"Fiction is the lie that tells the truth..." -- Neil Gaiman

Got the first week's worth of assignments finished! Maybe I'll get a head start on next week's! Or I might take it a little easy this weekend. We'll see.

Anyway, one of my teachers assigned some very interesting articles for the class to read. The one I am sharing today was featured in The Guardian and taken from a lecture by British author Neil Gaiman. I found it very inspiring, not to mention encouraging for my love of fiction! 

Why our future depends on libraries, reading, and daydreaming

School is Back in Session!

My attitude towards school half of the time:

My attitude towards school the rest of the time:   

Let's hope this semester is like the second scenario... non-stop!

Here We Go Again!

It's been nearly a month since I shipped my last batch of school books back to their home, and only yesterday that the last of this upcoming semester's school books arrived. How quickly vacation flew by! In a mere two days I will be back in school. I'm actually glad for the spring semester to begin. I've finally had to admit to myself that "Yes, I like school" when I realized how excited I was to order my textbooks. (Of course, that could just be my love of books talking.)

Luckily for me, this upcoming semester should be a great deal easier than last fall. Before I had six classes total (two of which were half-classes that did not start until the halfway point,) and now I have only four (one of which does not begin until March) along with my library/information technology internship. That's right, I will be working on-sight in a library ten hours a week!  I will be learning so much in the upcoming months.

Let the adventure begin!

Bon Voyage, Books!

I did it! I made it to the end of my fourteen-unit semester! Still waiting on some grades, but today Elizabeth and I packed up the books for good.

Christmas Vacation, here I come!

Only One More Week to Go!

This Week in Children's Literature: Poetry

This has probably been one of the most enjoyable weeks of learning for my children's lit. class, partly because we didn't have a quiz in honor of Thanksgiving. It was about poetry, a subject I've always loved but have sadly neglected in recent years.

What is poetry anyway?

Poetry, at it's most basic, is a short, lyrical response to the world. It is emotion under extreme pressure or recollection in a small space. It is the coal of experience so compressed it becomes a diamond. 

 -Jane Nolan

It is time to make some diamonds again.

Here is a sample poem from my textbook:

Great, Good, Bad

A great book is a homing device

For navigating paradise.

A good book somehow makes you care

About the comfort of a chair.

A bad book owes to many trees 

A forest of apologies. 

-From Please Bury Me in the Library by J. Patrick Lewis  

Who You Gonna Call?

Stress Busters!! Another gem from Library Teamwork and Supervisory Skills, which has quickly become a more enjoyable class.

https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/Stress-busters

Take a Deep Breath....

Looks like I'm back, in spite of being so very busy. Six classes and all their accompanying homework, plus the housework that never ends, keep me pretty busy. But we must not forget the ever important down-time. Down-time for me is usually first thing in the morning with toast, a hot cup of tea, and a good book (more often than not Harry Potter.) Unfortunately, my foolish brain cannot help making me feel guilty about the down-time I am taking, telling me that I'm subtracting valuable minutes from my day that could be used getting homework or laundry done. 

Long story short, life is full of stress! Surprisingly, today I found encouragement in one of my least favorite classes, Library Teamwork and Supervisory Skills. This week my teacher assigned some articles for us to read on stress and how to reduce it. Here are links to two articles that really helped me:

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/stress/art-20046037?reDate=13112016

http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950?reDate=13112016

Let's all hope for a more relaxed week.

Sleepy Blog

Hi Everyone,

The fourth week of my school semester is nearly complete. School can be a bit exhausting, even when it's all online. I do miss the classroom sometimes. I would often get a nice pick-me-up from having an enthusiastic teacher lecture about Shakespeare or the French language.

School is temporary. That's what I keep telling myself every time I think I can't go on. It's only for the next three months. Then comes Christmas break followed by the spring semester, which, if all goes as planned, will be easier than this semester and the last one for this Library Information Technology certificate program. I'll be a certified library technician!

Until then, though, I just keep plugging away at school, each assignment turned in bringing me one step closer to a successful ending.

I'm afraid that this blog is going to be rather inactive for the next three months. School comes first, well, maybe school comes second after my personal sanity. So this blog is going to rest for a while, and I bid it sweet dreams.