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.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Saturday, April 9, 2011
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. ^_^
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. ^_^
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
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!
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!
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