Thursday, December 15, 2011

1/4 of a librarian!

That's me friends! In a heartwarming Christmas miracle, my cohort has survived first term.  There were many, many times we didn't think we would.  Among the skills we are learning to be Super Librarians we also became adept at coming up with countless metaphors for how much grad school crushes your soul.  Really, I never thought I had such a way with words until library school.  Turns out, library school and "fiery pits of hell" do indeed belong in the same sentence.

In relation to the above, if you value your life I suggest you never, ever, say to a library student the following: "you need a Master's degree to be a librarian? But all you do is check out books!" If you want to unleash a stress-induced, sleep-deprived rant and have your eyes clawed out, then by all means go ahead.  But the next person who says this to me is going to wish they'd never been born.  You really think we'd put ourselves through this hell if we didn't need to?!?!

But it's all water under the bridge now! I have officially been on vacation as of 12/10/11.  My last assignment/presentation were finished on 12/05/11 though so I have for all intents and purposes been on vacation as of that date.  Classes the last week were somewhat of a formality.  Attendance is mandatory in order to maintain our ALA accreditation and not have final exams.

With the exception of Research Methods and Statistics (a required course), next term is shaping up to be 10x better than this one.  I'm taking Introduction to Archives Administration, Children's Materials (birth-7 years): Evaluation and Use, and Descriptive Cataloguing.  I have no class on Tuesdays or Wednesdays.  Classes are three hours, once a week.  I wish they were twice a week like in undergrad.  I found it a lot easier to stay on top of things, and the material was more fresh in my mind.  Course selection was stressful (is anything not stressful in library school?).  I am trying to balance classes I think will make me more employable with ones I think will actually enjoy and will not make me rip my hair out.

I'm trying, as usual, to stuff all my favourite things about home into this break.  I'm doing some yoga, am going to see The Nutcracker, the Stanley Park Christmas train, and Fort Langley, and am trying to set up an exercise schedule with friends.  Even though I lost 10 pounds last term I am definitely not in shape.  It's dreadfully hard to get motivated to workout when you've lost weight rather than gained though.  Plus my brain is so fried from school all I'm good for this days is sitting on a couch curled up a nice toasty blanket.

Hope you are all enjoying your Decembers!

bisous,

LFB