Head Tale - Yet Another Librarian's Blog

Jill did the book meme on her blog which led to a blog of one of her friends who had coincidentally done a similar book meme on the very same day. (Whoa dude!)

The friend's list was "10 Books You Think Everyone Should Read". I'm duplicating a couple picks from my other list but here you go...

1. Diary of Anne Frank - Anne Frank
2. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
3. Behold The Man - Michael Moorcock
4. Time's Arrow - Martin Amis
5. Down To This: Squalor and Splendour in a Big City Shanty-Town - Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall
6. Mountains Beyond Mountains: The Quest of Dr. Paul Farmer A Man Who Would Cure The World - Tracy Kidder
7. Not Wanted on the Voyage - Timothy Findley
8. Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs At The Turn of the Millennium - John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, Sabin Streeter (eds)
9. The Cay - Theodore Taylor
10. Stuck in Neutral - Terry Trueman

As you can tell, I tried to stay away from the "canon" classics - both adult and children's - because everybody knows you should read them. Otherwise, I'd stand by these picks as some of the "best of the best" of all the books I've ever read.

(MeShell says that everybody at FIMS is reading this blog so come out of the woodwork people! Put your own lists in the comments. This type of list is custom-made for librarians - how can you resist? Just do a Top Five if you don't want to put off your RQ's or Cataloguing essays or co-op jobs for too long. If you're a prof, you can post anonymously - I can't tell where you're posting from, honest.)

Random Librarian Trivia of the Day: Isaac Asimov is the only author to have a book in every section of the Dewey Decimal System (via Amy's blog).

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"You Look Beat Down" (and a stroll down memory lane)

by Jason on Tue 14 Nov 2006 08:48 PM EST

Is it a bad thing when multiple people tell you that you look beat down (or a variation of this - ie. "You look really tired") within a one week period? I'd heard about the way this program wears you down, especially if you go straight through in three semesters, but was going pretty strong well into my second semester so thought I would be able to continue my run into my final term. But between student council stuff taking way more time than I expected (and being way more stressful than I expected) plus a job hunt and a pretty heavy semester in general, I admit it - I'm beat!

The good news? One month from today and barring a major meltdown (true, which could very realistically happen but at least would be entertaining for onlookers) I will be officially finished my Master of Library & Information Science degree. (Technically, our last day is December 8 but because I'm in a joint distance class with U of T, we're on their schedule so our last class is in the evening on December 13. It could've been worse - originally it was scheduled for December 20 I think.)

I can't believe how fast this year has gone. It seems like only yesterday that I sat down in Orientation at 9am on January 3 with Michelle D. from Regina (with Emma M. on one side and Jessica Van M. on the other), having absolutely no clue what to expect. Emma and I got talking and I found out she'd been in Regina at RCMP training before having to leave due to an injury so that gave us some common ground to chat. (Emma also later told me she was jealous that Michelle and I knew each other already, having met each other in Regina before coming to London. I think we may have been the only two in our cohort that did know someone else there!)

I remember our collective shock at hearing that we would indeed be having our first evening class that day (that wasn't really clear from the advance materials - some people thought we'd have orientation then not start classes until the next Monday with the undergrads!) and then how grateful we all were that Professor Trosow realised what a long day we'd had and let us out early.

I remember that our orientation also finished early so I decided to head home (a 10 minute walk) and ended up walking part way with this tall guy with blonde-brown hair who said he was from Victoria and a philosophy major.

"I read some study in <obscure academic journal> that said librarians are the most left-wing profession around."
(me: "yeah...and?" also: who the hell does this guy think he is - don't they screen for left-wing credentials at library school?) Turns out that guy who I didn't know what to make of on day one became one of my best friends in the program. (I still don't know what to make of him though!)

Anyhow, I get home for a bite to eat and to relax, only to have everybody's worst nightmare - late for your first day of school - realised! I somehow got it in my head that our night classes started at 7pm but when some niggling doubt made me check my schedule at 6:30pm, I was like "Arrrgggghhhhhh!" I sprinted to class in six and a half minutes, snuck in the back of the room as quietly as I could (trying to be as casual as one can while huffing and sweating all over the place) only to be invited to move closer to the front, along with some of my fellow back-rowers, by the prof who has poor eyesight.

The next morning I was up bright and early for my first cataloguing class. I'm not much of a morning person usually but I remember how excited I was that morning and how I thought "yeah, this feels right."

I'm debating doing a list of personal highlights from the year but that'll have to wait for another entry.

Here's my first-ever photo in London Ontario. I remember driving out of the airport thinking, "do people randomly pull over on the side of the road to take pictures like they do back home?"

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