You don’t look like a librarian

Well, I’m not one yet, so that label doesn’t quite apply… however, I know that in a few years when I actually am a librarian, I’ll probably look quite similar to how I look right this minute. (Always excepting my hair color and style, for they are perpetually changing).

The other day, I was having a “conversation” with a classmate about all sorts of stuff. The conversation turned, as it naturally does at the end of the semester, to future educational/professional pursuits. I explained that I would be pursuing my MLIS at Simmons in January. After explaining the acronym (Master of Library and Information Science) he said, “Librarians have to have a masters degree?” After assuring him that to be called a librarian one must have a degree in Library Science [at least that’s my understanding of it, technically speaking], he then went on to comment, “You don’t look like a librarian.”

First of all, what exactly does that mean? How should a librarian look, anyway? I mean, I know the stereotype, but really, how many librarians actually look like that. I’ve met maybe one or two my entire life, and I’ve spent a great many hours in libraries. A year or so ago I mentioned to a friend of mine that I was thinking about a career as a librarian… his comment? “You’re too loud to be a librarian. Don’t you think you’ll go crazy having to be so quiet eight hours each day?” Now in a small library, like the one at my high school, sure you had to be quiet… it was one big room, and the sound travelled so well that if you didn’t want to disturb the kid doing his science research on the other side of the room, you couldn’t even cough. At my uni library, the folks at the Circ desk are fun and jovial and, yes, even loud at times. The first floor is for students doing group projects, so there’s more of a classroom atmosphere. Now, on the fourth and fifth floors, I have been known (while I was studying for my own courses) to walk over to a table of loud college men (yes, most often I’ve had to do this with the men), take down the “quiet study area” signs and place them on their work desks… directly in front of them. And let me tell you, I’ve gotten some interesting remarks and threats from these men.

So that’s really the only time I’ve ever found myself fulfilling even one part of the stereotypical librarian image (“shhhh! This is a library!”)

Apparantly, goofy, twenty-five year olds, with pink and brown hair can’t be librarians.

At least I’ve got the glasses.

[while looking for scrapbooking stuff on the internet, I came across this paper]

Posted by Babs @ 05/22/2003 07:32 AM EST

why does it feel like Monday?

I got almost 12 hours of sleep last night. aaaaaahhhhhhh… sigh of relief. I needed it, although I could have spent the time writing that darned last paper. Sleep was more important at the time. Now, though, I’m really sleepy at work and am having a difficult time concentrating.

I’ve only got one month left in this archives job, and then I’ll be unemployed for a few months. I was thinking of selling Creative Memories products to pass the time until I start school again in January. We’ll see. I’d kinda feel bad for taking Natalie’s south shore business, though.

I’d love to not have a job for a little while… just so my brain recovers from school. But I don’t know if it’s fair to make Jesse do all the out-of-the-house work. We both love being home and doing stuff around the house and we’ll actually have a yard and a garden for the first time in our life-away-from-our-parents that I think I’d feel guilty staying home. I know that when he goes to grad school (when I’m done) I’ll be working to support the both of us, so guilt really shouldn’t enter into the picture at all. I tell you, my brain is completely fried after this semester. That’s why the creative memories job would be ideal… I’d get to do home shows and sell stuff, but they’d be on my time. I think I have to do a certain amount of money per month (or a certain number of parties/shows) to keep the job, but I think I could manage that no problem without feeling too stressed. Natalie does this as her source of income (her husband has a 9-5 job) while she’s at home taking care of her baby daughter. She’d like to keep doing it so she can stay home permenantly with Emily. If they can do it with a baby, then I think we can manage it with only a ferret to take care of. Hee hee.

Once my brain has recovered, I’m going to feel like I want a job (just not a nine to five job yet)… and I can’t rationalize spending my money on creative memories supplies (I do scrapbooks on my own) or jewlery (from my friends’ business) But check out the belt buckle in the custom gallery! I need one! And besides to decorate the house the way I want to (even if it’s just changing colors, etc) we’ll need extra monies.

A whole weekend without email

Our phone line was mysteriously out of service Thursday afternoon/evening. We called the phone company Friday morning, and they confirmed that our service was still active, in theory, and that they’d send someone over to check it out Monday morning. That would have normally been only a slight inconvenience, but considering this weekend was moving time, it practically incapacitated us.

We bought a cell phone.

Since we aren’t really technologically à la page and don’t have DSL or anything like that, we figured we might as well get on board with the whole cell phone craze. It was quite helpful, really. I just wish we hadn’t been forced into the situation. However, we’ve been sitting on our butts waiting to get one. The time had to come, I suppose.

Moving was fun… If by fun I mean locking myself in a room with a cat who’s just come out of the bath.

It would have been awful if it weren’t for the most wonderful assitance of our dear friends. They rule! It seems that everyone and their Grampa Joe are moving during the next couple of weeks, so we were lucky that so many people were available to us. THANK YOU!!!

Three of my classes are completely over… HOORAY! Tonight will be spent finishing that Dennett paper, and tomorrow morning will be devoted to writing those theatre reviews (briefly begun here) and studying for my theatre exam. Tomorrow evening will enjoy the company of two large pots of coffee, since I have to finish those make up papers for that awful online course: Bio Ethics and the Law. I’ve discovered that I hate ethics, which is strange since I consider myself to be a fairly ethically minded individual. I just don’t like having courses on the subject, I suppose. Honestly, I don’t really care what this particular batch of classmates has to say. I love my Anglo/American course, but despise the ethics. Argh. Most people are the other way around. I’m just an odd one… even for the Philosophy Department. (Speaking of the department, I got my certificate the other day! I’ll have to get a frame so I can put it on the wall with my SUMMA CUM LAUDE diploma. Ah, geekiness! At least I’m pretty sure I’m getting highest honors for my cumulative… hmmm. Perhaps I should check into that before I celebrate.)

I’ve actually been getting five or so hours of sleep at night these past couple of days, and yesterday I managed a two hour nap! whee! I see a nap in my near future as well. My eyes were getting all blurry at work today. And I wasn’t even at the computer. I think I zoned out for a while… but then I found this nasty squashed spider in some weird pod in some file I was looking through today. It’s part of the collection of that art school whose files I’m processing. It had been in storage for so long, so I’m not surprised that it was there… but ew!

And on that note, I’ll end for the day.

Posted by Babs @ 05/20/2003 06:59 AM EST

*sings* A three hour chat

I talked on the phone with Christy for almost three hours the other day…. uh, that would be Tuesday night. It was so awesome to talk with her. We caught up on each other’s lives, but mostly we bitched and moaned about how awful high school was for us. Man, those kids were mean to us. We traded horror stories, and basked in how wonderful our lives are now. Unlike Christy, I’m actually curious about what happened to some of those people. The horrible ones can go to hell, but there were several, actually, that I really wonder about. We were friendly, but not really really close. I hope those people are doing well. In classic Joelle/Christy fashion, we babbled on and on and interrupted eachother, meandering down each tangent… ah, memories. It was so great! And of course, it wouldn’t have been a classic gab-fest if I wasn’t procrastinating studying for my French exams (I did just fine, don’t worry).

I’m so glad I finally found her. Apparently, she’d been looking for me ever since she moved away, but since I moved away at about the same time, we both lost touch with one another. If anyone asks me where she is, though, she doesn’t exist. No one from high school has tried to contact me yet, though… thank goodness for that. I think I could handle talking to them, maybe, at a reunion, because it is a controlled situation, and for a limited time only. If they were to contact me out of the blue by email or something, that would be too invasive, I think.

Posted by Babs @ 05/16/2003 08:08 AM EST

One down… Five to go

I’m completely done with my French grammar class, thank goodness. But I have all of my other classes to go still. I will be done with my French culture class tomorrow, and the rest by Thursday of next week. We’re leaving for Maryland on Friday. ACK! There’s so much to be done before then.

I have to pack the rest of my clothes and bedroom stuff before I head off to work.

Jesus shoots… Jesus scores!

Give your sports loving kids a reason to rejoice! Jesus sports statuettes… Soccer was never so sacred!

Posted by rob @ 05/13/2003 05:41 PM EST

plod, plod, plod

This is going to be a very tough week. Coffee is my friend.

Yesterday, we (Mikey, Jesse and myself) went to Bev’s for brunch. We made pizza. It was good. Bev was tired. We left.

Came home. Packed boxes… passed out around 1? 2? 2:30? Probably around 2 am… yeah. Woke up at 6? 7? somewhere in there.

Vocabulary is small today.

grunt… ugh… food… eat…

Called Mom yesterday… busy. Called again… busy. Called again… no answer… left message.

Going to do homework now.

I Palindrome I

Geektastically, we came up with a name for the accordion:

Welcome to the world, Dr. Emo Plain!

We made an anagram out of the word palindrome. “Palindrome” because of that TMBG song, and anagram, because I didn’t want the reference to be too obvious, and “Dr.” just sounds good (in addition to being a reference to another TMBG song.

It’s not a real doctor, but it is a real accordion.

Now I need a band. How about “Dr. Emo Plain and the Jumping Beans?”

Sounds good to me. Now I just need to learn how to play. Hey, it worked for Bill and Ted.

a good walk and a letter

Well, the walk wasn’t so bad… in fact it was rather enjoyable. I didn’t make it all the way home, though. Jesse picked me up along the route. I had walked an hour and fifteen minutes… not too bad, actually. I got all the way to Cinema 140 (well, where it used to be, anyway).

I got a letter from Christy today! I had written her a few weeks ago, after having contacted her sister online (I found her sister on some high school reunion type website). She’s doing quite well; I’m so glad she wrote back. Of all the people from high school/early college, she’s one I miss so much.

Thank goodness for comfy shoes

I did something really, really dumb. Ok, so it’s not the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, but it’s really inconvenient.

I’ve got a million and a half things to do in the next week or so. I did only a tiny fraction of that stuff this past week, although it seems like I’ve been working non-stop. I’ve consistently had two or three freak-outs per day for the last week or so. I’m fine right now, though. Because of the freak-outs and all the stuff on my “to do” list, I absentmindedly promised Missy that I’d take her and Rachel to the PPAC to see JCSuperstar. Well, I didn’t remember that I was scheduled to work during the hours they needed me to cart them to Providence. Argh.

Enter Jesse to bail me out once again.

So, he’s in Providence somewhere right now waiting to pick up M and R when the show’s over. Then they’re going out to dinner (M is treating J in exchange for the lift).

But as a result of my promising M that she’d be carted to Providence in my car… I have to walk home today. I’m so dumb. But at least I’m wearing comfy shoes.