Work and books and stuff

[3rdragon]

I've graduated from creating teacher documentation for Moodle (for non-Smithies, it's an online classroom forums-and-other-stuff program) to creating admin documentation. This means that I've lost much of the problem-solving aspect (how the heck do I phrase this enormously simple concept so that technilliterate professors who have none of the requisite knowledge can understand it?), but also has a number of upsides, including not having to phrase things so that people who don't have a clue what I'm talking about can understand me (in fact, everyone who might possibly use this probably knows more about it than I do), having crazy admin powers (mind you, I can only use them in a specific set of spaces in order to fulfill my tasks, but admin powers are like keys; it's not necessary to use them to feel happy having them), understanding a whole lot more about how Moodle works (it's pretty cool, actually), and making cmoore very happy (she said this morning that it's been kind-of freaking her out that she didn't have any kind of organized documentation about any of the things she's changed from the out-of-the-box Moodle. I agree with her that backups and documentation are a Very Good Thing).
I'm also getting further into the land of Why-is-Moodle-behaving-in-this-crazy-way-in-instance-x-but-not-instance-y, which is rather fun. I don't always know how Moodle works well enough to understand the fix (or even the basics of the resolution-category), but sometimes I do. And I have a certain talent for breaking programs/finding spots where programs are broken. I think that my methods are unconventional enough that I come at problems from angles that the programmers didn't expect and so can find holes. And I'm sure that having lots of points in Spot Check: Moodle Not Working the Way it Should is an important life skill.


Yesterday I finished The Moon by Night and Nightbirds on Nantucket (Nightbirds on the couch in the YA room at Forbes), in part because they were both due and I wasn't sure if I could renew them another time/figured I ought to return them. (Speaking of which, Ropemaker and Angel isle are both due tomorrow; I should renew them. I'll do that and be right back.)
Nightbirds - Aiken's Wolves of Willoughby Chase series is completely ridiculous. Nightbirds may be the most ridiculous of them all (not in the wierd creepy-magic way). I quite like it.

The Moon by Night - It's both odd and interesting to read these books out of order. On the one hand, I lose some of the sense of Vicky growing up. On the other, I notice things that I probably wouldn't've before, such as Leo's behavior, and the Rodneys in general (but not, interestingly enough, Zachary's mother - I think she's intentionally a non-entity). This reading hasn't inspired such deep thoughts, but it does remind me once again that the world is a very different place than it was 30 years ago. War is a big, scary specter throughout the book, from Vicky's secret fears to her discussions with Zachary to the heart-to-heart with the Canadian family. It makes me think of the story that my mother tells in which she talks about sitting in front of the tv with me on her lap, watching footage of the Berlin Wall coming down, and knowing that I will grow up in a different world. She's right, though I don't notice it most of the time because it's all I've ever known. There is war now, yes, and what's going on in Iraq is bad, and people are dying, but it's on a totally different scale. There's sabre-rattling about Iran and warheads, and I'm aware that it's a possibility that humanity might bring itself to a point where we all go up in a series of big explosions - but it's not something that I worry about. It is a possibility, yes, but it doesn't seem terribly likely to me, and it doesn't really seem likely enough to other people that they're changing my life in a significant way because they're worried about it. Yeah there are fallout shelters in JMG and Northrup-Gillett, but they're viewed as archaic remnants, and I don't actually know how to get to them, and goodness knows if they're still stocked and they couldn't possibly support the entire campus, even if they are.
And this is not the world that my parents grew up in. But this difference doesn't really come across most of the time. Grownups don't talk about it, except in a few books for children. Children might, but the only children who were old enough at the time to notice are now adults.

Okay, enough ramble. Lunchtime.

Comments

[vorindi]

I really liked Wolves of Willoughby Chase, but then all the other ones I found seemed to focus on different characters, which disappointed me. Was I just not looking hard enough?

(Also, the one with the necklace = terrifying.)

[3rdragon]

I'm inclined to think that that may have been the only one with that character. Nightbirds is about Dido Twite. We do keep many of the same villains, though.

I'm not sure which one you mean by "the one with the necklace," and Google isn't being very helpful. It's possible that I didn't read it, or that I did, and I've forgotten that there was a necklace involved. I think it was The Cuckoo Tree the creeped me out the most.

[vorindi]

I think the main character was somebody's little sister? I don't remember. But there was this necklace, might have been of yellow diamonds or something, and the bad guy wanted it. And then he eventually got it, and they got rid of him because he dropped dead due to there being a curse/poison on the necklace that meant if you wore it for 24 hours you died.

[3rdragon]

Eeep.

[vorindi]

(This is one of the primary reasons I was terrified by the Professor randomly giving Lucian a necklace last fall (the other being the similar but reversed scene in Woman who Rides Like a Man), but since Lucian hasn't read either of the books in question . . . )