donut.nu

I’ve been doing a lot of things lately. And by “doing a lot of things” I mean “thinking about doing a lot of things”. The thing I’ve actually been doing is playing entirely too much WoW.

Three site-related things I’ve been considering:

1. Starting a book blog.

I’ve been pondering reviewing all the books I’ve read as well as posting about all the books I’m excited about, my library loot, my 2009 reading projects, and other book-related things.

My problem: The amount of books I read in addition to the amount of time I spend thinking about books would take over my entire blog and thus might push away people that have no interest in reading about my reading habits.

My other problem: Reading is the hobby that says more about me than all of my other hobbies combined. Pushing it out of this blog entirely is sort of like separating it from myself.

Possible solution: I could post a weekly, bi-monthly, or monthly wrap-up of everything important going on at the book blog as well as link reviews in my book log and project pages, etc. It’s easier for readers to skip over one to four posts per month than 66.7% of a blog.

2. Redesigning and recoding all of my fanlistings as well as my fanlisting collective.

This desperately needs to get done. It’s been on my to-do list for about two years, perhaps longer.

Plus I’ve recently been approved for the Ron Perlman, David the Gnome, and The Boondocks fanlistings so I need to create those as well.

3. Adding a new layout here!

I’ve designed a layout for my fanlisting collective that, honestly, I want to put up here instead because I really like it. It’s rainbow though. Not rainbow all over the damn place. Just…rainbow. I like rainbows.

I still really like the current layout, but it’s really old. I could always consider adding a theme switcher, though.

While I’m not dead, Briar.cc is. I’m officially finished moving to my new domain, Donut.nu.

I’ve also rewritten most of the about section. A few kinks are still being worked out, particularly with the film and book logs. In addition, I’ve upgraded to WordPress 2.7 which was a bitch to upgrade from a plug-ins perspective.

My new RSS feed is feeds.feedburner.com/donutnu

Why Donut.nu, you ask?

Well, me being lazy, I’m just going to copy paste what I wrote under the website section.

My first name is Donna. One of the most awesome people on the planet, my friend Patricia, calls me Donut. She informed me that dona in Spanish means ‘doughnut’–at least in Venezuela. There’s also a slight Veronica Mars connotation there for me.

Oddly, I loathe doughnuts. Except the powdered ones. Those are delicious.

I chose it because it’s short, sweet, easy to remember, and still personal at the same time. It’s a name I can keep for a long time.

I’ve decided to go by my first name from here on out rather than my middle, particularly since Donut.nu is based upon said name.

I am not dead! I felt as if I was, but alas, am not. I was going through a rough personal time including, but not limited to, death in the family. I’m still trying to get through it and I realize now that had I been regularly clearing out my mind here, I might feel better.

I’ll moving to a new site within the next few days and will be posting much more often.

Despite the bad, a few good things have happened since my last entry:

1) I went to see The Phantom of the Opera when the tour came to Seattle. It was a-effing-mazing and worth every penny of the exorbinant amount I spent on my four row-center tickets. Despite the fact I totally couldn’t afford them.

2) I took a day trip to Bellingham with my friend who was catching the ferry to Alaska.

I loved it, particularly Fairhaven. It was pouring down rain when we arrived by train and the first thing we see is a fish and chip shop being run out of a double-decker bus with a gazebo on the side for indoor dining. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen at that point. We were there for over half an hour and yet our food managed to be burn-your-mouth hot the entire time.

Click on image to go to source.

It’s particularly good that I loved it because I’ll be moving up there when I transfer to Western Washington University for their elementary education program.

I want to get my master’s degree in Library and Information Science (an MLIS) so I want to get my teaching qualifications as an undergraduate while still being able to double major. The education program before the double major is a five and a half year program. Adding in another concentration to that might add a considerable amount of time, but I’m hoping to plan it well.

3) My friend and I have resolved to travel through Europe for three months in 2009, unless one of us wins the lottery in which case we’re replacing the words ‘Europe’ and ‘three months’ with ‘the world’ and ‘forever’. Likely from September to December. I’ve done the math on what I need to save (plus what I was saving for my formal education, but am now deciding to blow on travel–a different sort of education, but arguably of equal importance) so I’m in the process of trying to find an additional job or two that pays the same or better than my current job.