The Wildcat's Den

I'M DONE WITH SCHOOL!!!!!

Officially, honest-to-goodness, bonafide DONE!  I just posted my last post for my class and everything is turned in, so I get to enjoy summer vacation!  All two weeks of it ^_^  Then I'm back to the grind.  But for that amount of time, I have plenty of self-inflicted projects to attend to.  Let me savor this moment while I can, though :)

It's Saturday out at the ranch.  And I have a few scattered thoughts on some things that, by themselves would not make a good LJ post.  But together, I can make up a list.  Hearkening back to my days as editor-in-chief of The Snowdrift, I resurrect "Liner Notes."

I Can See Polar Bears From My House:  Arctic wind has taken over much of the continental United States.  This has created a condition that most of us call "January."  Florida and much of the deep South is seeing record low temperatures.  A little closer to home, the stockyard is basically a giant ice block.  Snow that fell off the roof and onto the front porch in December is now a pile of ice that defies any attempt at dumping salt or Ice Melt on it.  The polar ice caps' distant cousin has taken up residence in my front yard and will probably be there until April.

So, I ask global warming nuts - those who can only brave the arctic cold in mid-July when the Earth's axis tilt has those cute polar bears staring down the sun.  Those that videotape these cuddly creatures floating on their summer ice boats and say the bears pitifully floating out to oblivion (when in reality the polar bears are just out fishing and can't figure out if what the bearded hippie is pointing at it is a camera or a gun).  Those that demand that the rest of us sacrifice our lifestyle by turning off lights and using flashlights (oh wait, the batteries are bad for the environment - and we certainly can't light any fires, either).  I ask all you who have not bathed since Woodstock - if this Arctic wind has settled over the northern hemisphere, does this mean that this global warming (that is melting the ice caps and drowning polar bears) is officially over?  This cold kinda puts a damper on all your big plans for taking down capitalism (India and China are saying "Can we get back to business now?)

I Am Proud of Who I Am... I Am - a Librarian!! I got my syllabus for two of my classes this semester!  And wait until you hear what one of my assignments will be.  The professor has given us all a list of movies to watch and write a paper on one, answering questions that she will provide.  And guess what two of the movies are - The Mummy and The Mummy Returns.  I have them both on DVD and seen both many times.  (In an odd twist of fate, "The Mummy Returns" was on Starz last night).  I have gone from having to read obscure literary fiction that only pasty college professors read in their dark holes to doing homework that embraces popular culture.  It's a breath of fresh air!

Playoffs? Playoffs???  Don't Talk About Playoffs!! It wouldn't be Wild Card Weekend if I didn't have something to say about football.  I refuse to cheer for the New York Jets.  Not that I have any big beef with them and not that I have any great love for the Cincinnati Bengals.  Just that they would not be in the playoffs at all if the Colts and the Bengals hadn't sat their starters the last two weeks of the season.  By rights, they shouldn't even be here. 

And the Bengals just lost.  That's what happens when you take your foot off the gas when you have everything wrapped up.  Let this be a lesson to you ding-dongs.

Actually, maybe I should be cheering for the J! E! T! S! Jets! Jets! Jets! to go all the way.  Maybe that would finally illustrate the stupidity of throwing games at the end of the season when you have the top seed/home-field advantage/division title wrapped up.  But the dumb thing is that nobody of prominence would point that little detail out. ...sigh...

Prediction of Doom: Speaking of the playoffs, it seems like all the teams I've been pulling for this year folded the last few weeks of the season (with the possible exception of the Vikings, but it was the Giants...)  I've always hated the Dallas Cowboys and I've only recently gained a dislike of the Jets.  But they're both suddenly hot and it would be my rotten luck that we would have a Jets-Cowboys Super Bowl.  And the Cowboys would win.  What can I say?  I'm being a pessimist this year.

I had a scare the last couple of days, but all is well now. So well, in fact, that I must share my happiness and joy with you all!

Mom called a few days ago and said I had a letter from my grad program's financial aid office. She said it had something to do with pre-requisite mumbo-jumbo and I needed some kind of mumbly-mumbly to be eligible and that I'd better call and find out what the heck is going on. So, I called (keep in mind, I'm in Utah, my program is based out of Kansas. It's not like I can run down and give them a face-to-face chewing out if needed) and they said that I was missing two transcripts and once I got those in, I could be fully admitted into my program.

Time for Good News/Bad News:

Bad News: the transcripts I needed to send were for concurrent enrollment classes I took in high school. Altogether, they represent about nine credit hours that went toward my Associate's Degree. Not even my Bachelor's - Associate's. Also, I was aware of this problem a month ago and had mailed in my transcript requests to the schools in question. The checks for the transcripts had cleared, so I assumed that was the end of that. How much would it suck if I didn't get into my grad program because of a couple stupid concurrent enrollment transcripts?

Good News: Well, I guess that spew about pre-requisites was a bunch of BS. That's good because my advisor didn't mention pre-reqs and if I would have to take any before being accepted, I would have been severely hacked-off.

So, I make a few phone calls, make a pest of myself and end up being late to my beginning guitar class. However - by 11:00 this morning, I got an email from the lady I talked to on the phone saying that they found my transcripts - they had been filed under a different name. The graduate department is now reviewing my file and I should get an email in a few business days saying I'm accepted officially (which may be into December because of the Thanksgiving - who knows?)

Oy... I know getting into my graduate program will be worth it.

Oh - and in other good news - this morning I went to a meeting with Elder Marlin K. Jensen of the Seventy, who is also the Church Historian and Recorder. He explained how the Church History Library works and how the Church goes about collecting historical documents and publishing and displaying them for the public. (Seriously - if I don't become a public librarian, I would LOVE to work for the Church History Library in Salt Lake. I still haven't seen the new library, but from what I've heard about it, it's drool-worthy ^_^). The meeting was really interesting and informative - it's amazing how much transparency the Church really does have. Honestly - anything you want to know in the Church's history, you can pretty much find out about it. And all of it would hold up to any kind of scrutiny. Let's see the Huckleberry campaign smear Romney with the anti-Mormon tactics again (but I digress...)

Anyway, I spoke with Elder Jensen after the Q/A session and asked him how I could get a job at the Church History Library. He told me that they actually have internships at the library and even who to call to get started! I also mentioned that I'm trying to get into a Library Science program and he said that would be an excellent degree for me to have.

Wow - isn't it funny how things work out to get you thinking? First, I'm going to get going with my graduate program and then I'll look into this internship deal. I am soooo stinking excited!!!!! So many good things happened today!!

It's been a few days - between getting the rest of my grad school application mailed out and taking the GRE, I'm pooped.  Mercifully, I have recovered (I hear a collective sigh of relief throughout the flist).  Here's a run-down of my week, just in case you care to know.

Tuesday, I spent the day compiling all my letters of recommendation and finishing up my statement of objectives and tweaking a cover letter ("tweaking" here meaning "a process that I copy-edit a table of contents and try to make it sound professional all under 200 words")  Yes, it took all afternoon.  I meant to catch up on "Heroes" - luckily I have managed to remain unspoiled thus far.  Happy day.

I spent Wednesday at work, getting a second job, doing my one and only written assignment for my guitar class (what are the odds that my only written assignment for an actual college class this semester would be due the same morning I take the GRE?) and studying for the GRE before the home teachers showed up (nice kids, really).

Thursday: guitar class, turn in assignment (it was all about transposing sheet music and a few other cool things that I probably would have appreciated more if I wasn't on a hard deadline here - well, maybe I can try it again in my spare time).  GRE at 11:00 - now, if you know anything about the GRE, there are three sections: Analytical Writing, Verbal and Quantitative.  Analytical Writing and Verbal - not a problem for me.  Quantitative is a fancy word for math (I find it fascinating that math people have to give their section a word that starts with Q and has three T's in odd places).  Now, I didn't know this about the actual GRE (probably should have), but after you have taken the Verbal and the... my fingers are having a hard time spelling Quantitative, so I'm just going to call it Math... section, you are given the chance to re-take the section you had the most trouble with.  I didn't find this out until later, so I just thought it was someone's sick idea of a joke to give me an extra section of the Math test to do.

Another thing: in the first section of the math, the procedures and such weren't too bad - but the arithmetic was horrible (like, I knew to multiply 85 by 76.9 or something to that effect, but actually doing it without a calculator was a little tricky (if not impossible).  But - in the second Math section the computer gave me, I was allowed an on-screen calculator.  But by that time, the computer had me allll figured out and it only gave me problems like "Solve x+y+capybara."  So, the calculator was pretty pointless.

Anti-Math Rant: I am an English major.  Letters and number do not mix without serious consequences.  Putting letters into math problems is like breeding a cat with a gecko.  It does not occur in nature and when you force it in the lab tests, some pretty bizarre things happen that just are sick and wrong.  Beyond the Sierra Club and Greenpeace on your butt - denizens of the cat and gecko populations would laugh at the poor thing and then it would want to go kill itself.   Letters should never be added to numbers - it's just not pretty.

Anywho - GRE.  Finished it.  Lost some brain activity for a few hours, but it returned from Mordor eventually.

Friday (being today):  Got an email from the Master's program I'm applying for - they want me in for an interview as part of the application process.  Don't entirely know what that means, but it's got to be good.  I have an interview next Friday.  I'm pretty excited ^_^

That's my smart-person update for the week.

I'm researching graduate schools - and I don't feel good about any of the ones I've looked at, really.  I wanted to be in grad school by next fall, but the more I look at these things, the more overwhelmed I feel and the more daunting the task seems to be.

I want to go into Library Science and be a librarian (cue the Evie from "The Mummy" jokes).  But seriously - I feel like that's what I really want to do.  Problem is that I will have to go out of state or do it online because none of the colleges in Utah has a Master of Library Science program (with all the teaching and education programs we have, you'd think someone would have a librarian program - but nooooo....  good grief - don't you think, in the city of professional careers, "teacher" and "librarian" are, like, next door neighbors or something (at least on the same street)?  But I digress).

So, I'm looking at grad programs.  But there's so much stuff out there about it - some of the programs aren't even called Library Science.  Some are "Information Services" (I guess "Librarian" is politically incorrect or something? Lame...)  Some are for information research or archiving.  And then you have school librarians, which are a totally different animal.  Then - I find something that makes me think I don't even need a Master's Degree for this at all!

When I finally hunker down and look at different programs - none of them really stand out to me.  And I'm not even sure what I'm looking for.  Wish I knew a professional librarian on a semi-personal basis so I could them questions about this.  Kind of feeling clueless on all this....