Image by manavo CC licence
I know I did schoolwork today and even went to a class in the evening but it’s all a blur.
Today we took my mother to see her geriatrician. We go every six months and each time, inexorably, there are more losses to count up. Each mini-mental exam confirms what we already know.
Monday’s going to be a busy day–eldercare stuff–so a lot of my class prep for next week’s classes has to be finished up today.
First up: finishing reading another chunk of AACR, reviewing material by Chan and Taylor, and reviewing slides for upcoming class. The reading itself is dry but every once in a while I’ll trip over something that surprises me. Today it’s not so much the sequence of rules–which are in some ways very much like style manuals–but the ways in which exceptions are covered in some detail. For example, the way publication details are handled if a label has been stuck over the original publication details. (Go with the label and don’t peel it off to get at the original data – 1.4b5.) I’ve fiddled about creating a couple of records but it’s clear I’m a rank beginner.
Next up: finishing up readings for systems class. Three or four articles/chapters read. Much of the content is familiar or connects to previous work history. Some of the textbook strikes me as fairly basic stuff so it makes for quick skimming. I’ve hit a little roadblock in an assignment to evaluate a web app — the app isn’t outputting any content. I’ll give it another day before swapping topics.
And to round out the day, writing up minutes and working on recruitment for a student journal.
All in all a quiet, uneventful day. Tomorrow will be harder.
I’ve had blogs in one form or another for seven years or so and they’ve all followed a fairly typical curve: lots of posting at the beginning, settling into a regular posting pattern, and then dwindling into promises to write and recurring, undone items on a to-do list. If I could dig out the posts I’d probably find the same pattern in my UseNet and FreeNet participation. Douglas, who I roped into a joint blog about 5 years ago, has turned out to be a much better blogger than I am: he’s got stuff queued up months ahead and is always adding to it.
Photo by artolog / CC
Since I want to regain some writing fluency–writing a simple paragraph really shouldn’t feel like dragging bricks across sand–I’m going to try something a little different for a while. Most of my time these days is taken up by going to class, preparing for class, and doing assignments for class. So. I’m going to try using this space to actually capture what I’m doing day to day–what I’m actually working on. Some days it will be a laundry list of tasks, others will be more substantive, and the kvetching that’s a standard part of library school will happen mostly offstage.
It might be a pretty summer day here but tomorrow fall will start in earnest for me as I head back to school.
I swing between excitement and weariness but I suspect that this is the inevitable consequence of combining school with long distance caregiving. The distance is much smaller than it was when we were living in Ottawa but it still plays a role.
The small tasks that need doing get easier to do and witnessing the inevitable indignities can be managed in the moment. Simple decisions are dogged by knowing that there are bigger and harder tasks in the future. These more complex decisions will force a choice between Scylla and Charybdis.
For the moment, I’m working to regain my balance and carrying on despite all.
