Frustrated Meeting Doodles

I attended a meeting today. I thought it was going to be a cool thing where I tested out a new software program my company's getting ready to use, but instead I had to watch a poorly-edited video of someone showing us how to use the program.

The narrator's voice was quite pleasant- she had an accent that sounded British, but infused with elements of an American South accent.

But the video was still kind of long, and there were parts that didn't apply to us, and I was starting to feel like I was going to explode, so I started doodling a little.

It made me feel better and carried me through until we got back to the relevant stuff.

Hairy Man with a Hairy Hat

Today, for no particular reason, I doodled a man wearing a coonskin cap on a post-it.

Step Into My Office

I have completed my first week at my new job.

I'd just like to talk for a moment about my office. As mundane as it might seem, I've never had my own office before. Now I do, and it's pretty awesome.

My supervisor seemed a bit apologetic when she showed me on my first day, saying that my office was a temporary one and that I'd have a real one with a window sometime in February when the building's construction is finished.

I couldn't really understand what was wrong with the one I have now.

I have two desks, and a spinning chair so I can switch between them easily. I have a work laptop with TWO additional computer screens attached to it. The desktop switches between gorgeous landscapes. I have a handful of nice pens, highlighters, and sticky notes from the supply room. I have an extra chair so people can come sit down and chat with me when they're passing through the hallway. I have a door that goes directly to the conference room, so I'll never be late for a meeting. And now I have a sign with my name on it outside my door so everyone will know where to find me.

I have some extra space in my office that I don't know what to do with yet. I might need some sort of artificial tree.

A lot of my coworkers have decorated their office doors for the holidays. I'm going to do that as well, and I've got some ideas I'd like to try out if I can, but I drew a little picture of a Christmas tree on a sticky note and put it on my door for the time being. It works well as a sort of minimalistic decoration. 

I'm thinking of all the nerdy things I can bring to decorate and liven up my office. I'm also trying to gauge whether I can bring a blanket to work without getting spoken to. Most importantly, I'm trying to decide on a method of organization for all the various papers I have floating around.

If you're on the fence about getting a desk job, you should definitely listen to your heart and do what you think is right. But it's really cool to have your own office. I'm just saying.

The Chronicles of Ticket Pony

Once upon a time, a small child visited a space museum and lost a toy pony in its depths. An employee turned the toy in to the Lost and Found at the ticket desk.

For days, the pony hoped that her owner would come back to rescue her, but the child never returned. She waited under the ticket desk with the other lost, unclaimed items and watched the hustle and bustle of the cashiers selling tickets and memberships to excited museum patrons.

One day, the ticket desk staff took pity on the pony. They adopted her as their own and taught her how to ring up ticket transactions, void coupons, staple receipts to maps, and organize the office supplies. The pony was a bit small to take on such big tasks, but she tried her hardest because she enjoyed having work to do and being able to help people. The ticket desk staff took photos of her and shared them with each other to remind themselves what hard work looks like and to brighten each other's spirits.

We on the Guest Services team have seen a lot of Lost and Found items come and go. One time there was a gigantic Spider-Man action figure that looked like Iron Man from a distance. Once there was a single sandal with a child's love note tucked inside it. Once there was a selfie stick that became a remarkably good lightsaber when it was extended.

And then there was the pony.

The pony is supposed to be the character Rarity from the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic TV show, but we nicknamed her "Ticket Pony."

 
http://mylittlepony.hasbro.com/en-us/ponies/rarity/

We had some very slow days at the museum in between the Fall Break and Thanksgiving crowds. To stop ourselves from going insane from boredom, we would sometimes arrange Ticket Pony on the desk to make her look like she was helping out or just commenting on life at the ticket desk. We would take photos of her and upload them to our Snapchat stories so that our friends who weren't working could see what Ticket Pony was up to each day. It didn't affect our ability to help museum guests, and it quickly became a running joke.

Since I'm leaving the museum to start a new job, I decided that I would hire Ticket Pony to be my honorary replacement. So I took her home one day, used an old doll hairbrush to clean up her mangled hair, and made her a lanyard so she could fit in with the rest of the team.

(Please don't use mobile devices while driving. It's very dangerous.)

I'll be looking forward to seeing the continuing adventures of Ticket Pony when I move on to my next job.

Dreamlocked Is Now Online

Ladies and gentlebloggers, I'm proud to announce that my graphic novel is now on this site for your perusal! To find it, simply go to the tab that says "Online Portfolio." There, you'll be able to read Dreamlocked, the graphic novel that Sawyer Traver and I spent months working on. Even if it looks like it took five minutes, I swear we spent months doing it. Making a graphic novel is exceedingly hard work, and I have a newfound respect for graphic novel and comic book artists.

I sneaked my online portfolio onto my site a few months ago, since I was applying for an internship that required one. I didn't make an announcement about it because I was still trying to work out a few kinks, but consider this my formal announcement!

My online portfolio is comprised of works I've written for my creative writing and English courses at the University of Alabama. These are the works of which I feel most proud, and the works I think are most fit for internet viewing.

If you were interested in Blue Justice, the poetry chapbook about the butt-kicking policewoman that I created last spring, I also uploaded that. I tried so very hard to include the cover in the file, but when I included the image in the PDF, the image always came out distorted and discolored when I uploaded it to Google Drive. I'll be working on that with my technicians, but in the meantime, I've provided a link to the blog post in which I uploaded the cover.

Enjoy! And if you run into any problems while browsing, let me know in a comment. I'm sure there are probably a few kinks that I haven't yet worked out...