or money, it was just drilled into me, waste not, want not. How convenient that when I was in high school, not only did being environmentally friendly become the right thing to do, it was also quite trendy. Of course I joined environmental activist clubs in school. Sorting your recyclable materials became the norm in the 90s, as was giving up aerosol cans (imagine that, right after the 80s big hair!) Back then, it was our way of showing we cared about the environment. Maybe a witty button on your backpack or something too. People said things like “save a tree” instead of using a piece of paper and inappropriately used the term “ozone layer.”

Years went by, and we learned there was a lot more to preserving our earth than just recycling. There was also reducing our consumption and reusing products. Then we learned about “carbon footprint” the cause to replace the ozone layer. With people still using the term wrong. It seems like it is getting harder and harder to care for the environment – maybe like being the parent of a teenager?

What I’ve started to take on as my new personal goal is: re-purposing. My reasoning behind this is that some of my actions have small benefits. I don’t know how much energy and manual labor it takes to sanitize bottles and jars for recycling, to recycle paper, or to manufacture new products. One could even loop in the carbon footprint idea here.

It has not been as easy as I thought it would be. There are lots of great ideas out there in books, blogs, and magazines. Some ideas are outright unattractive (who wants a scarf made out of an old t-shirt?) while some are functional and aesthetic. I can easily spot which items can be washed and saved but I don’t necessarily have the creativity to turn it into something useful. In my effort to try this, I’ve become more of a pack-rat than I’ve been able to help the landfills. The best I have done this year is re-use paper which had something printed wrong on the other side.

My new home resolution is to create a bin in the corner (there’s a huge junk room/closet) off the kitchen which I will use to save…. junk. I’ll need to keep up to date on web sites with re-purposing ideas and then go back to my bin o’ junk. Hopefully it will also satiate my craving to do crafts. Lastly, this re-purposing junk is a skill I should get better at, if I want to be a better early childhood teacher. I just admired some good ideas right here.

My question to you is, do you have any ideas for me? Any that you have heard about or have tried at home?

I know I’m a little late, but I’ll blame it on being busier than ever. I feel badly about using that excuse every time I fall behind on correspondence. Well, Happy New Year! I’m going to do away with New Year’s Resolutions because those never stick. Also, why are resolutions for a year anyway? At the end of the year do you succeed? Fail? Try again next year?

We are at the end of the early 2000s and I was thinking about how many changes we’ve seen in those 10 years. We went from riding the tail end of the dot com bubble to a major global economic decline. We went from naivete and invincibility to feeling vulnerable and not always safe after an attack on America. We listened to everything from synthetic pop music to brooding, emotional lyrics.

Personally, in the past ten years, I have:
1. Held 8 jobs (I don’t know how that is possible, since I’ve been at some for years… law of averages, I guess)
2. Lived in 8 different homes (If we include the remainder of 2010, that will bring us to 9 on both counts!)
3. Traveled to 8 other countries
4. Changed careers
5. Earned a Master’s Degree
6. Bought an apartment
7. Made lots of new friends, lost many good friends
8. Went to well over 30 concerts
9. Taught approximately 145 students
10. Paid off all student debt

What is on the horizon for the next ten years??