A "G-Rated Journal" That Even My Mother Can Read (because she does!)
Effervescence is a state of mind. It's about choosing to bring sunshine to the day.
Every person I meet matters.
If it's written down, I know it (If it's not written down, I don't know it)
If it's color-coded, I understand it (If it's not color-coded, I don't understand it)
Read/Post Comments (0)
Daddy-do and me, 2010
My Links
My Blessings
My Project Lists
My Resume
My Twitter
My Photo Website
My Flickr
My TwitPic
My Household
My SCA Biography
My Bardic Pages
My Blip.TV Videos
My YouTube Videos
My Band & CDs
My FriendFeed
My Bookmarks (del.icio.us)
My Ravelry Profile
My Blip.fm Station
My Amazon Wishlist
My Media Collection
My LibraryThing
My Food Lists
Podcasts I Listen To
Cast-On: Brenda Dayne, Wales
KFI AM 640 On Demand: Bill Handel, Leo Laporte, Neil Savaadra, and Wayne Resnick
Chivalry Today: Scott Farrell (Sir Guillaume)
The Lions Road: A Weekly SCA podcast
Administratia
eMail me
Journal Home
Subscribe to this Journal
Add my RSS feed to your RSS Reader
Retrospective 20 years
A dear friend of mine wrote me today. She was my absolute best friend in junior high, and I've often thought of her over the years. We exchanged a few one-liner emails over the past year, and in today's email she finally told me a little bit about her current life (married, four kids, home-schooling, etc.) and finally asked me "so what's up in your life?"
Have you ever tried to sum up 20 years of your life in an email? I think the funniest part of my response was that every other paragraph included a website address to explain something about my life. And to think, there was a time when I didn't understand why anyone needed the internet to include a graphic interface. [I was such a text nerd. Hmm, sometimes I still am, but please be kind to me in my dorkiness.]
So, I thought since I put so much work into my reply to her, some of you might like to see the thumbnail sketch. Now, I know that some of how I wrote this had to do with my audience, and some of my close friends out here will know what I mean. Anyways, please enjoy.
Let's see: after my senior year of high school in CA, after I moved, I ended up at UC Santa Barbara for college. First I entered as a music major, on a small scholarship, in "Percussion" -- because it was a plural word and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with music. I had toured for the summer between high school and college with a Drum & Bugle Corps (the Velvet Knights out of Anaheim) as a mallet player, and had the time of my life doing that. But after one year as a full-time music major, I decided I didn't really want a career in music. I was briefly a theatre major before I thought better of that (which was just another career in performance), and as I sat down with the UCSB catalog of *all* the courses ever offered, I started reading it page by page, cover to cover, trying to have an open mind about majors that I had pre-conceived notions about.
I got to "Linguistics" and there was one course called "Sign Languages of the World." In all my years at UCSB that course was never actually offered, but it made me sit up and take notice and research further about the Linguistics department. There was only one lower-division pre-requisite for the major (which was a good thing, since I was already a sophomore, shopping for my 3rd major) and it was a basic survey course on Linguistics. I was hooked. It was *completely* up my alley.
I did four years full time, took one year off, and did my last year's worth of courses in two years part/half-time, working to pay for college. In my sophomore year I also got involved with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) and got into student leadership with bible studies, worship team, etc. I was pretty involved in my church too, where I was teaching Sunday School to 3rd/4th graders, and just loved working with the kids.
To pay for college, all along the way I was working odd jobs and temp jobs here and there in offices, sometimes holding up to 3 different jobs at once [like notetaker in some class, working for disabled students in other classes, and doing a part-time office job 2x/3x a week]. After getting my degree in Linguistics, it was all that office work that ended up landing me in all the jobs I've had since then.
Currently I'm back in Training Development for a software company -- I write technical training manuals. My job is to figure out how the software works, quickly, and then turn it into instructor-led printed materials. It's very challenging, and involves publishing, writing, graphic design, and development skills. I love the current company I'm at, mostly because of the people in my department.
[snip... an explanation of my years married and divorced, something that I don't mind telling friends or family privately, but not something I would post on the internet, out of respect]
Anyways, I didn't change my name right after the divorce because I had taken the kids' last name as part of my last name, and I didn't want them to feel like I was divorcing them. After two years, they were still good with my friendship with them, and I was good with it, so I went and filed for a legal name change.
In early college, there were so many Chris's in the dorms (6 of 50 one year and 5 of 50 the next, on my hall in my dorm! one was my roomie!) that we all got nicknames or other names to tell us apart. First year I was "Chris Cat Woman" ...something a gal named Jo-Jo had called me, and it stuck. Second year, the one with the roomie with the same name, I became just "Cat" (and she went from Christina to Stina).
So I've been called Cat since 1987. When I filed my name change in 2002 I just put Cat on the front, moved everything over one space, and dropped off my maiden and married names [I was using both names when I was married]. So now I'm just Cat, and yes my family still calls me Chris. I expect most my Ohio friends to call me Chris, too, since that's what they're used to.
So I've been single/divorced for five years now, just working and pursuing all my hobbies and things. Maybe 7 years ago I started doing web design. And about 12-13 years ago I got involved in a historical recreation group called the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism. I've found a real family with my SCA friends, and my current roomie is an SCA friend. She's a lot of fun, and we joke constantly about what wonderful women we are and why are we both still single?
The SCA website I do the most with (and with my dear friend Hope, love her!) is my group about a 90-min drive north from where I live right now, but where I go on weekends (and where my church is located) http://www.darachshire.org
Also, about 7+ years ago, I joined a band as their lead singer, and now we have two CDs out, and we're working on our 3rd. http://www.forevertwelve.com
At church I'm also still a musician, and I prepare a song/hymn for communion each week, as well as help with scripture reading in the service. And I'm conducting a community choir that meets at my church on Sunday evenings, a fledgling group that's just getting off the ground. There's only about 6 of us in the group, and three of us are the founding "co-directors" although I'm the conductor.
I'm also a fiber artisan -- this is my main research with the SCA. I spin yarn from raw fiber, and I teach spinning to adults and children every chance I get. I'm helping launch a Dyers Guild in Southern California http://www.bluenailsguild.org and helping one of the other founders re-do her commercial website ...our new work is at http://dev.wingedpen.com/griffindyeworks (which I do with Mariam, love her too!) -- I've become Bjo's personal photographer at retreats and workshops, and I'm having a *ton* of fun documenting our classes and retreats. I'm working on some new fiber research in braiding techniques from history, like working with a "lucet" or "kumihimo" but that's really new, and I'm not qualified to teach this quite yet. But my roomie and I bought a great wheel from a friend, so now I'm excited to take this to school demos and workshops to show off another tool from history. (You can see a great wheel at
http://dev.wingedpen.com/griffindyeworks/workshops/retreat_report_2005.html ... scroll down to about the 7th photo.)
And I've also taken up doing more music in the SCA, researching music from history and doing more composing than before. I won a contest this summer in our local group, so now for a year I'm the "resident bard" who personally does music for the "baroness" in our branch. It's been forcing me to stretch as a musician, which is really exciting.
Let's see: Church, Work, SCA (esp. fiber artisan work), Friends, Web Design, Band, yup... that's my life! *grin* I'm absolutely busy all the time, and my latest thing is to try and keep my calendar in a place where friends who want to get together for dinner can check it:
http://calendar.yahoo.com/ [my yahoo ID here, ask if you'd like to see the calendar] is the latest achievement.
And for friends and family, I keep an online journal to keep in touch at http://www.journalscape.com/cayswann ...
although I got sick over New Years and haven't written in my journal in a while. I call it my "g-rated journal so my Mom could read it, because she does!" along with college friends, local SCA friends, aunties & uncles, cousins, whomever.
[snip, a discussion on how my sister & family, Mom & family are doing] ...and the theatre where I became webmaster this year: http://www.canyontheatre.org -- so it's all in the family.
...[And] at holiday time, we all gather at my sister's place. There's usually 14-20 grown-ups, and now there's a gaggle of new babies in the last 2 years, so there's a half a dozen cousins/grandkids/nieces/nephews running around. It's wonderful living near so many family members.
I still hear from my Dad, who still lives in the house where I grew up, and he's doing well too. His family grows and changes over the years, but he's doing well. We lost both his parents over the years, but all the aunties and uncles and cousins have gotten better at keeping in touch, and so now I'm back in touch with most of the rest of my Ohio family again. And now the cousins are all starting to marry and have kids, too, so there's lots of photo exchanges. *grin*
Gee. That was a lot to catch you up on, for twenty years, but I hope you enjoyed it.
--
Most sincerely, with all my love and affection
Have you ever tried to sum up 20 years of your life in an email? I think the funniest part of my response was that every other paragraph included a website address to explain something about my life. And to think, there was a time when I didn't understand why anyone needed the internet to include a graphic interface. [I was such a text nerd. Hmm, sometimes I still am, but please be kind to me in my dorkiness.]
So, I thought since I put so much work into my reply to her, some of you might like to see the thumbnail sketch. Now, I know that some of how I wrote this had to do with my audience, and some of my close friends out here will know what I mean. Anyways, please enjoy.
Let's see: after my senior year of high school in CA, after I moved, I ended up at UC Santa Barbara for college. First I entered as a music major, on a small scholarship, in "Percussion" -- because it was a plural word and I couldn't decide what I wanted to do with music. I had toured for the summer between high school and college with a Drum & Bugle Corps (the Velvet Knights out of Anaheim) as a mallet player, and had the time of my life doing that. But after one year as a full-time music major, I decided I didn't really want a career in music. I was briefly a theatre major before I thought better of that (which was just another career in performance), and as I sat down with the UCSB catalog of *all* the courses ever offered, I started reading it page by page, cover to cover, trying to have an open mind about majors that I had pre-conceived notions about.
I got to "Linguistics" and there was one course called "Sign Languages of the World." In all my years at UCSB that course was never actually offered, but it made me sit up and take notice and research further about the Linguistics department. There was only one lower-division pre-requisite for the major (which was a good thing, since I was already a sophomore, shopping for my 3rd major) and it was a basic survey course on Linguistics. I was hooked. It was *completely* up my alley.
I did four years full time, took one year off, and did my last year's worth of courses in two years part/half-time, working to pay for college. In my sophomore year I also got involved with the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF) and got into student leadership with bible studies, worship team, etc. I was pretty involved in my church too, where I was teaching Sunday School to 3rd/4th graders, and just loved working with the kids.
To pay for college, all along the way I was working odd jobs and temp jobs here and there in offices, sometimes holding up to 3 different jobs at once [like notetaker in some class, working for disabled students in other classes, and doing a part-time office job 2x/3x a week]. After getting my degree in Linguistics, it was all that office work that ended up landing me in all the jobs I've had since then.
Currently I'm back in Training Development for a software company -- I write technical training manuals. My job is to figure out how the software works, quickly, and then turn it into instructor-led printed materials. It's very challenging, and involves publishing, writing, graphic design, and development skills. I love the current company I'm at, mostly because of the people in my department.
[snip... an explanation of my years married and divorced, something that I don't mind telling friends or family privately, but not something I would post on the internet, out of respect]
Anyways, I didn't change my name right after the divorce because I had taken the kids' last name as part of my last name, and I didn't want them to feel like I was divorcing them. After two years, they were still good with my friendship with them, and I was good with it, so I went and filed for a legal name change.
In early college, there were so many Chris's in the dorms (6 of 50 one year and 5 of 50 the next, on my hall in my dorm! one was my roomie!) that we all got nicknames or other names to tell us apart. First year I was "Chris Cat Woman" ...something a gal named Jo-Jo had called me, and it stuck. Second year, the one with the roomie with the same name, I became just "Cat" (and she went from Christina to Stina).
So I've been called Cat since 1987. When I filed my name change in 2002 I just put Cat on the front, moved everything over one space, and dropped off my maiden and married names [I was using both names when I was married]. So now I'm just Cat, and yes my family still calls me Chris. I expect most my Ohio friends to call me Chris, too, since that's what they're used to.
So I've been single/divorced for five years now, just working and pursuing all my hobbies and things. Maybe 7 years ago I started doing web design. And about 12-13 years ago I got involved in a historical recreation group called the SCA, or Society for Creative Anachronism. I've found a real family with my SCA friends, and my current roomie is an SCA friend. She's a lot of fun, and we joke constantly about what wonderful women we are and why are we both still single?
The SCA website I do the most with (and with my dear friend Hope, love her!) is my group about a 90-min drive north from where I live right now, but where I go on weekends (and where my church is located) http://www.darachshire.org
Also, about 7+ years ago, I joined a band as their lead singer, and now we have two CDs out, and we're working on our 3rd. http://www.forevertwelve.com
At church I'm also still a musician, and I prepare a song/hymn for communion each week, as well as help with scripture reading in the service. And I'm conducting a community choir that meets at my church on Sunday evenings, a fledgling group that's just getting off the ground. There's only about 6 of us in the group, and three of us are the founding "co-directors" although I'm the conductor.
I'm also a fiber artisan -- this is my main research with the SCA. I spin yarn from raw fiber, and I teach spinning to adults and children every chance I get. I'm helping launch a Dyers Guild in Southern California http://www.bluenailsguild.org and helping one of the other founders re-do her commercial website ...our new work is at http://dev.wingedpen.com/griffindyeworks (which I do with Mariam, love her too!) -- I've become Bjo's personal photographer at retreats and workshops, and I'm having a *ton* of fun documenting our classes and retreats. I'm working on some new fiber research in braiding techniques from history, like working with a "lucet" or "kumihimo" but that's really new, and I'm not qualified to teach this quite yet. But my roomie and I bought a great wheel from a friend, so now I'm excited to take this to school demos and workshops to show off another tool from history. (You can see a great wheel at
http://dev.wingedpen.com/griffindyeworks/workshops/retreat_report_2005.html ... scroll down to about the 7th photo.)
And I've also taken up doing more music in the SCA, researching music from history and doing more composing than before. I won a contest this summer in our local group, so now for a year I'm the "resident bard" who personally does music for the "baroness" in our branch. It's been forcing me to stretch as a musician, which is really exciting.
Let's see: Church, Work, SCA (esp. fiber artisan work), Friends, Web Design, Band, yup... that's my life! *grin* I'm absolutely busy all the time, and my latest thing is to try and keep my calendar in a place where friends who want to get together for dinner can check it:
http://calendar.yahoo.com/ [my yahoo ID here, ask if you'd like to see the calendar] is the latest achievement.
And for friends and family, I keep an online journal to keep in touch at http://www.journalscape.com/cayswann ...
although I got sick over New Years and haven't written in my journal in a while. I call it my "g-rated journal so my Mom could read it, because she does!" along with college friends, local SCA friends, aunties & uncles, cousins, whomever.
[snip, a discussion on how my sister & family, Mom & family are doing] ...and the theatre where I became webmaster this year: http://www.canyontheatre.org -- so it's all in the family.
...[And] at holiday time, we all gather at my sister's place. There's usually 14-20 grown-ups, and now there's a gaggle of new babies in the last 2 years, so there's a half a dozen cousins/grandkids/nieces/nephews running around. It's wonderful living near so many family members.
I still hear from my Dad, who still lives in the house where I grew up, and he's doing well too. His family grows and changes over the years, but he's doing well. We lost both his parents over the years, but all the aunties and uncles and cousins have gotten better at keeping in touch, and so now I'm back in touch with most of the rest of my Ohio family again. And now the cousins are all starting to marry and have kids, too, so there's lots of photo exchanges. *grin*
Gee. That was a lot to catch you up on, for twenty years, but I hope you enjoyed it.
--
Most sincerely, with all my love and affection
Read/Post Comments (0)
Previous Entry :: Next Entry
Back to Top
