autumnus

I was planning to write about OTW election results and some other stuff but eh... life had other plans.

Plans involving certified repair making the computer almost worse than before. Anyhow spent last 3 days fixing and reinstalling a computer, it is more or less in a functional state. (have email, have a browser, windows and virusscan updates done, and just today WoW reinstalled)

still missing some games, need to finish backups I started and oh yes do everything else that was on pause from real life be back soon....

...ish

actually I did 2 minutes after the ballot opened the first day but yay for cute graphics. :)

polls are closing... now!

hope the results are best for the org. whatever they are.

disclaimer 1: I am a former staffer who took a break from the org, who might return back or not in future.
disclainer 2:  Since I am no longer a volunteer, there is no way on earth my opinions can reflect official opinions of AD&T of OTW or anyone really but myself. :) Just so that we are clear.

Criticism and AD&T

( learning from criticism and fixing things are important )

Design and testing process

( don't let your coders hog designing. Value user feedback for real and your Q&A team. Document )

AO3 skins what went wrong and what didn't.

( the new layout might have failed badly, but the underlying code has the potential to allow better design and testing process for skins and layouts in future )

Its been a busy week, I have 10-12 paintings that needs to be done and at least 5 books to be read, so this post was supposed to not happen. I am not comfortable making this post: I am not a good writer and I fear that I am too frustrated to be coherent. I don't write this to put out new ideas anyway. Posts linked below pretty much summarizes already what I mean to say. I am writing to support: to underline that this isn't few outsiders trying to cause wank. There more of us. There IS a problem here.

( long version )

The short version (for those who don't want to go through the cut)

You should read More on the OTW 2011 Board Election by starlady, OTW, or, I am exhausted by
renay and The value of constructive negativity by ira_gladkova

I am frustrated with what is going on concerning tone arguments flying around, and org culture of silence in favor of the illusion of everything going fine.

I'll be voting (assuming my membership payment went through in time) for Jenny Scott-Thompson, Julia Beck, Lucy Pearson and Nikisha Sanders.

I am getting several concerned emails so just want to mention this real quick.

 I am fine. The part of Turkey that is hit is eastern side, which is the opposite end. So didn't even feel it.

This being said, this thing is on bigger side even for us, kinda worried about the death toll now. 

So on a more mundane note here is what has been going on with my life outside the big drama of grad school application.

Health-wise I am fine, and actually better than I have been in months or even years in prior. I eat more or less healthy in that I have cut pretty much all corn syrup out of my diet, and overly processed stuff. I sleep well (with the exception of the 2 crazy days prior to application deadline where I pulled 2 allnighters in 3 days to finish my portfolio). Generally I feel like a human being. The only major situation I ran into is that my long standing issue with my wisdom teeth finally surfaced in worst way. In between tooth pain and stitches, I am hoping to celebrate my acceptance sometime next month. In my mind, I am doing as well as I can. Fear and paranoia is still there but I think I am learning to not pay attention to it. It gets easier, when I am not sitting at home.

One occupation I had outside resting and school search has been WoW. Well... uhh... I kinda am a guild leader. Which is actually a lot less glorious than it sounds, but then again I went in knowing what I was going to subject myself into. It is great some days, to have a group that is run the way I want run. On other days, it is just pure frustration. Some days like this week, I ask myself why I am simply not quitting the guild and the game because I don't want to see it but eh, it will go as long as it goes. Overall through it is not as dark as it sounds. I am actually impressed we got as far as we did (lvl 6 guild, raids are somehow run almost every week, although this week will challenge that an RP event in the works) I just wish it would get to the point where there are others holding from various ends to make things work. Eh well, will figure that one out at some point.

yes I am on hiatus.

It seems to me lately that all I do in this account is long bouts of silence punctuated with moments of rage.

Part of it is living in Turkey (and in a strange way I love it: I think it is Stockholm syndrome). :P. Part of it is the sheer chaos of having scratched a whole life plan and life to do something new.

It IS new, it is exciting. However sometimes I feel like I am constantly extinguishing bushfires in what is a weird mix subtle culture shock of coming back to another country and trying to start up a career in a field where I have no prior knowledge of. Art is a foreign space. There are days I strongly feel like fish out of water. (but it is slowly getting better).

I am finding I have hard time writing emails in Turkish, and biting my nails before calling someone.getting extremely nervous before calling someone. I have no accent obviously and my vocabulary is mostly in place. I occasionally discover that some words has phonetically warped in my mind but it is becoming less and less as I use the language. My grammar is impeccable. I am no longer wondering if I needed to split "de" off or not the way I did when I first came. I have been told I write and speak pretty well. The problem is it is not easy. I cannot tell the nuances between two ways of phrasing a request. It is less not knowing the language, more the fact that I had never used this language as an adult, so I try to insert English way of forming paragraphs and wording which results on funny first drafts of emails. Usually throughout college and work we acquire that gradually and we get some leeway for being young. So I can tell it apart in English but in Turkish I can't. The bad thing is, I am too old to be given leeway, and I speak Turkish too well for people to  be clued in I have language issues. It is okay, and it is getting better. It is just a bit like walking with eyes closed. You can do it, but you have to be careful, feeling your way around, and you cannot go too fast (and you are screwed if there is a danger ahead).

and there is the culture shock. The thing about Turkey is that people in my little social hole here, are modern, more modern in some ways than what I see in USA and Europe. However the rest of the Turkey is not in a way that is not visible in surface. People wear beautiful clothes, all common technology is available, we have all manners of world cuisines (even sushi apparently, a bit expensive but tasty enough). However then you run into these weird things caused by government (youtube ban that was just lifted, my recent rage over android phone that had no way to buy apps for, movies having scenes cut-off from them), just plain disorganization (like you cannot get recommendations in electronically to, most universities) or bureaucracy that is not better or worse but different than I am used to (like you need to make sure stamps on your passport are done in a legible way because they are official information you might need to copy). It is really not surprising, considering the way this country was only a decade and half ago (and also not surprising considering the current government severely slowed any progress that could have been made, if not pushed it backwards completely). I know some of the same stuff exists out there too (as wikileaks showed us all, freedom of speech is made of smoke) but it is more out there here, more affecting daily life. One major part of living in Turkey is just learning to reroute through obstacles because there is no way you can avoid them. I used to live in this place, I KNOW how it works. However I have never been an adult in this place and have to learn to deal with it myself: which means I am spending a lot of time running and a lot of time sitting on a seat exhausted.

I should have expected this. I DID expect this. However I don't think I knew how it would have felt. It is intensely frustrating. 

and I am not regretting one moment of it. :) I have the snark and the humor to match, bring it on (within reason).

I am trying to get a transcript from Wellesley. So.

*they don't accept credit card
*they don't accept cash! (huh?)
from what i can see they only accept check to pay

in terms of mailing. They don't accept fax requests. I am not sure they accept fed-ex even. 
I am almost sure they don't send stuff with fed-ex even if you pay for it.  okay apparently they accept this: small miracles.

I need transcripts. There is no way for me to send them a check they can reliably cash (trust me, I have been told they would have to pay 100$ extra just to cash it. I am tempted to send it just for kicks). Even if I somehow get it to work it will take weeks to get back at me.

How on earth any international alumnae get transcripts from this place?

----

venting aside, so far I am trying to contact alumnae office, registrar and international office. Any other bright ideas?


PS: after I deal with this, the next challenge will be getting my diploma translated by a recognized translator. Ha! Finding one to translate from Latin: that is going to be probably interesting as well.

edit: so now I am being forwarded to the controller who is not on office. More updates tomorrow. :) 

Flight from Chicago to Washington... well we were fine until the landing.

It took 3 tries for the pilot to get the damn thing on the ground and it was more like riding space mountain for half an hour (no I am not kidding). The girls sitting next to me were crying by the time we landed, and about 1/4th of the plane did put the sick bags into use (for the record I wasn't one of them). I think there might be 1 or 2 time where we could have crashed (or been in serious risk of crashing) if the pilot made a mistake.

Oh and I got to opt out of the new body scanners.

That was way too much excitement for one flight.


ohh and I still don't know if I am graduating or not. I'll finish the paper in next 24 hours (I hope) but I think it is already too late. Oh well...