Day 109: Metadata will be the death of me

They said at Access last weekend that "A URL is your contract with the world". By putting something up online, you're agreeing that it will always be at that URL, and if it moves, you'll leave breadcrumbs to lead the user back to the material.

Similarly, I've always understood that a syllabus is a professor's contract with their students. "This is the class, this is how it will be taught and this is how you will be evaluated". It can only be changed in exceptional circumstances and for very good reason.

Lesson 109: Good form or no, some people will break contracts no matter what.

We've been informed of yet another change to our course (or is it a change? no one seems sure).

We now have a take-home essay portion to our mid-term, due immediately before our in-class portion. And we'll have about 24 hrs to do it. Work? Class? Irrelevant. 24 hours. Make it work.

So basically, the majority of us are being told that we are required to pull an all-nighter to write the take-home portion before going into class to do the in-class portion.

Everyone seems pretty resigned to their fate at this point... *sigh*

Day 88: And breathe that sigh of relief...

After a lovely trip to the Canadian Conservation Institute in Ottawa with the ACA and CLA student chapters, I stayed on in Ottawa for a lovely weekend with my friend Sarah. She had to work a lot, but that just meant that I had an excuse to go eat at the pub she works at! Excellent place. If you're ever in Ottawa and want an excellent breakfast (or meal, period) you really should stop by The Lieutenant's Pump on Elgin.

And yes, you can quote me on that. I stake my vast and valuable reputation as a blogger on it. [/sarcastic self-aggrandizing] Seriously though, they're fantastic.

I mean, a burger with brie, mushrooms and bacon on it? Count me in!

Anyways, I digress.

Point is, I was back at school today. Though tomorrow I'm running off for a whirlwind trip to Toronto, during which I will ideally meet George R.R. Martin and get a book signed (for those who don't know, he is writing the series A Song of Ice and Fire, which has become the TV show Game of Thrones). But still...

Lesson 87: Professors are more aware of students' workloads then they are generally given credit for.

Or at least, I'll give my professor the benefit of the doubt and assume that's why she's given us the best gift she could have: a one week extension for all students on our collection development paper.

This week was going to be absolutely insane with the number of SIS events happening, my day in Toronto, completing a post-presentation write-up by Wednesday, the quiz in management, preparing my group presentation for next Monday, writing my evaluation of a research article for next Monday, spending and documenting 8000$ of imaginary money for our collection development paper due Monday as well, work, and the number of events I've been invited to for this weekend what with St Patrick's Day being so huge here in Montreal.

But now, I don't have to have completed the spending of the imaginary cash for another week.

And I feel like I can breathe again...

So lets see... if I can just get this write-up done now,
study for that quiz and finish readings tomorrow
evaluate a research article Thursday,
then I can maybe go to Gerts Friday,
do more collection development Sat+Sun
hand stuff in + present Mon and work on research proposal
train for the new job Wednesday, complete Collection Development
play soccer, work an 8hr shift, hang with Kristie
complete two essays and a research paper
Enjoy Easter? Go to Music Moot?
Seriously though, are you actually reading this?
It gets tiny like this so you can't actually read it.
This is an aesthetic representation of me losing my mind
Slowly becoming more and more helpless
As library school eats my brain like some zombie
Seriously, stop reading...



....Help me....

Day 64: Only one more to go!!!

Today's exam was Bibliographic and Factual Sources. I had heard horror stories about that exam, but nothing could have prepared me for that thing.

Oh. Wow.

Honestly, I did my best. I studied all that I could. My brain was crammed with every possible fact I could fit in it, and I think that I did ok. But those questions were beasts! Absolute beasts. And realistically, this exam did nothing to prepare me for any real world scenario.

I stand by my assertion that that class would feel much more useful as a project-based one.

Let's just hope my course evaluation comments get heard on that.

Day 34: Feelin' pretty Charlie Brown

For those of you who don't know me personally, or at the least, haven't seen a picture of me, I have very curly hair. As in, I'm planning on being River Song for Halloween. Actually, I'm going to a mad scientist Halloween party, and archeology=science therefore, a sociopathic archeologist is a 100% valid costume.

But I digress, easy enough to do with my current mental state. Waaay too stressed for focus... which brings us to the lesson.

Lesson 34: My hair is a very accurate indicator of my stress level.

The frizzier and more Einsteinian my hair looks, the closer to the brink of dissolving into a blubbering mess I am.

And that is where I am right now. I had a major database project due at noon today, and I was fine until last night. But last night, my partner had finished the last of the work on our major database project when her netbook fell to the floor, crushing the poor USB stick protruding from its edge. The very same USB stick that contained our entire completed database.

Luckily, we had a backup on the school computers, but we still lost a good chunk of the work. So I went over to her place with my iPad and documented the damage, emailed the professor with photographic evidence to beg for mercy, tried to repair the stick, ordered us pizza and polished up the accompanying documentation so that she could blast through restoring the database without worrying about silly things like meals...

I mean, who needs food? Am I right? [/sarcasm]

This morning the professor got back to us, giving us a few extra hours to fix the damage before handing it in. Hallelujah! Mission accomplished.

But still, this morning every single hair on my head has decided it has a mind of it's own and is sticking straight out. And I could really care less. I have bigger fish to fry.

Like tomorrow's midterm. For the very same class we just handed in our database for.

:|