|
[01 Jan 2010|10:41am] |
|
|
| Random Question... |
[01 Jan 2010|02:06am] |
|
I am going through a really really hard time right now in my personal home life. I'm extremely stressed for numerous reasons, and those reasons, I'm sure, don't matter to management. I really broke down last night and I feel like I am really close to breaking again. Is it bad to call in first thing in the morning tomorrow and ask if there is anyone that would be able to pick up my shift tomorrow night because I can't mentally handle it? I'm afraid of being short with the customers. I was forgetful during today's shift because my head is somewhere else. I'm pretty much freaking out right now and I'm really afraid that if I go in tomorrow and don't confront some of these things going on in my life and try to straighten my head out, I feel like I'm going to break down tomorrow. If any of you are managers, would you understand this? I also don't want them to think I was partying all night and am calling out because of a hang over. I don't drink at all. I actually had a fairly quiet night, until shit exploded again about two hours ago. Now it's 2:00am. Yay for the new year... Also, my last day off was Monday and my next day off is Tuesday, so it's not like I have sat, sun or even monday off to take care of my personal issues right now. Please reply soon. I'm really freaking out.
|
|
|
[31 Dec 2009|02:35am] |
I have a couple of quick questions for all of you lovely ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) libraryschool users.
How important is the ranking of your undergrad university to getting into library school? I currently go to a tier 1 school, but I was thinking about transferring to either a tier 3 or 4 school. Would this be a bad decision, as far as getting into a library school? I'm just not sure if graduate schools care much about your undergrad institution. If it matters, my top two choices for my MLIS would be UT and UNT.
Also, a question that is more general. If this isn't allowed, please let me know and I'll edit it out, but I've always heard such sound advice here. I don't feel quite happy at my current school; would it be worth it to try to transfer to another school? I'm hesitant because my current school (UT) is well-regarded, but I just feel like I'm in over my head. UT is HUGE, and I just don't feel like I belong here. I hear about people being very happy at their undergrad schools, but it doesn't seem like that could be me while I'm here. Is this normal? I only just got through my first semester, but I don't want to go back. I feel really lost and unsure.
Again, I'm sorry if the last question isn't allowed, but it gives some context to my first question. Please let me know if it's frowned upon, and I'll edit it out.
Thank you so much in advance.
|
|
|
[31 Dec 2009|09:35am] |
|
|
| Library student blogs? |
[30 Dec 2009|04:49pm] |
I'm applying for grad schools to get my MIS or MLIS and was wondering if anyone knew of any good blogs written by current library school students.
I've found a couple of lists online, but most are completely outdated (understandably, as people tend only to fit in this category for a couple of years).
I'm specifically interested in the University of Michigan, but any other school would also be interesting. I'm just looking to get an idea of what life is like for students. And also looking to kill time instead of finishing my application essays :)
|
|
|
[30 Dec 2009|10:07am] |
|
|
|
[29 Dec 2009|10:20am] |
|
|
| Seeking advice on online programs, especially UWM |
[28 Dec 2009|10:18pm] |
Greetings all!
I am planning to start library school next fall and am trying to narrow down which online program I want to apply to. I would prefer to attend physical classes, but I work full time in downtown Chicago and don't have the time or transportation options that would make it feasible to attend classes at Dominican University in the western suburbs. And I doubt that all of the classes I'd need to take for the degree would be offered at downtown locations in the evening?
So I've been researching online programs as something that will fit in with my work schedule. I have a co-worker who is finishing up her degree at Drexel and has had a generally positive experience. Does anyone have experience with UW Milwaukee's SOIS program? As far as I can tell, the program is entirely online, but campus is close enough that I could travel there relatively easily should I need to for some reason. I've waded through a year's worth of entries here, but I didn't really see much said about UWM.
Are there any other online programs that people strongly recommend? And I know this has been asked and answered a million times, but do people ever find discrimination in the professional world for having an online degree? I went to a small yet prestigious liberal arts college for undergrad and have always been pretty obsessive about academics, so it feels strange that I won't have the academic atmosphere of a physical campus. The community aspect is one the things I most enjoyed about college.
Thank you in advance for any advice you all can offer!
|
|
|
[28 Dec 2009|09:38am] |
|
|
| lurker |
[27 Dec 2009|04:03pm] |
Hey! I've been a member for a while, but I think, aside from an intro post a long time ago, I've never been posted! But with 2009 coming to a close, I thought I'd post some photos from my September 20th DIY wedding. All photos are copyright Michael J. Wise Photography.
( here you go! )
crossposted to lowbudgetbride
|
|
| Post holiday wonderings... |
[27 Dec 2009|03:52pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 pessimistic |
] |
So...the season is over, 'cept for returns.....w/o specifics, of course, how did you do? How is management responding? What abt. hours? Worry abt. bonuses? What could have helped? To make sales, booksellers are needed! Between Nook requirements and short staff on floor...what could be expected???
|
|
| Application time! |
[27 Dec 2009|11:56am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 stressed |
] |
Everyone has been so incredibly helpful - thank-you!
I'm at this moment working on my applications (essays, CVs, etc.) and I'm stressed out! Did you kill yourself making the wording of your application absolutely perfect? Or did you have try your best and cross your fingers? My grades aren't super strong, so I feel a lot of pressure to make my essay perfection.
Advice? Words that could calm me down?
These are some point-form ideas I have so far of why I want to do this (I want to be an academic librarian):
-help people find stuff, write their papers, etc. make their lives easier
-love information
-really old profession – that’s cool
-get people to use libraries more
-ex. Ubc’s self-checkout =win an ipod
-workshops for how to use libraries and build websites etc.
- online help like UBC's Askaway
- (if relevent) the co-op program
-transfereble skills
-I already work in a library and love my job
|
|
| 16DEC09 |
[26 Dec 2009|02:48am] |
| [ |
music |
| |
the klaxons - gravity's rainbow |
] |
|
|
|
[27 Dec 2009|09:02am] |
|
|
| last chance to finish something in 2009... |
[27 Dec 2009|12:16am] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
 curious |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
'Kathy's Song' - Apoptygma Berzerk |
] |
So what is everybody reading? Now that all the annoying relatives are going home & all the dishes have been (better you than me) washed . . .
I'm reading:
Hallowed Circle - Linda Robertson (paranormal)
Odd & the Frost Giants - Neil Gaiman
The Best American Medical Writing - ed. Pauline Chen
and (MUAHAHAHAHAHA!) an advance reading copy of A Wizard of Mars by Diane Duane.
(housework is evil. it must be stopped.)
|
|
| Another Round of Applause for Corporate |
[26 Dec 2009|05:33pm] |
|
So did anyone elses receiving department get screwed over by the "we're not getting a shipment: oops, scratch that. We ARE getting a shipment" extravaganza on Thursday? All of our receivers were told they had the day off and scattered to the four corners for the Holidays. Then of course, just to show that they can, corporate decided that we WOULD get a shipment. So we had to pull valuable booksellers off the floor to bring in te truck, causing mayhem everywhere. So a big Thanks to corporate for showing badly things can be run. Im sure it wouldnt have helped to complain to the home office as Im sure they had gone on Vacacatin Tuesday. Poor babies work so hard dont ya know.
|
|
| Beautiful Creatures |
[26 Dec 2009|03:29pm] |
| [ |
mood |
| |
appreciative |
] |
| [ |
music |
| |
'The Murmur of the Stars' - Patrick Bernhardt |
] |
Beautiful Creatures - Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
I was alerted to this excellent YA fantasy by a little flyer that came in some mailing the bookstore received. I'm extremely happy I took the time to look the books up on amazon, as this is one of the best books I've read recently. 600+ pages of magic.
Plot:
Ethan Wake lives in the small Southern town of Gatlin and wants out. He keeps dreaming of a girl who smells like lemon and rosemary, whom in the dream he loves. Then he meets Lena Duchannes, the niece of the town shut-in (who has a dog named Boo Radley), a strange gothlike sort of girl who just wants to be normal, because she is a [spell]Caster, just developing her powers. Ethan and Lena of course fall in love, and then get caught up in complicated family relations and a curse going back to the Civil War involving their ancestors. Ethan is dealing with the recent loss of his mother, and his father is extremely depressed. Their cook, Amma, seems to know voudou-like magic and to have some kind of past with Lena's family. Ethan's best friend Link wants to promote his rock band. The fashionable clique at Jackson High turns the whole school against Lena. Link's mother tries to have her expelled. Lena's cousin, a Dark Caster, shows up to mess with people. Everybody consults libraries. Ghosts appear to the couple. They have visions of Lena's ancestor during Sherman's march to the sea. Questions are raised about Lena's dead parents. Is Macon Ravenwood, Lena's uncle, on Lena's side or is he hiding things from her? Everything ends on Lena's 16th birthday, when the family curse is supposed to take effect and she will be forced to turn good or evil - but she doesn't know which.
I was just caught up in this world for 626 pages. The incredible number of plot threads do basically come together and get resolved, albeit in a slightly ambiguous way. I wasn't quite sure whether there was going to be a sequel, but according to the author interview on amazon, there is, and that's probably why it's a little ambiguous (including mysterious songs on ipods). This is an incredibly good book, with lots of imagination, and I recommend it highly.
Race in the South in the book (a major digression):
Ethan's family is positioned right away as the Yankee sympathizer family, who won't fly the Confederate flag and fight against the banning of books. The town's obsession with the Southern cause as a positive thing is portrayed as part of what is keeping the town in the past, and narrow-minded. The Wate family cook, Amma, is a Seer, and practices positively-portrayed voudou-type magic. It's a little scary, but it's been used to protect Ethan for years. Ethan originally looks down at her a little for being superstitious, but that is before he is thrown into the midst of an entire secret culture of magic-users. Amma is basically Ethan's nanny, I'm avoiding the word mammy, since his mom is dead and his father incommunicado in his study due to grief, and she protects his family with magic out of love - but she has a strong personality, and spends a lot of the book being one of the opposing forces to Lena & Ethan's love, because of Lena's family, before she is finally convinced to help at the end (where she does not take part in the magical battle but provides psychological support for Lena at a crucial point, and casts a spell with her).
Amma is one of the two black characters in the book (three if you count Ivy in flashbacks), which I ascertained through careful study, as Garcia and Stohl have decided to go the route of not naming anybody's race, and sticking short physical descriptions in odd places a while after the characters are introduced. This has been criticized as leading to the assumption that everybody in the book is white when people miss the short physical descriptions. In this case it caused me to spend a lot of the book trying to figure out if Amma was black, since she has a heavy accent and is associated with voudou, but I'm used to having more physical description.
The other black character is Marian the librarian, a professor who was Ethan's mother's co-author. She has no accent, has a more prominent physical description (as opposed to Amma, who really doesn't have any physical description) and isn't quite a main character; she comes into the plot late, and is prohibited by certain magic rules from officially helping or hindering anybody, although she helps Ethan and Lena as much as she can.
It's weird for me to throw around accusations of being a Magical Negro. Would the character be mad? Would the authors be mad? If a minor supporting character is black, are they automatically a Magical Negro, since they don't do much but support? Are you supposed to assume black characters are Magical Negros and prove they're not? In other words, assume blacks have a lower place in books. Or are you supposed to assume black characters are not Magical Negros and prove that they are? In other words, give the burden of proof to the people who are possibly sinned against, the presumably black people who complain. Some kind of assumption can be shown either way. I think the best solution to this is to be aware of your assumptions (which is what everybody says anyway), and to judge each work on an individual basis. Which very much begs the question, how?
I'm going to say writing quality and characterization help the work. If you're not that great at writing, it's easier to fall into writing stereotypes. I'm going to say cynicism hinders judgment of the work, just as it hinders any judgment. It's too easy to get cynical, no matter where your biases are. It's better to stay open-minded, which is what a lot of YA literature is about anyway. Outsiders and acceptance.
I'm going to say this book is well-written, and is trying to mess around with assumptions and stereotypes. That's why the book doesn't name anybody's race and why the authors mess around with the mammy archetype/stereotype, which Amma isn't, although she could have been. The messing around works at least somewhat, since it got me thinking about race in the book and in literature. I certainly *hope* it's not going to make younger black readers think their people aren't in the book.
Why examine? Well, in the light of recent controversy it's probably good to check one's assumptions, which includes analyzing things one likes. Secondly, on a purely realpolitik level, it's good to analyze something before you go out and say it's wonderful and everyone should read it. Otherwise you can end up embarrassed. Thirdly, some people are going to analyze anyway, whether it's their nature (like mine) or because the subject of race comes up too often for them to find peace of mind.
These are the best thoughts I can come up with the moment. As always, discussion is welcome. Hey, this is a reading discussion community.
|
|
| navigation |
| [ |
viewing |
| |
most recent entries |
] |
| [ |
go |
| |
earlier |
] |
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
medeaspride's Friends Page