Thoughts on the Journey

Now that I've made it through a slightly fuller week of classes and work, I think this is going to be a good semester. Both my group projects are shaping up to be interesting and neither of them requires long driving, which is always a plus. They're both small groups too, three and four people, so compared to the class I took first semester where my group had five people and we had so much to do that felt at times really artificial, these don't.

In another nice thing, the two classes I had this week went quickly, when all your classes are three hours, this is really key. I didn't have my Monday classes due to the holiday but I'm hoping things will continue in a good direction.

I'm pretty sure the Professional Practice one will be good since that prof is just one of my favorites and she seems to have changed some of her teaching styles in ways that actually help me. Her courses have been the ones where there was some project that tripped me up horribly like the powerpoint that had to be in a certain format that I didn't plan for or figuring out how to do a podcast. This semester she's created a lot of smaller projects, I think to help someone like me who gets the work of a class but gets hung up on one thing.

The question mark is my InfoCulture one that I"m looking forward to, but the first week was intro and in a seminar course, its hard to tell until that first week of discussion. I'm thinking for that one that I might finally try and write a paper about the online world that I share with a lot of you that I wanted to write for my online communities course. Since in the reading I've done, the woman gamer who enjoys fandom and maybe does some tabletop and some video games isn't really seen. Though I've discovered some fantastic blogs about not just women gamers but all sorts of gamers, now to help get that discussion into the more academic arena. I'll keep everyone posted on how that shapes up.

My database course reminded me this week that I actually retained a good bit from my programming course last semester since as the prof was going over PHP, I was realizing that thanks to Python, a lot of it made sense. This makes me so happy and I think is going to make that course go quicker.

Work yesterday also went well, I had a hard time sleeping on Wednesday night due to my late shift that night and then general worries, but the woman who hired me was there and I talked to them both. We've figured out a plan for cataloging and the rest of the semester and I was reminded why I like that job, I can see the effect I'm having. Also the two women in charge are around my age and really like what they're doing. I think there were some other stresses going on and things just bled into each other in tricky ways. I've already made a difference for the tutors and when everything's done, I'm going to leave something behind that will make things work better for them. I'm becoming aware that I need to start looking for jobs, which is scary but I think being able to talk about this job and my reference job are going to help a lot.

Today is currently far too cold, not a lot of snow fell last night so the sidewalks were passable but I'm still glad I wore my boots. Its just really cold, there's wind and the kind of cold that bites into you. Thankfully I was able to pick up my morning tea from the cafe in the library so I'm warmer and return my books from my Homer paper for last semester.

Tomorrow the holiday cards will be sent. I can't believe how long the time is from when I printed them to when I send them is and I'm sorry about that. Time just got away from me this holiday season.

Okay, I'm going to end with another meme, because I like having things to think about and work on and this one is fascinating and taken from austen.

Ask me fandom-related questions in the comments. They can be fandom specific, general, or about fandom/lj stuff/fic writing/etc. in general. Questions can be as wacky as you want. Ask me about tv shows, characters, fanfic in general, fandom issues/meta, anything about any of my stories specifically. Whatever you want. And then I will take a page from torigates and compile all of the questions (and my answers) into a helpful post. It was totally her idea, I am just swiping with love.

I've finished my first week back, its a half week, which is nice. The only class I've had so far was my database class and I think I'm going to really like it. First off, its taught by a woman who says that she loves to teach and this is her only class she teaches this semester. So I know she's there to really help and this is the second time she's taught the course so some of the kinks have been worked out. We learned about relational algebra and it actually kind of made sense to me.

Then I worked two reference shifts and one day at America Reads where I've done a lot of the non-fiction books. Its odd my week is going to be late days until Thursday then two early mornings at the end of the week.

I know I need to stop mentioning my cards and just send them, but I want to say that I loved all the cards I found. I'm not sure I can list them all off but you will all get cards among others. I'm a fan of mail whenever it arrives.

Now I'm going to do another round of the question meme from in_the_blue and later I might write an entry about steampunk. I won some books from Tor.com and they've been fascinating, but that's another entry.

I love this question meme since every time, I end up thinking about something from a slightly different angle.

→ Leave a comment saying you want to be interviewed.
→ I will respond; I'll ask you five questions.
→ Update your journal with my five questions, and your five answers.
→ Include this explanation.
→ Ask other people five questions when they want to be interviewed.

1. If you had to pick just one of your RP characters and drop all the rest, which would you keep? (I know, it's the Sophie's Choice of RP questions.)
This one is simpler than I expected. It would be Will Scarlett and if I got to keep a canon and original, Will and Tiwa. They're the two characters who I've really filled out their worlds and know even when they're quiet, they make me happy and inspire me.

2. What's one piece of portable electronic equipment you never leave home without?
I'm rather boring, just my plain cellphone, not even a smart one. If I'm driving, I always have my iPod for good music.

3. Makeup: yes or no?
Yes, sometimes. I'll wear lipstick or lip gloss but that's about it. I like an excuse to get dressed up but even then I might just add some eye shadow.

4. All-time favorite band/musical artist?
Now this one is really hard, I love so much stuff. I think I'm going to say The Dubliners, no matter my mood, they always bring me up. I was able to see them live in Dublin and it still is my bar for live music.

5. What kind of non-computer artistic pursuits do you engage in?
I cook and bake. I love taking photographs and lately have been doing more with them. My father's last two presents were pictures I took and printed out. My holiday cards are based around a photo I took. My birthday present this year was a tiny canon powershot that lives in my bag so I can take photographs whenever I'm inspired. That was a habit I got into during my semester abroad in Athens, always have my camera. For a while, my camera was just too big and wasn't able to. I used to do theater and dance and really want to get back into them. Performance is one of those things that just makes me so happy, but I need a community for it. In college, I did LARPs and some theater stuff and I just miss getting on a stage and dancing or learning.

Traveling today took far too long and so much more energy than I expected. I woke up this morning in Lewes around 7 am so we could get me to Philly by around 10 or so. Then I waited for my flight to leave which was late and so had time to finish the book I had The Rope Trick by Lloyd Alexander. Normally I'd have another book but the other one I had was checked so I ended up buying an Economist.

The flight went quickly but in Detroit, they weren't clear about where our bags were so I had to walk a while to find mine. Then somehow the top of one of the snaps had broken off so when I grabbed the bag, I cut my finger. Its not too deep but it hurts and my bag is heavy and of course the Michigan bus was at the end of the line of buses and I had to cross a street to get the taxi queue.

I did end up getting home but all my nice plans for going out to Trader Joes to stock up really didn't happen, because even after walking into town and getting food, I still feel utterly shattered. Though in nice news, in my mailbox I found cards from moonlup and athousanderrors, thank you.

Now I'm going to catch up on my slows and possibly for dinner have grilled cheese since I bought some Zingerman's bread while I was out and I have some cheddar in the fridge, it needs to be scraped off but mold won't hurt cheese that much. Oh and Old Kingdom folks, I put a planning post up on charter_npc, I think really things are ready to go in motion.

Tomorrow I have my first class of the new semester but thankfully its not till 5 so I can shop and things, I hope I don't have to work tomorrow.

I just submitted my last paper of the semester. I just have a few more things to do on my LibraryThing but that's not due until the 23rd and I can easily finish it up before then. I feel so light and happy.

Tonight is going to be packing and wrapping before I catch a slightly earlier shuttle tomorrow morning. I decided to get a 9 am shuttle instead of 10:15 so that if there's any sort of problem with flying into Philly, I can just be there and be set. Now to see about poking my Yuletide story into a shape that I like so I can upload it when I get home tonight.

Oh and I also stopped by Borders on my way into work and picked up a booked called The Alchemyst by Michael Scott, since I really enjoyed Palamedes from it who spooky_lemur had in Mixed Muses.

My cards and packages will probably go out on Tuesday. Happy Holidays everyone and I survived my first semester at the School of Information!!

Thank you bigfluffball and canadabear, your cards arrived today and they're wonderful and set out on my bookcases.

Tonight I have work to do and I'm just so tired. The work is honestly not as bad as the stuff I did last week but I'll be so glad when all these things are done. Also for some reason, my umich password is taking far too long to be accepted. I just recently reset it and for some reason it only likes it one out of far too many times that I type it in. And all the help lines are such aren't open on the weekend so I just have to hope it fixes itself before Monday.

Though I was able to sleep in for a nice long time this morning which I really needed and I'm reading a nice anthology of stories inspired by Gaiman's Sandman. I need to laundry again which makes me feel a little nuts, over the break I'm buying lots of underwear.

Right, off to do work, this is a rather odd post, but my thoughts are all over the place.

I'm feeling a lot better today, sudafed is truly a wonderful thing as is a really long night's sleep after a long night of roleplaying and Chinese food.

So I figured that I would put up a couple of things that I've been meaning to do but the rush before break hasn't given me the time for.

I've been given the chance to redo my powerpoint presentation and I was wondering if anyone who feels quite comfortable with it would be willing to help me figure out how to improve upon it. Since its the lowest grade I have in that class and the prof reminded me in an email that I can redo it.

In terms of holiday cards, last year I collected a lot of addresses and I'd love to send out cards to folks again since I loved using a picture I made. So if you didn't get a chance to respond before here's the entry, though fair warning if I have your address and you're still good with getting a card, I'll probably send you one.

The Old Kingdom plot has gotten itself pushed back but I actually have a break and during a rather boring class plotted out the next series of OOMs. Some of the first ones may blend into each other but this is the order I'm thinking of. Basically those who are still interested in helping and also are my fellow canonmates, let me know your ideas and we can start prethreading stuff.

Study Scene-Sam, Ellie, Touchstone may act as the beginning or separate OOM from Reservoir Scene with Sabriel, Touchstone, Ellie and Sam

Need something to address the letter from Nick, I'm not quite sure of how to work this just yet, ideas?

Workshop scene-Sam, Ellie

Then there's a lot of OOMs or one large OOM that I need to do of Sam dealing with his foolish plan and the disguise. I hope to bring him into the Bar at some point after he's left the castle but possibly right before the Inn and fun there. It won't be a long EP and if all goes well, he'll be chased back into plot by Kait yelling.

After this, the next round of stuff is really Yrael and Sam and we'll see how quickly all of this goes before dealing with the entrance of Lirael and Dog.

How does this look to everyone?

My weekend has been going quite well. I slept wonderfully late today and yesterday and yesterday when I was doing my in person reference secret shopper thing, I discovered a book sale in the public library. I found some great finds like picture books for a buck and Hexwood for two dollars. Then I came home and had a wonderfully lazy and long evening doing threads and watching Ouran Host Club.

Also one thing that has made me so happy is I adore all the Kait-Sameth threads, they're so wonderfully teenagers with all the confused hormones and odd things that entails plus their crazy canons. It makes me miss Kate and Will when they started so whisper2ascream, I know life has been busy for you too, but I'd really love to start Kate's moving into college OOM. I'll even set it up, but I love their relationship for its truth too and miss playing it.

Today I had plans to do lots of errands but in the end I didn't. Though I did accomplish my online reference secret shopper things, it turns out that Pennsylvania has an online reference thing so I could ask them. I work as a reference librarian so it feels odd to me to secret shopper people I work with.

Though the second place I tried called justanswer.com was odd and before they would even answer the question, I had to say how much I thought it was worth and give them credit card info. I ended up not doing that but now I'm unsure if I need to do another interview since I got a lot of information from that interaction, its just that the question was never answered. I think I'll do another one when I get home but include the information on that one since it made me angry. They even quoted how much some librarians are paid by the hour to say, look our time is worth this and we want to know that you're serious about your question. It felt really rude to me because the people running that site clearly don't get it, its hard enough getting the courage up to ask for help but then to be told, well I don't think you're being honest is horrible and we want money to prove you're honest.

In another nice news when I stopped at Borders on my way home on Friday, I picked up two free Percy Jackson posters so dynastessa, you'll be getting one in the mail. I'm really sorry about not sending stuff, school just became a lot busier than I expected. Tomorrow I have to get up insanely early for a 501 interview so if I'm on at all during the day tomorrow it will probably be between classes and then I'll be home after my 8:30 class.

I had to wake up at an utterly horrible hour to go to Orientation and it was sort of interesting. I liked my specific session on my specialization best since its a reminder of how diverse librarians are and how many options there are in this world.

The only problem is just like yesterday, I don't feel like I've really woken up at all, which is annoying. There's another session of meeting with faculty this afternoon but honestly I don't think I'm going to go, I'm just too worn out.

Also there's another early morning thing tomorrow but apparently its not mandatory which makes me happy since I can skip it and focus on observing at the reference desk and not waking up as early. I've also decided that I'm not going to the Rackham orientation, I'm sure it will be interesting but I don't want to feel this wiped next week when classes start.

So I think for now, I'm going to go find someplace to have a good pot of strong black tea since I had a brown bag lunch but it wasn't warm and its chilly today. Then I'm going to do some household shopping and keep looking for nice, little things to send people.

I promise things will be mailed once I have a brain. Oh and I have a Border's coupon to spend and a Happy Hour to run tonight, all good things to look forward to.

I just walked in after my training and lunch and found in my mailbox, the small package from dynastessa and I love maps and I'm going to have such fun reading the Percy Jackson book while the keychain will be added to my jangling keychain. I was last in Paris when I was in high school so long enough ago that I don't have that many things left.

Now I'm going to rave about my training, today was a tour of the Hatcher Graduate Library along with talking to us about our duties. There are about six trainees since for the first time the woman in charge of reference is doing undergrad and graduate, most of us are first year Library students from the School of Information and all women. The library is so beautiful, it was built in 1920 and looks it, also they have copies of part of the Parethenon Freize right around where I'm going to be working. I actually ended up talking about them since Donna who I'll be working for said I know they're from the Parethenon but I don't remember the details. So I said well I'm a classics person and started talking about them, after the tour she said, maybe you could do that part for the tour later. There was lots of looking at all the various parts of the library which is huge and confusing but I know I'll figure it out.

Then I tried a new lunch place and had a yummy wrap, stopped into Dawn Treader's to buy The Many Lives of Christopher Chant and I almost bought a copy of the The Westing Game. I might pick one up after I sell my books since I don't know where my copy of it went. The day is beautiful and my feet hurt since most of the library floors are marble and the stairs are long and sweeping, very like the one's at the Metropolitan Museum in New York with ironwork. One day when I have the time, I'm going to just go around taking pictures, I think I'm allowed to do that. Other good stuff is that I got my money from the Franklin Mint Credit Union though its a lot less than I thought it was, I might need to call them since I was positive I had more money in my savings account.

Last night, I was able to start playing Sameth in Bar and I'm really enjoying it. He's this wonderful mixed up guy which is clearly one of my types. So now, I'm going to put my feet up, enjoy my ginger fizz from Sweetwaters and not go anywhere for the rest of the day.