July 25, 2015

 I forgot to mention that I forgot something in my packing. My pillow. It's been awhile since I've forgotten something. Thankfully the hotel pillows are good so I managed just fine.

Right now I am tired, and it isn't even midnight yet, but I have stayed up far later than I should. I got up this morning around sometime. I think my alarm went off 6:30AM. Instead of getting up immediately I went over my presentation a couple times out loud as I laid there with my eyes closed. Then I got up and got ready.

It was really strange brushing my teeth at a sink that wasn't in a bathroom.

Today was filled with presentations, a few lectures, and a little adventure. I would say all of the presentations were interesting. A couple of them were for actual grant projects that my classmates did for work so it was cool to hear real life examples. As far as the posters went, there were a couple really cool ones that looked like a lot of effort was put into them. The majority looked like an afterthought. I imagine they will all get full credit but at least I have the satisfaction of making a superior product, which will look better as an example for my capstone next summer.

After lunch I drove around town long enough for me to go over my presentation a couple times. Practice makes better. During our last break of the day we decided to go up and look at the new cardboard furniture on the fourth floor. Our adviser and professor both said they thought it was a joke when they heard about it but it definitely wasn't. It exists and it looked incredibly uncomfortable/impractical, and it was apparently expensive. We all kind of made fun of it for awhile and then we decided to go see the new furniture down on the main floor of the library.

We headed off in a different direction than we came to go down to the second floor but when we got to the bottom of the stairwell we learned that the door was locked. So we went back up to the fourth floor and when we got about halfway through the stacks we decided to take the stairs down that are in the stacks. I'm pretty sure there are two levels of stacks for each floor so there were a lot of stairs. And then we went down one set too far and had to go back up. It was like the blind leading the blind and it was pretty great. The whole time the professor kept commenting on how bad the condition of the stacks were. He was pretty sure they were never really taken care of and that weeding was not a thing that ever happened. I was just enjoying being surrounded by all those books. I love the smell of old books. It smelled way better than the cardboard furniture, which managed to make the gigantic room that it was in smell like cardboard.

We did eventually make it to the second floor and checked out the new furniture down there. It was in an area that used to be filled with books but I guess they're going to turn it into a tutoring and studying area. The office chairs were comfortable.

While we were down there, and then when we were headed back up to the room, I ended up talking to the girl that I went all through school with, kindergarten through high school. But I don't think we ever talked because we were always just in different circles. We started talking about working in an elementary school because I do that now and she wants to eventually be a school librarian. Then we segued into talking about people from high school and the reunion, however long ago that was, and Facebook. It was kind of a cool. It's still pretty crazy that we took entirely different paths after high school but both managed to end up in the exact same grad program, starting at the exact same time.

Eventually it was time for the last presentation of the day. Me. I'll be honest, I think it went really well, at least from my point of view. All of the practice really paid off. I wasn't too nervous and for the first time every, probably, I didn't blackout at the beginning and come back at the end. I was completely aware of not only what I was saying but also what I was doing with my body. I was able not be too awkward with my hands and I looked around the room and actually saw people while I was talking, I wasn't just staring without focus. And I said all of the things I wanted to say, including my small joke, and it got a laugh, which is always my goal in any presentation. So I'm happy with it. And with my poster. Even if there was a small error with “hardware” missing.

On my way out of town I made the obligatory stop at Spangles and then headed home. It was a really fast trip because most of the time I was able to drive at the speed I wanted to drive at. On two occasions cars pulled onto the highway in front of me and they were apparently unaware of how highways work because there was obviously not enough time for them to get up to speed before I caught up to them. And then when they did get up to speed, it wasn't actually fast enough. They should have waited. Thankfully I was able to get around them fairly quickly so it didn't slow me down too much. I kept track of my mileage on the way down and on my way home, going a different way (but the same way I always go home) it was six miles shorter than my trip down. That could account for part of the reason why the return trip feels faster.

For dinner I had Little Caesar's and it was delicious. I've been in the mood for Little Caesar's for awhile now and it did not disappoint. I spent the rest of the night watching TV, YouTube videos, and playing a bit of Zuma's Revenge and Bejeweled 3. I was in the mood to play a game while watching videos and I didn't want to think too much. Those games fit the bill.

I'm sitting here in silence, writing this entry, and some animal just start frantically squealing really loudly outside my window in the backyard. I turned the light off in the room and tried to look outside but it was too dark so I have no idea what the hell was going on. I could have gone out and checked but no freaking way. I'm cool with not having the crap scared out of me. I am hoping that maybe it was a opossum that accidentally stepped on its own tail and scared itself. That is the happiest thing I can think of. We're going with it.

And now that it is an hour after I started typing, and creeping up on one o'clock, I'm going to call this good and go to bed. Tomorrow, I really want to knock out my reflective journal entries. And preferably not push off that goal until the middle of the night. If I could get it done early enough I could also go back and proofread by grant proposal. There are a couple things I want to double-check on that so I probably won't submit it tomorrow but it would be nice to have it done. That way my main focus this week can be on the budget assignment. And maybe critiquing a website for my web design class. I think we have a group meeting tomorrow, although I'm not entirely sure why because we haven't done anything this week, but we'll see.