Happy New Years!

I have been very much enjoying my vacation to Arizona and am sorry that it is nearly at an end. I got to see Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, which I enjoyed though I'm sure the book is better, and True Grit, the remade Western that was better than I thought it would be thanks to the awesomeness of the Coen brothers directing and some good acting. I got to go to the enormous Asian market and the delicious Vietnamese restaurant, Pholicious, for their excellent Bun (Rice Noodle Salad with Caramelized Pork and Shrimp). Mostly it has been nice to just relax and not think about being home and broke. We're here to the 5th and we'll probably have a low key celebration tonight, especially for me since I can't actually drink any Asti Spumante to celebrate the New Year.

Since it is the last day of the year, I figure I would reflect a bit on this year, which to me has just flown by with the exception of the last semester of school (which dragged on impossibly long). I started my job at the Archives last December and it lasted until mid-August, and though it wasn't the most exciting job ever, I did enjoy working there and getting to meet and hang out with Rebecca. She has since moved back to Missouri to help out her family, but it was nice talking to someone who has similar experiences and educational background, especially as I was doing distance ed with the university and rarely saw other library students. I loved being able to talk school, books and life in general with her. I also completed my Youth Services Library internship, which was an awesome experience and allowed me to get some hands-on experience with dealing with parents, students, and programming. My good friend Kira was pregnant for the first time and gave birth to her daughter Lucy at the end of October. I found out I was pregnant in the middle of November. And I finally graduated with my Masters in Library & Information Science. So all in all a good year.

Yay on vacation!

So I am finally on vacation in Arizona! My hubby and I arrived late last night and slept really good, until an idiot friend of his decided to text us at 6am to ask what time it was. I told my hubby that we should call him at 2-3am his time (3 hours behind Arizona time) and ask him that question. We are here for two weeks and the weather is slowly getting better. It's supposed to be 72 and sunny on Christmas Day, so should be lovely. Definitely better than the frigid, though non-snowy weather we've been having in South Carolina. Am excited as I just registered for a workshop put on by the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in MA, on using the Whole Book Approach to enchance a child's reading experience. Very much looking forward to that in February. I would love to visit the museum myself, as I am a huge picture book fan, though not a lot of opportunities to go to Massachusettes.

Anyways, I had found this article through one of the library groups I am apart of on Facebook and thought I would share, as it is promoting libraries. The article is entitled "12 Ways Libraries are Good for the Country", and can be found here. Another bonus about libraries is that in times like these, where the country's economy is going down the drain, is that a lot of the programs are are free or at a reduced cost.

C.S. Lewis and reminiscing with the 90's

So today has been rather random. I woke up at 7:15am and went back to sleep at 10 with my hubby. Then later that afternoon we went to Moes for what I thought of, at least, as some pretty awesome burritos. Afterwards, I had wandered onto Facebook again and found this cool Flash Mob Impromptu Opera performance that the Tel Aviv Opera company did in a Food Market, which led to Random Act of Culture performances with a violin quartet and two tango artists (which was pretty cool), which led to other Flash Mob videos. Eventually I found a couple of cool dad-daughter wedding videos, where they mixed sappy songs with 1990s Hip Hop, like MC Hammer's Can't Touch This or Boyz II Men's Motown Philly, the second of which is possibly my favorite song ever from middle school. Yes I know this totally dates me, but whatever. So I've been listening to groups from the 90s/2000, such as TLC's Red Light District, Zhane's Hey Mr. DJ and D'Angelo's How Does It Feel. D'Angelo was a good looking man in that video, very flirty, and was a shame that he got thrown in jail for doing something so stupid. But that sort of thing seems to happen all the time in the music world.

I started reading C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series, as I have all 7 books in one volume. I am enjoying it so far. I've gotten through The Magician's Nephew and The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, both of which I thought were excellent. I also read The Horse and His Boy, which wasn't very good. I am ready to start Prince Caspian and am hoping that it is better than the last one.

8 Days till Christmas

I honestly had no idea we are that close to Christmas, but my sister-in-law informed everyone this morning on Facebook. I know that Christmas is next Saturday, but with school and worrying about money, my concept of time is a bit skewed. I am actually looking forward to the holiday, despite not having enough money to spend on anyone. I am also very much looking forward to a 2-week vacation to Arizona, as that is pretty much what got me through the last couple weeks of school and being perpetually behind with everything. 

Today I watched the Twilight: Breaking Dawn trailer and learned that they are trying to break it into two parts. All I could think was "For goodness sake, don't drag this stupid movie series out any longer!" At least with Harry Potter, the final book actually has a lot going on and even though it is very frustrating, I can see the need to divide it into two movies. I have a very love/hate relationship with the Twilight books and movies, as I thought the books were okay, though no great literary achievement. The movies, on the other hand, are mildly entertaining and I must say that I'm Team Jacob even though I know what happens at the end (and am a little creeped out by it). Plus Taylor Lautner is way cuter than Robert Pattinson, (despite being in one of the worst movies ever made The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl which I watched under duress while babysitting) and despite the fact that Pattinson has a decent singing voice and has the plus side of actually being British.

One thing that I have highly enjoyed about being done with graduate school is having more free time to read what I want. So far I've read the first two books in Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy and tried to read the third but got bored, and Gail Carriger's brilliant debut novel Soulless as well as Changeless and soon to be reading Blameless. I've also tackled about 5 children's picture books and hope to finish my massive copy of C. S. Lewis's entire Chronicles of Narnia. I had previously read the first 1 1/2 books, The Magician's Nephew and part of The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.

Graduation quote

Since I am graduated as of tomorrow, I figure I would include a good quote. Here is one I found today from Tom Brokaw, which I think about sums how life after graduation should be: 

• You are educated.  Your certification is in your degree.  You may think of it as the ticket to the good life.  Let me ask you to think of an alternative.  Think of it as your ticket to change the world.  ~Tom Brokaw

Graduation!!

After 2 1/2 long years, I have finished graduate school for the second time. I submitted my final three papers tonight and officially graduation is tomorrow. I'm not attending due to financial issues, but now I just have to wait for my diploma to come in the mail and wait for my grades to post. I have an idea what I might have for one class but no idea for the other, as I only just submitted papers. I'm having a mini celebration right now and will celebrate in a grander style in Arizona once my hubby and I get there to visit my parents for two weeks for Christmas/New Years. I'm so ready for a vacation as this has been a very long and stressful semester. It's great being done with school, but it also feels weird, I guess because I've been doing it for over 2 yrs. 

The other good news is that I finally got a part time job, in my local public library, working as a Children's Room Shelver. My first day is tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. I applied for Medicaid in November to cover my medical bills and I am now approved. I just have to drop off one letter this week and maybe another in the next few days. I'm hoping to speak to my actual worker so I can ask some questions about WIC and some other things. So at least we don't have to worry about those bills. The baby is coming along fine, and I'm nearly 9 weeks. I am a little anxious about the flights but they should be fine as long as I can keep food down when we take off/land. 

Son of Citation Machine and Grey's Anatomy

This website, Son of Citation Machine, has been really helpful to me this week as I've been writing my research proposal and trying to figure out how I want to do citations. I actually discovered it a couple weeks ago when I was working on the Reference group project and we included it then as a tool to help high schoolers. It pretty much does the work of citations for you to simply things, which is great for me because pretty much all teachers want you to do it a different way and I can never keep track of which way to do it. I decided to do MLA because APA was kinda confusing and it works like a dream. I recommend it to those in college or those with kids in high school. 

This paper has been a giant pain as I am having problems trying to put what I want into paper form. It makes sense to me, but I've been wallowing in the info for the whole semester. So I need to send it to my mom so she can see if it makes sense too and isn't just a giant pile of crap. I'm sure it has good points, but right now it's just frustrating. 

So since this week and past couple have been pretty stressful at my house, while we are trying to figure out our finances in conjunction with the baby, and I think this quote fits in with our situation quite nicely. Now I'm a huge Grey's Anatomy fan even though I know it's a fluffy girl show, but sometimes they do say some brilliant things on there, like this quote from everyone's favorite bad boy Karev in Season 5. 

• Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5, Episode 18, Karev: "Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that's the point. All the pain, the fear and the crap...maybe going through all that is what keeps us going forward...it's what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up, before we step up."

Big Announcement!

So I've been holding this off for three weeks until my first ultrasound, but here it is: I'm 7 weeks pregnant and due July 2011! I'm just glad to be able to tell people and talk about it. This is my first pregnancy so everything is new for me. I'm glad to be able to apply the things I've learned in Early Childhood Materials class to my own personal experience, and will start reading to the baby soon, probably after I graduate. I know how important it is to start early, even when the baby is in the womb. 

The other big news is that I finally got the results of my graduation portfolio back and I aced it. So I don't have to worry about that, just need to write the Research proposal and papers that go with it and I will be done for the semester. 

Last couple weeks of class

I am currently down to my last 2 weeks of class, and this has been one long semester. My group poster presentation was yesterday and it went really well, and people seemed to like our idea for establishing K-12 information literacy training in public schools with collaboration with public and academic libraries. I've turned in the paper, poster and abstract for the group so as far as I'm concerned we are done with that class. I turned in my final paper for my internship describing what I did and what I learned on Tuesday as well. I've not heard back from my adviser about my portfolio now for about 15 days, so I am assuming it looks good. Might email student services just to check. Now I have to concentrate on my Research class as I need to write my research proposal and associated papers before Dec 13. My concentration has just been totally shot lately so I am planning on doing it tomorrow after my doctor's appointment, and just go to the library.

Today is the first day of December and we've not put up the tree yet, probably will do soon. It's finally feeling like winter as today was a high of 55 degrees F with a lot of wind, which I had to go out and experience as the pest control people were spraying my apartment and I didn't want the pooch to ingest the gel they were using. Only about 3 weeks till we are going to Arizona again to visit my parents for Christmas, and I am very excited!