It's Thanksgiving!

It's almost Thanksgiving! Thanksgiving is definitely one of my favorite holidays. All the wonderful aspects of getting together as friends and family without all the pressure of giving gifts. But Thanksgiving is also wonderful because you get to really think about what you are thankful for. This year my list is numerous. I am thankful for...

• My parents for all they do for me and for generously allowing me to come home after graduation since I don't have a job.
• My amazing friends for not giving up on me whenever I disappear or whine about not having a job.
• The opportunities I've had this semester to gain valuable library experience.
• A career path that will provide me with lots of personal and job satisfaction (once I actually get a job :) )
• My professors for being so willing to write recommendations for me and to give me advice whenever I ask for it.
• My readers! Those of you who are out there (lurkers or not), I'm grateful that you find me interesting enough to read!
  

I am also thankful for the little things, like the fact that I have some place to live, something to eat, and people to love. I know this year, especially with as bad as the economy has been, there are a lot of people who don't have that. I'm very fortunate, I think.

What are you thankful for this year?

Motivation (Or Lack Thereof)

So I realized last night that I haven't blogged in over a week. There are a few things to blame for that. Thursday and Friday I went home for fall break; Saturday I spent all day watching football with my dad (Roll Tide!); I've been working on a paper; I don't have anything to say; the excuses go on and on. The truth is I'm not blogging that frequently because I seem to being living a life that lacks motivation.

I get up in the morning full of energy and plans for the day, but by the time I've driven around campus for 15 minutes looking for a parking space, most of that energy has been wasted on frustration and that inability of UA to provide students with adequate parking. And my plans for the day? Suddenly my to-do list that seemed so exciting looks like the longest, most terrible list in the world. I'm filled with dread just thinking about it.

Work is piling up as my procrastination stretches on. I'm way behind on the LibGuides project for Rodgers, the things I need to be doing for my GTA keep getting bumped aside for other, probably not as important, things, and school work just seems like such a chore. Maybe I've got "senioritis" or maybe I'm just stuck in a bad place right now, but either way, I need some encouragement in all aspects of my life.

A Day in the Life of a Library Student

This summer I blogged about the trend of blogging about your day. I even posted one of my mornings in the reading room. I'm not sure if it's still a trend, but I thought I would bring back the concept here and share with y'all what my Tuesdays are like. Note: Because this was accreditation week, my day was not as typical as some.

6:15 - wake up to the construction crews outside my building making way too much noise for 6:15 in the morning.
6:50 - actually get out of bed and get ready for the day.
8:00 - arrive at Rogers after a battle to find a decent parking spot. I won, at least for today.
8:05-9:00 - check email, facebook, twitter, TFLN, MLIA, and my blogs. Gchat with some friends.
9:00-9:40 - look at various schools' use of the LibGuides system and take notes. Contemplate the best way to present it and play around with a PowerPoint.
9:45 - walk to Gorgas for a meeting.
10:00-10:40 - meet with the accreditation team about being a student leader. Meeting goes well, but not as many student leaders showed up as I had hoped.
10:45 - quick stop for tea on my way back to Rogers.
11:00-12:30 - continue working on the LibGuides project and decide to scratch the PowerPoint idea; decide that a word document is fine. Make a decision to create my own template after looking at too many different features that I like.
12:30-12:50 - eat lunch at my desk while surfing the internet.
1:00-1:50 - French class, better known as the hour where I'm completely bored out of my mind.
2:00 - make an executive decision that getting a second masters/Ph.D. in history is not what I want to do right now, instead I really want to get a job and have a real life. This also results in me not going to the history class I was auditing.
2:15-3:15 - leave campus (yay!) and head to the drug store to pick up some things I desperately needed and run them home.
3:30-7:00 - work in the Reading Room. And by work I mean sit at my station and play on the internet, do homework, and occasionally refill the copier, or solve a technical problem. It was a very quiet evening.
7:30 - head to a friend's house for girls night!

Tuesday is my short day, which is kind of scary, but it is. And now that I'm not going to history anymore, I get a chance to leave campus and go home or go run some errands for an hour or so. Thursdays are even better because I have 3 hours of free time. I'm learning to value these little bits of time; they are my saving grace right now.

This is definitely been my busiest semester ever. Some days I get to campus at 8:00 and don't leave until after 9:00. I'm sure it will only get worse when I start having major assignments due. But this is also my last semester, so I'm just thrilled that I get to graduate and move on with life.

So how was your day? Was it as busy as mine? Please share!

A Typical Morning

Wow! Two posts in one day! :) I'm really starting to like this blogging thing. Anyway, I felt the need to share this awesome newspaper column that came through my American Libraries Direct newsletter. I love humorous little takes on the everyday life of a librarian, and found this one particularly amusing since it so resembles mine. So as a treat I decided to chronicle my morning in the Reading Room for you.

8:00 Arrive on time (yay!) and use code to get in. Turn first two sets of lights on and lobby printer/copier on. Put stuff down and turn on computer. Grab keys and open computer lab. Note that there are still copies of the CW on the floor; recycle them and turn on printer/copier. Head to the back to turn on last set of lights. Sign into the computer and check in the newspapers.
8:15-9:30 Really quiet. Check email, facebook, twitter, and blogs. Search for new blogs to read. Write a new blog post. G-chat with friends.
9:30 Request to borrow a pen. Followed quickly by requests to borrow a ruler, replace the staples, and fix a jam in the copier. Suddenly the computer lab is full.
9:52 Answer the phone then hang up on a solicitor.
10:00 Head to the back to put some barcodes on tapes. Listen to my ipod while mentally complaining to myself about how much I hate doing this.
10:45 Eat my snack and go pick up the mail. Rejoice because there aren't that many newspapers. Then sulk upon remembering they all come in on Thursdays. Check in the newspapers and put them on the shelves. Make mental note to recycle the old ones on Friday.
11:15 Briefly consider going back to barcoding, but the lure of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is too strong. Answer a question about the copier and then return to reading.
11:45 Eat lunch at desk while reading. Check email, facebook, twitter, and blogs. G-chat some more.
11:50 Put more paper in the computer lab printer/copier being careful not to overfill this time; that's why it kept jamming up.
12:30 Leave work to go home.

Not all that exciting. Sometimes I actually get good questions, but mostly I fulfill the role as copier refiller and pen hander-outer. Sometimes I wonder why they pay me to do this; then I stop thinking that and accept my lovely paycheck. :)

How was your day?

Getting Back on Track

This post really doesn't have all that much to do with librarianship, but as this is a personal blog, I thought that this would be a good time to blog about other things.

My summer has been incredibly busy. I haven't had a weekend at home, alone in my apartment, since school ended at the beginning of May. It's not like I've been traveling the entire summer or been on the go every day, but something has come up that has required me to go home even on the weekends when I haven't really had anything specific to do. I've been to two weddings, one of which I was a bridesmaid in, and to five wedding-related parties, traveled to Arkansas, the beach, Chicago, and Athens, GA. And in between all of that somehow managed to find the time to spend Father's Day with my dad and grandfather, celebrate the Fourth of July with my parents, book a flight to England, work four days a week, and see a bunch of movies. Whew!

This has really been a crazy summer; probably the busiest I've ever had. Usually my summers are comprised of going to work and hanging out with friends, with the occasional trip somewhere, but not much else. This summer has just blown my mind with all the stuff going on. It's no wonder that I'm beginning to feel slightly run down. But I'm very excited because this weekend I actually don't have anything to do! I'm going to work on Friday which I don't usually do, but I need the money to pay that tuition bill that just came, and Saturday I'm going to the local farmers market to pick up some fresh fruits and veggies. Sunday I'm driving home to see the Harry Potter movie (for the third time!) with my dad, but none of this is cause for stress.

I've devoted the next two weeks to getting back on track. With ALA and a spontaneous trip to see my best friend, the last three weeks have been really hectic and I feel like life is spinning out of control. I'm focusing on eating better this week (no fast food or eating out!), getting back in the gym, spending time with a few local friends, and just generally relaxing. My new roommate will be moving in soon and I want to get some cleaning and organizing done, but without putting pressure on myself. I hope that these two weeks give me some much-needed downtime and help me to get refocused on life before school starts up again.

Shuttle Buses, Librarians, and the Sheer Number of ALA Acronyms

So I had big plans for this year's ALA Annual Conference (my first). I was going to blog everyday about my experiences while they were still fresh in my mind. Well, no one prepared me for the chaos that is annual conference. This has been one of the most overwhelming four days of my life. However, it has also been one of the most educational, and not just in terms of librarianship. While three days of conference have slipped by without me writing a blog, I do have a great list of topics to blog on, enough to keep me busy for several weeks, at least. Today I just wanted to offer my comments on three things.

1. Shuttle buses between hotels and the conference center are a great idea. However, shuttle buses that don't run often enough, nor have enough space to fit the needs of all attendees are not a great idea. I learned quickly after waiting 30 minutes and being passed over by two full buses that it's best to always stay at headquarters. Or at least walk over and catch the shuttle from there. If I ever have the money to stay at such a nice hotel, I totally will, but for now, budget accommodations and sneaking on to the shuttle at a different spot is just fine, especially when that results in getting to the conference site ahead of schedule, or at least on time.

2. There are a lot of librarians in the U.S. Someone said there were over 27,000 librarians in Chicago this weekend. Apparently ALA brings librarians out in full force. Everywhere I went this weekend, there were librarians. Hopefully, this is a positive thing and will help to promote the library to all different sorts of people. This has been a great opportunity to meet librarians and library students from around the country. It has also been an opportunity to see how many librarians still fit the stereotype; some good, some, well, not so good, but more on that in a coming post.

3. ALA loves acronyms. I knew this before; however, the list seems to keep growing. Every group has an acronym, every round table, interest group, section, etc within those groups has acronyms; the list is unbelievable. It's also unbelievable how many people seem to actually know what they all mean. Me, I spent most of the time checking their meanings so as not to appear ignorant. If I could offer up one piece advice to ALA, it would be to cut down on the acronyms. I love to shorten things too, but its getting ridiculous when the list of acronyms is two pages long.

In the next few weeks I hope to be blogging a lot more consistently in order to share more of my experiences at ALA annual. Please share yours; I would love to hear your stories!