So, um, hi!

So, yeah, hi! I know, I’ve been a bad blogger.

I have successfully survived another semester of school. I came out with two A-‘s to show for it, and I’m totally okay with that.

I’m guessing I got an A- in my Information Organization class because I didn’t “participate” much and because I didn’t do as well on the metadata project as I would have liked (no one did, actually). I was shocked by the A- in my Electronic Publishing class; I was sure I’d get a B+ in that one. The final exam was a killer and took me about 14 hours to do, not to mention the fact that my instructor’s expectations have always tended to be a moving target. Go me!

So what did I learn from this semester?

* Having people (Phil and Sarah) proof your papers is always a good thing.

* Don’t do school projects on something “close” to you: for our relational database group project, one guy insisted that we work on his German newspaper collection (sad, huh?). Because it was so dear to him, he insisted certain things work certain ways and hence we lost points because of it.

* Don’t work on group projects with Todd. He either doesn’t do his part and pleads that he was “sick” or he waits until the last minute and supplies something full of errors. Nice guy, but a total flake.

* Procrastination isn’t always a bad thing. I’ve developed this weird habit where I either clean or bake when I don’t want to do school work. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; roomie Sarah sure isn’t complaining.

* Despite not doing awesomely well on the metadata project thingie, I like metadata. It’s kinda neat.

* Playing with XML is fun. Good grief, I’m a such a nerd.

* Articles about data mining are BOOOOORING!!! Data mining in itself is kinda cool, but I’d rather scrub my eyeballs than read about it.

I shall be applying these new lessons this coming semester, which starts on 1/18 for me. I’ll be taking Cataloguing (notoriously hard) and Use and Users of Information (also notably difficult). I guess this means I won’t be watching much TV this Spring either.

Two semesters down – four more to go.

The long awaited update

To all four of you that actually read this blog, I sincerely apologize for not posting sooner. Those who actually deal with me on a somewhat daily basis know that I have been as of late a crazy person. At any rate I’m leaving for Champaign on Friday for my semesterly-trip to UIUC. I thought I’d give y’all the update:

School is hard. I think the level and type of “hard” changes from semester to semester, but this semester appears to be hard in the “holy crap, that’s a lot of work you expect me to do” category. It’s not that the assignments are individually hard (at least for the one class they aren’t); it’s that there are so many of them. I basically have a writing assignment due each week. Here’s the run down on the actual classes:

My “Organization of Information” class is the last of my two core classes (the first one I took during the summer session), and probably the more interesting of the two. We’re covering how information is classified, why it’s classified, how to find it, why you find it that kind of way, etc. Talk about a class that makes you see organizing things in a whole new way. The class is pretty digital-technology friendly too, which is good since I’m a nerd. My only gripe is that we have an assignment due about every one to two weeks. They’re all short assignments and I’ve gotten full credit for the ones that have been graded so far, so I wouldn’t be so bothered by them if it weren’t for the other class.

Ah, Electronic Publishing. First of all, let me say that my professor is a very smart, nice woman who definitely knows a lot about this subject matter and does an excellent job of explaining it. Here comes “the but:” 1) she’s constantly changing the syllabus – a reading that was recommended one week becomes required the next and vice versa. She’s especially fond of adding more and more information/requirements to assignments on an on-going basis. 2) She assigns about 200 or so pages of reading each week. 3) Because the assignments and readings change on an irregular basis, it’s hard to keep up with what’s going on.

Electronic publishing is a really cool subject and she’s trying to introduce some very technical stuff (publishing XML documents) in a very friendly way. I think that she’s doing about the best she can with that subject matter in a distance-learning environment. However I feel like she keeps shifting her expectations of us in weird ways (the syllabus changing, and her saying things like “maybe you can publish your final project in a journal!” and yet she wrote an XML assignment that basically told us step by step what to do so we couldn’t get it wrong), so I feel like this class is an exercise in hitting a moving target. Who knows? Maybe that’s her ultimate goal. I get my first assignment back from her this weekend, so we’ll see if I’ve properly guessed her expectations very soon.

So this week I’m scrambling to finish up some reading, write a short assignment, prepare for some in-class assignments, pack, catch up on Tivo and still manage to be productive at work. I’m only partly successful in this effort so far.

I’ll report in after the trip to C-U. Ciao for now.

Have you noticed?

Have you noticed the really weird stats for this page? Check the sidebar.

I’ll I gotta say is that if you’re looking for information on herpes and you find this page, you have got to be seriously disappointed. Maybe you should talk to a librarian about finding better resources.

Anyway, I’ll post an update on my school adventures shortly.

Day 1, Semester 2…

Hi all.

I just finished my first real on-line class about 40 minutes ago for “Information Organization and Access”. As I imagined, I feel a lot better about the class, its workload, requirements, etc. I have my other class (“Electronic Publishing”) on Tuesday so hopefully I’ll find some mental relief there too.

The Information Organization class is the last of my two “core” classes, and while the general theme and information of the class is interesting to me, core classes always kinda grate me a little. Even in graduate school core classes, you get the people who don’t really want to be there for that particular topic and hence spend the class making wise-cracks or fail to take anything in the class seriously.

There’s this one guy, who shall remain nameless, who literally has to post a crack after every other comment. His bio (we all have them – to build “community”) is even full of wisecracks. It’s funny how I can tell just from on-line prattle that this guy wants to be our class clown. Unfortunately for all of us, he’s a really bad clown.

Because we do all our class lectures and discussion on-line, the annoying chatter and quips of Crappy the Clown and folks like him get mixed in with the real questions and comments of interested students. This is further complicated by the fact that there’s 50 people in this class. All the chat clutter makes the dialog hard to follow. I ended the class with a slight headache to accompany my relief.

My Electronic Publishing class is an “elective,” has only 12 people in it, and we all (according to our bulletin board posts) have an interest in the topic. I’m expecting slightly more focused discussion on Tuesday.

I know, I know, I sound like a fuddy-duddy, but seriously, I’m here to learn. A funny comment here and there is fine, but 12 jokes about how a philosopher’s name sounds like a “dark lord” when the lecturer is trying to explain a cataloging concept is really frickin’ annoying.

And it begins again

The fall syllabi are up, the textbooks have arrived and class starts on Thursday. The cycle of fear and panic that hit me in July is back too. Wee.

Holy crap, folks, I have signed myself up for a crap load of work this fall. I’m sure I’ll get over it once I start into the semester and find a schedule/rhythm that works for me. Right?

So I didn’t completely hose the final.

Grades were posted today and I got an A- in my first ever Library School class. I guess I didn’t completely hose the final then.

I’m not sad about getting an A-, just kinda “OK” about it. I guess I’m just ready to move on to the next semester which starts in two weeks.

Post-scholastic stress

Well, I don’t know if I’m stressed. Just really tired and not feeling up to doing work. I had to write an essay on what I felt I would one day contribute to the field of librarianship for a fellowship application, and lemme tell ya’, folks, I SO didn’t want to do it. I wanted a little time off before writing another essay. I did it though. Because I’m tough and because I need the money.

On another note, I emailed a librarian here at work who actually wrote one of the articles we used in our group project. She was so tickled that we actually found and used that article that she ended up giving me a bunch of advise on what kinds of classes to take. Awesome.

I think that’s as much school stuff as I’m gonna do for at least a week or two. I’m pooped, y’all.

I survived…

The final kicked my ass, but I’m done. I AM DONE!

I’m going to bed, y’all.

If you’re curious…

We took group photos this morning – the morning where I decided it would not be a good idea to bring my camera to class. Go me.

Fortunately someone else has posted the pictures, so if you want to see my instructors and my group, just click here.

I am alive

I know – I haven’t posted in a while. Things got really hectic here with my “tracking assignment,” group project, group process paper…

I’m now sitting in the GSLIS building, taking a break from studying for the exam that starts at 1:30. I *think* I know the material and concepts and I hope that they don’t fall out of my head the minute the test starts.

After the exam I’m swinging by the bookstore and then I’m going to get a beer. Only one beer though because I am SO FRICKIN’ EXHAUSTED that I would probably pass out after two. Have I mentioned I’m exhausted?

I love all the people I’ve met over the ten days, and I really feel like I’ve bonded with them. I think my instructors, Leigh Estabrook and Maggie Kimmel, are AMAZING! Maggie even made us cry this morning with her story about magic and how we can transform the world. I feel I have learned so much and I’m really excited about the next five semesters.

Still, I really miss my home – my friends, my boyfriend, my cats, my bed that does not have plastic on it. I’m really looking forward to seeing all of that tomorrow.

So I’m going to go back to studying about “Literacy and Reading: Exploring the purpose of libraries (Lecture 3).” Wish me luck.