Valentine's Day and its déroulement

Today was supposed to be a day of French analysis.  It ended up being a day of Googling and fiddling, with an hour and a half of French analysis thrown in somewhere in the middle.

It all started when I decided I should subscribe to two of my professors' blogs: chem and bio ... then I thought, "Hm, well, perhaps I ought to not seem like quite so much of a stalker (these are private class blogs, after all), and have something they can see when they click on me."

Since 2005, I've been keeping a semi-regular blog on Windows Live Spaces, which despite its setbacks became a familiar beast.  I much preferred Blogger, but I only kept my writing blog on here.  

I created a couple new blogs: this one here and one for surveys and other fun stuff - that way, they'd be kept separate and those who wanted more serious talk could come here without distraction, etc etc.  I played around with the names (they are all in Quenya, or one of J. R. R. Tolkien's two Elvish languages: quenaleparma means speaking-book, carneapalma means red book, maquenaleparma means asking-book, and lumenyare means history) and got it all set in stone, so to speak.

It then struck me that I've wanted to syndicate my blog on my Twitter for quite some time.  Easy enough, eh?  Did a quick search and came up with Twitterfeed; logged them all in there and voilà!  

That was the easy part.

My next thought was to the four years of archives on my Live Space.  What to do with them?  Surely there was a way to get them integrated into Blogger.  Did a bit of clicking and oh look, you can import XML files.  Okay, let's do a Google: "export Windows Live Space to XML".  I came up with a Python script and some instructions.

I'd never used Python before.  I'd barely coded before, but my father is a developer and I've dabbled in it with his guidance. I poked around the instructions, did more Googling and got the script to work (plus how many to geek? seriously?) just as it should.  Clickety-click, import file.

Google: ERROR ERROR ERROR YOU DINGBAT.  (Or perhaps more politely, à la Google: "Oh snap!  You screwed up!")

Me: WTH?

Google: There were some problems uploading your file.

Me: ... okay ...  

Google:  *polishes monocle*  I, my dear fellow, use Atom.  My sincere apologies.

Me: Oh.  Okay.  Um, accepted.

So more Googling was in order, to see if I could convert this huge chunk of XML to an Atom feed instead of the RSS 2.0 feed which it currently was/is.  No luck for a while, but then I spotted a code-snippet of .NET, which I had worked with a wee bit and which my father specializes in.

I play with it a bit and soon give up: there's no GO button!  What do I do?  How do I compile this?  ... This is what happens when you haven't coded since eighth grade in any capacity except a bit of CSS and a bunch of HTML.

So I go ask Dad.  He proceeds to puzzle over the problem for a good hour or so: builds a form, assigns functions, tries it out a dozen times.  It spits back a string of Chinese characters.  He looks at the code carefully and realizes it won't do what I want it to, even though it's supposed to.  He says keep Googling.

So I do.  In the meantime, I've started using Google Reader, which is neat not only because my boyfriend's last name is Reader (\me: easily amused) but because it lets me group everything in one place!  Hurrah for RSS feeds!!

I end up posting on the Google Reader board after trying a few more things and nothing working.  I give in and sign up for a WordPress account, where the RSS 2.0 works like a charm and all my archives are there, on a much faster site.

After that, I analysed an extract from Gabrielle Roy's The Tin Flute (in French), writing the 1000-word analysis in about an hour and a quarter, which is good.  It's not my best, but it'll do. 

I now have to work on a handout for my English class, in which we are studying Albert Camus' The Outsider.  This must be done for Tuesday (no problem there).  Oh, and I still have math to do: forgot about that.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!  Or Happy Singles Awareness Day if you're not paired off or don't feel like being lovey-dovey (although singles can be lovey-dovey too).  I get to see my Valentine tomorrow (yay), and his gift is nearly wrapped and ready to go.  I'm excited.  

On Monday comes a long day: leaving at 7.15 in the morning to get everyone in my little amateur student theatre troupe for a discussion at nine.  The discussion will be fun I'm sure; I'm looking forward to it; but I still have to write down all my answers to the discussion questions ... 

I suppose I will go do that now, once I've finished formatting and adding space for later additions in this English handout.