Somebody please come save me March 30, 2007

I agreed to be a reviewer for a journal called eSharp (the education, social sciences, humanties and arts review for postgraduates) and they sent me an article to review. Y’all, it’s BAD. Not just a few grammatical mistakes or stylistic issues. BAD, bad. Like I almost wanted to cry it was so bad. I e-mailed the editors to ask what the hell I should do about this. There is no way this thing is at all publishable in its current state. It basically needs a full rewrite. There are so many grammatical, punctuation, stylistic and hell, even SPELLING errors. He/she used the word “ostensible” at least 3 times, and each time in an incorrect context. GAH!!!!

Ironically, it’s a musicology article about the male-female dichotomy in Galina Ustvolskaya’s music. What a shame that I couldn’t stay in the field. Say what you want about my musical ability, but at least I can write. I can’t believe this idiot thought this shit was publication quality!

Problem solved March 28, 2007

I got the proof back yesterday and it wasn’t nearly as cute as I had hoped it would be. That made the decision a lot easier. We are now going with these invitations. Hopefully they’ll be here Friday or Saturday and I can get to work on them and have them mailed out by April 23rd.

Buyer’s remorse sucks March 26, 2007

I ordered the invitations and response cards yesterday. I’m waiting on the proof, but already I’m afraid that I won’t like them. The actual design is really cute. (Click here to see.) I’m worried about the wording. See, they’re formatted for “Mr and Mrs Smith and Mr and Mrs Johnson request the pleasure of your company at the marriage of their children, Bob and Sally (in large script font) blah blah blah.”

The problem with this is that we’re not using that wording format. Our parents aren’t inviting people to the wedding or hosting it (not to be confused with paying for it…you can contribute nothing financially and still be a host…I digress). We are. We don’t want to totally shaft our parents, because both of his (and my dad) have contributed generously to help us out. So we’re using the whole, “Together with their parents, Heather Mymiddle Mylast and Scott Hislast, request the pleasure of your company….etc.” Looking at the invites, they’re not really formatted for this type of wording, without doing some significant moving around and respacing.I’m actually kind of freaked out, even though it is a very VERY minor detail. I placed the order explaining how I wanted the default changed, so I hope they understand what I want. Otherwise we may have to go w/ another style (which isn’t a huge deal, just extra work for me).

This probably makes no sense to anybody else, and I’m not freaking out, just kind of annoyed. I don’t get bogged down in details. I’d like to be able to worry about one less thing. In other news, I’m picking up my wedding dress today from the seamstress. All the alterations she did ended up costing $65. I couldn’t believe I got off that cheap. Some people spend $100s on alterations, though they require a lot more work (like taking in or letting out for weight changes). I sure hope I like the results.