September 25, 2015

 I finished some of the reading I wanted to today. Only two chapters but it was better than nothing. Time really flies when you're a slow reader. I also reviewed other things for class so I wouldn't be completely caught off guard by assignments and stuff.

While I ate lunch I watched a Yogscast video featuring Simon's return. Over the past week or two I've been watching old Yogscast videos because I had been missing Simon's personality for the last however many months he's been gone. And now he's back. My optimistic view was him coming back for the holiday livestreams, but he beat that by a couple months. I'm okay with that.

My drive down to class was interesting. It was mildly frustrating because the first half was mostly spent going well below the speed limit because other drivers suck. While slowly going along I dreamt of smart cars. Like a car that could match the cruise control or speed of the car in front of you and keep you at a predetermined distance. The only thing worse than getting stuck behind a slow car is not being able to use cruise control because their speed keeps fluctuating. It would also be nice to have a bird's-eye view so you could see when it was safe to pass. The drive down is winding and there are so many times when I could have passed people, but there is no way of actually knowing that because you can't see what's around the bend. Another smart car idea would be if you end up with a line of cars behind you because you're going to slow, your car will automatically pull over so the line can go by. People don't have the courtesy to do that on their own so maybe their car should be programmed to do it for them.

Also on the first part of the drive I witnessed to interesting things. One much more so than the other. The first, a bunch of old cars. I'm assuming there was some sort of gathering somewhere. I know very little about cars but I know what looks cool and there were definitely some cool looking ones. The second thing, which almost made me pull over just to watch, was a small airplane. At first I thought it was just a big model plane because the way it was flying didn't seem possible for an actual plane. I still kind of feel like I was imagining it. I've never seen a Cessna in person but I imagine the plane I saw was about that size. It may have actually been one. I don't think the wings were on top of the plane but after looking online I saw pictures where the wings aren't always on the top, so maybe it was a Cessna. What I do know what that it was repeatedly flying really really close to the ground. Like constantly dropping below the tree line before climbing, turning, and dropping back down. I've never seen anything like it.

Class was good tonight. Earlier in the week we had to submit a random fact about ourselves and we started tonight by going around with a sheet of those facts and trying to match them up with our classmates. I think I've done that once before, and I can't remember when, but I do remember disliking it. Tonight I started with that same feeling but it actually turned out alright. I met some people I haven't had classes with before and I learned some interesting things about all of them. Two of the facts on the list involved the radio, one was a DJ and the other was voice talent, and a lot of people chose one of those for their first guess about me. Curious. I guess if the librarian thing doesn't work out I can go into radio. Back in college I applied at the student station, not because I wanted to be on air, but because I wanted to play the music. Sadly I never heard back. Maybe if I had I would be working at a radio station now. Like NPR. Probably not though because when I talk too much I give my voice gives me a headache. It really vibrates in my head.

We worked on a small group project about budgeting which was interesting. We didn't really get that far with it but we had some good discussion. And the class discussion afterward was also really good. Quite a bit of time was spent talking about microfilm because that is apparently still a thing, especially with local newspapers. I never would have guessed.

Near the end of class we went over the main group project, creating a collection development policy for the community college library that one of my professors (who I had this summer and I have again this semester for my academic libraries class) is the director of. We have to create the policy, create a selection list, and create lib-guides. There are three target audiences so at the end of class the professor passed around a sign-up sheet so we could sign up for the group we wanted. She saw one as being more like an academic library scenario, one like a public library, and one like a school library, based on the patron needs. Thankfully she started the sign-up sheet in the back of the room because I was closer to the back than the front, and I was able to sign up for the online students, which was the more academic library example. Because this is for a real library, and the professor will be giving all of us credit for it, we will be able to put it on our resume, so that is pretty cool. Also, my group ended up with the other three guys in the class, so one of the girls in the group referred to the group as the dude group, which was kind of funny.

My partner for the policy analysis presentation talked to the professor tonight and found out we both have to talk in the presentation, which kind of throws a wrench in our plan because we had planned on him doing the recording. So we need to figure that out now. I spent time tonight when I got to the hotel figuring out OBS on my laptop, because I kept getting a black screen when I tried recording. But I got it working. One thought I had was both recording our own parts and then my partner could send me his and I would join them together. I think we might end up just trying to find a quite place tomorrow and knocking it out before we leave. I had the thought that I should bring my microphone with me and now I wish I had, because laptop microphones suck. Along with that concern, the other big one is I had not planned on talking, so I have no idea what I'm supposed to say. Hopefully my partner has some sort of script.

And now it is almost eleven-thirty and I need to go to bed. I'm freaking tired and I've got a headache. A great combo. Hopefully I will wake up tomorrow morning with both of those problems solved. Fingers crossed.