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.

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."

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!

Portfolio Drama

I am finally working on my portfolio that is due on Monday. Part of the holdup was that I didn't know how to add content to the digital part of the portfolio, which is the part that the committee grading it will be seeing. Well that and I'm stumped as to which papers to add to it, which was why I hadn't really worked on it earlier. It has five areas of competencies that I have to include: information and its organization, provision of information services, organizational/leadership/management issues in information agencies/services, application of technology and research to evidence-based practice, and lifelong learning/professional development. So far I have two papers up, and need to find three more, plus write a reflective essay on why I have chosen those particular papers, looking at the classes I took and what worked/did not work, and reflecting on the program as a whole (i guess, only part I'm REALLY not sure about). I am hoping to get a look at a friend's portfolio to see how it should look. 

I was finally told by my adviser that I didn't have to find papers for the other nine Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) competencies but only write a reflection paper on them based on what I learned during my degree. So I have conquered this part of the portfolio first, and have created a pretty decent first draft of that, minus two competencies I just can not think of what papers/class to use.

I am so out of it

This week has been a bit of a blur, and I've not been focusing at all. Case in point, my schoolwork, which I was caught up on a week ago and now I am behind again. Bugger. The library in Arizona has not gotten back to me as of yet. So I'm waiting for that as well, but will call back on Friday if I haven't heard anything. I just watched Glee's version of Rocky Horror Picture Show, which rocked, despite the lyric and character changes! I got up at the end and danced to "The Time Warp" again. I'm gonna have to watch the original version now. I discovered it in high school, much to my mother's chagrin. It's as Mr. Shu says in Glee, it's all about outcasts and I was definitely one in high school. Tim Curry was awesome as a transvestite and looks like he is having fun with it. I must say that Emma's rendition of "Toucha Toucha Toucha Touch Me" was pretty good, especially as Mr. Shu apparently has a rocking body (it's always the ones you least suspect, lol).

Quotes & The Merry Librarian

I've been a bit behind in posting this past week due to my last-minute trip to Arizona, but I'm glad I went as I had fun and it was relaxing to get away for a few days and somewhat catch up on work. I got all my reading done for my classes, the only downside is that I spent nearly 9 hours of yesterday writing my paper and I'm still not happy with it. But that's a story for another day. So I'm catching up today by making up Sunday and Monday's post, and might write one for today later on when I have more free time.

The quotes of the week will be some of my favorite Christopher Moore quotes, taken from his books Coyote Blue and Fluke: Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings.  The second one is particularly funny as the kid in question, Kona, is a bit of a spacey stoner who Nate regrets hiring until he makes a brilliant suggestion about whales that proceeds this quote.
 

• “He soon found, that his thoughts, like monkeys in church, were bad company.” –Christopher Moore, Coyote Blue
• Nate was stunned. Not because he thought Kona was right, but because the kid had actually had the cognitive powers to come up with the question. Nate wouldn’t have been more surprised if he walked in on a team of squirrels building a toaster oven. Maybe the kid had run out of pot, and the spike in intelligence was just a withdraw symptom.” –Christopher Moore, Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

The blog of the week is The Merry Librarian. It is a blog created by a librarian and  other people/librarians send in stories about the unbelievable but true things that go on in the libraries. She also has a links to many other librarian blogs (which I will definitely be checking out in the future), and to her book review site (book club) and bookstore. I discovered this site after a classmate posted this link to one of her posts from June 14, which like the Merry Librarian, made me laugh out loud, as did this one. The Father's Day story, which is unfortunately the most recent post, made me smile. My only gripe is that I wish she would continue to update the site. But if you go back through the older posts, there are some gems.

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Feeling exhausted but happy

Two days ago I couldn't sleep, ended up staying up all night and catching four hours of sleep the next morning. I had a paper due at midnight for my Reference class yesterday and as usual, I waited till the last minute to start it. I wasn't even sure exactly how I was supposed to get the info for the paper until I actually sat down and thoroughly looked at the assignment sheet and part of last week's lecture. Thankfully, it only took me about 3 1/2 hours to complete and I turned it in by 8:30pm. Needless to say I was exhausted after only getting 4-5 hours sleep and then stressing out about the paper. I slept for over 11 hours and feel groggy, but much better than yesterday. I got another Indian cookbook from the library, as well as an audiobook of The Hobbit, which I've started that today in the car. It's kind of random because it is a BBC Dramatization so it's full cast doing the book like an everyday conversation and some of the things they said in there, I don't know if it's the book or stuff they've made up on the spot. I haven't read the book since high school so my memory is a bit foggy. But I like it so far. The parts I keep remembering from the book are the 70s cartoon version (and again, not sure how close it is since I haven't watched it since high school).

I finally caught up on reading for my Research class, and managed to make one blog post for it. Oh, I forgot to talk about it on this one. It's a research journal for the class, whose main project is putting together a research proposal at the end of the semester, which will be on foster children and their reading/library use. It will go into what may affect the foster kids, like constant movement, Foster Parent/Biological parents' education, if the FP/Bio parent read to them and/or encouraged reading, and if they go to the library and if not how to encourage them to go. Luckily we just have to write the proposal and not carry it out, though I would like to in the future after I have a job in a public library. So the blog is basically where we record about things we read, things we need to ask, and where others comment about our thoughts. Here's the address: http://705lrp.blogspot.com/.

Health Problems and School

I want to be on this blog more this week, but I just started back school and it's keeping me supremely busy. I'm taking the three classes including the internship, which has just decided to become a whole lot more work, so I have to be really good about balancing my time (haven't mastered that yet). Add on the fact that yesterday I officially discovered that I have Carpel Tunnel Syndrome in my hand and arms and things get really fun. I've noticed the pain for over a month. I'd had it on and off, like every six months or so previously. It came once for a very long time on July 17th when I was at the Charleston-Bolton game, though I couldn't figure out why, only that it kept me up all night and only heat seemed to make the pain go away for a bit. It started coming about twice a week after that and then last night, I had it all night again. As I am typing my left hand is starting to hurt again. I went to the student clinic last night to check out the problem and that's what the doctor diagnosed and then she got me to do three blood tests (including one for Rheumatoid Arthritis, which I am really scared of getting as it runs in the family). This involved taking two vials of blood from the top of my right hand, and they had to take it this way becauseI have tiny veins which they can never find at my elbow joint. Using a needle on the top of my hand hurt a lot and I nearly passed out twice. So I have to go back in a week and then again in two weeks. Fun, fun all the way around. And I have to start wearing an arm brace on my right hand all day, which takes getting used to, as I am right-handed and it pretty much puts me out of commission.

Learning new things

So yesterday was my last day at work at the Archive, due to budget cuts in the state and the funds being appropriated elsewhere. Boo :( So I am currently unemployed and looking for work pretty much wherever I can find it. Today I started volunteering in a new area at my local public library where I have been volunteering on and off since Sept 2008, this time working in Technical Services (aka Cataloging). I have basically no experience in this area, but I figure anything I can learn will be useful as I may end up in a small branch library where I have to do a little bit everything. I have taken Information Organization & Retrieval (SLIS 707), which I took this past spring semester, which was basic Cataloging and included a lot of the terms the Cataloger was using today, so I didn't feel totally clueless. I'm doing pretty easy work once she explained it, which includes making sure the the RFID tags (basically insanely small computer chips they put onto library items for tracking purposes) match up with the barcode on item and then putting them into the correct boxes for delivery to the branches. The other thing I did was going through a list of withdrawn books and deleting OCLC records so that people don't request a copy of a book/media item that doesn't exist in the library. So now I'm signed up to do this once a week for 2 hours.

The other thing I did today was look up my classes to see if they had posted the syllabi. This semester I'm taking a Intro to Reference and a Intro to Research class, as well as finishing up my internship. I know it doesn't seem like much, but trust me, just from looking my syllabi I will be plenty busy. My reference class actually says this on the syllabus and it is underlined as well as in bold: "Please keep in mind that any reference course demands a serious commitment of your time." So it's a good thing that I enjoy visiting the library because I will be spending a enormous amount of time there this semester, probably more than the whole rest of school. I'm not 100% sure what my other class is about yet or how to approach it, so hopefully I can figure out more once I get the textbook and view the opening video. The most lovely (NOT) thing is that I have a group project due on Sept 14, the weekend after my friend's wedding which is course out of town and I will be gone for 4 days. Bah humbug! I'm gonna have to figure out real quick who is in my group so we can get this project finished ASAP!