Day 41: Grad Students Have No Standards

My lesson today was courtesy of the one and only ACA McGill Student Chapter President/ProQuest ProFessional.

Lesson 41: Grad students have, and will, write about everything. Even boycotting McDonalds with accordions.

If you are doing a project about something and are getting discouraged because you can't find any literature on the topic, and you are completely out of ideas for sources; just search through theses and dissertations. You will find what you need, guaranteed!

Completely unrelated lesson of the day: I am the industry standard size to be a plus-sized model. Though I suppose I'm still not tall enough...

I had always thought that "plus-sized" models were Marilyn Monroe plus-sized; size 12-14, really the lowest end of sizing for any plus-sized line of clothes I've ever seen. But in a twist for the ridiculous, I discovered in the uproar about Lizzi Miller's nude photo in Glamour that she is actually too big to model even plus-sized lines, at size 12-14. They actually want their plus-sized models to be basically incapable of fitting any plus-sized clothes properly; they want girls sized 8-10. Maximum size for a "regular" model? 4-6. Essentially a single size difference.

I looked it up, and most plus-sized lines I found actually start at 14-16.

I mean really, the hell is this?

Day 38: A Day Late on Group Work

So far, my first year of Library school has been very nearly exclusively group work. Group presentations, group creation of authority records, group creation of a bibliographic database, group annotated bibliographies, group research... you get the idea.

Most of these groups have been small, easy to organize, voluntary and efficient.

However, that kind of luck can only hold out so long... in my case, that was until yesterday.

A larger group, chattering with nervousness, all concerned about completely different issues, is like hitching horses to a cart pointed in opposite directions. Everyone gets worn out quickly and no one gets anywhere.

Lesson 38: I can be a better leader than I ever give myself credit for.

This is something I need to remind myself of, and more importantly, it can be true of just about everyone.

Just breathe, and look at the big picture. That was the only way I was able to get our (supposed to be) half hour group meeting done in under 2 hours. The solution I found was to go through and write down everything that needed to be done without, and this is the part my group seemed to have the most trouble with, worrying about who was doing what. Every time we got sidetracked with that, the group energy would just shoot off into a worry spiral. But focusing just on what needed to be done, we got a whole picture of everything that we could then slice up between us and ensure that the work was divided equally.

I just wish I could have executed that solution sooner.

Add that meeting to the list of things that should be followed by a stiff drink...

Speaking of... apparently, grades for the database and the database quiz are up... I just really don't want to look at them. Some lesson this week will probably wind up related to that special kind of doom.

Turns out that's just for the other section. I get to live in ignorance and stay in the program just a little bit longer [/unnecessary theatrics, melodrama and exaggeration]

Day 36: Exhaustion

I set a ridiculous number of alarms to make sure I wake up in the morning. I set two on my iPad, 3 on my computer, and at least 2 on my cellphone, all to make sure that when the time comes that I wanted to wake up at the night before, I have no choice but to wake up.

The different alarms coming from different sources all sound at different times and must be found and shut off separately. That makes one so awake, there's no sleeping past your alarm. And that is what I count on.

Lesson 36: Sometimes, no matter how many alarms you set, exhaustion will win out and you will sleep through every one of them without even realizing it.

After the past three days of stress and minimal, low-quality sleep, that is just what happened to me this morning.

So now, I'll study the slides from the class I missed until I have to go to work.

But for the first time this week, I'm starting to feel human again.

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.

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