+There’s no quick formatting options. No italics or bold without coding it in, and doing so on an iPhone touch-keyboard is nuts. Typing is difficult enough as it is on this thing. (Hence the plus signs instead of an actual list.)

+Adding photos, which seems like the most-used option on a phone (that or video), puts them at the very end of the post, not in-line, or at the top.

+The “Save” button saves as a draft, and therefore doesn’t publish the post. “Done” takes you to the post options (tags, categories, etc.) wherein you then select to publisht the post. One button should be “Opt” or such, for Options, the other “Publish”. There could even be a Confirm Publish option for folks who need it.

+The “Settings” button only provides options for: changing post date, setting a password, or resizing photos. It should have other options, such as Comments in/off. Also, tapping “Cancel” prompts a post deletion, whereas “Save” merely saves the post as a draft and returns you to the post listing. Save should (1) save the draft and (2) return you to the composition screen.

Besides these areas of concern, this is a solid app.

I do think the Tumblr app works better, but they ARE two different platforms. However, Tumblr at least gets it right and puts the photo first, leaving the text as a caption.

I’m not dead (as all bloggers seem to post after a long period of noncommunication/updates), but I’m in grad school. Only in my grad school, I don’t have to write a thesis! Yay! I’m secretly trying to work it out so I’ve got undergrad: thesis, grad: no thesis; doctorate: obviously thesis. It’s a good gap. Anyway.

I do have to read a lot. And I mean A LOT. It’s nuts. And I do have to write (relatively short) papers. Papers wherein I’m GRAMMATICALLY INCORRECT, y’all! Can you believe it? I’ve never been tagged for this. But–and I’m going to blame this on blogging and Internet culture–I’ve found out I have a problem with my noun-pronoun referent/agreement. I’ve tried to bring it up with my instructor, but I’m left feeling rather “Eh, fuck it” about it.

For instance, I write: “The student has difficulty with repetitions and they will often give their attention elsewhere.”

Well, turns out THE STUDENT is “singular”, while THEY is “plural”.

I’m left saying: Why be so fucking nitpicky? I know we’re trying to be all elite and shit with our academic-ese, but come on!

I use “plural” pronouns because I’m trying to be gender-neutral—to avoid explicitly stating “s/he” or “he/she” or just “he” or just “she”—and to avoid such foreign substitutions as ZE or HIR, which I’m sure would REALLY cause my instructors’ heads to spin.

My instructors can’t seem to wrap their minds around that yet, seeing as how they’re all about APA format.

APA format bugs me.

And I hate using gendered pronouns in my writing about a general subject noun. It could be a “guy” or “dude” or “man”, or “girl” or “gal” or “woman”, but why specify? Can’t it just be a ‘person’? English language has of yet been incapable of leaving a noun genderless due to the pronoun requirement.

The student does something. I don’t care if THEY are a “boy” or a “girl”. I believe it’s rude of me to assume either in either direction.

I suppose if this is one of my main problems with school so far, I’ve got it good, right?

I also have a lot of group work, however, which is especially trying on my nerves, as not everyone reads what’s assigned to them. WHY ARE YOU NOT READING? You are paying the same amount as me, right? And you’re not doing your assignments? Please explain yourself, for $11,500.

I’m in a teacher education program. And I’m facing the same issues I faced when I thought about switching my undergrad to teacher education: folks just don’t read literature within the field. They are not familiar with what should be familiar terms, acronyms, organizations, concepts, and topics in the field of education. They don’t do their homework! Do I have unattainably-high expectations? That you should be at least somewhat familiar with your topic before you decide to devote your life to it? For example, I’m not going to go into computer science or bioengineering if I’ve never attached a file to an email (or cannot navigate Microsoft fucking Word), or messed around with cellular organisms before. I’d say, “Obviously I’m not that into it.”

In short, class time has been rather disappointing. There are highlights, fortunately, and a few classmates I can rally around. I’m hoping it will improve. We’ve got two years.

In these following two years (getting back to the point of this), expect limited updates from me. If you’re reading through RSS (a gripe for another post sometime), don’t sweat it: you’ll see the post(s) when/if I update. Otherwise, consider this a for-now farewell.

xoxo

Work is super-crazy. Not in a ‘I’m always so busy my head isn’t on straight’ way, just that it’s totally insane the stuff we deal with at work. It’s like the underbelly of education and I had no idea it was this fucked-up.

Two

George isn’t doing so well. He’s developed some sort of skin infection and we had to rush him to the vet yesterday. We noticed his skin on his back was red and had a visit scheduled for later today, but when The Partner came home yesterday for lunch he sent me a message that we had to get George to the vet ASAP. They shaved part of his neck and back and holy fuck is it awful—red, puffy, open wounds, puss. I’ll spare y’all the photos of that. Instead, here are some from earlier in the week, after he had been to the groomers but before it got too bad. He’s wearing the cone because by this time he had started scratching his ears like crazy, often to bleeding. We’re not sure what’s wrong, but the vet did use the word “gnarly” at least five times, mentioned hospitalization, and something about health authorities. I don’t know.

You’ll notice (kind of) that we had the groomer leave some head hair. When I asked her to give him his regular cut but leave some head hair, she was all, “Leave the head hair?” And I was all, “Yeah, his head hair. We’d like for him to have some longer hair on his head.” It’s the cutest thing ever. Although George Harrison was a Beatle, we call him Ringo.

We’re hoping he pulls through okay. I’m home with him today—he’s on a lot of meds and pain killers and we have to keep him from scratching himself. A few times a day we have to put him in the bathtub and rinse his neck and back with cool water (“hydrotherapy” the vet called it). He’s seriously so pitiful right now, passed out in a Tramadol coma with socks on his back feet so he won’t hurt himself if he does get a few scratches in before we get to him. Oh, dogchildren.

Three

I’ve been messing around with Tumblr more. My opinion on it is somewhere between afraid and ambivalent. Afraid because this shit isn’t on my own server (they don’t even have native comments) and ambivalent because it is really easy to share what you find online and there’s a good community around it.

Four

Drag Show photos. Oh my god fuck I know. You have no idea the photo backlog on my computer right now. I’ll try to get to them today and this weekend. Don’t feel too bad: there’s a Christlessmas gift I knit for my aunt that I STILL haven’t mailed to her.

Five

The economy. What the fuck is up, y’all? Every day the news reports on something or another that scares the shit out of me. I hope you’re floating.