Haha, it's fun to take a look at my last post and use it as a checkpoint.  Hard to believe that I never blogged about how the lesson went (tragically) or the Holiday Booty Buster Challenge (forgot all about it after that weekend).

I dragged out my practicum, both because once I had my required hours there were only a few days left in the semester and why quit? and because I liked spending time with my host librarian.  She let me do some cataloging and I tied up loose ends (although I'm going in tomorrow to help her with some computer stuff and to work out some bugs that have cropped up in the orientation).  So for me, "Christmas break" began on December 22.  I've essentially had three weeks off, but all in all it's felt like about two days.  There were the holidays, and a very busy week at work between Christmas and New Years.  Last Tuesday was the first day I truly relaxed.  I had hoped for the same today, but I'm caught in a weird space between trying to wind down from last semester and already winding up for the next.  Today I proofread a friend's essays, washed my kitchen floor and polished my kitchen chairs, and read John Green's new book.

I don't know what to make of last year.  I feel like as a whole it served as a good illustration of burnout, as I started the year bursting with motivation, then got sick.  I met Mike at the midpoint of being sick, so balancing my new life with him (ie any non-school life at all) became a new challenge, and unfortunately, stressor.  This past semester I did find some peace by accepting his boundaries - be up front about when I need to do homework instead of just working constantly while we're supposed to be hanging out together.  616 was easy enough that it was little more than a minor annoyance compared to the intensity of my practicum.  I expect this semester to require more focus.

I would like to make resolutions for this year, but I don't know what to expect.  I will graduate this year.  This will be the first time in four years that I haven't had a clear path carved out for me.  I've had to make some choices along the way, but I am finally at the end of the preparation phase and will be on to the business of living my life.  What I can reasonably ask of myself:

• Commit to taking what I can from my last semester in terms of career prep, networking, and teaching experience
• Explore options for improving the Bookstore
• Meet or exceed expectations for work at circulation and on teen space projects
• Maintain a fitness routine, improve Iron Girl time
• Keep my relationship with Mike in the foreground of my mind, keep working at it and not taking it for granted
• Make my job choice with integrity

Busy Girl!

What a crazy, crazy, crazy week!  I was back at practicum for one day this week.  I met with my collaborating teacher to plan out our lesson, which is pretty much settled and scheduled.  It's a fairly simple project, but it'll give me some face time with a class.

Thursday was work, and Thursday night I helped Mike prep his kitchen floor for laying linoleum.  Thursday we mainly just pulled up the old tiles and ripped out the moulding.

Friday I actually had a day off, but ended up being super busy.  Since I didn't know when or if I would have another non-holiday weekday off before Christmas, I focused on getting Mike's big present together.  While waiting for confirmation for one step of the process, I did work emails, paid bills and typed texts (in short I archive our important conversations and my phone doesn't export :p  I think it's part of being a librarian; I can't stand to lose those "writings").  I went to a lovely dinner party and saw one of my favorite librarians.

Saturday was the really intense day.  I got out to Auburn around 1 (after coffee with another of my favorite librarians).  We got right down to work on the floor.  We patched the holes in the subfloor, pulled out the washer and dryer (which involved cleaning and removing the tiles that had been underneath them, and moved the fridge and stove.  We went and got food while waiting for the subfloor compound to harden, then came home and sanded.  I swept and swept and swept, then went over the entire floor on my hands and knees feeling for any rough spots or bumps.

The next step was creating a template of the floor.  We cut craft paper and laid it out along the edges of the room.  Good thing, because it turned out that the room was slightly off square - basically parallelogram shaped.  We carted the linoleum into the kitchen, taped down the template at the edge of the roll, and started cutting.  With such a big roll, there was no place that we could lay out the whole thing, so we had to do a little, roll up the end we had just cut, then do some more.

Unrolling the cut linoleum over the entire floor was the most frustrating part of the process, because we had to work it around cabinets, and it did not want to go.  Amazingly though, once it was down, the fit was practically perfect.  We glued one side at a time (that was all Mike, as we only bought one trowel) then used a roller to smooth out air bubbles.

Sounds easy, right?  Did I mention that the whole process took about 14 hours of work time?  19 hours total (excluding time spent running out for food and supplies).  We went to bed at 7am.

On Sunday, we had a family party to go to, but afterward our goal was to put the appliances back in.  Mike has a newer washer that had been in the garage, so we brought that upstairs on a dolly.  Not as easy as it sounds.  We had to disassemble his banister to squeeze it around the top of the stairs.  Then we had to bring the old, heavy, gross one down.  Once that was done, it was homework time for me!

The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge started on Saturday (a holiday-themed fitness competition) and I was unable to do an actual "workout" due to all of this.  But I think I'm justified in my decision to track 4 hours worth of strength training - I spent at least an hour on the stairs supporting a washer over my head, to say nothing of several hours of rolling the floor or lugging the other appliances.

I had hoped to make it to yoga tonight, since I thought it would be nice to stretch out all my aches and pains, but I got home from work and slept for about 4 hours.  I can't complain too much though.  Mike has a pretty new floor, and I have major brownie points and a sparkly new bucket.  It's fun watching the apartment improving all the time, and it's nice to have a part in it.

Today I got to attend my very first conference, the Fall meeting of the OCM BOCES School Library System. It was a really great day, and gave my overall motivation a bit of a boost. It also gave me some perspective on where I stand in my education.

Going into the day, I wished that I had my e-portfolio prepared. If I had it ready, I would have felt more confident about networking. My goal for the day was to talk to librarians and to make contact with an elementary librarian who might take me on as an intern. To that end, I created a few business cards with my basic information, just to give people something to remember me by.

I attended four sessions: Doug Johnson's keynote, a presentation on creating an e-portfolio lead by the Syracuse City School District's Ed Tech team, Anthony Rotolo's social media session, and Project Enable.

I was excited to hear (and meet!) Doug Johnson, as I discovered his writing while doing my first rapid response for 511 last year, and have followed his blog ever since. He had a lot of great points, but here's what I took away:

• The speed of change is our real challenge

• We must distinguish the act of reading from the medium of books

• Technology is moving more and more to a single device that does everything; we have to be concerned about what this means for choice, competition and freedom of information

• Young people trust their peers more than packaged marketing materials; user reviews are a kind of peer review; applies to all sorts of information

• The political leanings of parents might affect how their kids approach information

• "Doomed libraries are all alike; every successful library is successful in its own way."

• Be visible outside of the library

• Advocate for users

• DIVERSIFY; make your physical space compelling enough to draw in users

• No whining!

His speech was Lankes-esque, if more low-key.  It was great to spend some time listening to a guy who clearly understands the challenge and opportunity of this time.  We could lose libraries if we stick to what we have known and refuse to change, but if we're brave and passionate and focus on the right things, we could instead reinvent how kids in schools are educated. 

The session on e-portfolios was not what I expected, but very helpful.  I was thinking it would be more nuts and bolts on how to actually put one together, but what we got was a list of essential components and tools for developing them.  I had vaguely thought that I should have a mission statement in my portfolio, but now I know that I need my professional philosophy in there, with measurable goals, evidence of learning, and reflection. 

This session made me think hard about this blog.  I've long felt that I do want a blog to be a part of my e-portfolio, but would not have given out this one because so many of the entries over the past year have been written to express frustration, disillusionment, and exhaustion.  I have far more success than this blog conveys.  However, having read Alyssa Vincent's honest account of burnout and having felt immensely comforted by it, I think I would like to maintain this blog, weaknesses and all.  I will just strive to make more of an effort to reflect when I'm feeling positive as well. 

I also realized, when we talked about goals, that the reason my personal frustrations have crept into my professional blog is that my personal and professional goals are deeply intertwined.  Being braver, working harder and being better informed all come into play personally and professionally, and all are affected by my overall energy level and attitude.  I think that having measurable professional goals will help me to keep career stresses from feeling like my whole life is struggling.

After this session, we had a break for lunch.  I had asked Blythe Bennett for suggestions of good elementary librarians to approach, and found myself sitting next to one of them.  When we had both finished eating, I steeled myself and struck up a conversation, which ended up lasting about 20 minutes.  She was extremely cool - forward thinking and passionate, and it sounds like she has a great program.  I am hopeful that I will be able to do my second practicum with her.

I don't have a lot to say about Rotolo's session - it was a lot of fun, and gave me some context for the way technology and social media are changing the world and should be changing education.  Project Enable was eye-opening.  The presenters had us work through several simulations to force us to understand what students with disabilities are working with.  It emphasized the need for patience, and especially for librarians to be thoroughly informed about the students they are working with.  It was a valuable session, particularly given that I know very little about students with disabilities and am now much more aware of the areas in which I need to educate myself.

So, time to move forward.  I would like to retool this blog a bit to make it more attractive, and develop my e-portfolio.  I'm also debating whether to separate my personal and professional twitter presence.  Not so much because I say anything inappropriate as because I wouldn't want to follow a colleague who tweeted as much non-library stuff as I do. 

On Balance

I had a really stupid revelation today.

I frequently feel like I've used up my stores of energy, and all I want is permission to just stop, because living the rest of my life just sounds exhausting.

I've lived my life in cycles of intense motivation and total hibernation. I'm happier in the motivated periods, but they only last until I get ill and depressed, and have nothing left in the tank to heal myself.

It finally occurred to me, today, that if I exist in these cycles, it is possible for my health and energy levels to replenish themselves, but that I drive myself so far into the ground that it takes weeks/months to recover.

So...if I just make a point of taking care of myself all along...will I recharge as I go?

This seems like a really obvious, simple concept, but I've always been an all or nothing person. If I'm not working my ass off, I feel like a failure.

I'm trying something new. At this point, I'm so tired and worn down that I'm not even excited about school or my future career anymore. This is not okay. So I have no choice but to change, and I think the answer is to actually prioritize my Self. Instead of sacrificing myself to do everything I think I should, and everything everyone else thinks I should (even though it doesn't feel like enough) I need to make sure I have time for the basics: sleeping, eating real food, switching my brain off for a book or a puzzle occasionally, and exercising. This requires significantly more free time than I've had, but my hope is that once my life is more in balance, the time I do spend working will be more efficient.

I hope that this will not lower my level of achievement. But even if it does, if it allows me to be sustainably happy and to enjoy my life's work (which is the point of putting myself through this in the first place, to have work that I will love) then I will learn to be okay with it.

Doubts 'n stuff

When I arrived at SU I was the most hardcore school librarian type you could find. Even among my school media classmates I was among the most committed to actually working in a school. I wasn't cynical about it, I just wanted to do a good job. I'm well into my fourth semester of grad school and am sort of wondering how I got here.

I still think school libraries are important and may be the only hope there is for modern education, but I'm infuriated at the number of ridiculous requirements intended to boost teacher performance that in reality result in kids getting cheated out of real learning - discovery, critical thought, and freedom to pursue interests.

I also don't think there's enough time or room in the curriculum to let kids struggle. Part of really learning something inside and out is wrestling with it, and that isn't happening any more. Teachers do things for students rather than forcing them to figure it out, because there's just not time. Students ask me for help in the library, for things that they could easily figure out if they actually looked at the shelf or explored a few drop down menus on the computer. That was how I learned best. I had a task to complete, so I figured it out. Even now- I'm writing an HTML website for my practicum...I don't know HTML. I don't know a damn thing. Iwas lucky enough to have a tech savvy friend give me a crash course over about 2 hours, and I've been flying solo. I don't think students now realize that A. The answers are out there if you think about how to look and B. That they are 100% competent to figure things out on their own.

I keep looking at how things are done and imagining a different model for education. It's scary enough that I can imagine why people homeschool, although I don't think that's a great option either. It seems to me that schools are a leftover from a time when work was far more routine and required less creativity. Schools are buildings crammed with kids, staffed with authority figures charged with keeping them disciplined enough that learning is not disrupted. It's not an atmosphere that encouraged individuality, rebellion, learning for its own sake, thinking outside the box etc., yet that's what the "real world" values. Of course that's not universal, but it's becoming more and more true.

I'm sure I'll continue to ruminate on the state and future of education, but in short, I'm trying to understand whether my frustrations are an obstacle or an opportunity. Will I be hopelessly frustrated and unhappy as a school librarian, or will I attack it and bring passion to it? I remind myself that when that time comes, it will have my full attention, not the crazy 5 way split my life has been in for years.

The other wild card is that my public library job has been increasingly complex, interesting and rewarding of late. I guess it's good to know that there is a happy place for me in one or the other of these worlds.

What does technology bring to the table?

One of my pet peeves as a kid was having to do lessons with poorly integrated technology.  It seemed to me to be akin to being forced to use a certain formula to solve a math problem, even when you could get to the answer in other ways.  At the time, I didn't really grasp that gaining technology proficiency was one of the goals - all I saw was technology getting in the way of tasks that I could easily complete on my own.

Technology has come a long way, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a waste of time if used incorrectly.  I now know the value of requiring students to acquire technology skills as a part of their work, but I'm still leery of frustrating them, and of being that librarian that sticks technology into situations where it doesn't quite fit.

I had to really look at what I was doing today.  As one of my major practicum projects, I'm developing a new, self guided library orientation.  The plan was for students to use the library's Ipods to scan QR codes which would launch webpages describing challenges at different stations throughout the library.  At each station, they would either submit an answer through an HTML form, take a photo to prove they completed their task, or scan a QR code that wouldn't be given to them until they finished the challenge.

I spent the first week of my practicum writing the questions, applying standards, and brainstorming how the stations would flow from one to the next.  I wrote to other librarians who've created similar programs, and wrote to a company that licenses an Ipod app for such scavenger hunts (no reply from them, btw).  Meanwhile, my host librarian attempted to track down the Ipods, which as it turned out, very few people were keeping tabs on.

The ipods were finally located.  The wireless router was finally configured.  Today was the day I actually sat down with a device, planning to begin writing HTML and testing pages on it.  Today was the day I learned: these are scaled down educational versions of the Ipod.  That is, where the camera should be, there is a piece of plastic.  No camera.  No QR reader.  Fudge.

Yeah.  Back to the drawing board.  My host librarian suggested (with a bit of well deserved bitterness; she is not happy with the functionality of these devices) that maybe instead of the Ipods, we could use the library's laptops, which do have webcams.  A little searching revealed that although it's a little unusual, some dude had indeed developed a QR reader for laptops.  Awesome.  Let's download it and test it!

Nope.  Turns out you need an administrative login to do that!  I typed up a description of exactly what we need to do, and my host librarian sent it off to the person she says is most likely to help.  So I was left considering what this tour would have to look like in order to work on either device.  On the Ipods, it would have to be entirely link based, with task completion assessed by a multiple choice question or form submission.  On the laptops, we could stick with our original ideas.  However, the excitement of the project dropped a notch as I pictured students lugging laptops around instead of the newer, sexier devices they would prefer to use.

I started wondering: what are we accomplishing that the old paper-based library orientation didn't?  I really had to think about it.  Thankfully, the more I think about it, the more I am realizing the potential benefits of using the laptops.  Instead of text prompts for all the challenges, I can use embedded video.  It will probably be easier to write the HTML or modify a template.  Students can actually complete the challenges that require them to use the OPAC and databases on their own computers.  Okay.  So if I do a good job, the technology is serving a purpose.

I will admit that today was a frustrating day.  The project is basically at a standstill, as anything I do for one device will be a wasted effort if we end up going with the other.  These are the nuances they don't teach you in library school...

What I've learned

It's funny to think about how quickly the past 4 years have gone by.  I've experienced a lot, but it doesn't really feel like it until I hit on something in a class or at work and realize that I understand it because of those experiences.  What brings this to mind is the fact that I'm sitting here reading a powerpoint about controlled vocabularies, and it talks about the fact that although they can be great for more effective and organized searching, they need supervision and can be slow to be updated.  My brain flashed back to my very first internship, where I spent a day with a technical services librarian, who showed me the thousands of printed pages of changes to LoC subject headings that she had to go through and update in the school's local catalog - manually.  Many of them were tweaks to make terms more specific, or more technically correct, and some occurred because terms acquired new social connotations (for example phasing out outdated means of referring to various ethnicities).

Having seen this process in action (albeit very slow action) and having talked about the ways in which Dewey is based around the ideas and values of the time in which it was created, I wonder if Dewey has ever undergone such revision?  Presumably subjects such as computing have been added in, but under what original topic?  I realize I'm mixing apples and oranges a bit, but I'm just realizing that I don't really know the answer, and I'm super curious to know more about how Dewey has evolved.

And isn't it just the way that I'm writing the rare blog post tonight, when I really should be doing my project?

:)