What Should This Blog Be When It Grows Up?

My poor little blog here has suffered a lot through my years at school. It has experienced summers where I have blogged literally every day, and semesters where I've let it languish in oblivion. So I suppose it's no wonder I only have a handful of few faithful followers.

Granted, I don't expect to have hundreds or even dozens of followers. What I suppose I really want is a community, people who comment with opinions and perspective that I don't necessarily have, challenging me to think in different ways. Of course, to get that I have to write posts that in turn challenge the readers with my views. In other words, the number one rule of blog writing. To get good readers, you first have to write good posts.

In the past I really haven't paid much attention to this blog, but now I have time. I have a life. (Or hope to have one very soon). I am a real person (finally!).

I have so many ideas for this blog but I do wonder if I actually have the time to execute them. Would dedicating time to this blog take away from writing in my novels? Plenty of writers blog, right?

And honestly, I would love for this blog to have more detailed reviews of books and movies, since I read a lot of books and watch a ton of movies. But is it safe for someone who wishes to be published to give their honest opinion of a book, even if it's bad? On the other hand, isn't that why this blog is anonymous?

Of course, there is the question, why do I want to write this blog at all? Am I merely seeking a readership? I think that's not true, as my faithful (though sometimes sporadic) posting to this blog has always been to get my thoughts and opinions down and the lack of response or few readers has never really been something that has disturbed me.

So what should this blog be when it grows up? What do I want this blog to be? Really, I would like this blog to eventually become a website of multiple blogs. I plan on reviving Rocket Science Revealed, where I delve into the basics and the complexities of science and engineering. I plan on keeping this blog, where I am free to be sort of my goofy self, expressing every thought and opinion that comes across my head. And I would like a blog dedicated to reviews of SF/F books and movies, where anyone can come and get my honest opinion—but I also hope the opinions of others. I have friends I would love to pull into the project of a review site: friends who specialize in cinematography, friends who read different books than I generally do, a few friends who only occasionally read SF/F and can bring interesting dialogue to the table.

Oh the ambitions I have! But I don't want any of these blogs to languish as this one has done in the past, and I want them to all be connected.

For now, I think I will dedicate myself to reviving this blog and Rocket Science Revealed. I think my plan is to wait to open the review blog until I have friends who are dedicated to writing in it with me and I have already written quite a few reviews (so I have a backlog).

But those are my ideas, my ambitions. Do you guys have any thoughts on what you hope to get out of this blog or any others I might have in the coming year?

2012 New Year’s Goals

Another new year brings another blank slate of possibilities. What will happen in 2012? Part of me has no idea, because 2012 is a year of scary new possibilities. But I still have goals, and at the beginning of this fresh shiny New Year, I like to write them out and post them. That way I'm held accountable.

So once again I'm going to break up my goals into three categories: Engineer Goals, Writer Goals, and Christian/Personal Goals.

Engineering Goals:

1. Do well at my job.
   

   We actually have a ton of goals at my job, but it's not necessary or appropriate to hash them all out here. We're hoping to make a lot of changes in how we run and do things in the 2012 year. But my goal, as an engineer, is just to do well. This is my first long term, real job. And I want to do well at it. So during my work hours I plan to do a better job of not being distracted, of devoting myself to my work, and at excelling at what I do.
   

Writer Goals:

1. Make the FINAL revision on Spirit Riddled.
   

   This is a goal that has rolled over from 2011. I really want to get Spirit Riddled done, to stop ignoring it, and to get in a shiny, beautiful final draft that I can be proud of and hopefully query.
   

2. Revise The Descent of Chris Chappell.
   

   I've actually already started working on this. I revised the first chapter and let me tell you—it completely changed. I basically threw out the original first chapter and rewrote the entire thing from scratch. And I think it's much stronger. I have no delusions that this revision will be the final revision. This is Descent's first revision. (Unlike Spirit Riddled which is on revision number six I think). But I don't want this WIP to just languish. I want to continue to work on it and make it better.
   

3. Start querying.
   

   Considering Spirit Riddled is in revision six and Descent is on revision one, you would think I could rewrite this as "start querying Spirit Riddled." But as improbable as it may seem, it's quite possible that in my new life as a non-student, I'll be able to get through several good revisions of Descent this year and bring it up to a querying par. And considering I'm in the middle of my Descent mojo, I may put off Spirit Riddled for a long while. So I think I'll be satisfied as long as I start querying something this year.
   

4. Not be a slacker critique.
   

   I actually think I'm off to a good start on this one. I critiqued someone's first two chapters in a timely and orderly manner over Christmas break. So yay!
   

5. Not be a slacker blogger.
   

   Since I'm not a student anymore, I have no excuse to let this blog die middle of the semester. Hopefully, it'll be like the summers have been in the past, where I blog nearly every day. But we'll discuss this more next week when I discuss the future of this blog.
   

Christian/Personal Goals:

1. Actually have a regular quiet time.
   

   This is another goal that has rolled over from last year, but I'm confident that now that I'm not a student I can actually have a normal schedule in my life. The kind of schedule that doesn't involved people calling me at 9:00 PM to ask me if I've started the Orbital Homework and if I would like to come over and work on it with them. I just need to find a time and stick to it. Though, I think I'll be a bad Christian and not do it first thing in the morning. All I want to do first thing in the morning is take a shower, eat breakfast, and get to work. So it'll probably be an evening quiet time.
   

2. Be fit enough to survive a zombie apocalypse.
   

   This goal is all about getting in shape. Now that I'm not a student, I can actually work out without feeling guilty. I would like to lose weight as well, but that's such a superficial goal, I feel like. I don't want to just lose weight. I want to be healthy. If the zombie apocalypse happens, I want to be able to outrun a zombie. I want to survive.
   

3. Start cooking real meals, weekly.
   

   Seriously, for the past six years I have survived off of microwave dinners. It's kind of disturbing. This sort of fits into my previous goal of wanting to be healthier, but I didn't want to cram it into that goal. This goal is its own thing. It's not just about being healthy. It's about learning to cook delicious things that I'll want to eat. I'm sort of a picky eater and I would like to find recipes I love and love to eat.
   

So those are my goals! And I guess another goal is I would like to beat my 50% rate of meeting goals that I got last year.

Anyone else out there have some big goals for the New Year?

Why I’m Terrified and Excited about Being Done With School

For the past twenty years of my life, I have been in school. Now, suddenly I'm done.

This is incredibly exciting, especially considering how terrible and rigorous college was. It's possible some of my readers out there are long removed from college, have never been to college, or majored in partying at college, so let me explain.

I love engineering. I wanted to learn engineering and don't regret the six years I spent at Georgia Tech earning two degrees. But undergrad sucked, and the two years I spent getting my Master's Degree were the two most terrible year of my life. Seriously. They trumped elementary school.

I have never felt more stupid, more out of my depth, and more overwhelmed than I did in grad school. It was like I was drowning. But even putting that aside, putting aside that grad school utterly sucked, looking at the past six years of undergrad and grad school, there is one feeling that constantly plagued me.

Guilt.

That might come as a surprise, but stay with me.

Every moment of every day for the past six years that I did something fun, something for me, I felt guilty. I shouldn't be watching TV. I should be doing homework. I shouldn't be getting a pedicure. I should be doing homework. I shouldn't waste an hour trying to cook a real meal when a microwave meal takes five and then I can spend those 55 minutes I saved doing homework. Work out? What? I should be doing homework!

I did fun things in college, but while I did them, I felt constantly guilty, because I constantly had work or studying I should be doing. There was always a homework assignment, always research, always some studying I should be doing. Even when I took summers "off" to work at a real job, I knew I should be spending my evenings after the job working on my research, not having fun.

Now that guilt is technically gone. I can watch TV. I can work out. I can cook dinner. I can go shopping (well, mainly because I have money now, but free time plays a factor in that too). And I can do it all without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else, something less fun. This is an incredibly exciting prospect, one that I can barely begin to imagine.

And that's why it's so terrifying. For the past six years "free time" has been Friday night and Saturday morning—and that's pretty much it. For the past semester, free time has been unimaginable. I worked all day, came home and did school work, and then spent the weekends doing school work.

What will I become with free time? What will I do with myself? Write I hope. Read. Work out. Cook. Hang out with friends. All the things I did guiltily before, I suppose, but it's strange.

Being a student has defined me for the past twenty years, and now I'm no longer a student.

I'm a real person.

I have no idea where my life will go from here, how I will spend my hours, or what I might do. It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time.

Essentially, it's an adventure. I don't know if I'm ready for it, but it's here. So I guess there is only one thing I can say:

Allons-y!

2011 In Review (aka: Did I meet my New Year’s Goals?)

At the beginning of 2011, I posted about my goals for 2011. It seems every year people make goals, but do we ever complete them? Well, in order to figure it out, I'm looking at each of my goals here to see if I met it or some part of it.

I split up my goals into three categories: Engineer, Writer, and Christian. Let's look at them again, shall we?

Engineer Goals:

1. Graduate in December 2011.
   

   This one is a technical no but a reality yes. That may not make sense, so let me explain. On December 16, 2011, I finished every bit of work I need to do for my Master's Degree. The following Tuesday I received my grades that let me know I would pass and get said Master's Degree. So done right? Sort of. Because I moved to Albuquerque this year, I had to finish that last semester of school via Distance Learning, and Georgia Tech's Distance Learning office has this really weird rule: a Distance Learning student cannot graduate until the semester after she finishes all her course work. So though I finished everything this past Fall semester, I'm not allowed to graduate until next May. It's very strange. So I'm going to say I completed this goal, though on a technicality I didn't.
   

2. Get a job at JPL.
   

   That's a no. I did not get a job at JPL. However, I did get a job, a job I love, and I started it in June 2011. That's why I moved to Albuquerque, NM. So though this is a no, the heart of goal was still met. I got a job, a great job that I love, a job that enables me to work on satellites. What more could a girl ask for?
   

3. Complete my design of R3's ADCS.
   

   This is a pass. I'm done with my thesis. *does a happy dance*
   

Writer Goals:

1. Make the FINAL revision on Spirit Riddled.
   

   This is a fail. I did not even get through a single revision of Spirit Riddled this year. Working a full time job and trying to finish up a Master's Degree is really time consuming, and so is revising a novel. So this goal is going to have to slip to 2012.
   

2. Start querying Spirit Riddled.
   

   Do I really need to say it? Without that final revision, I couldn't query Spirit Riddled, so this is a fail. But next year. Oh, 2012 is going to be a good year.
   

3. Finish a first draft of ANY other book.
   

   Pass with flying colors! I actually didn't think this would happen at all. But this is the very blog where I posted my sudden inspiration about The Descent of Chris Chappell. Though I had a good start on it, I thought that trying to do the dual school and work thing would make this slip to 2012. But it turns out, writing a first draft is the exact sort of de-stresser I needed while writing my thesis. So to my complete shock, I finished the novel in November. Sure, it's only a first draft. It needs revision. But it's done! I met this goal!
   

4. Not be a slacker critiquer.
   

   I'm going to say this is a fail. I only committed to critiquing for one person this year, a friend of mine who writes SF, but once again, my crazy life got in the way. But now that I have free time (I know, mind boggling) I'm foreseeing that this will be a goal I can meet in 2012. Woohoo!
   

Christian/Personal Goals:

1. Be a nicer person.
   

   I have no idea. It's really hard to judge. But two of my friends asked me to be in their weddings, so that means some people like me? Right? And I moved to a new state where my new coworkers all took to me really well, so I seem to be doing ok. And I got in no major fights over Christmas, though that was due to more of a "keep your head down" policy than niceness. But let's just call this a pass, ok?
   

2. Actually have a regular quiet time.
   

   Fail. I suck at this. I'm going to do better though. This is going to continue into 2012. It's going to happen. I am going to develop good habits!!
   

In Summary:

I think we can say I met 5 out of my 10 goals. Sure if this was a class, that would be fail, but it's not a class. It's life. I think 50% is pretty good. But we'll aim for better in 2012. We could say that's a New Year's Goal.

So how about you? Did anyone out there meet any of their New Year's Goals?

Haitus Over (Starting Next Week)

Ladies and gentlemen! Friends, Romans, Countrymen! Blog readers! I'm back!

I am unofficially officially done with my Master's Degree. Yes, a little confusing, but I have finished all the course work and thesis work necessary for my degree. Everything has been accepted and approved. The only pesky thing keeping me from officially claiming I have a Master's Degree is a silly rule Georgia Tech has. Essentially Distance Learning students (like myself) are not allowed to graduate in the semester where they finish everything. They have to wait an extra semester. So even though I'm done, I don't officially graduate until May. It's weird.

But for all intents and purposes, I am done! Which means I can start blogging again!

Actually, it means a great many things which essentially boils down to one thing: After twenty years of school, I'M DONE!

I could start blogging regularly this week, but I decided to not post until next week, so my new life as a real person (aka not a student) would start in the New Year. Look forward to posts that discuss the direction of this blog, what sort of posting schedule you can expect, discussions about whether I met last year's New Year's resolutions, and a discussion of my resolutions for this year.

I'm really excited to actually be able to put time into this blog, time where I don't feel guilty because I know I should actually be doing work. So be excited! I certainly am!

Rest In Peace Anne McCaffrey

I've come out of my blog hiatus because Anne McCaffrey has passed away.

I learned about her death this afternoon from a facebook update by Brandon Sanderson. At the time I was sad and horrified, but as the day has gone on and the reality has set in, I've realized how truly sad I am.

It's not just that a legend has died. It's not just that a woman who changed how women were viewed in Science Fiction died. It's that someone who personally affected my life has died. I can't think of middle school without thinking of going to the library and checking out a Pern book.

I can't express how those books have affected me. I tried to express it somewhat in this post. But I don't think that post does it justice. I don't think anything can.

Anne McCaffrey taught me that women can be strong and that they can succeed in a society in men. Not by being bullies or purposefully defying them, but by just being awesome. Menolly didn't have to overthrow Harper Hall to become great. She just did her best and strove to be great.

It was from Anne McCaffrey that I first learned that often the biggest fight being a woman in a man's world is not with men, but with women. Most of the male apprentices accepted Menolly, but the female singers shunned her for thinking she could be a harper, for thinking she was better than them.

I'm not sure this post is making any sense. Maybe its because I've spent the entire day staring at my computer. Maybe its because I kind of just want to cry that a woman who has been like a mentor to me, even though I've never met her, has died.

Anne McCaffrey shaped how I view women, and how I view my place in the world as a woman. I am a woman in a man's world--the man's world of engineering--but I know I can succeed because Anne McCaffrey taught me about the sorts of barriers I will come up against and the appropriate ways to handle them.

So thank you, Anne McCaffrey. You will be missed. I will miss you.

And now I'm going to curl up with "The Smallest Dragonboy" and remember the woman who has shaped the woman I am today.

Haitus

It's official. This blog is going on a hiatus.

While November is often known as "NaNoWriMo" or National Novel Writing Month, this November shall be known to me as "MaProWriMo" or Master's Project Writing Month. My Master's Project (which is like a thesis just minus the defense) is due on Dec. 16th, and until I turn it in, that is all I will be doing.

Seriously, I keep waking up in the middle of the night writing down ideas for how to improve my project.

My stress level has skyrocketed and I'm currently in a state of emotional instability because of it. When I accidentally locked myself out of my computer at work yesterday, I burst into tears. At my desk. At work. Yeah, that sort of thing happens when you're stressed to level I am.

So, please excuse me for the not posting and just keep in mind that once this time of famine for the blog passes, I will be free. FREE! No more school. Ever.

I can see the promised land.

If you could keep me in your prayers, I would greatly appreciate it.