Class Vlog - Week 7

Week 7


This week's vlog is a little longer than I wanted, but I had a lot to say about this topic.

Class Vlogs Weeks 3-6

Week 3


Week 4


Week 5


Week 6

Class Vlogs for Weeks 1 & 2

Week 1


Week 2

Coming up on YouTube...

Homework Saturday

Homework Day Timelapse

Just another day of online grad school.

New Feed!

So, I moved my Twitter feed to the top of the blog, and added a tumbler feed for Ezra to the side. Yes, he has an art blog, but he doesn't update it nearly as often as tumblr. As far as I can tell, I can't get a feed that actually shows the art for here on our blog, so you can click on the links in his feed to see his art.

I think that's all for now!

Who's a Terrible Blogger?

Who's a terrible blogger? *Raises hand* Me! Yep, it's been ages. School work has kind of taken over our lives. On the upside, we're doing really well!

I'm a little bit more active on other social media sites, so to compensate for our lack of posting here I added my twitter feed over on the right. I'm a little better at microblogging than writing a full post for this.

I actually only thought about doing this because I'm learning about teens and social media right now. I'm taking Young Adult Programming and Young Adult Materials this fall. It's my YA semester! Woot! And as I thought about social media I figured adding a twitter widget here was something I should do. So I did. That's all for now. :-)

For those unfamiliar with the terms "twitter" and "widget":

Twitter is a site where users post short (140 characters or less, not words, characters) messages about, well, whatever they want. They can talk to people, post news, say what they're up to, etc.

A widget is a little added gadget to help people do something or access a service quickly, often from within something else. So my twitter widget pulls my posts from twitter and shows them here, so that you don't have to go to my twitter page. Super handy!

Penguin Sledding!

We went sledding at Bicentennial Park today and had a lot of fun! Santa (Ezra) got us some penguin sleds for Christmas. It just snowed, and there isn't much snow in the forecast right after Christmas so we got to open that present a little early. 

If you haven't seen the first episode of Avatar: The Last Airbender (the cartoon, not the horrific movie) the excitement of penguin sledding will probably be lost on you.

Groban, Vivint, Wedding

First, I can’t believe Ezra only devoted ONE SENTENCE to my exciting birthday news last week. We’re going to a Josh Groban concert!!! I can’t tell you how excited I am. In 2007 he was in Utah when I was in Oregon, and he was in Oregon when I was in Utah. I would have gone then but circumstances were not in my favor. When I heard he was coming to Salt Lake City again, and the same week as my birthday, I told Ezra I would love to go. I tried not to mention it much after that because I knew tickets weren’t cheap, but he did it! I’m so excited! I’ve already got work requested off and my boss told me to have fun (thanks Carla!), so now I’m just hoping Ezra will be able to get work off.

That’s the other exciting news. It’s somewhat bitter sweet. Ezra got a job at Vivint! It’s full time, better pay, and includes benefits. We’re super excited, but this means he will be leaving the Provo City Library. We met at the Library and it’s been wonderful being able to work together. When we talk about work, we each know what the other is talking about. I won’t be able to see him when I drop stuff off in tech services anymore, or go say hi when I’m on a break. It’s going to be sad, but we think this new job is just what our family needs right now. He will be working both jobs for the next two weeks, so things are going to be a little crazy for a while, but we’ll figure everything out. I’m so proud of him!


Apparently the weather in Provo yesterday (Saturday) was pretty crazy with lots of rain, wind, and flooding. We unfortunately missed it all (we love storms) because we were up in Logan. One of Ezra’s best friends, Ryan, got married to an amazing girl, Christina. We were so happy to be there and support them. The weather tried to get stormy during their reception (the sun was shining and the weather was great at the temple) but it sounds like they were spared the brunt of it, thank goodness. Well, nothing I can say tops the news and happiness that goes with a wedding, so I think that’s all I’ll say for today.

Congratulations Ryan and Christina!

Castle

School has begun again for me but Ezra is still enjoying some time off. Our neighbors went out of town recently and won’t be back till the end of the month. That’s totally fine, except when the internet died. We share, and they have the router so if something happens, they typically take care of it. Thankfully they were cool with our landlord letting us in to reset the router, and it’s all good now! Once the internet was back up I looked at my school stuff and freaked out thinking I had a paper due in two days. I absolutely panicked, thinking, how can I have a paper due on the fourth day of class?! Why is no one else flipping out about this? Then I realized the date was September 24th, not August 24th. Immensely relieved, my heart rate went back to normal and everything was cool the rest of the evening.

This past week Ezra and I have discovered a new TV show… Castle! Neither of us are really TV people. We don’t have any type of TV subscription, and we can’t even get over the air channels because our TV is too old. We DO however have an amazing blu-ray player that connects wirelessly to the internet, so when we “watch TV” it’s all through the internet on either our computer or the blu-ray player. Thus far we’ve made it through season 2, episode 8 of Castle, and we’ll probably watch some more tonight.

I recently was given the mystery collection at the Library to manage, so I’ve been trying to dig into that genre as much as I can. I’m in the midst of reading a couple mystery books, and watching Castle is a blast because it fits so well. I’ve read Frozen Heat and really enjoyed it, but didn’t realize that it was related to a TV show.

If you’re unaware, in the show, the main character is Richard Castle who is supposed to be a famous mystery writer. He follows around a New York detective for inspiration for a new series he’s writing. As a promotional tool, they’ve actually had “Richard Castle’s” books written. The real author is a complete secret, and everything is attributed to Richard Castle, who is just a fictional character. It’s really clever, and I love it!

That’s the main excitement for this week. Until next time!

Picture Collage

Instead of doing homework this morning, I ordered some textbooks, did laundry, played a couple educational games on my phone (for speed reading and improving my Spanish), made a picture collage, and called all our primary kids to remind them that our class has sharing time assignments tomorrow. It’s been very productive. I think I like having my Saturdays free.

Lovin' the Garden!

Look who was slow on getting the blog post up this week!

Last week was a nice and slow. On Memorial Day we went to the Rec Center and worked out for a while, went grocery shopping, and then came home.

We saw this when leaving the rec center. Made me happy.

Ezra worked on cleaning and selling some of his old toys on eBay, and I read. Later in the evening I ended up making a soufflé which turned out… okay. Clearly I need some practice. It tasted great! But it collapsed spectacularly. I’ll try again in the future. Really, I just wanted to call myself “soufflé girl.” (If you get that reference, you win.)

My Hot Chocolate Soufflés!

The rest of the week was pretty low key and nothing very exciting happened. We registered for the Freedom Run 5k on July 4th. As city employees, we got a pretty amazing discount that I couldn’t pass up. This will be my first race since my marathon a year ago and my second race ever. I’m excited and am easing back in to running pretty quickly.

My garden looks amazing! The peas are shooting up and blooming, my spinach is ready to eat, I just got a cherry tomato plant in the ground this week as well as 5 squash plants (my mom is probably amazed because she knows how much I love squash). Really, I just wanted a spaghetti squash plant but when I went to get one they were out, except for a variety pack. They ended up selling me the variety pack for the price the single spaghetti squash would have been. So now I have not only spaghetti squash, but also two pink banana squash, honey bear squash, and summer squash. I think I’m going to have to learn to cook squash in a way I like.

Pink Banana Squash! One on each end of the bench.

Honey Bear Squash

Summer Squash

Spaghetti Squash!

Some of my peas.

My lovely little cherry tomato plant.

Spinach!

That’s it for this week!

Great Time to Be in Provo

I’ve been in Provo, Utah off and on since August 2006, and I feel like with everything that’s going on this year, there has never been a better time to live in Provo. Google Fiber is coming, the new state of the art Recreation Center opened its doors last week, and new trails and park features are opening up as well! Provo is so amazing!

(Granted, I’m not a fan of the climate… but Provo has a lot of great things going for it.)

Google street view of our old place, with my car out front!

I’m so excited about the new Recreation Center (here's a KSL article about it with some pictures)! Way back when Ezra and I first heard about the new Recreation Center and where it was going to be located, we were stoked. We lived about two blocks away! Then we moved from our amazingly cheap and perfectly located 4-plex (with out of control mold and landlords who didn’t care about the property), to a little cottage on the outskirts of Provo (with absolutely lovely landlords who make sure everything is perfect and who give us free eggs). Nevertheless, we’re still in Provo and thus will reap the benefits of Google Fiber and easy access to the Recreation Center (which we would get regardless because we’re city employees, another reason I love Provo!).

A photo I took just now of our current place! Sooo much nicer.

On Monday while Ezra was at work, I took a walk down to the Recreation Center and registered my employee badge. I wasn’t dressed to work out so I wandered around and checked everything out. Best. Place. Ever! It’s huge, and gorgeous, with brand new state of the art equipment. I’m a fan of the Biggest Loser, and our new Recreation Center could seriously give the Biggest Loser gym a run for its money. It’s that awesome.

Thursday after work Ezra and I ran in and activated his card, and then I showed him around. Friday morning we actually went to work out. It was great. I had a lot of fun, and really feel like it lives up to all the hype. This morning I spent a few hours there while Ezra was working and just had a grand old time.

 Even if we didn’t get in for free (city employee perk), I honestly think it would be worth the membership. I try to be pretty frugal, but oh my goodness, that is the best work out facility I have ever seen. We will be there often!

Ah Technology

This past week was an interesting one. We got some new upstairs neighbors and they were able to get the internet figured out and back up and running on Monday. So we were without internet for about a week. Thankfully we had our smartphones which we were able to use instead.

Sort of.

My phone has decided it hates me (not really). For the past couple weeks I’d noticed it doing some weird things. For example, it would take screen shots in the middle of the night, I would wake up and see that it was searching for people, and this morning it turned my alarm off a split second after it started ringing, as it was flipping through different app panels. It’s possessed. Not cool. Thankfully it’s still under the one year warranty (barely) so I’ve got a new phone that should be shipped out today and arrive sometime around Friday.

Aside from being possessed, the phone isn’t dead, definitely still usable; the soft keys have just become really unresponsive, which makes navigating through my phone really difficult and aggravating. Oh well, I can survive a few more days.

On Friday we went to a coworker’s house and had dinner and played board games. We had a lot of fun and enjoyed getting to chat outside of work.

On Saturday after work we got together with our new upstairs neighbors and had dinner and played games also. It’s really nice having great neighbors, and they definitely fit the bill. They seem like really fun people to just hang out with, so there will probably be more of that in the future.

That’s all the news for this past week. Ezra’s started his spring class and this is the last week I have class until June. I’ve got two major papers to write, but I’ve got 100% in one class and 97-98% in the other class, so I’m not too worried. I just have to do it.

Later!

Exciting Week

Ezra finished classes this week and totally rocked his finals! On Friday (the first day of finals) he went to take his New Testament final. Our agreement was that if he got an A, we could rent a movie with one of our Red
Box promo codes. 95%!! Woohoo! So we got Life of Pi and watched that. It was one of the most visually beautiful movies I’ve ever seen. It’s definitely one that we’ll add to our collection when we get the chance.

I’ve still got classes until midway through May. Then I get a short break before I start my summer class. Final projects/research papers have started for me so I’ve been busy getting that done. I’ve randomly had a handful of people ask me this past week what I actually do/learn in library school. What’s the point? So this week you get a double blog post. For information about what I’m learning in library school, go to this post.

I finally got the first part of my garden planted this past Monday. It seems like every time I’ve planned on planting either it’s snowed or we’ve had to take a trip up to Salt Lake City. I planted something like eight pea seeds and ten spinach seeds. I’m hoping that as the peas come up they’ll shade the spinach since I got it planted so late. We’ll see how it goes.

Wednesday there was an “epic announcement” from Provo’s Mayor, John Curtis. Provo, Utah will be the third city nationwide to get Google Fiber! If you don’t know what that is, it’s super fast internet through fiber optic cables. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this! Basic broadband with 5mbs will be free for at least the first seven years with a onetime installation fee of $30 (I sound like an ad). They’re planning on starting to put it in homes before the end of the current year. I’m sooo happy we’re still living in Provo!

As Ezra mentioned last week, we’ve started using MyFitnessPal (I’m about to sound like an ad again). There is a phone app that we use, but it’s also available online. I hate calorie counting. I hate it hate it hate it, but this app makes it super easy. You give the app some information about yourself and your goals, and then it gives you a daily calorie budget. Food you eat takes calories out of the budget, and exercise is like a deposit, putting calories back into your budget. Yes, this is calorie counting, but the app makes it super easy. For packaged foods you just scan the barcode and tell the app how many servings you had, and then it adjusts your budget for you. For homemade foods you enter in the ingredients, tell the app how many servings are in the final product, and it does all of the math for you. Oh, did I mention that it also calculates nutritional information? Yeah, it’s a pretty awesome app and it’s made us a lot more aware of what we eat.

What my summary looked like at the end of the day on Thursday.

The only thing I've entered so far today is my breakfast.

My nutritional information summary at the end of the day Friday.

It’s also given us motivation to work out a bit more often. There is a trail right next to our house that we’ve been hiking on, and the other day we took a walk through our neighborhood, just so we could burn a few extra calories so that we could have a bit of extra chocolate.

We were excited to pass an intersection of streets with the names of our home states.

To end this past week, we finally got a calling in our new church ward! We will be Primary teachers, teaching the four-year-olds at church. In our church, Primary is where children go after Sacrament Meeting. They have gospel lessons and activities appropriate to their age group. I’ve never attended Primary because I joined the LDS church when I was eighteen, and Ezra’s family wasn’t very active in the church when he was younger, so Primary will be new to both of us. We’re really excited and have already started planning out how we will present next week’s lesson. It’s going to be great!

All about Library School

This past week I’ve had a few people ask me about library school. What do I do? What do I learn? What’s the point? Is it worth it?

Let’s start with, “what’s the point?” I want to be the best librarian I can, which means learning as much as I can. For example, in my Information Retrieval class I’ve learned a lot about databases, classification, controlled vocabularies, and how to make things findable. So the next time you search/browse for something (book, movie, journal article, online shopping, etc.) in ANY database or catalog, remember that an information scientist made it possible for you to find it. That’s what I’m learning to do.

In my Information and Society class we’ve talked about things like library ethics, patron privacy, copyright, and perceptions about libraries (which tend to be poor). There’s a lot that goes on behind the scenes at libraries that most people don’t even realize. I didn’t realize it until I started working for the library. Since starting school I’ve learned even more and the “whys” behind things. When I know something, I can better assist patrons with their questions and concerns.

“Is it worth it?” To me it is, but it’s not for everyone. The skills I’m learning as a librarian will help me throughout my life, and it helps me assist patrons who are trying to better their own lives. Not to mention the fact that having an MLIS is a bump up on the pay scale and it will open up doors for me in the future. When I was deciding if an MLIS was something I wanted to pursue, I realized that getting the degree is something I would never regret, but I might regret not getting it. I don’t want to live with regret.

For the “What do I do/learn?” questions I’ve included my academic plan for grad school. These are the classes I plan on taking and the course descriptions for each class. The classes with an * are required.

• 2013 
• Spring 
• *200 – Information and Society Explores the complex and interrelated historical, social, economic, cultural, political, and technological influences that shape information and society. Emphasis is on the various roles and responsibilities of information organizations and the values and ethics of information professionals. 
• *202 – Information Retrieval Principles of information retrieval and their application to information systems and services. Emphasizing models of user information seeking behavior, human information processing and their relationship to retrieval models in information systems.
• *203 – Online Social Networking: Technology and Tools This course introduces students to a variety of new and emerging technologies used in today's online environment. It covers various social networking platforms, content and learning management tools, web conferencing, immersive environments, and other trends in social computing. 
• Summer
• *204 – Information Organizations and Management Identifying distinguishing characteristics, culture and relationships of information organizations. Emphasizes theories examining the interaction between human beings and the organizations in which they work. 
• Fall
• *285 – Research Methods in Library and Information Science Covers fundamental principles, processes, values and roles of research for professional application in information organizations. Students will become critical consumers of research products and learn the basic skills of evaluating, planning, designing, executing, and applying research. In addition to a general research methods class, which examines a variety of research methodologies, SLIS offers a number of applied or specialized sections of LIBR 285 for students to choose from.
• 266 – Collection Management Study of collection management in all types of libraries and information centers. Includes analysis of information needs, criteria for selection, collection use evaluation, and resources for collection development.
• 2014 
• Spring 
• 210 – Reference and Information Services A process-oriented examination of how information professionals answer reference questions. The interpersonal skills required for effective question negotiation and the sources with which questions are answered are stressed.
• 251 – Web Usability Through examination of theory, methodologies, and real-life cases, LIBR 251 offers a framework for developing user-friendly interfaces for use in information systems. Students will learn the principles of user-centric design and style for particular circumstances and populations. 
• Summer 
• 248 – Beginning Cataloging and Classification Theory and practice of bibliographic control including the study of representative cataloging using descriptive cataloging standards, machine-based representation using MARC format and other standards, subject analysis and classification using LCSH, Dewey, and LCC.
• Fall 
• 265 – Materials for Young Adults This course will allow students to take an in depth look at materials in a variety of formats for teens, including fiction, popular nonfiction, graphic novels, movies, computer games, websites, other media, and determine how they can meet developmental needs. 
• 261A – Programming and Services for Young Adults Administration and delivery of professional library and information services with multi-cultural young adult populations: features critical youth studies cultural/historical research, resources, policy, threats, tools, methods, service philosophies and management skills necessary for a comprehensive profile of YA library services. 
• 2015 
• Spring 
• 283 – Marketing of Information Products and Services Applications of marketing concepts to library and information services. Market analysis, use surveys, market targeting and introduction of services will be featured. 
• 232 – Issues in Public Libraries Investigation of current issues that impact the functioning of the public library. Topics covered include issues related to social and political environments, clientele, services, collections, physical settings, financing and staffing, and future trends in the public library sector. 
• Summer 
• 282 – Seminar in Library Management Application of management theory to specific problems. Readings and discussions of the development of effective strategies for planning and implementing organizational change. Specific content of the course changes each time it is offered. Examples of topics studied include: Advocacy, Conflict Management, Digital Assets Management, Financial Management, Human Resources Management, Leadership, Managing Information Technology, Grant Writing. 
• Fall 
• *289 – Advanced Topics in Library and Information Science Advanced independent creation of an electronic portfolio demonstrating mastery of all student learning outcomes (core competencies) for the MLIS degree. Must be completed in final or next-to-final semester.

Conference Weekend

It’s been a pretty great week! Why? General Conference!

For those who don’t know what General Conference is (if you do, you can skip this paragraph), it’s something that happens in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints twice a year, the first full weekend in April, and the first full weekend in October. It’s a conference where church leaders provide inspiring words, guidance, and counsel to everyone in the church. You’ll often find LDS families watching General Conference (which is broadcast worldwide) in their homes, or in their local church building. General Conference is broadcast from the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, which happens to be totally within driving distance of us.

I love going up to Salt Lake for Conference, even if we’re not in the Conference Center. So on Sunday, since the Provo Library is closed, Ezra and I drove up to Salt Lake and hung out on Temple Square. We watched the Sunday morning session of Conference in one of the Visitor Centers, and then went to Ezra’s Mom’s place for lunch. She had some pretty great pizza, and we decided we didn’t want to face the traffic for the second session at 2pm, so we just stayed put and watched it on TV.

Had to visit the Christus.

Too shy to ask a stranger to take our picture, so we did it ourselves. Not the best lighting, but we were happy to be there!

I love daffodils.

And Ezra decided to take a picture of me taking a picture of the daffodils.

After Conference was over we watched a new show BYU TV is producing called Granite Flats. The show was filmed entirely in Utah, and in some locations around Salt Lake. We drove around for a while with Ezra’s sister and her family trying to find some of the filming locations.

In one of the school sets we thought we saw that the name of the school was Granger. So we went to Granger Elementary School. This was definitely NOT the school it was filmed at.

While on the road I was researching it on my phone and saw that they were trying to purchase Granite High School for filming (the article was a little aged). So we went to Granite High School... which was completely closed off and had asbestos signs in all the windows and doors. Definitely not filmed there. We found out later that the school was about a ten minute drive from their house, so perhaps another day we will find the filming location.

After that we wanted some fresh air and stopped by Liberty Park and peeked in at the Tracy Aviary. We had a lot of fun getting out and sharing stories. It was a great conference weekend.

Some of the birds. Just chilling.

No major plans for this coming week. Ezra is getting his portfolio together for the Nick Artist Program so he’s been busy being artsy. We’re not really getting our hopes up about it. He said he wants to apply so he can frame Nickelodeon’s rejection letter. I think it’s brave to try something when you’re 95% sure you’re going to be rejected. So no matter what happens, I’m proud of him for applying.

Dark Days

As I put off homework, I thought it would be a good use of my time to write this week’s blog post.

There really isn’t a lot to say about this past week. The library had an author event (Pitch Black: Dark Days Tour) on Wednesday that I helped with. I was Kiersten White’s signing assistant and got to know her a little. We both graduated from BYU with a BA in English, so that gave us something in common to talk about.

The authors answering questions during the Dark Days Tour in the Provo Library ballroom.

Library staff at the event with our awesome Dark Days t-shirts.  I'm second from the left, not counting the guy walking in the door.

I also signed us up to attend the last taping of Studio C, which is this coming Wednesday. I’m excited to say that we’ve made it to exactly one half of all the season 2 tapings. We’ve gone to every single 9:30pm show. So, if you watch Studio C, odds are that every other sketch you see will have Ezra and me laughing in the background.

The last bit of interesting fluff from this week is that we had a staff book club meeting on Saturday. We read The Round House by Louise Erdrich. As of Friday morning we only had 47% of the book read according to my Kindle. By 10pm we had finished. I read the whole book out loud to Ezra, which was a little odd at times. There was a lot of editing on my part. It was fun though. The next book we’re reading is Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan. I’m pretty excited about it and can hardly wait to get started.

Until next week!

Healty and back to busy.

We’re both feeling a lot better this week. Woohoo! Good thing too because it’s been a busy week, though not overwhelming.

On Monday we had our All-Staff Training at the library. In other words, the library was closed to patrons but we still had to come in. We really enjoyed it though, especially since Café Rio catered our lunch. We learned some great things, heard from Provo’s mayor, and had a police presentation about active shooters in the workplace. We watched this video which was pretty powerful. This was the second time I’ve seen it and I got pretty emotional both times. It’s not gory or anything, but it’s powerful in such a way that reminds you this could happen anywhere. It’s scary to think that you could go to work one day and because of one person you might not make it home to your family, or your family might not make it home to you. That’s why I get emotional.

On Wednesday we went to another taping of Studio C. So far we’ve made it to every 9:30pm taping that they’ve had, and we’re signed up for another one this coming Saturday. I always get super excited; Studio C is such a blast! A recurring character they have this season is Ann the librarian… as a librarian I find it hilarious because no one at Provo Library is like Ann. Thank goodness otherwise we might scare all of our patrons away!

I took my car in to get fixed on Thursday. They installed the part and when I left it still didn’t feel quite right. I tested it using the ramps for the library’s underground parking and the break doesn’t hold, so I’m taking it in again tomorrow. He said he has another idea of why it might be having problems, so hopefully we’ll get it fixed and working this time.

Ezra had another quiz this week and got over 100% again. So proud! I had an article critique essay to write which I drug my feet about, but I got it done and turned in with time to spare. I was pretty happy with it so I hope my professor feels the same.

Where I usually sit and do homework at the library. It's pretty quiet first thing in the morning.