Time flies

Was it really August when I last posted?  I really need to get better at this!

I'm going to try and post weekly, and I'm going to read Chris Brogan's article about how to write good blog posts to make my posts more interesting.

So, September was busy with lots of instruction sessions and the like - I only have two more this semester.  Crazy, huh?

Next week is MHSLA - Michigan Health Sciences Libraries Association.  I'm excited to have a few social days.  My cube can sometimes feel like a cave - especially now that I don't have overhead lights.

Why no overhead lights, you say? Well, I was getting dizzy and getting migraines from the fluorescent lights.  I also get migraines from riding the bus.  Who knew motion sickness caused migraines?  I also have to get up before 8:30 everyday to avoid migraines.  Bye bye sleeping in. (not that 8:30 isn't sleeping in, but there will no longer be those 9:30 or 10:00 days).

My last effort to completely rid myself of chronic headaches is an eye doctor appointment next week.  I cannot wait.  While I wish I could get new frames, it'd be a waste of money, so I'm going to try to get lenses in a pair of my old frames.

Lately, I've really been missing being a musician.  I've sent e-mails to several ensembles in GR and am hoping to be able to audition for at least one in the near future.  That means I've started practicing again and so the cats look at me funny during warm-ups.  I'm hoping to regain my range fairly quickly as I'll be going to Hope College's homecoming in a couple of weeks to sing with the Chapel Choir.  I could not be happier about it!!

I've also been feeling as if maybe I missed my calling a bit.  I am not a huge fan of sitting in an office for most, if not all, of the day.  I think the only way I could do it is if I were a graphic designer.  Luckily I'm working on some awesome presentations to put on my libguide to help people be better searchers without me having to explain it every time.  Don't get me wrong - I love teaching.  It's the best part of my job.  But it'd be nice to be able to point students to an online resource for them to use when I'm asleep and they are not because they are crazy college kids.

I've also been thinking about going back to school.  Not now - I like my job fine and we are settled and I'm more than willing to stay here for a few years while we pay off loans and get some money saved up and such.  Maybe I'll start taking some classes.  I get to do that for free.  But if I do go back, I'm still thinking about historical musicology - perhaps focusing on the political nature of music.  Ties in with my paper about the sociopolitical implications of Paul Simon's album Graceland.

But I don't know.  Like I already said - I love graphic design.  Do they even let you go back for a bachelor's when you have a master's?  A B.F.A. in graphic design would be cool.  Maybe I could just be a full-time student for the rest of my life.  Although I'd get burnt out.  That last semester of grad school was a little bit torturous.

In other news, we've had some interesting family occurrences lately.  I'm not going to go into detail, but, man, am I so stinkin' blessed!  My family is AWESOME.  I have great brothers and sisters and my brother by blood continues to surprise me.  I think being a father has really changed his perspective in life a bit.  He's become quite compassionate.  And my new family as of just over a year ago is spectacular.  I love Sami - she's adorable.  And she's begun to really open up to me.  She gives the best hugs, seriously.  Dorian is cute as always and Elliott is still his cute baby self but is getting more and more personality everyday.  Parents are extremely supportive and it's great to have them around, even though having them so close was a concern when we were deciding whether or not to come to GR.

And now, I will wrap up by saying that I absolutely love Grand River Church.

Oh, and if you need a photographer, you need to check out Wellington Photography! (shameless plug)

It's officially Christmas break!

And I'm so excited to do all sorts of fun stuff over the holidays.  Plans are to play some music (I haven't practiced in forever because of the busy school schedule!), work on my drawing skills, and start to teach myself php.  Hopefully all of this will also mean that my e-portfolio will just get better and better.  I'm hoping to add some more content - perhaps some music and such.  I did add some javascript to my resume page yesterday, which makes it much easier to see the information.

Best of all - seeing family.  I can't wait to spend time with everyone!

End of semester

So it's the end of the semester, and I'm actually quite relaxed.  Probably the calmest end of semester I've ever experienced.  I've had a few interesting projects to do, including an identity package for graphic design, finishing my critical bibliography on the 'Enigma' Variaitons for music bibliography and a few interesting coding assignments for my complex websites class.  I also had to do a project analyzing subject access for a particular topic for my cataloging class, which turned out to be kind of interesting.

I was able to synthesize a few projects from my complex websites and graphic design class to create a spiffy new e-portfolio (still in progress, but looks pretty good!).

In other news, I've been looking at Google Wave more and finding that it's useful, but only if you have a huge amount of buy-in.  Not everyone who has an account uses it or knows many people who have it, so it makes it difficult to have a huge amount of uses for it at this point.  My friends and I have been planning an event using Wave and it's going ok, but it is just about the same as using an e-mail thread using reply all.  I guess you can't accidentally reply to only one person using Wave...

And I have 19 invites, so if you want one, let me know!