Life in Denim and Flip Flops

I've been a little lax about updating this blog, so I'm taking the Library Day in the Life project as a good excuse to post more frequently this week. Today was a pretty typical summer day at the library. Quiet when it comes to reference questions and people walking around, but plenty to keep me busy. I caught up my coworker who'd been out sick and dug through a weekend of email replies confirming info lit session dates. Yes, already by the end of July we're confirming dates for the fall. The rest of my morning was spent prepping fall instruction. Most of it was for our research class that focuses on a different region of the world each semester. This fall it's Africa. Normally not an issue, but we always provide a current map of the region. You might not be aware of this, but Southern Sudan was officially recognized as an independent nation July 9 of this year. So my map from 4 years ago (and by mine, I mean the previous librarian responsible for the social sc...

During the second round of BEDA we used to do a weekly roundup of media. I kind of miss that. So today you're going to get a run down of my media in the last week. Get ready for the links and video. First off, my new musical obsession: Chameleon Circuit's Still Got Legs . Their first album was good. This one is great! The production quality is outstanding. The overall feel of the album and the way it flows is fantastic. As a huge Doctor Who fan I really enjoy the songs that tell me the stories of the episodes again, but in intelligent and not obvious ways. Even if you aren't a Doctor Who fan you should check out the rock album that made the US iTunes Top 40 charts today. Another song I've enjoyed this week is the Harry Potter/Book of Mormon parody: As for the television portion of the media. I have fallen in love with Party Animals . Seriously how could I not?? It involves my former dream job of being a political research. It's set in London. Oh and it stars ...

There is nothing better than getting a hug from a great friend who's been abroad for the last year. Nothing better.

It is destined to be one of those weeks where you get posts only composed of bullet points. You know how it is. Plus, it's a Thursday and I haven't done one of these in a while (ignoring the fact that Tuesday's post kinda looked like one). my BEDA buddies-- It has been over 2 years since that fateful day when I signed up for Maureen's Blog Every Day in April challenge. There I got paired up with 3 other ladies. Two years later we're still talking constantly. Fate, Maureen, and a shared sense of crazy brought us together, for which I will always be grateful. Nicola, Autumn, and Christina, you ladies rock. I don't tell you that enough. YA authors-- YA authors rocked this week. Maureen Johnson held her own and rather eloquently defending YA lit from the accusations it has become too dark. I would link the NPR story here, but it's tough to listen to as it wasn't moderated well and the person who disagreed with her didn't exactly listen to her commen...

There is no rhyme, reason or theme to this post today. Just a collection of random stuff I want to get down/share. So here they are in bullet form: teaching myself guitar--I'm not sure how long ago this desire started. Some of you may not know that I took about 9 years of piano lessons growing up. I never practiced enough to be really good, but I can still plunk out stuff and with some practice am not terrible in the comfort of my own home. (Performing anxiety still totally there for piano playing, by the way.) Piano is practical to learn as it totally set me up nicely for all of the vocal stuff I did, but has a major drawback in the portability issue. I lacked the discipline learning piano, but I'm hoping with age comes a greater sense of responsibility. Or more people to guilt and goad me into it. I think we all know that the latter is more likely, so help me out with that. being active--Somewhere along the line I got out of the habit of walking to work and taking walks af...

I just learned that Manda hadn't seen The End of the World video. Gretchen and I thought that was tragic, so we searched YouTube and made her watch it. So just in case you hadn't seen it here it is: "Fire ze missiles!!"

Not the first or last time I'll talk about Dave on this blog. He's in a YouTube contest. It's quite simple to vote for him. He was nice enough to write up directions on how to do so. I've linked them below. You can vote once a day. So I’m in this NextUp thing and need people to vote for me. If you would like to help, here is how: 1. Go to youtube.com/nextup 2. Find my video - the thumbnail looks like this (without the play button!):  3. Click on the video thumbnail, then click the thumbs up button. Done! You can do that once a day until the 9th. Thanks so much to everyone who’s been voting already and to everyone who’s gonna go and do it now like YOU! This would be a life changer. Reblogs would also be ace. :) Dave. xx (Source: musicfromblueskies )