Friday, May 23, 2008

Summer Semester

I am not sure if my university realizes this but the summer starts in June technically the last third of June, which is why I was not prepared for summer semester to begin in the first half of May.

Either way I am now two weeks into summer semester.

I received my grades for the spring, all A's as I was hoping although one professor (who is referred to as "the douche") gave me an A- which I believe was to send me a message because one assignment was turned in late. But all in all I am happy with my grades and this proves that I can take three classes in a semester and not only survive but thrive.

Hopefully I will remember this as I get through this semester. Currently I am taking a class that is titled "Library Materials for Children" which is basically a children's lit class. This is a very good class for the summer because it is fun, I get to read children's books and it gives me new book ideas for the wee red-head. On a side note I should really start calling the wee red-head the wee blonde or the wee strawberry blonde but I don't think that is as cute nor is it as indicative of her inherent adorableness so I will continue to call her the wee red-head.

As I was saying I am in this children's lit class which is actually very good. The reading list is pretty good, Neil Gaiman and Mo Willems as well as some other favourites of mine are on it so I can choose some books that I have already read as well as branching out to read new ones. And the assignments are practical: creating booklists and doing booktalks for specific age groups, doing a readers theatre project, writing a book review - all of these are things a children's librarian would do. The only thing I wish could be done is to actually have an experience working in front of a group of children; it really doesn't matter how prepared a person is, if they don't learn how to work in front of a group of kids it just won't work. But I realize that is a time issue since we only have seven weeks, and most of the people in my class are already working with children either in a school or library setting.

After this class is over I will have about a week and a half before my second class begins. This one is about serial management and the problems one faces when cataloging serials. At first I thought this might be a waste of my time and really just a space filler so I could get financial aid for the summer but it might actually be useful. This usefulness is because my duties at the library that I volunteer are going to be changing a bit. I have apparently caught up the library with most of the processing and now I will be weeding through the periodicals and deciding what to keep and what we can toss. I am really excited about getting more responsibility at the library and that they are allowing me to be doing something closer to "librarian work" as opposed to volunteer work. If all goes well they will find that they can't live without me, or at least that is my hope.

So it looks like I won't be getting much of a break until August and then I will definitely take some time off...I promise.