am I the mouse or the man?

Making plans is a dangerous activity. It tends to lead to the mistaken perception that I am in control of my own life. Not that I am suggesting it would be better for me to float from one thing to the next with no goal or plan in mind. That would be far worse. No, what I mean is that I tend to overreact when my plans are changed.

Take this past week, for instance. Last week I was supposed to have a few days off after my ALA convention and then have my second big gum surgery. I figured this would be the best possible timing, because I would have much of the healing done by the time I had to start actually doing homework for my classes (which start today). Enter the common cold, the proverbial monkey wrench in the gears of my well made plan. I fought with the cold throughout the conference, sleeping as much as possible but refusing to altogether skip anything. By Monday the cold was a sinus infection, but because of the holiday it took until Tuesday for me to see a doctor and get antibiotics.

This did not bode well for my dental work. On Wednesday I was supposed to have a check-up and my three month measurements on the first surgical site. I didn't make it to that one. So on Thursday I spoke with my dentist, and we decided that the surgery should be put off until I was completely well. By Friday I was well enough to turn my surgical appointment into a check-up, so we got the measurements taken and my teeth got a once-over sort of cleaning to prepare them for the next operation, which will be in about a month. It was the best we could do, so I'll just have to live with it. (Side note: the periodontology department has moved to the remodeled 12 floor, where everything is shiny and new. Several chairs even face huge windows looking out over the city--I hope I get to have one of them when I go back for my surgery.)

By now I've gotten used to the idea, and really, it was good to have a few more days to rest and recover from this bug so that I can be healthy going into the semester. But my initial reaction was frustration, and I even resented the extra time I had been given, because now I had to think of something to do this weekend now that I wasn't going to be recovering from surgery. That is not the reaction I should have when presented with free time. Something is clearly wrong with me.

I have decided to claim this realization as a teachable moment. I cannot control my own life, and I need to stop pretending I can. Even though the next year is largely planned out already, that's no reason for me to be complacent and just assume everything will go the way I want it to. Life happens, and more importantly, God often changes our plans in ways we cannot comprehend. Somehow this is easier to understand with the big things, like school, careers, internships, and harder to live out day-to-day. It's as if I can trust that God is planning the larger arc of my life, yet somehow think he has no say in the smaller details or that he leaves me to deal with these complications on my own. Thank goodness that isn't true. He cares that I get frustrated, and when my plans fall through he has another option waiting for me.

Sometimes, though, my plans and God's plans seem to line up beautifully, but that's a story for another post.

-Kim

ALA Midwinter Meeting

This past weekend I attended my first professional conference, the Midwinter Meeting of the American Library Association. I found myself coming down with a head cold during the conference, which limited what I could do, but I still got my money's worth.

On Friday night I went to the opening ceremonies, explored the preview of the expo area and helped run a session called "Games, Gadgets and Gurus." I was a guru, which meant I had volunteered to be available to talk to other librarians about the wonders of Facebook and what it could do for them. It was a good time. I also got to play a little Rock Band before the night was over.

On Saturday I spent my time collecting books. Most of the publishers have uncorrected proofs (aka galleys, advance reader's copies) available for free. This afternoon, however, there was the added bonus of several authors being onhand to sign their books. This "spotlight on adult literature" (to differentiate it from the large number of children's and YA titles available) began at 2pm, during the last half hour of Al Gore's speech about global warming. So I did the only smart thing--skipped the speech to be first in line for the free books. It worked out pretty well.

On Sunday I was more careful with the book collecting, since I wasn't feeling well. Later in the afternoon I went to the only talk of the conference that truly interested me--Yohannes Gebregeorgis talking about his Ethiopia Reads program. What he as done to increase literacy in the country of Ethiopia. Besides establishing libraries in schools, he has also instituted Donkey Mobile Libraries, which are just what they sound like--carts of books pulled through the Ethiopian countryside by donkeys. You can learn more here.

In the end, what I took away from this conference is what every conference attendee throughout the history of conferences has treasured above all else--swag. Now that I've had a few days to organize and total my haul, here is what I collected:

71 books
27 adult level books (10 signed)
44 YA/kids books

7 bags

5 pens

5 posters

3 packets of tea

1 mug

1 neon green Mango languages t-shirt

1 amazing purple hat

1 fuzzy green teddy bear

1 pair orange ear buds

1 promotional prize pack for a YA book

1 green origami pig

Pretty nice haul, huh? As I work my way through the pile of books, some will turn out to be worth the effort of hauling them across town, and some will not. Watch for posts coming up reviewing the ones I think will be worth your time.

-Kim

finishing

My third semester of graduate school is over! The last class was actually last Thursday, but it took until now for me to really surface again out my exhaustion and busy weekend. The biggest and most interesting thing I did this semester was the ABCFM project at the Congregational Library for my archives internship. To see a few pictures of the displays and read what I had to say about the project, you can read my post on the Congregational Library blog here.

In other news: I'm flying home in three days! Hooray! I am definitely ready to be home for Christmas.

-Kim

meet Whimily

One week ago I had a new addition to my life: a bright and shiny new MacBook. Geoffrey, my faithful little PowerBook was pushing 7 years old and was finally giving out. Over the course of the semester he had been gradually slowing down, but by Thanksgiving things finally came to a head and I realized I couldn't wait any longer.

I did a fair amount of research online, and first decided I would purchase a refurbished model to save a little money, but for some reason the Apple website wasn't communicating properly with my bank and wouldn't let me order it. So after getting over that frustration, I decided to just bite the bullet and buy new. For a difference of less that $100 I would get a lot more memory and get to deal with a person rather than an online ordering system.

So last Monday I left my internship a bit early and headed down to the Apple store on Boylston (which is actually the largest Mac store in the nation). It was raining, and there was an employee at the door giving customers plastic umbrella sleeves as we entered so that no one would drip all over the equipment. I thought that was classy. She also asked me what I was there for and found a specialist to answer my questions.

The only question I had left was about how to migrate my files from Geoffrey to my new machine. If I purchased the year-long $100 one-to-one program they would do the transfer in-store, but I wasn't about to pay even more. So they showed me how to use the migration assistant on the computer. The specialist could tell that I had already done my research and made up my mind about what I wanted, so he didn't try to push any accessories or add-ons, which I appreciated. He placed an order online to the basement storeroom, and in minutes I had my laptop and was on my way.

That evening my frustration returned, as I discovered that the age disparity between the two computers meant that their operating systems couldn't communicate directly through the migration assistant. But after poking around online I sorted out how to set up the two as a small network and transfer my files by hand instead. It took longer, but I still got everything I needed. I've had to redo all of my settings, iTunes playlists, iPhoto albums, and Firefox bookmarks, but that's really not so bad. It's given me a chance to weed, and only transfer what I actually want. Migrating all the photos and music files took several hours over the ethernet connection, so I set up those transfers before bed and just let it run.

And then the real hard part came. What to call my new computer? Geoffrey was named for Chaucer, the Medieval English writer, so my original plan had been to continue the trend and call the next edition William. But when I took the computer out of the box, it was clear to me that something so cute and little had to be female. So my next thought was Emily. But I couldn't let go of William. The longer I thought about it the more I realized that both names had associations I had not initially intended, which left me more confused. I went back and forth for days, not knowing what to do, and not feeling like I could really form a connection with my new little helper without knowing who she was.

Then, as so often happens, the solution came by accident. In frustration I said both names together and the answer became clear. She would be Whimily. She would be unique and whimsical, not just a namesake. Two writers in one, to inspire me to further creativity.

I think Whimily and I are going to do great work together.

-Kim

Thanksgiving in CT

Instead of staying in Boston over Thanksgiving break, this year I went home with my friend Tierney to Norwalk, CT to stay with her family. It sounded like a lot more fun than staying in the dorm and doing homework. We spent the long weekend making a series of excursions all over western Connecticut and eastern New York state, generally only returning to Norwalk by dinner time, using it as a sort of base camp.

Tierney's dad came to Boston Tuesday night (after my evening class) to pick us up and make the long drive to Norwalk. Not having to take a bus or train to reach our destination was amazing--I haven't spent so much time in a car in a long time. In fact, I think I easily rode in a car more this weekend than the whole past year in Boston. I also listened to the radio more over this past weekend than in all my time in this city, mostly because I don't have a radio in my room. The only downside to that is that there seem to be only five or six different pop songs that are on the air right now, because we seemed to hear the same things every time we hopped in the car. So maybe I don't actually miss the radio.

The other big bonus of the weekend was that Tierney's family has a cat. She's a sweet little black and white thing named Maggie, and she adopted me pretty quickly. Maggie became my lap warmer most evenings, which I didn't mind at all.

On Wednesday I slept in while Tierney got up early to have her teeth cleaned. After a late breakfast we decided to go into New York City for the afternoon. It's crazy that you can just do that from her town. The ride on the commuter rail was less than an hour, and suddenly we were downtown at Grand Central Station. We spent the afternoon walking up and down Fifth Ave, looking at Christmas displays in store windows and generally having a good time. We even saw the tree in Rockefeller Center, though it wasn't lit yet. They were still taking down the scaffolding from putting the lights on, but it looked pretty awesome even without the lights turned on.

I also got to go into some really fun stores for the first time in my life. The first stop was the American Girl Place, home of the American Girl dolls. In spite of my complicated feelings about the company (described in a previous post), I had to go in and look around. I've wanted to visit the store since I bought my own doll from them in grade school. The first floor of the store has all the Girl of Today accessories, so we pretty much skipped past it. The better displays were upstairs, where we found the historical girl collections. Each girl had her own large display case, showcasing her different outfits and accessories. Each girl, that is, except Samantha and Kirsten. Samantha, having already been archived, was nowhere to be seen, and Kirsten, about to disappear the same way after the holidays, had only one tiny corner. There wasn't even a Kirsten doll on display, just some books and the miniature dolls. It makes me sad to see her fading away like that. When I was younger I didn't fully appreciate the true value of the historical dolls. I love the doll I did get, but dolls like Kirsten capture so much cultural memory. In the end, I couldn't leave without a souvenir, so I bought my doll a hat with the American Girl Place, New York logo on it.

Other stores we spent time in included FAO Schwartz, the biggest toy store I have ever seen, and Tiffany's. We didn't make it all the way down to Macy's, but seeing it on TV during the parade the next day made up for that.

On Thanksgiving we traveled up the Merritt Parkway, on of the most scenic roads in the US, to Tierney's cousins' house for dinner. With a lot of people and two dogs underfoot, it was a bit chaotic, but a good time. I need to look up the recipe for one of the desserts we had so I can make it at home for Christmas--I think my family would appreciate rich, chocolatey Oreo truffles.

Friday was a bit dreary, so we opted to stay indoors as much as possible. That didn't mean staying home, though. After a stop at Kohls, which was surprisingly fast even with the Black Friday crowds, we headed off to IKEA to look at furniture and get ideas for Tierney's new apartment. This was my first visit to the Swedish furniture store, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. We wandered through rows and rooms of furniture, dreaming up ideas for future apartments and houses. And since their in-store restaurant was having a 99 cent Swedish meatball meal deal, we had lunch too. On the way out through the warehouse on the lower level where shoppers pick up their items I debated the necessity of of a beautiful green screen printed throw pillow, but decided to go with a practical clothes drying rack instead. It was a fun trip, and now I'm excited for the day when I'll have a place of my own to furnish.

On Saturday we headed off in the car into New York State to visit a place I had been wanting to see for many years--Sleepy Hollow. And Tarrytown, NY as well, but the two towns blend together, as many New England towns are apt to do, so it hardly matters. The Old Dutch Church from Washington Irving's classic story is right along the highway, along with the churchyard burial ground in which the Hessian is said to have been buried. Beyond that is the newer cemetery, in which Irving himself is buried, along with other notable figures, such as the Carnegies and Rockefellers. The bridge from the story sadly is no more, but a sign marks where the modern highway crosses the creek at the same spot. Farther back in the cemetery a replica of the original bridge for tourists like us to enjoy. The boards have been left loose (we assume intentionally) so that when cars drive over it they shift and rumble, making a sound deliciously like galloping horses. And an even more perfect surprise was a pumpkin bobbing in the creek just to the side of the bridge. This, of course, led to silliness. We also stopped in at Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving. We didn't feel like paying the admission price to wander the grounds on such a cold day (it would be better to make a return trip in the summer), but we did spend time at the gift shop. I bought a book there that was a compilation of some of his shorter works, and they put a stamp on the front page indicating that it had been purchased at Sunnyside, and included a reproduction of Irving's signature. (His capitol W actually looks rather like an M) I was in English nerd heaven.

But the best part of the holiday weekend by far? Not thinking about school. At all. Well, on the last night I got out my grant and compiled the various comments I had received onto a single page, only to realize that I actually had very little to do other than create a detailed budget. So I packed it away again, not to be worried over until back in Boston.

I'm so glad Tierney and her family invited me in for the holiday. That was the break I needed to face the end of this semester. Full steam ahead!

-Kim