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Saturday, October 6
Riverdance Pace
by
Jason
on Sat 06 Oct 2007 11:35 PM CST
Yet another reason that our son will be seeking psychotherapy in about twenty years...
 On a completely unrelated note, I'm bringing back "Classmate of the Day" except, since I've now convocated, I'm calling it "Colleague of the Day" and it will probably be a less of a regular feature then the former iteration was. But anyhow, congrats to Barb J. for being the first ever (and a very appropriate) Colleague of the Day! Tuesday, July 3
Chris Dixon (1972 - 2007)
by
Jason
on Tue 03 Jul 2007 08:26 PM CST
 (Chris liked this photo I snapped of him after a 503 class so much that he asked me to send it to him for possible use in his wedding album.) It seems like a cruel joke that I'm in the midst of posting eulogies I've done for my grandparents and then I get the news that Chris Dixon, a PhD student at UWO, passed away yesterday morning. Chris had been dealing with health issues for awhile but had been doing better so his passing was unexpected. Shea often says that she spent her childhood going to funerals, mostly for older relatives who had passed but she also had a kindergarten classmate who was killed in a motorbike accident so she experienced the loss of someone her own age very early. I, on the other hand, could count the funerals I went to when I was younger on one hand. I was also unbelievably fortunate to have not had any friends my own age die until only recently (even given the stupidity that growing up in small town Saskatchewan engenders. I've had friends drive drunk into semi-trucks and get hit by trains when sober, fall off moving cars and into campfires, get spinal "stingers" that left them temporarily unable to walk while playing sports. But no one I knew who was my age has died.) The first friend I lost who was close to my age was a few years ago - a young writer in Calgary (who went by the nom de plume of "EatLardFudge" so you can tell why I liked him!) was in his mid-30's when he had a heart attack and died. I had just turned 30 and this was a shocking development. "Hmm, people in my decade sometimes die" I remember thinking, surprised at this cosmic revelation. And now Chris Dixon (who was 34 if I'm doing my math right and which is the same age as I'll be in two weeks) has died as well, earning the dubious distinction of being the first friend of mine who was born within a year of myself to have died. I know that the older you get, the more this will happen. But as I said, I've lived in a bit of a bubble and thought it would be sometime in my 50's or 60's when this started happening, not when I was in my early 30's. So this news hit me harder than you might expect the death of someone who you only crossed paths with briefly during "a year abroad" (as I think of time at FIMS). [Edit: just to be clear, I have known people a few years older than myself who have died. And younger people as well. But no one who I was particularly close to and always in an "acquaintance" rather than a "friend" role.] There are other reasons besides our common age why this hit me harder than I would've expected. I attended a writer's conference quite a few years ago. After the AGM, I went up to a well-known Saskatchewan writer and during the course of our conversation, I mentioned that I looked up to him as a mentor. He replied that he didn't want to be rude but he wasn't sure what I meant - he had never critiquing my writing and in fact, he didn't really know me beyond being casual acquaintances. I said that I thought of it as more of a "mentorship-at-a-distance" role - I learned a lot from talking to him, watching how he handled himself in various situations, how he dealt with people. Although we were a bit closer than I was with that unnamed writer, Chris filled a similar role for me at FIMS. He was always very level-headed, giving and thoughtful in all of my interactions with him. Maybe it was because he was in the PhD program, maybe it was because of his health, maybe it was simply because of who he was as a person. But he always seemed so much older than me and I was also shocked when I realised that he was my age, first at FIMS and again, hearing this news today. I'm rambling all over the place here but I also wanted to mention that I'm fascinated by the idea of people's "Digital Footprints" - the traces we leave, intentionally and otherwise, via our online activities. I see that Chris' name has appeared on this blog a few times over the past year. The search engine doesn't find it but Chris also regularly posted comments in response to my threads on librarianship, music and Ontario. Another form of your digital footprint is the e-mails you've sent (especially if you're a hoarder like me whose kept pretty much every e-mail I've received over the past ten years!  ) One of the last e-mails I got from Chris hints at his struggles with his health but also captures his sense of humour: Welcome to your Jesus year.
Mine will be ending on Sept 12 and it has been
quite the eventful span of time.
To your health (I am raising my coffee
cup).
Chris The reference to the raised coffee cup was an ongoing joke between us. On numerous occasions, I invited Chris to join me at the Grad Club for beer. And on numerous occasions, he had to remind me that he no longer drank alcohol because of his health issues. Chris left another digital footprint as well. He had a Facebook page and it knocked the wind out of me to see that his last "status update" was "Chris is happy that he spent the day with his family." This post was made two days ago on Sunday. I think that single line sums up what kind of a person Chris was, what his priorities were, better than this hastily drawn, semi-lucid, quasi-eulogy ever could. A follow-up from his wife Sandra on his Facebook wall explains Chris' passing for anyone who may stumble across it and also to advise everyone to live life to the fullest - something I once again tell myself I'll do, even as I know that there will be roadblocks - monotonous work duties, choosing to watch TV instead of watching the sunset, going to sleep instead of going for a walk.) Last year, at library school, I used to do a recurring feature called "Classmate of the Day" where I cited someone who had helped me out or said something funny or had just been a good person in general. I believe Chris even "won" the award once or twice himself. But what better time to bring it out of hiatus than now. Classmate of the Day: Chris Dixon Tuesday, December 5
And The Spirit of Librarianship - Fall 2006 - Goes To...
by
Jason
on Tue 05 Dec 2006 11:32 PM EST
...Lindsay Holdsworth. Congrats to probably the biggest volunteer in the entire MLIS program. (I know she makes my head spin, just watching what she's involved with.)
Kathleen C. took some abuse tonight for breaking the "Spirit of Peer Mentorship" chain that led from Sabina to me to her. (The first two won the award, Kathleen allegedly broke the chain.) But upon further reflection, we realised the chain was connected by nominators, not peer mentors. Sabina was my peer mentor but she also nominated me for the award. Then I nominated Lindsay. So that's the real Skull & Bones connection of the award. (We won't mention my summer nomination who didn't come through with the SoL victory nor the fact that, although of course we were both deserving, Lindsay and I each happened to win in a term where no one else from our cohort was nominated to split the vote.  ) I'll have photos just as soon as I can figure out how to get my digital camera to talk to my computer. (Sometimes, they're like an old married couple on the step giving each other the silent treatment.) Classmate of the Day: Jeremie LeBlanc for offering a ride to Molly Bloom's tonight after the summer cohort finished their final 506 class and then a ride home afterwards. Had a good visit with lots of students from summer term plus a couple grads who showed up as well. Monday, December 4
Reading Library School
by
Jason
on Mon 04 Dec 2006 02:53 AM EST
"For decades, reading studies have repeatedly found that 'heavy readers' not only read more books than light readers and nonreaders but also do more of almost everything else, including traveling, attending sports events and concerts, visiting museums, and participating in community organizations and politics. For many, reading is a way of being engaged with the world. These readers like to know about things and they read to find out."
- "Reading Non-Fiction for Pleasure: What Motivates Readers?" - Catherine Ross in Nonfiction Readers' Advisory, Robert Burgin (ed) Since I've mentioned a few times in this blog that many students end up not doing all the required readings (and are frequently given that advice directly by upper level students), I thought I'd do a post about the type of things I have read during library school because I think it is important to do some sort of reading obviously, even if it's not always what the professor tells you to read. Required Readings Even if people tell you to not even try to do all the readings, it shouldn't preclude you from trying to do some of them. I'm not going to admit how much I've done this year but it's higher than "none" and lower than "all of them".  Articles You Find For Assignments LibraryLit will soon become your best friend but there are other databases out there and everybody seems to end up with their own favourite. I grew to like Emerald which someone pointed me to early as having lots of full-text articles (always an important thing to look for.) Articles You Find Out of Interest I've spent some time punching random subjects I'm interested in into online databases (like LibraryLit and Emerald among others) just to see what articles I can find. CPIQ has back issues of numerous magazines and CanadianNewsstand has newspapers. Internet Articles & Web Sites Doing Internet searches is sort of like browsing in a library as sites lead to other sites which lead to other sites and all of a sudden, you're nowhere near where you started but finding out about something completely unique and interesting. Library Blogs For the latest developments, news and plain old gossip in the library world, you really can't beat library blogs. There are probably hundreds of them out there. (That last one is a Wiki so it's easy to add yourself if you're a librarian blogger. <hint>) I've got about maybe twenty that I read on a regular basis (where "reading" equals scanning the RSS feeds than clicking on interesting sounding articles) and maybe that many more that I don't often visit at all. Friend Blogs This partly blurs the line with the last category but I have maybe a dozen blogs that aren't necessarily all about libraries or library school but that I read to keep up with friends lives and thoughts. Many of them are linked on the left side of this page. Classmates' Papers Anytime I heard a classmate talking about an interesting topic or project they did, I'd ask them to send me the paper so I could have a look. I often ended up learning more about the most cutting-edge issues, the most unique takes on library-related topics and lots of local or regional information I wouldn't get anywhere else. Library Journals, Other Periodicals Sam Trosow gave us shit for not reading any library journals early in our 501 class so I've taken that lesson to heart and sometimes like to go into the GRC and just flip through some of the journals, stopping to read things that catch my eye. It's especially fun to pick something you'd never normally pick up - I picked up some cataloguing journal once and ended up reading a very engaging article comparing the classification system for the Internet Movie Database with traditional library classification systems. I also try to at least glance through Quill & Quire every issue to keep in touch with my old life. Serendipitous Searches Probably one of my greatest pleasures in life is going in the library stacks and just wandering randomly waiting for books to find me rather than me finding them. I've come across a few this way (including the one that included the quote that leads off this post.) Books With Library Connection in Broadest Sense Ian S. and I spent an enjoyable couple hours at the Grad Club, I think before the summer course selection meeting, talking about "pop science" books - the latest trend in books where various authors are trying to come up with broad theories to explain some element of our society in a style that's accessible to a lay audience. "Pop society" - maybe that was the term we used? Anywho, some examples of these types of books we came up with which are great for giving a lot of material and ideas for virtually any essay or assignment you might do in library school include: Blink - Malcolm Gladwell Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner Free Culture - Lawrence Lessig Linked - Albert-Laszlo Barabasi The Cathedral and the Bazaar - Eric S. Raymond The Ingenuity Gap - Thomas Homer-Dixon The Long Tail - Chris Anderson The Rebel Sell - Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter The Rise of the Creative Class - Richard Florida The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success - Andrew W. Savitz The Wisdom of Crowds - James Surowiecki The World Is Flat - Thomas Friedman (Full disclosure - I have not read all of these books although all that I haven't are on my "To Read Soon" list.) Real Books For Pleasure I think I've mentioned on the blog already that before library school, I averaged about a book to a book and a half read per week. Since getting here, I'm lucky if I read one (non-school related) book per month. (I just checked - 24 non-school related books this year so two per month. Not as bad I as thought considering how much other types of reading I've done that wasn't book length - though I've learned that this type of reading counts too! Lots of the books that I did read were powered through during semester breaks though.) The Best Article I Read All Year Finally, our managment professor talked about an article from the 1950's (?) on how much of management theory is bunk and really, people just stumble from decision-to-decision making the best choices they can, given the limited information they have. He read it as an undergrad and said it was the best article he ever read as he progressed on through grad school and his eventual doctorate (of which he was sure to mention on every slide of every Powerpoint he ever created but that's getting off-topic.) Anyhow, that leads me to my favourite article that I've read this year, interestingly enough, something that was either assigned or found during this semester's 506 class (mabye there is something to management after all?  ). Barb J. sent it to me because it talked about Regina Public Library but beyond my natural bias for the topic, the actual subject matter was just incredibly inspirational. It's called "Lasting Lessons in Leadership" (PDF) and talks about why Ronald Yeo, one of the former head librarians at Regina Public Library was such a successful manager which in turn, made for an innovative, nation-leading library system. (I asked the original publisher of the article for permission to reprint the article but never heard back from them. But since the original journal (10MB PDF) that included the article is available freely online, I didn't think it would be a problem to reprint it here. Shhh!) Classmate of the Day: Time to resurrect a long forgotten "feature" of this blog - classmate of the day, where I acknowledge people who have made my life at library school a bit more fun, enjoyable or easy. We have a double winner today - Linda B. who hosted an incredibly fun farewell party for a few people from our cohort - some who are done for good, some who are done for the term - on Saturday night at her home. Also have to thank Lara A. who gave me 24 beer as a very personalized Advent calendar (and as a thank-you for helping her move a couple times this year.) I've only got a couple weeks left here but will do my best! Wednesday, October 4
Firefox Extensions
by
Jason
on Wed 04 Oct 2006 11:16 PM EDT
Here is a list of Firefox extensions I have installed on my computer:
Classmate of the Day: Melissa McQueen hosted a very fun trivia night at hte Grad Club tonight. Dylan from first term and I won a $10 gift certificate in the first round, promptly spent it on a pitcher and never won another round. I challenge everyone reading to come out next week and see if you know the names of the four characters on "Sex in the City" or what the name of that little bone in your ear is. (Hint: it's not "ear bone" which is what all three teams answered.) Friday, September 29
Friday Fun Link - Wikipedia 100 (Sept 29, 2006)
by
Jason
on Fri 29 Sep 2006 08:40 PM EDT
As September comes to a close, it’s a good time to point out that Wikipedia has an option to view the Top 100 viewed pages of every month.
In September 2006, sex-related pages (List of Sexual Positions, Sex,
Pornography) compete with popular media stories (Steve “Crocodile
Hunter” Irwin, Dawson College Shootings) and more general topics
(Canada, Brazil) for the top spot.
As for Classmate of the Day, yesterday goes to Iona Henderson who brought some smoked salmon her dad had sent her to our Thursday night class. Today, it goes to Linda Bussiere, Quinn Dupont (and Robin and Rory) Mike McNally, and Christina Winter who all joined Shea and I at the Grad Club for what felt like old times in so many ways (except for a lot more talk about cloth v. Pamper diapers and the advantages of breastfeeding than I'd ever heard with MLIS'ers at the Grad Club before.) Saturday, September 23
Are You A FIS Blogger?
by
Jason
on Sat 23 Sep 2006 01:25 PM EDT
Are you a blogger? Do you have things to say
about the profession (archives, museums, lis, etc . . . )? We're
looking to compile a directory of active FIS bloggers, so why not send
your details along and be included! OPML-based 'reading lists' will
eventually be created so that members of the FIS community (and
beyond!) can subscribe to a 'block' of blog feeds based on areas of
interest. For this reason, please be a specific as you can about your
blog's primary area(s) of focus. Here's what we need: * Blog name * Your name * Topic/area of interest Thanks! Sherri  Sherri Vokey: Digital Services Librarian - Faculty of Information Studies - University of Torontocontact | sherri.vokey@utoronto.ca - 416-978-5768 | aim/iChat - sherrivokey [at] mac.com This is a sort of timely e-mail to receive (thanks Gord!) as I just stumbled across the blog for 757 - Social Software & Libraries. One of that classes' first assignments was to create a blog and the instructor has linked to all of the blogs from the course page to encourage the students to realise that they're part of the blogosphere (which is cool.) But clicking through and reading some of them, I think she may have made the same mistake that many people teaching these types of courses do - namely, defining what the students must post rather than encouraging them to post whatever they want. If all that students post are assigned responses to readings and other coursework, blogging is going to feel like homework and nobody is going to continue doing it after the class is done (which should be at least part of the goal of a course like this.) Not to mention that instead of having original, readable blogs, you have this homogenous mass of blogs that are all talking about the same thing which sort of defeats the purpose as far as I'm concerned. I look at the list of people in the class and see people with interests in esoteric philosophy, medieval history, Russian culture not to mention those with knowledge of specialized areas of librarianship (one whose mother is a medical librarian and would likely have lots of insight into the profession, many who've been on co-op and could share their experiences on that, etc.) I'm sure the instruction didn't restrict them to only writing about their coursework but if that's what is assigned, that's likely all a person will have the time to do. I think a much better solution would be to tell the students to come up with an original theme for their blog (it could be specific, it could be as general as "what's happening in my life") and make that the subject of their weekly post (along with the occasional response to the readings/posting of coursework to achieve the learning goal of making them think about the role of/problems with social software.) How's that for a mini-rant?  Classmate of the Day: Barb very generously offered me a ride to Word on the Street in Kitchener-Waterloo tomorrow. I'd been planning to attend in Toronto all year since I used to be a board member of WotS Calgary and wanted to see what the "big guys" did. (In fact, my ambitious plan was to organize a rental van or even a bus trip to take intereste students. If it was first semester, I might've pulled it off but as I mentioned, third-semester Jason is stretched too thin as it is!) But pending assignments, the expense to go to TO for a single day and a few other things all factored into making me decide not to go. Still, I was glad to have the offer of a ride to the much closer festival with a local and am looking forward to seeing the KW version. Kathy Stinson is reading, there's a celebrity spelling bee and a handwriting analysis tent plus there's even a panel on blogging that I should probably go take in so I know what I'm talking about when I go on my mini-rants! 
Friday, September 22
All Kinds of Thoughts & Things - None of Which Are My Homework
by
Jason
on Fri 22 Sep 2006 11:42 PM EDT
Scholarly Journal Submission Update
Just finished submitting the revised version of "Useless as Tits on a Bull: User Fees in Alberta Public Libraries" to Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Research and Theory. As I said before, it's been an extremely educational process, I got some great feedback and even if they don't decide to publish it after this time around, I'm happy that my paper is 100% better than it was before. (I doubt I'd revise it again it it comes back to me once more - at least while I'm still in school this semester. It's been far too distracting as is.) With that said, I would encourage anyone to submit your best essay to them. Even if it doesn't get published, it's well worth going through the process. I've asked for permission to reprint the two peer reviewers' comments and I'll likely also upload the revised paper at some point in the future as well. The In-Box Exercise A popular job interview technique is the "in-box" exercise where you're given a hypothetical in-box full of memos, letters, reports, etc. and asked to prioritize everything, explaining your decisions. That's what my first three weeks of library school have been like with an in-box filled with: 1) revising that essay for resubmission to the journal 2) student council stuff - both my required duties and a bunch of new initiatives we discussed at the last meeting 3) finalizing arrangements for the most ambitious Lunch Bucket Speaker event I've presented by far 4) trying to keep up with readings and assignments. In what might be marked as a "fail" in the real-world in-box exercise, the order I listed those things is also basically the prioritiy I've given them (you could probably also stick "write long, rambling blog entries" in at 3.5 before doing homework too!) I've been amazingly lucky to not have a single assignment due until September 26 (how is that even possible in this program?) but the readings have been pretty heavy so far so that's time consuming as is. My priorities will definitely re-arrange in the coming weeks...or else I'm in trouble. A gazillion years ago, my boss told me that the danger of working in non-profit organizations wasn't that the work was too easy, it was that it was too easy to let yourself get stretched thin. She said the kind of people attracted to non-profit work tend to be the kind of people who can't say 'no' and get in trouble because of it. (Er, do you see anyone around here who fits that description?) Groccery Checkout Gotta give a big plug to Grocery Checkout, a locally-owned company that's about to celebrate their one year anniversary in November. Shea and I have used them a few times this year to order and deliver groceries to us. Their prices are comparable to most grocery stores, they save you the time and hassle of shopping as well as the expense of getting to the store (especially if you don't have a car and have to take a cab or don't want to always be doing "mini-runs" on the bus.) They don't offer as many "specials" as grocery stores do but you're also less likely to do all those impulse buys. They used to charge a flat fee of $7.95 but recently revised their pricing so that the basic fee is $6.95, if you order over $100, it's $4.95 and if you order over $150, it's only $1.50! Great for ordering heavy canned goods, great for getting frozen goods home in summer without them melting on the bus, great if you have a household with two or more people and can order $150+ in groceries at a time. Their delivery schedules vary depending on how busy they are but we put in our latest order last night and had our groceries by 7pm tonight. Give them a try if you get a chance! Classmate of the Day Catch-up Did I ever explain this for any new readers? In addition to the Friday Fun Links, another recurring feature on this blog is "Classmate/Colleague of the Day" where I name somebody around FIMS who's done something cool or memorable or fun or somehow made my life more enjoyable (ie. basically, any reason I want.) So yeah, let's see if I can shotgun a few COTD's for the last week to "catch-up"... Monday - I didn't get the name but the guy at the Registrar who gave me a form with the University's seal confirming my enrollment without charging me $5 like the woman at the front desk wanted to is my first CotD not connected to the program I think. Tuesday - Karina Miki-Douglas did an awesome presentation in our 532 - Journalism class with a display, props, handouts AND free Runts candies. You could tell she took Instructional Strategies with Jennifer Noon! (She also won a contest and its her photo of the clock tower that's on the front of the SOGS dayplanner. Tres cool!) Wednesday - everybody on Student Council. We've got a lot of exciting ideas for new projects this term and if we even manage to implement half of them, it would be amazing. Thursday - Corey Redekop, who is a recent FIMS grad with a novel coming out next year gave me the honour of seeing previews of the four covers under consideration for it. (Him and I disagreed about which was the best though!) Friday - I spent an enjoyable few hours at the Grad Club this afternoon with two PhD students, Tami Oliphant and Margaret Kipp, discussing all manner of things from blogs to intellectual freedom to social bookmarking technology to the publishing industry (Tami is teaching a course on Publishing in Winter 2007 and everybody should take it - it's going to be awesome!) Tuesday, September 5
Randomness (Happy Labour Day aka "What I Learned On My Summer Vacation")
by
Jason
on Tue 05 Sep 2006 11:19 PM EDT
Another recurring feature on this blog is that I've done a few "random thoughts" posts connected to various holidays over the past few months. I didn't do one on Monday so here's a belated Happy Labour Day to you and some good old fashioned randomness...
What I Learned On My Summer Vacation Short of a trip to Woolworth's to buy a Star Wars lunch bucket, this return to school felt more like a "real" return to school than either of my last semesters. Knowing that many high schools were returning to their classrooms today and seeing all of the fresh-faced undergrads running around campus added to this feeling. What I Learned About Fresh-Faced Undergrads They're not exactly fresh-faced. More like "purple-faced". Christina, who has a co-op on campus so has been over there during the break warned me, "It's like being on an American campus - all these kids in matching t-shirts and painted faces marching and chanting." (A few of us were standing around today at NCB talking about this and we decided that one commonality between all library students is our lack of enthusiam for such activities.) Unfortunately, I have not one but two classes up by the UCC this semester so I'm going to have to wade through the undergrads on a much more regular basis than when I can cocoon in the NCB. What I Learned About Student Council Had our first meeting today and I think we've got an awesome group of people. Hopefully we can get lots of exciting work done over the next semester that will help not only current students but those who may come later. What I Learned About Car Rentals We've rented a few cars through the year and have had a different model everytime. Our latest was the Ford Fusion which Shea and I both completely fell in love with, so much as to the point that this could very likely be the next type of car we buy when we're in the market for one in a year or two. What I Learned About London Public Library It's easily one of my least favourite libraries I've used in my entire life. There's many reasons for this that I won't get into now (note to self: future list alert!) but I'm hoping I get to explore this further in my public libraries class somehow. (For instance, I'd like to do a paper on "The Perfect Public Library" this semester if I can fit it in. Any comments on what makes a great public library for you would be appreciated!) (Oh, and if I end up applying for a job there in four months, these comments are of course null and void and I *love* LPL! )Okay, that's about it. I also had one other recurring feature in this blog where I'd often name a "Classmate/Colleague of the Day", a highly coveted award (?) given to acknowledge classmates who helped me out or made me laugh or did something cool or basically anything else that catches my attention. I haven't given it out for awhile because the only classmate I had contact with over the break was myself (er, that sounds dirtier than I meant it to) but I'll bring it back now. Classmate of the Day is Lindsay Holdsworth who did a kick-ass job chairing her first Student Council meeting. Sometimes I think about how fun it would be to have all of my favourite classmates end up at the same library working in our favourite areas (I'd be in charge of collections development) and Lindsay is one of those people that I'd love to work with. Saturday, August 12
Why Do Boys Read? Heavy Metal!
by
Jason
on Sat 12 Aug 2006 09:06 PM EDT
GG winning author, Art Slade (who is coming to FIMS on October 23 for the Lunch Bucket speaker series - mark your calendars!), discusses the reasons he became (and stayed) a reader as a young boy on his blog. His answer? Heavy metal.
Two thoughts. Why did I become a reader? I think mainly because I always had books around and reading was made to be enjoyable and not "work". A big part of that was that my parents supported my reading whether it was Stephen King or magazines or Hardy Boys or whatever - no pressure to read worthy literary works. Why did I stay a reader as a teenager? I'd accepted that I was more of a "nerd" than a "jock" by about grade six so being a big reader in my early teen years wasn't any more embarrassing. (I remember our Grade seven teacher made us do 10 book reports during the year. If you did 15, he bought you a Coke. I did 52. He only bought me one Coke.) As well, our hometown was so small that the lines were blurred. I played on the hockey and football teams as well as being on yearbook and in drama. The other important question. Which heavy metal influenced my reading? None off the top of my head but I can say that one thing that links almost all of my favourite artists - Boo Radleys, REM, Radiohead, Hawksley Workman - are obtuse, poetic lyrics and my other favourites are simply poetic - John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen. Classmate of the Day: Missed their party last night (too tired after the pool party and a class bbq) but met up with David and Sabina at APK this afternoon for a good visit that I probably wouldn't have gotten at their party anyhow. They're off to Ottawa tomorrow. They really did so much to make my first eight months here so amazing and successful and I owe them a huge thanks for that. I don't know if this analogy works but I was thinking that first term is like kindergarten, second term is like grade eight and (I'm guessing) third term will be like grade twelve. So getting to hang out with and learn from some middle school kids while I was only in kindergarten was a great advantage in helping me in this program in so many ways. I'm off to another end-of-term party so hopefully this post isn't too disjointed or has too many errors (compared to usual anyhow.) |
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