Disorienting Part 1.

I’m not someone who usually has issues with talking to other people. If you see me out somewhere I’m always usually smiling to talk to you, happy to engage in conversation, and will likely have a story to share that’s relevant. I try to be one of those people who have the right amount of eye contact without it being, you know, weird between us, while at the same time making the speaker feel important and like I’m totally engaged in what they’re saying, even if I have absolutely no clue.  I grew up in a family that does ‘socializing and schmoozing’ really well, and that’s a learned skill by the time you’re 10, so it comes really naturally to me.

You would never guess that I’m screaming “LET ME LEAVE PLEASE OH GOD, that sounded SO WRONG TAKE IT BACK, did he just say CHEESE or CHOOSE now I want cheese oh crap what did he just say was his name? NOW I DONT KNOW HIS NAME AND HE’S GOING TO BE “HEY YOU” FOR THE REST OF THE NIGHT AAANNNDDD NOW HE’S GONE AND WHO IS THIS oh GOD can I please just LEAVE NOW I have a HEADACHE and my whole CHEST IS TIGHT WHAT DID I JUST AGREE TO AAAAHHHHHHHHH” in my head the whole time.  It’s not personal. It’s the anxiety I’ve talked about a few times before on here.  Once I get comfortable in a place or with people that gets dimmed down quite a bit, but the first time I’m in a situation there’s a lot going on.

So please picture that I’m driving to an unknown place for the first time, to meet with people who are all  Dr. Something about my academic and professional future, and who will be teaching me things for the next few years and giving me evaluations on what I have learned.  Oh, this is to a campus within one of the boroughs in New York City, by the way, and I live outside of the city in the suburbs and never commute down that way.

I was once fortunate enough to have a chance to vent about my irrational concerns for the future by saying, “I can’t sleep, the future will eat me” and someone who I was friends with told me that there was nothing to be worried about.  Which was probably true, and maybe it was about 10 years ago at this point so they were correct, but at the time and according to the anxiety I now know I have to enjoy (MINE, ALL MINE), I can say that there was absolutely no certainty involved in that and the future could have been out to eat me that very evening and no one would have been able to stop it.

At this point, I don’t even remember what that one was about, but I think it was about a new job, or a new phase in life or something else equally big and scary.  Well, guess what! Grad school is a new phase!  So who has two thumbs and can’t sleep now because the future will eat her?

That’s right, I have thumbs.

It’s been a time.

So now that holidays are over and we’ve had the requisite sickness in my house, let me catch you up on what all has been going on here for those who are playing along at home.

Colloquia class is almost done. It was essentially just a ‘This is how Blackboard works, this is how it pertains to the library curriculum in particular’ sort of thing.  Which is great because for people like me who graduated high school last century this whole new-fangled technology thing can be disorienting sometimes. I mean, I keep my hand in to keep young but how do you feed the hamster who powers the glowy box again? Someone remind me. Then get off my lawn.

The Books are Not A Lie

Maybe it’s time to talk about what this here blog is and isn’t? I think if by now you’re following me and reading this you should get a cookie or some cake or pie, or a gold star since I didn’t expect to have one follower let alone however many there are of you out there. More than one. All these places that talk about ‘how to make a successful blog in 35865 easy steps!’ seem to indicate that I’m doing things entirely wrong anyway, so who knows.

This blog is about a page long.

No.  It’s about books and the process of getting my Masters of Science in Library and Information Science.  But what the hell is that even? And will there be reviews? And I believe some of you were now promised pie? The truth is… I have no idea.  I’m sorry but the pie was just a myth. The cake is a lie too.

But the cookies are real. (That’s a lie)

YAY! Now PANIC!

Today was kind of awesome for me, and this is going to be a shorter one.  I joined the ALA today.  It’s just me paying the fees and getting the ‘so you’re in now, yay’ email in return, but this is huge for me.  It’s the first organization that I’ve joined that makes me feel like I’m really part of something professional.  I mean, I’m still technically a Girl Scout, and probably a few other things, but this one is an adulting thing! It’s a big kid group! This is what grown-ups do and I must be one of them!

Naturally, I immediately started feeling myself get a migraine as soon as I started going through the process of doing this because my body hates me.

…and now my arm hurts.

I forgot how much paperwork there is involved in applying for things like school.

Aside from even the fact that it’s grad school, there’s the admissions paperwork, admissions essay, getting your transcript, writing out your transcript information like years you attended and where and for what reason, plus getting all the biographical information together and compiled. Then there’s the resume I was asked to polish up and get to them, as well as the letters of recommendation, the cover letter, filling out the ‘yes, female, yes human, no not Hispanic, no not amphibian, yes right-handed, yes I have ears, married/single/pirate/ninja, vanilla or chocolate, sunrise or sunset, yes I think Tyrion will survive until the end’ questionnaire that always comes with these things.

He’s the only one smart enough. Don’t @ me.

Why my husband is wrong today.

This could be a LONG post, but I’ll keep it specific to books.

We have this great relationship where I suggest to him books and he reads them because I just get him and his style, and I don’t recommend him things that he won’t enjoy.  Except for the part where he reads them.  Since he doesn’t tend to read them unless I’m throwing them in his face and waving my arms and saying, “No, but seriously, this book is a billion percent you and you’re going to die if you don’t read it and also so will I and then everyone will say ‘oh if only he read that one book that everyone knew he would like and his wife said would be perfect for him’ and ‘yeah it’s a total shame’ and then they’ll raid our bookshelves for the best stuff.”

That’s how I got him to read Harry Potter, I think.

Library Science means MOAR BOOKS!

But ALSO LESS TIME TO READ THEM.

Crap.

So I just finished my Goodreads challenge for the year and that’s probably a good thing since I don’t know how much more time I’m going to have for reading for pleasure anym- PFFFTTT HAHAHA oh man, I almost got through it without laughing. Of course I’m going to read for fun, I mean, just who am I?

I just won’t sleep anymore.

The Time Lord Can.

So I had posted on twitter a little while ago to lament the fact that I’m going to be a broke student again, as a joke, and it got me thinking about the fact that… yeah, I’m going to be a lame, broke student again and how shitty that is. Like, it was a funny one-liner but now it’s sinking in a bit and wow. I might have dicked myself over for a while (a little bit).

Books, Books, Books

So like the super-anxious person I can be I not only spoke with my advisor, registered, got all my email junk and my school ID things set up and all that, but I also ordered the books that were listed for my first class for the spring already through the bookstore.  I needed to get a jump on them since this is my first class in mumblemumble years and there’s this feeling of needing to make sure that I can actually hack it in the Grad school setting, you know?  Well.