(no subject)
egads, this computer is small. when you only work on this one small computer, you forget that. but when you start switching between the 9 inch wide and the foot wide computers, it strikes you how small this little netbook is.
the new computer tries to run on windows 7. for the most part, it succeeds, but i'm not impressed. i have to restart it once or twice a week right after turning it on because it can't find the file that tells the computer what the desktop is supposed to look like. when and how did i move that file? i thought maybe it had to do with leaving dvds in the optical drive. i thought (or hypothesized, or came up with the idea that, but didn't really believe it) maybe the computer was trying to boot up from the dvd. it didn't really make sense, but it doesn't hurt to test it. why would the computer try to boot up from a disc if that disc is a movie? but i still had to reboot just after turning on the computer, despite there being no disc inside. so, that hypothesis got disproved quite quickly. not being a computer nerd, i've got no other ideas for why the computer is inconsistently able to find this file.
what happens when the computer can't find it? i get a blank black desktop background with a plain silver empty taskbar. a few times, i didn't even get the taskbar.
also, i was watching one of these movies, when the computer rebooted itself. apparently, it thinks it's okay to tell me what to do just because it downloaded the latest updates. it also thinks that the updates need to be fully installed IMMEDIATELY after downloading. i was very upset. that particular episode of CSI is very intense. plus, i believe that the computer serves its user, NOT the other way around. i wrote to microsoft at their support website, which told me they'd get back to me within a day. that was over a day ago. still no response. apparently, they don't care to get back to an annoyed customer to tell her how to adjust the settings so that the computer doesn't restart itself. i like the way xp does it. when you shut down, it installs the updates with your permission. why'd they have to change that?
anyway, i thought i'd get back into putting updates on here with some regularity.
remember how i signed up for facebook? yeah, that's when my updates here got few and quite far between. i started making all these little updates on facebook, thinking people actually read those, like i do. i read the updates that my friends make. if they think it's important enough to tell the world, i'll listen. they're my friends.
then i made one post that said i'm offering 5 handmade things to the first 5 people who respond. the conditions: i must get these items to the people sometime in 2011, and they must in turn make the same offer. i got two bites. it's no secret what i do. i talk about ceramics quite a bit. i take pictures of my work and send them out to people. i continually challenge myself to make better pottery. i strive to put good work out there. so it's obvious that this offer to the first 5 respondents will get something useful and at least a little valuable. the fact that only two people responded tells me that nobody reads those little posts.
i'm a little dejected about that. it tells me that the majority of people on facebook don't use it to connect with people. they use it to play games, or tell the world about their petty little lives. they don't care what the people they've labeled as their friends have to say about THEIR lives. i find it somewhat depressing that people who use a networking site don't care about other people.
*sigh*
onward.
what's happened this week?
i believe i told y'all about the burst hot water pipe, ode to overnight freeze. did i tell y'all about the new pipes having ever so slightly thicker insulation than the old? or about how they didn't replace the insulation except where they replaced the pipes? that part freaks me out. knowing that mold grows anywhere here, and that it's more likely to grow where there is moisture, and that there is most definitely moisture soaked into the old insulation wrapped around the pipe that didn't get replaced, i'm worried about the quality of my water now. i'm so totally not signing on for a third year, and this is yet another reason.
what i didn't tell you in my last post (since it happened after that post) is that i rearranged my furniture. my apartment has two rooms, one of which has an AC unit that doubles as a heater. obviously, this is the room i sleep in. and now, my kotatsu is also in this room. so i can stop heating both rooms. this furniture rearrangement means i save on heating costs. not that my bills are high (certainly not relative to my income. i send thousands of dollars home regularly), but i see no reason to use more energy than necessary. save the energy if you can. i don't expect japan is that much more advanced than america, where the majority of the energy comes from burning coal. though, i do know for a fact that at least some of japan's energy comes from renewable resources. they're quite smart about putting up windmills right next to the ocean. i expect that a lot of the energy i use comes from those things.
i quite like my new furniture arrangement. there's just one glitch: i need to cover this wall with a blanket to increase insulation. i looked all over the mall, and i couldn't find any blankets. (except ugly big ones for sleeping under.) none of those popular lap sized blankets. everybody uses those things. so, where do they buy them? i don't really want to go out of town to find one, but i'll do what i have to. when i find out where everybody gets their blankets. i'd also like to get a little piece of furniture with drawers. i'd like to keep most of my clothes in this room. it's rather cold in the other room now that i'm not heating it. i don't wanna go in there to get the day's clothes.
so, since i've moved things around, pictures of my apartment will be emailed out. eventually. it's a bit cold right now. i would surprise myself if i clean it up in there before march. as i type, it's 55.8 F in there.
well, in ceramics this weekend, i didn't get as much done as i'd have liked to. i made a new vase. kind of small, but the clay wasn't entirely cooperative. i couldn't pull it up as thin as i would like, which means it's gonna take longer to trim. c'est la vie. i trimmed a vase. i had to make it a shape i don't care for cuz i pulled it too thin to support the shape i like best, but it came out pretty nice. it trimmed nicely, and didn't take long. it was thin, after all. i couldn't trim the other vase that i threw last week because it's too wet. i could just about reshape it still. if i could get it centered on the wheel.
well, that's quite enough for now, doncha think? i'm gonna see if i can adjust the script that my students will be working with this week. i showed it to the teacher i work with for those lessons, and she said it's too difficult. i guess this year's students are worse than last year's students, who did just fine with the EXACT same assignment. i do notice that out of about 120 students, one deliberately gets up in the middle of the lecture and puts the printout in the recycle pile. the majority of the boys chit chat the whole time, and many of the girls chat as well. a few boys and about half the girls show that they care by paying attention and doing the work when it's given to them. this is another reason i wanna go home. in america, students don't talk during class. few get up in the middle of class without permission from the teacher.
*sigh*
can't change this.
so, i'll get to that script now.
the new computer tries to run on windows 7. for the most part, it succeeds, but i'm not impressed. i have to restart it once or twice a week right after turning it on because it can't find the file that tells the computer what the desktop is supposed to look like. when and how did i move that file? i thought maybe it had to do with leaving dvds in the optical drive. i thought (or hypothesized, or came up with the idea that, but didn't really believe it) maybe the computer was trying to boot up from the dvd. it didn't really make sense, but it doesn't hurt to test it. why would the computer try to boot up from a disc if that disc is a movie? but i still had to reboot just after turning on the computer, despite there being no disc inside. so, that hypothesis got disproved quite quickly. not being a computer nerd, i've got no other ideas for why the computer is inconsistently able to find this file.
what happens when the computer can't find it? i get a blank black desktop background with a plain silver empty taskbar. a few times, i didn't even get the taskbar.
also, i was watching one of these movies, when the computer rebooted itself. apparently, it thinks it's okay to tell me what to do just because it downloaded the latest updates. it also thinks that the updates need to be fully installed IMMEDIATELY after downloading. i was very upset. that particular episode of CSI is very intense. plus, i believe that the computer serves its user, NOT the other way around. i wrote to microsoft at their support website, which told me they'd get back to me within a day. that was over a day ago. still no response. apparently, they don't care to get back to an annoyed customer to tell her how to adjust the settings so that the computer doesn't restart itself. i like the way xp does it. when you shut down, it installs the updates with your permission. why'd they have to change that?
anyway, i thought i'd get back into putting updates on here with some regularity.
remember how i signed up for facebook? yeah, that's when my updates here got few and quite far between. i started making all these little updates on facebook, thinking people actually read those, like i do. i read the updates that my friends make. if they think it's important enough to tell the world, i'll listen. they're my friends.
then i made one post that said i'm offering 5 handmade things to the first 5 people who respond. the conditions: i must get these items to the people sometime in 2011, and they must in turn make the same offer. i got two bites. it's no secret what i do. i talk about ceramics quite a bit. i take pictures of my work and send them out to people. i continually challenge myself to make better pottery. i strive to put good work out there. so it's obvious that this offer to the first 5 respondents will get something useful and at least a little valuable. the fact that only two people responded tells me that nobody reads those little posts.
i'm a little dejected about that. it tells me that the majority of people on facebook don't use it to connect with people. they use it to play games, or tell the world about their petty little lives. they don't care what the people they've labeled as their friends have to say about THEIR lives. i find it somewhat depressing that people who use a networking site don't care about other people.
*sigh*
onward.
what's happened this week?
i believe i told y'all about the burst hot water pipe, ode to overnight freeze. did i tell y'all about the new pipes having ever so slightly thicker insulation than the old? or about how they didn't replace the insulation except where they replaced the pipes? that part freaks me out. knowing that mold grows anywhere here, and that it's more likely to grow where there is moisture, and that there is most definitely moisture soaked into the old insulation wrapped around the pipe that didn't get replaced, i'm worried about the quality of my water now. i'm so totally not signing on for a third year, and this is yet another reason.
what i didn't tell you in my last post (since it happened after that post) is that i rearranged my furniture. my apartment has two rooms, one of which has an AC unit that doubles as a heater. obviously, this is the room i sleep in. and now, my kotatsu is also in this room. so i can stop heating both rooms. this furniture rearrangement means i save on heating costs. not that my bills are high (certainly not relative to my income. i send thousands of dollars home regularly), but i see no reason to use more energy than necessary. save the energy if you can. i don't expect japan is that much more advanced than america, where the majority of the energy comes from burning coal. though, i do know for a fact that at least some of japan's energy comes from renewable resources. they're quite smart about putting up windmills right next to the ocean. i expect that a lot of the energy i use comes from those things.
i quite like my new furniture arrangement. there's just one glitch: i need to cover this wall with a blanket to increase insulation. i looked all over the mall, and i couldn't find any blankets. (except ugly big ones for sleeping under.) none of those popular lap sized blankets. everybody uses those things. so, where do they buy them? i don't really want to go out of town to find one, but i'll do what i have to. when i find out where everybody gets their blankets. i'd also like to get a little piece of furniture with drawers. i'd like to keep most of my clothes in this room. it's rather cold in the other room now that i'm not heating it. i don't wanna go in there to get the day's clothes.
so, since i've moved things around, pictures of my apartment will be emailed out. eventually. it's a bit cold right now. i would surprise myself if i clean it up in there before march. as i type, it's 55.8 F in there.
well, in ceramics this weekend, i didn't get as much done as i'd have liked to. i made a new vase. kind of small, but the clay wasn't entirely cooperative. i couldn't pull it up as thin as i would like, which means it's gonna take longer to trim. c'est la vie. i trimmed a vase. i had to make it a shape i don't care for cuz i pulled it too thin to support the shape i like best, but it came out pretty nice. it trimmed nicely, and didn't take long. it was thin, after all. i couldn't trim the other vase that i threw last week because it's too wet. i could just about reshape it still. if i could get it centered on the wheel.
well, that's quite enough for now, doncha think? i'm gonna see if i can adjust the script that my students will be working with this week. i showed it to the teacher i work with for those lessons, and she said it's too difficult. i guess this year's students are worse than last year's students, who did just fine with the EXACT same assignment. i do notice that out of about 120 students, one deliberately gets up in the middle of the lecture and puts the printout in the recycle pile. the majority of the boys chit chat the whole time, and many of the girls chat as well. a few boys and about half the girls show that they care by paying attention and doing the work when it's given to them. this is another reason i wanna go home. in america, students don't talk during class. few get up in the middle of class without permission from the teacher.
*sigh*
can't change this.
so, i'll get to that script now.