Oh man, Oh man

I just finished everything I had to do this semester, with the exception of this final blog post. AHH!! I'm so glad that everything is done with, so I can concentrate on just trying to move out of my apartment for the next 3 days.

Everything is so crazy right now, that I can't even really reflect on the fact that I've finished grad school. It seems like I only started but now (after 1 more class tomorrow) it's all over. I don't even really feel like I did anything! I mean, when I think about it, I remember all the projects I did and all the great books that I read (especially in YA) but it doesn't feel like much. What I think is most interesting is that I think I enjoyed a lot of things I did in grad school (even thought that didn't stop me from putting off all of my assignments until the last mintue). This has to be a good sign though, enjoying the work. I think, and hope, that means I've made the right decision about what I want to do. But now, unfortunately, I have to find a job! Which is way hard. I can't even think about this right now! I need to go pack up some boxes of shoes. And boxes of books. I can think about the realy world once I'm in Virginia and lying on the beach....

Last All Day Class

I'm sitting in my last all day class ever! Well, hopefully. It is epically hot in here, and we are at a break between presentations. We have all the lights off, which is nice, but is making me sleepy. I'm really excited to be almost done with everything, but I still feel like I have so much to do! Well, not with school really, but I have a lot of packing to do. I only have 2 boxes packed, and they are jsut full of clothes. Tonight I'm going to pack up all of our books and our desk stuff. I have to pack up the dishes soon though, and I'm not sure when to do this, as we are still using a lot of the stuff.

I'm just so ready to move on, but I wish I could pass on the whole packing/cleaning process and just skip to the unpacking and going to the beach part of this move. I also wish I could jsut already have a job, and not worry about that whole process either!

Ok, well time to watch more presentations now, adios.

Parasites!

So I'm listening to This American Life right now, and it is an episode about enemies. Two of the segments is about parasites. I have always thought parasites are pretty cool, but this episode has taught me some other neat things. The first parasite segment is about how intense the life cycle of a parasite really is. There is this one parasite where it gets eaten by a snail as a larvae. Then it kinda bothers the snail's stomach, so it gets spit up. An Ant eats the snail puke and then the parasite is inside the ant. The parasite somehow gives the idea to the ant that it wants to crawl up somewhere high at around nighttime. It does this because right before dark is when animals like sheep like to graze. Now that the ant is on top of the grass, it is in a good spot to get eaten by a sheep. The parasite now lives in the sheep, where it likes to be best!

The second segment was about a guy who purposely infected himself with parasites because it was a way to cure his allergies and asthma. He goes to Africa and gets himself infected with hookworms! It was so crazy! It actually works too! I guess it is all based off of the idea that nowadays we are too hygenic and antibaterial crazy. Back in the day people didn't have problem like we do with allergies, because they were all wormy and stuff. It was a pretty neat story.

You know what else is pretty neat? That I just wrote an entire blog about parasites. Woo!!

It's Electric!

So, I have been very productive over the last two days. I've done a ridiculous amount of homework and I've set a lot of things up for my new apartment. Today I was on the phone forever talking to the electric company, gas company, and cable companies. It is very easy to get your electricity turned off and your cable turned off. It was not so easy to get them turned on in Virginia. Compared to Pittsburgh, it is like jumping through hoops trying to get all of this stuff taken care of. There are way more deposits and fees that I have to deal with this time around. I guess maybe it is because Norfolk is kind of a transient area, so the companies have to do more to insure they get paid. What is the most ridiculous thing, however, is that the gas company makes you provide them with a copy of your lease. So silly! I have to fax over my lease to them and a copy of my ID, otherwise they can't turn on our gas. Luckily, it isn't essentiall to have gas right as we move in to the apartment, so we can go a few days without it if we have to.

I also have finished up a lot of homework in the last couple days. I have pretty much everything done for two of my courses, which is really helpful. I think I am going to do my last assignment for 2005 right now as well, which is good because then I really only have to worry about the website project for this class and a couple little things in other classes. I'm so ready to be done with school! I do kinda need to find a job though.....

One thing down, a couple more to go...

Tonight is my last night at Doc's, thank goodness. I really need to get going on packing up my apartment, finishing up all my schoolwork, and so on and so on. The last three days have been ridiculous, because my management comapany keeps bringing in people to look at my apartment. At least twice a day people have been tramping through my apartment and looking around at my stuff. I just wish somebody would rent it already, so I wouldn't have this issue. They seem to always come when either Brian or I are sleeping, or when I'm in the shower, or so on.

I think I'm going to take the 2600 quiz tomorrow, because I want to be done with work first. Hopefully I'll have an easy night tonight, maybe I'll even get out early! That would be nice so that way I could just not have to stay up until 3.

Oh I still have so much to do...when am I going to do laundry? Oh jeez, going to tackle a few things now before I have to leave...

SO EXCITED

I AM SO EXCITED THAT I FIGURED OUT HOW TO DO THE HOMEWORK ASSIGNMENT FOR THIS WEEK THAT I DECIDED IT WARRENTED AT LEAST ONE SENTENCE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS!!!

Ok, Kompozer was taking me FOREVER to figure out, I just couldn't figure out how to work things. Then, all of the sudden something clicked and I was there. I had no problem with the whole FileZilla part, I had taken good notes on that part in class last tuesday, but the actual making of the page was was more difficult. Once I figured out what was going on in Kompozer it just came down to searching for what type of font to use and such. I'm still trying to decide if I should take out the spacing that Kompozer automatically puts in between paragraphs. Most of the Dickens books I looked up didn't have such spacing, but I don't know. I'm just so relieved to have this done.

This is a short blog post, because now I am sleepy. Night Night and once again, YAY!

Sea Animal Safari

Got out of work early, thank goodness. We weren't busy at all, probably because even when the sun went down it didn't get any cooler. It is weeks like this that I'm very happy about my career choice- libraries tend to be well air conditioned places.

Today was no exception- story time was very fun and not over heated! We had an underwater sea safari. First we made magic sea telescopes out of paper towel rolls and blue saran warp. The we went swimming around the room and discovered various sea animals. We learned some fun facts about the animals- like dolphins can live for 37 years and some sea horse can change colors. Then I quizzed some of the kids on the facts later. I was so glad that some of them remember the facts. I also made octopus cupcakes for the kids. Basically just cupcakes with greenish blue frosting and gummy worms for tentacles. The kids pretty much died for them though.

I have such a big day plan for tomorrow. I really need to get a lot of stuff done. Brian and I are going to do all of the laundry, clean the apartment, and get our cars fixed. I also am going to make a mexican feast tomorrow! I am going to make tacos, black beans, and maybe something else yummy, I haven't decided what yet. Jello would be good for this hot weather, some sort of Jello salad or soemthing. Either way, I'm pretty excited for tomorrow so now I'm going to go to bed!

In between classes

I have a few minutes between LIS 2600 and Lis 2005, so I guess it is a good time to blog a little something. We talke about LCSH today in 2005, which was kind of interesting and is good to know I guess. It all seems pretty self explanatory to me, after it was explained. It makes a lot of sense. After 2600 I have to go home and finish my Authority Control assignment for 2005, but it is pretty easy so I'm not worried....

OK couldn't finish that post in between classes, got distracted talking about Virginia. Feeling pretty ok about the whole website and HTML assignments after today's class, I was worried for a while about it. I can't believe we only have like 3 weeks of classes left, I still have soooo much to do!! I just need some time to try and organize everything, it's really hard. Ok, time to go to sleep now, work tomorrow.

Happy Birthday America

Happy 4th of July all! I'm spending my day by cleaning my apartment, going for Indian food, and then working most of the night at Doc's- but it'll probably not be very busy. I'm so glad this weekend is over, I'm totally ready to get this week going. I have a lot of things to do this month, including looking for a job, cleaning and packing up my apartment, and working and such.

I only have 2 more weeks at the bar, and 4 more weeks at my internship. My internship is going well, but now I have programs both days that I'm there- which is fun, but doesn't give me a lot of planning time. All of my storytimes this summer are sea animal themed- to go along with the summer reading theme. Last week we did seahorses, which was really fun. We made decopage seahorses on popsicle sticks. We also read some stories about seahorses and went through a non-fiction book about theme too.

I got a lot of work to do this week- alot of things to catch up on and work on. Also, it's fasttrack next weekend, so that is going to eat up a lot of my time that i usually use for work. I'll have to try and get ahead on some things I guess.

Well time for Indian food, very American eh? Way yummier than burgers and hot dogs any day.

Chaos Reigns

Current update: My life is nearing the disastor zone of disorganization. After the wedding I was involved with last week and then looking for an apartment in Virginia during the last few days, I am absolutely spent. However, I have to work every night this weekend, to make back the money I spent in the last two weeks. Oh, and I have still have class right? Hrm...

So the Virginia trip was great, because we had fun in Norfolk and found a great place to live. However, the trip there and back was really terrible. On the way there my car broke down, but luckily was an easy fix. However, we did get delayed about 3 hours because of it. Then when crossing the hampton bridge/tunnel we were stuck in traffic for 2.5 hours, just to travel 3 miles. On the way home we got a flat tire at about midnight in the middle of nowhere Maryland. Generally, my car really didn't want to go to Viriginia.

My plan right now is to just make it through until Monday. If I can make it to Monday then I can get back to reality. At least I get to put my two weeks notice into work tonight, that is a pleasant thought.

To the Trees! To the Skies!

So I'm taking a break from laundry and cleaning to write this, and I moved into the bedroom, which is (thankfully) air conditioned. I'm not really a fan of the muggy heat we have, I'm more of a dry heat kind of girl. Actually I don't think I'm an any kind of heat type of girl. Unfortunatley the fates don't seem to know that, because I keep ending up in places that have weather like this. Every time I want to cry about how hot it is though, I check the temperature in Norfolk, VA, where I'm moving to in August. Then I cry about that instead.

So today was the first day of prize collection for the Summer Reading Club at my library. It was fun, the kids get so excited, it is really kind of adorable. I spend most of the day manning the desk and taping together clusters of tissue paper to build our "fish pond." It's pretty neat looking and if kids enter a fish into it, they can possibly win an additional prize. They have to write on the fish their favorite book and why they like it. I also spent a large amount of time organizing the weekly raffle prizes. So, it really was a pretty low-key day.

I'm leaving for Maine tomorrow, because I have to go to another wedding. This particularly wedding I am actually in (as Bridesmaid numero uno). So tomorrow night there is the bachelorette party, Wednesday is the rehearsal, and Thursday is the big Shebang. Then I'm driving back here on Friday, working like crazy on Saturday during the Shadyside Jam. On Sunday, I'm going to VA to find an apartment. It is going to be crazy weekend.... But I am glad that I'm going to back to Maine, I do miss is occasionally. Fill our steins to dear old Maine...

Dig, Dig, Dig a Hole

So I just finished putting the final touches on the five minute speech I have to give tomorrow in my LIS 2850 class. We get to give the speech on a topic we want, as long as it is instructional in nature. Which means we get to teach something we love. What I love is stories, songs, and rhymes, so I've decided that tomorrow I am going to teach everyone how to sing "Dig a Hole." It is a children's song that goes along with the One Book, Every Young Child Selection of What a Treasure by Jane and Will Hillenbrand. I going to teach the class the song, as well as demonstrate the way I teach songs to young children. I think it will be really fun, especially if I can get everyone into it.

So right now (and earlier today) there are some crazy thunderstorms traveling through the midwest (my homeland) and I'm super jealous that I'm not there. I love that kind of weather. My dad and I used to watch the sky on our back porch when I was little. The sky turns all sorts of great colors and the air just smells so amazing. I like that Pittsburgh gets good storms too, but nothing beats a midwest storm. I'm moving to Virginia in August, so I guess it is going to a whole new kind of weather for me soon- Hurricanes! They still don't seem as exciting to me, though...

Well that's all for tonight!

Long Day!

Today felt like a really long day, even though I didn't do much. I keep trying to get up early (well early for me which is like 10:00) but it doesn't work and I end up falling asleep again around 1 or 2. Isn't that crazy!? I mean I keep sleeping for about 9 hour a night, but my body seems to think that isn't enough.

Anyway, the Summer Reading Program started this week at the library where I work, and I must say it is super exciting! On Monday we probably signed up about 30 kids while I was there, and I was only there for about and hour and a half. I also got to feed the frogs, which is pretty damn cool. The frogs that we have are actually Fire-Belly toads. They are brownish greenish with black spots and bright red bellys. We bought them to go along with the theme of "Make a Splash!" which is this summer's SRC theme. The kids seem to really like them, and we are having a vote of what their names should be. The kids get to pick from "Max and Ruby," "Tom and Huck," and "Bella and Edward." I think Max and Ruby is going to win, because lots of younger kids are voting.

Tomorrow I have my first Summer preschool story time! The theme is starfish. We are going to learn all about star fish and make star fish pendants from paper, glitter, and sand. I love story time, it is my favorite program. I'm lucky my boss prefers to work with the older kids, because that means I get to be in charge of story time all summer, just like in the spring!

Ok, time to go to bed. I have to work both at the library tomorrow and at the bar. Ugh. Oh well, so it goes...

Zotero Assignment!

Here is my Zotero assignment! Only took me about 4 times to get it right!

Zotero Assignment

I trip over my words only a little bit! Enjoy my Zotero video!

http://www.screencast.com/users/ajlauer26/folders/Jing/media/78981b54-3830-49f3-81cb-275d5f1841aa

My first, and very late, post

So when I was finishing the refworks citation assignment today, I realized that I had not yet posted to this blog. AHHH! I can't believe I let it slip my mind so badly- well actually, I can since I feel like I've been a scatterbrain the past few weeks.

I never have taken a summer class before and I didn't realize that it would be this different from normal semesters. Although the workload isn't overwhelming, it's hard to keep track of things when my entire body just wants to go outside! This is, of course, no good excuse but I've made some goals now to get back on track with everything. I also have some strategically placed posted notes around my apartment that say things like "Post to your blog!" to help me remember.

Anyways, on to some course stuff. I like the first assignment with refworks and importing citations because I used to use RefWorks all the time in undergrad. I was a history major, but no one told me about RefWorks until my junior year, at which point it became my best friend for helping me out with all of my research papers. I had never searched Google Scholar before, in fact I was only slightly aware of its existence. I use Google all the time though, so I guess it wasn't that alien of an experience.

The next assignment looks pretty interesting too. It's funny, I had never heard of Jing until this class's first session, but since that time professors in two of my other classes have mentioned it! I feel like that has happened every semester here in library school. It's like my semesters have had themes or something.

Well anyways, it is off to bed now with the hope of being a better poster for now on.

Ally