Over the past week, I have created and delivered a presentation in class, written two papers, put together an annotated bibliography of 25 articles and books, developed three sample youth services programs, written a take-home essay final, taken a practical final exam, and read countless numbers of pages. I am mentally exhausted. Of course, I have only myself and my horrifying procrastination habits to blame for this. On the plus side, I just put the finishing touches on my last paper, which means I am DONE with library school! I just have to see my independent study adviser tomorrow morning to hand in the final assignments, and I'm home free. By this weekend I will be requiring everyone to call me a library master. I will blind you all with library science!
Last night I had the pleasure of introducing a student to the Wells Library. She was a junior and hadn't stepped foot in it beyond running to the computer lab to print something off. She needed a book, and when I told her she could find it on the eleventh floor in the East Tower, the look on her face was priceless - "You have ELEVEN floors here?" The best part was when I told her that you can't even take the elevators to the eleventh floor - they only go to ten, so you've got to get off and take the stairs. Incidentally, all of the library science materials are up on that floor. It's sort of our secret lair.
Wheee! I don't care what anyone says - citation analysis is just good clean fun. Also: Scopus totally pwns Web of Science.
In my last post, among other things I whined about all of the high school library instruction sessions I had to do this week. Admittedly, they're time-consuming in a week where I already had too much going on, but in reality, now that I'm not in such a grumpy mood, I have to mention how much I've enjoyed doing library instruction this semester. My high school students this week have been especially great - they've listened, they actually act interested in what I'm teaching them, and I feel like some sort of Library God imparting my wisdom to bright young learners. Well okay, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration, but I do like the feeling of introducing so many new research tools to students whose first thought is to try Google or Wikipedia. It probably shouldn't be surprising to me that so many people don't have a clue how to get started on library research. I thought I knew what I was doing during my undergrad years, and I hated to ask for help, but I know so much more now than I did then, and I at least had spent a good amount of time in the library and was familiar with the basics, unlike some of these students. And now I get to teach them everything I've learned!
One thing I've noticed is that as my confidence in my teaching ability has increased this semester, I've gotten much more hands-on in my approach. At first, I pretty much just stood up at the front and talked at them, but lately I've really been working hard to get some interaction and activities into my lesson plans. For example, this week with all of my high school classes, I've started with a group brainstorming session, and had the students practice setting up searches by writing out their research topic in a sentence, pulling out what they think are the important keywords, and coming up with multiple synonyms they could also use. Then I had them string various keywords together using Boolean operators, what fun! I've been really lucky so far in that my classes have all been pretty willing to participate - there's nothing worse than having every attempt at getting your students involved fall flat while they just sit and stare at you.
At any rate, I'm pretty sure I wowed today's classes with my awesome super powers, like the ability to type really fast, and fix a computer by hitting it, and, of course, my impressive Middlemarch reading skills (they're working on a paper on Middlemarch, although I got the impression that none of them had actually read the book yet. When I told them I had to read it in a week AND write a paper on it, I could tell they thought I was the coolest ever. Or maybe that's the lamest ever, it's hard to tell the difference sometimes). This Friday I'm teaching a group of students who have to do various papers on environmental topics, and then I think that's it for the year. I'll definitely be doing this again next semester, though - it's been a great experience.
Whoops - I haven't updated in a while!
The semester's really heating up for me at this point. I'm taking a couple of classes that are really heavy on theory this semester, and both involve a LOT of reading and several papers each, so I've spent a lot of time holed up writing. They're both interesting classes for the most part, but my third class, public library management, is by far my favorite, partly because of the instructor - I had him last year for reader's advisory and really enjoyed him - and partly because it's much more practical and I feel like I'm really learning things I'll be putting into practice on the job.
Speaking of jobs, I've applied for that position with ACPL that I mentioned here. It may not amount to anything, since I don't actually graduate until May, but several people convinced me that I should go for it anyway, so I did. Everybody keep your fingers crossed for me!
It's finally getting chilly. I complained enough about the heat (when it's 90 degrees on your birthday in October, things are a bit ridiculous), but now I find I'm not ready for it to be cold outside yet, either! I keep forgetting my jacket - I'll wear it to class or work, hang it over the back of my chair, and then take off without it. I haven't gotten it into my head yet that we're heading into winter.
I just cited my professor in a paper I'm writing for her. That's a first for me - kind of a weird feeling.
Tonight I went over to Kate's house for a barbecue, with her roommate Kirsten, Kirsten's boyfriend Jeff, who manned the grill, and fellow SLIS student Terra and her fiance Jesse. Terra and Jesse brought along their new puppy, an awesome little Scottish terrier named Dexter. He was SO excited to see all of the new people, and we had a blast playing with him. I can't imagine trying to take care of a dog with so much HAIR, though. At one point he got into a bush with little burrs, and you can imagine how much fun it was to try to get all of the stickers out of his fur. His little mustache is adorable, though.
Classes start tomorrow! This semester I'm taking three courses: Public Library Management, Computerization and Society, and Representation and Organization of Knowledge and Information. For that last class, we're required to read this article before we first meet: "When essence becomes function: post-structuralist implications for an ecological theory of organisational classification systems." That'll be fun bedtime reading.
I'm also going to be keeping up my job at the reference desk in the Information Commons. In addition, I've signed up to be a library instruction assistant, which means that when instructors bring their classes to the library for a session on research skills, I'll be one of the ones who will teach the classes. I'm pretty nervous about this job - I am NOT a natural teacher. But library instruction is something that will probably come up in any future job I have, so I think it's important for me to get some practice in and develop a skill that I'm not so good at right now. But oh, I'm so freaked out about teaching undergrads!
It's after 10 pm. I just walked about a quarter-mile down to the laundry facilities to change my loads over. I am now absolutely dripping with sweat. That's no exaggeration - the sweat is literally running in rivulets all over my body. I think I'm going to move to Nunavut.
Oh, did I mention yet that I really, really hate move-in day? It was impossible to get anywhere on campus today - my usual ten-minute bus ride home took about forty. Plus all the new students swarming about means we get the same questions over and over again at the reference desk.
Ugh, I sound like such a grump. Must be the heat.
I'm at work right now, at the undergraduate reference desk. I'm stuck here until ten o'clock and it is sloooow. Which is actually kind of nice, considering what the rest of the day has been like. Before I came on here at work, I had my internship presentation earlier this afternoon. Around one o'clock, I decided I'd head on over to the library, grab something to eat, and spend a little more time preparing. Since I knew I'd be here until ten, and parking in the Jordan garage is free in the evenings right now, I decided I'd drive to campus and walk to the library. Well, that was my first mistake. It is HOT out there, folks - right now the heat index is hovering around 110. Not a good day to take a hike.
So, I arrive at the library, absolutely dripping with sweat, and on my way in, I manage to step in a huge wad of bubblegum someone thoughtfully left on the sidewalk. I'm wearing one of my favorite pair of shoes, which happen to be suede, and they're covered in sticky bubblegum - it really made a mess of my shoe. On top of that, I'm hot, sweaty, and miserable. I run to the bathroom, where I fail spectacularly at cleaning up my bubblegum shoe. I give up on that and run back outside to scuff my shoes in the dirt for a while, thinking to at least take the stickiness off. That works, but when I get back inside and run down to the cafeteria to grab a bite to eat, I discover that they've decided to close early today, so I'm reduced to getting a drink and a bag of pretzels from the vending machines. Mmmm.
Anyway, so after all that, my internship presentation ended up going well. It was interesting to hear about what everyone else has been doing this summer, too, although at that point I was so tired and hot and sticky that it was sometimes hard to stay awake and on task. One of the guys presenting, Khaled, was delivering a valuable and informative talk about his experience tracking journal citations for math faculty at various universities. However, his accent made the word "faculty" come out sounding like, well, "fuckity", and unfortunately, he seemed to use the word about five times a minute. Also unfortunately, I am apparently immature and small-minded enough that this amused and distracted me. I'll just chalk it up to my aforementioned tiredness and hotness.
So now my internship is officially over. Two and a half more weeks of filling in for people at the ref desk, and then the fall semester and my regular employment will officially start. I'm ready for it - it's been pretty boring lately, waiting for people to get back into town. I'll miss all the time at the pool, though.
Check out my dad's new website, courtesy of yours truly! It's not finished yet - I've still got to add some pictures and put some finishing touches on it. It's due next week as my final project for Information Architecture for the Web, and I presented on it today in class. It seemed to go really well, and my professor and the other students liked it a lot. I'm certainly no expert web designer now, but I'm still really thrilled with what I've learned in this class.
UGH. After seven hours of alternately staring at a computer screen and pulling my hair out in frustration, I've finally completed my first CSS markup assignment for my web design course. Here it is, if anyone's interested. And check out that code! (If anyone is wondering why it took me seven hours to get through this, just take a look at that.) Oh, and the silly "return to top" icons and Ghost World picture are there because we had to include a certain amount of images in the page. So I just threw them up there. This isn't necessarily the design I would do if I didn't have to meet all the requirements for my assignment - I think it's awkward in a couple of places because of that - but I'm still pretty proud of it. Now, on to my term project!
Holy crap, I haven't posted in half of forever!
So far this semester has really gotten away with me. I can't believe it's already half over. I LOVE my classes this semester, though. Let me tell my faithful readers (all three of them) all about them!
First, I've got Information Architecture for the Web, which is a fancy way to say that it's a class teaching basic XHTML and CSS for web design, as well as a bit of PHP and Javascript. It's been a lot of fun, although it's frustrating to want to be able to implement a lot of techniques that I'm just not capable of yet. Our final project involves creating a site from scratch for a client of our choice. I'm designing a new site for my dad's insurance company, Cates and Associates. On the whole, this class involves a lot of work and a lot of coding that has to be written just right. I think it's definitely worth it, though, and hopefully I'm learning skills that will be useful to a future employer somewhere down the line!
Next, I'm taking a reader's advisory course, which is focused on the work of facilitating readers in a public library. Basically, we're discussing and reading from all the various genres and subgenres of fiction, as well as some nonfiction, putting together mock book club sessions and readalike suggestions, doing reviews, making signage and bookmarks - all kinds of fun stuff. What other graduate level course requires you to read a romance novel as an assignment? It's not all fun and games, though, because we do a lot of somewhat heavier reading on the differences between genres and how they're treated in a library setting, as well as writing up reviews and recommendations and practicing our skills as readers' advisors. But still, another class that is overall lots of fun.
And finally, my last class: children's and young adult literature. This is basically reader's advisory for the younger crowd. Again, lots of work, but it's fun work, so I don't mind it. Over the course of the semester, we have to keep a reading log of at least forty picture books and at least thirty children's and young adult novels that we've read and reviewed. We're also doing projects on the history and development of children's lit, children's illustrators, various awards, giving booktalks, folktales and fairytales, and how librarians deal with censorship and book challenges in the context of children's and YA lit. The teacher is an adjunct who's worked for years as a children's librarian, and she's very passionate about what she does - thus, a lot of fun to learn from. I look forward to this class every week, even though it requires a lot of reading and projects.
So that's what I'm doing this semester. After my first semester in grad school, which concentrated on a lot of the required core subjects (and thus was a lot more boring), I declared this my fun semester, and so it has been, so far. The children's lit class especially has made me consider the possibility of being a children's or YA librarian. Oh! I've got exciting news on that front, by the way. I've gotten an internship for this summer! I'll be working in the brand new, incredible main library building of the Allen County Public Library system in Fort Wayne. And I'll be in the young adult department. It's a great opportunity to work in a large, well-respected library system, plus I'll get to really get my hands dirty with programming and events and all kinds of stuff aimed at teenagers. Hopefully it'll help me decide that I either love YA librarianship, or I never want to be around snotty teens again. I think it's going to be a lot of fun, plus my parents live in Fort Wayne so I've got a place to stay for free. I'm trying to decide right now whether I should sublet my apartment, or whether it's worth it for just two months. I may want to come back down here to Bloomington on weekends, anyway, since most of my friends will be here taking classes. Anyway, that's my big news right now, and I'm really excited about it - I didn't want to end up just doing my internship at the library here (even though it's a really great library), since that's what everyone seems to end up doing.
Well, I think that's about it for my big update. Oh yeah, and I finally got rid of that faulty template, too. It never did show up right for me in Firefox, even though I kept tweaking it. So now I'm back to one of the basic blogger templates. Maybe I'll pick up enough stuff from my web design class to build my own template, who knows.
Well, the holidays are all over and I'm back in Bloomington now. Bleh. I love living by myself and it was nice to come back to my apartment, but after spending three weeks away with family and friends, it's been kind of lonely and boring for me to be back here. Classes and work start on Monday, though, so I'll soon be really busy again. And I'm looking forward to getting together with all of my library friends down here. So all in all, it's good to be back. I just want things to get started again now that I'm here.
Eeee, I haven't posted in over a week, shame on me. In my defense though, I've been really busy with lots of end-of-the-semester stuff to do. However, that's all over and done with, and I am FINISHED with my first semester of grad school! I am one-fourth of the way to my master's degree in library science, go me. AND I got my pathfinder done, which I am supremely proud of. A pathfinder, for those who aren't aware, is basically an online research guide, and we were required to do one as our final project in my reference class. I did mine on eighteenth-century women novelists, which is a topic I'm sure everyone is equally as fascinated with as I am. At any rate, here is my beautiful website, which I'm sure my readers (all four of them) will want to add to their favorites immediately for quick consultation in the future.
Ugh. Going back to school has wreaked complete havoc on my sleeping habits. Not that they were that good before, but now I find myself regularly staying up to three or four am and then sleeping in way too late. I've got to start changing that. Seriously, it's so depressing to wake up on a winter Saturday at noon and realize you've only got a few more hours of daylight left.
In other news, we got NO snow yesterday. The hell is up with that? I'm not going to like Bloomington if it means a wimpy winter. I like my seasons to be SEASONS - thus, a winter with real snow and lots of it, not just slightly colder temperatures. When I graduate, I'm moving to Edmonton.
Also: I think I'm going to try to go to church tomorrow. I don't know where yet. I've been so ambivalent about church lately. I just haven't worked out my feelings towards Christianity and where exactly I fit within it. On the one hand, I love the feelings of connection and fellowship that come from a really good experience with the body of Christ, on the other hand, there are just so many BAD experiences to be had out there that it scares and depresses me. So on the whole I've been lazy about the whole thing and found it easier to just sleep in on Sunday mornings. But I've got to stop that. I've been craving spiritual meat lately. The only question is whether it exists to be found in the churches around here. I'm sure it does, but sometimes it's hard to convince myself that it's worth putting in the effort to find it.