…Reeves and I had just walked in the door from him picking me up from the airport when the doorbell rang and a large padded envelope was delivered for me.  It was my diploma for my masters signed by all the appropriate officials, including the “Governor of California and President of Trustees”…. Arnold Swarzenegger.  It is still hard enough for me to reconcile he is the Governor, but signing my academic diploma is just too weird!

Ok, yes, it is one more posting of excuses of why I haven’t kept my own personal goal of blogging, but I am still amazed at how much finishing my masters would kill me.  Tthe stress of what I have been feeling over the past 6-8 weeks...sigh... selling our house, cars and a 1/3 our life, picking up and moving to a new country was a breeze compared to completing my e-Portfolio.  AAAAHHHHHH – I really need a vacation….wait, we are taking another one! J  

The next posting here will probably be when we return from our trip to Rome.  We leave Nov. 22 and basically, we are spending Thanksgiving in Rome. Turkey-smurkey, here’s to authentic Chianti and pasta!!!

If so, you need to read this article.

Just when I thought this was a ‘fun’ ritual, I come across a list of “rules” you should follow when blogging!

Geeze, call me crazy if I thought blogging was about the organic growth of ideas and thoughts spread thorough a digital web by those who were not bound or restrained by the bonds of society’s intellectual grasp…also know as those trying to avoid their real work by posting the potentially self-incriminating details of their private life on the web for all to critique and tear apart.

According to this article (found while I was doing my reading for my Internet tool and Technology class on usability) it looks like blogs are all about the “usability” and the rules you have to follow to market your blog for a better readership!!! 

Holy cow, now even our pastimes are work!

What a year, 2005….I can say with absolute certainty I am glad to have all the work I put into 2005 behind and I am looking forward to more challenges in 2006. I just had an interview at the Computer History Museum today and I am happy to say I got the internship!  It is actually a paid internship (hence the hour interview) although it is a very small stipend, but not the reason for doing the internship.  The CHM is conveniently located almost directly across the street from the MS campus which will mean Reeves and I can carpool again to work!  I will be there Wednesdays and Thursdays starting February 1 and working for 3 months.  I am excited about this position as I will be using more of my archival skills as well as incorporating technology into the mix.

School starts again on 1/25 so I am really relishing the time free since last semester was so hectic.  This semester however is going to test all my computer skills (and probably Reeves’ patience with me as I pepper him with a million questions). I am, however, excited to get down and dirty with technology and really understand what all my more computer savvy friends are talking about at parties. (yes, we are all geeks in case you didn’t get that before)

One of the classes will cover the following:
Information Technology Tools and Applications

We will focus on modular Web site design and DHTML (Dynamic HTML). Dynamic HTML uses (X)HTML, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), and JavaScript as the building blocks for Web sites. Students will be introduced to XML and PHP. In this class students will:

(1) Understand the client server relationship and work with a Unix server
(2) Design conceptual and practical strategies for presenting information on the Web
(3) Create content in XHTML format
(4) Design interfaces using CSS
(5) Incorporate features such as images, frames, interactive forms in a cgi directory, image maps, internal search engines, and Perl scripts
(6) Work with JavaScript, PHP, and XML
(7) Study design, accessibility, and cultural issues

The second class will cover Digitization (as a form of access and preservation) – that is the process of taking a physical item (paper typically) and transforming it into a digital record – not to be confused with digital preservation which is the process of managing the life cycle and preservation of digital objects which originated as digital information.

In summary, I will have 2 classes and the internship.  I really thought I was going to have an ‘easy’ semester, but with these two classes which will both be a challenge to me, and an internship which requires double the time I was doing last semester, it is going to be another busy 5 months.  Well that is the new, back to the old…..

I also wanted to quickly review some of the events of 2005 for which I would like to remember (since I like to use this as a diary of sorts) and they are:  (and please forgive me if I forget something, but it was a very busy busy year):

1) Fabulous trip to St. Thomas with the family (which we get to go back to in April)

2) Spending Valentine’s day and Reeves’ birthday with friends in Tahoe

3) My first Archives conference, in Las Vegas none the less!

4) My friend Leslie getting engaged to a great guy, Jason!

5) The amazingly beautiful wedding of our friends Dick and Trina

6) The wedding and mini family reunion of Reeves’ cousin Nancy & Chuck

7) Amy visiting here and our Napa valley adventure

8) Mike’s 40^th Birthday Bash in Vegas with ‘the crew’

9) My visit to New Orleans for the Society of American Archivists conference while also visiting my Mom who lives in the area….and leaving only 5 days before Katrina hit….

10) My internship at Stanford’s Hoover Institute

11) Finishing a total of 7 graduate classes in one year!

12) Celebrating our 10^th wedding anniversary (with artwork J )

12) Visiting Goshen, NY and NYC for the 2005 holidays

That is all that comes to mind at the moment, but I really hope I can be better about blogging as I really enjoy keeping a record of my life, even if there is no one who is really interested in reading it! J

Yes, bad me, shame on me, flog me twelve times with a wet noodle.  I really have meant to blog, and there have been SO many things going I have wanted to jot down, (here comes the…..)but, just the thought of trying to sit down an type yet another dissertation has been just a bit too much these past two months.....anyway, as of this coming weekend I will have turned in my soon-to-be 20 page paper on writing a grant proposal for preservation management of a small archival collection (if the gods allow me to finish it since I have been going in circles) and my just-completed-this-evening 24 page paper for my Archives and Manuscripts class title "Information Seeking Behavior of Genealogists and Family Historian in Archives"....ok, I know that was a very run-on sentence...grammar and all that have gone right out the window and we hope they return again tomorrow when I resume the preservation hell I'm in....after this weekend and my last class, I only have a couple small quizzes and 3 more days of my internship till this heck o' a semester is OVER, OVER, OVER!!!!!  (here is where the choir starts singing hallelujah as the light shines down on me from an unknown source as I sit behind my computer licking my bloody stumps that were fingers just days ago)....again, I diverge and must.... go..... find ......sustenance......:)

…however do you want it, however do you need it”…..ok, so I admit, I really like this song and pretty much can sing it on cue, but as embarrassing as that is, it is so appropriate this week!  After being away for what seemed like a decade, I am getting back in the swing of things. 

R and I returned on Friday evening to a very happy puppy that was glad to be home again. She actually seemed to grow stronger over the week we were gone so I guess it was a good thing she went to the kennel (although her guilty parents almost break down every time we have to leave her).  Her back leg and muscles since her last ‘episode’ seem to have taken much longer to adjust, but I really hope I am that spry at 14 ½ dog-years!! (what is that, like a million people years or something!)

Saturday I had my Archives and Manuscripts class all day – one of the few classes I feel like I have actually been challenged in so far.... (and I am more than ½ way through the program) My professor, Lori Lindburg, is very inspirational and I wish I had even a ¼ of her energy – she is currently a PhD student (about to defend her dissertation this fall), full time SJSU faculty member, full-time paid archivists, and a wife and mother of 2!!  I don’t think she could possibly have time to sleep!!!!

On Sunday I ran our annual Society of American Archivists Student Chapter meeting.  In addition to preparing for the meeting for several hours, I had to trek to campus to conduct the meeting.  Should be a good year, we had several enthusiastic people volunteer for our executive team – always good to have people around you which want to be there!!

Monday was my very first day at Stanford – this is where I am doing my internship for school.  I am working at the Hoover Archives doing Library of Congress Subject Heading classification, as well as short summaries, of audio tapes from the Commonwealth Club of California.  The tapes go back to the 1930s, but I am starting with 1970.  I really am going to learn my CA political, social and economic history!!  The archivist for whom I am working, Lisa, is really great – she is going to be a wonderful mentor and I think I will learn a great deal about the ins and outs of the archival industry from her.   I will be working there every Monday for the rest of the semester as well as a handful of other days to make my 135 hours for 3 credits of class work. 

Wednesday night we celebrated Dick’s Birthday at the House o’ Prime Rib  in SF– what a fun evening of laughter and high-jinx.  We were the table every waiter dreads – in addition to our decibel breaking laughter, we had a table full of comedians which took pleasure in making the waiters fulfill all our ‘special requests’ including my “warm” pecan pie. (which was fabulous I have to say!)  I really wish we lived closer to the city, but until then, a short drive is very little cost to enjoying our good friend’s company.

Friday, and the first event was to stand with our student poster and answer questions from anyone who stops by….it was a long hour. J  The posters were set up on easels in the expo hall where there was a breakfast given by the vendors – so actually, there were quite a few people around.  The next sessions were not till after lunch, which, not wanting to spend the money for more hotel food, I had to buy an umbrella to walk to the mall as it was pouring rain again. It is always amaizing to me that the rain here doesn’t make it any cooler, just more humid!

My evening was terribly exciting including another trip to the gym followed by another walk to the mall attached to the hotel. I have to say the food options around the hotel are not especially great and I had the terribly healthy dinner of fried oysters and French fries as the only other options were scary looking Mexican food and sushi which was being served by non-Asians, never a good sign. I also can’t get over how expensive things are here – I know I am in a hotel(tax on the hotel room is 13%!!), but even the sales tax is 9%! Add that on top of standardized pricing at all the chain stores (Gap, Body Shop, etc.) and I don’t know how people afford it here with lower wages. 

Thankfully, after several restless nights I collapsed in bed by 10 pm and got almost a full night sleep – always a challenge with me and traveling.

Saturday morning was an early one again with the first session at 8 am.  After the first session, which was part 1 of 2, I realized I was really not getting anything out of it so I ditched the second and walked to the mall for lunch again.  In killing some time I found a couple really cute boutiques.  The first, Mignon Faget, was actually recommended by my friend Amy – I had no idea it was going to be so close to my hotel!  I picked up a necklace and bracelet in sterling silver which I am very excited about.  The second boutique was Francesca’s Collections – a fun and eclectic accessories store highlighting inexpensive jewelry with a decidedly New Orleans Flair. 

I am now just getting ready for dinner with my Mom, Don and his two kids, Lyle and Leanne…

I arrived at my conference for the Society of American Archivists on Tuesday evening, a weary and frustrated traveler. The airline had cancelled my Dallas to New Orleans flight then lost my luggage. I am complaining about it first, but it did all turn out ok, just made for a long day.  The up-sides of the day included the fact that I realized my 5:15 pm flight was cancelled, but noticed an earlier flight was still available, since too was it was delayed from the weather.  Since I was in the terminal 3 hours early, I was able to get a seat on the earlier flight before all the other people on my cancelled flight realized (or were even in the airport) what was happening.  I even got into N.O. before my scheduled flight, even with the delay.  The next good thing was my luggage did arrive safe and sound the next morning, but I had a fitful night waking almost ever hour to see if the light on my phone was lit, signaling my luggage was at the bell desk.

After a shaky start, I had most of Wednesday to acclimate and get my poster ready for the conference.  I actually had quite a lovely day.  I used the hotel gym for an hour, walked around the mall attached to the hotel, put my poster together, and then the highlight of the day….a massage and facial at the Ritz-Carlton spa!  It was a wonderful relaxing treat to take the stress off from the earlier day.  I was lucky to get in on 24 hours notice, so I think my travel-karma was still in tact.

Thursday started early with the opening session at 8 AM.  The speaker was the dynamic Andrew Young, former UN Ambassador under the Carter administration.  He gave a very compelling talk (for 60 minutes, without notes!) about the value of archives and how they have increased America’s collective knowledge through research and access.  Additionally, how we, as a professional group, should strive to maintain said free access to all researchers and public alike while emphasizing the collection and accession of marginalized groups whose communal knowledge is under threat of loss.  He gave examples throughout history of marginalized individuals and groups whose knowledge has cured illnesses, averted wars, and changed the social and political direction of American policy.  He also believes it is thought the rediscovery of forgotten or misplaced knowledge and records we will find a cure for AIDS – via archives and their preservation of traditional customs and medicinal practices.

The rest of the day was filled with conference sessions including:

• Three working Models of Digital Archives
• Developing Standardized Metrics for Accessing Use and User Services for Primary Sources
• Communities of Records: Re-Setting the Boundaries of Context

In the evening I did another hour in the gym, did some room services while I took care of e-mail, ordering books for my fall classes and send some physical mail.  I was then feeling some cabin fever so I took about an hour walk down to the French Quarter – I could only stand it outside that long because it was so humid, you could see the air – I have been in gym/spa steam rooms that were not as steamy as it was outside!!

….for me at least, and for about 11 days!  Since I took summer school, I haven’t really felt like it was summer yet, as summer equals free time.  Well, today I turned in my final for class so I have a whole 11 days off!  You ask why such a short time? I am leaving for New Orleans and the annual Society of American Archivists conference, as well as visiting a couple days with my Mother, while I am there.  In the next 11 days, however, I need to create a poster for the conference for our student chapter, prepare a short speech around it and gather all the supplies I will need to put it together while I am in my hotel room. (the conference supplies the poster board so they are all the same size) The day after I return home from this adventure, I start my fall semester…yeash!

And for all my friends out there reading this, I have to say my farewells to you all now as I just found out I am going to have an even more insanely busy fall than I thought before…in addition to my three classes, I just accepted an internship that should last all semester. (more details here on the internship soon…)  It will be really great to get all of this out of the way this semester, but I know now that I will not be as available for ‘fun stuff’ as I have been.   Oh well, it will all be worth it in the end!

So, I have been sitting at my desk all morning working on a paper with the basic theme of ‘the Patriot Act’s impact and influence on the records management industry’…as you can tell by the title this is a scintillating piece full of drama, intrigue and passion…..NOT!! 

I was having a hard time getting into it and after several days of only starts and stops, (and only 2 pages written) as well as an incredibly frustrating morning, I finally found my ‘spoon full of sugar’ in the form of a glass of wine with lunch! 

Ok, I really am not a lush, I promise, (and yes, I know, admitting it is the first step) but let me tell you how much better I have been writing since my libation!

The true test will be when my proof-reader (aka husband) gives it the once over….maybe I will just have to stick with caffeine. J  

After a severe hiatus, I am back to the blog!  I have to say that once my finals hit with spring semester, I didn’t little but sit in agony, starring in vain at my computer hoping my papers would type themselves – when all was done, I realized I had completed over 100 pagers of research in 4 papers (in addition to the 2 finals I took)….yay me I got out alive!

A day after I completed my finals, I was off to NYC to visit Amy again – we had a blast including 4 museums, a trip to our friend January’s new country house and plenty of shopping.

Home again with just enough time to finish laundry and organize the house before my summer school classes started. 

My class this summer is Records Management, which on the surface sounds incredibly boring, but in reality touches every business and organization and is an integral part of information technology.  I really am enjoying all the theoretical and conceptual research around the future of information management and how private industry is impacting the field.

The next event was dinner with Leslie’s new fiancé!! Jason was in town for our inspection, and I have to say he passed with flying colors!  We really look forward to getting to know him better and spending time with both of them before (and after!) their wedding next year.

It was then time for Amy to come visit us here in California! I picked her up from her Uncle and Aunt’s house in SF and we were off to Napa Valley.  En route we stopped at Domaine Caneros, one of my favorites for its sparkling wine and views of the Caneros valley.  We had a lovely afternoon snack on their balcony while enjoying the warm sun and beautiful weather.  We spent the afternoon walking around the cute boutiques at St. Helena.  Our hotel, the Rancho Caymus Inn was a very nice little place attached to the restaurant La Toque – a 4 star restaurant I hope to come back and eat some day. That evening we walked next door to another restaurant – a casual one called the Rutherford Grill – great for a laid-back evening and the corn bread is to die for!!

 Our second day was started by walking around Calistoga for the morning. We proceeded down the Silverado Trail to the Rombauer Winery which consistently has one of the best Zinfandels out there, including the case I purchased. J We then visited Clos du Val and were greeted by the swallows nesting in their rafters (you get a free wine tasting and wet-wipes if you get hit with bird poo!) and the resident Black Standard Poodle ready and willing to play fetch all day with anyone who would pay attention to him!  On the suggestion of one of the wine pourers, we decided we could treat ourselves to lunch at Auberge du Soleil. If you have never heard of it or stayed here, put it on your life to-do lists.  It was one of the best lunches I have ever had, set on the balcony overlook all of the Napa Valley – perfect! We then were off to Prager Port for a tasting – a little place which is a must visit if you are in the area.  This evening for dinner we went to the popular Mustard’s Grill – our calamari salad was excellent, but the sandwiches we had were just ok, nothing to write home about and they didn’t have on the menu the desert we had read about being a ‘signature’ item. 

The third day we headed back to San Jose, but our trip back was anything but ho-hum.  We drove across the Napa Valley via Sonoma and Santa Rosa to take a lovely jaunt through the Russian River Valley.  After 3 days in 90+ weather, the 58 degree costal climate was the perfect anecdote. Lunch was in Point Reyes as a fabulous little gourmet café.  We also found the Cowgirl Creamery which makes cheese on-site and exports them throughout the region – so yummy!

Without time to pause Reeves and I were off to Vegas a day after Amy left to celebrate Mike’s 40^th Birthday.  We had such a great time celebrating everything Mike! We stay at the great Venetian hotel, had a amazing dinner at the Delmonico Steakhouse and saw the slightly naughty Cirque du Soleil show called Zumanity.  Additionaly, we learned to play craps and I think I am hooked!  We shared the weekend with Dick and Trina as well as Omar and Lora.

Next is New Orleans in about a month for the annual meeting for the Society of American Archivists – should be quite the party!

I just realized that as of this week, I will have been living in California 10 years!  Wow, that is almost 1/3 of my life...and it feel like yesterday!

Time however feel like it has stood still for the past three weeks - too much homework, but it is all over today.  I take one final tonight and turn in my last paper/final tonight after I edit it a little.  Hallelujah!!!!

Then it is off to NYC to have some well-earned fun and relaxation.  Although, both Amy and I are quite the planners, so I have no doubt we will have an action-packed week! I am sure this week will go all too quickly....

Time is a bizarre thing

Time flies when you don't have time to look at the clock! Only three weeks till the end of my first year of grad school!

Not much new here but homework, homework and more homework – in the next three weeks I need to (start and) complete a 20 paper on the history of a CA library (mine being the Palo Alto PL) a 10 page paper on the use of Community Analysis and Knowledge Management in the archival field, with specific applications in the local history field, 2 finals and a quiz – needless to say I am freaked out and in a bit of denial of how many hours I will put in studying and writing in the days to come. 

There is a very good motivation for me to finish on time however, (beyond not failing my classes!!) I am going to visit my friend Amy in NYC again the day after finals are over! For the past 4 years I have been to NYC between 2 and 5 times a year and I have to say the city does have a mysterious and exhilarating draw (not to mention the wonderful company of a great friend!)  We have a very busy 6 days planned with a trip upstate to visit our friend January’s new country house. (and of course, via the Woodbury Commons outlet mall, a.k.a. mecca as well as several antique stores)

While Amy is at work for a couple of the days I hope to visit the J. Pierpont Morgan Library as well as the NY-Historical Society’s library.  I have been to several exhibits at the NY-HS, but never officially visited the library.  Both have innumerable amounts of books from the past 500 years of printing as well as many incunabula pieces and irreplaceable manuscripts.  Books contained in these special collections rarely see their way to the West coast so as a student I am fortunate to be able to see them on the East coast.

But, until May 18^th , you will find me for about 12 hours a day with my nose in the quickly growing stacks of books obscuring my seemingly shrinking desk!

I have been pretty frantic this semester with school and my new Chair position with the SAASC, but sometimes it really does seem like I am on the right track, especially after weekends like the one from which I just returned.

I attended the Western regions Archival Associations meeting in Las Vegas.  As a member of the Society of California Archivists, this was a prime opportunity for me to meet many members and introduce myself to the new President of the SCA. (I was also able to get my book signed personally by the SAA president, Randall Jimerson – I’m such a geek!)  Association connections are important as they are the real life link to my future career possibilities, something that keeps me up at night!  With about 250 people at the conference from all the Western states from about Colorado, west, there were plenty of people to chat-up about how they got where they are now and where are they going. 

There were some great talks including the key note speaker, Wole Soyinka, who is the 1986 Nobel prize winner in literature.  He was an elegant speaker and his melodious voice was divine!  You can listen to him here.   

Other sessions addressed various subjects and challenges within the archival discipline including the issues of Archivists as Historians.  I am still wrestling with my desire to do research and how I can balance the two or incorporate the two into one career, which may mean a second masters in history. (poor Reeves, I don't know if he could handle me taking another few years to finish school, my stress may kill him! ;)

I went to the conference with a new friend, Sarah, who was the former Chair of SAASC and who now works at Stanford in a couple different archival positions.  We had a good time and did manage to get away from the conference long enough to walk around the strip and spend about $10 each at the slots!

This was just the first conference of my archival career (although I did quite a few with Gartner - very different A-type people at those however) - the next conference looks like I will be going to the SAA conference in New Orleans (in August, yuck!) – this is the ‘biggie’ conference of the year and our chapter (i.e. me) will be presenting a student chapter poster at the conference.  So much stuff, so little brain power!! :)

....after a very stressful and busy midterm session with school, I think it has paid off.  So far I have received all A's on my paper, quiz and 2 mid-terms.  I am just waiting on one more grade...... 

If you guessed the Stairmaster, you are right!  Since I have been working out almost everyday I have come to crave the exercise and feel like a slug if I don’t.  Now, I just don’t want to lose my momentum.

I have also found this is a good way to manage stress.  I use my 45-60 minutes for ‘me’ time to just let my mind relax and wander.  Especiallly since t-minus 4 hours till my mid-term!  (side-note, I think it is appropriate that there is a severe storm/wind warning that starts in the bay area at the same time my mid-term is supposed to begin! =)

This weekend I worked very hard so I could go out and play with my friends, and it was well worth it.  We had cocktails at our SF friend’s place near the Castro and then had great conversation and cuisine at Cote Sud, a French Bistro near their house.  The evening was capped off by a rousing game of Cranium and we found out which of us were the kids in school who ate the paste anyway when they were told not to!!

So, after today’s exam, only a quiz and mid-term left till a week of relaxing – yeah!!

....maybe I should start calling this blog the “Stairmaster cronicles” =)

SAASC update: Part of the things we do with the Society of American Archivists Student Chapter is to take tours of various archival repositories around the area.  Yesterday, I took a group of our members to tour Stanford Universities Special Collection’s department.  We had a great guide, Sean Quimby who is the Assistant Manuscripts Processing Librarian with their Special Collections.  He did the “wow” tour first, including letting us see, touch and hold items like an original page from the Gutenburg bible, an original Shakespeare folio from 1685, a signed copy of a first-edition James Joyce “Ulysses”, a first edition Huck Finn which was first published in England, a beautifully illuminated manuscript of the religious “Book of Days” from the 14^th Century and my personal favorite, an original and complete Samuel Johnson Dictionary!  We were also able to go ‘behind-the-scenes” and see the manuscript processing department and ask all the technical questions regarding the physical process, as well development policies.  I really look forward to many more tours like this!

Other activities going on with the SAASC – I will be attending the “Western Round-up” (horrible name) for the annual meeting of Western archival associations, including the California Archival Association, of which I am a member as well.  The meeting is in Las Vegas, April 14-16.  It will be a quick and very busy trip with little time to “do” the town, but a great way to make some industry connections.

One more paper is done with only the Bibliography (my least favorite part) to write, along with corrections from my proof-reader.

Now just two mid-terms and a quiz till we leave on vacation next Friday – eek!

It has been a very crazy semester and with spending anywhere between 6-9 hours a day at my studies, the energy to blog is usuall lost by my 'free' time.  However, now that I discovered my laptop sits nicely on top of the stairmaster, it gives me a bit of ‘free’ time to do things like surf the web and type this! 

So, to recap a bit of my school thus far….

Currently, I just finished Sunday at 10 PM a paper for my History of Books and Libraries class – it was a 10 page study on a printed book (published pre-1900) of choice – really interesting paper as I learned a bunch about the origins, publisher, printer and method of  a book I had purchased in 2001 when Reeves and I visited the “town of books” of Hay-on-Wye in Wales.  The previous paper for this class was a 10 page study as well on an original manuscript, pre-1501.  This paper gave me an opportunity to use Stanford’s archives and spend an afternoon among the books. I picked an English land deed from (supposedly)1405 which was in Latin. I actually able to translate, through my limited skills as a palaeologist, that the archivist had actually dated it wrong! That was a fun and gratifying discovery.

Now I am working on a paper for Collection Development that involves the history of archival studies in a chosen under-served population – mine being American local studies in English Local history.  Now, for all you out there saying that topic doesn’t seem like an underserved population, the study of Anglo-American origins on the West coast IS an underserved population, especially when it come to English local history collections.  Even my own personal library has more books on the formalized topic than our San Jose State/King Public Library!!

I also have a mid-term in my history of books class next Monday which I am freaking out about!  Why you ask?  It has probably been, even with all the school I have had, about 10 years since I had to take an in-class, no notes, need-to-remember-everything test!!  Let’s see if this aging brain can still do this!!!!

My third class, I am now officially miffed at what I thought was a cool professor!  The class is Classification and Cataloging. (Ever wonder how they assigned those little Dewey and Library of Congress numbers to books, well I am learning, and it is not fun!!) Anyway, just last Friday the prof. announced we would have a concurrent quiz and mid-term next week that would be due the Monday of Spring break. What sort of nonsense is that!! I know this program is the equivalent of a corporate flex-policy for hours, but come on, some of us do have lives and plan vacations (heaven forbid on vacation dates!) well in advance of the date.  Needless to say I am trying to figure out how to accomplish this without having to take my laptop to St. Thomas with us!

Speaking of vacation, we leave for our annual ‘Little’ spring break trip a week from Friday to St. Thomas in the USVI.  I am really looking forward to some downtime this year and it looks like it should be a fabulous vacation.  Here is the place we are staying.  We have stayed in some very lovely places in the past, but from the looks of this place, it will be the nicest yet – with plenty of room for 14 people!

Well, back to the studying….5 days now and I haven’t left the house….I think I need to have some actual human contact soon or I am going to drive poor Reeves nuts!!

After a month of organization I feel like I can jump into a busy semester, and busy year to come, with less ‘stuff’ (literally) on my mind!  Reeves and I decided to reorganize our two additional bedrooms and pretty much switch all the contents so we could utilize the space more efficiently.  I have also plowed through about a dozen projects including photo albums, file purging, closet reorganization, memorabilia consolidation and a few decoration projects.  It feels great to have had the time to get some of these things done!

BUT, school started last week and there goes all my free time! I have a strict study schedule (with small breaks for things like blogging) – in fact I spent 7 straight hours yesterday reading and doing research.  It really is going to be a busy semester! This semester I have 3 classes again including:

1)       The History of Books and Libraries (of which I am very excited – I know, I know, I am a geek)

2)       Collection Management

3)       Cataloging and Classification (very bizarre class – all about how one transcribes the bibliographic information you find on the verso side of the title page of a book – we learn were to put every space, comma and colon!!  There is more to the class than just this, but after flipping through our new cataloging ‘bible’ which is the 3 inch-think binder of the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules [used by the Library of Congress], I think my brain hurts already!]

I have also taken on the responsibility of being the Chair of SJSU’s Student Chapter of the Society of American Archivists.  The title is much more impressive than what I have seen of the position so far, but I am going to try and change this….in fact I have already been meeting with people to try and get our chapter more active both locally and nationally – we will see how it goes!

As excited as I am about a new semester again, it is tempered with a bit of a black cloud from the quality of the program and my feeling like a solitary student. I have one class that is totally online, one class that met for 2 days last week and now is all online and a third that attendance at the lecture-only class is optional (all the lectures are digitally archived on the web and can be accessed at any time) - I am starting to really crave some in-person interaction.  I have taken the attitude that you get out of the program what you put in, but the more I talk with other students and discover on my own, the more frustrated I become with SJSU and specifically with the SLIS.   Now the million dollar question….. how long do I push through this program to just get done, or find a program that is higher quality and has a director that actually care about the future success of their students! 

Well, enough distraction for today, the books are calling me back…..

After what seemed like a blink in time, my first semester of grad school is over and I have three classes done!  (although, the past couple weeks did seem to take an eternity with 3 papers and a group project due….)  I am still waking up in the morning trying to dispel the nagging presence of “what do I need to turn in today” feeling. I think by next week I should feel officially on break. 

And to answer the question my husband posed in his blog…what does one do when they have finished their first semester of school??…they go to DISNEYLAND!!!!  And we did!!!!!!   It was a very fun trip with many people who are even bigger Disney geeks than we are….in fact, we had a walking encyclopedia of Disney knowledge along – you name it, Andy knew it – we even stumped a few employees with questions to which he already knew the answers!!  (the reason you ask why we were asking employees questions?..... Andy created this amazing trivia/scavenger hunt for us to tackle for the two days we were visiting – what a tour guide!)  The park was magical and dressed to the nines for Christmas – definitely not the place to be if you are a bah-humbugger about Christmas carols, Christmas decorations, Christmas everything!  I am sure we will be back again the share the holiday season with ‘the mouse’.

Now I can turn my attention our upcoming trip to Colorado in only 11 days!  Eeek – too many packages to wrap, ship and pray get there in time!  I can’t also believe it has been a year and a half since I visited ‘home’. It is strange I don’t miss it more than I do, but I do have to say I am very excited about seeing Boulder, and spending some time with old friends and family.  Christmas at the Little’s (my in-laws that is) is always quite an event.  There is more food than we can all possibly eat and more bodies in one house than you think can survive in-tact for a whole week together – but we do, and still like each other after we part ways!

And the fun continues!

I still can’t believe how fast my first semester of grad school is going!  As of Sept. 27^th one of my three classes has already been completed.  Now I am concentrating on the remaining two…and the work has not let up. Three classes don’t sound like much, but I think the work load is about double that of an average undergrad class.  I really love using my brain again (something that didn’t happen the last year of my old job!) and the topic is actually applicable to things in which I’m interested.

I am finding however that my work is about 3/4 computer science and 1/4 library/archival theory.  In fact, the first three ‘core’ courses are:

1) Information and Society

2) Information Retrieval Systems

3) Information Organizations and Management

When I first applied to the program I thought the “I” in my MLIS program was just an extra vowel, but I sure am earning my science portion of this degree!

After a brief hiatus for school and more travel, I return to the blog.  Thought I would do a quick recap of the past month, mostly for selfish reason…..

We returned from South Korea on August 31 after being away for 12 days. Since both Reeves and I were working hard in Korea (Reeves obviously for MS: I had a paper to start and complete while there as well as a group project) I actually didn’t leave our hotel for almost 3 days because of the paper.  However, it was not much of a hardship, the Sheraton Walkerhill was our hotel which was connected to a brand new W, open only a day before we arrived.  Between the 8 restaurants and full-sized duty free mall, large work out room and indoor pool, there was enough to keep the restless student distracted.

We did have a few days of tourism after we finished our work, including a visit to the De-militarized Zone (very surreal and in-your-face military presence) a traditional Korean folk village, several royal palaces within the city, the Modern Art museum of Korea, The Royal History Museum and Insa-dong, a local street market which closes off the street on Saturday evenings to open it to the local artists and vendors. 

It was a wonderfully different experience from traveling in the Western world and I can’t begin to express how pleasant, friendly and polite the Korean people were to us.

Upon our return, I delved head first back into my homework.  I must say I love being back in school.  It is so great to stretch my mind again and feel like my future career is an exciting place to reach. However, like most ‘freshmen’, I am getting the three core courses out of the way right now.  We have scintillating book titles like Into the future: The foundations of library and information services in the post-industrial era; Information Seeking in Electronic Environments; Text Information Retrieval Systems; and Management Basics for Information Professionals -  now, can’t you just imagine the yawn-fest!  

I won’t get into the really run courses till next semester…..but it is all up from here! (and again, I do love what I am doing)

I have already finished one of my three courses this past week – I can’t believe how quickly it is going – although as I try and complete another paper for Friday it never seems as if I have enough time.  (maybe because I am procrastinating here!