Admin – A Most Unreliable Narrator

winning of the mind, persuasion

Exit, Pursued by a Bear
Dear Internet,
I came up with another project last week¹ which prompted me to do cursory research for a couple of days to see if what I came up with was:

Needed
Desired
Doable

And I am happy to report, for my own edification at least, this project could be sustaining. The downside is with the other stuff I’ve got going on, it’s going to take at least 3 – 6 months to get it off the ground. It could be sooner but I want to give myself ample room.
I digress.
A theme I kept coming across as I searched and read was many of these websites / blogs were also businesses. Many of them sold ecourses on how to monetize your blog (among other things) and how to gain readers while tempting you with free ebooks if you just joined their list. I, of course, signed up for a few free ebooks and free web courses to see what they could teach me about jump starting my blog to gain new readership. Most of it was stuff I’ve picked up over the years and kind of went “eh” on implementing it since I was and still am not interested in monetizing, doing product reviews, lifestyle, or something along that ilk with EPbaB. That wasn’t EPbaB’s purpose. The purpose was to use it as a personal, albeit online, diary and to connect with other people.
You know. A personal blog.
But even with that very simple purpose in mind, finding like minded souls has been harder than necessary and I want to fix that.

Five years ago (!), I wrote about an identity crisis I was having, at the point, about EPbaB. I had been very open about my life from the start until around 2006 when TheEx and I started dating but writing about my life then didn’t have as much hold over me because I was out having a life! The break-up in 2008 was messy and the reason to not write as I was having a life morphed into I was too consumed with library school and work to have time to write about woe is me stuff. The need to write, however, started appearing again and I decided to concentrate on library school instead as talking about school was a much safer bet then anything else.
Upon graduation in 2010, I found myself at a loss on what to do with the site other than a few updates here and there. I was also at a loss what to call it since I had held on to The Lisa Chronicles since the site’s inception but I knew I needed a change.
For about a year I bounced around ideas with friends and the internet on the new site’s name. I was still writing, albeit haphazardly, but I was still a bit adrift in the internet wind for a name and a purpose. Things had changed considerably since 1997. If you have a “personal blog” now, you are also hawking printables, DIY, jewelry, or life coaching. Everything was a business and nothing I read felt genuine anymore.
In 2012 I went to England and as I was walking through the gift shop at The Globe Theatre, I ran across a badge that had a bear with the words, “Exit, Pursued by a Bear” encircling said bear. I knew the saying was an odd stage direction from A Winter’s Tale but as I stood there with badge in hand, the more I rolled over the name in my head, the more it sounded like the perfect name for a site. It’s absurd, which I often am, and literary, ditto, and it sounded fun to imagine and say.
Which brings us up to today.

In the early days of the internet, traffic on my site wasn’t bad. It was, in fact, much better then the traffic driving to my site now. This is odd in the sense I am not only more prolific now but also more well known, at least in the social sphere. If my goal is to connect with others like me, then why wasn’t I finding and connecting with those people since I have a much larger personality?
The answer may be it’s not all of my fault. A recent stat given is we hit 1,000,000,000 websites in 2014 as compared to the 33,000 sites in 1994. In 1997, I was one of the very few people doing what I’m doing, the word “blog” wasn’t commonly used, and the word “journal” was used to label us online memoirists.
Now, no one uses “journal” or “diary” when they write about their life – everything is a “blog.” And if you’re not using “blog” in your site title, URL, or somewhere high on the landing page, you’re fucked if you’re sole purpose is to write an online diary. Like me.
Now most websites live for 100 days. In the late ’90s, they lived for 44 days. An increase, obviously, but with the proliferation all over the place, all it takes is a few well placed keywords and you’ll have a site in the top of the search results fairly quickly even if the shelf-life of that site is that of a mayfly while lesser known sites, like mine, kind of hang out in the peripherals.
(Plus we cannot forget the esteemed plaintiff used my legal name all over the web which lead to many of my hits going to him as his sites come up in the top rankings.)

EPbaB has 48 readers on Feedly, 3 readers on Bloglovin’, about 300 subscribers via other RSS readers, 28 subscribers to the mailing list, 21 people subscribed to the monthly list, and 163 likes on the Facebook page. Lastly, I have nearly 3100 followers on my personal Twitter account.
(Despite the super low stats on my blog, my twitter account has 1500% more followers than the average schmoe. This begs to the question: Are websites dead if we’re getting our new and info from Facebook and Twitter? Someone go do that study and report back. ALSO! Am I just funnier and more engaging on Twitter than I am here?)
(I can also tell you when the plaintiff’s lawyer mentioned EPbaB during the cross-examination and alleged I was so influential I had heavily tainted the plaintiff’s career. I laughed heartily, which is hard to do when you’re doped up on four mg of Klonopin, but heartily I did.)
Despite the low traffic, I adore my little website that could and I want others to enjoy it too. I am proud that I still carry on the tradition I started of writing my life online. Not many people are doing that much anymore without some kind of agenda and I think it is for that very reason most hang around my life. So another balance is how do I keep true to me while wanting to bring new peeps into my world?
The mission of EPbaB is to provide personal stories (mine), anecdotes (also mine), and a safe space for people who have similiar interests. The only thing I’m selling here is myself (and I don’t come cheap).
Did I mention I’m terrible at selling myself? The solution is how to sell the site without selling my ethics down the river. I want people to read but because they find me entertaining and insightful, not because i lured them with free eBooks or naked pictures of myself. (Though I do believe I tried that oh so many years ago…)

What does all mean for EPbaB? Short answer: I want more people to read me. Longer answer: To connect with me and feel like they are not the only ones in this world who have like minded inquiries, questions, concerns, and feelings.
How do I plan on doing this?
Taking a cue from all those lovely lifestyle bloggers, I am going to implement (or try to anyway), the following courses of action:

Studying my heat map for the site over the last few weeks, no one clicks on the “subscribe” or “contact” links. I’m then going to
- Pull those links off the menu on the left hand side
- Add a footer (as seen below) to all new posts
  - Continue using the footer (see below) to advertise how to read, follow, or to buy my book (Only $.99! On Kindle!)
- Open up commenting again in Disqus
One of the reasons people aren’t finding me, or at least my site via topic, is I am not following good SEO. For example, I always use some kind of quote or word or something for the subject line of the post (see today’s as an example) which tells you NOTHING about what the post is about. Via a SEO app, I can make the title (what shows up in your browser tab) applicable to the content of the post. The subject line will say, “winning of the mind, persuasion” while the title will say, “The Direction and Rebranding of the EPbaB Blog”. Search engines index the title of the page first before they get to the subject line of the piece.
As much as I detest it, use the word “blog” when appropriate in the title and in the first few paragraphs to get properly indexed by search engines
Use applicable keywords in the first few paragraphs of a piece, again for search engine indexing
Use an image to in the beginning of each post.
- Why? When cross-posting to Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and Pinterest, the image will catch the eye rather than a long string of text
Be judicious on using social media.
- How? Single post to Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and Pinterest but after initial posting on Twitter, set up two auto-posts on Twitter, one in the morning, one in the afternoon, to gain more traffic
Instead of writing 2000 word behemoths, break them up into 750-1000 word chunks. A girl has a lot to say but not everyone has time to read what the girl says.
Revive the monthly mailing list
Continue emotional vomit here except for librarianship (that’s at lisa.rabey.net) or writing (that’s at lisarabey.com).
- Why? Glad you asked! A few months ago I called Reputation.com to find out how much it would cost to clean up my online rep as the esteemed plaintiff and news sites writing about the case were keeping a girl down. I was a “very difficult case” and it “could be a long term campaign”. How much for this privledge? $25K. Yes, you read that correctly That’s $25K per year with a two year minimum. I laughed not heartily but hysterically when they told me this. I already knew what they were/are going to do and the results would be the same and I’m sure as fuck not paying $25K to give them the privilege. lisa.rabey.net was 5 or 6 in the first set of search results and now it’s number 2 thanks to the fact I’ve been blogging over there on a consistant basis since January. I figure if I do the same thing with lisarabey.com, that will also drag that site up from 10 to who knows. Both Twitter accounts are now showing up and I’m determined to shift more shit around to get that front page free of vermin. In short, Reputation.com can go fuck themselves.

That’s the crux of what I’m doing and it’s all mostly backend so you won’t (really) see a difference when you read me. I was already posting images, albeit haphazardly, on the blog so that won’t be a big switch. And I’ll never ever use ads on this site. Ever. Never. Ever.
The adorable trainwreck that I am will remain the same.
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2013

1. I counted the other day; this makes said project project 10. 10 fucking projects I’m rotating through. What in thee fuck.

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Watch out for the falling divs

[Update: 19:21] Seems like I caught and found most of the errant pixels driving me batty, but everything is not perfect. If you or someone you know is a web developer, comfortable with WordPress & CSS, contact me ASAP. I’ve hacked the fuck out the CSS for this theme but my fixing the themes mistakes keeps breaking it! I know it’ll take 2-3 hours to fix the CSS (at max). The framework could also be tweaked as well to clean it up.
Currently tweaking the blog’s theme, which is causing it to morph in and out of various themes for the last hour or so, and will continue on and off for the rest of the day. If you find something isn’t where it was a moment ago, that is why!
-lisa

Things are a changin’

A few weeks ago, I accidentally nuked the content at biblyotheke.net when I ssh’d in to my hosting server and accidentally deleted the wrong directory when I hit enter after the auto completion of “biblyotheke.net” instead of finishing it out with “biblyotheke.net.old.”
Oops.
For some time, I’ve been whinging on my existential crisis (of sorts) in regards to my writing and social networked life. While I was hemming and hawing publicly, I started some backend work by pulling down the content from modgirl.net, which contained work from 1996-2008 as well as content from other blogs and my LiveJournal, in the attempt to start organizing it into a better searchable and indexed listing of writing with an idea to get it consolidated into a single location at some near future date. (So what I was whinging on about for the last several years, but at a task was to be done at leisure rather then rush, while I worked out my “issues.”)
The accidental nuking of the content at biblyotheke.net turned out to be an awesome way to for me to make an executive decision to fasttrack the content to biblyotheke.net and decommisioning modgirl.net and shesgotplans.net. Ergo, problem solved. So here is the haps of what is upcoming in the next few months:

Starting immediately, I’ll be cross-posting content to both sites, but biblyotheke.net content will now be posting to Twitter/Facebook/LiveJournal while content from shegotplans.net will not.
I’ve imported the content from shesgotplans.net over to biblyotheke.net over the weekend and I have been working, on and off, to straighten out the links, tags, categories and images over there. A lot is still broken, but should be fixed soonish.
Once everything is fixed, I’ll be implementing 301 redirects from shegotplans.net over to biblyotheke.net to handle off-site links so they are not (that) broken.
If you follow me using RSS feed, you will want to update your feed link to biblyotheke.net/feed since content will be duplicated on both sites starting immediately.
I’ll be updating on progress by using sticky notes on both blogs on where I’m at over the change over.
After everything has been fixed on biblyotheke.net, I’ll stop cross-posting to both blogs and will remove the duplicate information on shesgotplans.net.

As always, if you have any questions or shit is broken somewhere, email me at lisa at biblyotheke dot net.
x0x0x

Rough Sketch

Proof that Wednesday can turn anything into a bed.

Some long needed admin stuff:
I’m still toying with domain name/branding/etc bullshit, which I’ve been mulling over since I published A blog with an identity crisis. Some concrete decisions: I’m letting modgirl.net expire, I will be consolidating and creating eBooks of the back entries, volumized by year (I’ve not gotten this plotted out as of yet) and that is as far as I’ve gotten on that project. Thanks to everyone who commented on the entry, it helped clarify some ideas I’ve been bouncing around in my brain.
The April 30th edition of the Morris Street Project published prematurely and without content in the entry. I’ve corrected and updated the entry so it is no longer empty, so make sure to check out this past week’s photos!
There has been so much going on, but I have a terrible habit of starting drafts and then not finishing them. I’m leary about creating new content until the drafts folder is better sorted so I decided to clean up my entry drafts, over 30 of them in the next few weeks. Do not be, then, terribly surprised to see a plethora of content being pushed over the next few weeks. My goal is to do two drafts pushed to published before a new entry is written.
We’ve been doing loads of gardening since the weather has gotten infinitely better around these parts. I’ve been taking a gazillion photographs in and around our gardens so there will be a lot of heavy image content upcoming as well.
Last, but not least, I’ve been doing some writing for The Rapidian, a hyper-local indie paper. I’ve included a widget on the sidebar that has the RSS feed for all of my work, which will be updated automatically. I’m planning on stepping up my game for them to publish a minimum of once per month.
Cheers,
x0x0x,
Lisa

A Blog With An Identity Crisis

Dear Internet:
I need your help.
Seriously.
The focus of this blog has had two major shifts of focus in the last few years. Forever and 10 days, it was all about me. Then I had the massive, emotional breakdown of a breakup with TheEx and felt it safer to blog about library school rather then vomiting up my emotional issues. Things smoothed out, I graduated and I’ve started back with the purging of thought again.
This in and of itself is not a bad thing, but that is how life works. You get engrossed in X, that fills up your time and then you move on to Z. Any kind of issue I’ve had with the blog in the last 15 (!) years has been mostly aesthetic, not technical. But in the last six months, I’ve noticed a few problems cropping up that need resolutions. This is where you, my dear Internet, come in.

Problem One: The name.
The blog was started in 1996, the first domain was bought in 1998. While domain name has changed numerous times over the years, the title of the blog has more or less been The Lisa Chronicles. I say more or less because two shifts from that has been when I bought this domain (shesgotplans.net) in 2006 and renamed the blog thusly (And Lisa! She’s got plans!), second name shift in 2008 when I started library school (lib schooled.) and then back to the beginning with The Lisa Chronicles last summer.
This is a problem because I discovered last year, after changing back the blog name, that a woman registered the domain thelisachronicles.com and blogs very occasionally about her family, adoption, and faith. The complete polar opposite of me. There is also the erotic works of the same name, also not me. While I come up in Google search as the primary person, I find myself thinking of myself as “brand” and I’m finding myself slightly despising myself for that. I’m not a brand, I’m a person with a sparkling personality! So do I say eff the others and continue on as I am, grab a name that is a bit more encompassing of my content, change the domain name or what?
Problem Two: Content.
This is not a problem in the I don’t know what to write or really a focus anymore category. This kind of ties into problem #1 above. During the two year period I wrote mainly about library school, I received more love from the internets then some critique on pop culture, book reviews or sobbing my heart out. To wit: Bobbi Newman of Librarian by Day showcased numerous of my “So, You Want to be a Librarian/Archivist” posts on her blog, coupled with writings from other people around the web on the same topic wrapped up as a one stop guide for all things MLIS related. The link love is awesome, don’t get me wrong, I got a lot of commentary and emails from people about my work. I’m more than happy to have done this, so much so I included a tab at the top of the front page as a direct link to all the posts in that category. So the problem?Not only has Bobbi sent me nearly thousands upon thousands (She’s the library equivlent of getting /.’d) of people to my site, the number one pages on my site are the library school related ones. It’s not just Bobbi’s site either, its via search engines, other library related peeps conversating on the subject. The primary, and seemingly only reason, people come to my site (regardless of domain, name, etc) is for the library related stuff.This is a problem because when I stopped writing about library related stuff last summer, blog readership has dropped, comments dropped, everything dropped. If I write a blog post on something library related, it goes back up and then drops again when I stop on the librarianating. When TheHusband and I talked about this, he says it’s evident the people have spoken! Write more about library related stuff! But I bristle at that because for me personally, having a blog on one defined topic is just not my cup of tea. I’ve tried doing it in the past but it just doesn’t work out for me. The current idea I am having is transferring all the library related content over to Dewey District Library blog, the joint blog that Kristin and I are writing and just shoving everything over there because what has become clear is that there is a huge difference between the readership for my regular content and readership for library related content.
Problem Three: Archives.
A couple of years ago (er, yeah, that’s it), I decided to put all entries pre-2006 up on modgirl.net, and then whatever domain I was on, keep that as organic as possible. The thought process is that keeping things up at modgirl.net as it was originally posted (static HTML files) meant that once the back log was up, I’d never have to touch it again. Well. Not necessairly true. The problem with this is the domain, modgirl.net, was my primary email address and domain name for a very long time (until I got onto gMail sometime in ’05?). Checking the stats for the domain, the files were seemingly no longer being deep searched by search engines (truth be told, I could have done something to the robot.txt for that to happen) and the only email I get at modgirl.net these days is spam. Lots and lots of spam. While I’ve had the domain for over 10 years, I can no longer realistically justify keeping it anymore. My first domain ever purchased, simunye.org, was hijacked by Belgian registrar (a small company owned by a friend of a friend) when it stopped communicating me with regards to my payment (I wanted to pay, they wouldn’t respond to facilitate payment, they hijacked the domain and then RENEWED it under their name). My attachment to domains is now broken. Within the last year, I removed all the static files on modgirl.net and now modgirl.net redirects to shesgotplans.net. And of course, I never uploaded the archives into the WP database system. I don’t think this is necessiarly a problem, I think this is more of a whine of not wanting to do the work of the damn archives. 🙂
Problem Four: Consolidation. People collect coins, stamps, shoes, fan items: I collect domains. The number of domains I’ve purchased, hosted, worked on and dropped is in the dozens. When I worked for ISPs or knew people who had their own servers in the ’90s/’00s, it was far far worse. I’m now down to 8. Two of them (modgirl.net and geekgirlinc.org) I’m letting expire for sure this year. Two of them, rabey.net/org I’ve kept for a zillion years, never did anything with but will probably keep. excessivelydiverting.net and deweydistrictlibrary.org are projects I’ll be keeping on, so they can stay. That leaves biblyotheke.net and shesgotplans.net. I think confusion lies because I use an email address on biblyotheke.net as a primary email, but I direct blog links to shesgotplans.net. Also, I styled biblyotheke.net as a portal of sorts, but with a name (digital.biblyotheke) and biblyotheke is the most used username that I use. I also wanted to use biblyotheke.net as a professional site, but right now I’m thinking that instead of sending people all over the internet, take advantage of sub-domains and just splice everything under one roof. I’ve got a couple of months until shesgotplans.net expires, but knowing me I’ll renew it for one more year to keep pointers working.

So internets, since this is looming (if not already) in the tl;dr category: Your thoughts? Comments? Am I overthinking this? Any tips or tricks? Ideas? Etc? Merci!

To: Enlighten – Allergies are not for the win edition

Recently it’s been discovered I have what is politely termed as “adult onset allergies,”¹ which decided today to go into full force, which means any work I planned on doing today has gotten pushed aside in the “itcy/watery eyes, headachey feeling shoot me WHINE” makes it difficult to concentrate for tasks for too long. HOWEVER! I wanted to get get some updates about posts-in-drafts that were to have been published about some upcoming projects I’m working on.
In no particular order:

Alice and I have decided to learn a new (dead) language, specifically Anglo-Saxon (Olde English) ². Details forthcoming (post is currently in draft status), but we’ll be updating Dead Language Society and I’ll be x-posting my entries here.
Kristin and I have a poster accepted to Michigan Library Association annual conference, taking place in November 2010. Our poster presentation is, Critical Error: The need for Michigan libraries to represent themselves online and it’s the beginnings of a (predicted to be) long-term research project. We’re pretty excited about this and will be posting a lot of our stuff (findings, research interests, etc) over at our joint blog, Librarianation. I will more than likely be x-posting library stuff between the two blogs.
The next installment of So, You Want to be a Librarian/Archivist? is also in draft status, with the subject matter of being proactive within the field of librarianship/archives. I’ve gotten prods from various people around the internets that I need to keep this series going.

Other updates:
Job hunt: Still unemployed and still interviewing but nothing concrete as of yet. To keep ourselves sane, we house hunt via Zillow in areas that I’m interviewing in as well as areas we’re interested in moving to. I’ve been collecting the links of the homes in these areas we’re interested in on my Delicious feed.
Walk, Don’t Run: Justin and I have been power walking nearly every day our neighborhood for the last two weeks, with the idea that next week we’ll start a “couch to 5k” like program next week. I’m not keen on this idea for numerous reasons, mainly that running feels more invasive to my arthritis than walking. I’m told this is bullarky, but I can only report what my bones feel. Our diet is going more or less okay, but we’re always looking to improve it. And last, but not least, Wednesday the Pug has had her bi-weekly bath. That is ALWAYS important to include.

1. Not sure what I’m allergic TO yet, but it was pointed out to me all of my health issues seemingly came into being after recently getting married.
2. Yes, Olde English is purposely misspelled.

The Lisa Chronicles: What’s in a name?

When I started keeping an online journal in 1998, the main reason I started chronicling my entire life online was for me to remember it. I have no memory of my childhood and most of my tween years up until the age of 13 and there are even spots of time in my 20s that are vacant.¹ If personal recollections, photographs, handwritten letters and other realia were so incredibly fragile, were my words digitally constructed that much stronger? Could I not access them at anytime and any point with no fear of deprecation?² Wasn’t this the whole point of the internets? Justin and I bicker about this topic quite a bit because while he understands as to WHY I’m so obsessed with keeping my digital life in order, he still thinks it’s an invasion of privacy. But for someone, himself, who can easily recall his life at any stage with minute detail, I can see his point. But for me, I don’t have that option. I became obsessed with chronicling my life because I wanted my imprint to last forever. And this is why my online journal was called, “The Lisa Chronicles.”
I kept the name for nearly a decade, regardless of which domain it was hosted on, but in 2006 (in several more entries to come, you ‘ll see how 2006 proved to be a pretty pivotal year), I registered a new domain with a different idea: shesgotplans.net. I wanted to go beyond just writing chronicles of my life/snarky commentary, I wanted to have an all-in-one place place to showcase everything I was/will be into: Books, movies, music, food, opinion, pop culture, photography, librarianship and archives (and everything in between). I had gone from having my own domain for keeping my online journal, to LiveJournal and was feeling the pull of having my own site again where I could do the above. The name of the domain was culled from an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy,”³ when Meridith exclaims about Finn, her mens of the moment, “And Finn! He’s got plans!” I wanted shesgotplans.net to not only be entertaining, but also to keep track of anything new or fun or interesting that I was obsessing about at the moment. Food? I would want millions of pictures of food and recipes. Photography? Here’s what I learned and why I liked these tips. Writing? Here is a new short story/poem/ I wrote and you can have it for free. Music? Here is the latest CD I’ve been digging and why you should dig it or why it fucking sucks.
That was the general idea. My writing, when I started in 1998, went from dozens of posts of month to one or two (if that) and then to nothing for months at a time by 2006-07. I started and stopped writing. A lot. When I started my MLIS in the fall of 2008, I saw it as a perfect way to reboot my writing while I worked on this degree. I wrote a lot of posts about librarianship, archives and anything remotely related. And while in the last several months, since graduation, I’ve been writing more personal then professional, the number one reason why people come here is for the “So, You Want To Be A Librarian/Archivist?” series.
That depresses the fuck out of me as I feel I’m much more than a snappy piece about going to library school, at least I used to be. No one reads me anymore because I’m provocative or interesting and that bothers the hell out of me. I feel I have grown way too conservative and soft in my old age. Gone were the days of owning domains like pronstar.org and bitchasshoes.org⁴, writing about sex, drugs and rock and roll. I’ve become so hypervigilant about what I was posting on what network⁵, with what content that saying the word “fuck” made me cringe. Me. Cringe at saying the word fuck!? What in Nigel’s name has happened to me? Don’t answer that. With all that is being said, I don’t want this to become some boring ass librarian page of dick tugging and circle jerking.⁶ But that is what is happening. The top keywords that drive traffic here is “So, you want to be a librarian?” and “Jobs that require MLIS.” I’ve taken back ownership of “The Lisa Chronicles” for the journal title, content will be be more what I envisioned and lots more updates are planned.
It feels good to be back.
1. I blame the memory loss to conscious forgetting and loads of alcohol. I married my husband because he remembers more of my 20s than I do.
2. Digital archivists will bicker on this point, but for the sake of the piece, it makes sense. 3. Don’t judge. This is where she goes back to McDreamy. Again.
4. .Exhbit A: pronstar.org and Exhibit B: bitchasshoe.org.
5. Numerous (okay, 2) people have emailed/FB’d/etc me to warn me to watch I say on Twitter/blog as possibly be detrimental to me obtaining a job. I understand and get that, I’m not incredibly stupid.
6. There is enough of clique in the library world that it drives me INSANE that this behavior is so easily accepted and even, in some cases, applauded.

About: Lisa

Hello, my name is Lisa.
I’ve been keeping an online journal since 1996.¹ You may know me from simunye.org, modgirl.net, or from my LiveJournal.
If you are interested in my lifestream, you can find that at [digital biblyotheke].
The original concept for shesgotplans.net was to discuss, in-depth, my sojourn into library and archival school, which I started in fall of 2008. The premise intent that it would contain entries on the nuts and bolts of school while addressing concerns as someone new to the profession. But Twitter changed all of that — my pithy commentary was released instantly to the masses! Thus, the journal languished because writing 140 characters is a lot faster and easier than writing a nicely constructed and in-depth essay.²
Now that graduation is now looming, all the personal projects that I swore I would have time for during breaks is now finally available. This is the first time in in nearly a decade, I currently³ have no plans on being in classes this next school year, it’s time to get back in the writing mode and less on the “OH HOLY FUCK! I HAVE A HUGE PROJECT DUE IN TWO DAYS!” I so won’t miss those days.
Other places where I’m also writing at:

Tech-Ink: A librarian’s collection: Tech-Ink is a collective of tech savvy librarians from around the world. I write from the student / new librarian/archivist perspective.
The Brit & The Yank: A music blog with a twist, co-written with my friend Chris.
AMPed: Staff writer for Archival Media Preservation, a professional blog sponsored by Archive Media Partners that discusses the ins and outs of digital obsolescence, digital media and social networking in the archival world.

Below is the “To Do” list for shesgotplans.net as of 1/31/2010

Update more frequently (2-3x a week).
Change blog name (not domain) before graduation.
Import journal entries from prior incarnations into database.
Create categories and folksonomies for those entries.

1. My first journals were on Geocities (now defunct) and I transferred everything over to simunye.org in 1998, which is why the InternetArchive only has my listing from 1998, not 1996, and forward.
2. Interestingly enough, So, you want to be a librarian? Part I is the most requested page on this site. Clearly, I was on to something.
3. I have been made to promise to the family that there will be no more schooling for me! Three degrees in seven years is enough, right?

spring cleaning!

it’s that time of year again for spring cleaning — so ipulled allthe crap down from modgirl.net and stuck a filler file upuntil i canthrow the new one up.
yes you’ve heard this before.
but that’s why you love me 🙂
modgirl.net is officially purged. so make sure you aregoing tomodgirl.net/org 😀

and now for something you’ll really enjoy

procrastination is thine own enemy.
or something.
However, since my well laid plans didn’t get executed, here are links to the archives of the lisa chronicles:
November
October
September
August
July
Writings
as many of you have already guessed, i didn’t get the new chronicles updated and designed on time as i had liked. work and the fact that shelly is arriving today from Virginia has prevented me from doing so. however, never fear! i know that many of those that are loyal readers have been checking the site everyday and my guilt factor has gone through the roof. mainly because i knew that i am taking much too long to get a chronicle up/redesign the site within an appropriate time. so in lieu of that, i’ve decided that till the new design is up and functioning, i’m still going to update the chronicles as often as i did before. just not aesthetically pleasing as i had hoped. so please bear with me.
thoughts laid bare
it had come to my attention a few days ago, that someone who once mocked me and my style is now emulating it.
when i found out i was pissed, royally pissed to the point that i was seething. those in the know think i was being a tad obsessive about the whole thing (me? obsessive? muhahaha) and it had nothing pertaining to me (the website). i told my friends they were smoking a bit of crack and they needed to get a new dealer. they thought i was reading too much into it.
and maybe to an extent they were right. BUT! (the all important but here) i’ve been mocked and ridiculed for my “work” or whatever the hell this is for a long time and by the same people. So when I go to their website and see they are planning on doing what they MOCKED ME FOR, you can’t tell me you wouldn’t be pissed either or at least a bit angry.
Another aspect of all this is that they have also started preaching stuff on their website that have been some of my philosophies (again mocked and criticized) that I subscribe to.
So you are saying to yourself “lisa, get over it!” and perhaps you’re true. But I hate hypocrites. I hate the aspect that someone suddenly “found themselves” and then they start preaching the belief systems I preach and calling it their own ideas.
it’s annoying and it makes me sick.
this isn’t just about doing an on-line journal (hell everyone and their brother does that) but it’s the style, the concept and taking bits and pieces of who i am and turning it into their own production.
i am happy, in a way, because now i’ve become even more disillusioned about them. it makes me feel like they finally admitted i was right (which, we all know, i am 😉 and just don’t have the balls to tell me.
i hate the concept of “finding oneself” or whatever new-agey term you want to use. It’s like a cop out. you always knew who you were, you were just masquerading behind the prospect of it because you were too much of a coward to admit it, even to yourself. and i also hate liars with such a passion it even shocks me sometimes.
I’ve heard time and time again “lisa only believes what she wants to believe” and i used to cringe when someone said that, but! (another important but here) if what i say you think is bunk and then end up prescribing to the idea and then calling it your own? HELLO here! Don’t use your intimidation of me as your weapon and don’t use my words against me in an argument. and importantly, don’t tell me i’m on crack when we both know what i say is TRUE and that time and time again I have been proven to be right. don’t use your fear of yourself as the weapon to sting me with mind fucks. it just ain’t happening homey.
i’ve learned, through time, my perceptions of people are about 98% accurate AND that chances are, if i call you on something, you are doing what i say you’re doing.
damn, i’m being cryptic here or what?
that’s quite all right. it’s my damn webpage and i can do what the hell i want to do with it, including and not limited to:

putting up pictures of my piercings
my writings which are mostly not understood
critiques of the world at large
bitching about anything and everything because i have the right to.I know, from experience, that people don’t like it when others tend to be dead on about them. i also know that my perspective of things tend to be a skewed than the world at large. i also know that my ego is the size of Nebraska. i also know that many people are intimidated by the “whole package” (as it were) because my tendency to be -in your face-.

some people just can’t handle being told “like it is”. I don’t have time for this namby-pamby-third-grade-pigtail-pulling.
Get the fuck out of my way and let me rule the world as I have planned!!!!and no mack, this isn’t about you 😉
I’m frightening you aren’t i?
Sometimes I frighten myself.
But that’s quite all right. I’m quite used to this.
So, moving right along, Shelly is staying with me till December 1st. I don’t know what the options are for me to upload/redesign this page. Since Justin and I have our little network going now but still no modem sharing (as it were, no dedicated connections of any type are available in my area), we are still tag teaming getting on-line. I might pacify Shelly to getting on-line while I do my website or something. I had planned on redoing her page while she was here, so perhaps we can do that.
So don’t expect me to have another chronicle up for about a week. I made good on my promise to myself to purchase a journal and write down my thoughts and feelings that I wouldn’t have the balls (yet) to put on here. If some of the stuff is any good, i’m sure I’ll put it here.
So in other words, don’t expect an update for about a week. 😉
Have a happy holidays!
Love,
Lisa
*sm00ch*
If you are really bored, check out http://www.mangot.com/theslip. It’s pretty obvious what this is. I won’t tell you what ones refer to me nor which ones I put on there 😉 Enjoy!