Happy Thanksgiving

I had a restful and fun filled Thanksgiving weekend. I used to be in retail management and always dreaded this weekend. Sure it's fun to be busy but it is exhausting and I hated missing out on the fun that would be going on back home. Last year was the first year in ten years that I didn't have to work Black Friday. This year was a whole new experience. This year I experienced the joys of academic breaks. I had Wed-Mon free from work - What?! Too much free time...a girl could get herself into trouble :)

I was with the family for most of that time and we typically play an abnormally large amount of games. Here is a list of games we played: Okie, Hand and Foot, Rook, Quiddler, Sequence, Settlers, Acquire, Trivial Pursuit, Scrabble, Master Detective Clue, Trivial Pursuit, Ticket to Ride. I think I remembered them all...and of course a few of those we played more than once! Yes we are a little obsessed with game playing...but we have fun and I guess that's all that matters.

So this year I am thankful for my lovely new career at a great institution that has academic breaks with the perfect amount of time to have rest and relaxation.

Gilmore Girls Weekend

I started watching the Gilmore Girls when it was in syndication and immediately enjoyed the characters. The scripts are phenomenally quick witted, humorous and filled with pop culture references. I often find myself watching the shows when I'm in need of ideas for bands to listen to, movies to watch or books to read. And I've found over the years that there are many who are just as addicted to the Gilmore Girls.

So this last weekend I had a friend over and we had our first ever Gilmore Girl Weekend - a weekend devoted to eating, drinking and non-stop Gilmore Girl viewing pleasure. Starting Sat from noon till a little after 10 pm we had Gilmore Girls running non-stop. We started up again Sunday morning at about 10 am and went till about 4pm! During this marathon we were able to get in about 2-4 of our favorite episodes from every season.

Yes we are probably a little crazy but we refuse to apologize because it was great fun. We will definitely be doing more t.v. themed weekends in the future :)

Free time

Having just finished grad school 6 months ago I have found that I feel I have an overwhelming amount of free time! Thank goodness for hobbies and t.v.

I have loved being able to read for pleasure again and have been attempting to finish off the bookcase of unread books that have been tempting me for years now....there's only maybe 100 or so. Of course now that I'm officially a librarian one of the joys of my job is I get to look over all the new books that arrive and choose new books for our collection. This job duty also of course causes me to add to may "to read" list of books because there are always so many interesting titles.

I also have been crafting cards and selling a few! I finally found a small craft sale and was able to sell a little bit of my growing collection and visit with local crafters. I'm hoping to attend more craft shows and maybe even also finally get a website up showcasing my cards. I'm also contemplating the idea of teaching a community education course on crafting cards.

Lastly I have been watching tons of t.v.! I work during the day, come and watch t.v...it is a great simple pleasure :) I had planned on catching up an all sorts of movies that I missed over the last 2 years but it's funny....I don't even know the titles of movies I missed. Which is blessing in disguise, I don't feel the pressure to watch title A,B,C, etc since I don't even know that title A,B,C exist! I did just enjoy a Gilmore Girl weekend and will blogging about that next. Stay tuned...

Winona

Well it has been a very long time since I last blogged, about 2 1/2 months - the time however has flown by for me!

Shortly after my last blog I found an apartment in Winona - it's a 2 bedroom side-by-side...what I would call a duplex with a unit on the left and a unit on the right. My living quarters are all on one level and there is an unfinished basement for storage, Charlotte's litter box and the washer and dryer. It's a nice place, with all the modern amenities like a dishwasher and central air ;) And most importantly I have enough room for all of my belongings and guests that may want to visit!

I will refrain on blogging about all of my recent adventures in Winona in this blog - I will try to spread them out a bit. For now I will just blog about how great it is to live in such a beautiful city. I can literally look out my living room window and see the bluffs - my favorite time of day is in the morning. I look high up into the sky and see little sections of dark green patches weaving in an out fog billowing through the air.

Another pleasant perk is not driving as much as I used to! I had an old boyfriend who used to say "long drives should be for pleasure not for getting to work" and that is so true. I now drive about 5 minutes to get to work - and I could easily ride my bike or walk...I'm working on getting myself motivated enough to bike or walk to work. What I have been doing is walking to the grocery store - something I have wanted to be able to do my whole life and I finally can! It's great, I bring my reusable bag with me, it takes me 5 minutes to walk to the grocery store, I only get a few things for the week and walk home - the whole process is like 1/2 hour.

So it seems the greatest pleasure about moving to Winona is I feel like I finally have the lifestyle I always wanted for myself... simple, comfortable and surrounded by nature.

Beginnings

Oh life is great. Last Saturday I went through my commencement ceremony at St.Kate's and officially received my degree and the Lemon colored hood that goes with getting a Master's in Library and Information Science. On Tuesday I interviewed for a library position...I was NERVOUS and felt that many of my answers lacked intelligence and depth so fearing the worst I've been moping around the house since Tuesday. Today to my relief, I was offered the position I interviewed for and am excited to say that on June 16 I will start my new job as an Interlibrary Loan Librarian for Saint Mary's University in Winona, MN! :) I feel great right now...mostly because I finally get to move my belongings out of storage and into my own place!!!! Who knew the idea of paying rent again would be so EXCITING!

2 years, really? it's been 2 years!!!

An end and hopefully soon a beginning. After 2 years I have finished my Masters in Library and Information Science. My last class was 2 weeks ago and in 2 weeks I will go through the commencement ceremony to get my hood!

It feels great to be finished, and it's hard to believe - 2 years can go by so fast and yet I feel exhausted from the last 2 years. My undergrad was in organizational communication and the classes were more like business classes - a lot of human resource stuff - hiring, training, leading. A masters in library science is all about being a librarian - completely different from my undergrad. So I had a lot to learn, a lot to read, a lot of acclimating myself to a new career field. My career experience in retail management may have made me adaptable to change and skilled at assessing situations and problem solving but it did not involve the amount of technology that librarians deal with! I am amazed at everything I have learned in 2 years and proud of the improvement I have made in my skills.

I always knew I'd go on to grad school - mostly because of my sheer will and love of school. I love to read, do research, write papers, present at conferences and because of this one of my professors made me promise to go on to grad school. Out of around 30 of us I was one of 2 people that she expected would go on to grad school.

As I end grad school I find myself thinking back to why I started it, specifically why I chose to become a librarian. I chose library science for a few reasons - I love libraries, grew up going to them all the time. In high school one of my best friends parents were librarians and I always thought they were the most knowledgeable people I knew - they were well informed and interesting to talk to. Emily always knew she'd be a librarian (and she is one now!) and I started entertaining the thought of being one myself. An even more significant reason for becoming a librarian was because my Grandma was a head librarian for a small public library and my Mom was a library paraprofessional for 17(?) years - neither of them went to school for library science, it was just a natural fit for both. I'm a lot like both of them, I have a lot of their skills and personality traits so I knew I would enjoy being a librarian because they both felt very fulfilled in their work.

When I was a sophomore in college I told my Grandma I was considering library science - that I thought maybe I'd be a librarian someday. She told me she thought I'd make a fine librarian and that I would enjoy it. My Grandma never gave fluff as an answer so I knew she was telling me the truth. She would be ecstatic to hear how library's and librarians have changed over the years.

After my very first class in grad school I remember driving home and thinking to myself, "wow, I finally understand that feeling of knowing this is right" Usually it's a couple that is referring to their first meeting and how they knew they were the one and then they end up getting married. Well that's how it was on my first night of class, I knew this career was the one for me - I found my calling, my destiny, my passion.

I made a website

I am finished with one of my 2 classes - the Internet Fundaments and Design. Now I only have 2 more thursday nights in my Library User Instruction course and then I am DONE with grad school! But I will save that excitement for another blog :)

For this Internet class we learned xhtml and css (cascading style sheets). These two things are what you use to create a website and for the final project I created a website with xhtml and css and I am very proud of myself. If you aren't familiar with this jargon...I give you an idea of how you can see what I've worked on. If you look at the website I created - the link is above my archive section to the right...I think I called it Cardcrafting with Rachel.

Anyways...when you're in the site, go to View and select Source.

This will should show you all the coding I did for the site so you can get an idea of what I've been working on for like a week straight :) You won't be able to see the CSS part but at least you can see the XHTML part. If you want...I just think it's awesome that I know how to do this now - and according to my instructor, everyone in the class is officially able to call themselves a geek. Yay for that!

a girl has the right to daydream

With only 2 weeks left of graduate school I feel that it is appropriate I start daydreaming. About all the reading, dating and traveling I'll have time to partake in joyfully and with abundance!

I currently am daydreaming about taking another trip out to Prince Edward Island. I visited PEI for the first time almost 3 years ago. I have only travelled to a few places - Mexico, London, Scotland, Ireland, cape cod, San Diego and various other states. I can say that based on where I have been PEI was the most tranquil and beautiful places I have been. It's my kind of environment - slower paced, gorgeous colors, great seafood. It is my goal to someday have a vacation home on PEI. For now I will daydream about taking another trip out there...

These figures represent a road trip to PEI from MN - with no overnight stays in hotels:

• It is roughly around 2000 miles.
• Drive time is 36 hrs + 6 hrs for misc = 42 hours travel time.
• The car would need to be filled with gas every 4-4 1/2 hours.
• Gas fill up about 9 times - around 80 gallons of gas.
• Estimate of about $4/gallon - gas cost would be $320.
• Cost of a rental car for a trip of around 9 days - about $500?
• And there's a trip back + costs of fuel while on the island.
• Total costs - somewhere around $1200.

With more people the travelling costs are possibly less than a flight - flights right now are around $600 and it does take a whole day to get to PEI by plane so driving only takes a little longer.

Anyone up for a road trip to PEI?

Fun Party Quiz Results

Keep in mind that I am no statistician...but man do I love trying figuring out what numbers mean!
Here's a rundown of responses in each question

Preferred Non-Alchoholic Drink:
70% - Soda
20% - Coffee
10% - Punch

Preferred Alchoholic Drink:
50% - Wine
40% - No Alchohol
10% - Beer

Preferred Snack:
70% - Salty
20% - Healthy
10% - Sweet

Preferred Activity:
50% - Playing Games
50% - Talking (mingling)

I found interesting that there was a tie in the activity question so then I looked at the playing games responses and the talking (mingling) responses and came to three conclusion:

1) If gathering to play game most people will prefer no-alchohol, soda and salty snacks.
2) If gathering to talk and mingle most people will prefer wine or soda and salty snacks.
3) You can please the majority of people with salty snacks present at a party.

Hope this was fun...if anyone has ideas for more fun quiz topics post a comment with them and I'll create a quiz :)

Take a Party Quiz!

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Riding the Bus

I rode the bus last week. And I actually really enjoyed it. Unfourtanetly I have to leave the house about 10 minutes earlier to catch the bus which is EXTREMELY difficult for me. However, for the next (and last) 2 weeks at Capella, I'm going to try to take the bus on Mondays and Wednesdays. It'll be a little less wear and tear on the car and it'll get me used to metro transportation...a very good thing!

And an added bonus, I get to listen to my MP3 player on the way to work, or read a book, and when I go home at night I get to stand in a line waiting for the bus!

Waiting

It's been a tad over a month since the applications for a fellowship with the National Library of Medicine were due. The fellowship is a one-possible two year fellowship learning about medical librarianship and gaining practice and skills working in medical libraries. It's in Bethesda, Maryland at the National Institute of Health. It's awesome...I'm starting to go crazy waiting :) Every day I check my e-mail and my phone CONSTANTLY hoping I will hear from them. And right now there are two response I would receive - that I have an interview or that I've been rejected. Of course I would like an interview!
I'm feeling very impatient and very much like the rest of my life will/can begin when I find out if I am or am not going out east. And that is difficult - waiting, in limbo...with my future in someone else's hands. And one of the difficult thoughts to grasp is that if I get an interview I get to wait some more! Or that I'll have waited and waited and then get rejected.
I'm hoping to hear something very soon and of course will blog about it - just had to vent for now about how horrible it is to wait for something you want so bad....
by the way for anyone waiting for more blogs on eat,pray,love - sorry I've been so behind (swamped with school stuff) but I plan to get on track, in fact I will probably do a post this week on the last 12 tales of Italy. thanks for YOUR patience ;)

We are bus 470

I am a people watcher. All the time I am watching people, even as I walk down the street. Even as I walk through the skyways. Yesterday after work as I walked through the skyways I was watching everyone outside on the streets of downtown minneapolis. There is always a lot of activity around 5 in downtown minneapolis. People are trying to make it to their bus stop, cars or the local pub for happy hour. So because I expect this hustle, bustle activity as I was hustling and bustling to my car I suddenly almost stopped in the skyways because of something that caught my attention.
I didn't stop, but what I saw made me giggle, and giggle, and giggle, for about a half hour.
On the corner of 6th street and 3rd avenue (it's okay if you don't actually know where this is!) is a bus stop. At this bus stop were about 15 people waiting for the bus. When I say people, I'm referring to working professionals in their mid 20's to mid 40's, in business dress...some even had briefcases. This isn't what was so funny, a lot of people take the bus. I giggle even now as I write because at this bus stop, this group of around 15 business professionals were in a single file line waiting for the bus! Picture, about 15 adults dressed up, waiting in a single file line with enough personal space between each other (you know-for that "comfort zone") so the line was probably about 30 feet long. Oh it was funny :)
I don't ride the bus much, so maybe this is normal - a courtesy to the people that were there first. You know, first come first serve on the bus...are there good seats on the bus? Maybe there are good seats on the bus and so if you're the first one at the bus stop you get the best seat.
I think what made me giggle was the fact that they all looked so polite and so perfectly lined up...not one person was standing next to another. I felt like the first person in line needed a sign that stated something like, "We are bus 470"
Maybe we're all deep down, longing to be kids again so we take any chance we can get...even if it's standing in a single file line at a bus stop.

car troubles

So a few weeks ago, on a monday morning I'm cheerfully driving to work, looking forward to the day ahead, even the week ahead...life is good. Not far into the drive there is a demanding, repetitive, clunking sound coming from underneath the hood of my car. I was a bit alarmed but not to the point of turning around and going home, after all...over the past few weeks there have been strange sounds, smells and the oil light would occasionally be on and then turn off as the car warmed up and nothing serious had happened on these mornings so I proceeded to take my car for granted and continue on my way. Big Mistake!

The car died and I thought, yup...I need oil...and I have some, I'm prepared! 2 quarts in the backseat, just for this occassion...and the car started again after it was fed it's oil! unfourtanetly, I may have been too late with the oil. Over the next 10-15 minutes of my drive the car proceeded to die about 4 or 5 times, everytime this annoying yellow light would flash at me...mocking me, saying, "you crazy lady...don't you know how to take care of your car?" I kept ignoring the signs, thinking, I'll make it downtown, the car will keep starting, we can do this. My doubts grew as the interior of my car filled with smoke but I am persistent...well stubborn.

Sadly we couldn't do it...the car and my hopes died on 35W just after I'd exited on to 35W from 62 conveniently in the way of angry commuters. Fourtanetly, I am a lucky unlucky person...Jerry of Jerry's Towing happened to be heading back to the office on Lake Street when he saw my stalled vehicle...I'd been there only a few minutes. He pulled up, started hooking up my car to his tow truck and gave me a lift downtown. I made it downtown after all...to the expensive tune of a new motor for my abused car.

Moral of the story: change your oil.

Oh and thankfully for me...God's always one step ahead sending a Jerry to tow and fix the problem I thought I could solve with 2 quarts of oil way to late...silly me

Young Adult online bookgroup anyone?

I sort of want to try having a few bookgroups going on with different themes so that if one book doesn't interest someone maybe another one will. So, I thought I'd start one in the Young Adult theme because I recently have been reintroduced to YA and really love reading these books.

I have heard about this book called Twilight by Stephenie Meyer - hopefully I spelled her name right. Anyways, it's supposed to be pretty good. I'm on LibraryThing - mostly for ideas of what to read and what's popular (if you're not on it you should be!) and I was checking out some YA groups and this book came up a few times. The rating amongst readers of the book on Library thing is 4.42 out of 5 - pretty good rating. And it's a vampire/love story type book - never read one of those, I'm thinking it's time to spread my wings! There is a saga - something like 4 so far and Twilight is the first of the saga. It looks pretty long - around 550 pgs I think.

So - I think I'll start doing posts for this book as well - it'll probably take me a week to get organized and get another post out about this with a plan and the idea will again be to post questions throughout the reading of the book. So if you're interested check it out at your local library! And the great thing about these posts is you can read at your leisure and read the post as you've read the section :) Feel free to comment whether or not you like YA books and are interested in reading this one!

Eat,Pray,Love - Italy, 13-24

Finally, a post! You know the drill - if you haven't read thru tale 24 in Italy you won't want to read what is below - it may have spoilers! And if you've read past tale 24...don't reveal anything!

So we're in Italy, the Eat part of the book and it has become very aparrent in these middle tales that Gilbert (author) has some major issues...depression and loneliness are constant companions. She attempts to go off of her anti-depressants (because she's in Italy and feels this will solve everything) and finds herself in desperate need to go back on her medication.

I really see the meaning of Eat - food, nurishment, eating is afterall a basic need and we see that Gilbert has often set aside her basic needs in life. Either for men, work, etc. She explains how she often disappears into the man in her life...becomes like him...changes to be more of him and less of her.

Question 1: Going to Italy, is Gilbert attempting to escape her depression...runaway from the choice she made to get divorce or is she facing her depression and divorce or face it all? And how so (in regards to whichever option you chose)?

Question 2: How do you think eating in Italy, enjoying the pleasures of Italy, will help Gilbert deal with her depression, loneliness, choices she has made in relationships(i.e. divorce, David)

Busy Weekend

What a lovely weekend I just had. I traveled up to Duluth with two of my dearest friends, Kris and Megan...both from college. (megan I have actually been friends with since high school). We had a great time exploring Duluth. What did we do?

Well...we visited the Glensheen Mansion, The Duluth Zoo, An Aquarium, Gooseberry Falls, The Tweed Art Museum at UMD, The Depot, shopped a little in Canal Park, and ate great food!
We stayed in a lovely B&B called the Olcott House, had a fabulous and elegant hot breakfast at 9am both Sat and Sun morning prepared by David one of the owners of the B&B. And at night settled into our carriage house and watched a little t.v. or dvd's.

It was such a nice weekend, and of course I'm a little behind now on the Eat,Pray,Love discussion questions because of the weekend getaway. But the questions for tales 13-24 will be up soon! Probably later tonight :)

I advise anyone who has a free weekend and lives in this area to visit Duluth for a weekend, it is so much fun!

Eat, Pray, Love: Italy, 1-12

This is the first post with the hope that a discussion about the book Eat, Pray, Love will evolve. A warning: there will be spoilers (comments that will disclose portions of the book we are discussing) so if you have not read the portion this post is discussing and don't want to know what's in the book then read no further!

Enjoying the book? I am, I really like her style of writing. It is as if she is in the room with me, telling a story, or we're having a conversation. Yet at the same time she has these moments in her writing where she goes into a "descriptive tangent" that are beautifully structured and creative.

This post is only about tales 1-12 in the first book on Italy. If you have read further please do not discuss past tale 12 of book 1!

Question 1: Do you have a favorite "tale" out of the first 12?


Question 2: I think this will be a highly spiritual book, What do you think of her relationship with her God?

I'll leave the questions at those two...feel free to comment or add your own discussion questions. I will have more on Monday about tales 13-24 from Book One Italy. Ciao!

Timeline of posts for eat, pray, love

As promised, I have taken a peak at the book eat, pray, love...here's a little about how the book is set up. There are 3 sections to the book, and each section has 36 tales. My initial thought was to write a discussion post every week but because of the amount of tales in the entire book (108) I think I'll do two discussion posts a week.

Every Monday and Friday I will write a post with a few thoughts and discussion questions based on 12 tales. So this means it will take us about a week and a half to get through each section. I'm not sure how this pace will work for everyone so we'll try if for the first section and see how well it works. So here's the plan for the first section titled:

Book One Italy or "Say it Like you Eat it" or 36 Tales about the Pursuit of Pleasure (seriously...that's the way it's written in the book!)

Friday (15th) post on tales 1-12
Monday (18th) post on tales 13-24
Friday (22nd) post on tales 25-36

And if you plan on reading the book and possibly joining in on the discussions please feel free to comment on this post and introduce yourself! I'd love to know who I'm reading with :)

Online Bookgroup - Eat, Pray, Love

Okay - Let's give this a try! I have a couple of friends who are planning on reading Eat, Pray, Love and I want to join in on the fun but find it difficult to travel to be in their bookgroup! So I'm going to read the book and then write entries into my blog with my thoughts or questions - basically a post that will be a "discussion thread." And I would love to invite anyone who reads to join in on the fun!

So here's the plan...I'm going to get the book this weekend and create a timeline (based on the contents of the book and my schedule!) of when I will be posting "discussion threads" about the book. I will post this timeline this weekend and don't worry I won't start posting "discussion threads" right away, I'll give you all enough time to go check the book out at your local library :)

Here's the book info:
Title: Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia
Author: Elizabeth Gilbert

Wondering if your library has it? If you're on Facebook and are friends with me you'll notice I have WorldCat just above my wall...feel free to use it to search for this book in your area. Type in the title and search.
When you see the title click on it.
On the next page that opens scroll down a bit and enter your location information.
Then Boom! Libraries (hopefully close to you) that have the book you're looking for, amazingly easy :)

I'm excited to read with you all!

The New Job

I promised I would write a little about how the new job at Capella is going and I try to make do on promises. Here goes!

My new job is only part-time - mon-thurs about 25 hours a week and it is temporary. I'm helping out while a librarian is on maternity leave. I love librarians who go on maternity leave - it provides great opportunities for future librarians like me.

It's different working downtown again, I used to work in downtown mpls as a manager of a Payless...this was about 4 years ago. Downtown mpls still feels the same but I feel different - my environment is so different. I have a cubicle that I can decorate if I want! I always had a desk when I was in retail but I never used it because I was never sitting! So it's fun to think of which pictures I should put on my desk. There's a kitchen on our floor and in the kitchen there's coffee all day long - whenever I want it - this is probably my favorite thing about Capella :)

In fact, one thing that I've especially enjoyed the last 2 weeks is all the free food...Capella is celebrating the start of a new program so they brought lunch in for everyone the 1st week I was there and breakfast for everyone the 2nd week. And our library staff went out to lunch this week at a very nice restaurant - I love food...especially free food! I'm sure this kind of fun isn't always going on but it is so much fun!

And of course I love being around so many librarians. There are 9 of them and I've had a chance to listen and watch them in action! And it makes me feel like I am really ready to graduate and be a librarian. There's always this fear that you didn't take the right classes and aren't as prepared as employers and patrons expect but now I really do feel ready and confident.

Thanks for the responses!

Thank-you to all that filled out the survey I had posted on my blog. I've taken it off because I'm all finished with the presentation. It didn't go as well as I had hoped, I often forget information,etc. but it was great that I had responses to show the class...and to show them how to retrieve reports and all that jazz! I may actually start an online bookgroup - the responses were too few and varying to come up with a consensus of what the majority of responsders would enjoy...so I may just give every genre a chance and maybe it'll reach new people...that I haven't even met! How fun would that be :) I think it would be in the form of a wiki so that people can interact more easily with one another online. So many ideas :) Right now, project runway is calling my name so I must flee...

Please Help!

...anyone reading my blog please take the survey at the bottom of my blog page. Just scroll down a bit. It is title Online Bookgroup Survey.

I created it on the wufoo.com site for my internet class...It is only 4 questions...very short...and maybe I really will start an online bookgroup after I see the results :)

P.S. For each question there is a drop down menu showing choices - select the answer you most like...and when you've answered all 4 make sure to click the Submit button at the bottom of the questions. If you've tried answering the questions, try again -there may have been a little glitch in the system for a bit :)

The outfit is planned for the first day

Well, monday is the start of my new job. I have had so many new starts in the last 8 months it's become routine, however, this new start has got me feeling a little nervous. It's a temporary, part-time position at Capella University. I get to work in downtown Minneapolis again! Only this time I have an office type of job which I have always pictured myself in but never had...well I guess it's more like a cubicle type of job...or may even just a desk in the middle of the room, not really sure yet :) The point is, it's in a super tall, really pretty building that has elevators for specific groups of floors (I go to the level 1-15 group) and when I get to the floor I work on there's a receptionist! and a secure entrance! I may have to have one of those swipey cards to get into work - how exciting is that! I could try to explain the psychology behind why all of this sounds really exciting to me but I don't want to get into that right now :)

The strange thing behind all of this description is that I'll be working in the library, processing requests for information from students...these are online students because Capella is an online university. If a student needs an article that we don't have in our collection I'll find a library that owns it and ask to borrow it for the student, they'll send a copy to our computers and then I'll e-mail it on to the students - this is interlibrary loan, and what I will get to do for 2 1/2 months. Apparantly we process 300-400 requests a week - for you nonlibrary people, that's alot! It's going to be an awesome experience to put on the resume and I am nervous! I always get nervous when starting a new job, you meet so many people, and I never remember names, and there's so much new stuff to learn and I always want to joke a little but I can't until they get to know me - because I don't there sense of humor and they don't know mine.

Anyways, I know it'll go fine cause I have my outfit planned! I bought 2 new pairs of pants, a dress and 2 tops in order to be prepared for the first day :) Shopping helps with the nerves and now I have a Lorelai dress. Lorelai is my favorite character on Gilmore Girls and she always wears this style of dress that goes to the knee, is sort of a v-neck but also looks like it wraps in the front with some sort of fabric tied in the front or a belt. That's what my dress is like - it's a Lorelai dress - I so am going to have to figure out how to post a picture of Lorelai on this post. I love the Lorelai dress but that's not actually the outfit I have planned, I'm wearing gray pants with colored lines in them (sublte lines) and a winter white sweater that has a little detail in it and a buckle on the collar...very professional, a little stylish and very librarianish. And of course, heels - just about an 1" to 1 and 1/2" I don't want to fall or twist an ankle :)

This is a very weird post - but I wanted to document my thoughts and excitement before the first day! And of course archive what my outfit for the first day will be :)

Internet Fun!

I started a class last week on Internet Fundementals and Design. It's fascinating!
This week we talked about blogs...did you know that 36% of blogs are in English and 37% are in Japanese - fascinating!
I learned so much about the Internet that my mind was fuzzy after class - well that was probably from the html coding that we had to practice...yes I'm learning html so that I can design a website from scratch. And I'm excited about it :) Anyways...on to the cool stuff....
http://del.icio.us ---- this is a social bookmarking site, meaning that any sites you really like you can bookmark and categorize - what makes it cool - everyone can see what sites everyone else really likes. So if I want to see what sites exist on travel - I search for travel in del.icio.us. I tried this and found one site on airfare predictions that was saved by 9910 people - so I know this may be a great site to look at since a lot of people are saving it. It's a lot of fun :) along the same lines:
http://popurls.com ----- this is an aggregator meaning it pulls information from websites and let's you see alot at once instead of having to go to each site individually. So popurls has maybe 10-20 sites listed and under each one lists the most popular articles or links people are going to on these sites. i.e. del.icio.us is listed and about 20 of the most popular links people are bookmarking are listed. I like popurls mostly because it has loads of fun stuff (if you have time to kill it's loads of fun) and is designed so nicely - it is organized and has a clean look but a very cool look at the same time - it's just a great design for the amount of info displayed.
I could go on and on and on with more very cool and very fun sites but I'll take a break for now!

Blissful tiredness

I'm officially tired. I blame the many days I had off around Christmas and New Years. My body was happy with the routine of sleeping in, lying around all day...maybe going outside every other day. My body hates me know because for the last 3 days I've been back to the routine of getting up at 6 in the morning...I'm tired. There is great news though...a light at the end of the tunnel...a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow...
Yesterday I found out that I got the Graduate Assistantship position at the library I currently work at (St.Kate's, Minneapolis campus)! Yay :) It is a small amount of hours, 8-10 per week but more money than the circulation assistant position I had and it means that I get to work on projects specifically geared towards librarian experience. It's very cool and I'm very happy and excited. I'm going to get to buy books (my favorite thing to do!) and handle reference questions and create online tutorials to guide our nursing students through a few of the difficult databases when they're doing research. Maybe a few other projects as well...but those are the main duties on the plate thus far. I start Tues - and here's where the really good news comes in - I'll be working afternoon hours!!! :) Yay for sleeping in again for the next 2 weeks - until the Capella position starts! I start the Capella job Jan 28th so I'll blog about that one sometime in Feb.
It is so weird that a year ago I was a merchandise team leader at Jo-Ann Fabrics working strange hours and now I'll be working Mon-Fri in two different libraries - daytime hours - such a different life and the best is yet to come since I'm not even done with grad school. I may be tired but it is a blissful tiredness.

P.S. I love you

I start my last two grad classes this week so I went to a movie today in order to do something fun before the start of what will probably feel like the longest semester yet!
So I went with a friend to see P.S. I love you and it is a very sweet movie with great music and beautiful scenes set in Ireland. I won't say too much about the movie...but you've probably gathered from previews that it is about a woman who at the age of 29 becomes a widow and her husband has left her letters to help her go on with life without him. It's very emotional but what I liked about it is the truth that even when something wonderful ends there is hope of good things to come.
We go through some horrible changes in our lives sometimes that don't make any sense, are unfair and unwanted and end something really great, forcing us to move on and in a different direction than we wanted...but that doesn't mean that our dreams have to end and there can be goodness greater than we ever expected without forgetting the goodness we've already experienced. I like that we can think of our lives as chapters in a book...or maybe even books in a series. I think I'm starting a whole new book in my series...volume 2...what chapter or volume are you on...and a more interesting question, is there a title and what is it? My title of volume 2, fresh start...mmhh, that's sort of boring, I'll have to think of something more creative.

Happy New Year

It is 2008! I love New Year's, it has always been one of my favorite holiday's to celebrate simply because it is so positive and well, happy! You reminisce about the previous year, look to the future and dream of what you want it to be like. And if you're hanging out with friends like mine there's dancing, laughing and hopefully the well know Prince song...how does it go, "party like it's 1999."
Actually this year I stayed in with the parents and that was just as good as the dance sessions I used to have with my friends on New Year's Eve! I have a bit of cold or something horrible resembling a cold and am just plain exhausted so New Year's was just as fun this year from the couch of my family room watching a movie ;)
For the past few years I've been reluctant to come up with any New years resolutions, mostly I think because I knew I would fail to follow through with any of them! I feel confident that this year I can follow through with a few resolutions:

1) complete the Masters!
2) go to New Zealand!
3) get a job!
4) move out of mom and dad's!

okay so those four are no-brainers that will be done for sure...here are the tougher ones:

5) exercise - gasp! - at least 2 times a week (probably should do 3 but I do not exercise so I'm shooting for 2 times a week)
6) date - gasp! - I've been avoiding relationships, in the last year I've turned down dates or run away from possible relationships and this is so not healthy. Time to face the facts - I've had a serious relationship in the past and have been scared to get into another one but the fear ends now. I will date, maybe not be in a serious relationship but I will give guys a chance and I guess in a way give myself a chance too.
7) friends - see them more! I can't wait for school to end, and once it does I will have so much free time and I can't wait to be able to spend more time with friends - and I should say family too.

well...that may be enough resolutions for now! I'm feeling stressed....just kidding ;)