sparkle j dot com is 5! Sort of.

In the summer of 2000 I decided to have my own website. I used some cheesy, annoying template from earthlink and put up some goofy photos, crafty ideas, and a few “essays” on various topics that amused me. In this state it sat with little or no updating for three years until the winter of 2002 when I registered sparklej dot com. It stayed pretty dormant until March 2003 when I finally built some structure and put up some content. Hooray for basic html tutorials and notepad! I started a blah blah blahg and in April I found some bloggish software for to keep track of archives and comments and what not. Then a couple of years (?) later that broke (and crashed the whole site), and I went back to hand-coding in 2005… I think. Here my memory is a bit fuzzy. After that got way too tedious for words, I installed Word Press. This was 2006, judging by the archives list on the side bar over there. I uploaded some old posts from 2003, but I never got around to uploading all the other ones. Those are still on the old hard drive waiting for me to do something with them.

I’m not exactly sure what I want to do with them, or any of the old archives, but I think it’ll involve printing out most of them to keep for posterity. The diaries and letters of manuscript collections are always the most fun. Well, maybe not always, but usually. The point is that they exist and you can get a good sense of the personality of the people in question when you read their own account of their lives. If my computer or server goes kaput then I’ve pretty much lost the last several years of my life. Not the end of the world, no, but it would be a sad loss for me, even if most of my entries are about me being stressed out with all the stuff I have to do. Especially the posts from the end of every semester. Annoying or not, it’s my own account of my life, and it’s important to me. And no, I don’t expect my personal papers to be of any use to any historical collection, I’m just saying that having personal accounts are important. And if I have children, and if they have children, then someone somewhere down the line might be interested to know what I was like.

I didn’t actually intend for this to be a post about my potential posterity, but there you go.

Not your average debutantes:

not a real derby girl

Yet.

Yeah, so, I didn’t pass my assessment. I’m wicked bummed, too. Apparently I can’t hit to save my life. I did even worse during the assessment than I have done at practices when we’ve worked on hitting. My timing was all off, so I couldn’t get enough power behind it. I would have done more damage had I been chucking marshmallows at them. It was a bit embarrassing.

And I nearly cried. Which would have been even more embarrassing, right? Completely and utterly lame. I knew I failed as soon as it was over. When the coaches delivered the news, it wasn’t a surprise, but still upsetting. I totally didn’t deserve to pass this time around, so I’m naturally not upset at them. It’s just… I really thought I had it, too. And then I couldn’t deliver a single good hit; and I tried at least 10 times.

The worst part is that I won’t be able to be put on a team along with everyone else on the 1st of April (because there’s too much else going on to test us again). Which means I won’t be able to get my photo taken with the teams the following weekend. They’re going to set up clinics for hitting skills, and then we’ll be able to pass our test no problem. (I was not the only person who failed because of hitting deficiencies.) But that’s SO far away. I want to be real NOW!

Argh. I need some chocolate.

identity confusion

I’m taking my second roller derby assessment on Monday.  I hope I pass. I think I’ll do alright. I really want to be able to scrimmage with the rest of the league, so I’ve been working hard these last few practices to get my skills up to scratch. We’re being tested on a couple more skating/stopping skills, as well as contact blocking and assists. I know the thing I need to work on the most is the contact stuff. I can keep my balance pretty well and take a pretty hard hit (I’ve go the bruises to show for it), but my timing and contact when I’m trying to hit is still pretty off… and weak. I have to be able to use my legs more, because that’s where the power comes from. I know all this in theory. It’s just getting my body to do what my brain is telling it to do, when my body is clearly sending signals that it’s too damn tired to move and my brain is all, “get up, you pansy, and hit someone!!!” Yeah, a bit of a conflict. But I’m working on it. I just hope I can do well enough to pass the test and move up to scrimmagable. Then I get to claim my name.

I’ve also been working on my resume, doing job research, writing cover letters, all that stuff. It’s a bit strange to have these two activities going on simultaneously. I hope it doesn’t trigger some sort of identity crisis. I’m trying to be professional and advance my career, while also being a part of this bad-ass sport. The other librarians at both my jobs are really excited for me, so when I have my first bout, there’s probably going to be a contingent from MIT as well as Radcliffe, which will be hopefully be more awesome than weird. It’s really fun that they’re so supportive, though. Except the other day at Radcliffe, I totally broke part of the photocopier: I was standing there, waiting for the copier to spit out the news clippings I was copying, when my knee began to get kind of crampy. I picked up my foot, stretched out my quad and knee, but my foot slipped out of my hand, and I accidentally kicked the paper bypass tray. I knocked it to the floor, and the little clippy hinge things that keep it attached to the coper totally broke off into tiny pieces. I exclaimed something not-so-professional, and people came in to see what was the matter. I’m just standing there with the tray in my hand, saying something really lame, like “DUDE!” and “MAN!! I’m so sorry!” That I couldn’t come up with something better to exclaim is bad enough, but the fact that I broke the copier because I was stretching was really, really embarrassing. The consensus was, “Geez, only a month of roller derby, and she’s already tearing the place apart!”

I can see it now: I’m probably going to end up like some Hulk librarian. You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry! Ooh! Or, like Conan the Librarian: “Don’t you know the Dewey Decimal System???” *super-sword-action-of-DOOM!*

the near-ish future

Regarding the archives fire: I still need to get a ton more information regarding the following, but it looks like I’m going to be playing a role in the recovery efforts of the MSPCA materials. They have sent much of the stuff to be frozen and dried at an off-site facility (standard emergency procedure for water damage) and I’ll know more about the condition of the materials when it comes back. But, there’s a bit of hope yet.

Regarding roller derby: I now find myself in the position of PRD league secretary. It’s a role I often find myself in when I join a group. I like being able to find a niche. Also in PRD news, I’ll be taking my second assessment in a couple of weeks, so I should be on track for being teamed along with everyone else. They split us up so the teams are even according to ability. While it would be really neat to see a super mega awesome team of DOOM, everyone would feel sorry for the suck-o team. Besides, it’s way more fun to watch a close game than a runaway. I had my first real contact practice the other day. It’s really funny if you step outside of yourself for a bit. I mean, I never thought I’d ever say, “Ok, hit me! Ok, now I’ll hit you! Let’s hit each other at the same time!!!” It was really quite fun.

Regarding seeing friends: Derby is sucking all of my life. Not that I’m really complaining about it, since I chose it knowing full well how much time it’d take up, but it just means that I have to really schedule time with my friends. Last night JeT and I saw some friends in a play: Rozencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Now, I love this play. I’ve seen the movie a million times, had to put up with friends quoting it all the time, quoted it myself more times that I’d care to admit, etc. I haven’t seen it in over 10 years, and I’d forgotten just how funny the damn thing is. John was a superb G, and I don’t know the kid who played R, but he was great, too. I was giggling the entire time. Especially during my favorite scene: the questions/tennis match. Man, that’s a brilliant scene! Overall, they did a great job. It was fun to catch up (even if only for a few minutes) after the show with other friends who came to watch. Not that I really need a reminder, but I miss those folks and will have to make sure I see them more often. I’ll be seeing another group of friends tonight at the BDD bout (Boston Massacre vs. one of the Gotham Girls teams, and a short bout against Maine, who, by the way, PRD is scrimmaging in a few weeks).

Should be fun!

History up in flames

Some of you know that I worked as a archives consultant this summer at the MSPCA-Angell in Jamaica Plain. This evening there was an electrical fire that destroyed about half of the archives there. No one (neither man nor beast) was injured (thank goodness) but that’s a really big chunk of history gone in only a few minutes. The MSPCA-Angell archives and special collections are important because they document not only one of the oldest animal-related organizations in the country, but also the social reform movement of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

I’m pretty sick with grief over the loss, and yes, I know, it’s just paper (and film), but the history… all that evidence. It’s just gone. They’re trying to salvage some of the items and create a list of things that were destroyed. While I worked there, I conducted a survey of the collections, including a map indicating where in the rooms items were stored. I hope this information proves useful to them in their salvage efforts. I just feel so helpless otherwise. I tend to get attached to collections I work on, but this one was really important to me. Both because of the nature of the collection itself, and because this was the first job where I really got to test my archives skills.

I think I’ll phone tomorrow to see how they’re getting on. The people with whom I was in contact during my time there were all very enthusiastic about the archives project (as well as my efforts, which was rather gratifying), so I’m sure they’re pretty devastated over the loss.

Thanks for the rocking

Thanks to those who came to the Battle of the Bands last night. (And for paying to have a photo with me. SUCKAH!) Sorry I missed some of you! I was running incredibly late all day. I wanted to get there by 8, but didn’t arrive until after 9. I hope you all had fun! I did, indeed! I hadn’t heard of many of the bands before last night (I just don’t follow local music, bad me). Most of them (the ones that I saw) weren’t my cup of tea, but it was really great of them to support us like that. My favorite band that played was definitely The Chasers. Surf rock. Guys in black suits with white ties. They were rad. The band that won was one that I didn’t get to see. They played second that evening: The Providence Morons.

JeT and I are going out to lunch today at the Garden Grille, because we couldn’t work it into the schedule yesterday. Yum! Kangaroo sauce!! Can’t wait.