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.
Credit: 96dpi
I’m at the halfway mark. The grades for the second term of my MLIS are trickling in; I’ve just about caught up on sleep; and I’ve stopped dreaming about imaginary assignments I forgot to complete.
Lots of ups and downs over the course of the year—some related to ordinary library school patterns and some related to my particular situation. Both terms have been more difficult than I expected. The difficulties haven’t emerged from the content of the program—which I enjoy for the most part—but from mundane problems of too many meetings to schedule, too much change all at once, and too little time taken to breathe.
When things feel most difficult, I slip into believing that I’ve been doing nothing. It’s a perverse habit of thought I’m trying to let go of since it magically erases the effort that went into selling our home, moving a household, reconnecting with family, learning the ways of a new city, negotiating the long term care bureaucracy, struggling with the pain of needing to arrange long term care for my mother, looking at long term care facilities and trying to choose the right one, going back to school and relearning how to be a student, learning the outlines of a new discipline, getting good grades, publishing a paper, figuring out how student groups work, working on a student journal, winning a competitive internship, and getting past some crazy-making situations.
My hope for the summer is balance. Yes I want to learn the ins and outs of reference work and web services in a research library but I also want to spend time with my partner (he-who-has-done-ALL-the-household-work), re-start a sitting practice, explore the city more, and read for pleasure. Novels. I remember something about novels.
