Yay! Last one!

So, this is officially my final post for the blogging assignment provided I don't have another technical mishap with Google when I hit publish.

Although it's a trifle scary only having one semester left in the program, I can honestly say that this was possibly one of the worst and most stressful semesters I have had in all my years of schooling. Although it's a bit sad that summer is more than half over and that much closer to cold weather again, I just am so glad to be done with this semester's courses. Never fear about my tech skills-I am signed up to take Dr. Koshman's course Information Architecture in the fall so I am sure that I will still be dabbling away in HTML, XML soon enough!

I am beyond excited over the idea of having a whole month break before next semester. As I mentioned before I will be traveling to Ireland and cannot wait for that! My boyfriend is a bit miffed that he won't be having any beach vacation this year, but I think one will def. be in the works for next year. I haven't been back to Europe since I studied in Spain which is now already three years ago so I am glad that I get to cross the pond once again.

I can't say it's been all fun and laughs, more just cries and stressful times, but I made it nonetheless. Hope everyone has a happy and relaxing break.

Adios!

I GIVE UP WITH TECHNOLOGY

OMG- I so cannot stand technology!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The post I just spent the last five minutes writing is completely lost as Google blog spots encountered an error and tells me someone else was editing my post at the same time as I!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course, the title of the entry saved.

Really trying not to lose it here, but can I ever be cut a break???? I try to get stuff down and am given crap and difficulties at every corner :(

Maybe I'll try this again manana.

Yes, adios to blogging

Highly stressed :( and bummed

I could not be more stressed. I discovered today that a children librarian position I had applied for last month has been filled. It was a major crushing blow considering this time I had been extremely pro-active, shown a lot of interest, and even had my boss at the community college library where I work write a glowing letter of recommendation. To not even be called in for an interview was beyond disheartening. They had said they wanted someone with an MLS degree but I thought being 2/3 of the way done in the program, I could at least qualify. This was for an extremely small-town library and I know of libraries in much more urban areas that hire someone who is working towards their degree. When it comes to me and jobs, Pittsburgh is not my friend and not someone I really care for at all. I feel that it's treated me extremely crappily this year and all of last year. I'm not going to limit myself though. I am going to school, getting into deep debt for a reason and want a job that is worthy of me and my academic background. I've started to apply to jobs way outside of the Pittsburgh metropolitan area so please keep your fingers crossed. I want to know that out of the dozens of people that apply for one single job, just once I am good enough to be considered to make the cut.

BTW-I did finish the final assignment for this class last night. I hope it's okay. I guess maybe I'll try to blog a bit more on HTML in my next post. Really just disheartened right now.

4 1/4 days and counting

I am giddy with glee over the semester almost being over but I am seriously going to such lengths for a group project that needs to finish up pronto and is being presented this Thursday in class. Today I actually used Jing! to create a video capture for my presentation. Although I had no intention on taking on this extra role (with the semester so near at hand), some wayward girl in my group had an excuse about not being able to do it, so being nice, I volunteered and took on the work. Being a quasi perfectionist, I must have taken about a dozen times if not more on making the presentation. I didn't plan on it, but I felt the actions on the computer didn't always match up with what I was actually saying. Jing overall is a nice program and it's cool that I know it's a good resource to use in the future.

So I know I have been saying this for like the last two or three blog entries but I do plan on completing the final assignment for this class tonight (especially since it seems everyone else has already done it). I don't think I am going to be able to attend the Dim dim meeting tonight as I have way too many other things to do but hopefully I'll figure out where the transcripts for it are this time.

Later gente.

So so behind!

As the title denotes, I am so so behind with this week's blog entries. Although the semester is over in a less than a week, I could not be any more swamped and it all is stemming from my one class, LIS 2002 (the last day of the semester on which I am having to do a major presentation). And to make matters more difficult and all around crappy, I am going to be doing a Jing presentation on some index I have still not wrapped my head around. Woe is me for sure.

I just got back from an all day adventure at Kennywood. It's fun enough but spending all day there in lines, in the sun just takes it right out of me. I am so tired right now and it feels like my eyes got some major sunburn as I am doing a ton of squinting. Thank goodness I am only "required" to go once a year.

I have so much to do tomorrow which is sad since it should be my nice relaxing day. I am very bummed about that. I guess the two biggest things are the last assignment in this class and then the Jing thing. Need to have a mini refresher on how that works again :(

All for now, time for bed :(

Almost finis

I am happy to say that I finally feel that the end is in fact in sight. Although it's still not officially until next week due to having a class on Thursday evening :( it is indeed coming. Although if I may vent for a second, in one of my classes, the professor literally changed the final assignment/added extra work (completely ignored what he had originally stipulated in the syllabus) after I had already submitted it! I was furious and to make matters worse and more irksome, I have still never received an email back from him for clarification on it! I finished it, but I feel at the graduate level, this is not at all professional behavior :(

So, I haven't started on the last assignment for LIS 2600 but I plan on doing it this weekend sometime although the consolation is that it is not due until the 31st so I have a little bit of time still. I always am so glad when people post the exact questions I am having or thought about for the assignments, makes me not approach doing them with as many feelings of trepidation from the get-go. It should be okay enough, but I'm having a difficult time remembering all of the assignments from the very beginning. Anything pre-Memorial Day seems so long ago (although it barely was). I am really glad for this semester to be over because I have never felt more drained or devoid of thought lol. Not to mention that next month I am going home to Philly for a visit and then off to Ireland for the week! I have never been so I am looking immensely forward to that. I'll def. talk more about Ireland in the remaining blog entries. Can't wait for Guiness and scones, yay!

I really abhor Fast Track Weekend. It's such a physical and mental drain. It really didn't help matters this time that it was so near to the end of the semester, when I'm just about sure that everyone was basically down for the count.

My day really sucked :( Was up at 6 AM in order to be downtown at the county building by 7:45 AM. This is where class #1 out of four met for the day (in the Allegheny County Law Library building) for my law resources and services course. After about 90 minutes into that, hightailed it back to Oakland to attend class #2, Museum Archives which was in the Cathedral of Learning. Then I had a bit of a break and went to Panera for some nourishment so to speak. After that, it was class #3, this one-LIS 2600 in Crawford. I have to admit by that point I was a bit exhausted, tired, hungry and cranky and not really up for anything. Then last but not least came class meeting #4 of the day, Retrieving Information. The first 75 minutes was nothing but talk and blather, not really worth my time. I think the thing I dislike most about fast-track is people seeing it as an opportunity to just talk ad naseum about "my library where we do this, well at my library we do that." I think that the thing that upsets me the most is discovering how many people are not only considered librarians by the libraries they work at, a lot are actual directors. At times it seems so difficult to get into this field because it seems like they're are such a lack of jobs, but no wonder, they're all being given to people who don't have the academic background we're working so hard for :(

Well, after somewhat of a better night's sleep than the one before, I finally submitted my literature review for my archives course. I am so glad to be done with it, I just hope that I get a good grade as I truly worked very hard on it. I have a couple of more things to tie up, but the semester is basically over. I am so glad. It has been beyond horrible, stressful, time consuming, and just blah and yuck.

Two more weeks of blogging though, can't wait for that to be over too :)

End of semester-ugggggh

I could not be feeling any more stressed. I know I have said this multiple times, but my goodness!! I think if I can make it through this Saturday (5:30 PM is my salvation) I think I'll be okay. However, the amount of work I still have to do tomorrow and then the ugliness and painful event otherwise known as fast track weekend all have to come first.

I got really freaked out tonight, because someone was blogging about the last assignment for LIS 2600. Jeez, I still need to go assignment 8. The last assignment sounds incredibly scary and totally beyond my initial learning comprehension but by the time I need to do it, I will have my literature review done and submitted not to mention, I'll be all rid of my law services and resources class (possibly the best part).

I think the part I like most about the end of the semester is being able to purge all the papers and other messy clutter. It sounds incredibly odd but nothing gives me greater pleasure than throwing paper after paper away. When you look back on a semester's work, I feel bad about all the trees that were killed just to let me read articles and print out my papers. I plan on selling a lot of my required texts as most of them I have no interest in keeping for my personal collection, yet I don't think I'll get much for my museum archive ones. Sometimes you have to spend more time and money sending the book off than is worth the effort on what you receive compensation for.

I'm anxious for next semester's classes but not for them to start anytime soon!!! I guess I'm more anxious if there lies in store for me any actual job prospects in my immediate future. That would be the best, although I need to be patient although patience has never been a virtue for me. I dream of the day to come that I'll actually receive a call or email for setting up an interview. We'll just have to see. I'll write again after horrible horrible Saturday is finally over.

See alll you gente then.

Fast-track weekend=:(

Coming so near to the end of the semester, I am doing an absolutely horrible job of keeping up with my blog. By the time I think I should be writing in my blog, it's already the middle of the week and then it makes my blog entries for the rest of the week that much more boring and trite.

I just read someone's blog who I guess had started the program this semester, and I felt so bad and could relate to her and her problems and feelings of overwhelmness so much. I guess that is the reason why there was fast-track talk last weekend-it was for the new cohort. Although I had begun the program in the spring (early January lol), it really was not until this semester that I really felt overwhelmed and wanting to cry at every corner. I really couldn't imagine starting in a semester that is just about a month shorter than the other two (and for that reason I am glad I didn't). I felt bad reading that the person wasn't able to see any of Pittsburgh-only just learning and more learning. That really is a crappy thing. Although learning is obviously important to the weekend, it should also be a chance for people to get to know each other and hang outside of an academic context. Personally speaking, I am dreading this Saturday. My biggest negative is that it is stupid to make the on-campus student section have to attend a class meeting for fast-track. We sit in class each week, have interacted with the professor, we should be cut a break. I have no idea if I have already complained about this in my last blog post, but I'll end here just in case I had.

I am planning on doing assignment 8 tonight. I understand the assignment pretty well, although I had to post a question on courseweb regarding the annotations as I needed some clarification. Hopefully someone has responded to me.

I am beyond stressed with job searches and whatnot, especially in the Pittsburgh market. Darn apartment leases that you have to sign so far in advance and that really don't mesh well with personal schedules :(

Since I am so behind with my blogging, I'll continue my lamenting over jobs and whatnot tomorrow most likely.
Later.

Que?

We are down to the final wire in the semester and I could not be feeling more frazzled. I just saw on someone's blog that he or she would be traveling to Pittsburgh this weekend for fast-track, what???? I know it's next week as it had been moved from this weekend to next weekend, but why on earth would someone write that? No mention was ever made of a meeting time for this class, am I not aware of something?? I can't take lack of organization and clarity and just basic information as to what is going on.

I am beyond sick of the search and seize assignments for LIS 2002. The latest one is geography themed and it is making me furious because the questions don't make the most sense and are next to impossible. You can spend all day working on it and only arrive at one or two answers. I realize that in the field of librarianship, you are going to be asked some hard questions, but for the many we have been asked to find answers for, I don't think anyone in a million years would ask some of them. I love geography and was all excited about doing this one, but it could not be any worse. I don't care anymore if I sound like a horrible complaining person. I am so sick of this semester and just want it to be over with. I want to go back to having some personal time again, actually cleaning and organizing my apartment, it looks horrible!! I can't stand mess and clutter but that is the only way to describe it now.

I don't even want to think about the assignment for LIS 2600 which is due next week. I guess I'll plan on doing it sometime this week. I am also completely disheartened over not hearing back from any of the jobs I had applied for in the last couple of weeks. I could not have been born/graduated at a worse time in regards to finding a job. I sent a follow up email to the one place I had applied for and keep getting a response of "we're currently reviewing resumes." It's not that big of a library to begin with and somehow I don't think a ton of people would have applied anyway due to its location.

End semester, now! :(

Thoreau

So, I am not embellishing when I say that I spent all evening working on assignment number 7, otherwise known as the Thoreau fragmenting assignment. I think this is the only assignment I felt before starting that it was not going to be a quick easy thing (unlike so many of the other assignments where I thought, "hey peace of cake").

Seeing as how I have a million of other things on my plate currently, academically speaking that is, I basically relied on the textbook and a website my boyfriend said would be helpful to do the formatting. I had somewhat of a difficult time getting going because the assignment said to format it like it would have looked like in an early published edition. I chose the font I thought looked the closest to appearing "historic" although when using Google Books, the oldest scanned copy I could find was only from the 1920s. I hope what I did is going to be okay although the directions never gave any specifics so I'm thinking it should be.

Sometimes it pays to wait on doing the assignment, as I heavily relied on people's questions that had already been asked to complete the end part of the assignment. It's neat to see everything when all done, but what a lot of work. I'm a little bit nervous about the last two assignments, everything obviously is being built on our knowledge of HTML skills. It's a really neat markup language to know, it's just difficult to try to fully learn and process when having three other classes and loads of work to contend with. I do plan, once this horrible semester is over, to really try to get the hang of HTML so it's a skill I can honestly put on my resume to offer.

On a much happier note, I have a rough draft of my literature review completed. Yay! I need to review and edit it now, but at least it's there. I feel like a small weight off my chest has been lifted.

Little bit behind with my blog posts, so I'll be writing again really soon.

Is it the end yet?

So I need to get started on the Thoreau assignment. Someone posted a question in courseweb about it, and now naturally I'm a little bit nervous and apprehensive if people are having difficulties with getting started. Like everything with me, once I know what I'm doing and fully understand it, I'm good as gold. Hoping that someone will post a response so maybe I can get started on it tomorrow. I honestly just want to be finished with this assignment so bad. In someone else's blog, he or she wrote that they would be taking LIS 2700 in the fall and were concerned about the ton of group work that is required for the course (after the first couple of weeks it seems like nothing but group work). I was really lucky because all three of my groups had awesome people in it, and everyone pulled their own weight. It certainly can be tough, but you need to go in hoping for the best.

I'm a trifle annoyed because no one seems to know if LIS 2600 is meeting for fast track weekend. I surely hope that we are NOT. Fast-track weekend is a fine enough idea for the fast-track people, but when you are a full-time student and are already attending your three other classes on campus, it's a bit much not to mention that the Saturday of FT weekend sucks beyond comprenhension. In the spring I was basically in classes for more than nine hours. If you're a fast track student it's not as bad because you know that you will only be meeting for two classes (somewhat manageable). But meeting for three or even four?? In a schedule sent out by Sue Alman, there was no time listed for LIS 2600 so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

I applied for a job last week and am still anxiously waiting to hear something. By the time this semester ends I will be 2/3 done with the program so I figured if a good enough position opened up, I should take the opportunity and then just downgrade to p/t for my remaining four courses needed for the degree. Nothing has transpired so I'm most bummed and disheartened about that though.

Happy birthday dad, #61-tu eres viejo :)

Happy Fourth of July

I must be the only American to not get a big buzz out of the Fourth of July (which is totally strange since I grew up in Philly, birthplace of America). I have never been one for fireworks-I have a big aversion to crowds and whatnot. So it's currently 8 PM on Fourth of July night and I am sitting out on my balcony typing away in my awesome blog and listening to the fireworks somewhere off in the distance. I guess it's kinda nice since my apartment complex is completely dead and I even sent the bf to do grocery shopping (his first time ever doing it alone, he's only called me two times since he has been gone with questions).

Onto the tech world. I still haven't received any final words regarding the problem I'm having with some of my Koha records. I emailed Tim the TA tonight about it since I thought he might be checking his email more often than he does the question portion of courseweb. I hope that I either get an answer soon (since the assignment is due tomorrow) or my entries are fine as is (I'm hoping for the latter since 17 out of the 25 are "working" fine).

I am truly scared about creating my own website. Clear cut directions weren't provided in the syllabus about it, so I'm hoping that if I do some sleuthing, I'll come across something on the LIS 2600 portion of the website. I have never formatted stuff before so that should be interesting. I'm almost in shock in how little time is left in the semester even though I still have a million assignments, major assignments, to do. I would love if I could just have a day to knock out all of the remaining LIS 2600 assignments. That would put my mind at ease a bit I think. More than anything else, I'm just really scared about the Literature review I have to do for one of my classes. I've made some progress in the last couple of days but I've barely done any writing (for the 15 pages needed, yikes).

I guess that's all for now. Hope that everyone has and is having a good holiday, celebrating with family and friends.

Never-ending Koha :(

So here I thought I was done with the Koha assignment and it looks like I may not be. For about maybe a half of dozen of my records, the authors names were not appearing in my virtual shelf. Someone posted a question about this on course web as they were experiencing the same thing as myself. She asked if it was okay to leave it as is and of course a fix was told so I was like, okay need to do that then too. Well I sat down this morning to do that and am more confused than ever. When I went to edit the records and clicked on the 700 fields, the authors names were already there and listed. I posted a question about it on course web so I am hoping that someone really gets back to me. As it goes all the time-nothing is ever easy!

I am a bit worried about the next assignment. I don't think it should be too terrible yet I don't remember hearing mention of how/where we are supposed to go to set up our personal web sites. I also have never used inline styling techniques so that should be fun and another never ending challenge I'm sure.

I really need to play catch-up with the readings for this week. I feel bad but after my fun playing around with hands-on HTML exercises last week, I have not had any time to work at it this week. The end is nearing for the semester and the work is only being piled on more. Slowly approaching the freak out mode, especially for the 20 page literature review I have to do in another course. I am absoltuely petrified about that.

All for a bummy Thursday.