day three hundred forty-five.

editing/shaping one paper while trying to construct another.
i tend to write best in a sort of disordered way- spit out the content, have it make sense later.


i'm trying for the most dramatic-without-being-laughable title for my paper on the special collections thefts at a public library in maine.
the one i'm working with right now is Unshelving heritage: from the public to the vault.
before that, i had When razors attack: a public horror!
but it's' not quite as intense or bloody as all that. and this isn't a lifetime movie.
(yet).
this is actually a pretty interesting paper to write. it reminds me of when i was a journalism major for 3/4 of a year.

i just wish i wasn't so tired.
but: vacation starts tomorrow!
i cleared off my desk at work this afternoon, as they are installing shelving in our current office. it was impossible to get this song out of my head:

impossible.

eight pages in.

me:  i feel like i have to make a title page in comic sans for this thing

Robyn:  with clip arts!

me:  yeah, 8-bit pictures of file folders.
me:  and dust

Robyn:  and like, a giant silverfish monster. that you're fighting with a sword
Robyn: actually, turn in a comic book about that instead

Robyn:  I'd watch the hell out of that (now it's a tv show)

en cuanto.

finals week:
like waiting to get punched in the face.

this weekend has not been pleasant.

paperz.

i blocked out my entire day to be productive and i've written 1 page (of the necessary 10-12) in the last 6 hours.
considering using the remainder of my saturday to reorganize books and/or read old magazines to drain my brain of academic clutter. my head is made of cotton. and peanut butter. and other impassable things.


i thought that reading the plot to m. night shymalan's movie "devil" might make me laugh and/or feel better.
but once it became clear that the elevator was not in fact the devil, but just some malfunctioning building equipment, i stopped.
anything else is unacceptable as a twist.
unacceptable.
as a twist.

day three hundred thirty-nine.

dance friday already?

and classes are over?

that seems impossible.

(but i'll take it)

only one spanish final and two papers left standing in my way.

day three hundred thirty-one.

bender?

sometimes i like making lists just to cross things off.

make dinner
don't burn it 
unless you like it that way
which you don't
anymore




we're reviewing preservation grant proposals for archives class this week.
my report pretty much reads: "yeah, these sound okay i guess."

day three hundred twenty-one.

lining pages.

the weather today was sort of gloomy but perfect.

i celebrated by consuming a large pile of broccoli and hot sauce for dinner.

now i have been listening to the thunderstorm and doing research for my book crimes class (or, reading about sad librarians and x-acto knives).

it might have been a good idea to pay closer attention during the law section of my reference class last fall.

perhaps i will just look up pie recipes for the remainder of the evening.

day three hundred seven.

classtime smarts.

(our professor broke her nose and was absent last week (ow), so she brought us halloween candy today upon her return. it seems like it should be the other way around. and yet, the sugar was nice)

monday night movie.

put me in the mood for some hitchcock later this week.

day three hundred.

we have reached a nice round number, on this the first of the month, where one can see the frost of january and the end of this particular blog edging nearer.
but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves.

today i got a free chai with my punch card at espresso and then got out of class 2 hours early.
i also have to register for spring classes tomorrow morning, which makes me sort of forward thinking and feeling strange since they are maybe the last crop of official academic classes i will take for a very long time, if not ever.
but one of my classes is on comics, so that is a-ok.

(i wish i smiled when i slept instead of snored)

day two hundred ninety-two.

i've been listening to laura marling and elliott smith all weekend, reading a mixture of flannery o'connor and dave eggers' zeitoun while i try to focus on things. i'm not sure that my literary and musical choices are encouraging my productivity, my attempts to order my thoughts toward symmetry, toward an accumulation of days that must be leading to something, to not just anything.

the changing weather, the days that are getting shorter, the beverages that get hotter, all of october's hints that time is moving forward: i want them to mean something.

also:

(click image to enlarge)

(or, what happens when i have to compose a take-home final in a class i don't like, nor have time for)

i expected much worse.
sometimes saying less is best.

day two hundred seventy-four.

my spanish exam was in the natural history building last night

construction skeleton

 extinct (but cheerful) skeleton

the week gets a little easier from today onward.

i need to find my mittens.

day two hundred forty-five.

gurlllll

internet is finally up at the studio! sorry, mosquitoes in my front yard, you won't be feasting on my ankles every few hours anymore.
now: working on three simultaneous crafting projects, doing spanish homework, and eating broccoli.
there's nothing more a girl could ask for (well, not much).

day two hundred forty.

dispatch from an exam proctor

finance 300.
in a basement computer lab.
week two of classes.

minutes: 90
number of students: 35
number of females: 8
number of those females wearing some type of athletic shorts paired with pearl or diamond-like earrings: 3
number of confirmed southpaws: 3 (all male)
number of professors wearing those pants that zip off at the knee to become shorts: 1
dollars earned: 20, before taxes

(one has to do something for that amount of time when reading or even prolonged sitting is not an option. i look for patterns, counting lefties and trying to guess people's names, or what i would name them based upon their hair color and level of focus. we had a marco, and a shannon, and a john. there's always a john.)




in other news:

my long weekend got longer when it was announced that spanish class is cancelled for tuesday.

and the storm that greeted me in the early morning has passed. the sun is shining; fall is coming. i hope its a good one.


(ch-ch-changes)

day one hundred thirty-one.

genre fiction: a sampling

Charlie All Night
by Jennifer Crusie
c1996

is there a more accurate statement in the whole of literature?

eloquence

and looking like furniture is a turn-on

The High Window
by Raymond Chandler
c1942

murder! intrigue!

hot

i'm not sure exactly what "faces like stale beer" look like, but i'd bet they are accompanied by what we call "sorority voice"

and i take what i said about accurate statements back:

day one hundred twenty-six.

my spanish final is in the morning, the last task of the semester. i haven't taken a final in 2 years. let's hope i remember a pencil.

much of our coursework was online, including watching a series of videos called "Sol y Viento"- the story of the American Jaime Talavera, sent to Chile by his boss to negotiate with a lying vineyard owner. of course, he also meets a beautiful young profesora named Maria and marvels at her "intelligence" in the park:

ah, romance.
(el amor es un torbellino)

i had an entire discussion with a classmate about whether or not Jaime and Maria are good together (this semester really needs to end).

as i was reviewing, i also found my favorite example, on the difference between "por" and "para":

day one hundred two.

i woke up at 8:00 today to wait for fedex and decided not to go back to sleep.
i spent 2 hours reading my urban lit book for class:

it is not my favorite thing. i should have gone with something less romancey. i wonder if the author or other modern romance writers ever read the dialogue to themselves aloud and think that this is the way people really converse. or have sex. or if they expect their readers to. i get that it's supposed to be a fantasy of what love and romance is, but it ends up just making me laugh and/or sneeze, because sometimes i sneeze when i am bored.

then i spent about 2 hours cleaning, shelving my books, and putting my shoes in rows by the door (except for my snow boots, which i finally banished to the closet so that i don't have to think about how it will snow again eventually maybe).

i'm seeing the antlers tonight:



a nap may be in order.

day ninety-nine.

working on a cataloging project i put off for about a month and is now due.
i'm pretty sure 90% of it is going to be screenshots accompanied by the words "providing access to" and "ramble ramble something about AACR2 and oh, here's another screenshot."
good to know that i haven't developed any better habits in my aged state.

i saved a few weirdo things for my 100th post tomorrow.
which means that if you are reading this, you are invited to the weirdo party.

day ninety.

i can register in the morning for the fall, and deciding which classes to take makes my head fuzzy, especially since i don't know if i'll have a job to fill in the gaps.

so far, loading up on rare books and archives (assuming i get the courses i want), even though i'm not getting the certificate in special collections (because i don't have an extra $3000 laying around for the required summer sessions).
plus, a side order of español.

i really can't wait for summer. hair be damned.

day sixty-two.

my spanish book is an unbound, black and white volume- essentially an expensive photocopy of the text our professor uses.
this has not been a problem until today:


good thing i remembered them.

day fifty-nine.

my selection for the western unit of adult pop lit.
12 pages in, and the lead character has already escaped from maritime captivity by beating in the captain's face.
oh, and in googling an image of cover art, i discovered that it was made into a movie starring tom selleck (bonus).