Still Alive

So yeah, in the midst of fighting through LIS 530 (which I conquered admirably), end of year for UP, the worst allergies of my life, two friends having babies and now packing up and sending AK off on his month long Great Summer Camp Trip, this blog has fallen to the side. I suppose part of the issue is that I barely had the time to think about anything that did not relate directly to either instructional theory or languages of description. I know I had this particular screen pulled up more than a few times in the past month, but nothing ever emerged. Besides, Facebook is a much faster and more effective way of expressing the frustrations and the joys of the quarter as everyone else who is suffering or celebrating are equally surgically attached to their laptops.

So the quarter is over and I am still alive and still seriously contemplating cataloging as a future. Apparently LIS 530 has a bit of a reputation for turning people off the idea of cataloging, which having survived the class I completely understand. I am drawn to cataloging through a combined desire to put everything in order and to make everything easily discoverable for the patron. But when you start thinking about not just how to put a MARC record together, but the years of thought and theory that informed its creation, your head wants to explode into tiny pieces. And this is after you've spent three weeks trying to wrap your head around the distinction between the manifestation and the expression of a work in FRBR. In my paper for LIS 500 (sort of a glorified "What I Want To Be When I Grow Up" essay), I wrote about wanting to follow my instructor's call to be a tool builder instead of a tool user. I'm quite naturally the latter and balking at becoming the former. Not so much balking as that I do have doubt that I'll ever have the skills required to do that sort of work. But I'm only through the first year and not yet in my tech heavy classes, so we'll see what comes.

Had things gone according to plan, I would be joining others in the start of the summer quarter. My one credit class was cancelled (along with the only other 1 credit I haven't taken) leaving me ineligible for financial aid. I was upset when the possibility of cancellation was first announced. But after thinking about it and looking back on 9 months of continual motion, the idea of sitting on my butt reading and catching up on errands and life for three months seems almost too good to pass up (even if AK will be travelling for a good third of that time). I'm still on track for graduation, so all is well. And I've already read two full novels and am nearly paralyzed by the amount of choice before me. Bliss.

Not much else to report. Today I accompanied a friend to her old lab at OHSU and helped her pitch failed mutant strains from her Ph.D work (little tubes of cultures and naphthalene that I helped her set up over a year ago). In tow was Mr. Rowan, her month old son. I danced him to sleep in the middle of a restaurant today and my right shoulder is yelling about it still. There are twins on the Right Coast that I have yet to meet but cannot wait. I am deeply unsure about having kids, but until I make that decision I am more than content with spending time with other people's (and then handing them back when they start to have a fit).

And now, to sleep.