First day @ work!

first day at work went great! kresge is a brisk 10 minute walk from my new studio. i spent the morning with the kresge staff, getting familiar with the library, getting my paperwork done for payroll, getting my new ID, setting up my temporary computer and checking out my 60+ emails. my new macbook hasn't arrived yet so i'm still looking forward to it. jane planned a breakfast social with the staff, which was very sweet - donuts and coffee.

jane, ann, and i went to the DCAL lunch for some faculty presentations on how they utilize technology in their courses. it was really interesting -- the first presentation was a collaboration between a professor in writing and a professor in biology. they devised a way for the biology dept seniors to have their work critiqued by students in the first year writing course. the second presentation showcased google sites.

after lunch, i spent the rest of the afternoon in my new office, getting acquainted with the space. i set up my voicemail! then i played around with the Outlook settings. i still haven't figured out how to add my office phone to my contact info. i also got onto libguides but i dont have any access to the guides i need so tomorrow...

it is kind of weird to have a desk right outside my office that stares right into it. the entire afternoon, there was a student who sat there so it was kind of weird for me to come out of my office and there she was.

anyway, looking forward to another funfilled day! tomorrow i start at 8am so gotta get some zzzzzz

first day back @ work

back to work! pauline bought me a really cute cactus from arizona! it comes in a pot with a magnet so i've stuck it on my fridge. it's so cuteee... (am i a geek for wanting to count its spirals and aeroles? lol, reminds me of Pau...) i havent been able to identify the species of this cactus. help?

just finished watching another bollywood movie: chori chori chupke chupke
i love rani mukerji and preity zinta. this movie has a lot of "pretty woman" moments, but there's a baby involved...

next movie (tomorrow): ta ra rum pum (full)
starring saif ali khan and rani mukerji! saif is starting to lose his initial appeal for me, lol. maybe this movie will change that?

playing with my netbook at work

i've been updating it and with allan's help, slimming down some of its automatic startup services so it can run a bit faster. it's already noticeably faster with these initial changes. i spent a good 2 hours trying to figure out how to get my CIMS drive to show up on my computer. there's a way to tunnel it in. allan and i tried everything and nothing worked. i finally just gave up and starting reading as many pages of the CIMS website as i could, until i came across the answer. so now it works! (i had to use sam.cims.nyu.edu instead of 127.0.0.1).

things to install: teX, openoffice, firefox

i like chrome on this this cuz i can maximize my screen space. so i'm still debating firefox...

i did install plink and winscp to access my CIMS drive remotely.

what else...

--------------------------------------------------------

other than that, i shelved 2 cartfuls of books this morning. it took me about 1.5 hours (i went pretty slowly). then mike asked me to process invoices from the last few months. that took about an hour. it was nice, i got to sit by the window with the sun (filtered by a shade) behind me...

mellow monday

pauline left me a long long list of things to do over the next week. she's going to mexico and then LA and coming back on dec 7. in the meanwhile, i've got tons of work ahead of me. tons.

met with meg for a quick chat this afternoon. we went to starbucks and i ordered a peppermint mocha to see if it's supposed to taste different, but nope. it really does require two packets of sugar. lol. some things we covered included thanksgiving plans, virtual reference shadowing, tenure, internships, and the SLA name change. i think it's old school to use "assistant curator" and "curator" as the position titles for a tenure track position. i suggested she find an internship with google cuz that would be so cool.

allan.

on a side note, john showed me this video. enjoy!

catching up on the last 20 hours

yesterday was my first time using the restrooms in LL1 in Bobst. we send people there all the time from the reference desk. WOW. it's like a fancy upscale restroom that belongs in a hotel or fancy restaurant. there are like 10 stalls in a row and those crazy dyson airblade hand dryers, where you stick your hands into this machine and the air blowing at you moves the skin on your hands. no papertowels anywhere. luckily, they still believe in foam soap to wash your hands with, unlike at smith where they only gave us antibacterial hand sanitizer.

helped rae install miktex/texmaker/texniccenter on her computer. she's got a choice of like 3 editors now. lol...
--------------------------------------
then i met up with meg for coffee and catching up. we went to the think cafe that's right across from courant. i got a mocha and it was the strangest mocha i have ever had. but i think i like it. it wasn't sweet at all, but i added a packet of sugar and it was good (could've used another one actually). $$ tho so i can't buy that often... we talked about random stuff that mainly had to do with reference, internships, difficult questions, difficult patrons, the class i observed earlier, what i learned from that, what i found interesting, etc. we're gonna meet again on monday or tuesday...
--------------------------------------
came back to courant; on my way up, i bumped into alex and we talked about the grateful dead archivist position that everyone's talking about. so i end up chatting with him and jen for the next hour before i actually get to obtaining all the stuff i need to do hw.

met up with allan and we walked/talked to chinatown. he wanted to see elizabeth center. i was fairly certain it was closed, but we went anyway (window shopping after hours lol). then we went to big wong for dinner. i was raving about how good the roast pork is and he wanted roast duck. so he ordered two dishes, one of each meat. i wanted a roast pork wonton soup with noodles (really good). unfortunately, it was late by the time we went and they had already sold out of both kinds of meat. haha... so we ended up switching in bbq spare ribs, which were pretty good (not as good as roast pork).
---------------------------------------
---------------------------------------
supposedly, NYC has issued a gridlock for manhattan today and as soon as we got onto the belt parkway, traffic hit us like a brick wall. dad got off at the next exit and dropped me off at the D train and i took that to work this morning. i was afraid the traffic was going to be as bad as that day with the yankee parade. made it to work 20min late so it's coming out of my lunch time, which is fine. i dont really need an hour lunch.

first thing that mike had me do was replace the maintenance kit in the printer. it was surprisingly fun. at first i couldnt figure out how to get the back piece to open, but it turned out to be really easy and i felt really stupid for wasting almost 10min trying to lift it instead of just yanking it out. i really thought it was on a hinge! anyway, once i got that part out, the rest was cake. there was one part i was replacing that left my hands smeared in ink. i had to wash my hands twice before continuing with replacing some of the other parts. i had to get a stool cuz i was too short to reach some of the parts on top. i felt like such a mechanic lol. all in all, it took me about 40min.

after i shelved what little books we had, i rearranged the circ desk cuz we're using a different computer to check items in/out and the materials just weren't strategically located...

and finished the crossword puzzle with a little help from the internet. i found this awesome crossword dictionary!

friday the 13th

today was a long day. i'm going to be working 10am-6pm fridays at courant library now (it's permanent). the first thing mike wanted me to do was to create a one page instructional sheet on how to use the ScanPro 2000, the new microfilm reader machine. it's really cool and i spent a good hour or so playing with it and wracking my brain for a good way to write up instructions, complete with pictures and diagrams. mike didn't get a chance to look at it until the afternoon. when i came back from lunch, he said he thought it was great and there was only 1 typo (i wrote appear instead of appears). he printed it out and printed the PDF i recommended from the manufacturer's website (since i did refer to it on the instruction sheet). so yay, contribution!

i spent the next hour shelving the books on the cart. it wasn't a lot and i took my time. i really like shelving. it makes me feel like i'm communing with the stacks. ohmmm...

i took over desk from alex for an hour after that. i got a few questions about how to locate books and of course, where is the restroom. a professor from polytechnic tried to check out a book, but he didn't have a patron record and i couldn't locate him by name. now that nyu has merged with poly, they're issuing nyu ID cards to them, but without N numbers or netIDs. we had the send the poor gentleman to bobst library to get it figured out, but they sent him back to call ITS. i went off to lunch before i saw the end of it. hopefully he got it fixed; by the time i came back, the book he wanted was already gone, so i'm assuming all went well.

--------------------------------------------

i had a quick lunch at the campus eatery while reading my amNY. then i met meg at the 9th fl reference desk. it was the only time she could meet with me because i was now working and she was covering the desk. she got a new gadget (sprint's palm)and was trying to figure out how to charge it. then we caught up on academic stuff and talked about library school classes. she's doing her degree at syracuse and as part of their curriculum, students have to take management courses. palmer does not require those. she's also starting a blog about libraries and ideas and bees. i'm not very good at coming up with puns...

we got some questions at the desk. the first one was from a patron who didn't know how to search for books in the stacks. so meg actually got up and walked her to the areas and helped her find the books. that's definitely something they dont do on the first floor ref desk.

there was another patron who couldnt locate a book that clearly said it was supposed to be on the shelf. first she checked it in bobcat. we hit some snags trying to search by call number because the system is really picky about how you enter it. again, meg went directly to the stacks and tried to find it. it was pure luck that the section we walked into, meg happened to look up and see the book by name. the book had been misshelved so we would not have found it if we looked in the proper place.

another patron came in with a vague question. she had to write a paper for physics about anything (really really broad) and she chose to do a biography. but the prof warned her about just writing a bullet list of what the person did. it needs to have more substance. so meg led her to the ref section that had the biographies and tried to explain different resources she could use. it just seemed the patron wasn't sure of what she wanted yet so meg led her to search some databases for more information.

at this point, i was called to attention by the first patron who obviously thought i worked here as a ref librarian (because i was sitting behind the desk -- i was tired from all the running around in the stacks so when meg was helping the last patron i stayed put). she needed a particular article and couldn't find it electronically through general web searching. so i led her through our databases to see if we own the journal. the searching was amazingly slow. my first try was unsuccessful because i didn't type in the entire name of the journal so it didn't come back with any results. my second try was still running when i decided to try searching for the article directly. we found the article she wanted in pubmed (medline), but it turns out we have a hardcopy in the library that she could borrow so i found the call number of the journal and told her the floor it was located on and wished her luck on finding it (and of course, if you can't find it, to come back and we'll help you).

i was hoping to observe more of meg's interaction with the other patron but she was already wrapping up. so when she came back, i gave her my full report on my transaction at the desk. we're planning to meet for coffee next thursday. at some point, i'm supposed to sit in on one of her library instruction classes and shadow her for two hours. technically, i shadowed her for an hour today, but it definitely was not planned that way. it just so happened that i used my ref skills for one of the transactions. the ref desk is definitely a lot slower up on 9th, but there was a lot personal attention given. meg really followed through with the patron by going with them to the stacks and showing them how it works.

on my way out, i saw the patron i was helping waiting on the check-out line at circulation. makes me happy to know i helped =)

--------------------------------------------

so back to courant. first thing when i walked in was cris telling me a friend was looking for me. i already guessed it was rae before she started describing her to me. lol. i told her i betcha it was about the crossword puzzle. and sure enough, rae ran over and asked me if i had gotten to it yet. cris laughed. the three of us spent about half an hour then talking about the night scene here in the east village. turns out it's all about karaoke. clubs are more expensive to get into. alex eventually joined our discussion when he walked in and we just got to talking about drunken people singing karaoke. then alex recommended this place. it looks great from its website; i've already emailed some people about it so definitely will be checking this place out.

other than that, i checked books in and checked books out. i managed to tex up all the questions i need to do for my analysis hw so i have that. i secured all the materials i need for a productive weekend. now let's see if i'll actually get any work done... lol.

i spent my train ride home reading the reference guide for medical librarians. it's very helpful in making me aware of my body language more. it's definitely not something i think about often. my sister did comment once that i walked more "aggressively" than a "normal" girl would. i think that comes from living in my neighborhood. no one dares approach me, whereas my sister gets hit on by creepy men.

and this piece of news warms my heart: an elderly gentleman gives money for a new library.

on the side, mom's moved onto a new drama these last few days: D.I.E. Again. ooo, new post for my celebrity interest at the moment...

cookie

lol thank you pauline for the cookie this morning. she said it was either to celebrate or commiserate my linear algebra exam results, either way, here's a cookie. ^^ and it was a big cookie too... i felt like the cookie monster. which reminds me of this article i found on time.com this morning about the puppeteer for elmo.

other interesting links

• reinventing science librarianship
• china's most dangerous woman
• aerosmith falling apart??
• pictures that show your personality (well duh, but i guess we needed a research study to confirm that one)
  

more later

traffic this morning

was insane! we got off the highway to go local because we were just inching along, but local was just as bad. cars filled up all the streets. they closed the lower level of the manhattan bridge (not a smart move) and we inched our way across. when we almost got to the end, we saw cars coming out from the lower level, which means they finally opened it; but that didn't help us!! i was an hour late to work. luckily i wasn't opening so it was ok. we didn't realize until much later that it was all because of the parade to celebrate the yankees' world series win. why couldn't they have done that tomorrow?!?

i managed to finish the amNY crosswork puzzle today, which is an amazing feat in and of itself. i managed about 60% by myself and when rae walked in, we finished it. carol recommended a real analysis book, which is free online. so i'll be looking into that one as well...

after work, rae and i are gonna hit up the blockbuster on broadway because sources told her it was closing. we're gonna see if we can pick up some movies and cds for cheap. then we're probably gonna hang out till john's hotpot party, which i'm really excited about. more details to come about that later ;P

and yes, i will get to that wedding post soon!

weekend events

work was pretty boring saturday. we've been getting a lot of traffic, but not so much at the desk. however, as i was closing, a patron comes up to ask me to look up a book for her. i told her we're closing and she just ignored that as if it didn't matter. so i tried to make it quick (but i think that's bad service on my part - what do you do when the library is closing and someone comes to ask for help??). she asked for a specific book, but she couldn't tell me a title or author. i had nothing to go by. so i tried a general search to find a call number area to search around. (i actually searched for analysis instead of algebra, which is what she wanted. >< i was studying for my exam so...anyway...) she proceeded to browse the shelf for 5 min, not finding what she wanted, but not wanting to leave either. i mean, i didn't want to rush her, but it was like 6:10. so i asked her if i could help her browse and what year she's in (since courant is mainly a grad library). she's undergrad so i told her that Bobst is open tomorrow and they might have what she's looking for. i mean, i feel bad... how do you deal with situations like this??

after work, allan and i walked down to CT to my fave viet restaurant. they have awesome summer rolls and vermicelli. then we spent a good hour in HK supermarket, where he proceeded to spend $60 on groceries. lol. he promised me good curry some time.

woke up early this morning and got into courant about 9:30am. finished TeXing a review sheet for analysis. rae came in around 11am and we started chatting. lol, i can never get work done when i bump into friends! we eventually buckled down after i finished TeXing and printed us each a copy of my sheet (it's actually 15 pages). allan came in around 1pm. he gave me rice crackers so i printed him a copy too. lol. we moved to the lounge around 2pm so that we could have a working lunch. john finally joined us around 3pm. then all of us went to the analysis review session (which wasn't helpful since he covered the same stuff, if not less, on friday). back to the lounge to do more work...

took the route b bus down to CT and joined up with my family for my great-aunt's birthday dinner. food was gooooood. saw uncle kenny and uncle ben (they're actually my first cousin once removed, i think?). it's been a while since i saw them. uncle ben lives in cali now and his son malcolm is the same age as me, went to UMass for college, but we never met up. i thought maybe i'd see him tonight, but he didn't come.

here's a fun comic i found on phDcomics.

First Day at Courant

back to work at Courant Library! i did 2 hours of shelving. they had so many books on the cart, i thought i was gonna keel over, but luckily there was another work study student - an undergrad who is studying literature (i commented to her that she looked like an english person, tho i really have no idea if there is such a thing as "looking" like a particular type...). she covered the next two hours while i covered the desk.

i find working the circulation desk so interesting. you get to meet so many different people. there are the ones that simply hand you the book and you're done in less than a minute. then there are those that stick around to talk to you. i met a first year phD student who was already checking out tons of books and the semester hasn't even started! i also chatted up an engineer who switched to pure math as a master's student. it seems he and i will both be doing the exam option, though he wants to continue onto phD and eventually teach. i also got a quick rundown on creating new patron records because it seems there are people who still aren't in the system yet.

mid-august update

lol. i've been really bad about keeping this blog up-to-date. however, i have kept my reading/watching lists and calendar updated! not much else has happened that i would want to write about. (yes, i'm implying there are things not to be written about - ask me about them if you dare =P).

i'm having a fantastic time working with pauline. little by little i'm learning what administrators do (a most difficult task for them - so many channels to manage!). pauline and i have the most interesting conversations scattered throughout the time i'm working. like yesterday, she brought me some basil because we were talking about chinese cooking last week. my mom was really happy (thanks, pauline!). and today, pauline commented that i wore the most interesting tshirts. haha, that reminds me of janet, who always commented on one of my shirts. then again, i haven't worn anything not work-friendly (nothing explicitly suggestive!).

i've been doing some information updates on the dual degree facebook page (hopefully people check). pauline has to write an IMLS report so i've been busy with that. on the side, we're going to update the program's webpages on the LIU and NYU sites. hopefully, we can start our own page and use it to get paperwork done faster and information disseminated faster. (i mentioned to pauline earlier that when i saw rutger's library science webpage, i was just awed. LIU's page just doesn't compare.) i was reading the proposal that made this program possible and it's quite elaborate!

after work, i stopped by the nyu student health center today to fill out a health form because i haven't been able to log into the online system since june. i didn't want to give them a reason to prevent me from starting the program in the fall. the receptionist is really nice. the whole form was a scantron with yes/no questions and one of the items was "vision deficit." what in the world does that mean!?! apparently, it just means i need to wear glasses. -_-

anyway, i have to start looking into library scholarships for next year! i just finished calculating my budget and loans, etc and have fully realized how much that $24,000 grant is helping me this year. i'm worried about next year already. so many things to keep track of...

life so far...

so i spent an agonizing two weeks, trying to figure out what to write for my first blog post. i still haven't thought of anything, but people were poking fun at my inability to come up with something. so here i am, writing this post about nothing in particular. i suppose i can write about what's happened since college ended...

my dad's been unemployed since before graduation, so i've been pulled into manual labor for a bunch of various home improvement projects. my family is a bunch of hoarders, all collecting and no dumping. i'm pretty guilty of that myself, but i'm working on it! been throwing out a lot of old papers (stuff from first grade even! lol). we bought another bookcase and filled it up fairly quickly. never can have enough books...

since the start of july, i started working for pauline rothstein, the program administrator for the dual degree program. she's in chicago at the moment for ALA, so i've been left to my own devices for the past week. there's a lot of paper despite what the tiny file cabinet looks like, and i went through all the files to create a nice excel database. hopefully i wont have to go back in there for a while yet.

every weekend since mid-june, i've gone out to the park to play handball. one of my goals is to get really good at the game. it's been about 6 years since i last played, so i was fairly rusty when i started. i think i've improved a lot and anyone who's up for a game, hit me up! i'm free most afternoons and weekends.

alright, i think that's all for now; don't want to bore you any more than i have to =D