Two Weeks

The largest difference I've noticed between being an undergraduate in Utah and a graduate student in Seattle is that the latter involves oh-so-much-more alcohol.

So I've just wrapped up my second week of classes here at the UW which also means that I've finished (mostly) one whole class. LIS 500 aka Life Cycles of Information which was basically iSchool boot camp. Last Friday and Saturday, I spent ten hours in class--which wasn't nearly as dreadful as it sounds because there were several different lecturers, group activities, and breaks--but it was still a lot. And then this week there were seven online lectures and/or readings with discussion forums. We were suppose to do them all and then comment on at least four boards at least twice. I have posted two times to the four lectures that I have completed. I will (should) do the rest . . . sometime. Thank goodness this is only a credit/no credit course. So 500 is over. mostly. Yay! I learned about such things as the Value-Added Model, Management, Systems of Knowledge, and FRBR--yeah, I don't really know what they are either. What I found out at orientation is that our program is largely theory-based which is not information I knew beforehand--I'm going to be a great iStudent!

So the week before last was a half-week of classes, and it was also the iWelcome Week. What this mostly meant is that I went to a Happy Hour on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday and drank free beer! And at one of the workshops I also got a spreadsheet of the local bars and their happy hours. What a great week!

My first class was on Wednesday and it is Information Resources and the prereq for other reference classes which is great because I think I want to be a reference librarian at this stage. Anyway, our teacher is a lecturer who also works at the Seattle Public Library and he's fabulous. He is mellow (which is not always common at the iSchool), knows his stuff, and really wants to help us students. Wonderful, wonderful man. We've only had three classes, but I love it! Our last class we (finally) went around the room and spent (almost) the whole two hours introducing ourselves and recommending to everyone books, music, movies, bars, restaurants, recipes, etc. It was so much fun. There are also about ten recovering lawyers in the program, so Kristen and Amber, if five-ten years down the road you realize you don't want to be a lawyer, you can always be a librarian! Anyway, they all dress really well because they have (had) money.

My second class was on Thursday, and it's taught by Karen Fisher. What I can say for sure is that she's crazy, but she is from Canada (Newfoundland specifically), so we can't really hold that against her. On the first day of class she wore her academic robes and had this crazy, decorated tree stick that rattled (like a rainstick!) which is I don't even know what. The other times I've seen her she's been wearing short dresses. She's young and passionate and crazy. It's the largest class I've been in because it's for our entire cohort. One of our textbooks is by her as are many of the readings, and I think she looks on our class to further her own research. She also seems like the kind of professor who wants to hear her own ideas reflected by us, and I'm sure she'll be an arbitrary grader. At first I thought she was fabulous, but now I'm not so sure--an ambivalent feeling held by many at the iSchool. There's also a lot of group work for her class, and while I have nothing against the people in my group, I'm not the biggest fan of group projects. But there's a lot of collaborative effort in my professional field, so I better get used to it.

So Friday and Saturday I had 500, but now that that's over, and I don't have classes on Fridays! It's beautiful. Also, this quarter, my earliest class starts at 1:30 in the afternoon and my other class is at 3:30, so I sleep in a lot--like every day. So I don't get done till late in the afternoon, but since I'm not working, I don't really mind it at all. However, it does make me very lazy. And this week I didn't have class on Thursday because Karen gave us it off to work on our group projects. That's one nice thing is that she said she will always give us time for our group work. This week we're working on Information Grounds which are places you go for one thing but end up sharing information like a coffee shop--you go to get coffee but end up talking and sharing info.

Our group chose bar trivia nights--oh-so-much-more drinking. Some people from our group went on Thursday, but I went on a pub crawl in Capitol Hill with some friends to help celebrate Jeannie's birthday. It was fun, but we had a rather large group which doesn't always work so well at small, little bars. On Friday I went to the Monkey Pub which was a scary dive bar to find oneself all alone at seven o'clock. But by eight, Deb, from my group, had arrived as well as several other people for trivia night! Deb and I were the Fighting Librarians and for only two people, our group came in fourth (or fifth?) place! Anyway, all the other groups were much larger, and we each won a shot of Jager, so that was fun. And tonight our whole group is going out to the Dubliner in Freemont.

So that is a basic wrap-up of my first two weeks (week and a half) of classes. And yesterday, I took the bus to Northgate Mall which is freakin' far away and bought new shoes (finally!), which look almost exactly the same as my old shoes, and renewed my supply of Burberry London. OMG, it's like my favorite smell in the world. I came home to find my cousin Ernl had sent me two of her famous knitted pumpkins. Check out her work here. Fabulous! And then I made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and watched 28 Days Later which wasn't really scary at all, but is rather a drama set within the sci-fi/horror genre. Cillian Murphy does find the perfect intersection between cute and creepy. So anyway, that's what I've been up to.

P.S. Happy National Coming Out Day! (I didn't even know that was a thing. I'm such a bad homosexual.)