Tad Overdue

Can I get your cabbage roll? (oh oh. cabbage roll).

2012-02-06T22:19:00.000-05:00

First off, who is on a mega regular blogging streak? this girl! What what? Ride it while it's hot folks. Side note: Hobby quest didn't happen this past weekend due to the Super Bowl. It will return next week, I hope.

Secondly, you're probably wondering who on earth eats cabbage. I'm here to say, "give cabbage a chance!" It's ridiculously healthy, cheap (the head of cabbage for this project cost 40 cents), currently in season, and if you cook it right, I swear to you it's delicious.

I love cabbage rolls. They are this semi-bland, cabbage-licious Mennonite comfort food that is great to eat in winter. HOWEVER, they take FOREVER to make, because you have to stuff and roll leaves of boiled cabbage like little cabbage burritos. So when I came upon a recipe for cabbage roll casserole I got pretty excited. Could it be that I could enjoy the amazingness of cabbage rolls without spending hours burning my hands on hot cabbage leaves? YES.

I more or less followed this recipe from Cooks.com, with a couple variations that I'll note as I go.

Also, i should warn you that while making cabbage roll casserole is way less effort than cabbage rolls, you still need to give yourself a lot of time with this one - it has to bake for 2 hours.

Be sure to prepare yourself.... I recommend wine.

Brown 1 lb of ground beef - I used ground turkey.

While the meat is cooking, in a smallish bowl, combine 2 cans diced tomato (the recipe calls for tomato sauce, but I prefer chunks), 1/4 cup cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, and 1 tablespoon dry mustard. I only had ground mustard, which I assumed was the same?

When the meat is done cooking, turn off the heat and add 1 cup uncooked rice, 1 chopped onion, 2 cloves minced garlic, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and a few grinds worth of pepper. Stir together.

then CHOP that cabbage. It said to chop "coarsely" which i took to mean "not too small".
FYI, you won't need the whole cabbage... You may only need half. I used about 2/3rds, but as you'll see in a minute, I ended up needing two containers.

In a 3 quart dish - or, if you're like me and you don't have a 3 quarter pan, a 2 1/2 quart dish and another one you have on hand - layer as follows: 1/3rd of your chopped cabbage on the bottom, then 1/2 the meat, another 1/3rd of the cabbage, the rest of the meat, the rest of the cabbage, and top with the tomato yummyness.

I had a bit too much but oh well! More = better!

Let it sit for a bit before putting in the oven - The recipe says 20 minutes, I probably did 10.

Bake for 2 hours at 325, covered.

Eat! mmmm.

I thought it was delicious and a perfect substitute for cabbage rolls. In fact, I may even like it BETTER than cabbage rolls - the cider vinegar gives the whole dish a great zippy flavor. So give cabbage a chance! This whole recipe will cost you about $5 to make assuming you already have rice and spices on hand, feed you for a week, and if you don't like it, I'll gladly eat your leftovers.

Thing 16: Advocacy

2012-02-04T10:59:00.002-05:00

Advocacy... you know, fighting for stuff... this is thing 16 for CPD 23

So, I had pretty much given up on finishing this program, but I'm finding a lot of librarians still working on it, so I guess I will too? Plus, I have discovered that blogging is like working out: the more I do it, the more I like it, but as soon as I stop I don't really miss it. So might as well keep writing while i'm on a streak.

I honestly don't have much to say about advocacy. I feel like 60% of my daily job is advocacy... making sure I stay relevant and useful to a campus that before I came on, didn't have a librarian. Outside of my job, I advocate by using the local public library, being a Friend of the Library, and general lazy things like that.

The other piece of this, according to the CPD23 description, is being engaged in research and publishing. Well let me tell you, this crap is a bi$ch. I have a few presentations on my CV, but have been trying to get published for about a year now. An article I wrote with my mentor has been submitted and rejected by... 3?... 4? journals? So that's fun. And I'm currently working with a former colleague on a new article. I do think research is important and plan to keep trying - but the process is very frustrating.

I know this was a short post, but I still have like 7 things to go, and this one isn't anything particularly exciting for me.

Hobby Quest will return early next week :D

Libday 8

2012-02-02T18:09:00.002-05:00

An abrupt shift from Hobby Quest! :)

Libday is a project meant to answer the question that I think certain people on my campus ask themselves regularly: "what on earth does a librarian do all day?" Ok, not just people on my campus. Pretty much everytime I tell someone I'm a librarian, the response is one of four statements:
1. Oh, so you like to read?
2. Oh, we still have those?
3. Really? You don't.... seem.... like a librarian.
4. Oh? My mother/grandmother/cousin is/was a librarian.

And, you know, I can think of a lot of professions that I am ignorant about, so I can excuse and laugh about this. However, it becomes a problem when the people who control you budget and job security don't understand or know what you do. If it's misunderstood, it probably gets slashed.

So Libday is meant to counteract this problem. What does a librarian do all day? Well, it depends entirely on what type of library he/she is working in, and what sort of role that librarian fills. Being in a solo position means I fill about 15 different roles. Just today I played reference librarian, instruction librarian, IT librarian, cataloging librarian, tech services librarian, and emerging technologies librarian.

So yesterday, I chronicled my day for the masses, in hopes that the list of what I do all day might save some library somewhere from budget slashing. After the break, yo:

In at 9am: - Morning rounds: check email, check online class, check online writing lab, run hold list
- Responded to student emails
- Sent out the February LRC newsletter. Thankfully, another librarian did the work of creating it! All I had to do was add a bit of content about my local LRC, run a report for student emails, and send.
- Sent my monthly report to my campus prez, and my regional librarian. Doing these is an easy way to promote what I do, and makes it a lot easier to pull things together for administration's quarterly and yearly reports.
- Worked to organize the next campus book club meeting. Book club started a couple quarters ago and has been a fun way to build community and promote reading among the faculty and staff on my campus. Participation has ranged from just 2 up to 8. This quarter we're discussing the Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I am very excited about reading.

10am-ish
- Time to start on projects... First up, contacting all the students in my blended class who didn't get marked for attendance last week, because if they miss again this week they will be dropped. Thankfully, this is more or less a quick copy-paste job.
- Next, editing and loading content for my blended class. This is fairly easy too, but does involve a fair amount of revisions to my normal on-ground materials.
- A student who made an appointment yesterday came in for help, horray! Didn't take long..... spent about 25 minute working with her on a Prezi for a class project.
- made the rounds and chatted with some co-workers. Bonus: filled my coffee cup.
- Files some claims with WTCox, our subscription manager. Since placing my renewal order in December, I've been getting duplicates of a few titles.
- About 40 minutes till lunch, so need some small tasks: Clean off desk, pile of paperwork to the shredder, filing, passing some things off to the work study.

12:30! On Wednesdays I don't actually take a lunch. I scarf down a granola bar and a banana and run to Cole Elementary school to volunteer for an hour. There I shelve books and help out the lone librarian.

2:30ish. Back! Only a short bit of time before my 3pm webinar. Fill up my water, register for webinar, chat with my co-worker who was out the past two days.

3pm-5:30
-Webinar on our new online learning management system. I have a super hard time focusing on webinars, but as this is something very new that I will potentially have to answer a lot of questions on, it's easier than
usual.
- Met with an instructor to help her set up Google Voice and a Facebook page for one of her classes.
- Did some research into useful phone apps for our Club Tech program
- Finished up things for the next couple weeks of my blended class.

And... off!

Bore-igami

2012-01-31T22:40:00.000-05:00

This past weekend we actually had a fair amount of stuff going on, so the hobby adventure needed to be short, relatively easy, and preferably cost-free. So, Sunday, after our weekly trip to the grocery store, and before our weekly ritual of avoiding cleaning the kitchen, I forced Matt into 30 minutes of Origami.

I've never been particularly partial to the art of paper folding, beyond entertaining myself in church as a kid by making paper boats, and at one point being proficient in making cute little boxes out of old greeting cards. However, when it came to finding a hobby, it seemed kind of ideal. We could become paper masters! Creating art where once was a boring piece of paper! Astonishing small children by turning napkins into cranes! Except that it turns out I suck at origami.

To begin our hobby-tivity for the week, I dug out an origami book that was given to me for Christmas as some point in the past few years, and bonus! there were still pieces of paper tucked inside.

Matt wanted to jump right into making cranes, I suppose assuming that folding paper really shouldn't be difficult. Oh but it is... we were quickly frustrated by the vague two-dimensional images in the book, so supplemented our learning with YouTube videos.

In the end, Matt ended up with a crane, and I ended up with some sort of paper blob. Thankfully the true sadness of my crane-like creature is camouflaged by the tablecloth. :

And then... we were done. I made a swan by myself to gain back some self-respect after the crane disaster, but that's it. I guess it takes a long time to become an paper wielding origami master artist, and we just didn't have the patience or skill.

Hobby grade: D-

Remarks:
- Well. I wasn't very good at it, and my crane kind of looked like a piece of trash.

- You end up with a tangible product, which is nice. But it's a lame fake paper animal. Bonus for being recyclable!

- Over too quickly. The puzzle was too long, the crane-making too short.

- Can you really imagine a couple doing this as a hobby? "Oh Matty, let's turn off the TV for awhile and focus on our latest paper craft." "yes dearest, that sounds lovely." Though i do suppose that receiving a bouquet of paper roses would be nice?

- It really wasn't very fun. In fact, it was frustrating. Maybe we would have enjoyed in more if we had gone to a class or something.

- Matt's comments: "too much folding." and "G.D. CREASES." I must agree. You can't just fold a crane. You have to fold and unfold in about more directions than you even realized paper COULD fold before you even start creating something.

So Borigami is not the answer to our search for a shared activity. I, for one, am still holding out for basket weaving.

More pics!

Matt folds. He's better at this than me, but he still doesn't like it.

I am sad that I suck at origami.

A close up of the sad, sad crane.

Hobby Quest!

2012-01-23T22:27:00.000-05:00

Holy crapolies people. Not exactly sure why I haven't blogged a decent blog since, oh September, but I can guess it has a lot to do with being pretty busy at work and teaching a whole lot of classes on the side. My brain works for so much each day that when I get home I basically want to do nothing but sleep and watch television. I "only" have two classes this quarter (though have the same amount to students as I did last quarter, with 3 classes, but I'll leave that rant for another time), so I'm hoping that magical fountains of extra time and inspiration will spring forth from the floor of the apartment and I'll blog again. In odd semi-related news, my blog had 70 hits the other day? I seem to get more traffic to my blog when I don't write than when I do...

So, Hobby Quest.

You see, Matt and I lead a fairly boring life these days. Our boring routine isn't so much a problem during the week when we're so shell-shocked from work that doing nothing sounds great, but on the weekends this boredom leads to bickering, annoyance, and general anger toward the town we live in and it's utter lameness. During winter, this frustration is even more pronounced since so little can be done outside of the apartment. Last weekend, I decided that we need more hobbies.

Why? Well. Because Netflix and wine cannot be considered hobbies, and because I read somewhere that the key to a successful marriage is lots of shared interests. The shared interests part remains a bit of a problem, because you can't really force a hobby onto someone. That said, Matt has (so far) been a willing participant in Hobby Quest 2012.

This idea came to me Sunday morning, and I spent some time researching hobby ideas. In the end, I created a fairly lengthy list, from which Matt nixed basket weaving and candle making. I'm hoping to persuade him that basket weaving would be totally worth our time, because HELLO, you end up with a basket at the end.

Since it was already Sunday, which left only hours to try out our newly chosen weekend hobby, we went with something easy: puzzles. I grew up doing puzzles. Lots of puzzles. As an awkward adolescent I had this one puzzle that I would do over and over again in the basement while listening to Billy Joel records. I would time myself to see how fast I could do it. Seriously.

And, it is a family proverb that a successful marriage can be predicted by the ability of the couple to complete a puzzle together. (I'm really not kidding - I can't tell you how many times I heard this growing up. Am I the only one?).

As part of our Sunday grocery shopping, Matt and I chose a puzzle together, and got to work. I am pleased to report that we did not fight once during the assembly of the puzzle, so I assume we passed the family test in that regard.

Puzzles. Overall hobby grade: C

Remarks:
- No suitable surface area. We were forced to do puzzle on coffee table, which was too tall for floor sitting, but too short for chair sitting. Back pain became a problem.

- Improper lighting. We actually used a headlamp thingy for extra light.

- Length of hobby. You can work on a puzzle for like 2 hours and not even be halfway done! Needs more in the way of instant gratification.

- One problem is that we didn't really work on the puzzle together. While I worked on the edges, Matt put a bunch of pieces on a cookie sheet and sat on the side of the room. Thus lessening the whole SHARED part of the shared hobby.

- Matt also quit after assembling one figure in the middle of the puzzle. I really didn't mind doing 75% of the puzzle... I like puzzles... but apparently, Matt doesn't, at least not to the same extent.

- Post-completion disappointment. Unless you put together a puzzle that is also a work of art, all you can do when you're done with the puzzles is... take it apart. Let's compare that to basket weaving, where you end up with a sweetass basket that you can use forever. Basket weaving for the win!

- When asked for his opinion of puzzling as a hobby, the best Matt could conjure was "eh."

So, puzzling will be turned to in dark hours of boredom and desperation, like snowstorms and broken legs. Though I won't lie, part of me wants to find that old puzzle from my youth and see how fast I can put it together.

Matt is so pumped for Puzzles! And Hobbies!

My back hurts from working on the puzzle too long

Done! Hobby success!

2011-12-03T21:18:00.000-05:00

Not coincidentally, my last blog post was the week before the start of fall quarter at the school where i work. I'm teaching 3 classes this quarter, and while this is totally manageable, it means that things like lesson planning and grading have replaced hobbies like blogging and having a life for the time being. The quarter ends soon! Maybe i'll get back on track with blogging soon....

Thing 15: Conferences

2011-09-11T20:17:00.003-04:00

Thing 15 in my CPD 23 things is conferences -- attending, speaking at, and organizing conferences.

Attending:
I haven't done as much of this as I would like. I have attended only 2 professional conferences, the Public Library Association (PLA) conference last spring in Portland, and the Indiana Library Federation (ILF) annual conference last November. This year, the ILF is the only one I will make it to.

PLA was kind of a fluke... I mostly went because I had funding and wanted to go to Portland! but it was still an awesome experience.

ILF is, for me, a good thing to be involved with right now. As someone just getting started in my career, it's easier to get presentation proposals accepted and to get involved with ILF than a national conference right now. Plus, the school I work for will only fund the local conferences at this point.

In the very near future the ALA conference will be in Chicago, and ACRL will be in Indy. And while I might have to pay out of my own pocket to attend 1 or both of these, i WILL be there, because if they are that close, how can I say no?

Speaking:
My first professional presentation was at ILF last fall, as part of a larger group presenting on a project. I really didn't have to do anything but get up and present my 6 slides. This year I will be speaking again, with my colleague Rebecca, and we completed the whole process -- writing and submitting a proposal, being accepted, and now, putting together a presentation. It's been fun... and nervous making.

I do a lot of public speaking, even though I can't say it's something I ever really enjoy. I see the value in it, though, and know that I'm getting better at it, so I will keep on doing it! Maybe I can get my college to fund my fees to attend to ACRL in Indy if I can get a proposal accepted? Hmmm...

Organizing:
I don't really feel skilled in this area, but again have somehow managed to do a fair amount of it. As impromptu president of the SLIS student association at IUPUI I planned events, some successful, some not. I'm working with Nicole and Annie on an October Tweet-up for librarians in our area. And, my campus loves events, so I find myself planning lots of random things for my LRC.

I am really excited about the future when it comes to presenting and attending and being involved with conferences. As I've mentioned in several posts, I have a very awesome group of librarians that I work with - albeit remotely - and we have some great ideas for research that can hopefully turn into some cool opportunities.

Thing 14: Reference Thingamabobs

2011-09-10T12:08:00.003-04:00

Thing 14 for CPD is open source citation management programs Zotero, Citeulike, and Mendeley.

I graduated with my MLS last May, and i think this past year or so can be considered a nice little break from too much academia. Not that I haven't done any research-y things in the past year... i most definitely have.. but I'm not digging for articles in databases every other day like I was in school, and when I find articles that are interesting, I usually just print them out, read them, and take notes. I'm old fashioned like that. This is starting to change somewhat as my mentor pushes me to revise and submit articles for publication, and I've developed a cohort of colleagues that is interested in researching and presenting. We need a way to easily share articles, and email is clunky - people forget to save the attachment, delete the email, it goes to spam, etc. A citation management system with quality sharing features is a much better option.

Zotero
I have a love hate relationship with Zotero, stemming from a frustrating experience as a class Zotero trouble shooter over a year ago now. You can read some more about this in a blog I wrote called Zotero makes me want to poke my eyes out. That said, I really do think it's the best free citation software out there. Diigo might give it a run for it's money (or... non-money, since it's open source...) but I haven't had time to explore Diigo like I need to. I've started using Zotero again recently as I work with colleagues on various research projects, and I think the tools, especially the collaborative features, have finally gotten some kinks worked out. So, I still have and still occasionally use Zotero, and have been using it more regularly as some projects get off the ground.

Mendeley Looks... interesting. I like the share and collaborate features, but i don't see anything that inspires me to down load it.

Citeulike. Again.... looks interesting, but reminds me a lot of Evernote. I created an account but didn't really find anything I hadn't already found an bookmarked elsewhere.

I don't hate citation management tools, but I often forget to use them. I also don't know that there is much need for more than 1. So while Zotero might make me want to scream sometimes, I also have a lot of stuff stored there that I won't be transferring anywhere else any time soon. I think Zotero actively improving, and am hopeful those screaming fits will be reduced to a bare minimum in the near future.

Thing 13: Google Doc, Wikis, Dropbox

2011-09-07T21:09:00.004-04:00

Collaboration! WOO!

A true millennial, I love collaborating. Helps that I have really awesome collaborators in the form of librarian colleagues. Collaboration tools are awesome these days - thanks interwebs - though I honestly don't use them as much as I should. Email, Instant messaging, sharepoint.... old habits are hard to break, though I have used all three of the tools for CPD thing 13, to a varying extent.

Google Docs:
I love it's ease of use, that it feels like you're using Word and Excel, and the sharing features. However... the one project I worked on that relied on sharing docs via Google Docs, we had some issues with being able to edit and share like we wanted to. This was 2 years ago, and I haven't spent much time with Google Docs since. I know it's capable of a lot more, and when I have a clone, I will spend some time figuring out how I can use it more and use it better.

Wikis:
Least amount of experience with this one. I've used them, but mostly to set up basic websites, not to collaborate. I like other tools better.

DropBox:
Dropbox is one of my new favorite things. It has been a lifesaver for the documents i need for teaching my online class. It would be amazing for students, since it's basically a cloud-based network drive. Instead of emailing myself the current version of a document, or carrying around a flash drive, I just save things to dropbox and access them from anywhere. I haven't used the collaboration features much. We flirted with using it to share documents for an Information Literacy collaborative group, but decided on other means instead (though come to think of it "other means" has yet to come to fruition....). The space limit is an issue, but I think there are lots of awesome possibilities with dropbox.

I like all these tools, but still end up using old fashioned email for most collaborating. Why? Well, in someways it's easier. There's a message in my inbox reminding me it's my turn to work on things - and man do I need that reminder! With email, you always have the most current version of a document instead of being uncertain whether your collaborators are in the midst of updating at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I think the tools for this week are fantastic. I just think the best collaboration tools are yet to come.

Thing 12: On Being Social

2011-09-05T12:43:00.001-04:00

Ok, this is a real quick catch up post for CPD.

Topic: Social networking.

Me: Pretty good at it. Making friends and connecting with people has always been something that comes naturally for me. My myer-briggs has me as an almost off-the-charts extrovert; my biggest strength according to the Strengths Assessment is Woo - and communication and includer were in my top 5 (though oddly, my current place of work uses the DiSC assessment, and by this logic, I should have shown up as an I, but I didn't, I showed up as an S). In other words, I am totally that person chatting with strangers in the grocery line.

Social networking though, adds an interesting element to the whole being social and making friends thing. I still find it easier to make friends in the real world, as opposed to online. I think a lot of introverts... and lets be honest here, A LOT of librarians are introverts... use the internet to create networks because they are more comfortable behind a computer, but I'm really not -- and I have enough of a life that I sometimes go days without even thinking to check my social media online (or if I am tweeting/facebooking/etc, i'm posting about whatever party or funtivity i am involved with).

All that said, I have loved the connectivity that social networking has brought me in the world of librarianship. I have yet to meet librarians in real life that I only know via twitter or google plus, but that's lack of funds to attend professional conferences not lack of desire. I love being able to post a question on twitter and getting 10 responses -- really saved me one day at work when I had an Info Lit class to teach on evaluating websites and NO INTERNET. Got some great feedback thanks to some stellar librarians and my smart phone.

To me, the pros of social networking far outweigh the cons. However, there are downsides... for one, I like getting to know people... I also don't like being 100% professional. On social networks you get people from all across the spectrum. People follow me who could care less about the librarian things I post, and I'm sure half the librarians that follow me could care less about what I cook for dinner, watch on tv, and do on the weekends. On the flip side, I get annoyed hearing about break ups or singledom or worst of all KNITTING. Really? Must we constantly live up to that stereotype? But, I figure, I can ignore your knitting posts if you can ignore my random tweets about the Iowa Hawkeyes, mennonites, and food.

Anyway... I am about 7 posts behind on CPD right now, so keeping this one short and sweet.

Budgeting Rockstars #1: Couponing

2011-08-30T21:10:00.000-04:00

Matt and I have the perhaps over ambitious goal of paying off all our debt in the next 3-4 years. While all the debt we have is "good" debt, in that it is relatively low interest rate student loans, we still have a lot of it. Like 2 masters degrees and a private college undergrad's worth, and we pay out as much in student loan repayment a month as we do in rent. At the rates we're at, we won't have it paid off until 2025, or something like that. Frust-to-the-rating.

In an attempt to make it seem more surmountable, I will brag on us for a bit, and highlight the fact we've paid off 2 car loans and a sizeable personal loan in the last year. But the total of those three loans, while impressive, isn't even a 5th of what we owe for our educations.

Thankfully, my parents taught me the value of hard work and frugality. And even more thankfully, my husband was raised similarly. We aren't as crazy as some of the people i've read about, who do everything short of selling kidneys to pay off debt as fast as possible. In fact, we've decided to keep our iphones, and while we did just downgrade our cable, still have internet, netflix, and 11 network channels to entertain us. So it's not like we're living some horrible forced-poverty sort of life.

Budget secret #1: Couponing

I am by no means an extreme couponer. Who has time for that? But i have started paying more attention to ads and sales. I hate shopping for food and toiletries. My preferred mode of shopping for these items is to do it once every 3 months just so i don't have to venture inside a gawd awful grocery store. I have tricked myself into liking my new way of shopping -- weekly -- by making it a fun game of "how much can i get for the least amount."

Instead of going one place for everything, because it's easier, I now sit down with the weekly ads and compare what's for sale at each place and go there for that item. I also started a notebook where I list prices of items we always buy, like laundry detergent, so that I can actually tell when looking at the ads if a sale price somewhere is a good deal or not.

This might sound like a lot of work, but it probably takes a total of an hour or less a week, and we save a lot. Like last week, I got two bottles of herbal essences shampoo, a giant thing of honey, and a jar of green olives. Retail price: $19. On sale: $16. After coupons: $5 -- and I got a $1 off anything coupon back on the purchase, so $4. Not too shabby for a novice.

The trick is doing at least 2 of the 3 parts. You won't save money if you JUST read the ads or JUST clip coupons or JUST keep a list of prices. But combine even 2, and you'll start to see results. Buy or subscribe to the sunday paper, or be lucky and have access to a free one like I do! If you buy only the Sunday paper the total cost, per month, is about $6. I save a heck of a lot more than that on the coupons and ads it comes with - plus, you get to read news and do a crossword puzzle.

The other trick is not needing things. Do you need a huge room full of stockpiled materials like on tv? No. But if you do get in the habit of buying things when they are on sale, rather than when you need them, you will save a lot. I don't intend to ever pay more than 50 cents for a tube of toothpaste ever again - seriously.

The danger of couponing is that it actually becomes a bit addictive. This week, I was going to buy Matt more body wash. He pointed out that he had about 6 bottles yet to be used. I replied, "but I have a buy 1 get one free coupon!" His apt response? "Honey, we don't save any money until you actually stop buying things." You need to toe the line between not needing things, and buying things just because they are a good deal.

Anyway. Save money. Clip a coupon. Budget rockstars magical tip #1.

Thing 11: Mentoring

2011-08-27T19:21:00.000-04:00

Thing 11 for CPD is mentoring. I'm a pretty independent person. I hate asking for help, and I don't like to receive it unless i've asked...I think my parents and husband can attest to this. But yet, I have a mentor, and a fabulous one at that. It all happened completely accidentally, which is maybe why I works for me.

I applied for and was offered an assistantship my 2nd year of grad school. I was extremely excited about the opportunity, because I was working for my favorite professor. On the day she offered me the job, she mentioned I'd also be working for a new professor too. New professor, Andrea, moved to Indy from the east coast, and didn't know anyone. New professor became my mentor.

I still don't know exactly how the transition occurred. All i know is that I **thought** I was getting a good education and tons of experience before Andrea joined the faculty. But the projects she brought me in on -- presenting to classes, collecting data for her research, working with a public library to create a digital repository (which also gave me the chance to be on a panel for my first professional presentation), oh, and making me president of the student association -- opened my eyes a bit. The education I was receiving was good, but I needed more of these projects, ideas, and opportunities if I was going to actually get a job when I was done with my degree.

At some point, I began referring to her as my mentor. It's more than that though; we are also good friends, and work together on projects. She never treats me as though I am uncapable -- rather, I am an equal part of everything we do. She just kind of pushes me along and leads/encourages/forces me into to opportunities.

I don't know that I would have a mentor if not for this accidental mentor/mentee relationship that developed in my life -- but i hope something similar evolves for those of you without a mentor! I wouldn't have a clue how to get started with trying to get published, or even how to develop research ideas into actual projects, presentations and papers if it hadn't been for her guidance.

I have other, unofficial mentors too, those people I look up and seek advice from but without ever discussing what their role is in my life. For example, there is a co-worker on my campus who has been teaching 13 years and recently got promoted. Whenever i have questions, concerns, or just need help with something regarding teaching, I turn to this person for advice, and the feedback I get is a huge help. And I started teaching a class 4 weeks after starting my job and had ZERO teaching experience... so yeah, I needed guidance!

So those of you, like me, who are a bit too stubborn and independent to ask for help... figure out that area where you know you need help -- for me, it's learning about how to be a better instructor and navigating the treacherous waters of scholarly publication -- and suck it up and ask for advice. People really do want to help, and you'll end up learning and strengthening relationships at the same time. Someday, when I've figured out some things in this life :), I hope I can be as good a mentor as the ones I've found.

Thing 10: Route to Librarianship

2011-08-21T15:05:00.001-04:00

Looking back, being a librarian should have been a really obvious choice.

Early signs:
- My favorite chores involved organizing things, like the family piano music collection
- Volunteering at the local public library for fun (and because they had air conditioning and we didn't)
- Devouring books like it was my job (though when you're 8 you don't have much else to do...)
- Library "class" was the best. thing. ever. (do elementary kids still get to do that?)

This is a true story. Once, in about 4th or 5th grade, I received a book as a birthday or christmas gift, and it came with a pre-printed call number spine label. I was very excited about this, and immediately put it on the book. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is.

I was never a kid who thought too much about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I believe i wanted to be an olympic gymnast at one point, a travel agent, a speech therapist, and a lawyer. Librarian never once crossed my mind.

I went to college and still couldn't make up my mind. I seriously only declared a major because I was offered a job and had to declare. So I majored in history, with a minor in peace & conflict studies -- about as useful a degree as one can get these days. I spent a lot of time in the college library, but never worked there. Being a librarian still hadn't crossed my mind.

After college, I moved to Indiana... because that's what the cool kids do? I was kind of lost. No idea what to do with myself and my useless degree. Was tired of school but not in the mood for volunteer work. So, i moved in with my best friend and got a job at a liquor store, fully intending to be applying to grad school and law school and moving away before the end of the summer.

3 months later I got a job in a library. I applied not because it was a library, but because it was a historical library, and I love history. They knew I was fresh out of college, partied a bit too much, and had no idea what working in a library was like, but they hired me anyway. Two years into the job, I was still considering grad school -- in history or theology.

Three years in, I finally got the memo. What I loved about my job was the library parts. Part of me is still shocked I ever figured this out. Four years in, I made the difficult decision to leave the job I loved -- and changed my life -- to go to grad school in library science.

Grad school was fun. I found it relatively easy -- but as a recovering perfectionist, I also made it a goal to enjoy learning for learning's sake and not spend a bajillion hours of my life studying. Though they pushed us to decide on a "track", academic, school media, public, children's, etc., I reverted to my old ways and refused to make up my mind about what kind of librarian I wanted to be. I took a reader's advisory class for fun the same semester I took a course in bibliographic instruction, and mostly just took whatever classes I found interesting.

Thankfully, despite my refusal to commit to a grad school track, I was able to land a job soon after graduating -- and I have now been at said job a year! But... more on that in a later post :)

Ghost Stories: Review of Spook

2011-08-17T19:41:00.003-04:00

At the PLA conference in Portland a year or so ago I met Mary Roach. I hadn't read any of her books, but one of them, Stiff, had been on my to read list for awhile. Since meeting her, I've read all three of her released books, most recently finishing Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife.

Like Roach, I definitely fall into the skeptical category when it comes to things like ghosts and spirits and mediums, though when I lived at one particular location in Goshen, I was about one creepy encounter away from being a true believer. The first creepy moment was soon after I moved in. Two friends came over while we were out, and being the responsible young ladies we were, we hadn't locked the door. The friends came in, hollered up the stairs for us, and heard a reply of "come on up!" They were more then a little freaked out when they came upstairs and found nobody home. There were other stories like this from the time I lived there, and also times where objects we thought were lost -- earrings and money and other random things -- would just show up in perfectly obvious places, like the coffee table.

Only one incident happened to me personally. I had stayed home to work on a paper while my friends went out, and was alone in the house. At least 4 times, I distinctly heard the door open and close, and people coming up the stairs. Each time I said "hey guys! you're home!" and each time, there was no one there. It actually sounds much creepier written out than I remember it being at the time. And we drank a heck of a lot back then, so that's what I blame most of these moments on.

In her book, Roach sets out to find scientific proof of souls, reincarnation, and the afterlife. Were those eerie moments at our house in Goshen really the result of something supernatural? Or were we just near a high concentration of radio waves (which, in high exposure, can lead to hallucinations. who knew?).

She begins in India, with a reincarnation specialist and researcher, interviewing young children who recount details of other peoples lives. From there, she moves on to the soul. What is the soul? If it is a physical part of one's body, then shouldn't it have some sort of tangible properties? Shouldn't it, if it departs from the body at the time of death, be weighable? Believe it or not, such research has been done, and sometimes published in reputable scientific journals. She meets with mediums (even takes a Become a Medium! class), goes ghost-hunting and visits researchers chronicling near-death experiences.

Does Roach convince herself? Not exactly. Turns out, proving that ghosts exist is a pretty difficult task. For every beyond-coincidence supernatural story there is an often equally far-fetched logical explanation -- is it really more plausible to think those creepy moments are caused by radio waves, electrical frequencies, random odd brain stimulations, anesthesia, drugs, psychological disorders or overactive imaginations than actual ghosts?

This book is an entertaining read for both the skeptic and the ghost-hunter. Roach weaves historical context into her narrative expertly, and is just so darn funny that I want to find a way to be her friend. Her books are always dense and full of facts, so definitely not something to pick up when in the mood for something fast-moving and easy. There were perhaps a few too many chapters on the Soul, or maybe I just found the parts about ghosts more interesting.

I still have no idea what caused the weird moments at that house in Goshen... but at least now I can speak knowledgeably on the physical properties of ectoplasm.

Things 8 & 9

2011-08-13T14:26:00.001-04:00

More CPD23. I feel like I cannot get caught up -- but browsing through the RSS of other participants, I realize I'm more ahead of a lot of them! :)

Thing 8: Google Calendar

I was excited about exploring Google Calendar because i've meant to try it out for a long time! To make this short and sweet: I really like it. I love that it synced up with my phone without any effort at all. That said... I haven't figured out how/if it will sync with my MS Outlook calendar at work, and since that is where I most use a calendar, i'm not sure how much I will use the google one.

Thing 9: Evernote

I had never heard of Evernote before this assignment, but unlike other unknowns on this CPD project, I LOVE it. Evernote is a bookmarking program that lets you save websites, images, or just write yourself notes. There is a desktop thingy to install, add-ons for each web browser, AND it integrates into Twitter. I haven't installed it at work yet, but once I do, I will use it even more.

As mentioned in previous blogs, I have a hard time staying on top of library news. The people I follow on Twitter throw out a gajillion links a day on top of what I find though listservs and news sites. Now I just file things away on Evernote with a "to read" tag. The true test will be how many of them I manage to go back and read....

The only thing I would change about the program is the Twitter feature. I love that they work together, but I don't like having to retweet an article in order to add it Evernote, and it's a hassle to click and copy-paste the link in that way. I want to be able to click a button, like with Twitter favorites -- which might remain my preferred way to mark articles that come through twitter as "to reads."

Still... A very handy tool, and if I get used to using it, will be a great resource for keeping things organized.

Thing 5 & 7: Reflection & Professional Development

2011-07-29T17:34:00.001-04:00

Part 1. Thing 5. Reflection.

Let's reflect on reflecting for a moment: I hate reflection. Why? I'm not entirely sure. I think it's a personality defect that inhibits me from focusing on anything with potential negatives. Reflecting is correlated in my mind with rehashing and overanalyzing, both of which often are focused on the negative parts of an event. The parts I would rather forget about. So, long story short, reflective practice is definitely something I need practice at.

For thing 5, some many weeks ago now, we were to reflect on our CPD23 experience so far. The thing that surprises me most (though it shouldn't) is how hard it has been to keep up on. 1 blog a week? That seems easy, until I remember that normally, I average about 1 a month. And CPD blogs are actually ABOUT something... not just food and recipes and vacation and something funny/interesting that happened at work. They take time to work through the ideas posted, and time to write. Time that I need to be a bit better at allocating, apparently.

As I am working with Becca on developing a mini 23 things for our own college, my tardiness in getting posts up is a red flag for me. How will we make sure the faculty and staff we have do the program stay interested? How will we inspire them to prioritize CPD in their busy schedules? If I can't do it, can I expect them to? (for the record, yes! we are still going to do this... somehow. But maybe more built in catch up weeks are a good idea?)

As for the content itself -- so far in the program, very little has been new, and the new sites I've explored aren't things I expect myself to use again, like PushNote. I also wonder at how much more I can fit into my life. I monitor my twitter closely, and everything else -- Facebook, linkedin, google+, google reader, Friend Feed, listservs, etc -- all is to some extent neglected. My problem and weakness isn't being knowledgeable or connected, it's managing and filtering all the information coming my way.

Part 2. Thing 7. Professional Development

When I think professional development, I think of conferences. I think of publishing, and presenting. I think of associations. And I think of paperwork.

The school I work at requires us to fill out quarterly professional development forms. Simply stated, these forms are of the devil. Not because I don't have things to put on the forms, but I have to prove everything I did, every membership, every training, and every article read with some sort of certificate. Maybe the certificates are the real devil.

Anywho. My experience with professional organizations is somewhat limited. I joined the American Library Association my 2nd year of grad school, thanks to my wonderful mentor paying for me to join as a wedding present. I joined ACRL as well, and a few round tables. I wasn't really planning on staying in Indiana after graduating, so I didn't join the local organization, the Indiana Library Federation, until I got my job. So i've been a member for ALA/ACRL for 2 years, ILF, 1. Am I active? Not so much. I enjoy the literature, and follow several ALA listservs, but again, it's a matter of so much information and not enough time to read it all!

Has being in a professional org affected my career? My career has only been going for about a year now, so not really! Being a part of the state association, ILF, has allowed to get some professional presentations under my belt -- last year I presented with a team, and this fall I will present again with a librarian co-worker. As I gain more experience, I hope to eventually present at national conferences, and maybe someday get published (so far I have a growing list of rejections -- but that's how it goes, right?!).

Every year when my renewal notice arrives for ALA/ACRL I debate with myself about letting it expire. It's expensive! And I don't know that I am getting all that much out of it besides some magazines and journals I like to read (but don't). I think it's what you put into it though, and frankly, I haven't put much energy into being involved with ALA/ACRL. Maybe someday... especially since both conferences will soon be held in the midwest (one in Chicago, one in Indy), and presenting or being involved in some capacity would be a great excuse to attend.

Thing 6: Online Networking

2011-07-27T15:38:00.003-04:00

So, you may (or may not) have noticed that I skipped thing 5. I'll come back to it. Thing 5 is reflection... and, well, I'm pretty terrible at reflection. I like to do, and then be done. I don't mind reminiscing, but that's considerably different than reflecting. The last few sentences were about as close to reflection as I get. So yeah... i'll come back to that.

Thing 6 of CPD23 is online networking. I love online networking. Meeting new people, making connections, and making friends is something I enjoy, and am pretty good at, both in the real world and online. That said, I find some networks more useful that others, and I also have a hard time keeping up too many.

I joined LinkedIn last Fall because I felt like I needed to. I have my account set up and a fair amount of connections (70 or so). In my year with LinkedIn, I haven't hated it, but I have failed to figure out how exactly it's useful to me while I'm not job hunting. And even if I were job hunting... I know job seekers use the site, but do employers? So far it's just felt like a place to connect with friends and co-workers, and view their resumes. I am excited that a for-profit librarianship group was recently formed, and I'm hoping that a group like that increases my involvement on linkedin.

Linkedin is for professionals, while Facebook is for everyone. I love Facebook. I've been a member since the college I worked for was granted access way back in... 2006? However, I'm not sure that Facebook is the best place for professional networking. For starters, i'm not very good at being professional in an online environment that consists of friends and family. And, my profile is on lock down, ensuring that no potential employers find me. Which is on purpose!

When I started teaching, I did create a second, public profile on Facebook, but it more or less lies dormant. Next time i'm teaching I hope to use it more -- but it wont be about creating professional connections, it will be about connecting with students, and taking advantage of some cool facebook features like integration with MS Docs.

So LinkedIn i don't check, and Facebook I don't use for the right reasons, leaving this niche to be filled by the newest social network in my like, google+. Google+ is a funfest of librians! And since no one else is on the site yet, my circles are 90% filled with librarians and library professionals. To me, google+ feels a lot like Twitter, but more personal. Like twitter meets Facebook, in a way. I feel like THIS is the place where I will make those professional connections -- not LinkedIn or Facebook. If you're a librarian and not yet on Google+, get someone to send you an invite and check it out.

Thing 4: Current Awareness

2011-07-12T08:58:00.000-04:00

A week behind again. Is it really that hard to blog weekly? Apparently, yes.

Thing 4 of cpd23 is current awareness, focusing on Twitter, RSS, and Pushnote.

Current awareness of library happenings goes in stages for me. Sometimes, I get really into it, reading all that lit that comes to my mailbox and every blog I find. But most of the time I'm hopelessly behind.

Twitter is a lifesaver for me in this regard. I follow over 500 people, and have over 400 followers. If I'm going to hear about or share library happenings, this is where it will happen. If you want me to read your blog, post it on Twitter, because that's about the only way I'll manage to read it.

RSS is great, but I've never been good about actually checking it. If Google Reader would launch an iphone app, maybe that would change. I have a huge list of library blogs in GR, but when I only check it once a month, usefulness is limited.

Pushnote. This was a new one for me. I created an account, installed the add-on, and spent about 5 minutes playing before declaring it useless. The purpose of Pushnote is to share and rate articles and websites with your friends. However... that's why I use Twitter! If there were more people on it, or if it integrated with Twitter (maybe it does?) then I think it would be more useful.

This week's thing is reflection, and I plan to spend some time reflecting on my attempts and failures at "current awareness." Is it because, while I love my job and my chosen career, I still see it as something I do, rather than something I live? When I get home from work, I read blogs and I still tweet and I still read -- but rarely are these library blogs or library tweets or library articles.

CPD23 Week 3

2011-06-29T21:17:00.003-04:00

This week of CPD23 focuses on branding, which, funny enough, I blogged about back in March. In other words, I feel like this is kind of a gimme week, as this is something I recently spent a lot of time thinking about. I'm also 3 deep into some beers, which will add an element of "wheeee!" to this library post (right?). For better reflection, probably consult that March post.

Name Used and Brand: Tad Overdue, baby! Took me a looooong time to come up with this. The idea to have my own online name came from my grad school friend Gretchen who ran with the moniker Librarified. My original choice was Long Overdue, but it was already taken a variety of places, and, turns out, I like the Tad better anyway. There's a bit more about this decision in the "About Tad Overdue" tab at the top, if you care.

As for branding -- I'm still working on this. I haven't yet decided if I want business cards that reflect my brand, or if I should advertise my name on professional things like my LinkedIn account.

Picture: I went kind of middle of the road with this one, and used an actual picture of myself, but photo-shopped the bajeesus out of it. But I have no problem using pictures of my actual self -- in fact, i'm kind of a friend whore, and really like meeting new people, so would be bummed if my not-real-life-picture kept me from doing more of that. Most things associated with the "Tad" username have the photo-shopped pic, but other things, like my facebook and friendfeed, use "real" pics.

Professional? Well... kind of. I like the phrase on the CPD blog -- "profersonal" -- which is basically what I strive for. Am I always librariany? no. But am I aware of who my followers are? Yah.

Funtivity: Do I appear on Google?
You betcha! In fact, a search of my names, WITHOUT quotes, brings up 3 solid pages of just ME! I am glad I took seriously my name change 2 years ago when I got married. Those are 3 solid pages of me that I can be pretty ok with, and this is entirely intentional. If you throw in my middle name you get a few extras, like my engagement announcement, but nothing embarrassing.

Reflection: How can I improve?
Well, it would be good to decide how far to go with this branding thing. Right now I have business cards, but through work. Is this what I want? Or do I want to have a moniker and image that I attach to me and my brand?

Thankfully, I feel good about what is [findable] on the internet about me. I worked very hard on this, asking people to de-tag and remove things, and even submitted requests to Google to delete old links (which they will do!). I do have to keep my guard up, though -- i'm much better about monitoring things like my internet presence when I'm job hunting, which I am not doing right now (thank heavens).

Optional Funtivity: I would love to hear what people -- library world, CPD23, and the world at large, think of my image and name. Frankly, the name you can't convince me to change, as I've invested lots of time into it. But the image, colors, etc -- those are pretty much based on personal preference, my level of photo shopping skills, and feedback from a few peeps. More feedback always welcome.

Week 1 & 2 (CPD23 catch up)

2011-06-28T11:53:00.001-04:00

My friend and colleague Becca introduced me to the 23 things program this summer, and encouraged me to sign up to participate. I did so with the best of intentions... only to be 3 weeks behind by the time I even started! In my defense, I was on vacation.

For my non-Librarian friends, the 23 things program is a thing for librarians, to introduce us to new technology, new people, and ideas. This particular program is focused on professional development.

Week 1 --
Why am I taking part? Well... Becca does really cool things, and I like to tag along. Beyond that, I love learning new things, and it seemed like a good way to blog regularly (and "meet" other librarian bloggers). Becca and I are also working on putting together a similar program for the college we work for, so participating in one 23 things program myself is essential.

Week 2 --
The 2nd task i'm catching up on is checking out other bloggers, and I just discovered that though I registered for the program, my blog isn't showing up on the list. Hmm. I'll deal with that later.

I have a huge list of librarian blogs in my google reader, and my blog roll. However, I am terrible at reading them. Basically the only library-related blogs I read are the ones that I see on twitter that look interesting.

Today I visited Bloggeroo because I really liked the name. Miss Dragon doesn't have much up yet, but I will return there in a week or so to check out what she has to say.

I visited one more this evening(and will visit many more throughout the program and add to this, perhaps?), Realia, who I found through Twitter. She, like me, was working to get caught up. Yay for the slow pokes!

The Crank series

2011-06-15T22:25:00.002-04:00

Last night, I finished the Crank series by Ellen Hopkins. These young adult books chronicle the story of a teenaged girl, Kristina, and how she encounters and becomes addicted to crystal meth. It's been awhile since I finished a book and thought "I need to write about that," but after finishing this series, I wanted to chime in with my opinion of these books, how that opinion evolved, and the censorship issue raging around books for young adults.

--warning--there will be spoilers.

I read Crank a while ago. I found the writing style -- Hopkins writes in free form poetry -- fascinating, but not always awesome, and the plot line gripping, but the ending problematic. In this first episode, we meet Kristina, a normal teenaged girl, and watch her morph into "Bree," as she discovers the monster, crystal meth, and lets it take over her life. The problem with the first one, for me, was the ending. Kristina loves the drug, but when she finds out she's pregnant, quits cold turkey. To me, that was unrealistic, and left me with an unsettled feeling -- couple the ability to stop a hard core drug without treatment or therapy with vivid descriptions of how good being high on meth could feel, and I can see why parents might resist letting their teens read this book.

I only picked up Glass because a student requested the book via Inter-library loan, and returned it several days before the next outgoing shipment of books. I know.... bad librarian. To make a long story short, in Glass, Kristina relapses. At first she tries to control her meth use, but soon she is far more gone than she ever was in Crank. And in this volume, there is no happy ending -- the book ends with her heading to jail for trafficking, and pregnant again. As depressing at this book was, I liked it much better than Crank, and reading it made me like Crank more than I had. It seemed more realistic, and the poetry didn't bother me as much.

Fallout was (in my opinion) hands down the best of the three. I thought the premise was brilliant, and it was heart wrenching and hopeful at the same time. Fallout fast-forwards about 20 years from Crank and Glass, and is told in the voices of three of Kristina's five children. Kristina is still present in the story, but you no longer hear things from her side. Instead, you hear the pain and anger and frustration from her children who want her to be something the meth has not allowed her to be -- a mom. It is in this chapter of the series that you see the real consequences of drug addiction: the problems you subject not just yourself to, but your family and children. It was very powerful, and for the first time, I found the poetry to add to the story rather than detract.

The books, taken one by one, are good. But put together, it makes an excellent series. It tells a great story, but also shows the reader how a drug addict ticks and how the affects ripple from that person. Even more impressive is how Hopkins manages to make readers connect with Kristina, forcing each reader to ask "could I have become that?" Hopkins' secret to writing such a realistic story is that it is -- sadly -- a fictionalized story of her own daughter and her own family.

The censors always go crazy on young adult books, and because of the serious content in the Crank series, these were especially challenged. After reading the first one, I could understand a parent's objections, but not after reading all three. This is a series I think everyone should read. These are important books not because they dissuade teens from using drugs. Yes, that's a good thing, but more significantly, the Crank books paint an image of drug users as more than just addicts. You read the reasons for the choices, the anguish at relapse, and the hope that maybe a family can survive through it all. Why would you want to censor that?

Another side to the Career College story

2011-05-17T22:27:00.004-04:00

If you pay attention to the news at all, you've probably run across some of the recent negative media surrounding career colleges.

Like, say, Pawns in the For-Profit from the Chronicle of Higher Education or Targeting people who can't pay from NPR's Fresh Air. There are lots and lots of others.

Basically, they all say the same thing: For-profit colleges are diploma mills, allowing everyone to graduate without enforcing any standards, focusing only on the bottom line, using sketchy admissions practices to draw in students that otherwise would not or could not come to college, and then graduating these students into a worthless job market.

I'll be honest. A year ago, when I graduated from library school, I didn't have a clue about the world of for-profit colleges. But, turns out, the IUs and Ohio States of the world weren't hiring entry level librarians, and I ended up working for a career college. The college I work for is based here in Indiana, with campuses throughout the state, 1 in Ohio, and a pretty large online population.

I won't deny that the for-profit education system has problems. There are many bad apples that any number of these articles will point out to you. My problem is that I haven't seen any articles trying to see the other side of the for-profit world. There are for-profit schools that offer legitimate and worthwhile educational opportunities. There are the Walmarts of the world, but there is also Tom's shoes. You can't write off an entire industry, just because a few of the big ones turn out to be shady.

Many of our students have tried and failed at other schools, for whatever reason. Many are non-traditional students who never thought of going back to school until they discovered our campus. Many are single parents who also work, and need the flexibility that our schedule gives them. A majority are the first person in their family to ever attend any sort of college. A nearby community college offers the same degrees for a lot less money, yet probably a third of our students tried and did not succeed at that school. Why? I've heard tons of reasons: classes were too big, financial aid didn't follow through, paperwork was lost, they needed more attention from the instructor, or they just didn't like it.

Whatever the reason, to me it seems that the choice of where to attend college should come down to the student. If the student doesn't like the big university in town or the giant community college, is it so wrong that they turn to the tiny 280 student career college facility?

I also find it infuriating that career colleges are under fire for overstating job opportunities. How many librarians out there know more unemployed than employed holders of an MLS degree, but were told when they started graduate school that library jobs were plentiful? And how useful, exactly, was my $25,000 undergraduate degree in history from a private, non-profit institution? Yet these schools aren't being threatened by governmental regulations... in fact, they aren't being challenged at all.

It seems to me that for profits, while certainly not perfect, have become the scapegoat of the flawed and insanely costly college & university system. Should there be regulations of for-profit schools? Of course. But taking money from students who have chosen to attend for-profit schools does nothing but punish the student.

Frankly, I am amazed by the stories of many of my students. When I was in college, I was a college student. My life was school, friends, partying, and working like 10 hours a week. The students I teach are single parents, working 30 hours a week, trying to make a better life for themselves and their family in the little free time they have. It seems really unfair to punish and stigmatize them because of a few bad seeds in the for-profit educational world. That's the story of the for-profit world that I see. And that story needs told too.

My Branding Mistakes (and solutions)

2011-03-06T18:36:00.000-05:00

Anyone who has job-hunted in the last few years is probably well acquainted with the term "branding," a term with now refers less to cow ranchers, and more to creating yourself an online, primarily professional identity. Whether you think it's fair or not, employers are searching for job applicants on google, facebook, and wherever else they feel like checking. They aren't necessarily trying to find the embarrassing photos of you on your 21st birthday - but those certainly won't help your chances. More likely, interviewers are looking for proof that what you put on your resume is accurate, that you're involved in professional organizations and the community, and whether you'd fit in at their organization.

When I started grad school, my last name was "Miller," the 6th most common surname in the United States. A google search of my full name didn't bring up anything on me until about page 12 of the results, for I was one of several hundred Erin Millers. For the most part, this was a blessing. Not that I want you to go digging, but there's definitely some perks to being unsearchable. I got married, and my last name changed to Milanese -- and I am now, as far as I can tell, the only person with the name Erin Milanese in the United States, perhaps the world -- and with my middle name now being Miller, I'm guessing I am a special, uniquely named butterfly (quite a change for a former Miller). If you search Erin Miller Milanese, or even Erin Milanese, what you find is almost all me (though some italian cooking blogs show up too).

As I neared graduation, I vowed I was going to take advantage of the name change, and start from scratch with my online identity... but I made one major mistake. I decided early on that I was going to make parts of my online life private -- I protected my twitter account, and made my Facebook basically impossible to find. I untagged photos from Flickr, asked friends to remove my tags from YouTube, and deleted old accounts. But, the hard part was, I still wanted to be found. Turns out, knowing how to use social media can, in fact, give one an edge in this horrible librarian job market.

This led to mistake number two -- the developing of a separate, always sober, always proper, mostly professional online identity. I created a new facebook account and a new twitter, with the plan for these being strictly professional use. Right about this time I read the article "Ten Simple Steps to create and manage your professional online identity," in the January issue of College & Research Libraries. Step 4, according to author Susanne Markgren, is "Acknowledge that you will not be able to keep two separate online identities for professional and personal purposes." "HA!," I thought to myself, "I do this, and I don't plan to change."

Two months later, I am ready to admit she is very right. The problems with trying to maintain multiple accounts are not surprising. For starters, it's a pain to keep track of two accounts. Who has time for that? And what goes on which account? My blog posts were a conundrum -- do I post them to only my professional accounts, though in reality it is my friends that actually read them? Also, the whole purpose of creating a professional twitter account was to network with other librarians -- and it's rather difficult to build online relationships when you only tweet once a week, and it's just a link to a library-related article.

So what did I do? Well, it wasn't ideal, but I transferred all my tweets to my newer, library account (though i felt sentimentally attached to the old name, so keep it alive for posterity's sake. I mean.... i've had it since 2007! I can't delete it!). I lost some followers doing this, but I figured my real-life friends were more likely to follow me to another username than online-only friends. And I unprotected my tweets, which means anyone can see them. I am ok with this, though I am sure to watch what I say about my job, my students, and my employer -- especially since the twitter account for the college I work for follows me. Facebook was a bit trickier, and I did keep two facebook accounts alive. My professional one, though, pretty much lays dormant -- but it is very nice to have when I need it for a library instructions session, or when students want to friend me.

I also wanted everything to be uniform. It took me literally months to come up with something that I liked AND was available. I started out basic, with erin_librarian. I mean, it rhymes, but other than that, I thought it was boring. Long Overdue was my first choice, and I thought it was free... but then when I went to change my twitter handle, it wasn't. So it became tad_overdue, which I actually like better than long overdue since it doesn't sound as much like a pregnancy reference.

I should add that multiple accounts do work for some people. But it really didn't work for me, and I suspect that it won't for most people. I recommend taking what you've already got -- Facebook, Twitter, etc, cleaning it up, and making it at least a wee bit more professional (you know pg-13 instead of R). It's easier, and you've probably got a slew of friends already. Much nicer than starting from scratch. If you decide to change to a uniform name or handle for all of your accounts, the hard part is deciding what your new name should be and finding one that's available; the simple part is changing the account settings.

Branding is a must for almost every job hunter these days, especially in fields that value technology skills, like librarianship. So don't delay. And happy tweeting.

Granola!

2011-02-26T18:22:00.002-05:00

So, first things first... you probably noticed that, once again, I am tinkering with things. No major changes this time, just adding some new pages and more info to the blog. I'm done for the day... my brain hurts from trying to remember how to make the tab selected look different from the other tabs in CSS, so i will return to that project later. I'm also not sure how much I like the look of the tab bar right now. All more or less easily fixed, but my CSS/html is way rusty at the moment.

Anywho. Granola!

The first time I ever made homemade cereal was in high school, when I stayed with an Amish family for a week and made grape nuts. I don't like grape nuts enough to do that on my own, but I do love a good bowl of granola. yum.

Around Christmas, my mom mentioned she'd been making a lot of granola. I thought to myself, "gee, I should do that." But I didn't. And then, in January, Jackie and Stein came to visit, and, because they are awesome, they made granola for us that night. And it was so easy and delicious that we've been making it ever since.

Why should you make granola? Well, for starters, cereal is ridiculously expensive! And, if you want the kinds that are free of nasty things like high-fructose corn syrup, it gets even more expensive. If you make it yourself you're saving a load of moolah, AND it will be super healthy. win-win.

This recipe is from Simply in Season (yes... another Menno cookbook).

Chunky Crunchy Granola
What do you need? Not much:
3 cups oatmeal (old fashioned works better than quick oats, but either will work)
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teas. cinnamon (i never measure it... i just shake a whole bunch on)
salt
nutmeg (recipe calls for ginger... but i use nutmeg.)

Mix these together in a large bowl. Just a dash of salt (up to 1/2 teas.) and seriously, JUST a dash of nutmeg. The nutmeg flavor can be overpowering if you get too much in there.

Made a well in the center of the bowl and pour in:
1/4 cup oil (I usually use applesauce!)
1/4 cup honey
1/4 cup milk

Mix and mix!

Add any other granola-ish goodies you'd like... Dried cherries are what we usually use. We've also tried sunflower seeds, peanuts, sliced almonds, and dried cranberries. Whatever you're in the mood for. And if you don't have anything on hand, that's ok, it will turn out just fine without fruit or nuts.

Make sure all the flour is mixed in...

Spread out on a baking pan or cookie sheet. Stick in the oven (300 degrees), and stir it every 10 minutes.

Now. How long should you cook it? That depends... do you like your granola crunchy? or do you like it more on the chewy side?

If you're like me, and like it softer, pull it out after 30 minutes. If you like it crunchy, go for 50-60 minutes. If you're like my friend Jackie who likes it break-your-teeth crunchy, let it go for 80-90 minutes. All up to you.

Makes 5-6 cups. If there will be 2 of you eating it, I recommend doubling the batch -- one double batch of granola and we have breakfast for a whole week.

And that's granola. Easy peasy!

In honor of Valentine's day...

2011-02-15T22:05:00.000-05:00

At the Public Library Association annual conference last March, I picked up a copy of the most amazing sounding book ever: What the Librarian Did by Karina Bliss. Amazing sounding because it is about librarians, and includes the subtitle "She's got a secret that's long overdue." I mean, come on, look at that cover. Ah-maze-ing.

I didn't actually plan on reading the book, figuring it more for a fun library novelty that would sit on my shelf and be a conversation piece. But I kept running into people who wanted to borrow it. First, a co-worker of Matt's, who returned it a day later saying she liked it. And then my mother. I don't think she hated it, but she critiqued it saying, "it wasn't raunchy enough." Wow. scarred.

So anyway, long story short, one day I picked up What the Librarian Did and started reading.

This 300 page Super Romance from the Harlequin people is set in New Zealand. Rachel is a librarian in a university, who is known for her old fashion clothing choices and her reputation as a "heartbreaker." We don't learn much else about her, except that she doesn't get along with her mother, and that she has a super obnoxious habit of jumping to wrong conclusions. Oh, and that she has a "long overdue secret." Devin is a former rock star, has relocated from L.A. to New Zealand, to get a fresh start and go back to school after dropping out of the band. A recovering alcoholic, with many tattoos, scars (inside and out), Devin is intrigued by the librarian who has no idea who he is, and doesn't let him get away with.... whatever it is rock stars try to get away with. Other characters are just as painfully stereotyped: Trixie, the goth library assistant; Mark, the angsty college freshman, Devin's brother Zander, the other rock star.

As you can imagine, the plot involves Rachel and Devin meeting, and falling in love. If that was a spoiler alert, i'm sorry... but you knew that, right? So yeah, they meet, they hate each other, then they're intrigued by each other, and then they almost do it like 4 times before FINALLY they do, and then there's this silly secret that gets in the way, but then its a big misunderstanding, but they decide to take it slow. The end.

The librarian character was depicted as uptight, old fashioned, stubborn, and hot tempered. Maybe some librarians are actually like this, but I don't know very many, and I wish we'd quit being depicted as such (but then, we'd just be normal people, and no one would write about us?). Really though, Rachel's profession had very little to do with the plot line, so i suppose i can let the sterotyping slide?

Otherwise, this book was an entertaining read, in the way that many horrible books are entertaining reads. I must agree with my mother, and say it was not nearly romance-y enough. 300 pages, and only one sex scene that actually included sex. Instead, the focus was on the subplot, the outing of Rachel's secret -- which was completely predictable and rather boring. This book would have been bad regardless, but I think if the plot had stayed focused on the main characters and the romance, it would have been just a tad bit less bad. But, then again, without the side plot, they couldn't have used that killer subtitle.

update on blog updates

2011-02-06T13:42:00.001-05:00

Feb 7 UPDATE: Done!!

New URL is http://www.tadoverdue.com/. It should automatically direct you there from the old link, but I'm not sure how long it will do this, so update your bookmark when you think of it.

I appear to have lost my blog roll. I'm hoping this is a temporary glitch as it rolls over to the new URL... but just in case, please leave me a comment, email, text, tweet, facebook message... SOMEThing so that i don't lose your website forever.

Let me know what you think! I've been working with some peeps for months now, brainstorming and working on a blog/web name, so i'm excited that the change has finally happened. Yee ha. Yay branding.

------------

Changing it up again... hopefully the last time for awhile. Feedback always welcome!

Also a pre-warning: I will likely be changing the URL on this blog, or migrating over to Word Press. Blogger has recently added some of the features I was wanting, though, so I might stay put with a different web address. My name isn't miller anymore, after all.....

Pita bread and chips

2011-02-05T21:54:00.001-05:00

I woke up today and more snow was falling. Not cool. So, Matt and I came up with a random list of thing to do to entertain ourselves which included rearranging the living room (looks great!), and baking. I normally bake bread... like, loaves of it... but I was tired of that, so I thought i'd try my hand at pita bread. Who makes pita bread? um, you all should! Cause its super super easy.

I more or less followed the recipe in the Extending the Table cookbook, another of the many Mennonite cookbooks in my collection.

Pita Bread

Combine together, until yeast is dissolved, and let sit like 5 minutes (or, in my case, like 15 as it was at this point i realized I was almost out of flour):
1 T active yeast (1 packet)
2 cups warm water

Stir in:
1 T. oil
5-6 cups flour (I used 4 cups whole wheat, and 1 cup white... for some reason if you use whole wheat, you need less).
1 t. salt (recipe calls for 2, but I used 1, and that was plenty -- but I don't like salty flavor)

See, super easy! It does get a bit more tricky. And the recipe emphasizes over and over and over how important the procedure is to getting these to turn out correctly. So I did it their way, and it worked, so I recommend you do the same.

Knead on a floured surface until "smooth and satiny." Not sure what satiny bread dough looks like... but i do know that the mixer wasn't getting me there, so I did have to knead by hand for awhile.

Place in greased bowl, and then turn the greased side up. Cover and let rise for about 45 minutes.

Then split up the risen dough into 12 pieces. I ended up with 13 though... its ok. Shape the dough chunks into "slightly flattened balls." Try not to giggle. Cover and let sit for another 20 minutes.

NOTE: Try to keep any dough you aren't working with covered by a towel at all times -- keeps it from drying out.

Preheat the oven to 450. Find a cookie sheet. Stick it in the oven to heat up. I'm not sure why but the recipe says this is VERY important. And move an oven rack down to the bottom-est level for your baking.

When its hot, take a "slightly flattened ball" and use a rolling pin to very gently roll it out into like a 6" circle. Turn the dough as you roll it, that helps.

Place 3 or 4 rolled out circles on the hot cookie sheet and bake for 3 minutes, 30 seconds.

Flip them over with a spatula and bake another 2 minutes. Take a minute to marvel at how cool it is that bread poofs up like that:

Then pull the sheet out of the oven, and put the finished pitas on a towel and cover with another towel until they cool (yes, lots of towels needed for this project). Be sure to stick the cookie sheet back in the oven while you roll out the next batch because it needs to stay hot!

Finished pitas:

So lots of steps and instructions, but seriously, not hard at all.

Pita Chips were an idea I had when I saw how many pitas this recipe was yielding. I mean, I like pitas... but 13 whole pitas? That's a lot of pita action. And the oven was already hot... so....

Pita Chips

Take a whole pita and cut it in into 8ths. And then, since its hollow in the middle, you'll be able to split each wedge into 2. I cut up 5 pitas, I believe, which made a pretty good amount of chips.

Preheat oven to 400 (or, if you've just finished making pita bread, just turn it down a bit)
Mix together:
1/3 cup olive oil
salt
pepper
basil

Brush or dip the pita parts with the oily mixture.
Put a layers worth on a cookie sheet.
Bake for 6 - 7 minutes. Do not over bake! they will burn.

Eat. Yum....

Wrapping up Libday

2011-02-03T20:43:00.000-05:00

Wow. I am pathetic. All i do is agree to blog once a day for 5 days on what i do at work, which incidentally requires zero thought, and i quit after 2 days. Arghhh.... but because I try to occasionally finish what I've started I will persevere, and try to recall the last 3 days of the week last week.

If you're thinking, "but Erin, didn't you just spend 2.5 days in your apartment, iced in with nothing to do? why didn't you blog then?" well, you'd have a great point. Turns out Law & Order marathons are much more enticing during snow days that blogging.

So. A week ago! It was Wednesday. Immediately after getting to work I had a request from my boss. Our advisory board was meeting that evening, and she wanted some stats and other details on my library to add to her presentation. I am eager for any opportunity to sing the praises of my small but mighty Learning Resource Center, so I sent her a half page of sentences and statistics she could pick and choose from.

Then, before I really got started on anything else, a Help Chat reference question popped up. Each of us librarians, spread out at the gajillion campuses, has an instant messenger account which we use to communicate with each other, and also to answer chat reference questions. Some librarians LOVE responding to chat reference. I usually let them. But, it was a Wednesday morning, which meant most of the other librarians were in meetings... so it was all up to me. Chat reference is frustrating for me, mostly because it takes soooo long. The person on the other end is often a very slow typist, very confused, or both. This one seemed straightforward, but still ended up taking about 30 minutes. Still -- it is an excellent service that i'm glad we provide, especially for our online students. And sometimes, our adoring fans i.m. us through the chat service just to say hi, wish us merry christmas, etc. it's sweet, seriously.

Wednesdays are a slow day at my campus because day classes don't meet, so I caught up on my online class, and then helped a stray student figure out the name of the song that was stuck in her head (hey, it still counts as reference, right?). I prepped for a meeting, caught up on some listserv reading, and had a lovely little lunch.

The afternoon was spent in a webinar demo. The librarians are about to rebel because we all despise our current ILS (integrated library system.... the system librarians use to check out books, etc), and I am on the committee that is researching and evaluating other systems. This day was Ex Libris Voyager day. All i'll say is the demo lasted 4 hours, and I was bored for approximately 3.5 hours of it. It had some cool features, but it'd definitely not my fave of the ones we're looking at. And really, no matter how interesting the topic, it is hard to attend a 4 hour webinar.

With the demo finally done, I finished out the day by looking at possible DVDs to buy, and the copyright issues that come along with working for a for-profit educational institute (fair use practices often don't apply to us, so we have to buy copyright. fun!). I used the last few minutes of the day to productively worry about the smells coming out of my space heater. I sometimes let it run for oh, 8 hours, on the highest setting... and the cord gets all hot and i'm convinced its going to burn the place down. but so far, so good.

Well, i think that was long enough. Thursday was pretty much a repeat of Tuesday, and Friday I spent literally ALL DAY in yet another webinar/demo, this time for Innovative's Millennium ILS, which I liked much better than Voyager.

So there you go. A week with Erin in the LRC. Your lives are now complete. (how does it feel?)

Tuesday, Tuesday (LibDay6)

2011-01-25T22:30:00.001-05:00

Blogging two days in a row? Last time that happened was 10years and a LiveJournal account ago.

Tuesdays are a loooong day for me. I go in at 9, teach an hour, and stay till 7. I pull two 10 hour days a week because of the teaching -- that way, i still hit 40 hours in the actual library.

Morning was a bit more scattered than yesterday: Worked on my online class for about 45 minutes, answering emails and grading late submissions. I finished up my cataloging pile, and hopefully won't have to do any more of that for another month. I helped a student re-write the intro to his research paper. I had a very frustrating series of emails trying to work out a good meeting time for a committee i'm a part of -- but it all got worked out. And, the last 30 or so before lunch I worked on my on-ground section of Info Lit, making sure I had everything printed out, copied, etc, for class this afternoon.

We had an event today on campus, a Chili Cookoff, to raise money for... you know, I'm not sure what. But it was a good cause, I'm sure. So, for lunch, I had 5 little teasers (ie: dixie cups) of chili, and then a bowl of my favorite. I love chili. Mmmm.... And, because we didn't want the night students to feel left out, we did another round of cookoff from 5-5:30, so guess what I had for dinner? yay chili.

After lunch, I had an hour before teaching, so I entertained myself by catching up on some long neglected subject specialty work. Harrison has something like 15-20 librarians at 13(?) campuses, and while many of us are solo librarians, we have several things that we work together on. Collection development is definitely a big one, and each librarian is the specialist for 2-4 subject areas. Mine are, of course, things i know absolutely nothing about... which makes being a specialist rather difficult. But today I spent sometime evaluating the list of websites we have for my subjects (Human resources, Medical Spanish, and 1 other (which doesn't exist yet so I don't think I'm supposed to talk about it....), looking for better websites, and then perusing Choice Books and some other vendor sites for books to add to the core collection lists for those subjects.

Since most of us don't have any expertise in the subjects offered at Harrison, we rely on the core collection lists for an idea of what to buy when we order books. In bigger library systems, developing these lists, ordering materials, and being a "subject specialist" can be a job in and of itself! that each of us probably has only 2-3 hours a month to devote to this part of our job.... well lets just say that I don't feel at all like a specialist or expert in any area I was assigned. Something to work on, I suppose.

2:00. Time to teach. The last class of the day schedule isn't exactly ideal -- my students often look like they are about to take a nap, and information literacy isn't exactly the most riveting subject - though I think I throw in enough random activities and youtube videos that they stay awake. Was a busy busy class -- today we went over searching for books in the catalog, how to find them on the shelf, Boolean (which i'm convinced is worthless... but that's for another blog), search strings, and keywords. All in an hour. They did great though!

Back to the Lib. Another afternoon with way more questions than usual -- I had 5! Its like students knew I was writing this blog this week and really wanted to step it up and look good. The hardest question was a student needing APA citation help on a report to a congressional hearing. I hate APA -- not as much as cataloging, but for the exact same reasons.

Otherwise the 3-6 hours were filled with more subject work, dealing with some online students who were feeling overwhelmed, and eating more Chili.

Fun late afternoon story: Flashback a week ago when my car went into the shop. I caught a ride on the Bob Rohrman shuttle, and the driver of the shuttle mentioned s/he was thinking about going to Harrison but had never known where it was. And today, the driver came and enrolled! The future student even answered the question: "how did you hear about our school?" with the answer, "i drove the librarian to work one day." HA! my first referral! love it.

At 6, I had a conference call for my online teaching; just a quarterly update on policies, dates, and to make sure we don't have questions about anything. It was helpful... but unfortunately went over by 25 minutes, so I didn't leave work until 7:30. boooo.

There you go. Tuesday with Erin in the Library.

For everyone who wonders what I do all day

2011-01-24T22:01:00.000-05:00

This morning, a colleague of mine, Rebecca tipped me off that it was Library Day in the Life the 6th, a project created by Bobbie Newman, author of the Librarian by Day blog. The Library Day in the Life project encourages librarians on social media to tweet, blog, facebook, etc about what they're doing throughout the day. Now... probably, none of you, except maybe the other librarians that read this blog, really care what I do all day. Tough tats. I'm telling you anyway.

As Rebecca and I were quick to notice, while this round of Library Day in the Life focuses on academic libraries, there was not a lot of career college representation. We're here to represent! woot.

So? What did I do today?

Well, I got to work at 9:00, after a moderately treacherous drive up I-65. I logged into my sweet dual screen computer, checked my email, loaded all my programs, etc. The reason for the dual monitors is that we run our library software, Polaris, remotely, and its like having two desktops up at the same time. My first 2 months at my job I did not have said sweet dual monitors... trust me, swapping desktops constantly on a PC is kinda like torture.

Anywho. Once Polaris is up and running, I check for hold requests. I have never had a hold request, so I'm not surprised when there is nothing there. I have fulfilled more inter-library loan requests than hold requests in our own system (and i only have one of those... I guess when you only have 300 some books, your collection isn't in high demand....).

Most of the morning is spent working on my online class. I teach two sections of Information Literacy, one online and one on ground. The online section requires things like midterms grades and at risk reports, which aren't difficult to complete, but do take a fair share of time. I also had a boat load of grading to do. My students in both sections tackled research questions last week which are difficult to write and difficult to teach... but they survived, and I was really pleased with how my on ground section did. they rocked those research questions!

Lunch. I ate soup and a banana. it was good. And i worked on the book i'm reading, In Cold Blood but Truman Capote, which is so far, freaking awesome.

My afternoon was mostly spent cataloging. For you non-librarians, this is the painstaking process of creating bibliographic records and assigning call numbers to books so that they are findable both in the library catalog, and on the shelf. Some people love cataloging.. usually anal perfectionists who love rules and details. Every work in that last sentence does not describe me, so needless to say, cataloging is not my fave. Like many career college librarians, though, I am in a solo gig, which means I get/have to do everything. So, cataloging!

Fun discovery right after launching into cataloging was that a recent pile of donated fiction books did not have full records in OCLC. Basically, this means that I had to do a lot more work than I want to.

Side note: These donated books are amazing! Did you know that romantic inspirational suspense even exists?? I sure didn't. My favorite title is Secret Agent Minister. If you're wondering why I would even add this stuff to the collection -- well, I don't have a lot of fiction, or a lot of budget money to spend on fiction. And frankly, my student body is the sort that would just love some good inspirational romance.

Moving on. I cataloged. The proof is here, though I have no idea if that link will actually work.

I also had a fair number of reference questions, which is unusual. I had 4 today. 4! this is as many reference questions as i normally get in a week! maybe 2 weeks! Granted, one was a spelling question. But it counts because I knew how to spell "necessary" and the student didn't. Man I am so helpful. Seriously though, I love getting reference questions. Students at my campus didn't have a librarian until I showed up in August, and I think many of them are still trying to figure out exactly what I do -- so its great when they ask me questions.

And... that was pretty much my day. Stay tuned for tomorrow's sequel, which will include teaching a class, more cataloging, and, I believe a meeting or two.

yo

2011-01-17T15:13:00.000-05:00

If anyone should happen by my blog in the next hour or so and think, "wow! what an ugly blog!" it might be because my blog is, generally, ugly -- but know that I am working on updating some things, so it might be even uglier than usual. And if you're stopping by because posting this updated your RSS feed... well, check back in a bit, cause hopefully this looks nice(r) and new(er) in just a few.

Review of "The Passage"

2011-01-17T11:07:00.001-05:00

I FINALLY finished my first book of 2011 -- The Passage, by Justin Cronin.

This book had a lot of hype. I first heard about it via some Facebook/Twitter buzz when it was released last summer, and recently, it was named one of Time Magazine's best fiction books of 2010.

The Passage starts 20 years in the future, when a military science experiment goes horribly wrong, and 12 persons infected with a vampire-esque virus escape into civilization... and do what you might expect "vampire-esque" virals to do: suck the blood out of the remainder of humanity (while also creating more vampires, duh). There are a few human survivors, of course, and the remainder of the novel moves 100 years forward to follow the lives of a surviving colony in California, where humans eek out an existence laboring by day and fighting vampires by night. When another human, a young girl named Amy, arrives at the gates of the colony, the order and routine are thrown into chaos, and a group of 8 head out into the unknown to solve the mystery of the girl, where she came from, and how she might save the world.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on this book. Overall, yeah, I liked it. It was well-written, with an interesting plot.... for the most part.

The first 250 pages were awesome - like reading a face-paced James Patterson meets Robin Cook mystery medical thriller, except better written. I flew through the first chunk of this book, and thought for sure a 5-star thing of wonder was in my hands. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that basically, the book ends at page 250, and a new one begins. Um... not cool. I do not read 250 pages, grow attached to characters, and get engrossed in a plot line only to start all over again. And 250 pages is waaaay too long for a prologue, which is essentially what it was.

And that was my next problem with the book. Plot line 2, and the characters of plot line 2 were just.... boring. From here on out I found the exceptional writing that I just raved about kind of annoying. I would skip over whole paragraphs of text to figure out when something actually connected to the plot line was going to occur again. I found the characters -- Peter, especially -- boring, predictable, and just... ugh. There was a bit of romance thrown in, which was just distracting to the overall plot line. Cronin tried to throw in some references to foreshadowing, but for me they didn't work -- Peter the rabbit = Peter the character? HUH?

Problem number 3 (or like 15, depending on how you're counting) was the ending. This book is long -- like 750 pages long. I knew that this book was part of a series before I started, so I suppose I'm partly to blame for starting it in the first place, but I did not read 750 pages to be left hanging like that, especially when there was no need for the book to be so blasted long in the first place.

All that said, this is still a good book... just not as awesome as I was led to believe by the awards, hype, and first 250 pages. But if you want to read about vampires, its for sure a better choice that Twilight.

Books of 2010 (with a brief car rant prologue)

2011-01-03T22:11:00.000-05:00

(brief car rant prologue): Matt and I have unexplained bad luck with cars. It's laughable, really. It all started two days after we got married.... and on our drive back to Indy my 1994 Ford Escort station wagon took a crap right there on 33, just down the road from Goshen. We spent nights 3 & 4 of marriage at my in-laws, and used all our wedding money on a down payment for a Dodge Neon. And the next year was spent fixing broken axles, belts, brakes, control mechanisms, and a gajillion other problems on the damn Neon and its evil step brother, the Subaru. Every month one of the cars was in the shop -- when you're on a first name basis with your mechanic, you know there's a problem. Thinking our luck would change, we purchased a newer car, a 2008 Kia. We owned the thing 4 days when I was rear ended by an uninsured driver. And just today, 2 months later, the Kia was hit in the parking lot where I work, doing pretty significant damage. Think we need a new bumper. And to sacrifice a virgin to the car gods. (end rant prologue).

Anyway. I just needed to vent a bit. Obviously, as you can tell from the title of this blog, this is not a blog about cars, but a blog about books. I hit my goal a 2nd year in a row, finishing exactly 52 books. I thought I'd hit 53... but the book i'm currently reading, The Passage, is like 800 pages long.... so it didn't happen before the new year.

I think about half the books were young adult, which maybe means I cheated in my quest to read a book a week... but whatever. You can be a purist if you want; to me a book is a book. Though I don't count like 20 page long children's books. Maybe I'll include those some crazy year I try to read 100. (i don't think that day will come -- I do have a life).

The goal is the same this year. I find 52 to be just about right... I have plenty of time for everything else (except, obviously, blogging... whoops) but having a goal in mind helps me choose reading over things like watching tv (we'll see if I hit my goal this year, now that we have cable and dv-r....).

I read a whole lot of really really good books this year: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, Hotel of the Corner of Bitter & Sweet, The Book Thief, MockingJay... and discovered several really really good authors (all YA): David Leviathon, John Green, Neil Gaiman... heck, I even really enjoyed Rick Riordan. I can't pick a fave because that would be like picking a favorite cookie in a whole pile of delicious cookies, and I thought each was the best cookie ever while I was eating it (how's that for an analogy?). Definitely some I didn't like as much.... Partly Cloudy Patriot was a disappointment, as was Charles & Emma, Up in the Air, Dexter, and Prince of Mist. Benny & Shrimp was hands down the worst of the bunch, but you've never heard of that one anyway, so I don't think you need to worry about accidentally reading it.

Complete list, with 3 word reviews, after the jump. Cheers to 2011.

2010
1. Westing Game    (classic! love it)
2. Bitter is the New Black (ok, funny enough)
3. Darkly Dreaming Dexter (might read more [someday])
4. Are you There God, its me, Margaret (yay judy blume)
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (awesomely awesome. violent.)
6. Freakonomics (surprisingly ok).
7. The girl who played with Fire (favorite Sweedish trilogy)
8. The Lovely bones (Waaaaay tooooo sad)
9. Hotel on the corner of bitter & sweet   (you should read!)
10. bright lights, big ass   (eh..... just ok)
11. up in the air (don't bother [with this or the movie])
12. Blind Side: Evolution of a Game (quite liked, actually)
13. Charles & Emma: The Darwin's leap of Faith (informative, but blah)
14. Spellmans Strike Back (great series end)
15. Stiff (dead bodies FTW!)
16. The Help (overhyped, but good)
17. Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief (become greek expert!)
18. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress (she's MENNONITE BRETHREN [not Mennonite. but whatever])
19. The Daughters (liked this one)
20. Coraline (creeeeeeepy but good)
21. Will Grayson, Will Grayson (found it fab)
22. The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (oh so good)
23. Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson #2) (more greek gods!)
24. Solitude of prime numbers (sad. so sad.)
25. Partly Cloudy Patriot (thought i'd like [but didn't])
26. Monsters of Templeton (good, not great)
27. Perks of being a Wallflower (annoying teenage angst)
28. Titan's Curse (Percy Jackson #3) (umm...... more greeks?)
29. The Happiness Project (worth a try?)
30. Boy Meets Boy (love the gays!)
31. Battle of the Labyrinth (Percy Jackson #4) (greeks, and Maze)
32. Graveyard Book (weird. creepy. good.)
33. Heat Wave (by "Richard Castle") (amazingly, didn't suck [in fact, i enjoyed])
34. Never War (Pendragon #3) (over this series)
35. The Book Thief (made me BAWL.)
36. Prince of Mist (big big disappointment)
37. Benny & Shrimp (god, it sucked)
38. StrengthsFinder 2.0 (find the obvious)
39. The Last Olympian (Percy jackson book 5) (percy wins! yay!)
40. Assassination Vacation (Liked this Vowell)
41. Mocking Jay (man, so good)
42. Through the Looking Glass (Yay drugs!... right?)
43. Men who stare at goats (truth stranger [than] fiction)
44. Looking for Alaska (alaska is a PERSON!)
45. Maze Runner (good story, bad [writing])
46. The Lost Hero (greeks AND romans!)
47. Scortch Trials (ditto Maze Runner)
48. The Botany of Desire (plants are fascinating)
49. Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People (Sedaris + drugs = hilarity)
50. Crank (drugs are sad)
51. It's Beginning to Look a Lot like Zombies (Cheating to include? [probably]
52. An Abundance of Katherines (love, angst, awesomeness)

and on audio: the Series of Unfortunate Events (1-13); Never get your dog stuffed by Alan Alda, and Barrell Fever & Other Stories by David Sedaris.

The giant squash project (or, some squashy pasta)

2010-12-08T22:01:00.001-05:00

Giant squash!

Acquired from the Ramseyer farms potato and pumpkin farm, this giant squash made a lovely centerpiece for fall. But all good things must come to and end....

It became squash night because we are almost completely out of food (how this is possible when we literally live behind Kroger is beyond me...) and I wanted to cook dinner. I decided to make a squash-based pasta sauce since we had other pasta-type ingredients like onion and garlic, and it would be sans dairy, a food group my intestines have recently declared war on.

And so... Squash Ziti. I found this recipe in the comment section of another squash pasta recipe. Thanks guy, for sharing.

Needs:

1 giant squash
some onion
some garlic
thyme, sage, salt, pepper
olive oil
pasta. I obviously used ziti. I think it would be really good with angel hair or spaghetti noodles.

Step 1 is to cut up your beast. I remember the first time I cooked squash -- i called my mom to ask something like, "how on earth do you chop this thing?" To which she laughed. But she also gave me excellent squash-chopping advice: put it on a towel. This keeps it from rolling away as you are trying to chop it -- an object in motion is much much more difficult to hit with a knife (and no one wants to put supper on hold for a trip to the ER).

So grab a towel and you most gigantic knife and start chopping, then chop some more. It takes forever. At some point, you'll probably say to yourself, "this sucks!" It sure does. Hope you didn't start at 8pm like I did.

Eventually you will be done chopping squash. Yay! Before you put your knife away, chop up the onion.

Get your pasta going...

Heat up some olive oil in a pretty big skillet. Throw in the squash, onion, and garlic. A half glass of water isn't a bad idea either... makes it juicier without adding more fat. Stir in the spices... i used a lot. But do it to taste. Let it simmer on medium heat for awhile... if you like your squash squishy, let it cook a long time, if you like it more chunky, take it off sooner.

Scoop some over your pasta and eat, yum.

If you don't count all the squash slicing, this recipe only took about 20 minutes to make -- and was pretty tasty too. yay squash!

Apple Pie

2010-10-29T18:50:00.000-04:00

I had to go through a two day training at work this week, which was basically a psychology, motivation, goal-setting, business culture and self-improvement seminar. It wasn't too bad, actually. But anyway, for one exercise, we had to write down things that energize us. My list was probably odd... a mix of things that require other people to be around (making friends, meeting strangers and making connections (seriously... this might be what energizes me more than anything else), and playing sports) right along side things that I very much prefer to do by myself (read). Cooking is another item from my list that I just really don't like to do with anyone else. Matt and I even have a "1 person in the kitchen at a time" rule, though we've progressed to the point we can make cookies together without disaster.

Anyway, all this is to say that tonight Matt got stuck at work late, so I decided to entertain myself by baking a pie. Apple was a logical choice since there was a load of apples at our apartment that needed used, and we had all the other ingredients on hand. I confess I did walk up to Kroger and buy a pre-made crust for $1.25. Maybe next time I'll be that ambitious.

I made the Apple Crumb Pie recipe from the Mennonite Community Cookbook, which my mom marked for me as her "go to apple pie."

Start with 6 apples (though I used 7 cause mine were small). The recipe says to use "tart" apples. My mom recommended Granny Smith, but I had Jonathan apples on hand so that's what I used. Peel and chop em, cutting each apple into about 8 parts. This was the worst part, mostly because every time I peel something, I end up slicing a finger open. And it takes a while... I'd say it took me 10 minutes to peel and chop.

Around now, preheat the oven to 425.

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar and 1 tsp cinnamon, and pour this over the apples. Mix it around. Get them apples their sugar!

Dump the apples into the pie crust.

Mix together 1/2 cup sugar, 1/3 cup butter (I used more like 1/4 cup), and 3/4 cup flour. Mix and mix until the mixture turns into fine crumbs. Sprinkle said crumbs over the top of the apples. I didn't use quite all the crumbs, but most of em.

Bake for 10 minutes at 425, then reduce oven temp to 350 and bake another 35 minutes.

It suggests that this pie is "delicious when served with cheese," but I am just going to take their word for it on that.

I seriously could not believe how easy this pie was to make. Easy as pie, if I may be so corny. And delicious, nahm nawm nam! Now that I've used up most of the apples.... time to decide what to make with our giant squash. Suggestions?

bad blogger, bad.

2010-10-23T10:22:00.001-04:00

hmmm. I knew it had been a long time since I blogged, but 2 months? whoops.

In my defense, during those 2 months I started a new job, moved to a new town, and had a birthday and an anniversary. And, I'm not really sure how much I'm supposed to talk about the job, which is fine, but I haven't had much else to talk about! So all that, coupled with general laziness and the addition of cable/DVR to our lives, has led to a 2 month absence.

Anywho... A brief update:

In mid-august I got a job! Its rough out there generally speaking, and the library world is no exception. I know people that graduated with their master's degrees several years ago that still don't have full-time library work. In all, I think I applied for somewhere between 60 and 80 jobs, all over the country, and in all types of libraries, before I got an interview. So in July -- after 5 months of applying for jobs -- I finally got an interview. Anyway, I got the job, and joined a growing network of librarians at Harrison College, a career college based in Indiana, but with a huge online population, and campuses developing in other states. I'm the librarian at the Lafayette campus. Its a solo gig, and I literally do everything, which is fun, keeps me busy, and is great experience.

The job is in Lafayette, so the first 8 weeks I commuted from Castleton, which was about 70 minutes each way, more if I didn't time rush hour correctly. Near the end of September, we moved to Lebanon (pronounced LEB-a-nin), which is exactly halfway between Lafayette and Indy, so that I wouldn't have to drive an hour, but Matt could keep his job in Indianapolis. We've heard this is the only acceptable reason to ever move to Lebanon. Its small, and I often feel like I'm living in Washington, Iowa. It has its perks though.... like being able to walk around at night by myself, which I would never have done in Indy.

So yes, the last 2 months have been a bit crazy, and full of changes. Life is good here in Lebatucky, and we now have a guest room, come visit!

Another Cooking Post: Pizza Dough

2010-08-31T20:27:00.000-04:00

A few months ago, I wrote a blog about my winter hobby, baking bread, and had a bunch of comments asking me to share my pizza dough recipe. I'm making pizza for dinner tonight, which reminded me I still hadn't written it up. whoops.

Pizza is probably my favorite food to make, likely because it is one of my favorite foods to eat. I feel like a ten year old, admitting that pizza is my favorite food, but its true. Yummy thick bread, cheesy goodness, veggies and meat.... mmmm..... what's not to like?

I've been using this pizza dough recipe for awhile now. Its adapted from a family cookbook, and the recipe was submitted by my first cousin once removed. The following, though, is significantly different from the original so I'm claiming it as my own.

Erin's Pizza Dough

1 pkg. dry yeast (or 2 1/4 tsps)
1 cup warm water
1 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 olive oil (or canola, or vegetable... whatever)
oregano (optional)
basil (optional)
2 cups whole wheat flour (if you don't have whole wheat or don't like it, you can use all white flour)
1 cup white flour

Dissolve the yeast in the cup of warm water. The water should be just warm enough that you can feel the warmth on your fingers, but not hot. Too cold and the yeast won't rise, too hot and you'll kill it. But don't be scared, you won't screw it up. I promise.

Add the sugar, salt, and oil. mix well.

Gradually add the first 2 cups of flour. Depending on what kind of pizza you're making, you might want to add basil and oregano and any other spice you want in the crust. I always add them... gives it nice flavor. Add as much as you want. I think I usually add about a tablespoon of each.

Gradually add the final cup of flour... very gradually. When the dough starts to get stiff and isn't super sticky to the touch, you're done. I usually end up adding about 2 1/2 cups of flour, not 3. Just depends.

Knead the dough about 5 minutes, squish into a ball, put in a greased bowl, cover, and let rise for about 30 minutes to an hour. If you have a kitchen aid or other standing mixer you can get by without kneading.

Spread our, add you toppings, bake at 425 for 15-20 minutes depending on how brown you like your cheese. Yum.

The Happiness Project

2010-08-02T14:59:00.001-04:00

On our trip out to Montana I finished "The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin. This is a memoir along the same lines of "Eat, Pray, Love" or Bill Bryson's "A Walk in the Woods," in that it is a book about a year undergoing a project that the author journals chronologically. In "The Happiness Project," Rubin decides to make 3-5 small resolutions per month that she thinks will make her more happy. Each month focuses on a different area of her life -- her marriage, money, having more energy, attitude, etc -- and she records her successes and failures in keeping these resolutions as well as how they make (or don't make) her feel more happy.

I enjoyed this book far more than I expected to. I liked the categories Rubin chose, her stories about enacting her resolutions, and the research she did into happiness and fulfillment. Matt and I had many good conversations about topics she addressed. And, even though I think I'm already a pretty happy person, I found a few of her resolutions worthwhile enough to try them myself.

In a couple chapters -- May: Be serious about Play; and September: Pursue a Passion -- Rubin writes about pursuing those interests that genuinely interest you, with no apologies. The trick to finding your passion, she says, is to think back to when you were 10. What you loved to do then, you probably would still love to do now. She also worked on developing hobbies and a collection. This latter one -- starting a collection -- I thought would be fun. It would give me and Matt and idea of what to look for when in souvenir shops as we travel, which we do a lot, and help us remember where we've been. The problem is that Matt is a minimalist, who loves getting rid of things, which is great for moving, but bad for collection building. After a long chat, we decided on magnets, which take us very little space, and are also useful. And this vacation we came home with 3 to start our collection.

Rubin's secrets to happiness, while interesting, aren't exactly profound. In fact, they're rather obvious (and these are my words, not hers): if something makes you happy, do it; if you feel bad about it, change it; and sometimes, you don't feel happy while doing something that will make you feel happy in the long run (like... school, or going to the dentist). However, her book demonstrates that while the secrets to happiness might be obvious, it takes a lot of work and desire to actually identify the things in your life that make you happy or unhappy, and even more work to change them.

Rubin clearly is happier at the end of her project, and it shows in her writing. It's inspiring, in a way, and really does make you think about those little things in your life that you always consider doing, but never get around to for whatever reason (like blogging more often, for instance). So while reading this book probably won't make you happier, it might help you think about those small projects you've been meaning to tackle, the hobbies you used to love that you don't think you have time for anymore, the choices you feel bad about but plan to stop making "tomorrow." And that will make you happier, I think.

Review of A Series of Unfortunate Events

2010-07-21T13:54:00.001-04:00

I have a rather long commute right now, about 40 minutes each way, and in a moment of life revelation about a year ago, I realized I much prefer listening to audio books than to the radio. Today I finished the final disc of the final volume in A Series of Unfortunate Events, a young adult series by Lemony Snicket which is, of course, a pseudonym.

The Series of Unfortunate Events is the story of Violet, Klaus, and Sonny Baudelier (sp? I'm allowed to be wrong because I only heard the name... right?), who in the first chapter of the first book have their lovely afternoon at the beach ruined by the news of their house burning down and their parents both being killed in the fire. Mr. Poe, a well-meaning but incompetant banker, is put in charge of their affairs, including their parent's fortune, and is responsible for finding the orphans a place to live. The books track the orphans as they get placed with obscure relatives, some of which are evil -- Count Olaf, the town of V.F.D., Esme Squallor and Principal Nero -- and some of which are nice -- Aunt Josephine, Montgomery Montgomery, and Hector, but usually unwilling to protect the children when they need it most. Disguises are a key part of the story: in the first several books Count Olaf and his evil henchpersons show up in costume, trying to trick the children into giving away their money; in the last part of the series, it is the orphans in disguise, trying to hide from the those trying to capture them for crimes they didn't commit.

I loved the series right away because of its dark, often self-deprecating humor, and also the clever story line. As the series developed so to did mysteries of the plot and the life questions the children tackled. From a literary standpoint I was entertained by the integration of many "big words" into a children's book, and I liked that the author then used these words multiple times so as to ingrain them.

However, I also found myself a little annoyed at times... the self-deprecation was a bit overdone, and sometimes its seemed that chapters existed only for the purpose of creating a long enough novella (each one was 13 chapters. Some could have certainly been fewer). The constant references to previous stories drove me crazy, and almost made it feel as though the author didn't have the mystery of V.F.D. in mind until book 5, and then had to constantly return to the characters and plots of books 1-4 to make it all fit together. The End was a bit unsatisfactory as well, as many questions were left unanswered -- Who started the fire? What the heck was in the sugarbowl? You don't even know which main characters, aside from the three main children, are alive.

As for the audio, it was fantastic. All the volumes, except 3-5, are read by Tim Curry, who is pretty amazing as far as voice acting goes. I enjoyed his reading as much...maybe more than... the books themselves, and I'll definetly be looking into other books he does narration for. Books 3-5 were read by the author, and frankly, were terrible. I don't think you realize how hard reading a book is outloud until you hear someone suck at it. Or maybe he just sucked in comparrison to Tim Curry? Its hard to say.

Overall I'd call the series "good." Not fantastic, but a bit better than ok. Definitely worth a read if you like young adult lit.

What I'm Doing Now

2010-06-30T10:11:00.002-04:00

After posting my blog on the frustrations of the job hunt, I got comments from friends who were quite concerned that I was sinking into a pit of despair or wallowing in depression or something. And while I have moments that I do feel bummed and discouraged, this blog is to assure people that I am quite fine and life is enjoyable.

At the moment, I am still working. In fact, I'm working quite a lot. I was unexpectedly able to stay on at both of my student jobs, and work four days a week downtown at the IUPUI library. My mornings are spent at the circulation desk, afternoons up in the School of Library & Information Science where I do various odds & ends (mostly shredding and scanning) for the department. I'm not sure when, exactly, my last day will be at these jobs. Sometime in August, though I think I can stay on at circ a couple days a week in the fall, if I want.

I was also recently hired on as the Interim Librarian at a synagogue on the Northwest side of Indy. Tomorrow is my first day by myself (I had training last week). I am really excited about this position, because it counts as coveted post-degree experience, and because it just seems like a really cool place to work. I'm excited to work on some of [previous librarian] Gretchen's projects and to learn about Jewish history and culture. If I'm still here in Indy in the Fall, I'll be kept on as the official librarian, assuming they like me. This is, unfortunately, only a 1 day a week gig (2 days during the school year), so I'm still looking for something more permanent, but I'm glad to have this lined up in the meantime.

My days at the library tend to be long -- 8-10 hours -- with little to do. While I'm grateful for employment, I struggle to come up with ways to entertain myself. Circulation is slow in the summer, and I've cleaned & dusted everything at the desk about a thousand times, updated all the signs, and organized everything in all the drawers. SLIS is slow too. There are often piles of shredding to do, but it doesn't take long and I have a lot of downtime. I've been using this free time to apply for jobs, read, catch up on blogging, and play obscene amounts of bejeweled blitz. Don't judge. I also just completed a pilot study on ELIS habits of Facebook users, and will be using data from the month of July as the real study.

Weekends are spent at weddings. So many weddings. A couple weeks ago I was in Iowa for 10 days for 2 weddings, which was fun, except for having to deal with my parent's flooded basement. Next week I'll be off work the majority of days to catch up with friends and attend a wedding up in Goshen. And the end of July will include a roadtrip out to Montana for a family reunion.

Other goals/projects for the summer include moving this blog over to wordpress, and setting up an actual url/website type page; catching up on my "library" readings -- journal articles, Thomas Mann, etc; doing the Cha Cha training to become one of their question answerers; adding to my web skills by learning some xml and java; running, and learning to make homemade bagels.

So yes, it is frustrating that I can't even get an interview, let alone an actual job. And that we have to go to a horribly expensive month-to-month lease on our dinky apartment, because we have no idea what the job search will bring in the next couple months. But I am staying busy, and working on things that will hopefully keep me employable even if I have some time without "real" librarian work.

An honest answer about the job hunt

2010-06-09T10:33:00.001-04:00

I get asked two questions on a regular basis: how is married life? and how goes the job hunt? The first question is easy -- married life is great. The second question? Well, its going to take me a whole blog to answer if that's any indication.

I graduated with my masters degree exactly a month ago, but have been applying to jobs since about mid-March. I have applied at college libraries, special collections libraries, and public libraries. I have had my resume looked over by professors, classmates, people I met at library conferences, and the new members round table of the American Library Association. Every cover letter I send has been read by at least one other person, and I spend over an hour on each application. I've attended workshops (heck, I put workshops together), done mock interviews, and just yeserday purchased my first suit. All this for what has maybe been the most frustrating and dejecting process of my life.

I knew it was going to be tough. I am aware that libraries of all types are struggling in the current economy, and most are making cuts, not hiring. So yes, I knew it would not be easy. But I never thought I would apply for over 30 jobs and not even manage a phone interview. Checking my email has become a depressing game of "how many rejections will I get today?", and I feel my hopes rise every time I see an incoming call from an unknown number...but it always ends up being my eye doctor, or my hairdresser, or my husband calling from a different phone because he forgot his.

My classmates and fellow graduates, and graduates from MLS programs all over the country, are all in the same situation. I know of only one person in my graduating class who has landed a job -- and it was part-time. I know of only a handful who have been offered interviews.

An entry level position opened in April at the University where I am currently employed. I didn't apply for a variety of reasons, but shockingly, 180 other people did. 180! I know from talking to people here that though the position was entry level, there were applicants with 10-15 years of experience. How is a recent graduate going to compete?

I would argue that a recent graduate can provide fresh perspectives on the field, especially in the areas of instruction and reference. Many of us recent graduates are young(er), more tech savvy, and less constrained by the typical librarian-reference desk model of service. We're enthusiastic about the role we can play in the research process (and about our own research, for that matter), and can envision a future that includes Google and ebooks AND librarians. We're also kind of cool, making music videos about searching to the tunes of Lady Gaga, creating websites and blogs (like my friend Gretchen's awesome blog Librarified), while still holding on to the traditional values of the field: user right to privacy, resisting censorship, owning multiple cardigans.

But none of this seems to matter -- probably because you can't put your ideas on your resume, only things you've done, and this is a profession where experience is valued.

There have been moments of reward during this horrible process. I recently applied to a job that required actual letters of reference instead of just a list of references. The letters provided on my behalf were so positive and encouraging that I get tears in my eyes just thinking about them. I have been amazed at the willingness of others to help me, by giving up time to read my cover letters, do mock interviews, or even just listen to me vent.

Most of the time, I'm still hopeful that something will work out for the fall. I am confident in my resume and my abilities, I'm just lacking in professional experience (definition: post-degree) and connections (turns out being a pro at the "Mennonite game" isn't all that useful in this job hunt).

So dear potential employers, give me -- and my classmates -- a chance. We are hard workers, creative, well-rounded (we can provide reference AND build you a website) and excited to get our first real gig in library land. You don't have to just hand us a job, but come on... a phone interview. Pretty please?

Review of "The Daughters"

2010-05-15T11:24:00.001-04:00

Almost two months ago, I went out to Portland for the Public Library Association national conference. "The Daughters," by Joanna Philbin, was once of many advance books available. My friend Gretchen, author of the blog Librarified picked it up, wrote about it and passed it on to me, on the condition that I review it too. Hence this post.

"The Daughters" is the first book in a new young adult trilogy. Thankfully, this series has absolutely nothing to do with vampires or werewolves. No, this book is about a different kind of alternative reality (for most of us anyway): what its like to grow up with rich and famous parents.

Lizzie Summers, the daughter of a famous supermodel, Carina, whose father is a multimillionaire businessman, and Hudson, the only child of a pop singing phenomenon, are in the 9th grade, and are best friends. The three daughters deal with the usual 9th grade high school problems -- boys, school work, mean peers -- but also deal with situations unique to their being children of the rich & famous. Lizzie is offered a modeling contract, Carina discovers her father's business practices might not be so ethical, and Hudson tries to record an album that her pop-singing mom might actually like.

The girls put friendship before everything else, which is a nice sentiment, to a point. Lizzie, for instance, is hanging out with her crush when Carina texts her about an emergency. Lizzie, without question, leaves the boy behind to run to be by Carina's side. Being a good friend, and how a good friend acts, is a central theme of this book, and a very positive message for teenage girls.

I was a little surprised and concerned, though, at the influence Carina seemed to have over the group. In one part of the book, she says "forge the signature!" and the other girls just go along. And those "come here now!" emergency texts were always from Carina, and always a bit of an over reaction. Or, maybe I'm just getting old and will soon be one of those people constantly muttering "kids these days" under my breath (lord i hope not).

My only other complaints were the kind of predictable plot line, especially the love story, and the occasional tangent about Hudson and Carina's fashion choices. The latter, I suspect, just bored me because I could care less about cutting-edge fashion, and the descriptions of Hudson's outfits sometimes were an entire paragraph long. Ugh. And also, what 9th grader likes and understands the Great Gatsby? Come on.

Overall, though, this is a nice book with many positive messages about self-image and friendship. I think Philbin does an excellent job making three rich girls seem down to earth and likable. Also, it's just a great premise for a YA novel-- I think these will be immensely popular. What teenager doesn't wonder what it would be like to be the child of someone famous? The Daughters, is definitely worth a read if you like YA lit, or if you are a YA (probably a YA girl) yourself.

Musings on "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress"

2010-05-12T11:17:00.009-04:00

It never occurs to me how unique my Mennonite upbringing is until a book like Rhoda Janzen’s "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress" hits the bestseller list. I've spent my entire life jumping around from Mennonite town to Mennonite town: From Germantown (Philadelphia), PA – home of the first Mennonite church in the North America; to the remote nothingness that is Wellman, IA (close enough to Kalona that it counts); to my Mennonite college town, Bluffton, OH; to Goshen, IN where I worked at a Mennonite library at a Mennonite college. Even Indianapolis, while not a "mennonite town" in any sense, has two Mennonite churches, and is close enough to places with significant Menno/Amish populations (Goshen, Shipshewana, Kokomo) that people still know what I'm talking about when I mention Mennonites.

Being Mennonite in the places I've lived is normal. In the grand scheme of things, though, I suppose being Mennonite is not particularly normal. For some reason, perhaps our connection to the intriguing Old Order Amish, stuff with the word "Mennonite" sells. Maybe that is why this book became a best seller? I suspect it was part of it, but its also a pretty good book; a funny and thoughtful memoir about recovery and family.

Rhoda Janzen had tough year. Her husband left her for a man he met online, leaving her with a house she couldn’t afford. And, as if this wasn’t bad enough, she is soon is a bad car wreck which almost takes her life. While healing from the emotional scars left by her ex-husband and the physical injuries from the car crash, she spends considerable time with her Mennonite family.

A lot of Mennonites I know really hated this book, and I guess I can see why. As a Mennonite (ethnically more than religiously, but that is for another blog), my main beef is that she never makes the distinction between Mennonite and Mennonite Brethren, which I guess to the non-Mennonite world is probably like trying to tell the difference between coke and pepsi. But to those of us Mennonites, it’s actually quite a big difference, for those MBs are an entirely separate denomination with an entirely separate set of last names, history, and cultural foodstuffs. And its much smaller too. There are, according to Mennonite Weekly Review, 105,941 members of Mennonite Church USA, but only 30,554 Mennonite Brethren. See some more fun numbers on the Anabaptists in the US Map! (stats from 2009).

Janzen speaks about Mennonite history simplistically: you’re either Amish or come from the Amish, or you’re not. In reality, there are a multitude of Mennonite sects, even more when you consider the whole of Anabaptism. This chart, while still way too simplified, hits a bit closer to the truth (having trouble with this link. Copy-paste this if interested: http://www.deusvitae.com/faith/denominations/anabaptist.gif).

In Janzen’s defense, I might assume (though I have no idea if this is true) that her first draft may have included some of these distinctions, and her publisher told her to take them out because, like I said earlier, only us Mennonites would be able to tell the difference, and only we would care.

Anyway. Clearly this bothered me, as did her flip-flopping love-hate feelings towards her scoundrel of an ex-husband. Yes, his bipolar disorder made him brilliant, artistic, and passionate, but that is no excuse for the way he treated her. And yet, throughout the book, she excuses his behavior over and over because of his diagnosis.

But aside from these objections, I found the book funny, thoughtful, and a very enjoyable read. The stories of her family interactions reminded me of my own, and her jokes about Mennonites, even if they were technically about a different denomination, made me laugh. A lot. Out loud.... and in embarrassing places like the waiting room at the doctor's office.

She shares stories of her Mennonite family, and being raised in her unique tradition. I could relate to her story of being excused from a potential humiliating moment in school because dancing is not allowed by her parents or her church. My Mennonite high school did not permit dancing, and I think all of us Menno children were a bit relieved since we wouldn't have known what to do anyway (I have since learned to dance and quite like it). And I occasionally got excused from homework assignments, if my Mennonite family considered them too pro-war, like writing letters to soldiers, for example. In my experience these were always bittersweet moments: Horray for not doing homework, thought it always stings a bit to be labeled as different.

Janzen tells passionate stories about a food enjoyed by all Mennonites of all denominations, Borsht, which she refers to as “the Mennonite catnip” (pg 112), and makes many jokes about our love of cabbage, a vegetable hated by pretty much everyone else in this world. While my ancestry does lie with the Amish part of the Mennonite church, and Borsht is much more of the Russian Mennonite tradition, this purple soup made of beets and cabbage was still consumed in our house about once a year. I love it, and I will make no apologies. In fact, instead of apologies, I will offer to make you a bowl.

Other Mennonite mainstays are mentioned... our uncanny knack for four-part harmony (as well as our odd urge to whip out this talent any time we're anywhere with decent acoustics), our historical suspicion of higher education, our passive-aggressive tendencies, the cooking talents we seem to all possess without training or effort. I find stories about these things funny because I understand, but I think many readers find them entertaining for the exact opposite reason. Whether you know what its like to enter a cathedral in Washington DC and burst into song with your high school classmates or not, Janzen is a great story teller who I'm pretty sure will make you laugh out loud at least once.

So read this book. If you're not Mennonite, please remember she is not the authority on what is means to be Mennonite, or even Mennonite Brethren. And if you are Mennonite, try to not let that ruin this book for you

Running

2010-05-10T15:02:00.001-04:00

Back in December or January, several of our good friends discussed running the Indianapolis annual 500 festival mini marathon, but in the end Matt and I decided to not do it this year -- because it was on graduation weekend, and to me, the thought of running 13.1 miles sounded in no way enjoyable.

But life is funny, and about a month ago, we were given entrance into the race by a friend who was unable to run the mini due to a foot injury. So with 4 weeks training, we ran the Indy Mini marathon last Saturday.

Running and I have never been particularly good friends. While I've always liked sports, running by itself just seemed boring and painful. This spring, I agreed to do a 5k (3.1 miles) for Race for the Cure, and Matt and I began working out together, and going for runs. Matt has the honor of being only the 2nd person I have run with -- I'm so bad at it, I hate to slow others down and frankly, have been sightly embarrassed of my inability to go more than like a mile.

We did the 5K in April, in a not-so-impressive time of 33 minutes, but still -- running 3 miles is something i've only been able to do for a few months now.

So anyway, fast-forward to the mini-marathon, only 4 weeks later. The day was super cold and super windy and we had to get up at the ridiculous time of 5:30am. The hour before the race began was down right miserable.... I shiver just thinking about it.

The Indy-Mini is the biggest mini-marathon in the country, and the highlight, I think, is getting to run a lap around the Indy 500 race track in Speedway. Matt actually sat down to adjust his shoe at some point during the 2.5 mile lap, making him, I think, one of the few people who can say he's sat on the 500 race track.

In the end, we were able to run 8.1 of the 13.1 miles (walking miles 4, 6, 8, 9, and 11), and finished in about 3 hours. I cannot explain how incredibly exhausted I was at the end, or how incredibly sore I was just a couple hours later. Thankfully, I recovered enough to be able to walk normally at my graduation ceremony the next day. I'm in awe that just 5 months ago, I had never run more than 2 miles at a time in my entire life, and now am in better shape than I've ever been... ever.

As for our friends, Kevin and Jen trained super hard all winter and spring, and finished in 2 1/2 hours, running the whole thing. Especially impressive considering they have an 8 month old baby at home! We didn't think it would be possible in a crowd of 40,000 or so people, but we actually ran into them near the start line, and ran with them about a mile, which was definitely a highlight of the day.

I guess the whole point of this blog is to say the Indy Mini was a pretty fun and unique experience for me. I think I'd actually like to do it again, just to see what its like if we've trained for it. And, on a completely unrelated side note, i'm officially graduated.... yay!

Why your Facebook keeps changing (and why you should quit getting so pissed about it)

2010-04-30T11:26:00.001-04:00

I could just say "because they are smart and know you are too addicted to your Facebook to ever leave" but that wouldn't quite be the truth.

The folks at Facebook are smart though -- really smart. Your Facebook keeps changing because they don't want another social networking site (SNS) to come a long and take away their 400 million customers. Remember just two years ago when MySpace was the most popular social networking site on the web? Now who uses it except guys singing on street corners trying to catch a break and 14 year old emo girls?

Or another example, Facebook's integration of the Status Update, which reflected both MySpace's "how are you feeling" mood status thingy, and Then-new-to-SNS Twitter's emphasis on "what's happening?". I recall back in 2006 when status updates and the News Feed were launched. People were pissed! People threatened to leave! But I lost maybe 2 Facebook friends over the whole thing, and now, who doesn't enjoy wasting much of their daily life checking that newsfeed they hated passionately when it first arrived. And if they hadn't revamped Fbook... what the heck would we use it for? How did we waste so much time on that site before the status update, newsfeed, and all those games?

The Facebook peeps are constantly changing to keep up with the latest trends of SNS, search, really all things related to how people use the internet. And the next big thing -- according to Facebook and Google, anyway -- will be customizing the search process. If you're logged into Facebook right now, do a little experiment. Go to Yelp. Unless you've disabled the feature, a little note from Facebook should appear at the top of the page, AND, any information it gathered from your Facebook has already been used to make the home page of Yelp relevant to YOU.

Yeah, its a tad creepy... but also, really freaking cool. My privacy settings are set really high, and all Yelp can draw from my profile is that I live in Indianapolis. So now, when I go to Yelp -- a fantastic site for finding places to eat, shop, etc (kind of like a free Angie's List) -- it can customize it for me, and my home Yelp page is set to Indianapolis. Pandora the music site, and Microsoft Docs, are the other two sites in this experiment.

The whole "like" phenomenon fits right it. It is all about discovering personal preferences and tastes and tailoring the internet experience to you. And if a whole bunch of your friends "like" something, you will see it and perhaps like it as well. Facebook's dream is to have every website include a little Facebook plug-in, so you can "like" anything, anytime, anywhere. (this article from CNN explains it well)

The greater plan is making the internet custom tailored to each individual, the root of which will be an online profile. Wonder why Google is trying to get you to set up a personal profile? This is why -- they too realize that the integration of personal data and search is the future, and Google does not want to be obsolete. Google Buzz, Google Wave... all these new roll-outs are Google's attempt to get you to view ordinary email differently. Use it a bit like Facebook, perhaps? On Facebook, you already have the profile, but now the key is integrating it with search.

There are, of course, privacy issues at stake. And if you want to get mad at Facebook for something, get mad at them for compromising your privacy. But outside sites are only allowed access to the information you have listed as public. And you can opt out of the entire yelp-pandora-MS docs experiment by following these directions from Mashable

To me, every time Facebook changes, its showing us users the future of social networking -- even the internet -- before its too late and they become another Friendster or Myspace. And to me, that's completely brilliant.

-------
Some related links:
From Mashable, 5 Reasons why Google and Search Won't Dominate the Next Decade
From Mashable: Facebook's New Social Plugins
From TechCrunch, Hitwise says Facebook most popular U.S. Site

Nerdity do dah

2010-04-29T14:22:00.001-04:00

I took a really awesome Information Architecture class this semester, and our final project was to rebuild this WW1 Indiana Veterans website

Anyway, I'm pretty pleased with how my final project turned out, and you can see it here!

And.... its not due till Tuesday, so if you see anything that needs changed, let me know! (there are several unfinished pages, but that's ok... but do tell me about any formatting or text-wrapping issues, or things you don't find asthetically pleasing!).

I really loved web design, and cannot wait till i have free time this summer to build a site for myself. Nerd alert.

Stiff

2010-04-19T15:05:00.000-04:00

Who knew cadavers were so interesting?

This morning I finished the book Stiff by Mary Roach, an author who I got to meet at the Public Library Association conference I attended last month. Stiff answers every question you ever had about what happens to your body after you die, a focuses particular attention on those bodies donated to scientific research.

I learned all kinds of crazy/disturbing things in this book. For instance...

- They use cadavers in car crash research. Yes, they use the plastic life-size dummies, but the measurements are useless without the dead body comparisons. (If a head-on crash compresses the rib cage 2" on a test dummy, they have to test the cadaver to know what 2" of compression actually does to a human). Thanks to crash test cadavers we now have seatbelts, and airbags, and an actual chance of survival in a head-on collision.

- eco-friendly composting of human remains may be the next big trend to hit the funeral industry. Cremation is actually harmful to the environment, becuase when dental fillings are melted down it releases mercury into the atmosphere, not to mention all the energy that goes into operating crematoriums. The biggest hurdle is not offending people when comparing their bodies to that of discarded egg peels and rotten coleslaw.

- Forensics research involves collecting and analyzing dead bodies (and the ground they lay on) as they decompose. And I thought that being a CSI sounded cool.

And the last thing I learned? Don't read a book about dead bodies right before bed time -- A series of crazy dreams involving fields of cadavers taught me that little lesson.

Anyway, Roach takes a pretty serious topic - death - and manages to write a funny, intelligent, educational, entertaining book. I recommend.

Ants not in my pants, but in the bathroom?

2010-04-08T12:32:00.000-04:00

We arrived home last weekend to a bit of a bug problem, a sure sign that spring has come and that we live in a cheap apartment. Our apartment is no stranger to bugs -- we moved in to a cricket infestation (eewwwwww) thanks to a lack of weather stripping and a quarter inch gap under our front door. This problem was temporarily solved by killing crickets, which is hard to do because they jump pretty fast, and by duct taping cardboard down where the weather stripping should be (our classiness speaks for itself). We also spray the front stoop with high powered bug spray regularly.

So yes, arriving home last weekend we discovered ants and pill bugs. Not a ton, but enough to be a bit disgusted. We are not neat freaks, but our apartment is in no way deserving of a bug infestation.

Where were the ants coming from? Naturally, we assumed from under our front door with our makeshift cardboard weather stripping. At first, the facts (aka... where we killed ants) seemed to back up this hypothesis. But after being home a few days, popular opinion (mine) has changed: The ants are somehow coming in through our.... BATHROOM??

I have no idea how this is even possible. The bathroom has no exterior walls or windows. And yet, where have I killed 4 ants today? The bathroom. I haven't seen any near the front door since Monday.

I can only assume that one of our neighbors is filthy, and has a major ant problem, and that somehow they are coming through a crack in the wall or maybe the ceiling vent. But while I do check the bathroom regularly and kill what I find, I have neither the time nor the desire to wait in the bathroom for the next ant to appear in order to find their hidden gateway into our home.

It is a sad testament to how crappy Marcy Village was that I still like our bug infested, leaky windowed, upstairs neighbor flooding, garbage disposal malfunctioning, water machine leaking apartment a thousand times better.

A day in Auburn, and metadata con't

2010-03-10T15:34:00.004-05:00

Two weeks ago, I spent a Saturday in Auburn, IN working on a project with 4 other students, a SLIS professor, and the staff of the William H. Willenar Genealogical Center, which is part of the Ekhart Public Library.

The group is working together to create a community digital repository. For the trial run (which we are hoping to complete before the end of the semester), a diverse set of Auburn citizens will be hand-selected to participate in the project. These participants will gather materials, both digital and non-digital, and both current and historical, that represent to them what is means to be an Auburn-ite (think time capsule type things). For example, we are hoping to include the owner of an Auburn resturant, and suspect, that should she agree to take part in the project, she would submit (among many other things, probably) photographs, resturant memorabilia (t-shirts?), and various menus from over the years.

The staff of the Genealogical Center is taking care of recruiting participants, co-ordinating the use of AV materials with the local high school, and provides the infastructure that supports the project (webspace, scanners, the cataloging program). Our role in the project is helping with the techy & librarian side of things, namely what I blogged about a few weeks ago: metadata.

There are two major problems we are going to run into that I am going to ramble about for awhile. The first is how to digitize and make records for physical items that can't be scanned; the other is what happens when individual standards don't match those of the archive or library.

The problem of physical objects in this project came up rather quickly. Libraries and genealogical centers are keepers of many, many things... but physical objects are not typically included. Your great-grandma's butter churn? The librarians and archivists will love it and see its value, but will direct you to the town museum or historical society. A project like this will result in lots of items being donated or loaned that normally do not fit the paramaters of the genealogical center's collection policy. And beyond that, how will a record for that butter churn be linked and accessible in the same database as photographs, letters, and other types of data?

It was decided that if participants did want to donate objects, the genealogical center would pass them on to the historical society. But the latter parts of the problem have yet to be dealt with -- one of those "we'll deal with it when it arises" sorts of situations. What I suspect will happen is that a photograph of the object will be taken and a record for the item will be included in the same database (which brings up a whole extra set of problems -- does the metadata on the record describe just the item? or do you include it for the photo as well? what if, someday, the photo of the object outweighs the value of the object itself?)

The 2nd problem is certain to be a big issue, especially with photographs. How many of you have a digital camera? How many of you make sure your photos are TIFF files instead of JPG? TIFF is the current standand for archival quality photos. Which is great and fine and dandy if you're scanning old documents into your computer, but a bit more problematic when you have digital camera pics that are already saved in jpg format. Since a jpg is lower quality, converting it to a TIFF means you lose part of the photos quality.

Presumably, we will be getting LOTS of photographs as submissions for this project. And, since we want current data and information along with the historical, we can also presume a lot of those pics will be jpg files. Will we accept them? And if so, how do we bring the photos up to the archival standard with the least damage to the original?

This applies to other types of data as well. MS Word is NOT considered archival quality (in fact, nothing microsoft is), PDF is. And what about pesky emerging technologies like mp3's, video files, and pod casts -- all of which may be submitted as well. If your interested, check out the current standards from the US National Archives and Records Administration (page 58ff).

And how the heck do we catalog and apply metadata to all these items that aren't the books, periodicals, and microfilms that we're used to? Three of us are now working on creating metadata schemas for various types of ephemera. We're covering postcards, blogs, emails, letters, journals, and flyers. The third person will (I think) be looking at physical ephemera, like buttons, mugs, and t-shirts -- the stuff we can't scan so easily into the computer.

This project is great -- not only is it fantastic experience, but its a lot of fun, and I feel like we're contributing to a pretty cool project. After completing my digital libraries class last fall, I kind of hated metadata -- its a lot like cataloging, with lots of rules and details and UGH. But the cool thing, that I'm realizing now, is that with metadata, the rules are always changing. So while it is a bit like cataloging, its much more fun, since we get to create the schema and the fields, and while there are standards to adhere to, the rules we get to make ourselves.

For a much more detailed run down of our day in Auburn and our project there, check out my friend and classmate Gretchen's blog and the article on the IUPUI SLIS web site.

Bread

2010-03-02T18:13:00.000-05:00

For a change of pace, and because so many of my friends have been posting food blogs lately, I thought I'd share about what has become one of my favorite hobbies -- baking.

I've been baking since I was a kid, but bread is relatively new to me. I found a fantastic recipe that I've been making regularly for the past few months, from everyone's favorite Mennonite cookbook, The More With Less. My mom used to make this bread during the winter months when I was growing up (still does, I'm just not home to enjoy it). This recipe is easy, but takes a looooong time to make. Give yourself 3-4 hours from start to finish. I often make bread on a day when I'm running errands or doing chores around the house, since several of the steps require a wait before moving on.

Oatmeal Bread (The More With Less cookbook, page 60)

Mix together:
1 c. quick oats
1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1/2 c. brown sugar (if you ever are making this and realize you're out of brown sugar, granulated works fine)
1 T. salt
2. T. margarine (or butter, and I always use less)

pour over:
2 c. boiling water

Mixy mix mix

Let cool.

While the goo so far is cooling:

Dissolve in a separate bowl:
1 pkg. dry yeast in
1/2 c. warm water

The trick to not killing yeast is to make sure the water temperature is not too hot. Assuming your hands are a normal, indoor-type temperature, stick your fingers under the tap and let the water run until you can feel the warmth. If the water is too cold or too hot, you'll kill the yeast and the bread won't rise.

When the batter is cool:
mix in the dissolved yeast

stir in: 5 c. white flour

mix until its stiff, and then knead 5-10 minutes (if you're lucky and have a kitchen aid, you can skip this step -- the mixer took care of the kneading for you!)

Form into a giant ball and place in a greased bowl. Cover (with a towel) and let rise until doubled (about an hour). Punch down (my fave step!) and let rise again (another 30 minutes or so)

Shape into two loaves, place in greased loaf pans.
Bake at 350 for 30-40 minutes (closer to 40), until brown on top.

I was bummed to discover I had no pictures of the bread making process -- I thought I did, but I either imagined taking the pictures, or I accidentally deleted them. In good news, I made bread today, so I at least have a picture of the final product:

This bread is great for toast, a snack, and goes well with meals. Not the greatest for sandwiches or grilled cheese because it is hard to cut thin enough, and because it has a sweet flavor. Because of the sweetness, it also starts molding pretty fast, usually after a week if not refrigerated. So we always give away at least half a loaf to make sure it doesn't get wasted, and unless you're a family of more than 2 you'll probably want to do the same.

Bread has this bad rap for being difficult to make -- but really, its not. I've been making my own pizza dough for several years, and bread for a few months, and only one time have I had it not rise properly. Give it a try, and you will never want to buy bread ever again.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

2010-03-01T14:29:00.002-05:00

I finished another 3 books, all novels this time -- The Lovely Bones, which was sad and depressing and perfect to read during an awful month like February, The Girl who Played with Fire, which may have surpassed the awesomeness of its predecessor, and the one I'm going to write about -- Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet.

The story of the United States' treatment (and Canada's as well) of its Japanese citizens during World War 2 is a neglected piece of American history, except for those with decent high school history programs or of Japanese descent. In a great undertaking of national hypocrisy, the United States rounded up all Japanese Americans and sent them to internment camps, while in the meantime chastising enemy Germany for its treatment of the Jewish people. No, the US did not send the Japanese to die in gas chambers, but still, to forcefully remove people - your own citizens - from their homes and jobs and send them to god awful places like Texas and Idaho to live behind barbed wire for four-five years, is an act of immeasurable cruelty.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet, by Jamie Ford, is a story of racism, coming of age, love, and war. The main character, Henry, is Chinese -- often mistaken by Caucasian eyes to be Japanese -- who falls in love with a Japanese girl during World War 2. Henry's family despises Japanese people, so he is ostracized from his family when they discover his friendship with Keiko. Meanwhile, as a Chinese American going to an all-white school on scholarship, Henry is ridiculed by his peers for being the only non-white student, the public who thinks he is Japanese, and even the Chinese children who call him "white devil" because his parent don't send him to the Chinese school. His friendship with Keiko is his only refuge, and she is soon sent with her family to Camp Harmony, a temporary internment camp just south of Seattle, and then to a permanent camp in Idaho. The novel is the story of their love and friendship that they try to maintain despite the objections of Henry's family and the actions of the US government.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet is a fantastic book, especially for anyone interested in this part of American History. And while the story is sad at times, its really a story of hope and love. Or maybe anything seems happy when you've just finished reading The Lovely Bones.

My co-worker Katie is quickly becoming my book shaman, as it seems like every book she recommends to me I absolutely love. This one is personal for her. She is a quarter Japanese, and her grandfather and all of his siblings spent four years of their youth in the internment camps. When they were finally released they were given $25 and put on a train. After four years, their homes had been looted, their jobs long gone, and any family heirlooms lost forever -- where would you go?

Books like Hotel on the Corner are important because while the story of Henry and Keiko may be fictional, the historical context is very real and true, and far too few people know that the Japanese Internment camps existed. Look at the US treatment of Arab Americans after 9/11, and you wonder if we learned anything from the past. If only we could look at our history and say "we've done this before and we were wrong," maybe we'd avoid profiling and condemning an entire segment of our citizenship. I'm not saying a 300 page novel can change the world, but that this book became a bestseller does make me just a little bit hopeful.

El Presidente (or Crazy Semester Cause #3)

2010-02-25T17:30:00.002-05:00

I skipped cause # 2, because it hurts my brain to think about.

Last Fall, one of the professors I work for came to my desk and said "Congratulations! You are the new president of the SLIS student association!" And that was how I became president of the Association for Library and Information Science Students (ALISS). She calls me "El Presidente".

Fun Fact: Up until the moment I was named president, I did not realize this group existed.
Fun Fact #2: Because it had essentially ceased to exist for EIGHT YEARS. That is 4 complete cycles of students through the SLIS program.

There are definite perks to inheriting a group that has been dormant for so long. For one, expectations were pretty low, and basically, if I had manged to throw one event with 10 attendees it would have been considered a success. For another, there was the exciting discovery that while the ALISS had not been functioning as an organization, it had been collecting budget money for each of those 8 years. If you're going to be appointed president of a group, might as well be one with lots of money!

The downside though. Wow. Do you have any idea how hard it is to start a student organization from scratch? First there were logistical problems, like finding the old constitution from 8 years ago, figuring out how to revise it, and having to do to all sorts of student org meetings to officially register as a group for the year. Then there was the task of finding helpers. Originally, the people that named me president tried to name me a vice president/secretary/treasurer, but that person, and the subsequent people they suggested, did not work out for one reason or another, and I got to recruit my own (YAY) And she said yes, and I had a helper. (hi Gretchen!)

I was president of a student organization once before, in my undergrad. I hated every second of it, and thought that maybe I was meant to be an enthusiastic follower rather than a leader. And seriously, I'm still quite content in the role of enthusiastic follower/participant. But I learned a lot that first time as president, and I'd like to think I'm doing a much better job this time around -- delegating and trusting people to do things is a big part of this. Delegating is the most amazing thing ever, once you are able to relinquish the control -- which isn't easy, especially when there are expectations and people counting on you. But my officers and club members have been so awesome at doing things that we have an upcoming event that I am not even going to attend (hopefully. my brother is coming to visit!). I'm a type B personality, though its buried behind a layer of eldest child perfectionist tendencies (Matt's comment: "you're a type B who tries to be a type A and always fails miserably"... lol) -- and when I just relax and let the type B take over, being president is much easier and much more fun.

Anyway, not to brag, but I'm proud of what Gretchen, our recently appointed third officer Andy, our faculty adviser, Andrea, and I have accomplished since re-establishing the group. You can see a list after a jump, and maybe understand why this appointment has greatly contributed to the Crazy Semester.

Our ALISS awesomeness:

- revised constitution, wrote a group mission statement, created a web page (in process), have a Facebook fan page with 133 followers (that's about half the students in the program, i think).
- started the Luncheon Lecture series. Our 4th speaker is tomorrow. Average attendance has been around 40 (which is fantastic!)
- wrote a proposal for a student lounge just for our SLIS students (knowing that it would be rejected..but at least its on record that we want it)
- held 3? social events (or was it only 2?) either way, socials are hard because we are a commuter campus. But we are working hard at developing a community.
- participating in the Library Career Expo
- gave out lots of money for students in our program to attend professional conferences
- Holding a workshop for those going into academic librarianship, specifically on the presentation aspect of interviewing for academic positions.
- ordered really spiffy ALISS travel mugs to hand out at events this year, and to use in orientation packets starting next fall.
- participating in Race for the Cure
- throughout the semester, doing a change drive fundraiser for Haiti earthquake relief

AND, hopefully
- doing a day of service
- an end of year social

Crazy Semester: cause # 1

2010-02-10T16:36:00.003-05:00

I'm in an independent study this semester (well technically, I'm assistant to the class, not a student, which means I get to do all the work and not get any credit for it... but it's ok, it's interesting). The focus of our project is creating a community digital repository for town in northern Indiana, which will be supported by the town's local public library. My role in this project, along with another student, is to create the metadata schema to support the collection.

You're probably on the verge of clicking the X button and not finishing this blog because you think metadata is something that only applies to us nerds digitizing things and working in libraries.... but you're wrong. Metadata is EVERYthing. Every time you tag a photo in Facebook or on Flickr...that's metadata. Everytime you put a title on your blog...metadata. Depending on the search engine, every word you write can be a piece of metadata. When you upload photos from your camera onto your computer, and each file is given a name like 00258_img, and you see things like 154x132px or "taken with sony digital" or "jpg"... that's all metadata.

The problem is, while metadata is everywhere, its not standardized, often neglected, and can be very subjective (think about all those times you've tagged pics on facebook with things like "that crazy guy from across the street", or "my friend's cute baby", or even worse, not tagged anyone and neglected to write a caption, leaving librarians and historians 100 years from now no clue as to who or what is depicted).

Katie and I have a rather daunting tast ahead of us: creating a metadata schema that is simple to navigate, easy to use by people who aren't familiar with cataloging and Library of Congress subject headings (you know, 99% of the population), and applicable to a variety of formats (photos, letters, blogs, etc).

There are all kinds of other hurdles in a project like this: privacy (what if someone in the community submits compromising pictures or stories of a neighbor?), copyright (and what if that picture first appeared in National Enquirer?), and how to ensure that the images and files uploaded today are still accessible in 50 years - even 5-10 years with the rate technology changes. The latter is especially problematic in the world of digitization. Think of this blog, for instance. In 50 years, will people still use Blogger? If not, where will this blog be? Will I still be able to get to it and all the information on it? If its transferred to a new program, will it maintain its quality? And is the information I post here even mine? Or does it belong to Google Blogger since I'm using their platform? Think of Facebook and how much information you have stored there... or don't, cause these questions might frighten you a tad.

...And you thought library science school was teaching me how to "shush" and check out books to people.

The phenomena of Facebook as a digital repository is something I think would be fascinating to study some day, and in my research class, I'm working on a proposal to look into what types of information is communicated by Faceboook status updates.... But that's crazy semester cause #2.

Second 3

2010-02-02T16:32:00.000-05:00

Really didn't think I could get a more random trio than The Westing Game, Dexter, and Bitter is the New Black, but sure enough... I think I succeeded. My 2nd set of 3: Are you there God, Its me, Margaret?, the adolescent classic that I somehow never read during my adolescence; The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, a mystery/thriller translated from Sweedish; and Freakonomics, a non-fiction book about economics.

I do seem to have developed a pattern that I might try and stick with this year, and that is reading a YA book, a non-fiction book (or memoir), and a popular adult fiction book as every set of 3.

Are you there God?, by Judy Blume, is one of the most challenged books ever written, meaning that it gets kicked out of libraries a lot. If my dad reads this blog, I hope the next time he's a Wellman Public Library he looks for this book, even though it might mean an awkward trip into the little girl section of the stacks. I honestly wonder if this book was not on the shelves there due to parental complaints -- Blume was one of my favorite authors as a kid, and I read every other of her books, most of them multiple times, so I can think of no other way to explain how I wouldn't have read this title.

As is true for most challenged books, the controversial parts of Are you there God? really aren't a big deal. I'm guessing these are the reasons parents are upset: 1, they play a game of 7 minutes in heaven (in which nothing happens); 2, the girls recite chants and do exercises in an attempt to make their boobs grow; and 3, the main character is questioning and searching for religion. Yup, that's all. No sex, no violence, no bad words. I'm glad my parents stayed out of my jr. high readings.... I'm sure they wouldn't have found Flowers in the Attic to be the most appropriate choice. But even if they had, I'm certain they would have talked to me about it, not gone all crazy and tried to get it removed from a library.

The other two books I read are pretty popular adult books. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is fantastic -- though it did take me three tries to get into it. But once I did.... I hit page 70 and after that I couldn't put it down, literally. The sequel is waiting for me at the library, and I can guarantee it will be in my next set of 3 books. Freakonomics was nothing special. Entertaining, yes, but also highly annoying. The authors are constantly praising themselves for their brilliance, and keep reminding the reader over and over and over about correlation and causation, as though we are dumb and can't remember from one page to the next.

Not sure what my next three will be.. Probably: The Girl who Played the Fire, the third book in the Pendragon series (YA), and another Jen Lancaster memoir.

On Open Source (or, why Zotero makes me want to poke my eyes out)

2010-01-30T10:22:00.004-05:00

In November of last year I got an email from one of my supervisors saying, "I want to use Zotero for class next semester. Figure out how to use it." So it did.

Zotero is a FireFox Add-on that works kind of like EndNote or RefWorks. Its a citation storing program that draws the metadata out of whatever citation you're looking at, and stores it both on your computer (via FireFox) and on the Zotero server. I love that it works on a Mac since EndNote still hasn't figured out how to be useful on OS X, and that its free. You can attach pdfs, share your citations with others, export citations into Word... lots of cool features. So, long story short, I immediately loved this program and was excited that my boss was using it in her classes.

Then the class started. And thus began two (going on three) weeks of Zotero trouble shooting, question answering, and complete and utter frustration. Problem one was explaining the basics to 60 people in two classes, with varying levels of technology skills. I gave a 15-20 minute presentation on the interface, syncing, and adding pdfs and notes, along with a handout of instructions, and I'd say about 80% of the almost 60 people "got it" after this. Next was the problem of the discussion forums. People couldn't find the discussions, and when they finally did find the forums, they weren't rich text enabled, so there were no formatting options -- no a big deal that you can't underline, italicize, bold -- but kind of a big deal when you can't make line breaks or tab and you're posts are 3 paragraphs long. Basic html didn't work as far as i could tell (at least the normal, simple breakline commands). I had to consult a professor from a different class who finally figured out the hack for line breaking (use the "br/" command in between span tags, in case you're wondering).

and THEN came the release of a Zotero update, which led to everyone who had finally figured out the programming having to reinstall, which led to a whole bunch of us getting crazy syncing errors which led to another day devoted to figuring out how to get the syncing features to work again. All the while, keep in mind, I'm still explaining to some students the very basics: how to post discussions, upload articles, even join the group.

And THEN. Because of FireFox updates (at least, that's what I blame it on), those of us with a Mac and Word 2008 can't use any of the nifty exporting features.

And Then.* The final straw. Our group ran out of space. Not sure how this happened (probably due to the pdf attachments?) and I have no idea how to fix it.

The boss making us use this product recently compared open source to Socialism: "great in theory, but the product is crap." Not sure I'd go as far as to call Zotero crap -- despite its issues I still like it much more than EndNote (which you pay an arm, a leg, and half your soul for), but the point is, that sometimes you get what you pay for, and in this case, we're getting a free, beta (and therefore unfinished) program that has a lot of glitches.

There are a few perks, of course. Since the program is still in active development, posting to the online support forums the problems i'm having gets me a direct response from one of the developers -- which is very cool (and extremely helpful). I posted to the forums about the syncing errors and had a response within 15 minutes, and functional syncing again 12 hours later -- and I think it would have been less time had the conversation not started at 9pm. Its also exciting in a weird way to be using a new program that's still in development, and knowing that my errors, glitches, and general problems are being actively used to make the program better.

So. If you are a researcher looking for a free citation storing program, use Zotero. But if you are hoping to collaborate in a group, especially a large group with a handful of technology challenged individuals, I'd wait till they work out the kinks. And if you do decide to use it, make absolutely sure that someone else is the group trouble shooter.

*I've been using the "And Then" style of writing, patented by Dan Brown, arguably the worst published writer in the history of writing.

Headers... vote!

2010-01-24T20:02:00.005-05:00

so... here are some i've made in the last week. thoughts? if your thought(s) is, "Erin wastes too much time on photoshop," you are correct. Anyway, vote. I like #3 myself.

First 3

2010-01-18T15:02:00.000-05:00

Last night I finished my third book of 2010, Darkly Dreaming Dexter (which is the source for the Showtime TV series that I've never seen). I'm not sure I could have started the year off with three more random books: The Westing Game, a YA mystery novel written in the 1970s, Bitter is the New Black, a pretty hilarious memoir of a woman who goes from VP of a corporation to collecting unemployment and almost getting evicted from her apartment, and the Dexter book, a thriller about a serial killer who has trained himself to kill only those who he believes the world is better off without (mostly people who abuse and kill kids). To add to the randomness, I'm currently in the middle of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies, which I think speaks for itself, and The Light Fantastic, a Terry Pratchett fantasy novel.

Some of this randomness is on purpose -- because I am going to be a "real" librarian in a matter of months, and might, as part of my job, be responsible for helping people chose what to read next, I think its important to read a variety of genres, even from those categories of lit I don't care for very much (non-fiction that takes itself too seriously, fantasy except for harry potter, sci-fi, and horror). The real culprit, though, is the hold system at IMCPL. When I hear of an interesting sounding book, or one that is popular enough I feel like I "have" to read it (like the Twilight series.... UGH), I put a request in. Sometimes, I get these books within a few days, but other times it takes months. And if I'm waiting for months, it means other people are too -- so I have to drop everything else I'm reading and get these books done before the due date since you can't renew books with holds on them.

This is why, instead of finished the Zombies book, or the Terry Pratchett I've been struggling since November to finish (yeah... fantasy is just not my thing), I get to launch into Freakonomics, a non-fiction book about the quirks of economics, instead.

Some of the other books in my laundry basket (yes..... literally) that I hope to get to soon:
- Men Who Stare at Goats
- Thank You For Smoking (These two demonstrate that I have a soft spot for books that are turned into movies, especially if I don't realize they were books BEFORE seeing the movie).
- Doubt (and.... again with the movie theme)
- Reading Lolita in Tehran
- Pygmy (the newest Chuck Palahniuk book that I somehow haven't gotten to yet)

2010-01-16T12:27:00.000-05:00

Funny that my last blog was about being bored, because this past week was crazy, crazy, busy. 3 presentations on 2 topics, started classes, and worked almost 40 hours, among other things.

Excited about the holiday weekend I forgot I had... Yay Yay Hip-Horray for MLK day.

When boredom strikes...

2010-01-07T20:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Indianapolis sometimes just takes a snow day, as a city. Early this afternoon the mayor of Indy urged everyone working downtown to consider leaving before 5, to limit the traffic on the major roads and interstates during rush hour. All this, because of a lousy 4 inches of snow or so. Around 2:30, an IUPUI campus wide email was issued, saying that "non-essential employees" (ie., anyone not involved with snow removal) were to leave in phases based on where your office is on campus. So, unexpectedly, I was off work at 2:45 today.

While winter is probably the thing I hate most in this world, and green olives are probably 2nd, boredom is third. And, since Matt is at work until 10 tonight, classes haven't started yet, and I'm not about to take work home where I won't get paid for it, this afternoon and evening have been up to me to occupy all on my own. This is a normal occurrence, but usually its only 3 hours to kill by myself, not 8.

Thankfully, an upside to hating boredom (and generally not enjoying tv/movie watching) is that random days off can turn into little pockets of productivity.

My last 5 hours:

- shoveled the sidewalk, since the apartment people hadn't gotten around to it yet

- Baked banana bread

- Baked two loaves of oatmeal bread

- made dinner (bbq chicken pizza... yes, from scratch)

- completed chapter 4 modules of my Photoshop certification

- read 40 pages

- set a new high score on the "bubble wrap" game

- loaded the dishwasher, emptied the dishwasher, loaded it again

- did the dishes that can't do in the dishwasher

- ate, and watched half an episode of "the closer" before...getting bored.

- blogged

I still have and hour and 45 till Matt gets home.... what to do now? I should go work out, but that involves leaving the apartment, and its cold. shiver.

Random Life Revelation

2010-01-06T09:48:00.001-05:00

#2

Earrings that dangle - "danglies" if you will - are among the awesomest things on earth...Or maybe I'm just still enjoying the novelty of having my ears pierced.

a decade...

2010-01-01T14:57:00.002-05:00

Thanks for the idea Alicia... instead of resolutions, which I don't do anyway (just my standard goals to read a lot a be a decent human being), here's a glimpse of my last 10 years. fun fun. Horray decades.

2000
- I ushered in the decade at the Pickard residence in Kalona, drinking sparkling grape juice. At midnight, a prankster turned all the lights off, so briefly, we thought that YK2 had happened.
- I was 17
- I graduated high school... top ten of my class, which was a goal i had early on in high school, and I did it, but barely (I was 10th!).
- I drove a 1978 Chevy pick-up truck. It was huge.
- Did a senior piano recital with 2 other girls in my class.
- I went to Costa Rica for Spanish trip, my first time needing a passport.
- I started college at Bluffton, which I chose because it was the only Mennonite college with a women's golf team.
- I was #2 golfer on said golf team as a Freshman (this says more about the team than my skills...i really am not very good)
- I worked in the Bluffton dishroom, and I actually loved it. We knew how to make crap work fun.

My pick up looked like this, but green.

2001
- In January, I returned to campus to find that due to a misunderstanding, I had a new roommate. After a 9 hour drive, at about 11pm, I moved all my things into Susan Paul's Hirschy Hallroom... and we would be roommates for 3.5 years.
- I was a camp counselor over the summer. lots of fun, not a lot of money.
- Thanks to super crappy room draw numbers (like 88 and 106), Susan and I ended up in Ropp Annex for our Sophmore year -- 3 dorms in 3 semesters.
- Instead of golf, I decided to play soccer. It was my first time ever playing on a soccer team.
- I started my 2nd game, and had a season ending injury in my 3rd.
- 9/11 happened while I was in class -- Christian Theology with J. Denny Weaver -- and after class I went straight to work. I didn't realize it had happened until about 2 in the afternoon.

Me & Susan, fall of '01. Serenading our neighbors.

2002
- Susan and I discovered a dummy in the back of a friend's car. After briefly thinking it was a dead body, we realized it was Bluffton icon, Jack the Dummy, and thanks to our discovery, we inherited him for our last two years of college.
- Declared my major as History, for 2 reasons -- 1, i was nearing the declare deadline and 2, I was offered a job in the History department, but I had to declare to be eligible for it.
- Went to Vietnam for 3 weeks on to fulfill my Bluffton Cross-cultural requirement. It was awesome.
- Stayed in Bluffton for the summer, working Conference Crew and hanging with friends.
- Bought my first car, a '96 Ford Escort, which I couldn't drive until I learned to drive stick.
- In the fall, went back to golf
- Created a satire newsletter for campus along with my good friend Cory. Led to far more controversy that I would have ever anticipated, which was kind of fun, actually.

2003
- Spring semester worked on my proposal for a senior thesis, which was approved.
- During the summer, lived at home for the last time in my life.
- Worked for the local newspaper, The Kalona News, and for a week was the Sports Editor.
- Spent much of the summer interviewing Amish and former Amish in the Kalona area.
- Played golf again. I believe we may honestly rank as the worst collegiate level women's golf team of all time. But we had fun.
- One night, for fun, me and 3 good friends drove to Canada just to go bowling in Windsor.
- Drove overnight from Bluffton to Iowa with two good friends, Eric and Chad.
- Became president of the Bluffton Peace club, which was mostly just a frustrating experience. Learned a lot, mostly about myself....
- Played guitar and occasionally sang in the random hodge podge that was Freaky Pete.

Off to Canada for some duck pin bowling! (hmmm the date suggests this actually was late '02..oops)

2004
- Completed a 50+ page honor's thesis on the Kalona Old Order Amish. Won me like $600 so I guess it was worth it?
- Was named Outstanding Student of History by the Bluffton professors.
- In late March of my last semester, had so many papers due that I turned in over 100 pages of my own writing in one week.
- In every way (academically, socially, emotionally, etc) my last semester at Bluffton was the hardest.
- Went to Vietnam again -- this time because they needed more people for the trip, and because I considered it a graduation present to myself. It wasn't nearly as awesome this time. In fact, I was miserable.
- Got back from the Viet the end of May and moved to Goshen, in with Mary, the first week of June.
- The first job I landed with my new History degree was at Chalet... a liquor store (my parents were so proud..right)
- We named our house Roof House, for the lovely garage roof we would throw parties on. GC students still call it that.
- In August, was offered a job by the Mennonite Historical Library at Goshen. Before getting this job, I planned on leaving Goshen by Christmas and starting grad school for something by January.... needless to say, I consider getting this job one of the most significant events of my life -- i would have never made the friends I did in Goshen, never met my husband, probably never ended up in Library school (was thinking law school at the time)
- Of course, I didn't realize any of the above at the time -- I was just excited to have health insurance.
- the first six months of this year were among the worst in my life; the last six among the best.

Me with the bust of Harold Bender in the MHL

2005
- one day drove to Missouri with Mary to hear a friend's band play at a random house in the middle of the Ozarks.
- Went on a 2-week road trip with Mary to the Northwest to visit her boyfriend (now fiance) and some other friends.
- It was my first time in ND, MT, OR, WA, WY, and UT.
- I discovered that Glacier National Park is the most beautiful place on earth.
- Mary and I "took over" the whole of Roof House, and suddenly I lived with 6 friends instead of just 1.
- Took a golf cart through the Taco Bell drive-thru.
- That Fall, first heard the name "Matt Milanese" as one of my housemates told me about the "hot social worker" that she met during one of her nursing clinicals at a local mental health facility.

Mary, Erica, and Me at the 2005 Roof House 1st annual Tour de Franzia.

2006
- New Years Eve/Day 2006 first laid eyes on said "hot social worker." I think I told my friend, "eh, he's ok."
- I did kiss a Matt at Midnight, but it wasn't the social worker.
- In March, the Constant Spring opened in downtown Goshen.
- I won the Prom Queen crown at the Constant Spring loser prom.
- I moved into Honda House in May, ending my two year stint at Roof.
- In July, went on another road trip, this one with college friends Susan and Nicki, to the Southwest
- It was my first time in TX, OK, AZ, and NM.
- Matt the social worker and I became good friends, but I wasn't interested in him "like that."

Nicki, Susan, and me at the Four Corners.

2007
- In March, I decided to give Matt a chance.
- Two months later, we started dating and we've been together since.
- Spent 3 months living in what my parents called a "hobbit hole" and gladly moved into a much nicer place in downtown goshen with 3 girls I didn't really know at the time.
- Applied and was accepted to graduate school for library science.
- Spent a lot of time in Chicago:

Plumpkin the Pumpkin on Navy Pier

2008
- New Years Eve/Day 2008, my car (still the '96 escort) was totaled by an 89 year old man who ran a stop light, making this easily the worst NYE ever.
- Bought another Ford Escort, a station wagon this time, for $800.
- Matt & I went to the Shirky-Birky residence in Colorado for the Winter Snow Ball
- Flew to Cali and drove to Portland for a week with Erica. We rented a red convertible.
- On this trip, spent hours floating down a river on a raft. Best 4 hours ever?
- Heard Hootie & the Blowfish at the Elkhart County Fair.
- In July, left my job at the Historical Library and moved to Indianapolis to start graduate school.
- Matt came to Indy in September
- Went to my first NBA game
- Went to Portland, OR for Thanksgiving. 4th and last time i've been out there.
- Going home for Christmas, got a flat tire an hour from my parents house, in 2 degree weather, with Jack Jack the cat in the back of my car.

Portland tram (see that little white blob in the middle?)

2009
- In January, while on a trip to Washington DC, Matt proposed on the steps of the Library of Congress (awhhhh)
- Completed my first year of graduate school.
- Went to the Kentucky Derby and the Indy 500.
- I got my ears pierced for the first time.
- Moved from Broad Ripple to Castleton... the apartment is nicer, but I miss the activity of BR...and the sidewalks.
- Got married on October 3.
- My $800 Escort broke down on our way back to Indy after the wedding. We spent our 3rd and 4th nights of marriage at my in-laws.
- Matt and I spent our first Christmas together, in Iowa.

Wedding party.... I love this pic

Random Life Goal

2009-12-31T18:39:00.002-05:00

#2

Make a cheesecake from scratch. And perhaps then advance onward to chocolate cheesecake, turtle chessecake, and other delicious sounding cheescake variations.

Books of '09

2009-12-28T18:59:00.002-05:00

Goal was 52... beat it by 3. Never read so many books in one year before. Granted, a lot of them were Young Adult books, but whatever.

If I had to pick a favorite, I don't think I could. So I'll pick a top 5 instead:

Shadow of the Wind - I loved every second spent reading this book.
Devil in the White City - fantastic nonfiction about a serial killer with the backdrop of the Chicago world's fair
Unlikely Disciple - thoughtful (and funny) memoir about a semester spent at Liberty University (the Jerry Falwell school)
The Spellman Files Series (So... technically i couldn't even pick 5, because I read 3 of these this year) - sort of like Janet Evanovich, but so much better.
Hunger Games - gave me nightmares...and its written for 15 year olds.

Anyway, in case you're interested (you're probably not...but this way I have them listed for posterity's sake), here's what I read, in the order completed. If it seems a tad random, especially at the beginning, its b/c i had to read two different genres a week for a class I was taking in Jan-March. Why else would anyone read a John Sandford creepy thriller right after a Sandra Brown romance novel?

Spellman Files (Lisa Lutz)
Devil in the White City (Erik Larson)
Red Rabbit (Tom Clancy)
Colour of Magic (Terry Pratchett)
At First Sight (Nicholas Sparks)
Sharpe's Honor (Bernard Cornwell)
The Good Guy (Dean Koontz)
Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk)
Curse of the Spellmans (Lisa Lutz)
The Sculptress (Minette Walters)
Temperatures Rising (Sandra Brown)
Winter Prey (John Sandford)
Tangled Up In You (Rachel Gibson)
The Collectors (David Baldacci)
Undomestic Goddess (Sophie Kinsella)
Ten Big Ones (Janet Evanovich)
Mind Prey (John Sandford)
Lamb (Christopher Moore)
Certain Prety (John Sandford)
Revenge of the Spellmans (Lisa Lutz)
Bad Monkeys (Matt Ruff)
Know-it-All (A. J. Jacobs)
Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson)
Night Prey (John Sandford)
Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
Uglies (Scott Westerfeld)
The Millionaire Next Door (Thomas J. Stanley)
Pretties (Scott Westerfeld)
Specials (Scott Westerfeld)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim (David Sedaris)
Eat, Pray, Love (Liz Gilbert)
Silent Prey (John Sandford)
Running With Scissors (Augusten Burroughs)
Kiss the Girls (James Patterson)
Twilight (Stephanie Meyer)
Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins)
Along Came a Spider (James Patterson)
Pendragon 1: The Merchant of Death (DJ MacHale)
New Moon (Stephanie Meyer)
Eclipse (Stephanie Meyer)
Breaking Dawn (Stephanie Meyer)
Unlikely Disciple (Kevin Roose)
High Fidelity (Nick Hornby)
Pendragon 2: City of Faar (DJ MacHale)
A Few Seconds of Panic (Stefan Fatsis)
About a Boy (Nick Hornby)
Sin City 1 (Frank Miller)
Sin City part 2 (Frank Miller)
The Shack (Wm Paul Young)
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (David Sedaris)
Eleven on Top (Janet Evanovich)
Complicated Kindness (Miriam Toews)
Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
Pride & Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Also... listened to on Audio:
No Country For Old Men (Cormac McCarthy)
Life & Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (Bill Bryson)
A heck of a lot of Sherlock Holmes

Random Interesting Statistic

2009-12-28T00:01:00.003-05:00

#1

Current student enrollment at IUPUI: 30,383
Approximate current population of Washington County, Iowa (where I grew up. Note that this is not a town, but an ENTIRE COUNTY): 22,000

I suppose this might explain why parking spots are much easier to come by in Wellman that in than sweet lot just across from the IUPUI library.

P & P

2009-12-21T00:08:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading Pride & Prejudice and it was awesome. I hope to soon read its latest adaptation, Pride & Prejudice & Zombies.

Anyway, my favorite line from the book: "Is not general incivility the very essence of love?" I laughed out loud...not sure that's how Jane Austen intended the reader to interpret the line. It seems to me (and i'm no literary scholar so could very well be wrong) that Austen managed to write a wonderful love story that was simultaneously quite critical of love and those that believe themselves to have found it. That line brought to mind the many couples i've known through the years that were incapable of having any life, any interests, beyond the person they were dating....... general incivility indeed. I wonder if, when writing the book, Austen was bitter at a friend or sister for seemingly desserting her for a man. Heck, I wouldn't blame her... its pissed me off a time or two as well.

That was book number 55 (58 if you could audio books) for the year, so i surpassed my goal by 3 (and there's still 2 weeks left!) I will try to do the same next year, maybe trying to read a few less James Patterson and Janet Evanovich and a few more Jane Austen or Steinbeck or maybe finally getting through that blasted bane of my existance, the Brothers Karamazov (see previous blog).

A haiku update

2009-12-16T23:26:00.000-05:00

semester is done
hallelujah! and now i
will lay on my bum

to goshen we go
this weekend to celebrate
with Milaneses

matt's eyes are real bad
glass soon to be on face
which makes him feel old

For Christmas, Wellman
cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold, cold
iowa in winter

oh I hate winter
snow, ice, and cold make grumpy (but)
static shock's the worst

Random Life Revelation

2009-12-12T08:52:00.000-05:00

#1

I actually enjoy my 30-40 minute commute when I listen to audio books instead of the radio or talking on the phone.

Tinkering, part 2

2009-12-12T08:48:00.000-05:00

This one took me forever. Turns out that the things that look really cool -- like a black & white image with a splash or two of color -- are really easy and quick to do. But things that are useful, like editing out entire people in the background of a pic of your father walking you down the aisle? takes sooooooo looooong. Its fun though, at least I think so.

Original:

Post tinker:

2009-12-10T19:06:00.000-05:00

Thank you, 4 part photoshop workshop (12 hours total):

Original (well, technically, the original was at an angle, so this is the "straightened" original:

The product of my playing. not perfect, but i was pleased.

Random life Goal

2009-12-02T20:11:00.000-05:00

#1:

Someday, somehow, I will manage to read The Brothers Karamazov.

Neighbors

2009-11-04T22:19:00.002-05:00

Two very entertaining little girls live across the sidewalk from us at our new apartment. The youngest is 4, and her older sister is 7 or 8 or whatever age you are in 1st or 2nd grade. They sometimes sing for us songs they write themselves, enjoy "helping" us carry things in from the car -- this started when they climbed onto the moving truck the day we moved in and just started unloading our things -- and, from what I can tell, worship the ground Miley Cyrus walks on.

A recent Miley Cyrus related interaction:

me: Ashley, I like your umbrella! (that she was using even though right outside her apt on a beautiful sunny day, w/Miley all over it)
Ashley: Thanks!
me: That's cool it has Miley Cyrus on it. I like her new song.
Ashley: oh, which one?
me: that "Party in the USA song"
Ashley (look of disgust? perhaps disappointment? crosses her face): oh . That's not new.

Moral of story: Do not discuss Miley Cyrus with those under age 10. maybe age 15 to be on the safe side. you will be schooled and laughed at.

When Country tries and fails...

2009-09-27T12:28:00.005-04:00

So, I'm not ashamed to admit that I love country music. Whatever, its fun and real and mostly about drinking and friends. to that, i say, YEE HA!

But occasionally, country music tries to be serious. And sometimes, they mess up big time. I about wrecked my car I was laughing so hard at this particular set of serious lyrics from the song "Welcome to the Future" by Brad Paisley:

I had a friend in school/running back for the football team
They burned a cross in his front yard/for asking out the homecoming queen
I thought about him today/Everybody who's seen what he's seen
From a woman on a bus/To a man with a dream
Heeeeeeeeey
Wake up Martin Luther
Welcome to the future.

I realize that adding "King, Jr." to the line would not rhyme with "future" (actually, Jr kinda DOES rhyme with future, come to think of it).....But the thought of "calling out" the wrong historical figure just cracks me up. I haven't seen the music video yet, but I hope to see Martin Luther hammering the 95 theses on the side of a bus during that part. Though Lutherans did burn a hefty number of "heretics" on the stake back in the day, so maybe that is what they meant?

The Horror of the BMV

2009-09-18T15:43:00.003-04:00

This year, my driver's license finally expired -- tomorrow, my 27th birthday, was the expiration date. It still had my first Goshen address on it -- where I have not lived since 2005 and have lived 5 places since (geesh, i move a lot!). On Tuesday, I headed in to get it renewed.

After standing in line for like 25 minutes, ugh, I finally got to talk to someone, who informed me that the piece of mail with my new address on it was no official enough to be used to get my license renewed. Um... not official enough? IT WAS THE POSTAL SERVICE OFFICIAL FORM. good lord. Whatever. Never mind that the postal service makes you jump through their own hoops to prove your identity and set up a forwarding address. After informing her about how stupid that was, in a polite way, of course, I left.

One problem in this whole fiasco is that I moved only 2 weeks ago, and haven't bothered switching any of my billing addresses or banking addresses yet. And why would I? thanks to the fact its the 21st century, I now pay every single bill online, and do my banking the paperless, electronic way. So why is it that the only change of address "proof" the BMV will accept are bills and bank statements? I cannot be the only person to have this problem.

So anyway, I went back to the BMV on Thursday, this time armed with the same useless postal service change of address form, and my lease. Again, i was told this information wasn't good enough. My lease was not good enough. It was good enough to get me a marriage license today, but not renew my driver's license? GAH! What the heck BMV? seriously. I explained the current situation -- I don't actually get any bills, so how the hell am I supposed to bring one in, I haven't changed the addresses yet anyway, and I only have 2 days left to renew the thing.

The solution? The BMV lady COULD give me a new license, but it would have to have the address that matches my address in the system. Which is neither the old, 2005 address, or my current address, but my address from my last year in Goshen. First of all, how the hell did that end up the address in "the system?" And second, how does this make any sense at all? They can use an old address that just happened to show up in the computer without ANY proof from me at all, but can't use the address I provide 2 pieces of evidence for?

Best part of the story? In a few months, when my name changes, I get to go back and deal with this whole mess all over again. yay.

The pluses of Indy

2009-08-18T09:35:00.002-04:00

I've lived here in Indy for a year now, and I don't think its any big secret that its not my favorite place on earth and I don't plan on staying here for long after graduating. Still, you don't live somewhere for a year and not start to like a few things.... and, i think its just in my nature to look for the positive (while still complaining about the negatives, of course). Anyway, thus I present to you the 5 things I like best about Indianapolis, in no particular order.

1. The traffic
(part one): There is no rush hour
Rush hour is not something that exists in Indianapolis. Public Transportation is another (well technically, there is a bus system, but its not well used and quite inconvenient), and I believe the two are linked. The city planners know/knew that everyone drives, and they made sure to cater to the commuter population. It makes no difference if I leave work at 5, when the roads are crowded, or 7, when they aren't: it take me approximately 20 minutes to get home (in fact, it seems to take about 20 minutes to get to anywhere from anywhere in Indy). I have a feeling this might change when we move in a few weeks and the fastest route home will be on the interstate. Not sure if the no rush hour thing applies to I-69 and I-70, I'll find out soon.

(part two): The amazing yellow lights
The yellow lights in Indy are the longest yellow lights I have ever experienced. I love it, though it does mean i'm guaranteed to run a red every time i'm up in goshen, or anywhere the yellows aren't 15 seconds long like they are here.

2. Verizon Wireless Center (aka Deer Creek)
Its really nice to live somewhere with a great music venue only about 40 minutes away (its in Noblesville, hence the 20 minute rule mentioned before doesn't apply). EVERYone on tour comes to Indy, it seems. If they don't play at Deer Creek, they play at the Murat, or the field house, or the State Fair, or the Vogue. I've never had so many concerts to choose from....or gone to so many in so little time. This year I saw Old Crow at the Vogue and Coldplay, DMB, & NKOTB at Deer Creek. Last Saturday we saw the Indianapolis Symphony play at Conner's Prairie. Going to Kenny Chesney in a few weeks, and Bonnie Raitt next Tuesday at White Rive State Park.

3. IMCPL (Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library)
Its almost brand new and it is awesome. Even if you don't want to check out books, you should stop by and take the elevator to the top floor, which gives you a perfect view of Indy's downtown skyline. There's also a gazillion branch locations, and the online system is very user friendly. Oh AND you can check out like 50 books/dvds/whatever, which is pretty great too. Matt and I have been requesting box sets of TV shows like mad. Unlike Blockbuster you get the whole set, instead of just one disc at a time, and its free. My biggest complaint is how hard it is to get a job there!

4. Location
We are close-ish to everything... or at least a lot of things. 2 hours to Louisville to see the Derby, 90 minutes to Cinci, 3 hours to Chicago, 2.5 to Goshen. Though man does that drive to Goshen suck.

5. The sports scene
I forgot (never knew, really) how fun it is to live in a place with sports teams to cheer for. I could care less about the NBA, but since the Pacers suck, still made it to 4 games last year (most of them for free or close to it) Until the Colts start to lose I'll never be able to afford tix, but its pretty fun going to a bar and cheering along. No MLB team, unfortunately, but there's the Triple A indians, though I haven't made it to one of their games yet either. Oh, and there's car racing, which is surprisingly entertaining -- I had an awesome time at the 500 and hope I can go again next year -- Roller Derby, and even a minor league hockey team, which i've yet to take in.

This list, of course, did not count many other good things about indy that I like: our friends, matt being here, my job(s), Broad Ripple, even my classes. Still can't wait to look for work and move and hopefully get out the midwest just for a little while, but hey, lets accentuate the positive in the meantime, right?

A book or two

2009-08-13T09:14:00.003-04:00

I finished New Moon last night, the 2nd book in the Twilight series. Since I'm only half done, I'll blog about it later, but I will say, so far i am quite unimpressed. The first book bored me to tears, since I already knew the guy was a vampire (not only via current pop culture trends but because the DUST JACKET TOLD ME SO), so to not fully reveal that to the reader for like 300 pages seemed kind of like torture. Also, the main characters are just. freaking. annoying. Ooooh i'm so sad and manic and want to kill myself if we can't be together. you eyes are like topaz, gold, rubies, jade, and a thousand other gems. lets be emo vampires and sit in the corner and cry, if vampires could cry, about our terrible fate. seriously, awful. But, as across-the-hall Karl reminded me, these books are for girls about age 16, not 26. Not that I think 16 year old girls should ever want to be in a relationship like Bella and Edward mcVampirePants...but whatever. Anywho, despite really not liking the series so far, I feel compelled to finish what i've started. I'll let you know how it goes.

A couple months ago I started Eat, Pray, Love, that book by Elizabeth Gilbert that seems to be everywhere the last year or so. It took me forever to get into it, but I finally finished it a few weeks ago now. My reflection on this book could go on for pages, but I'll keep in short: I hated parts of it, but over all it was ok. No deep, life shattering revelations, really, but once I got past the word "pray" in the title (this is NOT, in anyway, a religious book) I started to enjoy it.

The book is a memoir of Gilbert's year abroad. "eat" is representative of her time in Italy, "pray" is for time spend at an Ashram in India, and "love" encompasses her experience (which included (suprise!) a whole lot of sexy times) in Indonesia. The first section - italy - was the worst. I realize, that for the book to make sense, Gilbert needed to give us her context for plunging into her adventure, but still... UGH. She's kind of like the Vampire in Twilight, wallowing in her own depression and misery and crying all the damn time and blah blah blah. (Clearly, i really don't enjoy reading about other people's problems...) And while she states over and over again how she is not a religious person, the theological assumptions she makes, especially in this first section, REALLY rubbed me the wrong way. She cries out to a god she doesn't necessarily believe in (well, that part i can actually understand), but then! this unknown divine figure in her life blesses her with the money to go on a year long adventure and write a book about it! COME on. No offense, dear Elizabeth Gilbert, but while I'm sure god cares about you and all, I really don't think it is an appropriate assumption to make (that the god you didn't believe in 2 months before made this allllll possible).

But anyway, I kept reading. the book got better, especially once I made a concerted effort to not read too much into her theology. She states several times that this is NOT to be a religious book, and that she has no religious training or upbringing, so I did my best to give her the benefit of the doubt. (though. for the record, if you are going to write a book and put the word "pray" in the title AND put Anne Lamott quotes on the front, you are kind of misleading people). Read as a memoir, then, "Eat, Pray, Love," is actually a nice happy tale of a woman's recovery from depression and her travels around the world.

I'm not sure what I gained from reading it -- at first I thought I had learned some nice insights into the human soul or something, but after friend Gretchen (who i believe hated the book) asked me, skeptically, "what sorts of insights?", and nothing jumped to mind, I changed my mind.

So. Read this book, if you want, but take it for what it is: fluff. Not bad, infuriating fluff -- though it did have its moments -- but mostly, nice, happy, occasionally laugh-out-loud fluff.

And now.... page one of Eclipse. Maybe Edward will be happy in this book. But somehow, I doubt it.

The Mac Saga

2009-07-23T12:46:00.004-04:00

About 3 weeks ago now, my computer crashed and I lost EVERYthing. Every song, every document, every picture. Thankfully, a lot was backed up. But I still lost more than I cared to (well duh). Worse than that, though, was knowing that my just-under-two-year-old MacBook was no longer under warranty, and that I could not afford to fix it. Other things in life, like making sure your car brakes are functional, take priority (unfortunately).

So i did the only thing i knew how: I texted and tweeted and googled (on matt's still funtional MacBook). It is absolutely amazing how much computer work one can do with a few friends and the internet.

My first helper, a mere 30 minutes after the crash, was my friend Gretchen, who, over the phone, walked me through about 8 attempts to try and recover stuff and re-install my operating system. While ultimately, this was without sucess, I know now about things like target disc mode, and PVRAM, and it was especially nice to see somthing other than the flashing file folder of DOOM on my computer screen for awhile.

The next day I went to work with the thing, which at that point was nothing more that a $1500 paperweight, and found my 2nd set of helpers in internet bloggers and the computer consultants on the 4th floor of the library. Between those two sources, I was able to find the information on how to remove my hard drive, and the tools to actually do it. And, one of the nice computer dudes loaned me his copy of the newest Mac Operating System. I may have lost everything, but at least i'll have the newest and best when its all said and done!

Over the next day i found more help at the Mac Store, whose genius bar employee officially diagnosed the problem in a matter of minutes (which I already knew). The best info he gave me, though, was the name of a store in an Indy suburb that sells hard drives. That info, coupled with immensley helpful details on hard drive types from a long lost high school friend, led me to an electronics store in Fishers. And, by the way, the Mac Store Genius bar diagnostic stuff is free. (thank god).

I bought a new hard drive for only like $70.00 and installed it myself -- with the aformentioned new operating system (Leopard). All told, the saga only lasted about 4 days (since it was only $70 i could fix it AND get my brakes fixed. i only wish the brakes had been so affordable). Not bad for a non-techy, if I dare say so myself. If I had sent it to the Mac people without being under warranty, I would have been charged the cost of a hard drive and hourly labor, not to mention shipping and all of that. AND, i wouldn't have gotten to hand select my new hard drive (so much space i don't know what the heck i'll ever use it for and a 3 year warranty) or had the satifaction of taking something apart.... which i think i've always enjoyed for an odd reason (flashback to a disassembled CD player that broke in 8th grade. i fixed that by myself too!).

Anyway, thus ends the story of my computer. My MacBook is basically a brand new machine in the same shell. Thanks to everyone who helped me, especially gretchen and the computer peeps on the library 4th floor. My next project should be to figure out how to fix my own car so that I don't have to pay $600 next time my brakes need replaced. That's only $200 less than I paid for the thing. So... what friends want to teach me about car mechanics? Thanks in advance :)

Been awhile

2009-07-14T14:13:00.002-04:00

Not sure why its been so long since I've blogged. I had gotten in the habit of blogging on Saturdays when work was slow, and i dropped that shift, so maybe that's to blame. In any case, not much has been going on, but i'll mention a few exciting tid bits.

A new apartment has been located and secured, as of yesterday. We'll be moving to the extreme North-East part of the city, known as Castleton. Broad Ripple, where I live now, is the artsy, hippy, bar-filled part of the city, and I will miss it A LOT. Castleton is basically one big strip mall with houses scattered in the areas between. Oh well! We found a very cute place, and its an excellent deal.

Wedding planning is coming along well. Invites go out in a couple weeks, so soon all of my spare time will be spent addressing envelopes. And in two weeks I'm going to Goshen for my "vacation" if travelling to Goshen can be called that. Basically, i'll be vegging on Kendra's couch or laying in the sun for a week, and taking care of wedding tid bits for a few hours a day.

I honestly don't know how people planned weddings before the internet. I order practically everything online -- Google Product Search is an amazing source for finding things for cheap -- keep in contact with everyone who is involved via email, and literally spend hours at work researching things like centerpieces and wedding favors on google images. One annoying thing with the internet is finding blogs of other brides-to-be, and their "struggle" to plan their wedding with their "tight budgets." Sorry ladies, a $15,000 budget is NOT tight. And it makes me want to smack someone. Maybe I'm just jealous? But anyway, our budget is tight for real, but it forces us to be creative and crafty, which I enjoy (well, most of the time anyway). It also turns out that we have an awful lot of talented friends and family which is helping us save a tremendous amount of money. I think everything but the food is being done by people we know.

That's all for now.... A real blog coming soon?

Those Awkward Years....

2009-05-30T08:32:00.006-04:00

So, haven't uploaded my Indy 500 pics yet, so that blog will wait for a few days yet. For the record both the Derby and the 500 were RIDICULOUSLY fun, and I recommend either for anyone with an interest in sunshine, sporting events, and general merriment.

Instead I will blog about my current reads, which all happen to be Young Adult books. Several of my friends in my grad program are, or hope to be, Young Adult or Children's Librarians....meaning that when we have nerdy conversations about books, they are always talking about the latest popular book for teens, which I usually have never heard of. Taking their advice, I recently read two: Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins, and Uglies, by Scotter Westerfeld. Both books are the first in a trilogy... trilogies seem to be quite popular in YA lit.

Hunger Games was fantastic...probably one of the best books I've read so far this year. Set in a futuristic world (a favorite of YA authors), the Capitol keeps its cities and citizens under control by restricting communication between villages, and by holding the annual Hunger Games: a "Survivor"-like event in which 2 children from each city are selected at random and forced to fight until only 1 child remains. Yes, children are thrown into an arena of sorts, and have to kill each other. The premise is quite disturbing, and honest to god this book gave me nightmares. I had some terrible dream that Matt was killing people and I had to watch. Anyway, Katniss, from the city of Panem, volunteers to go to the Hunger Games in place of her sister. And.... I can't say much more without giving away too much of the plot.

The Uglies was also good, though I was bored for the first 110 pages or so. Thankfully, 110 pages in a YA book is like reading 25 in an adult book, so I was willing to keep reading. And it got better...much better. The Uglies is also set in a futuristic world (see?), but in this world, when children turn 16 they are surgically altered to become beautiful Pretties. Tally is dying to become Pretty, and only 3 weeks remain until her 16th birthday. Her friend Shay, is also scheduled to become Pretty soon, but isn't sure she wants the surgery... and on the night before she is to have the operation flees the city. Special Circumstances, a CIA/SWAT team type dealio, refuse to turn Tally into a Pretty unless she goes after Shay and tells them where she, and the other runaways, have fled.

One thing I like about Young Adult books is that its really easy to figure out what the author is trying to say. I'm not good with metaphors and deeper meanings and all that crap (Like, say, poetry)...it sounds good, but I can't tell what the heck its supposed to mean. YA books aren't like that. The message of these books are: be yourself, don't lie, you can do it!, and stuff like that. Coming of age stuff with tame hand-holding romances and tough decisions...really tough actually. In Hunger Games the main character is forced to decide if survival and victory is worth becoming a killer, especially since it means killing her male counterpart, who happens to be a friend of hers, from Panem. In Uglies, Tally must decide if her dream of becoming Pretty is worth the betrayal of her friend, and of the other runaways.

So I'm liking this brief respite in the world of YA lit, and I'm going to down the rest of the Uglies series, plus those Twilight books, before retreating back to books for my age group. The rest of the Hunger Games series hasn't been released yet, unfortunately. I suggest waiting to read the first one until Septemeber, so you don't have to wait. I wish someone would have suggested that to me! :)

of the Non (fiction, that is)

2009-05-17T14:13:00.002-04:00

Its been awhile since I've blogged about current reading, probably because it had been awhile since I'd actually finished a book. Why? I'm going to blame it on the genre: non fiction. I like non-fiction, but it really does seem to take much longer to read.

Anyway, I finished 2 books in the last couple weeks, Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, and Know-it-all by A.J. Jacobs. Both fall into the category of non-fiction I like to read: funny. Thankfully, "funny" now encompasses a variety of non-fiction genres...memoirs, how-to books, travel books, etc. I also don't mind any non-fiction book that is told as though it were fiction -- Devil in the White City, a book about the world's fair in Chicago, was so good, riveting, and entertaining, that I really could not believe I was reading a true story.

I remember my dad bringing home a copy of Walk in the Woods back when I was in Jr. High or High school, and when he was finished with it, I tried to read it. A bit of the humor was over my head at that point, as was a lot of the vocabulary (note: just because something is funny does not mean it is dumbed down), and I ended up only getting about half way through. Matt owns the book, so I decided to give it another chance.

The book is the story of Bryson's quest to hike the Appalachian Trail, which he discovers runs right by his home in New England. The story would be quite sad, really, if not for Bryson's ability to laugh at himself...which instead makes this book a hilarious tale of two middle-aged out-of-shape men hiking through the wilderness. Also mixed in are meaningful facts and stories about the trail itself, the wildlife that surrounds it, and the people that attempt to trek it each year. An excellent book, from start to finish.

After finishing Walk in the Woods, I was thrilled to discover my library hold on "Know-it-all" had finally come in! Jacobs wrote the fantastic book "The Year of Living Biblically", which i thoroughly enjoyed, and I wanted to read some of his other works. In Know-it-All (which incidentally was written before Living Biblically, FYI), Jacobs reads the entire encyclopedia from start to finish. He reports to the reader the interesting facts he stumbles across, while also reflecting on his motivation for the quest -- to become the smartest person in the world, and the difficulties one encounters when attempting to read the entire Encyclopedia... everything from strained eyes, to lost motivation, to retaining knowledge. He tries to prove this new intelligence by meeting with Alec Trebek, trying to join Mensa, going on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, and by maybe finally showing up his brother-in-law at a game of Trivial Pursuit. What I like about Jacobs is his frank honesty, especially about himself. It has to be moderately difficult to lay out one's insecurities for the whole world to read, but he does that, and the result is well... hilarious. I enjoyed this book as much as Living Bibilically..great book.

Of the 30-ish books I've read this year, only 4 have been non-fiction, the 3 mentioned in this blog, and Chelsea Handlers, "Are you there Vodka? It's me Chelsea" which was was ok. Maybe I should work more of the Non into my reading, but it just takes so much longer, and to me, part of the fun of reading is an escape from reality that just isn't there when reading something true -- the same reason I don't like to watch dramas or scary movies (If i'm watching something for fun, why the heck would I want to be scared?). I do like the thought of learning while I read, though as any English major will argue, there is plenty to learn from reading fiction as well. I wasn't an English major, but i agree completely. Of course, as I near the end of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity (a very random walk into the world of action novels), I wonder if I learned anything more than how to make sense of the movie.

My next blog? A fascinating compare and contrast of 2 American events that I have the pleasure of attending this May: The Kentucky Derby, and next week, the Indy 500. Held only two hours apart, yet (i imagine), oh so very different.

Tax the fatties!!?!

2009-04-28T13:00:00.004-04:00

We were up in Goshen for the last few days for my little brother's graduation. The weather was beautiful, and it was nice to catch up with my family and friends. On Saturday evening Matt and I went to visit two friends that matt has known basically forever, and who are about exactly opposite of us on the political spectrum. Not that this is a big deal...we get along with them just fine. While we were there, though, the female half of the couple began ranting about Obama and telling us that Obama is proposing to raise taxes for overweight people.

I counter with, "well.. i check the news pretty regularly, and i've never seen anything like that..." Her reply: "its been aaallllll over Fox news, O'reilly, and Hannity." That explained a lot right there.

Well in any case, I was curious. So I spent some time today at work researching this supposed tax on the fat, soon to be implemented by the Obama government. For 20 minutes I didn't find anything. And then... jack pot!

Ok, try to follow along.... trust me, its convoluted:

These LONDON scientists found proof that overweight humans produce more carbon emmisions than non-overweight humans, and therefore, contribute to global warming.

Around the same time the results of this study were released, the news and blogosphere in the United States was filled with all sorts of proposed ways to save the economy. Legalizing and taxing marijuana (this article from NPR) has been a popular one, as has the idea to tax sugary sodas, the theory being that sugar is just as bad for people as other heavily taxed items like alcohol and cigarettes. Please note that the link says NOTHING about this being an idea supported, considered, even on the radar, of Obama. Nor did any other article I could find.

But still, some conservative bloggers linked the two. Scientists in London say that fat people cause global warming! They are taxing our sodas! what next??? NEXT those crazy liberal environmentalists will be coming into our homes, checking our weight, and taxing us appropriately. Quite the logic, really, but here you go.

In the defense of O'Reilly, Hannity, and Fox News, I must add that I found nothing on any of their websites. O'Reilly did rant and rave about the London study, but none of these sources had any articles implying that Obama is going to impose a fat tax.

The problem, therefore, must be the veiwers and readers of such programming, who take it a step further, theorize the worst, and start spreading rumors (horray internet!). And being the trustworthy people that we are, we hear a theory from a friend, or read a blog on the internet, or watch a video on the news, and just belive it to be true. I don't mean to imply that our friends, relatives, and news sources are lying to us, I just mean that we should probably question what we hear and read a lot more than we actually do.

But anyway, the moral of this blog: Obama does not hate or want to tax obese people. And quit believing everything you hear.

What it is

2009-04-11T09:06:00.006-04:00

I feel like I should blog, because it sure sounds more fun that doing homework at 9am on a Saturday, but unfortunately have nothing to write about. My student workers suggested the following topics: Roger Rabbit, celebrity sleeze, and our co-worker Tom. While Tom certainly would be entertaining to write about, I think I'll pass on all of those. I also thought it might be fun to share the near-arrest stories that were told recently when a group of us sat around a campfire, but in the interest of privacy (and because several members of my family read this blog), I think I'll pass on that too. And I'm in the middle of three books, so until they are finished have no books to comment on either.

Something I was thinking about the other day, and might as well blog about for lack of a better topic, is music. I was driving home, and the song "Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground came on the radio. For lack of a better metaphor, I'll say I was flooded with memories. This song came out when I was in high school. When I hear it, I remember the following:
-- Singing along super obnoxiously while cruising around Iowa city with Jeana and Mary
-- Singing along super obnoxiously while cruising around Goshen with Matt. Yes, years later that song is still on our Ipods.
-- Shelving in the South Wing of the MHL and having to change songs because it reminded my student worker of her ex-boyfriend.

A lot of songs trigger this kind of response, and I end up all happy sitting there in my car reminiscing. I think this happens even more now that most of my friends live far, far, away and we don't keep in touch all that well. But hearing a song that we once shared reminds me how much I miss someone...and kinda makes me feel like we're always connected even as we drift apart, both literally and figuratively.

Anyway, back to the fun part of this blog. My "special" songs and why:

"You're the Inspiration" by Chicago. This song is AWFUL. But it will, always and forever, remind me of my college roommate, Susan. Our senior year, as a diversion from studying, we created an interpretive dance to this song, and would perform it, at random (and without warning), throughout the dorm. We'd just walk in, go to the cd player, pop in the disc, and begin to dance. We also karaoked this number at a hotel in Vietnam.

"Swing Swing" by the All-American Rejects. A crappy pop song that came out my senior year of college. Eric, Chad, and others couldn't figure out the words to the chorus so substituted non sequitor phrases like "my heart, my heart, is a purple crayon." Later, because we were ridiculously cruel, we changed the words to make fun of a girl we didn't like much.... "don't you go fall off your bike..." ha. I still sing the alternative words when i hear the song.

The hidden track from the Blink 182 cd. I'm cracking up just thinking about this story, and realizing I can't really tell it. I'll just say reminds me of an afternoon in the roof house garage with the Beths.

"Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" by Toby Keith. I don't agree with 90% of the words in this song, but that doesn't change the fact its catchy as hell. Thankfully, my forever friend Mary agreed. We enjoyed playing this song on jute boxes in Goshen when lots of peace-loving GCers were present, just to see their disgusted reaction both to country music and to the words. We, of course, would sing along and insert our own awesome motions. We listened to this song approximately 30 times on our road trip to Portland.

"Africa" by Toto. Best song ever. Was played at every Goshen party I ever went to. And was also a favorite tune to blast out the windows when driving anywhere with Erica. Other popular driving tunes with Erica: anything by Journey, "Hold On" by Wilson Phillips, that Panic song from a few years ago, and "Down down deedle deedle de down" by the Fallout Boys.

The title of this blog is the opening line from a song that, despite being obscure and pretty much terrible, has created a multitude of remembories. The song is "Some Cut" by Triville. Don't look it up, chances are you'll be ridiculously offended by every other word of the song. Erica started it all by answering her phone with "What it is?" for a long ass time, which somehow led to "gimme your number and I'll call...i'll follow that ass in the mall" sing-a-longs at various places. Jacki continued the tradition. And just last night, as Kevin witnessed, Matt and I began singing the "duet" part in the car, just at random.

I could do this all day, but that's enough. It's hard to remember all the fun times i've had... i've been blessed with a large number of incredible friends and man do we know how to have fun. I like that having my ipod on shuffle, or just flipping radio stations, can remind me of that. yay friends :) i miss you all.

Book-a-dee-do-dah

2009-03-29T18:14:00.005-04:00

Since my last few posts have NOT been about books, you may have wondered if I gave up on my goal to continue reading a book a week. Not so, my friends, not so....i just haven't been blogging about them. What can I say... American Idol and Brittany Spears are on the forefront of my mind, not books? terrible.

Last week I read the latest book in my new favorite series -- The Revenge of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz. And just today I finished the amazingly twisted psychological thriller, Bad Monkeys.

The Spellman series centers on the story of Isabel Spellman, the screw-up middle child in a family of private investigators. In Revenge of the Spellmans, the third book to be released, Isabel is in the midst of her court ordered counseling sessions (a result of her antics in book 2), and is struggling with the decision to take over the family business. Her already quirky family is acting even quirkier, this time set-off by the youngest daughter's acing of the PSATs and subsequent charges of cheating. The cheating charge, along with a side job investigating a local man's wife, thrust her back into the PI world despite her efforts to take a break. These books are just great... i love them. They are funny, clever, and real page-turners. These books are a good choice for any fan of mysteries, but especially fans of Janet Evanovich and similar authors. The Spellman books are a lot like Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series, though in my opinion soooooooo much better.

Bad Monkeys, by Matt Ruff, is the story of Jane Charlotte. She is in custody for a murder she swears she did not commit, and the tale of her supposed innocence takes the reader into a twisted world of secretive evil fighting organizations AND secret evil promoting organizations. Until the last 2 pages of the book you're never sure if Jane is part of the good team, the bad team, or if she's just plain nuts. Despite the serious nature of the book -- the central theme is the thin line between good and evil -- its actually amusing and funny throughout. I would say this is a good book to recommend to fans of both thrillers and mysteries, as well as people who appreciate creative writing with plot twists -- fans of Palahniuk and Christopher Moore, perhaps.

Not sure what i'm going to read next... suggestions?

My new favorite

2009-03-07T10:25:00.003-05:00

Thanks to this class (and my roommate), I have a new favorite author. John Sandford writes books I would not normally pick up -- the genre is Suspense, but whatever its called, his books scare the shit out of me. I do not, generally speaking, like things that give me nightmares. But something about his books is just gripping and before I realize that its too scary and I won't be able to sleep, I'm on page 300.

The first one I read was Winter Prey. I picked it because my roommate, Dori, said it was one of her favorite books. This book is twisted. Within 5 pages, there are 3 dead bodies. Within a few hundred pages, you realize there is a lot more than just murder going on in this small town.... there is a sick, covered up, child pornography and molestation ring. More people die. More snow falls. More members of the sick child-f-ing ring are discovered. Part of what is so gripping is not having any idea who the actual killer is, and you don't figure it out until there are only like 20 pages left.

The Prey books are a series starring Lucas Davenport, a cop in Minneapolis. Though its a series, it wasn't hard at all to pick up Winter Prey and start in... in fact, I didn't even realize it was a series till I had finished the book and was looking for other books by Sandford. Point being, you needn't start at the beginning.

Last night I started in on another, Mind Prey. Not quite as gripping from the get-go as Winter Prey, but I still found myself about 200 pages in before forcing myself to go to bed.

Sandford really seems to live up to the claim on his book jacket, "the master of suspense." He is an excellent writer (unlike other popular fiction authors i could name... coughDanBrownCAN'TWRITECough.....and robin cook), and depicts scenes so graphically you can't help but getting scared. Though it might just be that I'm a wuss. Whatever the case, I recommend.

That's right, there's a comic strip about libraries.

2009-03-02T15:58:00.003-05:00

and this one is funny. check out more at Unshelved.com

Romanticals

2009-02-28T11:58:00.005-05:00

Last week was rrrrrromance week in our Readers' advisory class, focusing on romance novels and a subgenre, romantic suspense. There are other subgenres of romance too... historical romance and gentle romance. The latter being a tamed down romance (think Nicholas Sparks), NOT an instruction guide for timid lovers.

Anyway. i do not read romance books because they, for the most part, are crap. Or so i thought. The two books I read, Tangled up in You by Rachel Gibson, and Temperatures Rising by Sandra Brown, were actually not bad. Both were pretty well written, with decent plot lines and entertaining characters. They were, of course, incredibly unrealistic, but that's ok -- its kind of like watching a movie. You simply forget about reality for awhile.

My prejudgment of all things romance stems from Halequin... you know those terrible books with the hilarious covers:

I'm not sure that first book is real, but i sure hope so!

I'm also not particularly fond of the "steamy" love scenes found in these novels. I thought about typing out some quotes, but i think that would just be embarrassing for all of us.

anywho, like I said before, I'm not a romance fan, but the two books i read were surprisingly tolerable, and i think I actually can say i liked the Rachel Gibson book. The Romantic Suspense book -- Temperatures Rising -- was certainly entertaining, but was, for lack of a better word, ridiculous.

The plot went something like this: Man from America is on hot sunny tropic island building something (he's an engineer). He meets an enticing native woman, who seduces him.... AND THEN..... she pulls a gun on him! and tries to kidnap him, but shoots him in the leg!! with a bit of help she DOES manage to kidnap him, and holds him hostage in a remote island village. The conditions? He builds a bridge to connect the village to the rest of the island. Does kidnapping curb man's feelings of lust? NO!! and sexy times ensue, as does bridge building. BUT THEN.... he must go back to the states... BUT THEN.... he returns to the island because he missed her.... BUT she it GONE!!!! NOOOOOOOO! so he finds her, in like frigging california or something. and they do it on the beach. THE END. all this, in less than 250 pages.

Maybe the most ridiculous/BEST PLOT EVER. it was like everything anyone could possible want in a book, all rolled into one. hot people. tropical island. attempted murder, kidnapping, mystery. happy ending. what more could you ever ask for?

Instead of studying.......my brilliant idea

2009-02-24T22:04:00.005-05:00

Its embarrassing to say how disappointed I was today when I found out American Idol isn't on tonight because of the state of the union. Fear not, its on tomorrow.

i'm sure the speech is great (before you judge me for being apathetic -- ill read the transcript tomorrow at work, i just don't like to watch), but what can be better than 12 just-above-mediocre singers sucking it up on national television? seriously. (except for anoop. anoop is not just-above-mediocre, anoop is omniscient god of a capella awesomeness. or something like that).

Maybe they should combine the two.... Presidential idol. It would be like Dancing with the Stars, except with politicians. Who WOULDn't want to see Obama tackling Bon Jovi along with balancing the budget?? "oooooOH we're not quite there, ooooooOH budgeting on a prayer! take my hand, america will make it i swear, OH budgeting on a prayer!"

Or Nancy Pelosi opening house sessions with a Celine Dion ballad?

I think group numbers would also be appropriate. The Senate Republicans doing a choreographed line dance as a filibuster? Maybe Toby Keith would play for them live at capitol hill!

The Supreme Court episode would be a challenge, and I would hope no contestant that day would break a hip while wooing the crowd. They could do a lawrence welk style version of some judicial ballad.... i'm thinking "I fought the law" would be appropriate.

all i'm really saying is, if everyone's favorite ex-attorney general can do it, why can't the rest of capitol hill?

micro fiction

2009-02-21T10:09:00.002-05:00

in one of my classes yesterday we heard a presentation on micro fiction (stories under 1000 words, many under 30). They follow a format, and are best if ironic, scary, or suspensful in some way.

The two most famous examples:

For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.
- Hemmingway

The last man on Earth sat alone in a room. There was a knock on the door.
- Fredric Brown (this was actually a story within a story, the longer one called "Knock").

Anywho, as a class activity the presenter gave us each two words to inspire us, and had us write our own. I was given the words "kitty" and "vociferous", and I liked what I came up with:

The kitty screamed, "BUT I DON'T KNOW WHAT VOCIFEROUS MEANS!!!!"

This is only funny if you actually do know what vociferous means, so if you didn't get it..... look it up.

We also learned yesterday about Zines, self-published creative magazines that often focus on social or political issues, and how to evalutate children's books. I have to give mine in a couple weeks... yuck. I'd much rather listen and participate than have to give my own 20 minutes presentation.

Back to one

2009-02-13T21:31:00.003-05:00

The first genre for this semester was Adventure, and I took it upon myself to read a Tom Clancy novel since I never had before.... I guess I felt that reading a Clancy or novel or two was a requirement to be a proper librarian. At first it was painful.... i just couldn't bring myself to care about the book, let alone admit to other people that I was reading a Tom Clancy book. And then, somewhere around page 200 (his books are all RIDICULOUSLY long), I realized that what I was reading was much better than I thought it would be.

I read Red Rabbit, one of the more recent additions to the Jack Ryan series -- he's the main character in Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, and few other Clancy books turned Hollywood. In this volume, set during the early 1980s, Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst recently assigned to London, is sent to Eastern Europe to help smuggle a soviet defector and his family safely to England. The operation takes an interesting turn when the creative CIA minds working in the Soviet branch come up with a plan that, if done successfully, will leave the Soviets ignorant of the defection. The traitor, also called a “rabbit”, is a former KGB communications officer – a goldmine of information for both the British Secret Service and the American CIA. When Ryan hears of the KGB plans to assassinate the Pope, he heads to Rome to try and thwart the killer.

This book was gripping in an action "what's going to happen next" sort of way, but was a pretty slow read at the same time (probably because it was 636 pages long with really small font). Honestly, though, I can say that I enjoyed it. Adventure is certainly not my favorite genre, and I really don't enjoy books with such a pro-american or military focus, but Clancy definitely knows how to write (surprise!), and spin a compelling plot line.

I do have two complaints though. 1, the main character, Jack Ryan, is just too darn perfect, which I frankly found very annoying. I mean, the guy is well-liked, smart, a loving husband and father, a baseball fan, good looking, AND manages to save the world on a regular basis (but yet retains a jesus-esque humbleness about it all). And 2, Clancy felt the need to spew Russian and Cold War history on every 3rd page. Yes, this history was central to the plot, but it was reiterated so often that I started to get the sense that he thought his readers were stupid and incapable of remember what he had just told them.

Despite those two annoyances, which I'm sure occur in other Clancy novels, I'll probably try to read some of his other books too. Unfortunately, most of them are actually LONGER than this one -- I picked the shortest one I could find for this assignment!

For next week we have to read two slutty genres: Romance and Romantic Suspense..... just a guess, but i'm thinking an interesting blog will come out of these reads.

blogs ditty blog blog

2009-02-07T11:19:00.003-05:00

Since i'm plowing through novels at an unnatural rate, mostly due to my Reader's Advisory course, I've decided that I have a goal for the year: To read 52 books (at least), 1 for each week. And, if I have time, I'll blog/rant/rave about them.

I think the people who read my blog (all like 5 of you) fall into 2 categories: 1, those, like me, who read an awful lot, and as children would spend summer vacation camped out in the library reading every volume of the Baby Sitters club or 2, those who hate reading and somehow made it through college (and in some cases grad school) without cracking a book for school or for pleasure.

I'm already up to 10 or so for the year (7 for previously mentioned class), which means I can't blog about them all at once... i'll either catch up over time or just leave off the terrible ones...though those might be the most fun blogs to write. It is the hope that this blog, then, can perhaps serve as its own mini Reader's Advisory -- that is to say, maybe the blog readers who read can find their next book choice, and those that don't can read my blurbs and pretend they do when it comes up in casual coversation. :)

I'll start with one i read for class this past week, Snuff by Chuck Palahniuk. I picked this one to start with because the plot is so ridiculous that even those that don't read will find it entertaining... i think.

Chucky P, as I usually call him (because i can't figure out how to pronounce his last name), is best known for his first novel, Fight Club. His books tend to be very creative, full of plot twists and unexpected endings, as well as funny in an extremely dark way. Chucky P is a nihilist which comes across strongly in most of his writing, and which makes his books depressing, though they are simultaneously absurd and entertaining.

I consider him to be one of my favorite authors, but I learned the hard way a few year ago not to read many of his books in a row -- after which i felt like i was in a funk and that humanity/life was a hopeless, meaningless endeavor. That said, if you want a book that will keep you gripped until the very end, and always suprise you, he's a good author to read.

Snuff, his newest book, is about porn. Cassie Wright, porn queen, is filming her last picture, an epic that will earn her a world record for the greatest number of sexual acts performed by a single person in one day ("serial fornication" if you will). 600 men are crowded into a basement, in line to spend a minute on camera with Ms. Wright. Among the crowd are number 72, a young man who believes Cassie Wright is his birth mother, number 137, a disgraced actor trying to find his way back into the limelight, and number 600, a man who starred in many pornography films with Cassie Wright. Also present is Wright’s assistant Shelia, a young woman who created the “screenplay” for the porn queen’s finale (entitled "World Whore Three: The Whore to End all Whores). Told from the perspective of these four individuals, it becomes clear that nothing, and no one, is what it may seem.

This book is obviously not for everyone. In fact, I would say its really not for ANYone, except people who have already read Chucky chuck books and like them. His other books, while still very bizarre and dark, are a tad easier to digest (and just plain better) than this one. Fight Club is pretty good, as are Lullaby -- about a song that people die after hearing, and Survivor -- about a plane crash, and told "backwards" (page numbering starts on 248 and counts back). So yes, read Chuck Palahniuk. He writes like no other author I have ever read, and I appreciate his work for that. But don't start with Snuff... or I'm pretty sure you'll hate it and never read his work again.

update and being tagged

2009-01-29T21:59:00.003-05:00

ah, time flies. My 2nd semester of grad school started 3 weeks ago already. One of my classes is a reader's advisory course, which is great.... except that I have to read 2 novels a week. I read a lot, but this is a tad more than i'm used to, especially with 2 other classes to do homework for, work, and the start of the new season of my biggest guilty pleasure -- American Idol.

whew, so yes, life has been crazy the last few weeks. Class started, then matt and i went to DC for his cousins wedding, and right before we left he proposed! yay! So add "wedding planning" to the list of things distracting me from my homework. We chose October 3 as the date...stay tuned.

This week was full of awesome fun things (ha. right). like 12 inch snowfalls and closed campuses. So far 3 nights of classes this semester have been cancelled at IUPUI due to snow. and have i had class any one of those nights? no. life is so unfair. Tuesday night's snowfall was so nuts (that was the night of 12") that the entire campus closed for wednesday. It was a nice random day off, and I didn't bother to leave my apartment.

I am seriously convinced that Indianapolis owns no snowplows. Today TWO DAYS after the major snowfall i saw 2 wrecks on my way to work and another car spin around in circles a few times (lucky he/she wasn't accident number 3). This was on 38th street -- a pretty major road in the city. bloody ridiculous, I say! Any snowplows they do own must be dedicated to clearing the interstates or something.... assuming they do actually own a few.

Every winter i spend in the midwest i swear it is going to be my last. But i'll most likely have at least 1 more -- with getting married in the middle of next semester, i'll probably lessen my class load a bit and just plan on completing the program next may instead of in december. Maybe i'll get lucky and NOT have to experience another gajillion inch snowfall.

As this blog already really has little point, I will make it even more tangental by completing this brief questionnaire that Kevin tagged me to do on his blog.

Three jobs I have had in my life: Nursing home activity assistant (i got paid to play bingo!), camp counselor (i got paid to play capture the flag!), circulation student supervisor (i get paid to do my homework!)

Three movies I would watch over and over: Forgetting Sarah Marshall, South Park Movie, Princess Bride

Three shows that I watch: American Idol, Law & Order SVU.....if i'm around cable South Park or the Daily Show.

Three places I have been: The corn palace in Mitchell, South Dakota; The field of dreams field in Dyersville, Iowa; the Little People Big World pumpking patch in (i'm too lazy to look it up), Oregon.

Three of my favorite foods: mushrooms, ice cream, cheesy awesome bread from Greek's Pizzeria.

Three places I'd rather be right now: bed, portland, tropical anywhereness.

Three things I am looking forward to this year: Old Crow Medicine Show concert (Saturday!!!), getting hitched, the Indy 500!

Three jobs I would love to have: beer taster (i stole that from kevin....what job could be better?), cartoon voice, sweet awesome librarian job.

Three people you would like to Tag to do this: um... no one I tag will ever do this, so i'll pass. If you read this and you feel led, you may nominate yourself as one of my tagees.

Indianapolis

2009-01-12T13:45:00.003-05:00

I'll be honest... this isn't exactly where I want to end up. Since I'm here for at least another year, here's the list of things I want to see and do to make the most of it. Like any good to-do list, it includes a few things I've already done, to make myself feel better.

Cultural:
IMA (Indy museum of Art), and the IMA movies on the lawn in the summer
Eiteljorg (Museum of American Indians and Western Art).
Check out the Zoo (as my dad would do in any city we ever visited).
Monument Circle... boring, but check.
Visit the capital building
See the ArtsGarden, preferably the next time my mom is around.
Jazz Fest, downtown in June

Food:
Indy isn't known for its food, though it sure has a lot of fatties....the 11th most obese city last year according to Forbes. Despite 26% of the city qualifying as obese, we don't have a lot of Indy specific or well-known restaurants. Nothing like the cheese-steak to philly or the deep-dish pizza to Chicago. In other words, I don't have anything on this list. Places I ate that were superb were: Yats, Brugge, and Naked Tchopsticks. Oh and that italian place the other night.... Mama Corollas. yum.

Sports:
Pacer game...check
Colts game...probably impossible on my income, but I can dream.
Indy 500...pretty pumped for Redneck Marti Gras!
Watch a few Indians games (as in Indy Indians, the AAA team).
KY derby (not so much in indy, obviously, but nearby and I have friends that live in Louisville).
bowl at the largest bowling alley in the state of IN... check.

Other:
See a concert at the Vogue -- have tix
go to the Rathskeller
The State Fair, esp. since it's walkable from Matt's place
See a Dave Matthews Band concert :) That should happen this summer.

Hmm... A pathetically short list, which means I could maybe manage to do everything on it. I'll keep you posted.

a christmas blog

2008-12-21T11:53:00.008-05:00

It was a good year, and my life actually changed....so i'll write a christmas blog.

Winter:
2008 began as no year ever should -- with my car totaled. Technically, the accident occurred in 2007's last hours, but whatever. Because of the complicated nature of the accident -- 88 year old man, from CA, driving a rental car -- it was over a month before I saw any compensation. So that put quite a damper on New Year's, and made for a very frustrating January. Aside from the car business, the winter was fine...or as fine as winter can be for someone who absolutely hates winter. I celebrated New Years in Goshen, went out to Colorado the next weekend for a fun winter "snowball" party, learned to ice skate, and spent a good amount of weekends in Chicago visiting Matt.

Me and J.J. (birky) at the snowball. He and Emily were our hosts.

With Maria and Rebekah in Bluffton, at Eric's Return From 'Nam party

Stud on Skates, that's me. And Jess.

With Matt in Chicago for Valentine's day.

Spring.
Spring showed up eventually, after a gajillion rounds of snowfall. It was a pretty uneventful Spring... I worked a lot at my two jobs, continued my frequent visits to Chicago, got the flu, and spent my free time with my housemates or on Kendra's couch (where, incidentally, I am writing this Christmas blog). In April I took a couple days off and drove out to PA with my college friend Eric, to visit another college friend, Rebekah (she's in one of those pics in the winter section). On the drive back to Goshen from Ohio I had 5 hours in the car by myself, which was good for thinking and clearing my head. By the time I was back to Goshen, I had officially made the decision to leave my job at the MHL and move to Indianapolis to do the Library Science program full-time. It was a hard decision because I loved my job and had been there for 4 years. But the pay was an issue, and I really wanted/needed to get out of Goshen and move somewhere bigger.

A fun day -- bus from g-town to chicago for a Cubs game. Jacki, emily, me, and Katrina.

Me and Eric hiking in PA when we visited Rebekah:

Riding the Merry-Go-Round at the Lincoln Park Zoo

Chad and Eric came to visit! And were amused by our road signs:

Summer:
I love summer!!!!!! The summer officially began in June with a trip to Bonnaroo with a fun crew of peeps. July was busy; I went to Chicago for the 4th, spent quality time at the Elkhart County Fair, quit my job, moved out of my apartment, AND saw everyone's favorite 90's band, Hootie and the Blowfish. In August I moved into my new place in Indianapolis. I currently live in Broad Ripple with my roommate Dori. Broad Ripple is a very fun area of the city to be in, just off the Monon trail and near the pretty river(s). Right before starting classes I went out to California to see my friend Erica, and we drove up to Portland to see the crew there. The day I got back, reality hit, and I started my new job at the IUPUI library, and had my first class.

Jacki, Jess, and me at Bonnarooooooo

Look! Its cousin Zach in the parade!!!

On the shore of Lake Michigan:

A group of us in the Space Room bar... loved its decor.

Fall:
In September Matt moved to Indy! yay! He lives about a ten minute drive from me, quite a pleasant change from the 3 hour distance between goshen and chicago. The fall was pretty much dedicated to school and work, but I found a softball team to join...it was fun to play again. The softball season ended, and the group wanted to play kickball, so I got to join that team as well. In September I went out to Cincinnati to meet up with some college friends, and for shits and giggles, we drove down to KY to visit the creation museum. For Thanksgiving I had no plans locally, so I headed back to Portland to visit my friends again. We ate a Thanksgiving feast, went to a Trail Blazers game, and visited the very creepy Shanghai Tunnels (the Portland Underground). Got back just in time for finals, of which I had none - just a bunch of projects to do. The semester ended, which brings us to the present.

Its been an exciting year, full of traveling, moving, and getting to know Indianapolis. Its a much larger city than I realized -- close to 800,000, making it the 13th largest in the country. There's a lot to do.... i just need more friends to do stuff with! I really have realized in moving away how many wonderful friends I have...and how much I miss them all being in one place. My classes have been going well, and I hope to finish up already next December, though I might extend it to May if I feel like it. I'm really just in school so that I can get a "real" library job, and I'm ready to get that degree as fast as possible.

My computer is about to die, so I'll wrap this up with a few more pics. Merry Christmas everyone!

The "Indy Crew" (plus Phil) out for Dori's birthday:

Me and Mary in Portland:

The weird Indianapolis Christmas tower thingy, and the Chase tower

me and Matt.

2008-12-01T19:26:00.000-05:00

I heart portland.

Happa-Tai - YATTA!

2008-11-22T00:56:00.001-05:00

i just think this is friggin hilarious. please waste 4 minutes of your life and watch this, and read the lyrics. you will laugh.... i promise.

oh jack jack

2008-11-20T19:47:00.008-05:00

more fun graphs

2008-11-19T22:32:00.003-05:00

I have this really terrible habit of going to the library and coming home with 3 books...and then going back a week later, returning none and checking out 3 more. I think that between the public library and the IUPUI library I have 15 books checked out to read, and of course, no time to do so. thank god for online renewing or i'd have some hella huge fines.

the books i have managed to read lately are embarrassing to admit. I flew to California in August and picked up book one of the Janet Evanovich books, about a female bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. They are terrible written with awful love shit thrown in (not surprising when you know that Evanovich used to write romance novels), but they're like crack or something... i cannot stop reading them. Less than 3 months after reading book 1, I am almost done with book 7. Sadly, these always become the priority when they finally get to me -- even though book 7 was released clear back in 2001, i was on hold for over a month! Apparently, these books are like crack to more people than just me. Don't worry, I already have books 8 and 9 in my possession, so i won't have to go through withdrawal waiting for my hold requests to come through.

Back in the old days of libraries, there were debates about what should be included in a public library collection (SEE, I am actually learning something in library school). Some people thought that public libraries should include only "worthwhile" material, that would educate and stimulate the minds of the masses. Others though -- the ones that won -- thought that public libraries should be a place for people to find ANYthing, the theory being 1, that to read at all is better than NOT reading at all and 2, that by reading crap you create a path to reading that educational, mind-stimulating stuff. Problem is, I suppose, that there's so much crap available now that you never need to move on to something better. But that's ok. I still think that reading crap is better than not reading at all. Anyway... I had a point here, but I'm not sure what it was....

I also found time to mostly finish Lamb by Christopher Moore, which i was ridiculously disappointed in. The premise is fantastic -- Lamb is the story of Jesus' life through those missing years (you know, from age 12-30 that the bible doesnt mention) as told by his best friend Biff. I just feel like it should be about 1,000 times funnier than it is. And if i'm going to judge the author solely on this one book and the humor in it, I think that I would find him completely annoying if I knew him in real life. But then, I'm not quite done yet, so maybe it gets better....

I DID actually finish Last Lecture, which was good in a sappy, life-touching sort of way (i.e., a nice read that made me tear up a little, but i'll never look at it again), and A Year of Living Biblically, which I loved loved loved loved loved.

Hmm. nothing like a pointless blog to fill the time. Beats homework, I guess.

A White Castle Incident: on 16th and Illinois

2008-11-14T22:55:00.003-05:00

We walk in and are the only white people. We go to counter. Woman rings us up. Says, "were you guys in here yesterday?"
".....no...."
"oh, well, its just there was the couple in last night...."
black dude, laughing hysterically, "what she's saying is that you're the only white folks that have been here allllllllll day."

anyway, white castle is awesome, and this guy cracked me up. mmmm lil steamed sliders. mmmm.....

haiku

2008-11-13T13:50:00.003-05:00

My friend from work, Davinia, is in the English grad program at IUPUI. She wrote the winning entry for a political haiku contest.... i thought it was hilarious:

Dad didn't vote for change
Mom made him sleep on the couch
his red balls turned blue.

my own inspired, and much less funny haiku:

1964
red red red red red...and then
Indiana blue!

On Baseball......WOOOOOO PHILLIES!!!

2008-11-05T21:39:00.003-05:00

ahem. This blog is a bit overdue, but sadly, i do not have the time to devote my life to blogging.

Last wednesday, the Phillies won the world series. It was awesome.

I grew up a Phillies fan, and while I enjoy watching most sports, Major League Baseball and the Phillies has always been my greatest sport-related interest. My dad claims its because he rocked me to sleep to phillies games during the '83 season, which I can't really argue with. This, of course, was when we still live in Philadelphia...before the terrible day my parents yanked me into the rural nothingness that is Wellman, Iowa.

One of my earliest memories is being at a baby-sitters house while my parents went to a Phillies game. I also remember when I got to go to my first game, but I don't remember any of the game, just the drunk people from a few rows over that got escorted out for being too obnoxious.

A few years after said Iowa tragedy, in 1993, the Phillies made the Series. I was 11, and my parents had very strict television rules -- Dirk and I were limited to 1 hour of TV a day. I think they made an exception for me to watch baseball, but I'm sure it was a hard fought battle by my 6th grade self. In any case, I was allowed to watch, but was banished to the basement to watch on the ancient black and white, 10 inch screen. I think my heart broke for the first time when Joe Carter hit the walk off homerun to end the series.

Life went on.....and the phillies sucked. for years and years and years they sucked. Not just a little.... a lot. I still followed the team, but only sporadically. I got to a couple more games, but only in Chicago. I have very fond memories of going with Dad and Dirk to see the Phillies play the Cubs in front of a sold out crowd. Our tickets were standing room only, but when the crowd began to leave in the 7th inning, we go pretty decent seats. Funny though, can't remember for the life of me who won that game.

And then, recently, the Phillies began not to suck. They built a team around a couple good players -- Jimmy Rollins and the ridiculously overpaid Pat Burrell. After a few years of just barely missing the playoffs (often because those damn cubs couldn't beat the Astros or Cardinals when I needed them too), last year they made it...and quickly were swept by the Rockies.

This year, though, they said "screw you!" to the Brewers and the Dodgers and the Tampa Bay Rays bandwagon... my little 6th grade broken heart has finally healed. Next time, I am going to the parade.

Another re-post.... because its still funny: Mennonite pick-up lines.

2008-10-26T12:40:00.005-04:00

Really, I do these occasional reposts because my old blogs, on LiveJournal and Myspace, haven't been touched in ages, and I don't want to lose those rare blogs from my past that are worth saving. And its my blog and I can do what i want.

Kendra and I wrote these one boring Friday night in Goshen, exactly 2 years ago. I now date a non-Mennonite, which perhaps goes to show how effective these truly are. Anyway. Mennonite pick-up lines. Perhaps we should donate this list to the people at Menno Meet.

[terrible] Mennonite pick up lines
by Erin and Kendra
(note: these might be funnier after 5, 6, or 12 beers):

1. I'll show you Menno if you show me Simons.

2. I've got a couple of Mennonite Quarterly Reviews just lying around my place, if you'd like to check them out.

3. (actually said to my friend chad last night): that's the most interesting copy of the Politics of Jesus I've ever laid eyes upon.

4. I'll Walter Wink you, if you know what I mean...(Engaging the Powers never sounded so good..)

5. Let me lead you to our genealogy section...if we're more than 4th cousins, then its all ok

6. Hi, my name is Ms. Leichty-Dyck, what's yours?

7. Is that a tongue screw in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

8. How about we go back to my place and make some potato casserole, deviled eggs, and end the night with a seven-layer tossed salad?

9. Wanna come with me to the hymn sing tonight? I'll show you "from where all blessings flow".

10. Is it my imagination, or did I meet you at convention?

11. Would you like to show me your take on the Mennonite peace position?

12. I think I captured your flag at camp last summer. Do you want it back?

13. Up for a rough game of Ultimate?

14. I came to the River in St. Louis.... did you come too?

15. Its ok, I slept in your bed during choir festival

16. Maybe sometime we could go to the farmers market, do some fair trade shopping, and finish the day off with some hard core volunteer work.

17. Lets apply to MCC and be in overseas missionary positions together. We could go to Honduras!

18. I got front row seats to the quilt auction at the relief sale. wanna come?

19. Is that a Bible in your pants? Cause I'd sure like to get my hands on it.

20. You're MC? I'm GC? Its cool, we'll just merge.