Arrgh, mateys!
Sep. 19th, 2006 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
luciabAhoy and avast and all that, ye scurvy pirates! (Just in case you forgot that it's Talk Like a Pirate Day.)
I think it's a day for minor random bits of stuff. Like that it isn't a good idea to wear shorts to a meeting in a swamp, even if it isn't after dark. Somebody forgot to tell the mosquitos that they aren't supposed to be hungry till dusk. The bites started showing themselves last night, over 24 hours after their infilction, and today they're all itching like mad.
One of my teachers has said we are to use the Chicago Manual of Style for our papers; I bought and have been using MLA for everything so far. I was getting reasonably familiar and now I have to start all over. Le sigh. Don't these teachers have anything better to do than harrass us with silly shit like this? Geez. As if I don't have enough serious stuff to worry about, like what is IN the damn paper....
One class requires a short paper (5-10 pages,) a term paper (15-20 pages,) AND a take-home final. Holy cow. That class is Preservation. In class last night she was good about saying "You might be seeing this again later in the semester...." and giving us Significant Looks when she told us something important. Ha! Big asterisks besides those notes! The Archives class requires a 10-16 page paper, and I'm going to sort of double up on the topic for this one and the short paper for Preservation. I'm going to write about parchment and vellum-- how they are made, differences between them, and preservation issues. Cool, huh? It won't be the same paper, since they are two different lengths, but I can use the same sources at the very least. And as a matter of fact, why, yes I do have several books that discuss parchment and vellum. Imagine that. It'll also be nice to be able to discuss this stuff when I teach university classes on something like... Materials and Methods, maybe.
Carmen made a serious run for the door again last night; only flomping the full bag of groceries on the floor in front of her face stopped her. They hate those rattly plastic bags if I'm wielding them. If they are on the floor and can be snuck up on to be explored properly, it's fine. Flomping, though, is right out. Miranda, for some reason, has been especially affectionate lately, climbing into my lap at the least opportunity, and purring loudly. Sometimes I just need that, and apparently she does too. Now that I think of it, Molly has also been sitting in/on my lap more often, and when she isn't in my lap she's generally very nearby. Sweet.
This whole ergonomics thing is more of a pain (ha!) than I thought it was going to be. I mean, I had trouble finding stuff at first but then thought I had found what I needed. I got the table that I ordered, and oops! Considerations arose that I hadn't actually, well, considered. Like that furniture has structure that takes up space, which means there's more to think about than the height of the top surface and the height of the keyboard. If you are tall, I'm guessing there is a bigger tolerance zone, at least incrementally. Short people, though.... Okay. Step by step-- when you sit, your knees are supposed to be slightly above your hips, or your legs are supposed to be at right angles to your torso. Do you have any idea how low a chair seat has to be to make that happen for me? That alone is impossible without a footstool. Oh, wait--- lots of you already know that, since you saw me deal with that in the Baronial thrones, which were built for..... (wait for it....) tall people. Next-- chair arms should be low so your shoulders don't get shoved up to your ears. That one's easy enough. Relationship to computer: monitor should be no higher than eye level; a little lower is better, is my understanding. Keyboard should be low enough that the shoulders, again, don't get jacked up. Since much of my physical stress is shoulders and upper back, these are key items.
So, I was all excited becuase I found a great chair, and a neat foot stool, and a table that looked short enough. Except there are shallow drawers in the table, which puts the bottom of the table rail nearly 6" below the surface of the table, and that leaves barely enough room for my legs, and that's without the footstool. I am so not amused. But ya know? This is going to be infinitely better than what I had, and I don't see how it will get much better without a custom cabinet maker. I started to say that would require more bucks than disabled students or public librarians have at their disposal, but I do happen to have a dad that loves to make furniture.... Hrm. Now I'm going to have to think about what is going to be required to make this better. And hope I can convince him to build exactly what I draw up instead of "improving" on it, which he can't seem to resist.
Oh, well. Enough dawdling. Time to shower, buy cat food, and start reading. And working on the paper on Parchment.
I think it's a day for minor random bits of stuff. Like that it isn't a good idea to wear shorts to a meeting in a swamp, even if it isn't after dark. Somebody forgot to tell the mosquitos that they aren't supposed to be hungry till dusk. The bites started showing themselves last night, over 24 hours after their infilction, and today they're all itching like mad.
One of my teachers has said we are to use the Chicago Manual of Style for our papers; I bought and have been using MLA for everything so far. I was getting reasonably familiar and now I have to start all over. Le sigh. Don't these teachers have anything better to do than harrass us with silly shit like this? Geez. As if I don't have enough serious stuff to worry about, like what is IN the damn paper....
One class requires a short paper (5-10 pages,) a term paper (15-20 pages,) AND a take-home final. Holy cow. That class is Preservation. In class last night she was good about saying "You might be seeing this again later in the semester...." and giving us Significant Looks when she told us something important. Ha! Big asterisks besides those notes! The Archives class requires a 10-16 page paper, and I'm going to sort of double up on the topic for this one and the short paper for Preservation. I'm going to write about parchment and vellum-- how they are made, differences between them, and preservation issues. Cool, huh? It won't be the same paper, since they are two different lengths, but I can use the same sources at the very least. And as a matter of fact, why, yes I do have several books that discuss parchment and vellum. Imagine that. It'll also be nice to be able to discuss this stuff when I teach university classes on something like... Materials and Methods, maybe.
Carmen made a serious run for the door again last night; only flomping the full bag of groceries on the floor in front of her face stopped her. They hate those rattly plastic bags if I'm wielding them. If they are on the floor and can be snuck up on to be explored properly, it's fine. Flomping, though, is right out. Miranda, for some reason, has been especially affectionate lately, climbing into my lap at the least opportunity, and purring loudly. Sometimes I just need that, and apparently she does too. Now that I think of it, Molly has also been sitting in/on my lap more often, and when she isn't in my lap she's generally very nearby. Sweet.
This whole ergonomics thing is more of a pain (ha!) than I thought it was going to be. I mean, I had trouble finding stuff at first but then thought I had found what I needed. I got the table that I ordered, and oops! Considerations arose that I hadn't actually, well, considered. Like that furniture has structure that takes up space, which means there's more to think about than the height of the top surface and the height of the keyboard. If you are tall, I'm guessing there is a bigger tolerance zone, at least incrementally. Short people, though.... Okay. Step by step-- when you sit, your knees are supposed to be slightly above your hips, or your legs are supposed to be at right angles to your torso. Do you have any idea how low a chair seat has to be to make that happen for me? That alone is impossible without a footstool. Oh, wait--- lots of you already know that, since you saw me deal with that in the Baronial thrones, which were built for..... (wait for it....) tall people. Next-- chair arms should be low so your shoulders don't get shoved up to your ears. That one's easy enough. Relationship to computer: monitor should be no higher than eye level; a little lower is better, is my understanding. Keyboard should be low enough that the shoulders, again, don't get jacked up. Since much of my physical stress is shoulders and upper back, these are key items.
So, I was all excited becuase I found a great chair, and a neat foot stool, and a table that looked short enough. Except there are shallow drawers in the table, which puts the bottom of the table rail nearly 6" below the surface of the table, and that leaves barely enough room for my legs, and that's without the footstool. I am so not amused. But ya know? This is going to be infinitely better than what I had, and I don't see how it will get much better without a custom cabinet maker. I started to say that would require more bucks than disabled students or public librarians have at their disposal, but I do happen to have a dad that loves to make furniture.... Hrm. Now I'm going to have to think about what is going to be required to make this better. And hope I can convince him to build exactly what I draw up instead of "improving" on it, which he can't seem to resist.
Oh, well. Enough dawdling. Time to shower, buy cat food, and start reading. And working on the paper on Parchment.
