I've got the eye of the tiger, a fighter, dancing through the fire

I hate homework.

I know it has a purpose and all that, but that doesn't make it any more fun.

So, I've decided to start a countdown, look to the right.

Days until graduation.

Although technically I'm done before then.

Comps Week - October 19-27th
Practicum Due Date - December 1st
Youth Services final assignment - December 6th

So I could change it to the 6th, but I feel Graduation is a more appropriate countdown.


Today was good.

I really like these half days, though it makes full days like tomorrow go really slow.

Spent the morning at work on the desk and checking in, then it was over to the practicum adding labels to the women's library shelves and starting to sort our men's collection.

We divided up fiction/nonfiction, now it's just about shelving them in the right places. He sorted through the nonfiction and shelved them by category while I started on the fiction.

There's a lot of fiction.

We got about halfway done but should finish on Thursday.

Had the Beach Boys playing in the background again, this time we got all the way through the concert. Go here: Catch a Wave

Best practicum ever.

Practicum Count-Up: 29/90


After that it was all about homework.

Well that and Wipeout.

I have like 18 of them recorded that I need to get through so I can clear space for actual shows coming up this fall so they were playing in the background.

But I got sick of that so now it's Iron Chef.

Go Alex!

I was pretty productive with the homework, I'm just waiting to hear back from the professor about something.

And it's not due until Sunday at midnight anyway but I figure we have class tomorrow, Thursday I'm hoping to see my boyfriend, Friday I'm babysitting, Saturday I'm hoping to see my boyfriend and I didn't want to put it all off until Sunday afternoon so I might as well get started.

Another demographics study. I feel like I've done 4 of these now within the past 3 years with exactly the same data so I just keep copy and pasting. This time I'm switching it up though and just focusing on one zipcode instead of the whole county like I always do so it's a bit different.


I know, I'm boring, I'm sorry.

Hopefully I'll have more exciting things to talk about tomorrow after class. That's always interesting. Especially the sign-in process since I have to call in.

Here, enjoy some dumb popsicle stick jokes.

What kind of flower doesn't sleep at night?

The Day-ZZZ

That doesn't make sense.

Why couldn't the elephant use the computer?

He was afraid of the mouse. 

Have I mentioned how dumb popsicle stick jokes are?

Pretty sure that's on here somewhere.

And I would know. I only eat 2 boxes a month.

If it helps it used to be a box a week, I'm cutting down.

Alright, on to the music and I'm out.

Roar - Katy Perry


this video reminds me of Hatchet.

but that's just the book nerd in me.

i really like her. some people don't but i do. especially after watching that Part of Me documentary, it was very cool.

psycho killer, qu'est-ce que c'est...

Oh Leadership/Management how I love thee.

Though I'm still blaming her for the months I tied everything to Shackleton.

And still do on occasion.

But you've made up for it because I've literally copy/pasted all of my own reference work - which is allowed because I wrote it and I researched it and I created the charts - basically took the demographics powerpoint and turned it into a community analysis paper that's 11 pages - and I was worried about 7, geez. Now all that's left is to input article quotations and specific library statistics that I'll ask one of my bosses for tomorrow. Actually I already emailed her, hopefully she'll know what I'm talking about.

So that was handy as I only really had to create like 2 more graphics and then used all the info from the presentation and turned the speech I was going to give into the actual paper including why it's important to keep these specific demographics in mind when considering the collection and library budget and programs, etc.

Anyway, as it is now 11:45 I am going to finish the rest tomorrow. Hopefully it won't take too long before I can submit it and then be done with it.

Then I'll be good until next week and won't have to freak about leaving the reception early to go home and do homework.

Cause that kind of kills the fun.

Called my dad today cause his birthday was yesterday - which I remembered yesterday but got swamped with homework so I called today instead - after that I called Oldest Sister as today was her birthday.

Invited me to some makeup party thing.

To which I clearly said no, cause that's really not my thing and I also have a huge assignment that I'm working on.

Then she came back with home makeup is healthy cause it blocks out the sun and as our immediate family is plagued with skin cancer apparently I should now start wearing makeup so that I will not get it on my face.

Interesting technique.

See what I meant about devious family?

Speaking of devious, I set up an appointment with the dentist. Yes, they finally called my cellphone instead of the work phone.

They want me to go there sometime in September. Does it make me a bad person that I scheduled it for the end of the month so that I have time to start flossing like I should have started 6 months ago?

It takes forever!

And it's awkward and weird and I just forget about it in the first place.

Whatever, I'll start eventually. I got time.

I need to stop drinking so much pop.

Today I went with diet coke, does that count?

Isn't there less sugar in that?

So yes, work, then homework, got to show a volunteer the IT department today. He volunteered for 4 hours  and helped answer computer questions. I felt bad cause it was super quiet when he was there. Oh well, he's done. As are all three of my GoPo volunteers to all I have left are the regulars and they know what they're doing. Woohoo!

Aside from that it was all homework.

And I should crash cause tomorrow will probably be yet another late night.


Songs You Know But Forgot You Knew Them


All That She Wants - Ace of Base
love this one. just something about the rhythm that turns me into a nerd, i'm aware yes.



Psycho Killer - Talking Heads
love the blonde chick in the background.


out!

There she was just a-walkin' down the street, singin'

Wow, that was some really crappy posting for the past couple days.

Grammar-wise.

Well, content-wise as well.

But they're fixed.

For the most part.

Sadly this is the most coherent I've been at the keyboard all week.

Luckily it's only Wednesday and there's still time to fix that.

Today was pretty good. I didn't go in until 1PM - which was good since I was up 'til about 6. I attempted to work some more after I posted, but that was an epic disaster and then my cat kept waking me up. Think he was ticked cause I kept him up.

He sleeps on my stomach so he doesn't like it when I stay up late. Cause that means he has to stay up late.

It's not like I do it on purpose, and he could sleep anywhere else.

Sometimes he'll lay on the couch or the floor or the chair and just glare at me. Cause he knows that I know that he wants to sleep and I'm keeping him awake.

And since it's his apartment and I just stay here - his thoughts not mine - I should abide by his rules.

Okay, I'm doing the Garfield voice again, it needs to stop.

Anyway, so yes, 6AM. So that made work quite interested. Everyone thought I was depressed and kept asking if I was okay.

I'm fine, just exhausted and overloaded. Hoping to crash sometime within the next hour - it's 11:16 - so that I can be coherent in the morning.

If I go in.

I've been feeling crappy-ish lately. Like I keep waking up all burning up. But then I get up and I have no fever. It hits during the day as well. End of day I was seriously feeling it, even Mentor asked if I was okay cause I was all flushed and flustered. If any of you say anything about hot flashes I will kick your ass.

I just feel dead. I'm losing my voice but don't have a cough. I'm exhausted all the time, but I think that's just stress and lack of sleep. My head doesn't hurt and I'm not puking so I'll be fine. It's all mental after all.

Just need to keep myself distracted, like the awesomeness that was dinner tonight with the Cool Aunt. We went out for sushi at our normal place. We go there so often that we're literally making our way through their menu. Like items 1-4, then came 5-8, tonight was presumably going to be 9-12 but we instead went with 9,12-14 because she doesn't like the BBQ eel that would have been included in item numbers 10 and 11.

Which is fine with me, the ones we got rocked. And I literally have half of them in my fridge. They will probably be gone by the time this post is finished. Because you know now that I'm talking about them I'll want to go get them. For some reason sushi is better in the middle of the night. Why is that? There's a reference question for you.

We talked the usual family stuff, library stuff, school stuff, Library Goddess stuff. Apparently I'm doing something right with the grad assistantship as she said the Goddess is pleased. There really is no escaping cause the Library Goddess carpools and team teaches with the Cool Aunt, and she's like BFF's with Superwoman aka my boss. And now Superwoman and the Cool Aunt are acquainted so I'm super screwed.

Not that I was planning on leaving the profession anyway.

I finally found my place in the world and I like it here.

Aside from all the homework and stress and all that.

But dinner helped. And she paid. I swear, the women in this family fight over every bill. It's never like a, yeah okay, you can pay this one. I'll let you. We're devious. The only time I actually successfully paid the bill for a sushi night with the Cool Aunt was because I hid my debit card on under my phone on the table and when the bill came I grabbed it, shoved the card in and handed it back before she knew what hit her.

And the only time I've paid for Mexican at our favorite joint is because she was distracted by the fried icecream.

And mom was gone trying to find her missing wallet.

Otherwise she would have gotten it before me.

Like I said, serious business.

My favorite is when the Cool Aunt caves and lets Grams pay for dinner every once in a while, then she puts money into her Grams envelope she keeps in her purse.

Devious business.

That should have been my answer.

This dude - my newest stalker in the group that is ever-increasing and slightly disturbing, okay more than slightly - came in tonight asking how a broke grad student can afford a sushi night out.

When he comes in again I'll just say I have a devious aunt who steals the bill from the waitress's hand before I can.

Anyway, so after dinner came the inevitable homework.

Which I've been dreading all day.

I have however finished both Friday and Saturdays assignments aka the IT paper and online reference quiz. Now all I have left is the community analysis and since that's basically the demographics study I did in last year's Leadership/Management class I plan on completely pilfering all my charts and just updating all the new stats.

I'm allowed to do that, I created them.

It was amusing, I was feeling completely overwhelmed and then I found all my notes and research and went, oh. I knew that already. We're good. Geez, there's even a demographics tag on here, how long ago was that created?!

Now it's just about finding the new statistics and putting it all together. I'm not looking forward to the whole 7 pages that doesn't include a bibliography or any of the charts thing though. But I'm guessing I'm not the only one with that.

Alright, gonna see if the stats match up - if so there will be much rejoicing. But that's for tomorrow's post.


Song You Know But Forgot You Knew It

Lump - The Presidents of the United States of America (1995)
yay for the 90s.


and oh yeah, yesterday's rec? Finally realized what song it reminds me of.

Compare and contrast:

She's So Mean - Matchbox 20 (2012)



Do Wah Diddy - Manfred Mann (1964)


anybody else make this connection or is this just a figment of my imagination?

Green Bags and Nametags

How can I describe the past few days?

I'll simplify it for you in two words.

Mass hysteria.

So, there's this thing called "Grad School". And, there's this other thing that comes along with it called "homework". Usually the homework involves reading something and writing something. This past assignment was a little bigger than that. A lot bigger than that. A demographic study of the patrons in our community. And, since we're a system with numerous locations meaning anyone from anywhere in the county could go to any library, I did a study on the county. Included statistics on age, gender, education, race/ethnicity and financial demographics. Then put it all together in a powerpoint.

And I have to say, I used to hate Microsoft Word 2010. I was not a believer. I was so used to 2003 and 2007 on Kate, that when I installed 2010 on Ziva I completely avoided it like the plague. The shortcuts are different, buttons are in different places, it just looks like a mess, I didn't understand any of the new features, etc. Now? It freaking rocks. Dude, have you checked out any of their graphics or clip art selection? How about the awesome SmartArt that gives you designs and you fill in the information? Plus, with building pie charts and bar graphs comes along Excel and all you have to do is plug in the numbers and it links the documents together. It's fantastic!

I'm now a believer. So, if nothing else comes from this project, at least I'll have that. "We'll always have demographics," I'll say, raising a toast and closing the lid.

I've spent every free moment I've had working on that project for the past three days. And spare moments in the days before that. And now, it's done! And posted as of last night! And I felt like celebrating! And you know how I celebrated that today? I went to a conference!

The NLA conference to be exact. Oh my god, the nerd convention, I freaking loved every minute of it. I freely admit that I'm a nerd. I've learned to just go with it. But being in a place filled with other fellow nerds? We like freaking took over the whole building.

Sessions on Web Reference tools, Digital Humanities, Turning your library around circulation and public-wise, learning about the scholarships available for the MLS program, going to a panel discussion on life during and after MLS. Which is me! And those are just the programs I attended, there were like 6 options for every hour session.

And OH MY GOD, I saw so many freaking classmates it was ridiculous. Granted it is a library convention, but still. Everywhere I went. Frankie, Kathryn, Linnea, Sherm, Angela, plus professors and the Library Goddess who is always ever present in times of library craziness and shenanigans.

Speaking of shenanigans, I wonder how Battledecks is going? Remember how we're nerds? Well, after they opened the bar, tonight's entertainment was basically these people go up and have to present the future of the library on the basis of a powerpoint they've never seen before. They literally have to think on their feet as soon as the slide is shown. Sounds awesome, but again, I'm a nerd.

Even more of a nerd that I came home to crash and burn instead. The demographic study has stolen more than few hours of sleep from me so I don't know how much longer I can be online. I will give you the highlights before I konk out.

There are some seriously funny librarians out there. I know some of you probably think of us as the mean old ladies with the glasses who sh! people and then glare when you don't shut up. But we're not. We're anti-stereotypical librarians. We take over hotels and hit up the bar. Oh my god, the place was crazy!

Let's start with walking into the hotel.
Fearless Leader: "There are gonna be sooo many nerds!"
and then again
FL: "Library swag" was a phrase used repeatedly during the day. i love it. We got these green bags to hold all our free stuff and it was hilarious because they were all green so when everyone left to go to lunch you could tell if they were one of us - even from like blocks away - because they'd have that giant green bag. and nametags. It was like a library cult or something. Green bags and nametags required.

Slim Shady: "I want my foam!" her day just started off bad, she got sausage for breakfast when she didn't want sausage for breakfast and then we were in a presentation and when she tried to take the lid off her coffee it started making these noises. And you know how when you're in a big group and someone's talking so you want to be quiet, and that you open your candy or pop or whatever as quietly as you can so that as few people as possible will notice? she was attempting to pull the lid off one centimeter at a time because she needed that foam.

Presenter: "I can say hola! and that's about it." on her spanish language skills, or lack their of.

Slim Shady: "What did she say?"
Me: "No idea but we should probably clap." what? everyone else was!

Mayor: "And don't forget about the sunken gardens!" well, figured out his favorite place in town. yes the actual mayor made a speech. that's big potatoes man. i've used that phrase so many times i don't remember if that's the actual phrase or if the actual phrase is "small potatoes" and something wasn't small it was infact big so I switched it? or maybe it is "big potatoes" and at one point something wasn't all that big of a deal so I said "small potatoes" instead. which is an actual phrase? i mean, i know they're both phrases, but which one is accredited to more than just me?

Keynote Speaker: "S.L.U.T.S. Southern Ladies Under Tremendous Stress. We wine a little, we laugh a lot." fantastic.

Keynote Speaker: "If I get a glamour shot at 60 I'll look like Whistler's mother!" she showed a picture of her mom when she talked about SLUTS, saying it was her idea.

Presenter: "And you can share it with the world! And people can use it for things you don't know about." the joy of uploading photos online. but the presentation was awesome - the fact that she's LCL made it even better. we're awesome like that. she gave a lot of good reference databases though, definitely gonna use those at work.

Kathryn: "It's Match.com for librarians!" about their facebook page, which we're supposed to "like" and upload librarian stories. i think it's kind of cool, like a community forum thing.


And here's a bonus from yesterday. "I'm a sweater addict. I admit that freely. She wanted a book on fashion in the 80's. Has it really changed?" I just sat there and laughed.

Alright all, tomorrow is an all-day at one branch day so I'm gonna gonna crash. Hope you have a good night. And if anyone went to Battledecks hit me with some highlights!

put some music on that's soft and slow...

Superwoman owes me lunch.

Or some points.

I'm up to 138 as of today. Mostly because of our administrative aide claiming I deserved them - apparently The Powers That Be know of the the point system. Fantastic, love it.

Today was actually pretty cool. Slept in, worked on some homework statistics stuff, ate lunch, headed to work at 1, was mostly banished to the back room - which is fine with me. I actually got a lot accomplished. Spent my break up on 3rd floor talking about demographic statistics for homework. Yes, that's how I spend all my breaks. No, I usually jam in the staff room with my ipod, this time I actually planned out my demographic catagories with the information that our fabulous admin aide was able to share with me. She's amusing, and helpful. The statistics will be a great benefit to the census 2010 crap.

OMG, that website is impossible to navigate! 2000 census was easier. I think I finally got it down though. My problem is that one of my libraries is on the very corner of one of the tract blocks so do I just use the one it's in? or do I add it to the one right next to it? It's not like the people across the street don't use our library! Guess I'll have to add them.

That's my plan, to compare demographics between libraries. But I don't want to do a powerpoint!! They're cliche. And excel is boring. So think I'm gonna look into that infographics thing. I have all tomorrow afternoon. After I get groceries and pay rent.

The rest of the day was pretty fun as well. Got supper then headed to other library from 6-8 to work with the Queen of the Known Universe. and it was hysterical cause it's backwards - I had to train her! When I'm used to her training me! She'd never worked at that branch before so I got to give her the nickel tour and training. Which is going to happen a lot soon since Sensei is retired, Queen of Awesome is on bedrest and my Glee-Loving Boss is on a cruise. It's down to the four of us aka Joe Studley, Spencer and the Space Cadets. And anyone else the branches can spare.

Superwoman had a lot of faith in me. Mostly. Then she called, "How's your spiritual training going?" "AHHHH!! Help me!" QOTKU screamed...jokingly...I hope. I think I'm an okay leader...ish. Parents do trust me with their children for a weekend out in the middle of nowhere. Oh, Camp J. How I miss you already. But you'll start again soon enough.

She has enough faith in me to let me off at 5 on Sunday so I can play softball for the extended season, huzzah!! I'll take that over the points. I guess. We're gonna rock it! I think it's just going to be the same order we played the first three, meaning we'll take on the Methodists at 6:30 and I'll hang around to play with the E-Free against Prince of Peace. If they decide to stick around. They sounded like they were in. Then next week it'll be us vs. Prince of Peace - Battle of the Lutherans on like Donkey Kong - and then after that us vs. E-Free for more awkwardness.

Yeah, when they brought up the extended season E-Free pastor looks at me and G-Wigger saying, "Get ready for a double-header!" I love playing with those guys. And now that I'm smart enough to wear pants hopefully my leg will stay in one piece. Dude, my muscle still stings. That's not good, right? I'll get over it.

Song of the night:
"Your Man" sang by two of my favorites

"i can't believe how much it-OH MY GOD!" haha, freaks out. 16 year old country music prodigy sings with his idol. now he's an american idol. so it matches.

Tomorrow's split shift then homework and errands. Out of the night. Dangit, missed Castle yet again. Will add that to the list of tomorrow's priorities.