edit exhaustion

Who here is feeling tired? I mean really really tired? Come on, raise your hands...
I know, I know, I'm too tired to raise my hand too.
Wadda ya gonna do - it's end of term and we're all running on fumes - instructors, students, bed bugs - oops did I say that out loud?
Anyhow, I am trying to deal with my general rundownedness (that's a word)
I eat the veg, get the exercise, take the sleep.
But eventually you're just plain Jane tired and the only thing you (I mean me) can do is power through it until you get the distinct luxury of working full time for three weeks so that you have enough money to make it through your work practicum, so then you can start fourth term with a fresh face and waggly tale.
Do I sound tired to you too?
Ah whatever, all good. Will be done soon enough.
Really enjoyed this editing course.
What did I learn?
Editing is really really hard.
You have to have patience and a keen eye and the soul of a poet and the brain of a mathematical logician and question question question every single fact put before you.
The best advice I got in this course?
If it smells fishy it probably is fishy - don't eat it.
Much love.

editing my wardrobe

so here's the thing
I spent the greater part of my career so far working with children.
You wear t-shirts and sweat pants when you work with kids.
You can wear your hair in pig tails.
You are encouraged to wear long stripey socks and layered clothing of various textures and materials - dressing is fun - in a silly costumey kinda way.
But now I am preparing myself for more business like attire. If I want to be taken for a communications professional I better have the clothes to back it up.
So I tried.
I mean it, I really tried.
I went shopping on the Sunday following Black Friday - Grey Sunday? and looked for suits.
I even found one - it fit, it looked fine, it was a grey stripey number...
But I could not deal.
It is very hard to see myself in a suit and accept myself in a suit.
I don't think it was the suit's problem - the suit seemed pretty together, no noticeable neuroses.
I think it was me.
So before I get serious about editing my wardrobe, I think I need to edit my brain or my eyes or both in order to accept this new phase of my existence.
I hope one day to be able to say to myself:
"It suits ya."
Ha ha.

time keeps on slippin'

Today I want to talk about editing my time.
I try - I really try to edit my time in a mature and responsible way.
It sure is hard though.
There is school and work and homework and housework and friend time and family time and me time and there is no way there is enough time in the world for all of that time.
but you make one small mistake and suddenly you are trying to live in the future while doing work from the past and trying to live in the present.
It is enough to make your head spin - it makes me nauseous just thinking about it.
I know I am not supposed to have a life right now - I know that - I try really hard to live by it. It was just one weekend - I swear - but Sunday found me finishing my homework at 2 a.m. and now the rest of the week seems shot
Aw nuts!
So, what is my editing lesson of the week.
Never make any mistakes with your time managment - you will never stop paying for it.

editing my eyeballs - my red burning eyeballs

Today I would like to talk about how much I would like to take out my eyeballs, set them in a big bowl of saline, and let them swim around for 8-10 hours.
What happened?
2nd year CreComm was going so well and then WHAMMO!
November hit and everything went crazy on the crazy machine.
I so tired.
I can't wait for December when all I have to do is work full time for three weeks.
Ah, livin' the dream.

Headlines are music to my ears

I loved this headline assignment for editing.
I wish I had more time to pour over the headlines and catch every little nuance and rhythm.
For me, writing headlines is a combination of writing poetry and solving a puzzle and writing a piece of music.
Like poetry, you need to catch the essence of the story in as few words as possible without losing the essence of the tale.
Like solving a puzzle, you need to amass possibly disparate elements into one cohesive and comprehensible whole.
Like writing music, you need to latch onto a catchy riff. Find a rhythm that the listener/reader finds irresistible so that they will be compelled to continue onto the story to hear/see the rhythm develop itself completely.
Headline writing is an art form, and I think that I'm in love.

edit your health

I'm doing pretty well on the trying to keep healthy front.
I have cut out a lot of the carbs in my diet, I eat loads of fruit and vegetables, I exercise for 30 minutes four or five times a week.
Sounds pretty good right?
But I am smoking cigarettes.
I started smoking in university when you could still smoke in the rehearsal hall at the Black Hole Theatre (Oh those were the bad ole days)
I smoked and smoked and smoked.
and then one day I just decided to quit - cold turkey.
and it took - until it didn't
my major downfall was when I moved to Korea and the smokes were two bucks a pack - it was simply too irresistible for me.
and I smoked and smoked and smoked
the time has come
it's time to stop again.
Unfortunately, I have been trying to quit, off and on, for the last couple of months with not very much success.
I've tried the gum, I've tried cold turkey, but the will is really lacking.
but it's gotta happen and it's gotta happen soon - like yesterday.
so here I go again. editing my behavior for better health.
wish me luck!

books into straw

I love books.
I'm a book slut from way way back.
I love the look of them, the smell of them (yes I sniff them don't judge), I love having them around for company.
When electronic book readers came out I dismissed them out of hand. They could never replace MY books. Without the tangible smell and feel of a book I would be missing out on too much of the overall experience.
Well, I was wrong.
I love reading on my iPod. I almost never read paper books anymore. The convenience is amazing. I can pull out my iPod anywhere and get a couple of minutes of reading. If I want to read in bed and not disturb Andrew - no problem. The iPod provides enough light for me to read without disturbing him. Forever banished are the constant hassles of trying to find the perfect night light. I can carry hundreds of books with me at a time - something I could never do with paper copies. I can look up words online, highlight favourite pages and phrases without ruining the book and the application keeps track of my highlights so that I can review them whenever I want. And I get to feel morally superior because I am not culpable for destroying trees in order to print the books I read.
Margaret Atwood has provided readers with another way  to feel morally superior and I applaud her for it. She has released limited copies of her newest sci fi novel in straw. Yup, straw straw. It is considered a waste product for farmers and is perfectly usable as an alternative to lumber.
I can't see myself going back to paper products any time soon but I am glad there are such great alternatives on the market.

super editing

I know that we have all ready discussed altering your face and your body in editing class but I think that this particular alteration deserves special attention.

philippines-superman

A fellow in the Phillipines is so in love with the image of Superman that he is altering everything about himself to look like his hero.

I don't even know what to say about this or where to begin - this goes soooo beyond changing your nose because you think it's too big or tucking your tummy 'cause you got a lil muffin top.

OK - Deep breath - Here we go

First of all let's talk about skin whitening. Imagine how much more empowering this entire exercise would be if he wanted to look like Superman but kept his own skin colour. Then he would at least be showing people that you can be super in any colour skin. The fallacy that white skin is superior (or super) to any other colour is a common misconception in the east. When I lived in Korea I couldn't count the number of advertisements I saw for skin whitening or skin bleaching. Every makeup store had bleaches and powders and creams and masks which guaranteed lighter skin for its clients. White is best according to every commercial you see. Girls that have fairer skin are automatically considered to be more beautiful than girls with darker skin. I think this whole turning yourself into Superman thing is crazy on the crazy juice but if he was going to do it I sure wish he had kept his beautiful brown skin.

He says that he is making these changes because Superman has always been his hero, but what is really important is the good deeds you do every day. He thinks that anyone can be super in their day to day lives.

Oh really?

If he really thought that then I don't see why he would even consider abdomen surgery to give him a six pack. He also plans to have metal inserts placed in his legs so that he can be as tall as Superman. I imagine that is an incredibly expensive and painful surgical operation.

I hate to go all judgey on the dude but I am afraid he is quite unwell. Instead of media exposure he should seek professional medical help and learn to really see the Superman that lives inside him instead of turning himself into an action figure.

Poor dude. I feel super sad for him.

He's just this guy, you know?

Today I'm thinking about editing my status. On Facebook it's reasonably simply, you simply mark yourself as in a relationship and you're pretty much done with the whole thing. In real life it's a bit more complicated.

When I meet people for the first time, they'll turn to the handsome man standing next to me and ask me who he is. Good question.

I used to call him my lover because I thought that was kind of hilarious and pretentious. I would say it in a super fruity accent and laugh my ass off.

That wore thin kind of fast and there are not a lot of options.

We are not married so I am absolutely not calling him my husband. No way. No can do. Never never never.

Calling him my partner is out. We are not in a business together. We are not gay. Nope, it just doesn't work for me.

Life partner is even worse. Seriously. Blech!

When I get really desperate I will call him my boyfriend. But I hate that. It makes me feel like a teenager. It makes me wonder when we're going to get pinned, or if he'll ever ask me to the sock hop.

So, when I am meeting new people, this is what I try to do . I indicate the man I love and I say, "Nice to meet you. Who's this? This is Andrew."

editing your family

This is a pretty personal post, and I know that it will elicit some strong feelings.
I try to be a responsible person.
I try to take my commitments seriously.
I try to do the right thing.
Family is important to me, and I really try to be there for my family as much as I possibly can.
I live in a tiny but adorable house, and my boyfriend and I live quite well off very modest incomes.
When my mom needed a place to stay for two months last year, we just blocked off the living room and gave her a place to stay and food to eat and did the very best that we could.
Same thing for my sister this summer - we are not rich people and we certainly do not live in a palace, but it makes us feel really good to help people who are important to us, so we do as much as we can.
It's not altruism. We are very selfish people, but it makes us feel good to help our family when we can.
I am building this picture because I am going to admit something that some people will perceive in a negative light.
I have edited out my unfamily.
I don't know how many other people have this kind of unfamily in their life, so I should explain.
My mom has had this best friend for 30 plus years.
For my whole life, I have been expected to show up at this best friend's house for all of the major Jewish holidays.
I never interact with these people at any other time of year.
When I was a kid I didn't really question the arrangement, but things are different now.
I not only have my own  family obligations, but also my boyfriend's family obligations.
All of these obligations can add up to a lot of time spent celebrating and socializing and listening and caring.
And then there is the unfamily.
I am expected to show up a couple of times a year for holidays, but any other time of year it's like the unfamily doesn't exist.
My own family went through an incredibly difficult year, last year.
The unfamily was not around for any of it.
They just expected that we would show up for the holidays as usual and do our pretend family thing and then go back to our regular lives.
Well, I am now saying enough is enough.
I do not have time in my life for unfamily or unfriends or unanything really.
I am editing out the extraneous so that I can focus my time, energy, and love on the things that really matter to me.
I am editing out the un.

sidewalk editing

brand new sidewalk on my block

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As I walking home yesterday, I noticed that they had finally poured the new cement for the sidewalk.
And along with the new cement came the graffiti - the signatures, the hand and foot prints, the initials, the initials of couples who pledge their undying love, and God. Yup, I found God on my way home.

I don't object to this kind of graffiti - actually I don't object to most graffiti - it's this undeniably human impulse that we have been practicing for thousands of years - the insatiable desire to unequivocally state -  I was here, remember me. Essentially, editing your landscape.

The same impulse that drives us to edit our homes, decorating and designing, putting our personal stamp on the place we live, also drives us to edit the world around us - putting our own personal stamp on our neighborhood, our city, our planet. We are very small and the world is very large, and one way to feel more a part of things is put a visible reminder, out there, that we exist, we count.

And that brings me back to God. What's God doing in there? Honestly, if I was to tag a sidewalk my impulse would be to leave my own mark, but I am intrigued that someone else was so strongly driven to leave the mark of God instead. What does it all mean? I have no idea but I like the question that the God mark poses every time I pass that piece of sidewalk. Maybe that was the anonymous God signers attention - to get people to think about God, even for a second. Editing your landscape to bring a moment of spiritual awareness or consideration - that's some strong editorial work.

colour my world?

Last week in editing class we read and talked about the usage of "or" vs. "our" in words and how that is one of the ways we differentiate Canadian spelling vs. American spelling of words.

I had a real life example of this difference.

When I was teaching in Korea I spelled "colour" on the white board, and the Korean middle school students went crazy.
They were really excited because they thought their foreign English teacher had spelled a very simple word incorrectly.
This flurry of excitement turned into a great teachable moment because it gave me the opportunity to explain the different kinds of spelling you can find across the English language world. They were really interested to learn that even in countries that are so close geographically - in their minds American and Canada are basically the same country - there can be such a difference in spelling of such a simple word as color/colour.

What is the lesson for the editor?
It's important to be aware of what your geographical audience expects as standard spellings for common words. When in doubt, edit for your writer's primary audience.

giveaway weekend

Giveaway weekend in Winnipeg is the epitome of editing on a city wide scale. I kind of love going through people's stuff so I took a drive on Saturday to see what was out there.
Oh, before I get to that I should do this:
giveawayweekend.stm
The city of Winnipeg's giveaway site cracked me up.
They advise the public to label the items with "free" stickers so that people won't just walk off with anything they see on the lawn. I understand that people lost lawn mowers, deck chairs, and rumour has it, a cat, on previous weekends. Seriously, I genuinely love my city.
The city goes on to warn about things that should not be given away:
Top of the list? You guessed it - items infested with bed bugs.
That is a handy tip.
OK enough about the City.
I live in Elmwood, so I don't know about other people's experiences. Maybe there were some super fine pockets of giveaway this weekend. But in Elmwood all I could find were a couple of really sorry looking CRT monitors and I don't think people can even give those away. They are going to have to take those sorry things back inside. I don't think you're even allowed to throw those things out. Can this be true? Are you really doomed to have your CRT monitor follow you around for the rest of your life because you can't get rid of the damn thing?
So what's the moral of this editing story?
The city of Winnipeg should do stand-up and editing your life of things you don't need isn't so easy when you can't find anyone to take your stuff.

CUPERTINO

Slip into my time machine for my first blog about editing.
Let's go back to about 1989 and the beginnings of spell check.

Spell check is a valuable editing tool, but it is only one tool an editor should have in his/her toolbox. Heavy reliance on one editing tool can lead to spectacular, and even global mistakes.

I speak of the Cupertino effect.
In the earliest versions of spell check, the unhyphenated word "cooperation" was often changed to Cupertino, which is the home base of Apple Inc. in Silicon Valley.
Astonishingly, Cupertino rears its ugly head in NATO, World Health Organization, and European Union documents of the time.

Within the GEIT BG the Cupertino with our Italian comrades proved to be very fruitful. (NATO Stabilisation Force, "Atlas raises the world," 14 May 2003)

Safe blood transfusion services are being addressed in Freetown and Lungi, using WHO RB funds in Cupertino with the Red Cross Society of Sierra Leone and in Bo by MSF/Belgium. (WHO/EHA report on Sierra Leone, 1 May 2000)


A consistent and efficient tax reform approach also will facilitate the shoring up broader EU and G-7 support for similar reform strategies -- this in turn would make international Cupertino easier. (European Parliament, "Towards a Re-Orientation of National Energy Policies in the EU? - Germany as a Case Study")

(citations from http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002911.html)

What is our editing lesson of the week?
No system is foolproof.
Use technology, use your eyes and brains, use other people's eyes and brains.
Cupertino is the key to effective editing.