Potential long-lost relatives and other stories
I need to see if I can find a picture of him online, but my humanities reference instructor appears to me to be M. Manette in 25 years or so. It's uncanny. The more I obsess about it in lieu of paying attention in class (which thus far hasn't been overly excting), the greater the resemblance. Was M. Manette adopted from these parts? My prof has this sort of Madonna-fake British accent thing going on, but he did his undergrad at Bradley U and his library degree at Indiana, so I think he's from this country. Because, honestly, who comes to the U.S. to go to school in Peoria?
Besides starting my FINAL library school class, I've also completed my first week of internship in academic library-land. I don't want to rush to judgment, since my first official day yesterday was spent decorating for and attending a wedding shower for one of the librarians, but so far all of the "reference" questions I've been present for have involved loading paper in the printer or reviving frozen computers. Crap. I'm beginning to think I could have saved myself 20 grand and taken one of those Microsoft certification courses.
That's overstating it a bit, of course. Today I spent part of the morning hanging out with one of the librarians while she prepped for an information literacy session. This place is all about the teaching, which is one of the reasons I chose them. Information literacy = showing people how to do things for themselves, and I am a huge proponent of that. I even tried to put Dead Celebrity Guy on a computer and show him how to look stuff up on IMDB a while back, although that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped (he left very quickly, but he came back shortly thereafter and asked about more possibly dead people -- so much for self-sufficiency).
Because of the wonderful Labor Day holiday I haven't been at that job in almost a week, so I've had a nice, long respite from the world of 1960s sitcoms. I can't overstate how welcome that was. In fact, because of the holiday, I had two consecutive days off in a row (both libraries were closed Sunday AND Monday). And this weekend is my weekend off for September. I don't know if I will be able to handle all the free time -- I'm on my way to being spoiled!
Besides starting my FINAL library school class, I've also completed my first week of internship in academic library-land. I don't want to rush to judgment, since my first official day yesterday was spent decorating for and attending a wedding shower for one of the librarians, but so far all of the "reference" questions I've been present for have involved loading paper in the printer or reviving frozen computers. Crap. I'm beginning to think I could have saved myself 20 grand and taken one of those Microsoft certification courses.
That's overstating it a bit, of course. Today I spent part of the morning hanging out with one of the librarians while she prepped for an information literacy session. This place is all about the teaching, which is one of the reasons I chose them. Information literacy = showing people how to do things for themselves, and I am a huge proponent of that. I even tried to put Dead Celebrity Guy on a computer and show him how to look stuff up on IMDB a while back, although that didn't work out as well as I'd hoped (he left very quickly, but he came back shortly thereafter and asked about more possibly dead people -- so much for self-sufficiency).
Because of the wonderful Labor Day holiday I haven't been at that job in almost a week, so I've had a nice, long respite from the world of 1960s sitcoms. I can't overstate how welcome that was. In fact, because of the holiday, I had two consecutive days off in a row (both libraries were closed Sunday AND Monday). And this weekend is my weekend off for September. I don't know if I will be able to handle all the free time -- I'm on my way to being spoiled!
posted by Madame Defarge at 2:08 PM
2 Comments:
There's a lot to be said for Microsoft Certification. I saw a commercial for degrees from home that you can do. All you have to do is fix the appropriate stamp on the return postcard and they can enroll you in the profession of your choice: dental hygenist, real estate agent, cable repair. If this doesn't pan out, perhaps you could look into one of those. =) I think it'll be a good fit once the freshman learn how to print materials on their own though. Have you had any snooty professors come in? I think that would be hilarious.
Actually, I was thinking of a new profession for you the other day. What about creating a new English text book? Not just editing, but actually taking part in deciding what material should be covered. I seriously don't know what people were thinking when they designed these things. And we're really being pushed by these bullying textbook companies now to abandon novels completely. It's just too sad.
I'm dying to see a picture of your humanities prof. As far as I know, the biological in-laws came from Rockford, where he was born, but you never know...
Today we had four fire drills. Well, the first one was a drill, the next three were false alarms. Of course, for each one we had to completely evacuate the buildings. During the second one, I was so pissed off about the wasted time, so I decided to improvise. I took my 38 juniors out to the baseball field, found a place to spread out, and I taught them grammar. It actually turned out to be a pretty fun lesson. We went back inside after everyone else, then got into our next part of the lesson: historical persuasive speeches. Then right when I was in my grove, halfway through the Speech to the Virginia Convention, the fucking fire-alarm went off AGAIN. The students now believe that Henry's original words were, "Give me liberty, or give me....son of a bitch." =)
Who has time to read novels these days? Better to have them pre-digested and compiled! (Actually, isn't that kind of like Catholicism?). :)
I think I'd need a more advanced degree to write a textbook. I expect that to happen, but what kind of degree I get depends on who wants to hire me and pay for it!
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