Worus

Yesterday, I skipped my first class. By the time that I woke up and was ready to get ready, it was already time to go. Since my anthropology class has somewhat strict rules about tardiness, I decided to just stay in. After a meeting with Jesse about Youth Alliance’s planning session, I got to go to my Java class after all.

I spent last night reading anthropology so that I could get caught up for recitation this morning. Today, I woke up and it was noon. I had missed my first two classes. Apparently, I never turned on the alarm before going to bed last night. Damn it all. I still made it to human sexuality, though, so I did at least go to one class today.

I got an e-mail from Gloria asking if I knew how to do web design. I guess Dr. Gadia is an officer for some organization and needs to get a web page put together fast. Everything with Dr. Gadia is on an emergency basis. I have no idea how that man survives. I haven’t decided about helping our or not. I know that over the next few weeks I need to start hitting the books a bit harder, as well as kick up some of my efforts for Youth Alliance. While it would be something else that I could put on my resume, I really think that I’ll have to decline and reprioritize what I am currently involved in.

I got paid today, and I guess I have more money than previously thought. That’s a good feeling, because it means that I can survive this next month without having to rely on tax returns or anything scary like that. Of course, that’s just a guess. Anything could happen.

Speaking of unexpected expenses, I think that my hard drive may be going out on me. I need to back up my stuff so that when it does go out, I’m not completely shit out of luck. Backing up will take so much time, though. It’s not exactly an entertaining task.

I feel like doing something tonight, but I don’t want to go watch Will & Grace with Dean and Kim. Also, most people have to worry about getting stuff done for school tomorrow. I have things to get done in other areas of my life (typing minutes), but, despite any reprioritization, they actually can wait.

It’s cold in my room, so I can’t hardly stay to do anything computer-related, either. This is a shame, because there are so many computer-related things that I’ve thought would be neat to mess around with lately. Maybe on a warmer day.

Out meeting for Youth Alliance went well this evening. We got something for all of our grant stuff and how to deal with dispursing money started tonight. There is still more to do, but it should be fairly easy. Since everyone agreed on these actions, we won’t have to worry about disagreeing on anything except for minor details. The process was agreed upon, so that was good. Despite some minor personality conflicts, the meeting wasn’t so bad.

I’m still a little stressed what with all that’s gone on recently. My role in the future of the organization isn’t quite aligned with my personal preferences for how to spend my volunteer itme, but we’re not really at a point where I can do otherwise. I honestly feel like I need to do what’s asked right now, because if we can get things right, Youth Alliance will have the volunteers it needs to do its jobs and the administration focused on what it should be. Furthermore, while my position is not where I would choose to align myself, I will do it because I feel very strongly that what we’re creating for our youth is something very, very important.

I also got volunteered to go see a laywer here really soon to talk about some of our legal non-profit issues concerning what information is filed with the state and how to change it. I’m not really that comfortable going to the lawyer’s office, but Becky says that he’s worked really hard to help the gay community as an ally, so at least those barriers will be gone. Apparently, I’m the most knowledgable about the Iowa Code with respect to non-profits and our own bylaws of the people on the board, so I get to visit with the lawyer. I will survive.

I installed the new WordPress the other day. This release is really nice. It looks like there is a way to do 100% CSS-based layouts with the tags that it generates. I’d really like to do this, but I need to sit down and really examine the example that was provided.

Another thing that I’ve noticed about this release is that there seems to be more RDF-centric. What I mean is that this new version of WordPress seems to generate XML data for just about everything. There are feeds for comments left, RDF embedded within documents, and exporting of about every XML syndication format ever, if requested. It’s exciting to see RDF in use, after the symposium this last fall. It promises to do exactly what the speaker suggested to get RDF in use&emdash;use RDF for what is neat to you, and eventually everyone will follow.

I read a little more on how to write additions to WordPress. Apparently the software uses a filter function for it’s plugins/hacks, which means that I can do a lot of really neat stuff in terms of integration. I still need to sit down and start reading the source code before I can really work on the whole free assocation project.

The talk with Dean on Saturday was mostly sitting down, explaining concerns that I had and listening to his responses, as well as analyzing some of the things that he’s been feeling and his own concerns. He said the next day that he felt way better about things after talking as well, so I’m excited.