ACRL Day Two

Hey y'all. A very boring update for some of you, an exciting thrilling informational ride for the bookworms in the audience.

A quick note before I start... LJ cutting... I'll retroactively do so when I get home. Laptop is doing bizarro things with any LJ commands -- cuts, colors, it even ate one of my tags the other day. I suppose Asfaloth is still pissy about seven hours crammed under an airplane seat that could not have smelled all that good. Poor computer... but that's why I'm not posting any fic right now, even though I had every intention of it. *pout*

Alright, but, back to conference blogging.

Started off with a couple speakers on gaming in the library -- both conceptual and philosophical, and then some people who are actually working on a literacy video game. Have already informed boss, and he's already devising a plan for a grant to get our video game students to work on something like this.

One of the awesome things about my boss --- if one of us is like 'this would work' he's usually 'i will find you the funding'. Also in that category -- some 'man on the street' type video clip things to spice up our website.

Too many poster sessions to mention everything. Went to an afternoon session (after coming back to hotel room for lunch & nap -- really needed nap -- so I skipped one of the sessions I was going to hit, mainly because it wasn't in the convention center but another building over and I wouldn't have made it back in time). Legs have been hurting so badly -- this is from the fall on the ice three weeks ago. My left knee still hurts, and I am getting occasional pains that shoot from my little toe up to my knee. Will go see doctor when I get back.

During afternoon session, which was so uninformative in term of what they presented but very helpful in the writing exercises they had for the audience to do (I wondered when I entered 'why are there only 20 people in a room for 300? that, my friends, is what they call a clue...). Halfway through I quit listening to the speakers (I was still sleepy, and one had straight dark hair and the other had long wavy blond hair, so my sight was blurry -- expect 'ress and fin present boring lecture fic' soon...) and had a great idea for something else and reached into my bag to get notebook and pen (had been taking all my notes on the ipaq) but I noticed --- I had a RED pen explode! (see previous post for blue pen funness)

WTF is it with my pens declaring war on me?! My pen supply is lingering, my highlighter who must be Switzerland in all this dried up on me... I swear, they all plotted this when I was on the airplane using the Kindle to listen to Unforgettable (Kindle 2 will read to you... you haven't lived til you've heard the Kindle 2 voice shout the profanities in your fanfic. Srsly.)

It exploded in my bag, but I reached in and now have red ink on my hands, too. So, now my Golden Flower bag has what looks like a blood stain on one side. Yeah, I'll be using my backup bag today. Still not using conference bag. Conference bag was freebie from Ebsco bastards.

Last night, we were going to hit a restaurant my other boss told me about. Got there, knees killing me, found out it was booked for the night. *sigh* So, I said, let's go to the marketplace and we'll pick up fish and I'll make it at home. We got there, Marketplace closed. Grr. So, we walked back, hoping to find something on the way along Pike Street. Halfway back, decided we'd just go to the hotel and order in. Got there, took us an hour to find a place that would deliver, and it was just pizza. Really wanted to avoid that, but, that's what there was.

Watched some TV and went to bed. Boss #1 going to be disappointed -- he told me to hit the bars Friday night. Apparently, watching other librarians get drunk is a great spectator sport.

Oh! Sherman Alexi! Got to hear him talk, he was fabulous. Extremely funny, and as someone who is part Ojibwe, I enjoyed the 'Indian humor', perhaps a little more than the average librarian -- some of them weren't laughing, some were doing the 'i'm laughing but i'm embarrassed to laugh' laugh. Perhaps for me it was the fact I've heard Polish jokes constantly through my life, and it was nice to have one of my other nationalities ripped on? Strange, eh, that humans find some sort of humor in personal degradations, but, we do. Some of us at least -- the ones with a sense of humor, I guess. Reminds me, somewhere on here I have an Elven stand-up comedy thing... must find that. Did not stay for signing, as the line went on forever. But... on our walk back? We passed him on the street. I'm getting good at passing celebrity types on the street... him, Andy Bell, Fabio, I'm sure there's others...

Alright, it's drizzling today, so now I suppose I'll get a feel for the 'real' Seattle. More to follow later for those of you on the edges of your seats.

ACRL Day Three.1

I just realized, smaller updates make for happier LJ friend pages. So, here's the midday update!

Went to a round table discussion this morning about the 21st century library leader -- it was great. There were only four people, the facilitator and three of us, so we had a great conversation and there was time for all to speak their minds. Never done one of these round tables like this before... oh, wait, DragonCon 'Children of Hurin' was a round table, wasn't it? Okay, so, um, I've never gone to one I haven't facilitated before. Yeah! That works! Anyhow, the facilitator talked about the idea of the four of us collaborating on a scholarly paper on the topic. So, probably one of the more productive hours I've had here thus far.

After that, I had an hour to kill, so I wandered around the poster sessions (for those who aren't regular conference attendees -- poster sessions means a room with people who have big posters [duh] usually about three to four feet by six feet with some sort of program or project or data or something they are presenting. Think of them as an idea fest. They would either be too short to set up for an hour, or too boring to attract anyone for a long session. So, they have these instead, you walk around and mingle and see what people are thinking up.

About 9:45 I head to the hotel where the focus group for the database my boss is really interested in us getting is being held. When I finally make it up to the 27th floor, I discover that the database rep gave me the wrong time, and, the session is nearly over. I think the pouty glare gave the guy in the room the idea that I was not in my happy pants over that one. He's going to try to get us into the beta testing. (Although, if he doesn't, to be honest, there was another DB company with a similar database, and theirs is already launched, so I would wager if we can't get in on beta test, then we'll likely go to this already finished product instead)

So, I head back to the convention center and try to figure out what to do now with my open time slot. I seriously did not want to spend another hour wandering (the reps at the book/supply companies were getting antsy... I had one woman who looked like she was going to slip her logo covered rain poncho into my bag if I didn't take it -- I hate rain ponchos, I also hate taking things from reps if I'm not actually going to use them, (hence my declining to enter my name into drawings for Starbucks cards) so I kindly told her I didn't need one as I hadn't started melting yet. She kinda maybe got the reference, not sure....t



---NOTE: something weird happened, and LJ ate this chunk... it's going to disconnect, but, that's just how it is, I'm not retyping it... basically, it was a rant about how people don't have common sense about recycling, and water management, and turning off lights....and, we're back....



Apparently, some of these things were not so apparent to everyone. Also, there was 'chat with your peers' time, to discuss the sorts of conventions we have run in the past or will run in the future.

Talkin' DragonCon with librarians... research/academic librarians... while holding my Gondolin travel mug... with my notebook open (hope they didn't notice) with fanfic written in it instead of notes from the session as I realized I could skim the power points later.

But, that's okay, I'm taking the 'I'll probably never see these people again in my life' stance. Oh, but, hey, as I went walking through the vendor hall to get to the pastry tables (yum, peach pastry, muse happy)... the guy who sat behind me on the plane recognized me, flagged me down, chatted with me about a book he's using in his course. It was awesome to get the info, it was an... 'oh crap, I should really put away my Kindle, it's on chapter naughty of Unforgettable' moment.

Lunch was spent at a table discussing the topic of student advisory committees. There was someone there who reminded me a lot of someone I used to work with, and she mentioned more than once re: not liking her director. I have to wonder how many jackass directors are running libraries into the ground out there, and also, are there stereotypes within librarianship? (or, is it just really types, not stereotypes, if they really do all act the same).

Poster sessions again after that, and my feet were really starting to hurt. Decided that I was not that interested in... whatever session I was going to hit at 1:30. Something about student success. It's probably going to be as disappointing as the one yesterday and the one this morning were -- so much of this stuff, where I'm thinking 'this is awesome, the veteran librarians can help edjumacate me' it's turning out, I know more or have more experience. And that, is scary.

And means I should write up a proposal to *Fin muse shakes his head and slides keyboard away*


*grabbing keyboard back* I should... I won't... well, I'll try hard not to. Slightly frustrating, though. (interestingly enough, that was one of the things we discussed at the leaders session in the morning -- frustrations of long-time librarians being adverse to change).

Part two to follow, including a visit to EMP. (Experience Music Project). Stay tuned.

Besides, you don't have much of a choice...

Stolen from Neldluva... 'cause I'll need something to do on the plan in a few days...

Name a character I write about, I'll tell you...

01. Full name:
02. Best friend:
03. Sexuality:
04. Favorite color:
05. Relationship status:
06. Ideal mate:
07. Turn-ons:
08. Last sexual experience:
09. Favorite food:
10. Crushes:
11. Favorite music:
12. Biggest fear:
13. Biggest fantasy:
14. Quirks in bed:
15. Bad habits:
16. Biggest regret:
17. Best kept secrets:
18. Last thought:
19. Worst sexual/romantic experience:
20. Biggest insecurity:


And, I'll just assume some of you are going to name Glorfindel or Erestor, so I'll do those automatically. Any others...?

ACRL Day Three.2

I'll try to make this brief... the muses showed up.

Three Gondolin Elven lords, and a Rivendell Librarian...

Eru help me...

Anyhow... this afternoon, I returned and kinda learned some stuff from... oh, no I didn't. Everything I looked at just reiterated what I already knew. I took one last lap around the vendor booths, declined the possibility of winning a 'librarians rock' t-shirt that I would never wear (seriously, I don't see accountants running around with shirts that say 'CPAs rock' or EMTs with 'EMTs rock'... so librarians doing this can be pretty lame)

Alright. After that, we went to the market so I could collect up the rest of the plot bunnies I saw over there the other night, have gyros (which were listed as yeerohs on the board... wtf?), and buy monster cookies. We came back and I took a nice soak in the tub as I am having an issue with my neck right now, too... >.<

Oh, mission accomplished with donation book -- got it to the right vendor booth today. Go me, helping with adult literacy.

Then, we went to EMP (Experience Music Project) which has a Sci Fi museum attached to it. Very interesting, very interactive -- we jammed in a keyboard studio, I played with some mixing boards (felt kinda like Vince Clark, hee hee) while Mark played with this synth thing, and then we also tried this cool guitar setup they had. Sci Fi part was great, too. They had lots of munchies, and this huge dance floor area thing going on, but it was too loud and crowded for me in that area.

Now we're back again, and going to eat something and I might just go to the lobby with Asfaloth now that he's acting better and try to write a little fanfic. Maybe. We'll see how tired I am after eating.