Yesterday (Easter Sunday) I was, indeed, hiding under a rock. Freddy and I went to church, then to his mom's house to do the Easter thing with the nieces and nephew. I was a good girl and did not take my laptop*. ALAS! I log on to Twitter this morning and find out I indeed missed quite a bit of brouhaha.
Quick run-down of the events: Why did gay books disappear from Amazon?
Why the "glitch" story doesn't really click: David Niall Wilson: Glimpses Into an Overactive Mind - Amazon Sales Rank and Some Reality
What to do about it: Smart Bitches - Amazon Rank and Dear Author - Amazon Rank
Or, if you're so inclined, here's something else you can do: Jackson Pearce's Amazon FAIL (or: Twilight Made Me Gay)
Other good posts (this list will be updated as I find more links. And find the ones I already read, but closed the window before I realized I needed to blog about it):
After Ellen - What Amazon's "Glitch" Says About American Pop Culture
Narcissistic Ramblings... - And ANOTHER Fail Sister: #amazonfail
Urban Dictionary: Amazon rank
[EDIT] Feministing.com - Amazon Fail: Certain "adult" books (like mine) are de-ranked
[EDIT 2] Neil Gaiman - Amazonfail Sunday
[***UPDATE***]
This guy claims he did it. I don't understand all that code-speak, so here's the explanation in layspeak (from Fiction Matters).
The guy quite clearly has an issue with gay people. I can't tell how much of his post is serious, and how much is him trying to be funny (I'm not going to waste time out of my life to find out). Was he just trying to pull some prank on the gay community? Was he out to target authors (gay and straight)? Did he really find Heather Has Two Mommies that offensive?
Did he choose which books people "flagged"? Or did people choose the books? If the guy chose the books, why are feminist books and books that deal with disabilities also being targeted?
And as I was writing this, FictionMatters updated the post, because this guy says the first guy is a liar (which is not entirely surprising to me). I started to read the post, but it speaks a language I do not understand. So I stopped, since I prefer not to pursue fruitless endeavors.
[***UPDATE***THE SEQUEL***]
And there's more! Jessica Valenti from Feministing (who's had two books de-ranked) has an update, after her editor spoke to an Amazon rep.
[***UPDATE***THE SEQUEL***PART DEUX***]
There seems to be an "unofficial official" response from Amazon. FictionMatters has a summary and links to the "unofficial official" explanations.
* I took my AlphaSmart, in case Script Frenzy inspiration hit me. (It didn't.) But I left all Internetzed devices at home.
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Showing posts with label failure. Show all posts
Monday, April 13, 2009
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Mid-Life Crisis... at the tender age of 31
I have a lot of anger. And resentment. And anger.
I don't know exactly where it's all coming from, but it mostly gets taken out on my students.
A big chunk of the anger comes from them -- from the apathy running rampant through them. It kills me. I can't deal with it. I wish I could absorb it, at least a teeny, tiny part of it, so I could let so much of this slide off my back. Or over my head. Whichev.
The problem is I have a hard time understanding apathy. I care too much, that's usually been my problem. And when passion, enthusiasm, and energy meet with apathy... well, they get buried deep in the festering tar pit of apathy and eventually emerge, bubbling to the top, as boiling, bitter bile.
And anger and resentment.
There's anger and resentment about other things, too. Things that are over, but that doesn't mean that *poof* the resentment is gone.
Bush is gone. That's good. But he was bad. He did bad things. And stupid things. And, the worst part, is We The People let him do them.
Yes, we need to get over the past, because, as Mufasa says, "It doesn't mattah, it's in the past!" However, we can't just go, "Okeley-dokeley!" and walk away. We need to fix his screw-ups, and we need to remember what happened so we don't do it again. And we need to find a way to bring our schools back to passing, which at this point -- and no, this is not all Bush's and NCLB's fault, the system was ailing before they came along -- will require a complete overhaul. An education revolution.
Maybe tomorrow I'll wear my beret. And grow a beard. (Oh, wait -- I can't do that. What about growing my leg hair? Is that revolutionary enough? People probably won't want to depict that on t-shirts, though... and I can't say I blame them.)
...
This was supposed to be a cathartic blog post. It was supposed to bring me some sort of epiphany to help me get rid of the anger, so I could have a good day tomorrow. Instead, it turned into mumbled rambling... if I were not sick with The Sickness of Death, I might have been able to think more clearly and pull off this blog post.
I need a lead box. Where I can put the Apathy, so it will not affect me.
I need to let go of the anger and embrace the togetherness. The aisle-crossing. I need to be as big as the moment we lived today, the new era we are living. (I'm not feeling overly confident about my abilities.)
Or maybe I need some medication. Which is probably not a bad idea, but that takes time and money. Also, I deeply resent having to get on medication merely to deal with my job. There is something wrong with a profession that drives so many of its members to anti-depressants.
At least I know one thing: with a mid-life crisis at 31, I'm dying at 62. I don't have to stress out about having enough retirement funds.
I don't know exactly where it's all coming from, but it mostly gets taken out on my students.
A big chunk of the anger comes from them -- from the apathy running rampant through them. It kills me. I can't deal with it. I wish I could absorb it, at least a teeny, tiny part of it, so I could let so much of this slide off my back. Or over my head. Whichev.
The problem is I have a hard time understanding apathy. I care too much, that's usually been my problem. And when passion, enthusiasm, and energy meet with apathy... well, they get buried deep in the festering tar pit of apathy and eventually emerge, bubbling to the top, as boiling, bitter bile.
And anger and resentment.
There's anger and resentment about other things, too. Things that are over, but that doesn't mean that *poof* the resentment is gone.
Bush is gone. That's good. But he was bad. He did bad things. And stupid things. And, the worst part, is We The People let him do them.
Yes, we need to get over the past, because, as Mufasa says, "It doesn't mattah, it's in the past!" However, we can't just go, "Okeley-dokeley!" and walk away. We need to fix his screw-ups, and we need to remember what happened so we don't do it again. And we need to find a way to bring our schools back to passing, which at this point -- and no, this is not all Bush's and NCLB's fault, the system was ailing before they came along -- will require a complete overhaul. An education revolution.
Maybe tomorrow I'll wear my beret. And grow a beard. (Oh, wait -- I can't do that. What about growing my leg hair? Is that revolutionary enough? People probably won't want to depict that on t-shirts, though... and I can't say I blame them.)
...
This was supposed to be a cathartic blog post. It was supposed to bring me some sort of epiphany to help me get rid of the anger, so I could have a good day tomorrow. Instead, it turned into mumbled rambling... if I were not sick with The Sickness of Death, I might have been able to think more clearly and pull off this blog post.
I need a lead box. Where I can put the Apathy, so it will not affect me.
I need to let go of the anger and embrace the togetherness. The aisle-crossing. I need to be as big as the moment we lived today, the new era we are living. (I'm not feeling overly confident about my abilities.)
Or maybe I need some medication. Which is probably not a bad idea, but that takes time and money. Also, I deeply resent having to get on medication merely to deal with my job. There is something wrong with a profession that drives so many of its members to anti-depressants.
At least I know one thing: with a mid-life crisis at 31, I'm dying at 62. I don't have to stress out about having enough retirement funds.
Monday, January 05, 2009
First day back at school = fail.
I fully planned to stay at school until 5:00 to finish putting together my semester exams and reviews. Because of the ice and freezing rain, I left at 4:00 (school's out at 3:45). I fully intended to do the work at home, but never got that far.
Nor did I finish typing in the edits to my dissertation. The dumb cat kept getting in my lap, which makes typing very hard. So I read my book instead.
Then I took a nap.
All in all, a pretty worthless evening. Hopefully I can manage to be more productive tomorrow.
PS: thank you to my readers! All... three of you. TRIPLED IN SIZE WITH ONE POST! :P
Nor did I finish typing in the edits to my dissertation. The dumb cat kept getting in my lap, which makes typing very hard. So I read my book instead.
Then I took a nap.
All in all, a pretty worthless evening. Hopefully I can manage to be more productive tomorrow.
PS: thank you to my readers! All... three of you. TRIPLED IN SIZE WITH ONE POST! :P
Monday, September 01, 2008
Own Your Failure
I owned my failure. What about you?
In related news, I'll leave you with this video (stolen from this brilliant blog). I'll address this later on, once I figure out how to load the audio files I need onto Blackboard so my students can access them.
In related news, I'll leave you with this video (stolen from this brilliant blog). I'll address this later on, once I figure out how to load the audio files I need onto Blackboard so my students can access them.
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