First Day of LIU Classes

got up for work this morning, not realizing it was only hard labor ahead. lol, ok so it wasn't that bad, but Pauline told me i take criticism well. i never really thought about that. she wanted a job done a particular way and i had my own ideas about how to compile the information. in the end, i had to relent, but i never really thought of it as criticism... i suppose that's what it is, haha. there's no point in arguing with her about how mine was better since it was going to be sent to the higher ups and apparently, they don't want to do any actual thinking. that's the part that baffles me the most. they want everything laid out in a certain way as to make it easiest to read without having to do any interpretations. as a math person, i interpret things all the time (ie what's this number mean, how is this relevant...perhaps i'm too analytical in this aspect). now that i think about it, i suppose it makes sense; as an administrator you don't have time to figure out what the report is trying to tell us - you just want to know what it tells you! still... baffling...

lunch was at the corner eatery. i had a slice of mushroom pizza and a can of pepsi. the pizza guy recognized me from last summer and was quite happy to see me, lol. i started reading the first chapter of the cataloging book and barely got through half. it was a lot of words and information swimming across the page ><

after lunch, i scanned some documents for a scholarship i'm planning to apply to. finding a free scanner here at bobst library is really a challenge. there are soo many students here. there is a PC room and a MAC room with scanners. only half the machines in each room had one. and all the PCs were taken! as much as a dislike working in the mac interface, i had to suck it up and do my scanning there. yesterday, i was trying to figure out if there was a program out there that would combine PDFs for me for free (unlike Acrobat Adobe Pro). alas, no such program exists...

then i went to the palmer orientation. they gave us a really nice canvas bag to put our books in. andrew, who works for the palmer office, took my picture for the photo ID. he's also in my cataloging class, more to come later about that...

sooooooooo i finally get to talk about my first class of grad school! it is LIS510: Intro to LIS with Rick Block on Tuesdays at 4:30-6:20pm. it's a very discussion-oriented class. there's going to be an oral presentation at the end (yea, i'm freaked out already) and lots of papers due throughout the semester. but the prof seems like a really great teacher already - engaging, interesting, charismatic. unfortunately, i'm not too fond of the students in the class, not because they're not interesting people, but because certain people seem to keep having to say something, anything! the prof is trying to explain something and he/she would jump in with some other comment that takes things to a tangent. i was getting annoyed. but this class really showed me the range of people out there who are interested in library science. i think i'm the youngest one there, being straight out of college. for a lot of people, this is a second career change and they range from my age to people who are significantly older. one man had 30 years in a profession and he decided it's now time for a change! there are a total of 3 dual degree students in the class, including myself.

the second class i had: LIS512: intro to knowledge organization with Rick Block on Tuesdays at 6:30-8:20pm. yes, it's with the same professor. Pauline says i'm already majoring in Rick Block, because that is what students here tend to do! he is just that spectacular of a professor. everywhere i go, i hear nothing but praise. anyway, this class was much larger and i would say a little less than a third of the class is dual degree students. he claims by the end of the semester he will have at least 1 or 2 converts to cataloging, lol. it's definitely more labor intensive than the other class, but at least, i dont have to talk if i dont want to! there's a 5% participation grade and all you have to do is show up and look interested. as i mentioned before, andrew is also in the class so it's kind of nice to see people i kind of know by name.

next problem to tackle: how to get my hands on the 512 textbook without actually buying it... i'm going to try to get it thru ILL but i haven't been able to log into the system... soon... i'm borrowing someone's copy for the week so i can do some readings. hmm...