Test 1, 2, 3.

So I made the mistake of reading a bunch of articles about reproductive rights and the contraception debate and then listening to the Little Mermaid soundtrack, and now my brain has busted out this bizarre feminist meta wherein Mermaid choosing to become Human = [bright young] Women [sick of swimmin'] choosing to become Sexually Active, but how in so doing they are expected to give up their voice in regards to the consequences.

Yeah, I don't know either. My brain hurts.

(Betcha on land, they understand, bet they don't reprimand their daughters.)

I know I am.

Question:
What is it called when people make their own sewing patterns? Let's say, in a wildly hypothetical fashion, that I made my own patterns for my little stuffed animal creatures rather than using somebody else's, how do I say that on I dunno.. maybe the description for my image list? I mean, somebody has to create the patterns that you buy at the store, right? So, what is that job called? Pattern design?

( Picspam/NavelGazing )
Don't get me wrong, I like all of them (or else I wouldn't have scanned them), but I'm trying to figure out what the Application Reviewers would like which is probably not the same thing and maybe I should skip the postcard in the portfolio.

This statement should convince the admissions committee that the applicant has formulated ideas about the importance of book studies in the context of his or her career aspirations. It should also summarize the applicant's experience, skills, and goals.

[Note: Actual "career aspirations" can be summed up as: working in Conservation/Preservation in a place where co-workers do not induce fits of rage.]

[Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start..]
My first introduction to Preservation/Conservation occurred in the form of a part-time job as a student at the University of Rochester. It turned out to be the perfect job for me because it combined my love of books with my skills in arts and crafts. I was fascinated to learn that the books I held so dear could be repaired and protected from further damage. While employed in the Rochester Preservation Lab, I learned to make enclosures such as phase boxes
[...okay, is there a way to do this without just listing things? I mean, I've got a list on my resume that's also going to be submitted, but in terms of "experience, skills..." I feel like I ought to mention this stuff-- skipping for now...]
Based on my eight semesters of experience as a student technician, I was able to get a job as a Conservation Technician in Princeton University's Collections Conservation Unit. While employed there for the past five years, I have had the opportunity to learn many new techniques as well as improving upon those that I was already familiar with [Yeah, yeah, don't end a sentence with a preposition blah blah blah prescriptive grammar blah].
[...another place for a list of techniques I know how to do?]
I have now reached a point in my career [I feel so weird calling it a career] where on-the-job training is no longer sufficient. In order to advance in terms of both career and understanding, it is necessary to pursue further education in bookbinding techniques. Properly conserving books requires knowledge of not only how those books were made, but also why they were made in such a way.
In addition to familiarizing myself with books as completed entities, I also hope to learn about their component parts via the courses offered concerning papermaking and printing.
Having handled thousands of damaged books in my short career, I know enough to perform the tasks assigned to me, but not nearly as much as I would like to. My hope is that I will be admitted into the University of Iowa Center for the Book Certificate Program, so that I can learn new techniques and expand upon, if not correct and alter, what I already know.



[For those of you who've made it this far (have a cookie!), some questions:
How super stunningly obvious is it that I haven't done any academic writing in the past 5 years?
Is it too vague? It's only supposed to be one page, but with double spacing a page goes by pretty quick.. or should I not do double spacing? And when I figure out how to put the list of shit I know how to do in there it will be longer.. or is that too specific? Gah. Vague instrucations are vague.]

So this started when I was thinking about how a fair amount of TV shows/movies/etc. seem to inevitably go all biblical on me *cough*Supernatural*cough*.

Which then led to me thinking that at the very least, if you're gonna rip off a religion, you could at least go with the non-Judeo-Christian ones for variety. Of course, Stargate did exactly that and still managed to piss me off by making every religion on earth into "The Aliens Did It" with the glaring exception of Christianity, which they would not touch with a ten-foot pole despite the fact that within the context of the show, Jesus is obviously a descended Ancient (à la Merlin) who then re-ascended.

And that led to me thinking about how Unitarian Universalists don't really have their own mythology, they just poke around at everybody elses'.

So, then I'm all wondering what a UU creation story would be like, and this is what I came up with:

Basically, they would totally form a committee to decide what to create and how to create it and so on and so forth. But they're UUs, so they can't actually agree on anything or come to a consensus, so they'd never actually get anything done. In fact the current state of the world today is really all the warringarguing factions of the original committee which has turned into like factions of factions of factions at this point.

Tonight's SyFy Saturday movie is Eragon.
Having suffered throughread the book, I can tell you that not only is it Star Wars With Dragons, it is badly written Star Wars With Dragons.
But here's what makes my ambivalence about whether or not to watch the movie so ridiculous:
a) I've been watching craptastic SciFi/SyFy Originals every week for years now, so it's not like I have taste.
b) I'm 99.9% sure that the movie is going to be better than the book because how could it not be?
c) If nothing else, the special effects are going to be better than your average SyFy Original.
d) If I hadn't read the book, and someone described this movie as "Star Wars with dragons", I'd be intrigued and want to see it.

And yet. And yet, I have this animosity/antipathy towards the entire notion of the thing because in case I wasn't clear, the book is terrible, not so bad it's awesome, not oh it's just that the story/characters weren't appealing to me (I'm looking at you, Children of Men), just flat out bad, and like, seriously, the complete and totally blatant Star Wars ripping off is appalling.

Which leaves me back where I started: To Watch (and of course, to mock mercilessly)? Or Not To Watch (and potentially save myself some rage)?

ETA: I neglected to mention that it's got my most hated trope ever: the Orphan-White-Boy-Child-With-Special-Powers-And-A-Big-Honkin-Destiny