gracefulhope2007

year in review

gracefulhope2007 — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 17:06:45 +0000

it’s been forever. well, okay, just a year and several months since my last post. sorry about all that for my loyal readers.

*sound of crickets*

great! well since that’s out of the way i can get to a summary of the past year and a half.

1. got engaged
2. started my job as a real librarian
3. prepared for marriage and organized a wedding
4. trained to be librarian & started getting involved at job
5. got married
6. moved into new house
7. learned how to take care of a house
8. began doing outreach and connecting with faculty & students at job
9. participated in lots of welcome events at the beginning of fall semester & was very busy
10. things are starting to settle down in both life & job

so what have i learned?
1. preparing for a wedding is time-consuming and exhausting and hard. the worst part? figuring out the guest list.
2. starting your first professional job right before you start planning a wedding really isn’t the greatest idea.
3. it’s hard to focus at work when you have lots of other things going on in your life outside of work.
4. being an academic librarian is challenging, but rewarding and fun!
5. learning how to take care of a house is a bit overwhelming at first. who knew that yard work was so time-consuming?
6. when you’re the new person on the job, be prepared to take on lots of planning of events!
7. attending welcome events for students is a great way to meet people.
8. marriage is fabulous, but it’s not without it’s challenges.
9. making relationships is better and easier than trying to teach people about the library.
10. even when you’re busy, try to make time to talk with or hang out with friends. it’s amazing how time can fly by!

professional interviews

gracefulhope2007 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:33:53 +0000

professional interviewing. it’s a headache, a stress, a pain, and all manner of exhausting. a day-long interrogation involving you answering questions, asking questions, meeting people, and having your social skills tested to the max. and if you’re wearing high heels, you also end up with sore feet. but the end result of a good interview is that coveted job offer which is always in demand, even more so in these days of economic uncertainty.

so my question is, after going through the process myself and seeing numerous candidates interivew for various librarian positions, why aren’t these people prepared for these types of interviews?? i have had the fortunate experience of working in a library for almost 2 years now, and had the opportunity to witness a job search (involving a total of 4 candidates and that ultimately failed) for the position that i eventually ended up interviewing for and getting offered over a year after it opened up. so, before i interviewed myself (or even thought that i would ever be applying for the job) i had the unique opportunity to watch the candidate’s presentations and hear co-workers’ thoughts about them. it certainly was a huge benefit when creating my own presentation.

so back to my question – why don’t we learn about this in our graduate programs? sure, we have classes about collection development and reference, but what good is that if we can’t secure a position in which we would use what we learn? i think it is just as important to teach future librarians how to properly conduct themselves in a professional interview as it is to teach them the essential skills they will need to know in order to be a successful librarian. and trust me, it’s obvious that some of these candidates, mostly the ones that are fresh out of library school and don’t have much other work experience, have no idea how to be in a professional interview.

let me give you a fine example. we had a newly graduated candidate earlier this week who seemed very enthusiastic and easy to get along with. however, when he stood up to give his presentation on the given topic, he first went through and introduced his family – pictures and details about them. i think it’s great when someone’s family is important to them, and i think that it’s great that he’s proud of his family, but i’m sorry, you just do not do that during the time that you are supposed to be selling yourself as a viable professional. during a professional interview, the intervewers want to see your skills in action – including your presentation skills, you ability to teach, your creativity in solving a problem, and basically as much as they can. And it’s your job to show off these skills as much as you can during your very short presentation time. The presentation should be your time to shine and you don’t want to waste it talking about things that are not important for the position you are interviewing for (especially since usually topics like family don’t come up much at all in an interview, unless it’s during a more informal lunch/dinner/coffee time). and it’s always important to have someone that knows what to look for in a presentation scan your presentation for errors and offer suggestions – i can’t imagine that he would have had the same presentation had one of his librarian colleagues looked it over.

the end result was that i immediately started internally cringing when the first slide came up and he started talking about his family. and a feeling of pity came over me as it became clear that he had no idea how to give a professional presentation. of course the other librarians in the audience laughed along with his little sallies and jokes, but i’m sure they were feeling the same way. and the worst part is that i don’t know if he will ever be told that it was actually a train wreck of a presentation. he won’t get offered the job, but that doesn’t tell him any details about his interview day. *sigh…. poor guy.

lovin’ summer

gracefulhope2007 — Wed, 03 Jun 2009 15:00:36 +0000

although it’s not officially the summer season yet, it sure feels like it is! school is done (forever!), i graduated (yay!), and best of all, i got a job! it’s pretty amazing how it all happened within a 1 week span of time. so now i’m working on finishing up my graduate student position and i will become a real librarian in july.

but it really is summer – sun and green, flowers, pool parties, cookouts, weddings, graduations, family get-togethers….fun times!

2 weeks…

gracefulhope2007 — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 16:35:14 +0000

2 weeks. that’s how long it is until i graduate. hopefully for the last time (until i go back for another master’s, i suppose…). unfortunately i’m not done with classes quite yet. 2 more actual class sessions to attend on tuesday, and then the final reseach paper for one of my classes is due next saturday. doesn’t sound too awful hard, except the paper is stressing me out a bit since i haven’t started yet and don’t know exactly what direction to take it. i know i’m writing about e-books and their impact on reading, but i should try to narrow it down a bit from that very broad topic. so today is devoted to getting that started, and as you can see, i’m doing a great job….posting here, going rollarblading in the park earlier, doing laundry…yeah.

on to conquer the paper!

sick day…

gracefulhope2007 — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:59:22 +0000

i’m taking a sick day. i never take sick days. i abhor missing class and work, and i happen to have both today. but when you have extreme pain and discomfort every time you swallow, it’s probably wise to take the day off. especially since today is probably the worst it’s been yet, and i’ve had it for a week now. i hate getting sick. and i really hate it when you need to go to the doctors since it takes forever to get in and get answers. yes, i went to the doc already and had a strep test, but have they gotten back to me about the results? of course not….and it was two days ago when i had it done. yes i got some fun throat-numbing medicine with benadryl to help with the discomfort, but no, it doesn’t really help. arg.

okay, that was my rant for the day. cheers!

revelations…

gracefulhope2007 — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 03:00:19 +0000

it’s kind of ironic that during my busiest time of the semester (now) i end up posting more than i did all last semester. granted, last semester was busy too, but not like this.

have you ever learned something that just totally opened your eyes? like a new revelation that you couldn’t believe you had been missing? so that’s what i felt like tonight when i learned that there is another layer to xkcd that i had been missing. i didn’t realize that you could hover over the images and you could get an additional comment related to the comic. but you can. and it’s great. my days have henceforth been changed… (okay not really…just gives me something else to look forward to when i see that there’s a new xkcd.com post.)

on a completely unrelated note, i think i have a mental block against the word ‘boyfriend.’ it was really hard for me to even type that right there, for no reason that i can think of. because in the last paragraph, i wanted to share that it was my boyfriend who told me about the additional comments on xkcd, but i just couldn’t write it. and again, typing that last sentence was really bizzare and not easy. one might think that it’s because i don’t want to acknowledge the relationship or something, but this is totally not the case (quite the opposite…i’m extremely happy and thankful we’re together and would gladly share it with the world), but i think i really have a problem with the word. weird. i guess that’s another item to add to my list of quirks.

hanging on

gracefulhope2007 — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 20:11:05 +0000

i just watched ‘hitch’ the other day, and i found the scene where albert is running back and forth between the two cars very relatable. except my cars aren’t a taxi and allegra cole’s car, and i’m feeling more like i have 3 cars i’m chasing after – school, work, and social life.

don’t get me wrong, i love all three, which is part of the problem. one day i’m trying to catch up on school work, but having to work all day. another day is filled with classes while i’m worrying about getting work stuff finished. and in between work and school and homework, i’m trying to maintain relationships with friends and family. it just doesn’t work out well when there are only so many hours in the day.

the only thing that’s holding me up is the fact that my time in school is very limited. i think we’re down to 6 weeks of class left, which is just crazy. if i can just hold on a little longer, i think i may come out the other end alive. not alive by much, but alive just the same.

2009 is flying

gracefulhope2007 — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 14:37:30 +0000

wow the title sounds like 2009 is high or something. which maybe it is, but it’s just going by really fast. i feel like we just got to this year and already it’s the middle of february. how did that happen?? i suppose it happened while i’ve been going to classes, working, going to meetings, and hanging out with friends. it kind of scares me to realize that as i get older, it will feel like time is going by even faster.

hang on to your hats, y’all…2009 is flying by!

PS. happy valentine’s day!

gracefulhope2007 — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:08:42 +0000

“I’ll be drunk from tomorrow night until Sunday.”

I heard a girl say this as she was speaking on her cell phone, walking across campus yesterday. It was Wednesday.

I find this very sad. Why is it that being drunk is okay? Is it really that great to be loud and obnoxious, not remember what happened over the weekend, and spend your early mornings facing the toilet bowl? It’s not that I’m against drinking – I enjoy a good fruity drink once in a while (unfortunately I can’t stand beer, which would be healthier for my wallet), but I tend to treat it like a fancy dessert – something to be enjoyed once in a while, but you don’t have it all that often, and when you do, you don’t usually have more than one.

I personally have never been drunk, and I don’t particularly want to. I want to remember what happens at parties and I want to be able to enjoy them and be myself.

People, it is possible to have a fun party without getting drunk or even having alcoholic drinks present. You just load up on chocolate, munchies, fun friends, and lots and lots of laughter. It’s okay to play games at a party without the title “beer pong.” Oh, and you won’t have any potentially embarrassing pictures on facebook this way, either. (okay, so maybe you will still have those, but at least you won’t have a beer in your hand.)

stories

gracefulhope2007 — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 21:03:11 +0000

i like stories. i always have.

my mom used to read to us when we were kids. i grew up reading all sorts of books, collecting books from certain series, and collecting bookmarks. i would come home from school and just read. i would do this all the time, and it got pretty bad…one summer i spent two days straight just reading and got a horrible headache because of it. my mom made me take a day off. (i’m sure this probably happened more than once, but i only distinctly remember the one time.) my junior year of high school i decided that i would give up reading for pleasure (i would have given up reading for school, too, but it probably wouldn’t have been a good idea). interestingly, after that i didn’t read nearly as much. i still loved to read, but i just didn’t have the habit of going home and picking up a book anymore.

when i came to college, i started to realize that i loved hearing personal stories – meeting someone, learning about where they came from, chatting with classmates about their experiences, listening to speakers share their adventures. some of this led me to grad school where i’m studying librarianship and archives. there are so many stories available in libraries, and tons of hidden ones in archives.

this semester i’m taking a history course called “getting the documents to speak.” we’ve had to examine documents from an archive and read papers about them and what they can tell us. it’s pretty amazing to me that a historian can work with so little and generate a fascinating story. i definitely have a much higher appreciation for historians than i did before this semester. and we’re just getting started….