May 31, 2016

This morning my alarm clock went off at six o'clock in the morning. I then laid in bed and may or may not have dozed off a couple times until finally getting up at 6:45AM and taking a shower. I then ironed my shirt and pants. And then threw my shirt and pants in the dryer. And then I ironed them again. Turns out I probably shouldn't have put so much effort into the pants because despite being wrinkle-free, they wrinkle as soon as you sit down. Oh well.

I waited until 8:30AM and didn't hear anything from my practicum supervisor so I texted her. That led to me going to the library at 11:30AM. Thankfully the campus is a lot less busy during the summer so I was able to park in the parking garage, which isn't too far of a walk from the library. It was also a nice day, so that walk was nice. It will probably suck on the days where it is hot as hell, but following this week I should be at the library by eight o'clock so it shouldn't be too hot by then. Hopefully.

I was at the library for two hours today and we started by going over schedules to try and figure out what would work best over the next few months. This being my supervisor's first day back from a two week vacation, along with being on a search committee for new librarians, today and the rest of the week is a little hectic for her. But, we discussed scheduling and then she took me next door to the office I'll be working in. The IT guy came down and got me set up with a username and password so I can log into the computer and I met my officemate, who is a librarian that my supervisor works with. I would say she is more senior than my supervisor but it would be hard not to be because she has been at the library less than a year. It would have been nice to have a more experienced supervisor because I think I would have gotten more out of the experience and they would have had a better idea of what they were doing, but it's too late now. And it'll be a learning experience for both of us.

All that took about thirty minutes and she had a meeting to go to so she emailed me a couple links to look through. My officemate went on her lunch break shortly after that so it was just me in the office for about the next hour. The first link was an example of what she wants to change the freshman library experience into. Rather than just a tour and a class on the catalog she wants to set up a mobile scavenger hunt. It sounds a lot more engaging than the boring tour or even a paper-based scavenger hunt. The other link was to an updated explanation of information literacy. It was long but more succinct than the stuff we had to read in one of my classes. Which is good because I read slow.

Not too long after my officemate got back from lunch by supervisor got back from her meeting. We all talked about random stuff for awhile and then they both had to go to a two-hour long meeting. I had already read everything and she couldn't think of anything else for me to do so we called it a day. Tomorrow they are doing an event with 4-H and I kind of invited myself to help out with that because I'm worried about not getting my hours in before the end of July. And the stress level is going to pick up next week when I start my job at the public library, so if I could at least get in a few hours this week that would make me feel a little better.

I had plans of doing productive things when I got home but none of those things occurred. I just wrote quotes in my journal and watched things online. Kind of disappointing. I'm going to regret these lazy days when everything starts crashing down on me later in the summer.

Tonight we had our first class meeting for the ALA conference class. It was informative. It sounds like business casual is the expected attire, which sounds warm in Florida. All but one of the shirts I just bought are long-sleeved so I might need to go get more short-sleeved shirts. And I need to figure something else out with the pants because my new pants are not going to survive a suitcase without become a wrinkled mess that an iron won't be able to fix. I also still need to get comfy shoes that can hold up to being on my feet all day. To give us an idea of the walking she said a light day might be 10,000 steps but she said it would likely be closer to 20,000 steps, and she has friends who have put in over 30,000. That's a lot of walking. Based on some rough estimates and calculations, that is over fourteen miles, which sounds absurd.

During the meeting my mom came to show me something in the paper but I couldn't look because I was trying to pay attention so I went up to look afterward. It was an obituary for a kid I was in Scouts with. He was a year behind me but only sixth months younger than me. He was such a happy-go-lucky kid and whenever I ran into him over the years he always had a big smile on his face. At the bottom of the same page there was a brief article that said he had been found with an apparent self-inflicted wound that was not caused by a gun. I can't really comprehend it. It's been several years since I've run into him but my dad just saw him a few months ago. I just don't get it. Often times life doesn't make sense and this is one of those times. I just wrote a quote the other day in my journal that says “Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.” I'm not really a fan of growing old but the older I get the more I realize how lucky I am. It also makes me a little worried because every time someone dies unexpectedly it makes death feel that much more inevitable. I don't like it. And I don't like seeing my friends and family die. It just makes me feel so helpless. Or rather, it points out how helpless we all really are.