the great white north

[sanpaku_backup]

My hotel room window has a beautiful view of whatever bay this is here. The cruise ships come and go constantly. One strange thing, though: it's 7:30 in the morning, and it's still dark. Sundown was 4:30 yesterday. How can people stand such short days?

My cold never materialized, and the snow, while making for some delays and interesting cab conversation, didn't hold up my connections. So I met hydrozoa and herbaliser last night for fish & chips. Could not locate any Marmite. We had a great time mostly talking about the weird, wild world of LiveJournal, and also a little bit about getting older, etc. I protested repeatedly that this does not give a good representation of my life. It might be that I dwell on the negative because it's more interesting. Or because I don't know how to write about the positive in as engaging a way. Much food for thought.

They seemed surprised that I wanted to be there after being on a plane for 13 hours, but as I explained, that was really the only thing I had to look forward to on this trip. Meetings all day today, plus the ritual fun of bumping into former grad school colleagues who've done better than me. At least none of my advisors are here, mercifully.

The flu/cold didn't happen, but I'm still sore as all get-out. Now it's in my wrists and lower legs. You'd think I'd been carrying cinderblocks all day. Definitely weird.

Comments

[hydrozoa.livejournal.com]

we don't KNOW any better. we consider ourselves lucky that we're not canadians, and we get all this luxurious daylight.

(wait, providence isn't much further south than seattle, isn't it?)

i'm glad you had fun! work's a little slow today--if you have any time between meetings and want to go out to lunch or something, let me/us know. or whatever. you probably won't. i dunno.

FARTHER, screams the copy editor

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

It's farther south enough that the sun's usually up by 7. That's kind of my benchmark. I think you guys are Maine-latitude. I'll have to look at a map when I get home.

I would have dearly wanted to do that, but I had to be in meetings from 9:30 to 12:15 and 1:00 to 3:00. So I just dashed down to Pike Place, wandered around, then came back to the convention center and got an awful piece of pizza and a coke for $4.53. I'm bummed about the whole thing.

this is whut happins when you don't go to collidge

[hydrozoa.livejournal.com]

yeah, i thought to look it up after i commented. maine is right. i had no idea!

aw, too bad; i figured you'd be booked. maybe when i'm in providence. someday.

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

How did you manage to make a 3.5 hour flight last 13 hours?

Re: the dark-- Vermont is about the same lattitude as Seattle (Puget Sound, by the way) and yeah, it is dark all the time. Drove to work in the dark, drive home in the dark, and spent all day in a room with very little natural light. I read a lot of Russian novels and got up early in the morning on the weekends. I don't know, you just kind of go with it.

[hydrozoa.livejournal.com]

(i think he meant elliott bay. which is in puget sound.)

odd choice

[flw.livejournal.com]

Russian novels, what better cure could there be for seasonal affective disorder?

How could you read "alot" of Russian novels? There are so many of them, and they are so long. My admiration for you is renewed; bulk Russian Novel Reading is not a sport for the timid.

Re: odd choice

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

My admiration for you is renewed;

My god, what made it slip in the first place? I am so admirable!

Re: odd choice

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

When I was in college I cheered myself by reading a lot of Kafka. Maybe "cheered" isn't quite the right term...

some people don't know what "connections" are

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

How did you manage to make a 3.5 hour flight last 13 hours?

By having a connection and being stuck in a snowstorm and then being stuck in a fog in your fair city and then having to wait for about a thousand stupid historians to get on the shuttle bus in Seattle.

Get up at 5:30, leave at 6:00

Flight leaves some time after 7:40 or so

Gets to Philly at 10:30, connection delayed taking off until something like 11

Arrive at Seattle at 4:30 Eastern (1:30 PST)

Shuttle, etc. Arrive at hotel room at 3 PST = 6 EST. Okay, twelve hours MS. SMARTY PANTS.

Re: some people don't know what "connections" are

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

I am stuck in a fog in my fair city all the time.

You called me MS SMARTY PANTS, One-11 called me a LIAR. I guess my online personality is a bitch.

nyah nyah nyah

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

He called you a LIAR? Damn. Smarty pants doesn't come close to that. It means you have... smart pants or something.

Nah, I'm just cheesed because everyone at my company is like, "yeah, four hours from LA, I can handle that" when that never happens here. West Coast is a whole day either way. I will nurture this memory so I can use it to keep from having to do as much insane travel as they want me to do.

One cool thing is that this time next year the AHA is in your fair city, so there's a good chance we will fetch up on your newly purchased doorstep.

Re: nyah nyah nyah

[librarygrrl.livejournal.com]

Aaah, Philadelphia in January. The historians are as cheap with their conferences as the librarians are!

By all means, fetch up on my doorstep, but please don't track it into the house.

[then.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm on an adding jag and you seem interesting, so there you go.

Also, if I'm not mistaken you work as an editor, and I'm kicking that around as a possible career choice for myself.

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

Didn't see you on my friendslist, but that's fine. As for editing, it's been a pretty accidental career choice!

[then.livejournal.com]

Whooooops! How silly of me, to tell someone I was adding them and then not add them. Oh well, problem solved.

So what sort of editing do you do exactly?

[sanpaku.livejournal.com]

At a certain point "editing" is really more "managing," ie finding people to write, making sure they do write, making sure they get paid, etc. That's more or less where I am. I do read things over as they come in to make sure they're up to snuff, but there are others to do copyediting, QC, etc.

It's mostly articles and reviews by AP teachers for the AP teacher Web site run by the College Board. Sometimes I have to review teacher guides, released exams, things of that nature.

As a "career," it's not something I envisioned when I got my degree. But one thing I've learned is that editing is a hard slog to be trained at and get credentials in the "normal" way. You have a lot of mail sorting to do before you get paid decently. I'm not exactly an editor by training, but content knowledge is harder to come by than editing, so there's a premium on that, over time.