Newly Listed: Speed of Light Wrap Bracelet With Red Czech Glass

So I blogged about this speed of light wrap bracelet ages ago. I finally got better pictures maybe two weeks ago. And today I'm listing it!

I solemnly swear that I was up to my eyebrows and work and studies, and not pouring countless hours into Fallout: New Vegas. (Though I might have done some of that as well...)

Speed of light wrap bracelet by Kokoba

I mentioned before that I wasn't entirely jazzed about how this bracelet came out. But I decided to go ahead and list it at my standard wrap bracelet price, anyway. My reasoning is basically: there is nothing about the construction of this bracelet that makes me nervous. I simply do not sell jewelry whose physical integrity I doubt. It's the aesthetics that I don't like, and since I know that I'm a finicky little pedant, there is a good chance that the only person bothered by them is....me! My reasoning is also: if it doesn't sell at this price, I can always discount it. And if it doesn't sell at a discount, I get to wear it. I wasn't so hot on this one before—the colors seem too bold and "Ms. Frizzle" to suit me—but I have to admit that it's grown on me. I wouldn't mind if this one stayed in my jewelry box!

Speed of light wrap bracelet by Kokoba

Also, it's leap day! I know it's not really a holiday or anything to be excited about (unless you're someone born on a leap day), but I like calendar-based excuses to watch things. You bet your bippy I marathoned the Back to the Future movies on the date when Marty McFly went to 2015; I regularly watch Groundhog Day on, well, Groundhog Day; and on Leap Day I watch Pirates of Penzance.

Do you have any special plans or traditions for Leap Day?

Friday Five on Saturday: 5 Things In My Purse At All Times

5 Fandom Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Nerdy Girlie and Super Space Chick. This week's question is: what do you have in your purse?

I resisted carrying a purse for a long, long time. I guess because as a student (in high school and then in college), I already was carrying a bag with all of my school stuff, so that was enough. But once I was out in the adult world, I realized having a bag for my stuff just made sense. Especially because women's clothing has a troubled relationship with pockets and because I like having a book on hand.

Without further ado, 5 6 things in my purse at all times!

1. A portable whiteboard and all of the attendant accouterments

Right now I have tutoring appointments six days a week, so my whiteboard and its stuff is in my purse more often than not. (It's a large-is purse, there's room!)


2. My little bag of tutoring supplies

So this one isn't in my bag all the time, but close enough! In it I have markers, colored pencils, flashcards of some variety (those green ones are personal pronoun flashcards), a pair of dice, little trolls (great makeshift game pieces), and a deck of playing cards. I can work wonders with this stuff.


3. My melon change purse/wallet from Japan

Ever since I had my wallet lifted two years ago, I've taken to just using this instead. Also, it's super cute! No, I haven't been to Japan, even though JV and I would love to go one day. This was a gift from my friend Breda. She lives in Korea and goes to Japan often enough that she should probably get some kind of customer loyalty bonus card.


4. A notebook and an ungodly amount of pens

A lot of those pens are dead, but I never think to go through them all and throw out the dead ones until I'm out and in desperate need of one that works. I have a bunch of different notebooks, too: there's one with random notes (addresses for Etsy, grocery lists, directions to new students) and then ones with my lesson plans in them. (Different students each have their own notebooks, of course.)


5. My phone

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; not my actual phone but the same model

Pretty straightforward, right? I was late on the smartphone train but I'm glad I eventually boarded! I use Google Maps when I'm trying to find a new place; I can carry a dozen books at once (always something to read on public transportation!); I use the timer function in my lessons; I can use Google Image Search and Google Translate to help explain new vocabulary to students; I can check those nagging "ugh what was that movie/who was that guy" questions the moment they turn up in a conversation; I can use it to store songs and listening practice assignments.

6. My MP3 player

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; not my actual MP3 player but the same model

I refuse to use my smartphone for a music player, though. Instead I have my beat-up SansaFuze that I just can't quit, even if the battery life is a ghost of its former self. But I bought it in South Korea and I like having that little reminder of my time there with me, no matter how dingy it looks.

Review: Above The Noise: Creating Trust, Value, and Reputation Online Using Digital PR

I am now officially hooked on NetGalley. I love the library system here, but sometimes it just doesn't have what I'm looking for. Enter NetGalley! After finishing Cure, I was eager to to find another nonfiction book. I chose Above the Noise because I'm technically an indie biz owner. In addition to my Etsy shop, I'm an independent editor and English language instructor trying to get myself established. I was looking for something with a little more depth and heavy lifting than your typical "how to be a brand!!" blog post.

Image courtesy Motivational Press, Inc.

Morgan is obviously competent—more than competent: talented—at her job but this book follows Hemingway's iceberg rule to its detriment. In other word: there was enough to demonstrate that Morgan knows what she's talking about it, but not enough that I felt like I walked away learning a whole lot. I've thought about it and decided that there are three parts of that iceberg.

First, I don't think I'm the intended market. Being a ~digital native~ means that I grok the importance of social media, as well as its assorted unspoken rules of etiquette. I don't need someone to drive home the point that I should be on social media, because I already am. But maybe a small business owner ten or fifteen years older than me has never caught on—that's who the target audience feels like in a lot of places.

But even if part of it was "it's not you, it's me," part of it can also be attributed to flaws in the book itself. The second part of Above The Noise's iceberg-y-ness was due to padding and using a lot to say a little. Morgan knows a lot about digital PR but she also has a knack for choosing uninteresting analogies to describe ideas that aren't terribly complicated or difficult to begin with. I definitely skimmed a lot.

I think the final part of this iceberg trifecta is that Morgan is addressing a broad audience. In situations like these, it's the specifics that are helpful, but having a broad audience means you can't really get down to specifics. Like: I don't own a brick-and-mortar shop or have any employees. Trying to get reviews on Yelp or Glassdoor would be a complete waste of time for me, whether for Etsy or for tutoring.

A smart editor would have had her organize her book into multiple sections. One for small, brick-and-mortar businesses, and one for single-owner shows running purely online or out of the home. Maybe differentiate between people offering a service and people offering a product. I don't know! It could have gone lots of ways. But if the book had been organized according to audience, it would have been a lot easier to zero in on the tips relevant to me (blogging, content creation) and skip everything that's useless for me (how to encourage employees to leave reviews on Glassdoor).

The information I could find that was relevant to me was specific and helpful. How often to post new content, how long it should be, how often to post on assorted social media sites...that was golden. But that's all information I could have picked up in a good infographic. A good book should have more tips than can be presented on an infographic.

Putting all that aside, I was simply not impressed with the quality of the book in terms of formatting and professionalism. However, I lay this issue not at Morgan's feet but her publisher's: Motivational Press, Inc. A writer's job is to come up with the book, to write it, and to work with editors to make it even better. I think Morgan held up her end of that bargain; I think it's Motivational Press that failed in their job: to polish everything up and make sure it looks professional and awesome. This ebook had numerous mistakes (misused semi-colons, comma splices) and typos (unclosed brackets or quotation marks)—more than I've seen in any ebook I've read so far, whether self-published, legacy published, or hell, even from Project Gutenberg. Nor was this a particularly long or arduous read!

In a nutshell: quite a few kernels of good information. If the purpose of the book was to establish Morgan as competent and knowledgeable in her field, it was a rousing success. (Would that I earned enough money to enlist her professional services!) But as a lean, punchy, and helpful book, it fell flat. I would be interested in a revised version of this book handled by a different, more professional publisher. As it stands, try to find it on NetGalley or on sale.

Newly Listed: Multistrand Avogradro Bracelet in Wood and Cotton

I don't know what it is, but I've been on a real fiber kick recently.

Avogadro's Number in wood beads on waxed cotton from Kokoba

I love the warm and earthy colors in this one. It's 70s but in the best possible way.

The green beads are the ones that spell out the digits of Avogadro's number. The two gold-colored beads are placeholders for 0. I think they also add a nice splashy highlight!

It looks bulky, but because nearly all of the beads are wood, it's actually quite lightweight and comfortable. It's great for when you want that chunky look without all of the attendant weight. 

As always, you can take the edge off your Monday by checking out the wonderful goodies on the #sciart hashtag over on Twitter. And as always, you can pick up this chemistry bracelet over at Kokoba on Etsy.

Five Fandom Friday on Saturday: 5 Favorite Womances

Yes, I'm late to the game on this one, but since I have no opinion about cupcakes* I'd rather go back to the prompt I missed: womance.

I love a good story about the Power of Friendship (TM). I think I like them even more than love stories. I don't know why, except that I've never seen a love story that mirrored my own or even felt genuine. But I've seen my close friendships modeled in stories relatively often.

In no particular order!


1. Jane and Daria (Daria)

I talk about Daria and Jane so often I'm surprised I don't have more images of them uploaded to Blogger! The show holds up to rewatching, and one of the things I appreciate about it is that even though Daria and Jane are outsiders, they're not really bullied or harassed by the popular ("popular") students. Other popular students (Jodie and Mack) even seem to like them, despite their differing social roles and attitudes about the high school social world in general.

I guess this might be a controversial opinion, as I'm not naive enough to believe that bullying doesn't happen in American high schools. But I was our school's Daria and no one ever harassed me about it, even if they didn't really get me, either.

But I love Daria and Jane. I just do. Not much to say about that.



2. Becky and Enid (Ghost World)

I need to go back and re-read Ghost World (it's been over ten years, so it's been long enough) but I remember really liking it. Becky and Enid are essentially a proto-Daria and proto-Jane. Again, even if they're outsiders, they're not really bullied about it. The one thing that I didn't like about the story (which also happens with Daria and Jane) is stupid drama over a boy.


3. Mikey and Margalo (Bad Girls)

Courtesy Scholastic

First of all, can you handle that 90s realness in the cover? This was the exact copy I had and loved when I was a kid.

This is a little obscure, maybe. Voigt won a boatload of awards for novels in her "Tillerman cycle" of novels but this one seems to have gone largely unnoticed. In fact, I didn't realize there were sequels to Bad Girls until I was an adult. I might pick them up one day, when I just want something distracting  I can burn through in a day or two.

Anyway, Bad Girls is about the budding BFF-ship between Margalo and Michelle (who goes by Mikey). They're both smart and loners and, if you want to stretch, budding critical thinkers. A lot of their story is about their critical engagement with social norms, mostly gender roles. And they're just fifth-graders! If you find this somewhere, pick it up.


4. Sal and Phoebe (Walk Two Moons)

Courtesy Scholastic

This one was one of my elementary school favorites. I read the next few books by Creech (Chasing Redbird, Bloomability) but they seemed like pale imitations of Walk Two Moons. While the story is mostly about Sal and her history with her mother, there's a good deal of backstory with her and Phoebe. Even if they're not exactly BFFs, I liked the two of them together.


5. Everyone in Linda, Linda, Linda

If you haven't seen this movie, you need to. It's time for the end-of-year festival at a Japanese high school, and an all-girl punk band (tribute to iconic Japanese punk band The Blue Hearts, whose song "Linda Linda" is the inspiration for the movie title) might not be able to perform. They enlist the help of a Korean exchange student at the last minute and work furiously to get everyone ready for the big show.

There's a lot more to it than that, really, but it's all about high school nostalgia and friendships: maintaining them, growing them, and breaking them.


This was a harder 5 Fandom Friday than I thought it would be! Shout out to The Babysitter's Club, Anne and Diane (Anne of Green Gables), and Bridesmaids as honorable mentions.

What are your favorite womances?


*Fun fact: Swedish has gone many years without distinguishing between muffins and cupcakes; the advent of the word "cupcake" has been very recent.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week, Day 5: Burnout

Day 5: One of the unfortunate side effects of reading and blogging like rockstars seems to be a tendency toward burnout. How do you keep things fresh on your blog and in your reading?

I talked a little bit about this before, but the short answer is that I refuse to see blogging as my job. I'm up in the air about whether or not I'll register my own domain, but I probably won't ever migrate to WordPress or freak out too much about sponsors or affiliate links or so on. I think burnout happens when people convince themselves that they should be earning money from their blog. They start churning out content a little more regularly, even when they don't feel like it; after a while, the exhaustion begins to show. Normally they'd take a break, but because they feel like they need to keep posting regularly so they can keep readers and get those affiliate links/clicks/whatevers, they keep going.

Usually this is the point where I start thinking about dropping a blog from my feed. I read a decent "received a free whatever in exchange for a review" post maybe like 1% of the time; most of those posts don't enrich my life or give me information I wanted about a product I was interested in. They're just joyless and blah.

If you can't afford to self-host your blog, then don't. This is all for fun, not for being the coolest most serious most legit blogger on the Internet. You should be able to take a break when you want to and post what you want to.

It's okay to be a small fish in a huge pond.

Book Blogger Appreciation Week, Day 4: Community Connection

Day 4: How do you stay connected to the community? Examples: social media, regular commenting, participation in blog events, etc. Tell us your faves!

I am pretty awful at ~~community. In anything. When it comes to book blogging, I've enjoyed watching and participating in ArmchairBEA on Twitter (and on here). I'm also a member-in-bad-standing of the Classics Club (see the graphic on the right); I say that because I haven't done much to participate in the spins or memes. But the blogs and the books over at The Classics Club run much more to my taste than what most book bloggers read, so I have the graphic over there to remind me to check out the blogs and the lists and the discussions when I have the time.

I follow a crapton of blogs, of all kinds, but book blogs comprise the majority of my reading at the moment. I use Inoreader for my blogging purposes, so that means I don't really land on anyone's homepage very often. So if you want me to read your blog, make sure you have your page's RSS feed in order! If you're not sure how to do that, I'd recommend using FeedBurner. And if you're not using an RSS reader, it makes your life so much easier! A moment of silence for Google Reader...but Inoreader is probably the best one that's filled the void. I know BlogLovin' is really popular as a an aggregate blog reading feed/whatever, but it's just...not for me.  So overwhelming. So much activity. There are some other, non-web-based programs too, but generally speaking they are annoying, cumbersome, and uggo. Inoreader is simple and elegant. And all you have to do is paste a webpage's URL in the upper left and it hunts down and adds the RSS feed for you!

No matter what RSS option you use, you can add me to it through FeedBurner.

So, out of all the blogs I read, I try to comment regularly-ish. It doesn't always happen: sometimes I'm busy, sometimes I'm tired, and sometimes I just don't have any words. I'm trying to be better about commenting on blogs and being ~~personal and so on, but I don't have endless reserves of energy and focus so it's slow going.

ETA: don't forget to check out the link-up for today's prompt over at the Estella Society!