Party in Six Days

So, my Christmas party is in six days. Hooray for all who are coming, I pity those who are not (Banff, cruise, exams... lame excuses people!)

I figured I'd post a reminder regarding my desire for competing gingerbread creations. Last year there were only two... We must have more gingerbread creations!

So to spur you on in your creativity, the blueprints for my creation are below. Christ Church Anglican Cathedral in Fredricton, New Brunswick [the real thing]. Designed by famed Gothic Revival architect, Frank Wills. This has long been one of my favourite peices of Canadian architecture; I hope I can do it justice with this oh-so-delicious recreation.

Writing Resources

Having just completed my term paper, it occured to me that I have a whole stack of resources which might have been helpful for my fellow post-secondary students. If you aren't done your semester yet, feel free to borrow some of these. If you are done, sorry, but you are welcome to use these next semester.

• The Chicago Manual of Style 15th Edition (The writer's bible)
• Turabian's "A Manual for writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations" (Gold)
  
• Strunk & White's "The Elements of Style" (The writer's apocrypha)
• Reuben's "Science and Technical Writing " (Excellent for anything scientific)
• Blake & Bly's "The Elements of Technical Writing (Great for those scared of big books)
• Hacker's "Rules for Writers 4th edition" (The 'illustrated children's book' of writing resources. Very accessible and very handy)
• Campbell's "Coherence, Continuity, and Cohesion" (Painful to read, but the theory is good)

I have a few others lying around which I'd also be glad to loan out.

And, of course, if you ever need advice, editing, or critiques, I'd be glad to help. I'd like to think that the last four years of school have molded me in to a half-decent technical writer.

Hugs

The following video is about free hugs. It is quite awesome. Yes, this does seems to counter what I said over the last few weeks, chalk it up to me being a complicated individual.

[Edit: I was going to try and do some awesome embedded video here but it just wasn't cooperating. Check out the link]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diccc7je8tg

Fa la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la

Once in a while, God gives me an evening where my voice actually sounds good. I love it, I sing loudly in my car, loudly enough for me to actually hear the echo and realize that I'm actually sounding decent. It happened singing Christmas carols in the car the other night, and I couldn't help but think about the movie Elf and the short scene where Buddy and Jovy sing together (in the ladies washroom, no less). This is something I have long desired (the singing, not the ladies washroom). I want to sing to, and with, the lady of my life. And, by golly, on those nights where my voice doesn't sound like a strangled cat, I can't help but dream that I could sing to that lady and woo her with crooned lines like "Your eyes are like starlight now" or "I'll take your hat, your hair looks swell."

Thankfully the good voice doesn't come around often, I'd hate for the ladies to miss my oh-so-charming stutttters and misspeaks.