TSP and Two Lazy Pups

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TOP SECRET PROJECT #1 (of 2011 at least): 10

Thanks to an old friend who randomly introduced us over e-mail, I’ve recently become involved with what I can only (at this time) call Top Secret Project #1 of this year.  Getting to think about all the components of a dream school, put them together in writing, and hopefully get them approved by the state, possibly leading to the opening of a new school as soon as 2012 is exciting to say the least.  I am lucky, excited and honored to have been included in the project.  This morning was another great morning of work with amazing people

INTELLECTUAL CONVERSATION AT COFFEE SHOPS: 8

Remember the good old days when you could sit around at a coffee shop for hours with college friends and spout intellectual theory and discuss the way the world should work?  Dropping big, academic words left and right to impress others, win the debate, or just convince yourself that your education really was worth the $40,000/year?

Yeah, the good old days.  I do miss those conversations (minus the pretention and big words that I preferred to substitute with smaller, easier to pronounce and understand words), but I don’t miss the kids in my classes who did this ALL THE TIME, about everything.  In fact, I’m pretty sure it’s what drove me away from academics (higher-level anyways), and from DC.  There’s a nice balance between the world of academia and the world of application.

BUT, that said, taking a trip down memory lane this morning was fun  One of the teachers I mentored this summer wrote me asking if she could pick my brain about feminism and teaching, as she’s currently working on her Women and Gender studies capstone, and also a NC Teaching Fellow.  I happily agreed, as she was one of my favorite teachers (shhh… we don’t really have favorites), and I love thinking about these things.  Turned out to be an amazing addition to the morning, as it reminded me that sometimes I can get too bogged down in actionable conversations and tangible takeaways, and no longer seek out the bigger picture, theory conversations that I did used to love.

She also enlightened me with her e-mail organization, the one compartment of my life I have yet to master in terms of organization (not counting my car…).  Check out the product a short two hours later:

MY NEW, IMPROVED & ORGANIZED G-MAIL INBOX: 8

Add in some intense labeling (color-coded of course), a three-tier starring system, and multiple inboxes, and I’m ready to take over the world.  The real test will be if it stands up over time, so I’ll revisit this rating in a week or two.

After this motivating coffee date, and the reclaiming of my inbox, I headed home to see this:

 

 

 

THE LAZINESS OF MY PUPS: 9

While it does make me jealous at times (-1), overall I’ll take this over THIS any day.  Thank you Murphy for growing up, and Kota for being so darn cute.  And for cleaning out my empty peanut butter jars with your giant tongue.  The recycling people thank you.

That’s all for now folks.  Until next time, just living for the tens

Organizing my Gmail…

GMAIL’S TAG FUNCTION: 9

I’m LOVING this new part of my gmail.  Basically, gmail allows you to create a variety of different tags that you can then apply to each individual email (and color-code them!).  It’s similar to the idea of folders (as a copy of the emails are then stored under that tag), EXCEPT that you can tag emails with more than one tag.  BRILLIANT!  Sometimes you have an email that you could possibly store in two folders, and have to make the hard decision of where it goes, but now that problem is solved!

You also can create filters (similar to ‘rules’ on Outlook) to proactively tag any emails from certain people, with a certain subject line, or just containing certain words.  I went through and created a bunch of rules for friends, family, climbing and most importantly, junk e-mail.  When I went and applied them to all my emails it quickly cleaned up my inbox, now down to only 3,032 (not quite as lucky).

And from now on, any emails coming from my classic junk mail providers will automatically be archived and I’ll never have to look at them again.

I may have gone overboard out of excitement (we’ll see if there’s a need to narrow down later on), but some of my tags include:

-1 because it was a bit difficult to figure out at first, which is why I’ve gone three years without doing any sort of organizing.  Once you get the hang though, it’s awesome!  I can’t wait to figure out what else gmail has to offer…

Lucky 11,111

While a complete update on the framily vacation to the Mountains is on its way, in the meantime I couldn’t resist rating this.

I’ve always found the time 11:11 to be lucky, and make a wish everytime I catch it on a clock.  SO, when I logged onto G-mail today and saw my inbox had hit 11,111 I got super excited (yes, I know my inbox is out of control, but I also have thoughts about the need to organize a Gmail inbox when their effective search functions make it completely unnecessary).

I rate this a 10, and have made my wish