In 2009, I got my master’s, got my first professional library job, thought a lot about cities, and bought a house in Pittsburgh. It was perhaps a more interesting year than I gave it credit for at the time. Anniversary in six days. Highlights from 2009 below.
Category: Grad School
Otherstream at 20: 2008
There was better reading in 2008 than in 2007, maybe because I was tying (at least for a little while) to generate content for four different websites, all of which eventually landed here. I’d call this year “reflective” and “hectic” with grad school and all. I also worked a very odd part-time job, continued with my freelancing, and migrated the site from static HTML to WordPress. I’d sort of forgotten what a busy year it was.
- The geekiest pornography store ever (all this SF nostalgia was part of a short-lived rebirth of Planet SOMA)
- Making preserves out of history
- Sunset people
- The atheist homosexuals who stole Christmas
- Advice column (sad foreshadowing)
- Why I generally don’t vote Republican in the South
- Charleston and Pittsburgh (several posts follow)
Otherstream at 20: 2007
Past the halfway point now, and only eight days until the anniversary. Highlights and favorites from 2007 (the year I started grad school and actually started working toward having a real career) follow. I have to admit very little of it is especially entertaining or inspiring.
- A long week
- Richmond (one post follows)
- Roanoke
- The wizard of ID
On the 8th of February
Never really noticed this coincidence before. On 8 February 2000, I announced that I was going to be moving back eastward at some unspecified point in the future. Exactly five years later, I announced the actual move. It took a while, obviously, but here I am. And I still stand by my decision. As it happens, 8 February 2007 also was the start of my transformation into the librarian you know and love today.
Pretty good date, all in all.
I used to do these “five years ago, etc.” posts fairly often. I haven’t been doing them so much lately as I’ve been trying to focus on the present and the future. But I was looking for something tonight in reference to another post, and I got sucked in. So here you go…
I Look OK in Black Polyester, I Guess
Just in case you were wondering, it’s not too late to order those Christmas or graduation gifts. Mainly, though, I’m just happy to only have one full-time job now.
More photos after the jump. Continue reading “I Look OK in Black Polyester, I Guess”
It’s Over
A few minutes ago, I finished my last paper for my last class as a graduate student. I’ll probably give it one more proofing tonight before I submit it, but for all intents and purposes, I’m done. For your reference, the subject of this final fifteen-pager was open source content management systems for library websites. if you’re really desperate to read it (and I can’t imagine why you would be), I’ll have it posted on the other site later today or tomorrow.
And I’m not sure what to do next.
What exactly do people who aren’t in grad school and working full time do on Sunday afternoons, anyway?
Cafeteria Line of the Damned
Thanksgiving dinner at the K&W.
Thanksgiving has never been one of my family’s bigger traditions. When I was young, we usually spent it with assorted aunts and uncles, but we always left the big celebrating to Christmas. In recent years, my mom and dad have taken to having their turkey at the cafeteria (except for 2007, when the hubby and I had them over for a big feeding). The past two years, Mark has been on the west coast for the big day, so I’ve joined them (and hundreds of others) in this charming New South tradition of turkey, two vegetables, bread, dessert, and tea for $6.49.
It’s not such a big deal. Mark and I had our own spread last Sunday before he left, anyway. I’m glad I married a boy who not only cooks, but even makes his own pie crust (sans dodgy Japanese ingredients).
Now I get to spend the rest of the holiday weekend writing my last paper as a graduate student, as well as preparing for my final final.
Sunday Morning
The surest way to get me to be domestic on a Sunday morning is to assign me a paper that has to be completed that day. I’ll do damned near anything–from vacuuming to laundry to mass production of next week’s lunches–to avoid getting started on it.
That said, I’m only two and two thirds papers and one final away from graduation.
Like it’s 1991…
My disorienting moment of the morning involved watching a sexual harassment video where everyone was dressed like cast members from Saved by the Bell inside a building at UNCG I hadn’t entered in eighteen years, and then hearing Jump by Kriss Kross blaring from someone’s car when I walked outside.
It almost made me want a beer and a cigarette.
Saturday Morning
I’m happy to announce that the long hell of summer is finally over around these parts, and that as of this morning, I finally had to give up and turn on the heat since the temperature inside the house was in the upper fifties.
I hate summer and am glad to see it go.
Alas, the cold weather and accompanying blanket fetish are also accentuating my fatigue now that I’m working full-time while going to school full-time while also doing my assorted part-time contract gigs. Suffice to say there has been very little free time this week. OK, what I meant to say is that there has been no free time this week, nor will there be any this weekend. I want more than anything to curl up on the couch and watch movies. That’s not going to happen, though.
It’s all worth it, because I’ve landed my dream job and I’m still quite excited about it. The two months between now and graduation are just going to suck, though, and there’s no way around it. There will be whining and complaining. Please bear with me.