Decisions, decisions...

I wonder sometimes why it's so difficult for me to take an hour or so, sit down in front of my computer, and try to get some of the thought typhoon that's pretty much constantly spinning around in my brain out for the world to see. First sentences are hard, for one thing. Trying to find something me-related that's interesting enough to talk about is almost impossible, since life at the moment is a fairly unexciting mix of working at a job I keep solely to pay the bills and spending my evenings either doing homework, attempting to learn how to program, or browsing reddit. And the amount of things that interest me are too numerous to even know where to begin discussing them.

I've been having a hard time coming to grips with that last fact lately. I've never been the type of person to choose one thing to focus on since there are so many things I find completely fascinating, but while that curiosity has been a really good thing for the most part, it has definitely hurt me when it comes to choosing what I want to do with my life. I was sitting in class today at the UW with a room full of full-time residential students who were all talking about their Directed Fieldwork opportunities, their ideas for Capstone projects, and their choice of electives, and everyone sounded like they knew exactly what direction they were taking their degree. I went into my program knowing I wanted to go into either academic reference librarianship or library administration, but a year and a quarter in, I find I have no freaking clue what I want to do with my MLIS.

Working in a library still appeals to me, but not at all with the same intensity that it did after I graduated from Linfield and was dying to find a job I didn't hate. There have been a lot of things that have turned me off from pursuing a career in library work, which is sad to me, but it's okay. Working in a library would most likely be quite fun, but I think I'd be much happier working with libraries as opposed to within one of them. But where does that leave me in this degree? The vast majority of my classmates either already work in a library or want desperately to find a library job, and most of the classes are designed to help us along towards that end. I just registered last week for winter quarter classes, and honestly, I chose them completely arbitrarily.

The idea behind a successful career, or so I've been told my entire life, is to choose the one thing among many that you're most interested in, and chase after it with everything you have. My problem? I don't have a favorite interest. I like almost everything. Astronomy, chemistry, video game production, bartending, sound editing, writing, genetics, programming, book editing, architecture, owning a small business...the interest list goes on. Because I haven't devoted years of study to any one of these things, none of them are a feasible career option, since I'd be up against people who have done that and are therefore much more capable and qualified than me. And honestly, I don't know if I'll ever be capable of choosing one thing, which is a frightening thought when I think about the likelihood of ever getting a job that pays more than entry-level. I'd sure like to know what the hell I'm doing, but I don't know when (or if) that'll ever be an attainable state of mind for me.

Sorry guys, I didn't exactly plan for my first post in months to be so full of worrying. To make up for it, here's a picture of Sophie and Mal being adorable! :)

Sleeping with my windows open tonight \o/

Today was the kind of day I've been wanting to have for a very long time. Woke up relatively early after some crazy dream involving old people, car crashes, gun fights, and trains, dawdled around on the computer for a few minutes, then shut it off and headed out the door for some adventuring!

My wanderings took me first to grab some food along 45th, after which I walked through some really cute, quiet Wallingford neighborhoods down to Gasworks Park. It's almost impossible for me to do anything productive at Gasworks thanks to the amazing assortment of people parading around, and today was no exception. Highlights included watching a toddler meet her first golden retriever, seeing some kid totally eat it while running down the hill with a kite (he was fine...just a little grass-stained), watching about a million duck boats full of embarrassed tourists sail by, and nearly falling asleep in the warm grass only to get jolted awake by the sound of a full-size steamboat chugging about 30 yards offshore.

After a couple hours trying and failing to read, I decided to head to the UW and see if the libraries had anything interesting to take home, so off I went down the Burke-Gilman. Made a quick stop at the Wall of Death (yes, this is a real thing with some pretty funny Yelp reviews), then headed to Odegaard to find that almost everything I'm currently interested in reading had already been checked out. I've been wanting to get back on a China Mieville kick ever since I went to the reading/Mieville-lovefest that went down last weekend at Chop Suey, but I think I'll have to wait until my SPL holds come through. Boo.

After a quick dinner, I snagged some milk tea and headed back to Volunteer Park to wind down my day atop the water tower. The observation deck has some of the prettiest views of Seattle I've seen yet, and either no one knows about it or I've just managed to hit it at low-traffic times because it's almost always empty while I'm up there. There are three or four pretty comfy benches up there, so I commandeered one and settled in to watch the sun set over the city.

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I really wish I could press pause and just linger where I'm at for a while. Sitting in one of my favorite spots with a good book, feeling the slightest hint of a warm breeze swirl through the gated windows at the top of the tower, nice cold bubble tea within easy reach, no sound but the wind, birds, and panting of the crazy dude that ran up and down the stairs of the tower what must have been 7 or 8 times. It felt incredibly serene - I do love spending time with my friends on weekends, but there are some days where it's nice to not have to hold a conversation with someone, or worry about whether they're really truly okay with Thai food instead of Mexican, or inwardly lament the amount of money you're spending on alcohol because after you turn 21 that becomes the primary weekend social activity. I came down from the tower because I knew it'd be getting colder out as the sun fell below the horizon, but the whole way home, I wished I could just push that pause button and walk in the glow of the sunset through the streets of the city I love forever.

Oh yeah, and today I successfully finished my first year of graduate school. Almost forgot about that.

What Being a Librarianarchist Means to Me

A couple of days ago, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin posted an entry on his blog that discussed the future of the library, and in doing so, ruffled a massive amount of feathers across the librarian community. I saw a lot of derision towards his post, sparking statements like:

It’s always a little galling when a non-librarian tries to tell information professionals how to do their jobs. (from this post by Katy Stoddard)

or another zinger from Bobbi Newman:

But honestly I wish he’d just stop writing about libraries. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a great writer, I think I own all of his books, but I think he should stick with what he knows, and clearly that’s not libraries.

Each blogger goes on to argue against Godin's apparent misperceptions of the basic responsibility of libraries to provide equal access to all types of library materials (and yes, the rabid defense of the book comes up yet again here), and each make some decent points. I saw a similar reaction from many of the librarians and library blogs I follow, and while I do understand where these sentiments are coming from, it was absolutely staggering to me that so many people that reacted in outrage missed the point of his post entirely.

P.C. Sweeney's post on the issue comes the closest to summing up my own viewpoint on the controversy raised by Godin's writing. I too think Godin hit the nail right on the head with his article, and while I would support some of the opposition in its defense of physical artifacts as valuable (and remaining so), I felt myself thinking Yes! Finally! Someone that understands that libraries are in a critical position right now, especially in the public eye, and that there's so much to look forward to in their future if people are willing to shift their perceptions of the function and purpose of a library! And what lends extra weight to his arguments, in my opinion, is the fact that he isn't a librarian. Like Sweeney wrote:

Remember that this guy isn’t a librarian at all. He is library user and an advocate for libraries. He is exactly the kind of person who should be telling us what a library is.

Bingo.

Godin's vision of the future of libraries is immensely exciting to me, and very much in line for what I picture in my own future as a librarian and information professional. His prescription?

The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.
...
The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.

He paints a picture of libraries as the "local nerve center[s] for information," which is a picture I've held dear to my heart since I was a kid, and one that gets even more vibrant the more time I spend in libraries. I see them as not just an institution to preserve the collective human body of knowledge, but as the keystone of any community and as a societal institution in the best place possible to promote the evolution and exploration of new and innovative ways for us as humans to interact with each other. The vast majority of the articles and blog posts and uproar I've been seeing about the death of the public library in the modern age has been primarily fueled by nostalgia - people that remember how libraries changed them as a child and want to preserve the same feelings of excitement and discovery they felt for future generations. This is all well and good, and I share in that nostalgia myself. But what I'm afraid of is that people will be so tied to that idea as solid grounds for the defense of libraries that they'll fail to see what Godin presents in his article - a widely shared public perception of libraries and librarians in the modern age that doesn't give two shits about your sentimental arguments.

Upon acceptance to the UW, I took on the Librarianarchist persona as a bit of a joke - I wanted to be the most badass librarian on the block, and help destroy the stereotype of librarian as fuddy-duddy. But now that I'm starting to understand where society stands on the role of libraries and how divided we as librarians and info professionals are amongst ourselves on where our efforts should be directed in the face of dramatic social change, I'm thinking Librarianarchist is starting to feel like more than a tongue-in-cheek moniker. The way I see it, in branding myself this way, I'm branding myself as someone that does have a deep appreciation for where things have been, but who is primarily concerned with shaking up those old perceptions and expectations and looking forward to where we could go. And that is immensely exciting to me.

Move Accomplished!

It's finally over! The move I've been anticipating/dreading/stressing out about for months is finally over. I'm now the proud resident of a beautiful studio on the corner of Boren & Union in downtown Seattle, and I couldn't be more happy about it. I walked to the grocery store and back last night (something I'll probably repeat almost daily), I walked to and from the office yesterday, and I've been getting an extra hour of sleep per night, which has made an enormous difference in how I feel during the day. I think I could get used to this. :)

School, once again, took a backseat during this period of dramatic change in my personal life, so I know I've got some catching up to do. Thankfully the readings and lectures this module seem to be a little less intense - trying to wrap my mind around the intricacies of metadata structure and the history/future of copyright during the same week on top of couch-surfing and preparing to move was a little too much to handle. I also failed to turn in an assignment, which I've never done before. It was just a quick exercise that wasn't worth a lot of points, but I still feel pretty terrible about it.

Speaking of class stress, I made the decision this weekend to not register for summer courses. I'd been contemplating taking Archival & Manuscript Services and Government Publications, both of which were being offered online, but after a lot of consideration, I decided I need a break. I don't want to burn myself out, and I can always take these classes later when they're offered again. Plus, I've got a lot of little side projects I've been wanting to work on, but haven't had the time, and taking the summer off would give me the opportunity to focus on something fun and creative for a while!

Okay, off to work. I'll try to keep a diary going of all the craziness I'm sure I'll run into living downtown, so look forward to those posts. Oh! And I also wrote another post for Hack Library School that should be up on Wednesday, so look forward to that too! The topic of choice this time around was LIS Overload (appropriately enough), and while I didn't get as in-depth as I'd have liked with the post, I'm hoping it'll be a good conversation starter on the site. I'll probably expand on my thoughts later in this blog.

The switch finally flipped!

Learning about LIS has, in more ways than I realized until just now, been less like learning about a new subject and more like learning a new language through immersion.

For the first two quarters, I found myself really struggling not just to understand the concepts and ideas being presented to me, but to really understand the vocabulary used to illustrate them and to figure out how they all connect to each other under the big umbrella that is LIS. I managed to do relatively well in most of the classes I took, but it felt a lot like when I was back in high school taking chemistry or physics or calculus - I knew how to do use the tools I was given, but I didn't really understand how or why they worked.

Then, all of a sudden, I realized about a week ago while slogging through the readings for 550 that holy shit, I'm actually getting this. The last week of readings and listening to lectures has been so much better than anything I've done so far in the iSchool because for the first time, I really feel like I'm at almost 100% comprehension and retention. I understand what we're talking about, I understand the relationships between the ideas and concepts we've studied in the past and how they relate to what we're doing now, and most importantly, for the first time I really feel engaged in the material. It's becoming less of a chore and more exciting than I could have imagined!

The parallel to learning a new language is uncanny. I've never had to learn a language through immersion, but from everything I know about how it works, it usually takes around six months for everything to click, and once it does, learning becomes so much easier and more enjoyable. Took me slightly more than six months for my own switch to flip, but even a week of this increased comprehension and engagement has more than made up for the six months of struggling to understand.

I really feel like I'm where I'm supposed to be now, and that's an incredible feeling to have. ^_^

Wait, I have time to blog?

As of three days ago, I'm officially homeless! Well, technically it's only for two weeks until my new lease kicks in on April 16th, but I'll be couch-hopping for a week until my folks go out of town next Monday. Then I'll have a giant house all to myself for five glorious days. Cable TV, a fully stocked kitchen, four beds to choose from...bliss. ^_^

School's been going pretty well so far this quarter. I didn't feel ready to start back up at all, which made for a scary first couple of days. I'm determined to not fall so far behind this time. It definitely helps that I'm really starting to feel personally engaged in the material consistently instead of sporadically - something I really had issues with last quarter.

At the moment we're talking about the Semantic Web and ontologies in Organization of Information and Resources (basically Cataloging 101), and in Information in a Social Context we're starting up discussion on Sociotechnical Perspectives in the Information Society and starting to form up groups for our quarter-long project. The way this project works, we've been asked to research an information issue in a local institution and report our findings at the end of the quarter in both paper and presentation format. I decided I wanted to target DRM, since it's popped up so often recently (the Google Books settlement, Amazon and Lendle, etc.). Got a great lead on a possible topic within the UW itself, so I'm hoping I can get my group on board with that one! Many of the institutions directly involved in these debates are local, so hopefully I'll be able to have some direct contact with them over the course of the project. Getting information directly from an involved party will definitely give an oomph to our findings.

Other than moving and school, there isn't much going on. Sakuracon is coming up in a couple weeks, which is going to be a complete blast. I know quite a few more people who are going/volunteering this year, and somehow I think living a few blocks from the convention center (and nearby bars) will be nice. :3 Oh! And I'll also be writing another guest post for Hack Library School in early May! It's going to be on LIS overload, appropriately enough, so if any of you MLISers have something you'd like to contribute (or that you'd like me to address), just let me know!

Je suis inquiet

As of 3:30pm today, my closet and dresser hold exactly half the clothes they used to, my massive stack of important papers has been sorted and stored, and a snowboard I didn't own yesterday is leaning against my wall. Not bad for one day. And my new camera battery finally came, so prepare for a ton of photo posts in the coming weeks. :3

I'm finding that the fewer things I own, the more comfortable I am. Sounds a little backwards, I know, but honestly one of the weirdest days of my life was when I realized I couldn't fit everything I owned into my car anymore. As nice as it is to have my own bed, dresser, desk, and other pieces of furniture, I'm finding that I don't particularly like owning them. And nothing, nothing feels better than tossing out old stuff in preparation for new and exciting people and places in the near future.

I'm not one to hang onto much from my past. Some people scrapbook, some people just shove everything into boxes and periodically go through them. I toss almost everything. I rarely go through the stuff from my past, and usually when I do, it turns out to be more emotionally stressful than pleasantly nostalgic. Not that I've had a bad life at all. I've had it pretty great so far! I just don't particularly enjoy reminiscing about the person I used to be. I tend to keep the really important memories and people from my past in my present (and hopefully in my future). I don't need or want to go through old diaries to dredge up things I left in the past - they were left behind for a reason.

I've been talking for a long time about leaving Seattle, and I think it might be time to finally do so. I'm about to sign a six month lease to live downtown, and while I'm definitely excited to spend the summer and early autumn living in one of my favorite places, it feels less like the fulfillment of a long-held goal and more like an appropriate farewell to a city that I love but need to leave as soon as possible.

There's a time for settling down and seeking out a comfortable constancy in life, but I'm too young for that shit.

Odds and Ends

Given that I just finished up my last assignment for winter quarter on Sunday, now would be an appropriate time to reflect on how the quarter went. What I did right, what I did wrong, and what I plan to change. Lucky for all of you, though, I'm not one for long-winded reflection. :)

This quarter was not my best for several reasons. That's okay. Next quarter will be different. That's pretty much all I've got to say about it, soooo on to other things!

The admissions committee meeting went pretty well, but it was definitely different than what I'd expected. Going into it, I'd been prepared to fight tooth and nail for the people I'd ranked highly and against the people I didn't think would be good additions to the cohort, but the high and low rankings were fairly consistent between readers, so we spent very little time reflecting on the ends of the applicant spectrum. When it came to debating the middle ground though, voices got raised, people got frustrated, and tempers were lost at a couple points, but in the end I think we turned out a stellar group of future iSchoolers.

I feel like I should say a little something about my guest post on volunteering in the Hack Library School blog, but I think the comments that came out of it speak more eloquently than I can. Volunteering has had good and bad experiences, and I appreciated everyone's opinions as expressed in the comments. One point that came up in a comment was the possibility that by writing on a negative experience, I might be implicating someone that could potentially be a reference for me someday and thus shooting myself in the foot. Let me say this to that:

If refusing to censor my experiences in a library, be they good or bad, results in me inadvertently closing a door job-wise in the field, then so be it. I've had to tiptoe around the sensibilities of other people my entire working life, and I'm sick of playing the game. If it's in a field I couldn't care less about, fine. I'll keep my head down to keep my position. But if it's about something I care about, then I can deal with ruffling the feathers of a few librarians who might be less open to criticism. Sharing my experiences in an open, honest way is to me much more valuable and worthwhile to myself and others than sugar-coating them. LIS as a field needs this kind of honesty and openness, and I'm happy to contribute and respectfully hear the opinions of others, even if they differ from mine. If this is a naive or idealistic point of view, fine. I've already experienced plenty in the LIS job market to jade me appropriately, but I'm still optimistic, and I prefer to keep my outlook that way.

That being said...

Reading List for Break!

- Feersum Endjinn, by Iain M. Banks
- A Passage to India, by E.M. Forester
- A Canticle for Leibowitz, by Walter M. Miller Jr.
- The Long Ships, by Frans Gunnar Bengtsson
- World Without End, by Ken Follett

And IF the library gets them to me in time:

- Charles Jessold: Considered as a Murderer, by Wesley Stace
- Sex at Dawn: the Prehistoric Origins of Modern Sexuality, by Christopher Ryan
- Hating God: the Untold Story of Misotheism, by Bernard Schweizer

Not a bad list, in my opinion! I only hope I can get to them all - my break to-do list rivals the ones I wrote for myself during the quarter. I'm also re-watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, so that's going to suck up some time. I'd highly recommend this series to anyone who's interested in anime but perhaps a little intimidated by the vast spectrum to choose from. It's quite gory, but I completely love it - the storyline is extremely well-crafted, rarely has an animated series made me crack up so frequently, and it's easy to get really invested in the characters.

And with that, I'll close with my random overheard of the day:

"South Kirkland park and ride - the place where dreams come true."

Informal poll:

Now that my readership includes more than two people, I'm wondering: if I want this blog to potentially go somewhere professionally, should I keep the language to a minimum? I'm torn on this, since I like to write how I speak and hate having to censor myself. While I don't go around dropping the f-bomb every other word, it does pop up from time to time. What do you guys think?

I'm now apparently using sleep as a last-ditch effort to avoid homework. I don't feel like this is a productive strategy, but as it turns out, sleeping 3-4 hours a night for as many weeks at a time isn't very conducive to good health. Go figure.

Items of note! There are lots of them! So many exciting things have been happening lately it's really tough to keep track of them, so I'll start with today's events.

Event #1:

I've officially applied and put down a deposit for my very first solo apartment downtown! Living on my own in the city has been a goal of mine for a really long time, and I am so incredibly thrilled that (if the application goes through) it'll be happening! I've loved living with the roommates I've had, but living alone has had an irresistible allure to me.

I'd gone up on Capitol Hill yesterday to the Stockbridge Apts (on Boren & Union) to tour a different studio that I'd called them about last week, but it had been leased out from under my nose right before I got there. Undeterred, I made an appointment to come back today at lunch to look at a different studio, and I made sure I was first in line this time. Turned out to be a smart move, since the second I walked into the studio, I fell in love. I didn't get to toodle around as much as I would have liked since the previous tenant's still living there (made for a slightly awkward tour), but what I saw I really liked. It's got a pretty enormous kitchen, for a studio anyway, a massive walk-in closet, a nice full bathroom, and a good sized main room with a pull-down murphy bed. Not sure I'll take advantage of that, since I've got a bed already, but ah well.

Now I just have to cross my fingers and hope I'm good enough rent-requirement-wise to avoid having to put down last month's rent in addition to a deposit and first month's. And start getting used to the idea that I'll soon be crossing the official poverty threshold. O_o Whatever. It'll be worth every penny.

Event #2:

Guess whose guest post about volunteering is getting posted on the Hack Library School blog tomorrow? *points to self and tries not to squee too loudly*

Event #3:

Save the UW iSchool. Seriously. The emails that have flooded my inbox over the past couple days are scaring the crap out of me regarding the future of not just my education, but the education of everyone that wants to be part of the iSchool in the future. Hack Library School put up an awesome blog post this morning that gives more detail on the problems we're facing, and there's a great facebook page that you can "like" to show your support. Better yet, write a letter to our legislators telling them not to be a bunch of idiots by cutting funding for higher education. Here's a form letter to get you started, courtesy of our lovely GPSS (look for the 2/28/11 Action Item if you're reading this a while after I've posted it).

Other exciting things are coming up, including the MLIS Admissions Committee decisions meeting next Friday and what promises to be the classiest party on record on Saturday, so I'll probably issue a debriefing once things cool down a bit. At times like these, I just tell myself that whatever happens, everything I'm stressing about now will be irrelevant in a month. Some small comfort, I know, but it helps a little!

What a weekend

Before I sink into an episode or two of Dr. Who, ladies and gentlemen, my weekend:

I started my weekend off with a late-night show at the Funhouse. One of my cohort members is in The Lights, a pretty rad Seattle band, and they were playing a "last show for a very long time" set Friday night. I've never been to the Funhouse before, so I recruited a couple friends to come with me and spent the night alternately rocking out to The Lights, making fun of their crazy opening act (PartMan PartHorse - just...you know what? Google them. The pictures will explain everything.), and trying to avoid creepy drunken men.

After a restful 4 hours of sleep, I headed to Lake WA Technical College for Day One of my motorcycle certification course. The riding was a lot of fun, but would probably have gone better had it not been snowing the entire time we were out there. Trying to do anything more complicated with my hands than opening them and closing them turned out to be pretty hard, and over 24 hours later I still haven't regained full sensation in a few of my fingertips. Hoping that goes away eventually...

The cold, my overall comfort level going into Day Two, and my now phlegmtastic head cold all contributed to my decision earlier this morning to head to the college but defer my test to another time. I was starting to really get the basic maneuvering towards the end of yesterday's riding session (and I aced the written test), but I didn't feel quite comfortable with my skills to dive into the more complicated maneuvers like swerving we would have done today, so I think I'll wait and practice on my own a bit more before heading into the test. Still planning on financing a bike or buying one outright on CL in the semi-near future though, so I'm not too disappointed. I just like learning at my own pace - especially when it comes to any sort of brain --> basic motor skills task. As my cohort members might say, I'm definitely not a bodily/kinesthetic learner. *rimshot*

Speaking of school, I'm actually starting to see a light at the end of the long, dark, scary tunnel that has been this quarter! My 520 group put together and turned in a kick-ass Top Ten Reference Sources for Independent Filmmakers list earlier today, and despite several technological snafus, I was able to record and post my Twittorial for 560! Here's a link to it if anyone's interested. I was really bummed about a couple glitches in my slides. In the 2nd slide, I'd successfully embedded a hyperlink, but forgot it probably wouldn't translate when using a screen capture recording program. I had also recorded a short video that was designed to play during one of my slides, but for whatever reason, it wasn't working when I tried to play the slide show. I managed to execute a last-minute solution, but I was still sad that I'd figured out something cool, but my system wouldn't allow it to happen.

Okay, time to go. Theraflu and Dr. Who are beckoning me towards a much needed break.

Why I Need a Time-Turner

Katie's Master List of Stuff Currently On Her Plate (and a de facto apology to everyone I've been or will be either avoiding or freaking out to):

• LIS 520
• Keeping up on a pile of readings/lectures
• Posting on the boards daily
• Finding useful sources for our Top Ten Ref Source group project
• Trying not to grind my teeth smooth whenever I get comments/grades back from search exercises and reference source reviews
• Consulting with my "client" for my class-sanctioned formal reference interview (good lord I'm glad I worked in ref at Linfield...this would be way harder to tackle if I hadn't)
• LIS 560
• Keeping up on another pile of readings/lectures
• Posting on the boards daily
• Figuring out a topic, writing, putting together a slide show, and recording my presentation to the class using the readings/lectures/discussions as my base
• Researching and writing my instructional program for dramaturgs
• Not dropping the ball with my small group for this last module
• Social Media
• Keeping up with: Twitter, Facebook, this blog, possible future blog posts for Hack Library School, Hack Library School's blog, other LIS blogs
• Social Stuff
• Big-time drama explosions in both the friends and family categories
• Other
• Getting to help a friend do some research for her final degree projects in linguistics. I'm SUPER excited about it, but oh lord help me.
• Volunteering at SPL, and possibly L-Net if I do decide I am, in fact, insane
• THE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE DECISIONS MEETING IS IN LESS THAN A MONTH DASJ;LKDHFA;JKHWELJKFHASC;JKHFDA O______________o (i.e. Reading 30-40 grad student applications and help decide whether their futures lie at the UW or elsewhere)
• I'm moving out of my apartment at the end of March and I have no idea where I'm going to end up yet
• Spring Registration tomorrow

Ridiculously enough, the most peace I have during my day is when I'm at work. Go figure.

You know what, though? Bring it. Bring it ON.

Back in Black

Okay. Mild freak-out over. Life exploded a little bit on me over these past couple weeks, and school regrettably took a backseat while I sorted things out, but I'm starting to get back on track. I know this quarter won't be my best, which is okay, but I'm still going to do the best I can to finish out strong. :)

In other exciting news, I finally got my wing tattoo finished last night! It hurt WAY more during this sitting than my first, but I'm attributing that to a couple things that were different this time.

1) My first sitting was at the tattoo convention last August, so the adrenaline rush of having work done in front of hundreds of people definitely helped keep my pain level down. No such rush in studio this time. The endorphins kicked in for a while, but they only stuck around for about 20 minutes, so there was a lot more ouch this time around.

2) The amazing art and interesting people that surrounded me the whole time were great distractions. There's a lot of great art in the studio, but being face down on a table kind of prevents you from looking at it.

3) I wasn't expecting to have to get so much touch-up on the wing that was already colored, so that was a bit of a surprise. Kind of like going in for a cavity filling and being told you need a root canal.

EDIT: Here's a picture! Don't know why I forgot to upload one in the first place. *facepalm*

Pain (and subsequent soreness) aside though, I'm really happy to have them done. I'm not lop-sided anymore! And it'll all be healed up when sun dress time arrives in a couple months. Which I am starting to get really excited for, thanks to the sunshine I've been seeing the past few days. I might have even trained myself to like IPAs by then too (my current beer-related project)!

Alright, time to wrap up my volunteer shift and head out for some coffee/food and study time. I'd like to do some more application reviews, but I've been having issues logging into the Sharepoint. I think it might have something to do with an unsecured wireless connection vs a secured connection. *shrug* Ta ta for now!

Feeling a disconnect

I've been feeling a bit disconnected from school lately. Granted, there's been plenty going on in my personal life to keep me more than occupied in my spare time (some good, some not so good at all), but it still feels weird. It's like someone hit the rewind button and I'm back at the start of last quarter with all my frustrations and insecurities about constantly feeling behind.

I've done pretty well so far this quarter keeping up with assignments, despite the massively different structure of this quarter's classes. Lots of smaller assignments with something due every week, a small group for each class, and some overarching projects that are looming larger and larger on my horizon are all filling up my whiteboard calendar pretty effectively. (Sidenote: I am so so glad I bought that thing. I'm not big on paper planners since I tend to forget about them, and I'm not a huge fan of Google Calendar, so having something too big to ignore or forget about nailed to my wall is keeping me on track much better than storing everything in my head.)

The past couple days I've been trying to get back into the swing of things by starting to read the MLIS apps I'm responsible for. I've read through three of them thoroughly so far, and have glanced at quite a few more, and I've got to say it's just as intimidating to do so as I was expecting. I remember going through the application process myself, and how incredibly nerve-wracking it is to condense your entire life into a couple pages, a resume, and a transcript, and send it all off to a committee of people who only have that to use to try and understand you. I poured my heart into my personal statement, and sending it off to the UW (as well as Syracuse and the U of Maryland) and getting acceptance letters from all three in return felt so incredibly validating. And now I'm in a position to give someone else that same opportunity. Lots of someone elses, in fact.

I hope I'm going about this with the right attitude. It's incredibly humbling and a huge honor to even be on this committee - I'm only halfway through my 2nd quarter at the UW while everyone else (including the student reps) have all been there for much longer. I feel like my inexperience can actually be an enormous plus, since all the frustration I'm currently going through with my classes is exactly what all of these future iSchoolers will experience upon entering the program. ESPECIALLY if they're like me and had to abandon their plans of going full-time residential and try to rework their lives into the Online program. I ran across an applicant today that said she'd prefer residential, but would accept online, and I found myself really wanting to advocate that she join the Online cohort. I want to put her in the same place I was put almost a year ago and see how she reacts. And I have the sway to possibly make that happen. Augh.

Sometimes it feels like it's going to take a miracle (or long series of miracles) for me to get through this program. I'm definitely committed to this choice I've made for myself, and I really love my cohort and all the smart, fabulous people and their smart, fabulous ideas I get to read and talk about every day. It's just hard sometimes to maintain the connection I want to have with everyone, and with what we're learning.

Boo-urns. Bonus points if you get the reference.

Ready or not...

Sometimes I really miss the games I used to play when I was a kid. I grew up in a house with a huge front yard, complete with a perfectly manicured lawn lined by a rock wall, and a good sized patch of forest surrounding the house on three sides. I was lucky enough to live close by a couple families with kids roughly the same ages as me and my siblings, and since dial-up and DOS games just didn't cut it for entertainment most afternoons after school or during summer break, the neighbor kids would come over and we'd play outside.

As a kid I was shrimpy but fast, so I was definitely a fan of any game where speed over brawn was necessary to win. Tag, freeze tag, TV tag, toilet tag (don't judge...it was way fun), Fire in the Jungle...any game I could use to lord my superior running abilities over the rest of the people playing, I was in. Games of stealth and trickery were no different: hide 'n seek, sardines, kick the can, capture the flag, or even just a good squirt gun fight all topped my list too.

P.E. in elementary school and junior high was just as fun. Even though I couldn't throw a red rubber ball to save my life, I soon proved to be nearly impossible to hit, and I vividly remember games of Elimination where I'd be sprinting laps around the gym while balls and muffled curses thudded into the walls right behind me. At my elementary school, once a year, they'd set the gym up like an obstacle course, stick empty pop cans on all the obstacles, turn the lights off, and have you crawl around the course trying not to make any noise lest they nail you with the start-over spotlight. And don't even get me started on Field Day. Best damn day of the entire school year.

Why did we ever stop playing those games? All the games we grew into as adults are governed by so many rules. As kids, breaking the rules of the game or adapting them on the fly usually wound up being the fun part, but as adults, breaking the rules destroys the fun and starts the shouting matches. No one ever gets together just to play a game of freeze tag anymore, and the people that do see it as a novelty, not a normality.

Right now, I'm sitting at my desk finishing out my day at work before heading to a pub for some catch-up time with a friend followed by listening to some lectures for grad school and probably going to bed early. But sometimes, especially on days full of adult-ness like this one, I kinda wish I could be playing hide and seek instead.

A not-post

I was sitting in the Suzzallo reading room a few days ago working on some school stuff, and I thought hey! Why not start taking notes on stuff I could put in a blog post later? I haven't written anything in a while, but I'm feeling too lazy to write much at the moment, so maybe...a list! Yeah! I like lists! Lists are easy, and ADD-friendly! So without further ado (because I seriously need to put in some time on my 560 User Needs Assessment that's due, oh, TOMORROW *panicky flailing*), a collection of random thoughts. I might eventually run with some of them and turn them into a real post, buuuuut I might not. Who knows.

My original blog post opener:

In my Instructional and Training Strategies class right now, we've been asked to read a couple articles that have quietly started the wheels turning in my head regarding why exactly I want to do what I want to do with my life.

While listening to the first story in the This American Life episode "Image Makers" (Ep 294):

"Who does her own librarian version of 'Hello Escanaba, are you ready to rock?'" --> "Hello kids! So what are you here to see today? *pauses* A rock concert! That's right!" *facepalm*

Volunteering during the kids rock concert at SPL killed me - patrons were upset, expecting the library to be a quiet place, and yeah, for 364 days out of the year, it usually is. So what if for one afternoon, they want to be loud?

Why the hell can't libraries be fun, exciting places where people meet, collaborate, and engage with each other?

Libraries are for the young. The learners. The innovators. It's time we took that back.

"Did it make you think differently about the library?"
"Yes it did! It made me think about...hey, if librarians can do this, make a library not very much a library with making it loud, basically anyone could do anything!"

While watching 'The Hollywood Librarian':

"I long to throw my arms around every librarian I meet on behalf of all the souls they never knew they saved." -Barbara Kingsolver

Keepers of a civilizing flame.

Weight of the library world is on our shoulders.

Schmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. (I have no idea why I wrote this.)

Defense of libraries focuses a lot on children's librarianship, providing services for the homeless or disadvantaged, and helping students. What can libraries do for the average person?

Book clubs or group or discussions give people a safe outlet to discuss things beyond the superficial and connect with each other in a deep way.

The Hollywood Librarian = a nostalgic love letter to libraries past.

Mitchell and Webb! Aaahahhhaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!!! I kinda want to post the librarian one on fb, but it might make people who don't possess senses of humor mad.

Libraries should be at the technological forefront of information storage, retrieval, and management.

Apparently, space heaters + crappy apartment wiring = blown circuits every five minutes. Hello blankets!

In 520, my discussion group has spent a week talking about censorship, questioning the moral/ethical side of librarianship, and examining the rather revolutionary (for the time) reference techniques put forth in an article published in 1876 while simultaneously ripping apart the supercilious and irritatingly condescending tone of its author. My small group for the class also picked student filmmakers as our target group for our Top Ten Reference Sources project later in the quarter.

In 560, we've talked about everything from what makes certain professors effective in the classroom, using the ARCS model as our baseline, to exactly why Alton Brown is such a bamf in the kitchen. (Yes, I did just use the term "bamf". Deal with it.) I also decided to use the same student filmmaker target group for my future library skills instruction project.

Based solely on this first week of class, I am so so so excited for how the rest of this quarter is going to go. This shit's awesome, and a big part of why I went back to school. :)

Found out half of my apartment is on one circuit. This particular circuit likes to blow once every couple days totally randomly. It is annoying.

I remember when I was a kid, going back to school after a break was probably the greatest torture adults could ever devise for someone my age. My mom always knew to make my favorite breakfast and steer clear of me on that first day back, since I'd usually be a massive grouch the entire day. Ohhhhh how things change when you get older and start liking what you study infinitely more than what you do for a living.

Classes started back up on Monday, and just like first quarter, after the first couple of days getting acclimated to the new content and class structure (and touching base with my new groups), I'm realizing I'm in for one hell of a semester. The thing that excites me, though, is that I feel like we've gotten past the appetizer that was first quarter and are finally getting down to the meat and potatoes of the degree. I have really missed working in reference at Linfield over the past two years, and now I'm going to be learning the structure and methods behind what I did as a student worker! At times during my brief ref worker tenure, I felt like I was doing something (and doing it relatively well) without the proper understanding of how and why it worked. I'm really hoping these two classes will help fill in those gaps and give me a good foundation for where I'd like to start out before heading towards administration: reference librarianship in a medical or science library.

So in other news, I realized after having coffee with a friend last night that I'm slightly behind on the whole Huck Finn censorship drama that's playing out at the moment. From what I understand, a publishing house in Alabama is combining forces with a Twain scholar to publish an edition of the many-times-banned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that removes the "n word" and replaces it with "slave". People are outraged. Here's my take:

We live in a free country. If one publishing house wants to print one edition of a novel that is censored in some way, they are entirely free to do so. In my opinion, it isn't even that much of a censoring - replacing a derogatory racial slur with a socially acceptable word that still encapsulates one of the most shameful periods of our history admirably is fine by me. It isn't like NewSouth is trying to replace "n****r" with "African American" or some other politically correct term. And quite honestly, if the n-word is the sole reason this book isn't getting into the hands of more junior high and high school students, then by all means put out a slightly altered version that won't piss off close-minded, uptight parents and school boards. They are editing out one word. In one edition. They are not editing the content or controversial subject matter of the novel, nor are they launching a campaign to stamp out the n-word from all copies of Huck Finn ever printed. If a kid wants to get his/her hands on an unaltered copy, all they'd have to do is wander down to their local library or bookstore and pick up one of the HUNDREDS of unaltered versions.

Censorship of any kind is a definite sore spot for me - the second I was old enough to comprehend the idea of a Banned Books list, I immediately went to the library to try and track down as many of them as I could. So don't get me wrong - I am 100% against the idea that anyone in a position of authority can deny the rights of others to read or watch or listen to any controversial material. But that isn't what's happening here. What's happening here is an interesting kind of reverse censorship that I find both fascinating and entirely blown out of proportion. Let NewSouth print their version of Huck Finn. Let whoever would like to read it do so. In the meantime, please just stop talking about how this one edition of Huck Finn is going to be a giant leap backwards in the fight against censorship and banning books, because that argument is total crap. But that's just my opinion. I'd be curious to hear what you all think about it!

Whew. Okay. Mini censorship rant over. Think I'll play a little Machinarium before heading to bed. Lots of good beer and good company to look forward to this weekend. ^_^