Diary: January 2011

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Photos: I started a photo-per-day project on Flickr for 2011. I managed the month of January without missing a day. I feel pretty OK about this.

Health: my back has been bugging me for about 2 weeks. I've been to the doctor, and I've been given a set of stretches and some muscle relaxants. I think it's related to my feet, via my snow boots. As you're probably aware, we've had a little snow. I think the boots are a little big with one pair of socks, and maybe a little small with two pairs of socks? My feet slip around, and now I have blisters, and I'm walking funny, and this has probably messed up my back.

Parties: Waffle party was great. This year's invention was Thai Green Curry Waffles, and the addition of a mini buffet server full of sausages and tater tots. Martini's annual cheese soup party was also awesome, but stupid back-foot pain held back my enjoyment more than it should have. Sad. Oh, and three probably isn't a party, but I had a really nice dinner with my sisters at a local noodle bar.

Entertainment: Saw a Bruins game and Cirque du Soleil's "Dralion". I'm pretty sure that "Dralion" is the touring show that I'd seen in 2001 or 2002, but there were a lot of new bits, and it was very cool. They made trampolines look cool. Also, I saw the movie "Tampopo" (inspired by going to the noodle bar with my sisters).

So, with that out of the way, I figure the "Further Adventures" I just posted could probably use a little explanation:

New Job: I knew I wanted to specialize more in research funding. I've been assisting the faculty in my department with proposal submission for the past couple of years, and I've really been enjoying it. So, when I was offered a job in the central office that handles funding agreements, I knew I had to take it. It's been (emotionally) hard leaving the department where I've worked for the past eight years, but I got exactly the job I wanted. I'm taking a couple of days off this week to catch up, so Thursday is my last day. *teardrop* I basically grew up on this job. I started as a receptionist with a theatre degree, and now I've got a career path. It's kind of cool. And scary.

FaceBook: I wasn't getting a lot of value out of FaceBook, and the continually changing privacy settings and the general skeeviness of the company was difficult for me to stomach. Much like when I left LiveJournal, it wasn't any big transgression in particular that pushed me over the edge. It was more that I'd been displeased with their business practices for a while, and I finally made the jump. FaceBook is not nice people. The "final straws", I suppose, were the addition of sharing contact information with marketers (marginally opt-in, and they later backed down), and a general discomfort with the "Special Vehicle" workaround to avoid revealing their books. Like LiveJournal's "Nipplegate" and "Interest Censorship" kerfluffles, these weren't enough on their own to push me out of the service, but they were enough to inspire me to make the move I'd been wanting to make anyway. Yeah: cause I need a lot of excuse to do things I already wanted to do. Buh-bye, notifications of being invited to another "Farmville" clone.

I also deleted my MySpace Profile, which I hadn't used in years, but that hardly feels like something that needed a separate announcement.