Change Is Hard

Seven days left till I will be done with all this schoolwork.  Well, in theory I’ll be done, school will be done whether or not I finish everything.  I’m headed to Ann Arbor, this Saturday morning, scheduled to work downtown all day, 9-6, in the Youth Department.  I’m already stressed, this should put me right over the edge.

Yesterday I worked hard on getting notes together for the two web finals.  Katie was at the groomer all day, on purpose, so that I could make some study headway.  I don’t think she had a good time because she threw up her dinner, twice, once she was home.  I felt much the same way.  There is so much to get straight in my head about this code writing thing.  But I did make some progress, and I will work on it again tonight, if the kids haven’t killed me, and all day tomorrow.

Monday our big group project is due, and it’s pretty much finished now, so that is a weight off my mind.  Still have to write a 3 to 5 page reflections paper, due Thursday.  Tuesday night is my practical web final, the one I most dread, the reflection paper is due Thursday, and Friday is the written, theory web final.

I’m not going to like the week coming…but I’m going to REALLY enjoy it once it’s over!

My big project for one class is due Monday.  The practical web design final is Tuesday, and the theory related written web design final is Friday.  Next week is going to be rough.  I wish it were two weeks from today, I’d be graduating tomorrow.  Given, I guess, that I actually pass the web class.

I need time to work on web stuff, to gain some confidence with it, try to understand a little more, but I have a lot of hours of work this week and next, and group work that has to be done for the project due Monday.  I’m starting to feel stressed, as I knew I would.  But I”m trying not to be afraid.  Trying.  Sometimes it’s hard to think, and that’s never good during a finals week.

Today on my drive to AA I heard there was a closure on s.b. I 75 down near Monroe.  A semi truck involved with a “small red four door” car, as described by the traffic copter guy.  He said it was hard to tell what the make of the car was because “the car was crushed from the back up to the front seat.”  That’s exactly what dad’s red car looked like, hit from the rear.  Today there is an accident investigation under way, which means someone is either dead or seriously injured.   I wondered, for the rest of my drive, whether the family knew yet.    I’ll be thinking of them today as they face a world changed forever.

Makes those pesky finals seem not so important, doesn’t it.

Yesterday I would normally have been working at the library and then going to my computer lab to sort out problems with my homework. But I realized on Sunday that I wasn’t scheduled to work, and since my homework was already turned in, I didn’t need to foray down to Ann Arbor. A free day to spend at home, getting ready for the difficult final week ahead. What a gift.

Turned out that I spent most of the day trying to make headway on my last of this lifetime school group project. We have a massive paper to turn in next Monday. Each of the four of us has been working on sections of it, and now its time to bring the whole thing together. I and another student have committed to the editing of it, and she did the first pass through the paper. I struggled for hours just to get beyond the first couple of pages; the text of the paper feels so awkward, and its obvious that more than one person has written it. Plus it’s huge, and has way too many citations. We have 50 pages and almost 150 footnotes. I did what I could in about six hours, and turned it back over to the other editor. She spent most of the night and into the wee hours of the morning making much better headway. The paper is now back in my lap, but it feels more manageable now, though its still just as long.

Today, after my final web design lecture I will head over to work where I will help public library patrons work on the computer while I try to edit the paper. I want it to be done tonight; we’ll see. I need to be able to concentrate on the web finals that are coming up next week. I attempted to begin that last night after abandoning the group paper, but my head and neck hurt so much from the hours of paper struggling that I finally went to bed at 9 in self defense. Last night I was worried that nothing I read in my web design notes or saw on the web design lecture slides made sense. And that there was no way I could make any of it clear prior to the exams.

This morning, the world seems brighter. The sun is just popping out from among clouds, the sky is bright blue and filled with clouds, both dark, ominous black clouds and stark brilliant white puffs. The low morning sun makes the red brick of the university buildings glow. The air is warm, and there are blue flowers blooming under the shrubs. I am an hour early for lecture, and I have some sense of hope that indeed I can get this all done, and that all will end well.

A female cardinal calls from a tree as I open the door to West Hall and start up the stairs to the last lecture of my academic career.

Tonight I heard the last lecture in one of my classes. The topic was the digitization of collections, but the professor stopped short of completing the lecture. He said we could look at the rest of the slides of his notes on our own, that he just wanted to end the semester with a final thought. And this is it; paraphrased:

“Librarianship is a noble profession. We’ve all experienced what libraries have provided to us while growing up. Librarians are the gateway to the world of information; librarians make society more humane and more democratic. But librarians aren’t held in much esteem. Many of you, when you told friends and family that you were going to school to become librarians, suffered the jokes and confusion of people outside the profession. Some people probably questioned your sanity and your economic future. Librarians aren’t valued by society, and aren’t compensated well. Your rewards won’t be evidenced by your rate of pay. You’re answering a higher calling; you’ll be providing a service to society.”

I thought it was the perfect way to end the semester. No one has ever said that out loud in any of my classes. But it’s true. When I quit my job to go back to school most people thought I was nuts, both because they couldn’t imagine going back to school, and because of the salary I was giving up.

My boss,however, asked me the right question. She asked if I was leaving to do something I felt I was meant to do.  I answered with a heartfelt yes.

Ok, lets be honest.  I AM truly counting down the days now.  I should put a big “13” up on a wall somewhere, because that’s the number of days until all the schoolwork, including exams, will be done.  Two weeks from yesterday I’ll be free!  Sort of makes my stomach hurt when I think of how little time I have to prepare for the exams.  But on the other hand, it’s sunny out and the garden needs weeding and soon I will be able to weed without thoughts of adjax or ruby or html or other stuff crowding out all other thoughts in my head.

I woke up last night about 2:30 and couldn’t go back to sleep.  I was thinking up different ways I can study for the practical exam, different things I could do to my now corrected midterm to see if I can add database models and live chat and other cool stuff to it successfully, guessing at what the professor will throw at us on the test.  Of course in the light of day I don’t really want to do any of that.  So I think I’ll take the dog (who is sleeping) for a walk.

As I finished writing the blog entry for today, and was checking it for editing…I heard a soft squeak next to me.  You guessed it, it was Katie the dog who has been patient (sort of) all day and whom I haven’t really played with since the first day of spring break oh so long ago.  She was carrying her new favorite doggie toy and squeaking it next to my leg.  Her eyes were hopeful.  So I tossed it for her, and now I have to go play.

It’s early Saturday evening, and I just electronically submitted my LAST web design homework.  Assignment 10 was easier, not to say I didn’t get stuck, but I drove down to AA yesterday (on my day off mind you) to meet with the professor and work out my problem(s).  I finished the last 1/3 of the assignment on my own and even figured out my own issues without asking for help!  Does this make me a programmer?  NOT!

It is SO tempting to celebrate by not doing anything else tonight.  But the practical final, a week from Tuesday, is going to be based on our practical midterm.  And since I only got about 2/3 of that done, I need to get that finished so I have something to start with.  And I had some help with that from the professor and from another supportive student.  So tonight I guess I’ll work on that.

I have all my work input into our shared site for my collection development class group project.  Our group meets Monday to discuss putting all our parts together into a (somewhat) cohesive whole.  I am eager to get going on that so I can check it off my short list of stuff to do before graduation.  And for my professional practices class all I have left to do is a one page handout synopsis of my last paper.  The paper was turned in last Thursday, I have to present this coming Thursday from the handout (yet to be created).  I’ll put that together tomorrow night, or maybe I’ll go out on a limb and do it next Wednesday night! 🙂

So all in all I am SO close to being finished.  Two finals to go, one short handout, and the compilation of the group project.  Then FREEDOM!

This week in the web design class the professor sent out a correction for some code previously provided. The typo in the code as seen in the assignment caused many of us to run our tests but get errors that we couldn’t debug. The title of the corrected code was “Errata for Assignment 9.” I had never seen the word errata before, and I vowed to look it up. Someday when I had time for that sort of thing.

Today I am sitting in the UGLI (Undergrad library) waiting for the professor to show up for a meeting and figured I had the time. So I went to my trusy online Merriam-Webster’s 11th Collegiate Dictionary and typed in “errata.”

“Errata: a list of corrigenda; also :a page bearing such a list.”

Well…that wasn’t very helpful was it?! So I entered “corrigenda.”

“Corrigenda: an error in a printed work discovered after printing and shown with its correction on a seperate sheet.”

Now here’s the difference between acadamics and me. I’d have just labeled the page “Stuff that needs to be corrected in assignment 9.”

But, given I am here, I will try to adhere to the rules of a university, and consider this another lesson learned. Can I go home now?

As I waited in what amounted to a wind tunnel for the bus this evening I reflected that today actually went far better than I expected it would as I was trying to make myself get up at 5:30 this morning. I got a lot done at work and then went to my computer lab where, just like every week, the professor was there to make what I felt were huge problems seem smaller. He is so supportive, I’m sure I’d be in far worse shape than I am if it weren’t for him and a few other students in the class that help me sort stuff out. I can’t say that I understand what we did tonight, not specifically, but in a vague sort of way I get it. At least for now. Final exam: two weeks from tonight.

So I’m waiting for the bus in aforementioned wind tunnel, and realizing that the day wasn’t half bad when at 5:20 the bell tower carillon began to play..soft at first, but a rather frantic fugue, and I thought how odd that someone was beginning to play at 5:20, when generally I hear them at noon. It reminded me of Mom who went to school there, and played the organ and I think secretly would have LOVED to play the carillon. The music got louder and more frantic, I closed my eyes and listened to it above the hum of cars and people going by. It began to fade away as my bus rounded the corner at State and North University, heading to pick me up, late as usual. If the bus had been on time I wouldn’t have heard the concert. The music stopped as the bus pulled up.

I know it’s going to sound weird, but I think the music was a sign from Mom; I think she was scolding me for getting so worked up about stuff that inevitably turns out OK.  I guess she’s right. I’ll try not to get so bent out of shape as the final approaches. But I’m not promising anything.

I’m totally stuck on this week’s web assignment.  There are several (as in more than two) parts that I can’t get to work and worse, haven’t a clue how it works anyway.  So lab tomorrow night is going to be rough.  I think there will also be more people than usual attending the lab as apparently this one was more difficult for most people. 

Meanwhile I spent three hours this morning and early afternoon working at one of the library branches, renumbering children’s fairy tales.  This branch has only a tiny work space, so I did my thing sitting out on the refrence desk, which of course meant I got a few reference questions along with the mindless renumbering project.  The second half of my time there I was sharing a desk with a Youth Librarian.  She handled all the questions, and as she was working with an elderly woman who had several books she wanted to find, I marveled at how well she did with the sometimes crotchety, sometimes preachy patron.  Then I realized that the calm good humor she used with children worked equally well with older people.  A good lesson to learn.