Life in Denim and Flip Flops

Well that's one exciting way to end the season. I wouldn't have minded at all if they clinched a playoff berth like 2 weeks ago instead of making me have to sit through that. It definitely made up for a horrible sports weekend otherwise. I won't even get into that heartbreak. Ugh. I can't wait for fall to actually get here. Not that I don't appreciate the 80 degree weather, but I like the fall. I like sweatshirt/sweater and jeans weather. I like going to the apple orchard and carving pumpkins and watching the leaves turn colors. Bring it on. :) It's one of the reasons I will never be able to live in the south. I need distinct seasons. You might have to remind me of that once the winter rolls around, but at least 10 months out of the year I appreciate the seasons. (Mostly its January and February that kill me.) I think I've finally kicked my cold. I'm not completely rid of my sexy sick voice, but hopefully by Wednesday when I'm teaching classes again,...

The last two weeks at work have been a twee bit crazy. I came home pretty exhausted every night, but I did really love it. This week was a totally different game. I'd been working with upperclassmen mostly in the first few weeks. These kids, although they might not use the library a lot, they have at least been introduced to it and have an idea of what we have there. The freshman, however, are a whole different lot. Some of them may never have set food in a library. Some said they didn't even have a high school library. How do we get to them? I think everyone graduating from library school understands the stereotypes many people have of librarians. I feel like I've got the "librarians are old, cranky ladies" image beat. Seriously, after watching me bounce around the classroom, barely older than the traditional age students, how can you believe that? The biggest challenge for me is getting them to realize that it's ok to ask questions and that libraries are a p...

I realize I've been crazy busy and not really filled in too well on my weekend fun. So I've decided to dedicate this post to my recent weekend happenings. :) Early in August I spent a weekend in Ames. Amy and I spent most of the weekend chilling, hanging out with her friends, and wandering around Iowa State campus. We ended up spending about an hour and half walking around campus taking pictures of different buildings and cool architectural pieces, per the examples.  I never knew there were so many awesome public art pieces on campus and around the city. I don't have too many pics of them. I caught quite a few on campus, but I didn't bring my camera with me when I was downtown. Downtown Ames is cute, especially when you play the "how many hairdresser places can you put on a 3-block street" game. I found the cutest magenta bag at this adorable store for $7. Love it.  I also got to spend time playing Nertz. Well, first I had to learn how to play (correctly...lon...

So being the liaison to the core curriculum, I'm the librarian the directors of the core curriculum work with the most. One of those people also happens to be the chair of one of my liaison departments. This is clearly someone I want to have a good impression of me. One way to not accomplish this is being unable to locate the movie she and her colleague were showing in class 20 mins later when it was supposed to be on reserve, but wasn't, and then was supposed to be on the shelf, but wasn't. Thankfully the circ student (love her) and I managed to find it without panicking too much (mostly on my end.) I was also able to refrain from saying "well if you'd grabbed it more than 20 mins before class started...we might not have had to be so frantic."* Although I thought the experience was rather awkward and embarrassing, both professors seemed rather thankful we were able to find it, and appreciative in general of "all that I do." Whew. And now back to ...

I love my job. I love my job.  I really do. Sometimes I just wish that everyone else understood how busy we are. They (meaning most other faculty members) just don't seem to grasp that we do things in the library. We teach, we staff the reference desk, we lesson plan, we select books for the collection, and troubleshoot lots of techology/assignment issues for faculty. But apparently, according to one of my colleagues, we in the library have more time on our hands. And maybe at some point in the semester that is true, but certainly not in the next 2 weeks. Tomorrow I'll be pulling a 12 hour day and Friday will be 10 hours at work (I might find 2 hours to go home and crash if a departmental meeting gets moved.) But because don't have a course-load apparently I have enough time on my hands to write up the second draft of a proposalf for this committee I'm on.  I sort of feel like we're on-call. The library and librarians are expected to always be available, but we all ...

School is now in session! I've taught about 12 class sessions since last week. And I love it. Being in front of the class is a total rush. I honestly thought I would be a lot more nervous than I am. I honestly think that all those years of getting up in front of church and singing and directing a choir the last year totally helped. Acutally thinking back, I sort of treat the kids in my classes like I did the kids in my choir, or my newspaper staff in college, or my committee for senate. It's that relaxed, "everyone should be involved in the conversation" type style. Plus, I like to think that I'm kind of an entertaining person. You may disagree, but the students seem to like me. Or maybe it's that candy I keep on my desk. Hm...yeah, maybe that's it. Damn. If nothing else, at least they know where to ask for help. And I'm starting to see the same students coming back to my office and the desk. And I managed to keep the potentially rowdy guys in line.  O...