Well, after a long (much-needed?) hiatus from the journaling, I’ve decided to make another attempt at posting occasionally. At the Trinic*con speculative fiction convention in Durham, NC this past weekend, Luna chided me about the extended lapse, wondering why I hadn’t put in an entry in the last six weeks. Other than a feeble “I guess I didn’t feel like it” I couldn’t really give her much to go on. In any event, Luna, I’m going to take another stab at it, and as you’ll read a little later, I’m even going to make a mid-year’s resolution regarding journaling.

To start off this week, I thought it would be a good idea to post a detailed list of some the things I want to accomplish in the next few days. (At this point I have to honestly admit to myself and anyone reading this that creating incredibly intricate to-do lists is probably my favorite – and saddest – hobby. Unfortunately, it seems my next favorite hobby is to ignore 95% of the to-do items in these lists.) Well, anyway, I should at least be able to gauge my progress with this checklist.

1. Organize and reflect on all SEELRC conference materials.

Over the last two weeks (8 work days) I was lucky to be able to attend the South East European Languages Resource Center’s annual Summer Institute program. The program started with 3 days at UNC and the final 5 at Duke and involved academics from all over the country who teach (mainly) Russian and other Slavic languages. The conference had a lot of good seminars and presentations about their teaching materials and how these instructors use technology to advance foreign language instruction and learning. I’ve got a lot of good notes, ideas, and handouts from the conference and need to put it all together and reflect on how I can use it here at UNC in all the language departments I support.

2. Finish the OZONE newsletter layout and design

OZONE is the name of the new quarterly newsletter that the Office of Arts & Sciences Information Services (my employer) will be publishing. My task for the inaugural issue is to provide the overall design/layout and provide html templates for subsequent installments of the e-zine. I’ve already got a fairly firm grasp of how I want it to look, but I have to get this finished by Friday morning. My “gimmick” for the site is to incorporate a Flash banner with randomized images which change every time the page is refreshed or a new page is loaded into the browser. I expect I’ll be spending most of tomorrow (Tuesday) working on putting all the pieces together.

3. Update this journal on a relatively regular basis.

Right now my goal is to put up an entry every day until the end of August. Since I’ve had so much going on around me recently, I doubt this should be terribly difficult. I’ve also decided that I should start posting general knowledge stuff that I’m otherwise likely to forget. In the past I’ve posted things like Photoshop tips and even a definition of “post-modernism” (which I should reread on a daily basis), and a journal like this is a good storehouse for that kind of stuff.

4. Redesign this journal

I’m tired of this look. It’s time for a change, and since Journalscape is stylesheet-driven, this will be easy. I just need a new graphic and I’ll be set. (Jason, if you’re reading this, I’m sure you’re groaning. I know. I know. I can never settle on a design and I’ll probably never have a completely finished website over at memory39, but as I’ve said before, I think I enjoy the ever-cyclical process of creating and destroying my website.)

5. Make work less work

This is just a simple reminder that I should get up and take the occasional short walk and stay properly hydrated while I’m at work. Too often I find myself sitting hours at time in front of the computer and going home feeling overly exhausted. As long as I take short breaks here and there, drink enough h2o, and not remained seated for hours on end, I get through the workday with a lot less effort.

6. Watch less TV, read more, go to karate practice, and play guitar.

Despite the fact that Steffi and I don’t have cable TV, it seems I’ve been spending an average of 6 hours a week in front of the boob tube. While I love “The Simpsons” and the 2 reruns the WB shows every night from 6 to 7, I think there’s probably no need to watch episodes I’ve already seen 2 or 3 times now. If I can buck that addiction I’ll certainly be able to get some more reading done.

Since starting karate at the Chapel Hill Shotokan dojo about a month ago, I’ve been trying to visit all 3 practices a week. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening from 7:30 to 9:00 as well as a Sunday morning class at 8:30. It’s been really hard to inspire the motivation I need to go to all of these practices, but I realize that I always feel better after I’ve gone. It’s like the old adage: the hardest part is just showing up. It’s crazy, though – I was telling my dad that I find activities that I like doing, but then after the initial enthusiasm has worn off I want to get back that “lost freetime.”

Since I started karate, the guitar sits alone in the corner a lot more often. Need to remedy this.

7. Improve my correspondence track record.

Jeez, I’ve been bad. I’ve neglected a lot of folks with my lack of e-communication and need to play some major catch up. In any event, I apologize to anyone who’s gotten short-changed and will try to be better about responding/writing to you.

8. Challenge my artistic abilities

Jeff VanderMeer writes of Scott Eagle in the January 2002 issue of The Silver Web: Eagle’s work strikes me as playful but not frivolous, fantastical and yet firmly grounded in psychological reality. Even more impressive, he changes at an astonishing rate, molting his artistic skin every year or so. It is highly satisfying to find an artist you love whose work does not seem static.

Amen to that last line. I figured out this weekend that I’ve been working in the digital medium for about the last 14 years. (In 1993 I started out with an Amiga 500.) While I have seen some “artistic molting” occur over the last decade, I don’t have that many discarded skins to show for all that time. While I do think my most recent piece -- the cover for my dad’s book A Reverie for Mr. Ray -- does represent a fairly nice departure from my usual, I can’t honestly claim to have grown as an artist over the last couple of years. I’ll certainly continue to create similar artwork, but I think it’s time to stretch my creative boundaries a bit and think a little more intensively about what I want to do with my future work.