I'm in New York this week, having come in with several other Penn Staters to attend the Web 2.0 Expo. Since we weren't signed up for workshops today, we took the afternoon to explore the city. Having lived here for a number of years, I felt reasonably certain that, armed with my trusty iPhone and subway apps, I could negotiate finding various points of interest. After a delightful lunch at Burgers & Cupcakes, off we went, Audrey and I focused on knitty city, an upper West Side yarn shop and then Sephora, Joe and George good naturedly tagging along behind us.

Oh, silly me.

Because in a blink of an eye, one moment I was walking down the street to makeup mecca, and the next, I was on the ground, faceplanted into cement. Seriously. Face on cement.

I am nothing if not complicated.

In my personal twittersphere, there has been an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with being unfollowed by certain people in certain circles. Okay, specifically Brad J. Ward, a young gun who is a very focused wiz and entrepreneur. I myself have been followed by, then met in real life, then unfollowed by this guy, so I understand why others in the same circle might be miffed. Today Brad wrote a post about how he uses Twitter and you should read it. Yeah, it's like everything else Brad does: it's serious, it's intense, it comes with charts and graphs, and is pretty much waaaay over the top in trying to explain why he has unfollowed people. But it is also a really good description of how he uses this social media platform, and it closes with a great question: How do you use Twitter? In fact, it has me so fired up that, despite the fact I have a huge amount of work to do today, I feel a pressing need to answer the call to respond. While Brad makes some very good points, he is dead on: the way he uses twitter is not the way I use twitter.

Today is Veterans Day here in the United States, where we pause and thank our veterans and current military personnel for their service to their country. We all know someone who has served our country. I'm married to one. I met my husband while I was a freshman at UT Austin and he was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, in basic training. He then went on to serve in South Korea, where he spent time on the DMZ at the ripe old age of 20. He enlisted in part to take advantage of the G.I. Bill, but also because he believed it was the right thing to do. I honestly cannot fathom feeling called to serve my country, to protect the freedoms we take for granted every day. I do, however, know what life is like without those freedoms. I've lived overseas. Not just any country, mind you, where some things might be a bit unfamiliar. I lived in Saudi Arabia, the veritable antithesis of American life.

I do something stupid and you're all there for me.

Wow.

This post is written specifically to you, my social network. This week, I've done something crazy.

I quit my job.

I hear the shrieks now. "What??!?! Are you nuts?" "Don't you know the economy has taken a nose dive??" "We just saw you at a national conference! Why didn't you say anything then?" Believe me, I doubt you're saying anything to me that I haven't already said to myself. But I think being at High Ed Web only highlighted that, in Milwaukee, I was surrounded by people from across this hemisphere who love what they do and put up with a lot in order to do it. You tend to see that kind of drive and motivation within social media and higher ed. It's one of the many things that trips my trigger. In my case, however, the technologies I use, the events I engage with because I love being part of them were not things I was doing for my specific job at Penn State. They were things I was doing for me. The last four conferences I've been at? Not funded by my department. That's right, folks. Over $2000 in hard earned currency for two national conferences, because I felt that strongly about presenting and connecting with others in this field. I've also had to take vacation time in order to pursue the kind of professional development I've felt was necessary and relevant to my interests. Thank goodness for friends who felt it was important I was in the mix as well, because they let me room with them to make this happen. Those are good people, folks. I don't take that lightly.

I can hear you, you know. You're sitting there, shaking your head, asking "Why?"

She climbs a tree and scrapes her knee,
Her dress has got a tear.
She waltzes on her way to Mass
And whistles on the stair.
And underneath her wimple
She has curlers in her hair!
I even heard her singing in the abbey!

She's always late for chapel

(but her penitence is real).

She's always late for everything

(except for every meal).

I hate to have to say it,
But I very firmly feel
Maria's not an asset to the abbey.

I'd like to say a word in her behalf:
Maria makes me laugh!

How do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Maria?
A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown!

Many a thing you know you'd like to tell her,
Many a thing she ought to understand.
But how do you make her stay
And listen to all you say?
How do you keep a wave upon the sand?
Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

When I'm with her I'm confused
Out of focus and bemused
And I never know exactly where I am
Unpredictable as weather
She's as flighty as a feather
     She's a darling!
                                    She's a demon!
                 She's a lamb!

She'd outpester any pest
Drive a hornet from its nest
She could throw a whirling dervish out of whirl
She is gentle! She is wild!
She's a riddle! She's a child!
     She's a headache!
                                    She's an angel!
           ..... She's a girl.

Oh, how do you solve a problem like Maria?
How do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?

I'm in Milwaukee for the beginning of the long anticipated high ed web conference (#heweb09). So far, we've had our fair share of flying by the seat of our pants mode -- arriving a day early without a room, or a plan, or a roommate with a plan (thank goodness that one was rectified). Wandered around the hotel a bit before finding the planning committee putting the finishing touches on swag bags (I walked in just as everything was finished--my timing is dead on) and getting ready to a walking tour of the conference rooms. Introductions were made easy for those with picture twitter avatars, and I felt like I had stepped into a room of friends I hadn't seen in a while.

Isn't it like that?

I wondered what would be the worth of my words in the world
if i write them and then recite them are they worth being heard
just because i like them does that mean i should mic them
and see what might unfurl

i think of the significance of my opinions here
is it significant to be giving them does anybody care
just because i'm into this does that mean i should live like it
and really do i dare

art, art i want you
art you make it pretty hard not to
and my heart is trying hard here to follow you
but i can't always tell if i ought to

so i pondered the point of my art in this life
if i make it will someone take it and think it's genuine
will they be glad that i did 'cause they got something good out of it
will they leave me and be any more inspired

i question the outcome of the outpouring of myself
if i tell everyone my stories will this keep me healthy and well
will it give me purpose, to this world some sort of service
is it worth it, how can i tell

art, art...

-- Tanya Davis

wa⋅ter⋅shed

  / ˈwɔtərˌʃɛd, ˈwɒtər-/ [waw-ter-shed, wot-er-] 

It's quiet this morning. The weather is turning cooler, encouraging burrowing under the comforter and lounging, with no place to go, nothing to do. Leaves are turning and falling, and the black walnut trees are filling my backyard with their green pods, so that soon I'll have to collect them before the next mowing. I love mornings like this, where I have a fresh pot of coffee, and plenty of space to think.

I was partially adopted. I doubt many people realize that about me. It's not a tragic story; upon discovering I was being given away, the father stepped in and took me to raise on his own. This was highly unusual "back in the day," and probably accounts for a good bit of my skewed outlook on life. We were a pair for several years before he found someone to add to the mix. The woman he ended up marrying grew up in Iowa and vowed to escape at the first opportunity, so it was a compatible match: he procured a replacement mother to raise me while she, in turn, got a golden ticket out of the Midwest to explore the world. Given the situation, I didn't have much in terms of a family tree. My father's family was long gone, himself orphaned at an early age and raised by his sister before joining the merchant marines and the war effort. As for my mother, to this day I know nothing of the woman who was set to give me away, not even her name. The adoption, however, did bring with it a set of half-relatives and foreign family traditions.