Resolutions

Well, it’s New Year’s Eve.  Tomorrow will be the day that so many people make impossible goals for themselves… AKA New Year’s Resolutions.  What makes these goals so impossible to achieve?  Have you ever really thought about it?  Well, let’s think about it for a second…

When you make a resolution, all you’re really doing is “beginning with the end in mind.”  Somewhere in between the beginning and the end we deviate from our track. 

Were our goals unspecific?  (I will lose weight)
Did we make the goal too outlandish? (I will lose 300 pounds this year)
Was our plan unreasonable? (I will only eat orange foods on Monday, yellow on Tuesday, light green on Wednesday…)

So, the moral of the story is that goals should be specific, reasonable, with a well thought out plan.

Internet

Dear Comcast,

Could I please have my internet now?  Pretty please?  I ordered it 3 weeks ago, and it’s not here yet.  I need it for school, not just for goofing off on the web.

Thank you,
Me.

Christmas update

Christmas was good, in spite of getting sick.  It wasn’t just me either…  my hunny, my sister, and her two kids got sick too. 

Our gifts for the neices and nephew were all meant to inspire imagination or knowledge.  So, we gave my nephew a phonics matching game since he’s learning to read.  My littlest neice got a princess dress-up set, and my oldest neice got a science kit.  The only one of the three that was really thrilled with their gift was the 3-year-old.  She tore into that dress-up set, and posed in front of the mirror.  The other two gave us the typical “uhhh… thanks” that you get when it’s not quite what they wanted, but they’re trying to be polite.

The gifts I received were all very practical.  I got lots of blankets, which will come in handy since my apartment is FREEZING!  I also got several sets of towels, which are nice and will help keep me from doing so many smaller loads of laundry.  My mom bought me the Paula Deen Christmas Cookbook, and a new cooking knife.  I got a new lamp for my study area, and lots of study accessories, including caffeine, writing implements, and other items.

Other family members got practical gifts as well. 

My brother, the chef, actually got Christmas off, so he was able to cook Christmas dinner.  The dinner wasn’t too involved, since we all decided we weren’t going to cook a whole turkey.  And for dessert…  Cherry-o-cream pie!  Yum!

Then, my hunny and I went back home to bed so that we could sleep off our colds.  Our Christmas wasn’t very glamorous, but it was a lot more relaxed than in previous years.  This was partially because it was spread out over several days instead of just Christmas Eve and Day.

Books for School and Other School Annoyances

I just looked up which books I’ll need for this coming semester of Library School and was sickened.  It’ll cost me almost $400 for these books.  The cheapest was $35, the most expensive $78. 

The only reason I looked it up was that I became frustrated by the New Student Technology Workshop they make new students finish before the start of the semester.  It’s on BlackBoard, and requires several different components be completed.  One of these components is an Elluminate orientation session.  The next ones won’t be until sometime in January… but school starts in January!

Normally this wouldn’t be a problem; the workshop would have been finished within 2 hours.  Unfortunately, I didn’t have a microphone, and couldn’t get the money together to buy one.  And no, I couldn’t borrow one since nobody I knew had one.  So I got one for Christmas (thanks Ben!), and set off to schedule this session only to hit a brick wall.  You would think they’d have these sessions scheduled weeks in advance, but no.  You’d think they’d have a phone number so you can call and ask when they might have the schedule up, but no.  This school, which is costing me $2218 per semester, plus books and supplies, doesn’t see why they should accomodate the very students that are paying their salaries.  Can you tell I’m peeved?

Of course, I’m always a little more stressed out whenever the status quo changes.  Silly things that wouldn’t normally bug me, really frustrate me, and I snap at people more.  But this Elluminate issue seems like something that’s easily remedied, after all, it’s not like these sessions are a high-level security risk, right?  So, I’ll have to bide my time, and wait patiently for SJSU and SLIS to put up the Orientation schedule, and pray a heck of a lot that the first sessions happen before school starts so that I won’t lose access to BlackBoard, which is the only way that I can access my online classes.

*sigh* Sometimes I feel as if the schools make things more complicated so that they can get more money out of you.

Holiday Prep

I’m exhausted!!!

After working for 5 hours today, I headed over to Mom’s to do the holiday prep for my house and hers.  This involved:

• Baking 2 batches of cookies (chocolate chip and peanut butter) and 2 loaves of banana nut bread to put in tins for gifts.  This was the only prep I needed to do for myself…
• Cooking dinner
• Cleaning up after these projects
• Sweeping and mopping the floors in all public areas (entry, dining room, living room, kitchen, hallway, and bathroom)
• Cleaning the bathroom since I felt dirty using it
• Moving the livingroom furniture back into some kind of arrangement
• Putting the presents under the tree, as opposed to strewn about mom’s house
• Scrubbing the kitchen counter, stove, and washing dishes (I’m resting before I tackle the outside of the fridge)

I gave up before I got to the diningroom table, and the part of the counter that’s being used as temporary storage for breakables.  This was all done while a dog followed me around and generally got in my way.

I’m pooped!  And this was only the cleaning for Mom’s house!  I’ll be dealing with my house sometime this weekend, but it’ll be easier because I’ve been able to do a lot of this gradually over the week.

A big part of the problem with Mom’s house is that I’m the only one that cleans it.  I don’t live there, but I clean it and cook in it.  My mother is disabled and can’t clean it.  I’ve found it excessively difficult to keep up with the cleaning for both households.  A lot of the things I would have done when I was bored or as I thought of it haven’t been taken care of at mom’s house.  Those things add up.  But I got most of them done.  There are really only 2 or 3 left, but I’m not willing to do any more tonight.  Maybe I’ll do it tomorrow, before company comes over. 

It’s funny, as I did all this cleaning, I found myself instinctively only doing each room for 15 minutes at a time.  I’d do one task for 15 minutes, and then move on to the next, and the next…  It’s something I’ve picked up from FlyLady.  I’ll explain more in a different post.  So, even though it was 4 hours worth of cleaning, and 3 hours worth of baking, it wasn’t so bad. 

Online Library

My hunny sent me a link to an article on Linux’s website about the world’s largest digital library.  The Universal Library Project is attempting to enhance freedom of information by making “digitizing all published works of man.”  Many of these books are out of print and/or out of copyright so as far as I can tell no US copyright laws are being broken.  This will help preserve our knowledge for generations to come.  In their words “There can never again be a destruction of the library of Alexandria.”

 What do you think?  Is this a good idea for humanity?  Should we, as library personnel and knowledge mongers, support this?  What about copyright laws; do they still apply in the digital age?

Testing pictures

This is a picture from our latest camping trip in Washington, CA.  Of course we went for a hike and saw lots of beautiful scenery like this.  So, I’m using this to see how I would put a picture into a blog and what it would look like when I’m done.

5 years?!?

Wow…

So, I bring in the mail at my new apartment/townhouse thing and find something from a bigwig in the county.  He congratulates me on working with the library for 5 years.  All I can think is “5 Years?”  and then “WOO7!” (that’s gamer speak for woo hoo and is pronounced woot).

The letter was a nice addition to my housewarming party.

Cold!

You know it’s cold in the library when everyone is wearing a sweater (even those that normally wear tank tops).  This causes those that are normally freezing to cheer because they get to crank the heater up and bask in the warm air that’s pouring from the vents. 

Sooooo cold….

Lifelong Learning

The whole point of this entry is to discuss ACL’s lifelong learning program.  One of the first assignments for this program is to write a blog discussing the 7.5 habits of lifelong learners.

The 7.5 habits are as follows:
1. Begin with the end in mind
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning
3. View problems as challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent, effective learner
5. Create your own learning toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
7. Teach/mentor others
7.5. Play

For me, the most difficult of these habits is play.  I find that I allow myself to become so involved in doing that I don’t remember to relax and enjoy myself.  Having my nieces and nephew around forces me to see things from their eyes, and reminds me that playing is a perfectly acceptable way of learning.  Even still, I have to remember to play.

The rest of these habits are all pretty easy for me, but the easiest is knowing that I am a competent, effective learner.  My friends and family have always told me that I am smart.  I think it’s really important for kids (and adults!) to hear that kind of affirmation.  If you hear something often enough you’ll believe it’s true.

Enough for now!   I have to get back to work!