Life in Denim and Flip Flops

Yes, it's that time again ladies and gentlemen. The winter season is finally upon us. Despite living my entire life in the midwest, every year I cling to the hope that maybe winter will just throw in the towel and take the year off. I know it's not realistic, but it's what gets me through the late fall. I promise I'll have plenty of time this winter to complain about the myriad of things I detest about the season, but today I'm going to do my best to stick to one of the few I actually enjoy about the season. I am a coldblooded mammal. Now you may be thinking, Becky, that is simply not possible. And technically you may be right, but I am as close to one as you'll find I promise. For example while I am writing this, I am in bed with the following for warmth: t-shirt, heavy cardigan sweater, fleece pajama pants (pink penguin ones of course), socks, wrist warmers, flannel sheets, a fleece blanket, a comforter, a throw, and a heavy crocheted blanket. And I'm co...

 I teach a lot of class sessions at my job. Last year alone I taught almost 150 information literacy sessions. These ranged from classes about how to find books on the shelf and how to efficiently find scholarly articles to how to read those articles and what not to do in a presentation. Before taking the job, I had taught exactly one such session to a group of 8 undergraduate college students. Thankfully I'd also taken a brilliant one-semester class in graduate school about information literacy pedagogy. That is the extent of my formal training. To fill in the rest of my repertoire, I beg, borrow, and shamelessly steal ideas, activities, style, and inspiration from some of my best teachers and professors. The rest of this post is a thank you letter to those amazing people who have helped make me the teacher I am today. David Bowman, my high school choir teacher is one of my biggest inspirations. From him I've borrowed a lot of my style and my approach, and my philosophy. H...

i am not broken but i am breaking little pieces here and there the rounded edges of happiness are chipping away leaving sharp little hooks and points my outer shell once polished and smooth, let things roll right off, nothing stuck. but now those pockets gather water; they rust and decay. the edges, they are trouble. they catch and snag. sad memories that used to blow right by, now get caught and remain slowly unraveling and tugging, taking more and more pieces along as it finally frees itself leaving behind more rough edges than ever. -------------------------- Post word total: 95 Overall word total: 1,338 Words left to write: 23,662

small, quiet, empty driving home holding back tears unsure how to deal hands busy but minds still wander. trying to make myself appear ok, normal. but inside it's hollow and blank. quiet reservation; fearful of interaction. -------------------------- Post word total: 36 Overall word total: 1,243 Words left to write: 23,757

Tonight, I sat down to write a presentation proposal for a conference. It's just a 250 abstract of what I hoped to present with my sister. I had spent time discussing it and our expectations for it with Manda a few weeks ago. It should have been easy right? Just sit down with my Macbook and knock it out. I've spent my entire life in academia going straight from college to graduate school and starting my job at an academic library just three weeks after I finished my masters degree. One little 250-precis should be a breeze. And yet, here I am on my blog bemoaning the decline in my academic writing ability while said proposal stagnates with just 170 words, at least 50 of which I think are utter crap. I'm not entirely incompetent with the written word; comments, giggles, and knowing looks from the peanut gallery be damned. I simply don't feel as fluent in the academic writing process as I once was, or maybe claimed to be. Actually, it's probably that I just imagine m...

Today I got an email from my boss asking me if I was up for another round of library mentoring. Last spring we hired a new staff member and my boss thought it would be nice for the 2 most recently hired people (whether they be professional or support staff) to take said new hire out to lunch and tell them how life really is at the library. Nothing too formal or anything; just a lowercase 'm' mentoring thing. It should include: things to look out for (being anywhere near the reference desk at 5 with your nametag on during midterms), things to expect (some offices on campus don't seem to answer phones, only email), and stuff we wished someone had told us when we started (that our boss has her own language and that there is in fact now a list of her sayings with translations available for staff use). This will be my last go-round on the welcoming committee as I am finally the 3rd most recent full-time hire on staff. (Where did those 3 1/2 years go???) This really saddened me...