day 17, and i’ve got nothing clever to say

maura @ 9:32 pm

feeding a cold with pasta + granola bars. glad it’s not a fever!
about 8 hours ago from web

RT @CityTechLibrary Students, want to learn to research more efficiently? Take the library’s new course next semester! http://bit.ly/37mFlO
about 10 hours ago from web

good: RT today = I can work from the sofa to try + kick this sore throat. bad: building repointing = noisy saws just outside the window.
9:23 AM Nov 16th from web

listening to j+g play d+d
4:51 PM Nov 15th from web

@mikhailg Twas awesome, for parents & kids. Definitely recommended. Not scary at all. Gus says the book’s a bit different, fwiw.
5:47 PM Nov 14th from Echofon in reply to mikhailg

Waiting to see Fantastic Mr Fox with J & G & some jr mints, rock on.
3:48 PM Nov 14th from Echofon

RT @mikhailg: .@lwaltzer: “Our students are fascinating . . . many of them don’t know that they’re fascinating” #wcnyc Amen 2 that. Go CUNY!
10:13 AM Nov 14th from Echofon

@listentomyvoice Ha! His exclamations always used to crack me up when I adjuncted at BC.
10:09 AM Nov 14th from Echofon in reply to listentomyvoice

@mikhailg @mkgold @boonebgorges @lwaltzer keep them wordcamp tweets a’comin! wish i could be there.
9:26 AM Nov 14th from Echofon in reply to mikhailg

@eszter if in academic community, maybe postit notes or flash drives? a nice alternative to pens or tote bags.
9:50 PM Nov 13th from web in reply to eszter

wow, how is it possible that i have 12 hrs of twitter to catch up on? today didn’t seem that busy.
9:43 PM Nov 13th from web

@boonebgorges @mkgold @mikhailg Looks like #cunypie was fun — sorry I had to miss it.
9:41 PM Nov 13th from web in reply to boonebgorges

RT @jpeg2000 Practicing Wave Zero is much easier than Inbox Zero
10:23 PM Nov 12th from web

@ALA_ACRL Yes, I’d like a projected backchannel, I think it would be really interesting.
1:22 PM Nov 12th from Echofon in reply to ALA_ACRL

@notjonathan @Annefesto Says the man who now has the comfy desk chair! I’d say get a comfy desk chair, myself. One for each desk.
9:23 PM Nov 11th from web in reply to notjonathan

Alright, busy day, let’s get this party started. And big ups to the annoying cats for waking me up at 5am! Solid.
7:32 AM Nov 11th from Echofon

@lwaltzer good point. maybe a sympathetic passerby could pop the cookies into the time machine for me.
11:30 PM Nov 10th from Echofon in reply to lwaltzer

grab your skeleton key

maura @ 9:34 pm

Today I had RT* and worked on a poster for my research project that I’m giving at the faculty poster session later this week. I’ve done posters before, but not since I’ve gotten all ethnographic with this qualitative study I’m working on right now, and it’s been a bit weird to make this poster. I mean, my old archaeology self was really comfortable with posters. Charts + graphs? Check. Photos of the site or the faunal remains? Check. Brief bullets w/salient data points and conclusions? Check.

* Reassigned Time, boon to the jr faculty member, in which I do all much** of the research + publication that will (I hope) eventually earn me tenure + promotion someday.

** Because I have my Morning Writing Time, too.

But this poster is different. First off, these are only preliminary results — no final conclusions yet (though they’re interesting enough to make the poster feasible). Stranger to me is that I don’t have any charts and graphs. No charts and graphs! I feel a bit naked.

It’s been harder than I thought it would be to recreate a narrative on the poster (this is the project, here’s why we’re doing it, here’s what we’ve done so far, and this is what the interviewees said). I’ve pulled out a few interesting quotes and highlighted them in blue. I’m using Creative Commons-licensed photos from Flicker to illustrate the salient points, e.g. a big twisty clock for the “students have many demands on their time” point. And, I sheepishly admit to using a bit of clipart, too (hey Flickr, it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if you had more photos of people of color).

Is there going to be enough info there without my friends the Charts and their neighbors the Graphs? Tomorrow I have to pick up the posterboard, so we’ll see how it turns out.

the future and the south pacific

maura @ 7:35 pm

This has been a weird day. I woke up with a sore throat and a headache and the sinking feeling that I may be getting sick at what’s really not the best time of the semester for it. (Though is there ever really a good time to be sick?) So instead of using this partly sunny + fairly warm day to go for a bike ride with Gus in the morning and maybe schlep us all to the Bronx Zoo in the afternoon, I sat on the sofa and read 400 pages of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and drank herbal tea.

I always feel kind of guilty when we spend the whole day inside if it’s nice out, even when there’s a good excuse. Gus played video games and read nearly a whole book (The Great Cheese Conspiracy, a refugee from my ’70s childhood) and played D+D with Jonathan. Over dinner Gus asserted that he didn’t want to go for a bike ride today anyway. But it still seems somehow wrong to spend the whole day inside. Maybe I am also feeling a bit guilty that I just read today rather than tackling all of the other stuff on my list, much of which can be accomplished perfectly well from the sofa with my laptop.

We did get out yesterday, and in far more inclement weather. We went to Manhattan to see Fantastic Mr. Fox (surprisingly only playing in 2 theaters), which was a good time for the adults + the kid. Gus <3s Roald Dahl, and for the adults the movie was pretty much standard Wes Anderson fare with puppet animals instead of people.

Cloud Atlas is really good. I’m still in the middle of the other Cloud Atlas, which is a bit surreal. And the Mitchell book has a sticker in the back with the correct author information that’s covering a sticker that mislabels the book as the Callanan book. Woah, meta.

I could get to those other tasks now (Gus + Jonathan are playing a little Super Mario Galaxy before bed), but there’s only about 50 pages left in my book and I’m dying to know how it ends. Later, gators.

because it’s the weekend…

maura @ 12:45 pm

I finally had time to finish an ACRLog post that I’ve been chewing on for more than a week and drafting for a few days. It’s 724 words, so that counts for today, right?

(Warning: not interesting unless you’re a librarian, and probably only if you’re an instruction librarian.)

c is for cookie

maura @ 9:28 pm

Last week, in honor of the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street, Google had a different Sesame-themed logo each day. I happened to be teaching many of those days and it kept cracking me up every time we used Google for searching in class. Cookie Monster was the funniest — his eyeballs were the “oo” in Google

This week I had many meetings with pastries, which kind of takes the edge off having many meetings. After today’s meeting (2 cookies: oatmeal raisin and chocolate w/white chocolate chips) I was thinking about different kinds of desserts. And I kept on thinking after dinner, too (raspberry meringue sandwich cookie).

So here’s Maura’s Hierarchy of Desserts (in order of preference):

1. Cookies: More often than not if there’s a dessert choice I will pick something in the baked goods category. Cookies are usually the winner, beating out cake ever so slightly (see below). I mostly don’t want a huge pile of dessert, so cookies are a good choice. And I often like to have a couple of different flavor options, which is also possible with cookies. These days we’ve got our xmas cookie baking down to a science and most of my favorites are in there: a delicious iced molasses-spice cookie, good old reliable peanut butter cookies, butter cookie sandwiches with raspberry and apricot jam, and your basic chocolate chip cookie (though oatmeal chocolate chip is another tasty option).

2. Cakes: To be fair, I do like cakes, too. I include brownies in the cakes category, though if they’re too chocolatey I will often pass. For the longest time when I was growing up my birthday cakes were always chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Jonathan makes a mean chocolate cupcake, so these days we usually have that for my birthday, too. But I also like the traditional old yellow cake with chocolate frosting. And red velvet cake and applesauce cake and gingerbread and pound cake and …

One thing I am very particular about is the ratio of cake to frosting. I can’t really deal with tons of frosting, esp. if it’s that fakey sugary supermarket frosting. I’d much rather have a smaller amt of buttercream or even a nice glaze. I don’t like puddings/custard/flan/etc. at all so I’m sure the frosting thing is of the same ilk.

3. Chocolate: Of course I like chocolate, who doesn’t? It’s clearly the most superior of all candies. I used to love dark chocolate best, but now I can groove on milk chocolate, too. I wish we had better chocolate in this country (= less sugary); whenever we travel we always come back loaded down with better chocolate bars from other places. A well-timed piece of chocolate can really brighten your day.

4. Other candy: Other, non-chocolate kinds of candy can be nice, too, mainly of the sour fruit or cinnamon variety. Like Lemonheads and Red Hots, yum. Also Dum-Dums — my dad’s parents used to keep a bag of these in a drawer in their kitchen when I was little.

5. Ice cream: I do like ice cream, despite what some people keep saying, really I do. But I will admit that it’s not my favorite kind of dessert. Mostly I like vanilla with chunks of stuff in it (chocolate, caramel, etc.). And the grownup flavors like maple walnut, cinnamon, sweet cream, and coffee. I’m happy to occasionally head to the schmantzy ice cream place around the corner from us and have a cup or cone, but it doesn’t haunt my dreams.

tv rant, part the second

maura @ 10:14 pm

Well, now Dollhouse is canceled, so I guess I won’t get to complain about it anymore. Stupid Fox, have they done anything right since the X-Files?

Last night I forgot to complain about House. Strong start this season with House in the institution (yay for creepy gothic buildings) and we loved his awesome spazzy rapping bipolar roommate. Who apparently rapped the life story of Alexander Hamilton at a White House shindig recently (see video at Tenured Radical, one of my favorite faculty blogs).

But then, just like everything, apparently, the season’s gone downhill. Why were 13 and Taub taken off, exactly? And the whole Chase/Cameron tension is Not Very Tense At All, since we all know that Jennifer Morrison’s leaving the show. Meh. There have been some good scenes with Wilson this season, so that’s a plus. Maybe I am still mad at them for not taking the fullest advantage of Kal Penn leaving last year. The suicide was a great plot point, but they totally dropped the ball afterwards.

Is there anything good on TV these days? 30 Rock is still awesome, thankfully. Get Tina Fey on the horn — maybe it should be on every night.

in which i rant about telemavision

maura @ 8:32 pm

I’m really disappointed with TV this fall. We don’t even watch that many shows these days (since BSG ended, and I’ve lost all patience with Lost [though Jonathan still sometimes watches it]), and it’s a total drag when they’re not so good. Esp. on long teaching days when all I really want to do at night is watch TV and drink a beer.

So, what do we watch? You may remember that over the summer we watched all of last season (the first) of Fringe, that JJ Abrams X-Files kind of show. It ended up being pretty good, and I was really excited for the new season.

This season has been really eh. Too many monster-of-the-week eps, not enough story arc. And what happened to Dunham’s sister (played by the drunk friend from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist)? Just whisked right off the show without so much as a how do you do. But what really got to me was when they killed off Charlie, the average-guy FBI partner. I don’t know, I really liked him — he was a nice balance to all the pretty folk on the show. And it was totally implausible the way they made him get taken over by that weird future guy and his partner didn’t even notice (?!). Lame.

Next up: Dollhouse. Okay, I had a bit of doubt when we watched last season over the summer, but I persevered and it got much, much better. So much better, in fact, that this season has paled in comparison. Part of it is over-reliance on Echo, I think. Some actors are strong enough to be a show’s lead and some aren’t. This show would really benefit from becoming more of an ensemble piece, like the last ep with Sierra’s breakdown.

The other issue is that the show kind of wrapped itself up last season, at least if you watched the extra, unaired episode “Epitaph One” (which we had to watch because Felicia Day is in it and we <3 her). I mean, okay, it’s set in the future, but it pretty much ties all of the loose ends of the plot up in a neat little bow. And even though I try to convince myself that there’s more good stuff in between the time of this season and Epitaph One, I’m having trouble believing it.

I will give it this: great guest stars this season from the Buffyverse and BSG. But I miss Amy Acker.

I could say more about TV but now it’s time to watch House from the other night, so you’ll have to wait til tomorrow.

tuesday, tuesday, tuesday!

maura @ 9:17 pm

This past week’s Twitter stream, just for you!

Tomorrow I have 2 afternoon meetings with cookies. Wish I could put some of those cookies in a time machine and send them to my desk now.
about 5 hours ago from web

unexpectedly, I only have 1 meeting today. One! Hip hip, hooray for a catchup day!
about 11 hours ago from web

@Annefesto w00t multiplex! what’dya see?
about 22 hours ago from Echofon in reply to Annefesto

RT @LNBel: RT @SeedLibrary If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need. -Cicero
12:36 PM Nov 9th from Echofon

if you haven’t blogged today, you haven’t blogged today.
8:34 PM Nov 8th from web

wish the kid were asleep, tho i am enjoying listening to the kid + the dad reading shel silverstein poems. they’re cracking up.
9:16 PM Nov 7th from web

howdy tweeps, ping me w/yr contact info so i can add you to my wave, dudes. (thx to @notjonathan, who is rad.)
5:20 PM Nov 7th from web

Metrotech, Brooklyn, November 7. Isn’t it a little early for this? http://twitpic.com/omdji
11:01 AM Nov 7th from Echofon

getting ready to teach. only 1 Saturday class for me this semester, which isn’t so bad.
8:55 AM Nov 7th from Echofon

RT @jimgroom: New blog post: Create your own LibGuides with WordPress http://bit.ly/2cb4Di
10:05 PM Nov 6th from Echofon

settlers of catan is much more complicated than I remembered. or maybe it’s just that I’m 10 yrs older.
6:26 PM Nov 6th from Echofon

had pastries at *2* events at work today, yum.
9:53 PM Nov 5th from Echofon

RT @zephoria: I love librarians. They always make me feel like the world’s gonna be AOK.
9:51 PM Nov 5th from Echofon

i miss tv. could really do with an episode of fringe and a beer right now.
9:11 PM Nov 4th from web

my library’s hiring! http://bit.ly/Y80tP and search for job 1796. ping me with ?s.
8:42 PM Nov 4th from web

blurgh. that is all.
10:12 AM Nov 4th from web

we don’t need any kind of big parade

maura @ 10:45 pm

Yeah, I’m phoning it in tonight. I had 2 classes this evening and, while you’ll be happy to hear that they went well, I am wicked tired. 12+ hrs at work is a long time.

So here are some photos!

This is from the art windows that I pass on the way to work. It’s a mandala made of lots of little things on the floor inside this storefront.

It seems to change every few days. Perhaps this is why:

Yay for public art!

turn around, back again

maura @ 10:05 pm

For various reasons tonight I’ve got nothing much to say.

This weekend was busy.

Yesterday:
I taught a class. Jonathan took Gus to karate. I got tired of waiting for the house to clean itself so we cleaned it. Jonathan worked on his iPhone app. Gus played Pokemon Sapphire and shared many thrilling facts with us about various Pokemon. I wrote a long blog post about teaching that is boring to all but librarians. Gus finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and told us all about the parts that are different from the movie. I did some laundry. J made fried chicken for dinner (yum). J + I watched Fringe. I’m disappointed w/TV this fall, but that’s another post.

Today:
I took one of the cats to the vet to get the irritation on his neck checked again. The vet told me that the cat might have food allergies and we should switch him to a single-protein food like duck with peas. Since the humans in our house don’t eat duck with peas every night, I’m not sure why we should spend $38 a bag for the cats to. We’ll be finishing up the medication and seeing how it goes after that. Honestly, other than some scratching, the cat doesn’t seem all that bothered by the neck thing.

Then Gus and I went to the park so he could climb trees + run around a bit before a sedentary afternoon video game playdate. Jonathan and I finished cleaning the house and had some tea, then he helped me make a flyer to advertise the library’s course that I’m teaching next semester. We had yummy takeout empanadas and cupcakes at a neighbors house for her kid’s birthday. Gus played Scribblenauts with a pal there and they erupted into peals of laughter over the bazooka and earthquake they used to complete the level. I did more laundry.

And now it is time to sleep.