October 24, 2014

Today was a relatively uneventful day. The first part was spent reading. I read through all of the librarian interviews from my classmates. Despite a couple where the writing was a little confusing, they were all pretty interesting. Reading about what librarians get to do makes me wish I already was one. I now have a better appreciation for the need of formal education for librarians but it would be nice to fast forward through this bit and get to the hands-on job stuff. I am looking forward to practicums.

Late this afternoon I headed out of town for class. The drive was uneventful, which is good. On that final stretch of highway I once again got stuck behind slow trucks. It annoys me when the passing lane comes up and the trucks that are going under the speed limit, but just a tad faster than the slow truck in front of them, take up the entire stretch of passing lane getting around the slow truck. This only allows for maybe a few people to get around the slowest vehicle but they are still stuck behind vehicles that aren't going the speed limit. And everyone else is still trapped behind the slowest vehicle. It's pretty inconsiderate. It was slightly better this time because the trucks would occasionally fluctuate up to the posted speed limit but that was rare.

Part of our class time was spent discussing the librarian interviews. I was debating whether or not I should speak up, and leaning toward not because most people were mentioning how the librarian they talked to hadn't gone straight into librarianship, and that is kind of what I was going to say. But then the professor called my interview out by name because of how my librarian had started out teaching German, then going into agriculture and running the family farm before finally ended up in librarianship. So that was kind of cool.

My partner and I got added to the presentation schedule tomorrow and we'll be going last. Although technically it will be second to last because the professor decided it was a pretty interesting assignment and wanted to try it out, so he'll be giving his presentation after ours. I'm just glad we aren't going first, as are several other people I overheard talking, because we aren't quite sure how we should present things. I figure my partner will mostly cover the PowerPoint because she did that, although I might cover the last slide since I added that in, and then I'll talk about the newspaper. But I don't know if I'm supposed to read the articles or summarize them or go over every detail of the newspaper or what. Thankfully everyone else is going before us so I'll get to figure it out based on what they do.

I got a text from the manager at the movie theater and it looks like I'm a projectionist again. Haven't been since August but after thirteen years at the movie theater I assume it will be like riding a bike. The manager said corporate are making some changes that will require having a projectionist every shift. He wouldn't specify the changes but hopefully they won't require a bunch of actual work because I'm only agreeing to shifts based on the assumption that I will be able to work on school work while I'm there. We'll see how it goes. I need the money but not if it comes at the expense of my school work. And it has been nice having weekends off. I start again next weekend. Can't wait.

One last thing about class. I recognized one of my fellow classmates tonight. I think maybe she looked vaguely familiar before but I never really thought about it for more than a fraction of a second. But then tonight I walked by her, briefly seeing her face, and then later saw her name card. The name looked familiar which made her look even more familiar. I just checked Facebook and it turns out I went all the way through school with her, grade school through high school, same graduating class. What are the odds of that? I have no idea what she did after high school, and I don't care enough to check, but it has been eleven years since we graduated high school and we both end up in the same cohort for library school. That is a heck of a coincidence.

Right now I'm at the hotel and it is going better than my last stay. There isn't an awful smell in my room, just a hotel smell, and I don't believe there is anyone booked on either side of me so I don't have to worry about little kids screaming all night. There is a cricket somewhere outside which is as annoying as crickets always are, but my fan drowns out the noise so I'm good.

Tomorrow I am considering changing things up for lunch. The past two times I have gone to Subway because it is right across the street and I can walk there. This time I might go to Jimmy Johns, which is also relatively close. Although I can't remember exactly how close so I'll probably end up driving there just to make sure I don't end up spending too much time walking there and back. Although I might end up fearing change too much and taking the easy way out and going to Subway. These trips are filled with stuff outside my comfort zone, like driving to a new town and interacting with people that are still kind of strangers. So I should take the lunch thing as just another challenge. Granted it is a tiny challenge, but a challenge nonetheless.