New hat

Like anyone who works for a small institution, I wear a lot of hats--librarian, tech support, copier repair, department secretary, guidance counselor... Yesterday I found out that, starting next week, another hat is going to be added to my wardrobe: instructor.

A year after I helped put together the freshman seminar curriculum (and a week before classes officially begin), my boss called me in and told me I've been assigned to teach two sections of the course. My first class is next Thursday morning.

Luckily this is a pretty structured course; all four of us who are teaching it have a common syllabus and course outline, although there's some room for modification. Two of the four instructors also have taught it several times, so they have plenty of activities and suggestions to share.

Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised by my ability to handle a classroom full of new freshmen and facilitate class discussions and activities, since I have zero experience doing either of these things on my own.

I'm excited and terrified at the same time. Luckily all of the students will be in the same boat. It'll definitely be an interesting 16 weeks.

Another reason why I'm not a published author

Because I never think of cool stuff like this. I could totally have written this book! I was obsessed with Laura Ingalls Wilder throughout my childhood, to the point that I used to tell people I wanted to be poor when I grew up--I somehow pictured it involving a lot of gingham and covered wagons.

I also wanted to be Nancy Drew, but a former college prof of mine already covered that ground ... L. M. Montgomery, maybe? There's got to be some way I can jump on this bandwagon!

Miscellany

The meta-memo was apparently more persuasive than I'd anticipated--all of my requests were approved. I honestly didn't see that coming. It will be some trick trying to get everything ordered and implemented in the midst of accreditation and new-student orientation, but at the very least it should improve my enthusiasm level.

***

I had my final meeting with the class that put together the new library promotional campaign. On the whole, I was pleased with the results, although the number of typos made me want to cry--including my name misspelled on one otherwise very cool brochure. They had some great ideas for promoting library resources to our reading-averse students, including some really nice posters where they created artwork using images, textures, etc. from resources they found in the library. They also recommended that I use Facebook to communicate with students about new resources, events, etc. I wasn't sure they'd want me in that sphere, but they're apparently all for it. The good news is that I can create a page for the library rather than doing this with my personal Facebook account, so at least the status updates will come from "the library" rather than me.

Not that it matters too much at this point, I guess. First I broke my rule of not accepting friend requests from students by saying OK to some recent grads. Then I broke my amended rule of no current students by accepting a request from one of the students working on this project. I'm sure it's all downhill from here. Right now there's nothing on my page I wouldn't want them to see. I put them all in a separate list that I can in theory apply tougher privacy standards to, such as not being able to view my status updates, but until I actually post some, I guess I won't lose too much sleep over it.

***

M. Defarge officially started the bathroom remodel last night by taking down the cabinets and mirror and ripping down the crown molding. The room is supposed to be gutted by Friday morning (when the inspector comes). The in-laws arrive Friday night, and the drywalling begins Saturday. Defarge's mom will leave Sunday (not sure how I'm going to entertain her for the weekend), but his dad will be spending the week. Things could get ugly.

Ever since we moved in I've been saying that the giant mirror in our bathroom just had to cover a similarly giant hole or something even scarier. Last night my prediction was confirmed--there's about a 1 X 2 foot hole above our sink. We think it may be the remnant of a built-in medicine cabinet. In any case, it was full of scary gray dust bunnies and probably asbestos, but at least no mice ran out when the mirror came down. We also discovered that not only was the crown molding nailed flat to the wall, but it was glued to the wall as well, apparently to ensure the longevity of the crappy workmanship. M. Defarge made a video of our findings thus far--it's like This Old House from hell. We can't wait to see what he'll uncover next!

Meta

At some point in high school (possibly freshman English) a teacher emphasized the meaning of the word "metacognition." Maybe it was supposed to be on a test later, but I wrote it on my notebook and committed it to memory. So much so that 15 years later, I can tell you her definition: "thinking about thinking."

I remembered it again last week when my boss asked me to write a memo summarizing the memos I've written for him this summer requesting funding for various projects, equipment, and collections. I'm calling it the meta memo.

As if that wasn't bad enough, he came in this morning and asked for a verbal summary of the important points of one item. Still worse, this means that, with 4 weeks left before the start of fall classes, all of the major projects I hoped to accomplish this summer haven't even been considered, let alone approved.

And yet, when the latest group accreditors come next week, I'm told it's a great time to show my enthusiasm for the library and the work I'm doing.

It could be a long August.