Sunday, February 27, 2011

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.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

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.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

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!

Monday, February 7, 2011

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.