Ahhh retrospection....

I have to say it's an interesting thing to spend some time at an oncologist's office. It is a serious battleground between living in the moment and pondering over one's life. I sit here chilling, and while I have plenty of work to do, I can't help but listen to the woman sitting next to me talk to the nurse. The conversation vacillates between wanting to eat a piece of pizza for lunch and discussing how this is the time in life that it's beneficial to have a husband or someone to be with you. She discusses how she was completely awful to her ex-husband and especially his new wife. I can't help but wonder how life will be for me should I ever have to go through any of these things. There is so much uncertainty in life.

What I am certain about, and for sure the only thing I am certain about, is my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I am certain of His constancy and continued presence in my life until I am with Him in eternity. I am certain of His great love for me even though I will never deserve it. I am certain that He alone is the keeper of justice and that my imperfect idea of what is just will probably never match His wisdom. I am certain that should I ever have to go through something so serious that I would not be alone for God himself has promised to never leave us. I cling to this truth as the only thing necessary for my joy. It is all I have sometimes, and that's ok.

So I've been thinking....

If I just got off the grid and pitched a tent somewhere, the following things would be possible:

1. I could forget this school business. I mean who really needs librarians ;)
2. I wouldn't have to go to work anymore.
3. I could stop brushing my hair entirely.
4. I wouldn't have to do laundry quite so much.
5. I could have some chickens, maybe a goat, and put in a garden!

Yea, I'm seeing this as a very real possibility. I just need to get over my Starbucks addiction, and I'll be good to go ;)

A Comparison

Getting upset over it being Valentine's Day and not being in a romantic relationship is similar to it being Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and being upset because you're not African-American.

Did he just wave at me?

So I pull myself off the couch and put on some shoes in order to make it to the CVS.

Description of appearance: fugly, as in the bangs were sort of smooshed to one side, the clothes were wrinkled and not matching. I had weird walmart cheap flip flops on and hadn't showered. I'm not being dramatic when I say fugly.

I took a sick day today, and am unfortunately actually sick. I needed to get to CVS in order to purchase my weight in over the counter drugs. I set my filled basket down at the register and the fella proceeds to ring up my goods. He says, "Wow, that's a lot of items to fight a cold." My response is, "Yes, well I was planning on taking them all at the same time. Do you think that will work? Cause I'm wondering if the Dayquil and the Nyquil will actually counteract each other if taken together".

I drag myself to my car, tissues and medicine in hand as I hear someone honking at me. I look up with a disgusted look on my face. He waves. Some random Joe in a scary white van waves at me. no no..HONKS and waves! This is not your ordinary "mom and three kids" kind of van, but a scary, commercial-size, no windows, straight out of a Lifetime movie type white van. He then pulls into the gas station next to the CVS. I get in my car and pull out towards the gas station. We make eye contact again. And would you believe it, AGAIN he waves! He's a little more hesitant this time like "hhhmm is that really the neighbor lady who sits on the back pew at church??" kind of wave. I sort of shrug my shoulders and mouth, "I don't know you dude".

Don't worry, I faked right and took the other exit, and then made sure no one was following me home. I know how those Lifetime movies end. Let's just say it ain't always feel good television.

Could you repeat the question?

The following are sentences from my textbook. I have no idea what they mean, which I think might be a bad sign for academic success.

"A frame is a receptacle for information about an entity or event. It contains slots to hold the attributes of the entity. As the text is parsed or the cues read, the slots are gradually filled in."

"This chapter looks at document and information resource representations and surrogates; that is a metadata that identifies and characterizes, and often serves as a key for retrieving the actual documents."

"The proliferation of metadata standards developed by different but often overlapping communities of interest is undermining the opportunities for exchange of metadata."

"Parity checking is based on the possibility that one of the bits in a character may get transformed, but it is unlikely that two bits in the same character will get changed."

Good to know.
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Resources:
Picture taken from Dr. Randy Ralph's tutorial on Boolean Logic
Organizing Knowledge by Jennifer Rowley and Richard Hartley
Online Retrieval: A Dialogue of Theory and Practice by Geraldene Walker and Joseph Janes

Ordering Fun

Ok so I'm placing this order with SPI supplies right, and the girl sounded completely automated.

"Hello, and thank you for calling Structure Probe Incorporated. How may I help you today?"

I pause and start talking, but it's as if the computer program, "Allison" is filtering through all of her possible answers to see what to say next cause there are these crazy awkward pauses. Well I then actually laugh and say "you kinda threw me there in the beginning because it was sounding a little automated, but I wasn't entirely sure". She just kind of paused and then said "I can start with the part number, whenever you are ready". Oh um.....

So then she is telling me about the shipping charges and says "We charge a flat rate whether or not you are using UPS or Federal Express. We can ship faster, but I can not give you a flat rate price for that at this time". I laugh again and say, "Well I like the UPS guy more than the FedEx guy, so do you think that would work?".

"I will make a note of your preference on the order".

A joke for my readers.....

So a man goes to a preacher and asks for him to give the eulogy for his brother's funeral. The brother says, "You can say whatever you want but at some point I want you to mention that my brother is a saint. Remember, say whatever you will, but I want you to say he is a saint during the eulogy."

The preacher gets up and begins the eulogy. He says, "Before you lies the worst possible excuse of a human. He was gambler, a drunk, a thieving, disgusting beast who never had any ounce of character. Compared to his brother, however he was a saint."

Valedictions

My professor for Online Databases signed his class-wide announcement as follows:

Make it so,
The Boss


I have nothing to add to that.

Continuing Saga

Mystery man returned. This time he wanted the room number for a particular course. I did not have the answer, DRAT! I do, however, have connections. You need not fear; I will be getting his name in no time. Let's hope it's not something like Bartholomew. That would somehow be disappointing.

Justice

Disclaimer: Because I have been raised by the mom that I have been truly blessed with, she has instilled in me the fear of "big brother". As in, don't say that "they" might hear you, or don't do that "they" might see you. Before you know it, you'll be on a list, you know, the list "they" monitor!! And because of this, I will be writing a post that is tame compared to my true ideas. Just take this post and multiply it by 100 so you know my true feelings.

Note to "THEM": If you find my post a problem, please let me know.

So we were sitting around our family's (grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins) lunch table discussing some of the local talk on individuals awaiting trial and other criminals (yes yes, innocent before proven guilty, I know!) in the area who are filling up our jails. Did you know that our taxes pay to PROTECT these criminals in prison?? It's called protective custody, and it was the first time I had actually thought this through. The really awful prisoners get special protection in prison so the other inmates don't "do away with them". Let me just say this..I think there should be a separate justice system for those people who are upstanding citizens and a different system for inside prisons. Can't the guards just turn a blind eye and what happens happens? I mean, wouldn't that in a sense cut down on the costs of prisons and the amount of funding it takes to take care of all the prisoners?? Just let them do what they're good at.....you know....criminal activity! Let them use their "skills" in order to weed out the really dangerous ones from the rest of the group. I don't see the problem with this!

Let justice be served.

Completely Unnecessary....

This is merely a blog so I can show off my hair.....i thought it looked cute :)

Numbers....

700: The number of points my course was worth.
18: How many points I was away from an "A".
4.0: The number of academic perfection.
.09: How far away I will be from perfection if all other grades are "A".
562: Number of tears shed.

DMV

Appointment time: 8:15am
Time arrived: 8:05am
Time seen: 8:07am, Incredible!

Disclaimer: This DMV post does not discuss the time delay in being seen. If you ever go to the DMV, make an appointment. There were about 20 people standing in line when the DMV representative came out and said, "Does anyone here have an appointment?". I raise my hand. I'm the ONLY person who raises their hand. He then ushers me past all 20 people to walk into the office first. I resisted the urge to turn around and say, "suckers!".

Conversation with DMV person, Ralph.

R: That will be $20
Me: Here you go
R: We don't accept Visa
Me: Excuse me?
R: We don't accept Visa. We accept credit cards, just not that one.
Me:(Tapping to the card I was sent in the mail) You should put that on there, you know.
R: (silence)
Me: What if I didn't have any other form of payment. I'd have to come back. Oh my goodness, I would be so upset!
R: (silence)
Me: (handing over another card, kinda smiling) And I thought Visa was everywhere you wanted to be.
R: Not here
Me: Well then I guess this isn't where you want to be (I chuckle, I can't help it. I am alone in the chuckling)
R: Please sign here.
Me: Wait a minute, I thought you said it was $20.
R: There's a dollar charge for using your credit card.
Me: Are you serious? I think that's something else you should have said.
R: Go have a seat while I print your new license.

Front receptionist: Would you like to fill out a survey?
Me: Gladly.

Laugh, Cry.....Remember

I was driving home from work friday afternoon trying to simultaneously organize my final exam in my head. My thinking was stopped when I saw a bumper sticker on the back of a car. It said simply, "Laugh, Cry....Remember". It got me thinking about the things I remember and whether or not they make me laugh or cry. Here are a few I came up with.

I remember.....
1. How excited we use to get at the thought of going to secret lake park to play on the playground.
2. Sitting in the back of the station wagon while singing the donut song on the way to dunkin' donuts.
3. Racing to see who could crawl under all the pews the fastest.
4. Wanting so much to be thought of as cool in 5th grade. (Why didn't someone tell me that no one is cool in 5th grade?)
5. Mr. LeMaster using an overhead projector and transparencies to teach math. I thought he was so advanced.
6. Not wanting to go to the hospital to see my mom after she had surgery. (If only I had realized how much she didn't want to be there either!)
7. How good it felt to tell the little girls in my camp cabin about the love of Jesus.
8. The smell of Orlando Hall.
9. The first time I realized that I had legitimately been lied to at work. I just didn't understand how some people are simply ok with that.
10. How incredible it feels to be noticed.
11. Spending more time cutting out tombstones and decorating the office than actually working at the CPRD.
12. Being scared out of my mind that I had contracted some crazy disease in Mexico (sun poisoning can look life-threatening!)
13. The accomplished feeling of getting an acceptance letter in the mail.
14. Hearing mom's keys jingle down the hall as she rounded the corner to meet me for lunch.
15. How good it feels to submit finals and for the first time in months not have anything I should be doing.

Da Studies

Recently I was encouraged to write something interesting about my studies, and so I shall. I think it's quite possible that people do not fully understand what it means to study Library Science as how could it possibly take 2 years to learn how to check some books out and learn the Library of Congress classification system for re-shelving. Oh Contrar.
As a recap of this first semester of studies, I thought I would list (YES LIST!) out my favorite topics, issues, policies and so forth from the last semester.
1. ALA Code of Ethics. Who knew that there is a published code of ethics that librarians must follow. With questions posed to my fellow students and myself such as, "Would you give a 12 year old girl who has noticeably been crying a book on suicide?" or "Would you assist a man of Middle Eastern decent locate bomb making skills on the internet?" and so forth. The answer is yes.
2. The reference desk. Much upcoming discussion surrounds the purpose and necessity of the reference desk being actually a physical desk located somewhere throughout the public or academic library. With the addition of email, text, chatting, facebook, blogs and phones, is it really even necessary to go to the library? Nearly 1/3 of all library personnel are currently reference librarians. This removal of the reference desk would surely change the face of the library facility.
3. Cataloging. Ok, in truth, I still don't fully understand the science behind cataloging. It's more than just learning what everything means as it's all very cryptic, MARC records, AACR2 and IR Systems. It's a fascinatingly organized method in which all sources of information are documented with its own record and then assigned a classification number. Librarians all over the world are continually checking the catalog (this does not refer to your personal library's catalog, but more the universal catalog) for updates, typos and reclassifications that are necessary.
4. Favorite assignments: I had two assignments called Question Sets. The first was based specifically on print reference resources and the second on electronic. Ok, so for my beloved readers, I will give you one of the questions I was assigned. If you can post back the answer in the comment section using only a print resource (that means a book!) then the prize will be yours ;)

I’m an American Civil War aficionado! Can you please tell me how many soldiers Grant had at the FIRST Battle of Vicksburg? Actually, I could use a good map of that battle… do any maps have the battles and number of soldiers together?