My quarter break from school is winding down to a close. It has been a nice break and I am ready to take on the last class. I got my final grade from my Information Architecture class, A-. Not bad. Of course I would have preferred that minus not to be there but my overall GPA is 3.97 so I don’t think there is anything to worry about.
My next class begins tomorrow. It is a humanities reference class. The professor emailed us the first reading assignment yesterday and I dutifully read it this afternoon. It is an article on the information seeking behaviors of humanities scholars. While it is dated, it is from the early 90s, it still was fairly relevant in its descriptions of how humanities folk do research, minus computers and databases, and I had to laugh in recognition.
In other reading, I read the “maps” essay of Moretti’s Graphs Maps Trees and will try to say something about it soon. I also finished Shirley Hazzard’s Transit of Venus and, if you follow my tweets, you may have caught the one in which I said the ending made me swear. It’s a fine ending but it made me mad and I have been kind of broody about it all weekend. I am very much looking forward to the Slaves discussion, which, if you haven’t heard, has been moved to April 4th (from March 31st).
I have also been having great fun loading up my Kindle with all kinds of classics like Charles Dickens and George Eliot, Joseph Conrad and E.M. Forster, D.H. Lawrence and Knut Hamsun. Lots and lots of delicious books to read. I have been reading Hazzard on my daily commute, but tomorrow the Kindle will go with me and I will start reading Kafka’s The Trial. It will be my first Kafka novel. I’ve only ever read a few short stories so I am looking forward to it.
Apologies for the short and pooterish post. I am off to go read for a bit, a last hurrah before class starts tomorrow.
Stefanie,
I have been curious to see what you and others would say about the ending. I can remember thinking “Wow!” when I finished this novel quite a few years ago.
Good luck for your last session. The end really is in sight now isn’t it? I look forward to your review of the Hazzard too …
How do you feel about coming so close to the end? I ask because over the years working with students I’ve seen so many different responses varying from the ecstatic to the student who went into denial and couldn’t finish anything because she knew that once University was over she would have to go into the arranged marriage she had been using it to avoid. I don’t suppose you have anything as strong as either of those reactions but it is going to mean something that has been a large part of your life isn’t there any more and that inevitably has consequences.
Last class – finally! Just think of all the time you will have for reading in just a few short months….. You can certainly load up the kindle in joyful anticipation!
Congratulations on the A-. Your classes seem so interesting. Can you tell me what the Information Architecture class is all about? The reason I am so curious is…my previous job role was that of an Information Architect (glorified technical writer, really), and am wondering whether that course is related in any way to what I do
Bonnie, at first I couldn’t believe it and I had to flip back to a previous part to confirm and when I had my confirmation I scared the cats when I yelled “F—!” Then I ran through all sorts of different emotions and now I’m at wow
Whisperinggums, thanks! I’m hoping it will be fun. I can’t remember if you have read Transit of Venus. I think I’m a new Hazzard fan.
Annie, it is weird and exciting and a big relief and sort of scary. I am really looking forward to having time again to do other things. I’m also now expected to find a job working as a librarian when there are no jobs to be found in my area. I already have a good job working in a library, just not as a librarian. My boss knows I’m looking for a new job and so work feels kind of weird because everyone knows I am looking to leave. Then there is the wondering if I am going to have to consider selling my house and moving to a new city and all that. Suddenly what has felt solid and stable for so long now feels transitional. It’s all good though. But even good change is stressful.
Litlove, I know! I’m debating whether I should take a vacation right after class finishes and have a binge reading and lazy week, or if I should wait a week or two until it all hits me that there will be no more classes.
Nishita, Thanks! My IA class was about designing and organizing digital information spaces, websites, intranets, mobile applications, that sort of thing. It was really interesting as it brings together a bunch of different disciplines and interacts with many others. No technical writing though unless you count the report that goes along with one’s design deliverables and research summary technical.
yes, I have … loved it and her The great fire I think it was. Also a memoir. I think she’s a beautiful writer.
She is a beautiful writer. I have The Great Fire on my bookshelf and I look forward to reading it even more now.
jeez – only a 3.97 average – how could you??? and I love your word pooterish. I’m going try using that in a sentence today.
Smartypants!
Congratulations! You’re so close!!
I have been wondering lately if I would use a Kindle much. I don’t think so, unless I start travelling more. I do, however, love my iTouch for audiobooks. Books and technology can get along.
Yay for starting your Last Class!
Isn’t it sense of relief to know you are so close finally. I set the Hazzard aside over the weekend to finish something else, but now I’ll be reading in earnest this week–it’s my gym book (as strange as that sounds). I’m not sure what I think about it–I’m very compelled to read it but at the same time I’m not sure how much I am actually “getting”. Am very curious now to get to the end (as I’m only about half way through I have a ways to go) after seeing that tweet!
Glad to see you embarking on your final quarter of school (even though it’s been fun to travel the road with you a bit, I’ll be very happy for you to get your degree). Your final class sounds cool (although I can’t believe you just read an article that could’ve been written when I was in library school!).
I suppose an ending that makes you swear is better than an ending that leaves you with no response in particular…
And, to echo everyone else’s comments, congrats on starting your last term! I know what you mean that even good change is stressful, but what a sense of accomplishment for you.
3.97 with only one course to go! Congratulations, Stefanie! And hope you find the last course a lot of fun.
BTW, Library Science degree reminds me: Have you ever listened to “Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian” on A Prairie Home Companion. It always brings a smile to my face.
Humanities reference… this is so interesting. I hope you’ll post some in the future, and maybe recent trends. As for all the classics you’re downloading for Kindle, do you have to go online to do that or just through Kindle? And, are they free, like Project Gutenberg? I’m still weighing the pros and cons of getting an eReader; secondly, which one. (like the Kobo offered by Canada’s Chapters-Indigo)
The end is in sight! Congrats on doing so well so far….may the great work continue. And it sounds like you had a wonderful break!
Helen, heh. Pooterish is a good word, isn’t it? I’m not the inventor of it. There is a whole history to it especially as to how it describes blog posts. The critic that used it first meant derogatorily but I think most bloggers have claimed it a plus.
Daphne, overachiever more like
A Kindle will play audiobooks and it can also read your print books to you. Granted, it’s a computerish voice, but it’s a pretty cool feature.
Danielle, it is a relief. Hazzard at the gym seems fine. I read most of it on the train. I bet you are “getting” more than you think.
Emily B, thanks all around! I laughed at the article because I had just finished my MA in English lit two years before it was written. When it talked about how humanities researchers don’t like to use databases I really laughed because the databases then were few, had horrible interfaces, and required you know the commands in order to use them. I can’t imagine anyone liking to use to use them then!
Emily, it was a good kind of swearing
And thank you, I am pretty happy about it all and excited to embark on a new career.
Polaris, thank you! I have not heard the Ruth Harrison bits on Prairie Home. I used to listen to the show now and then but Garrison Keillor has come to rub me the wrong way and I rarely listen now. Perhaps I will try the show again in hopes of hearing the librarian stories.
Arti, I will gladly share any and all bits that might be interesting. I can go online and send books to my Kindle or download to my computer or go online through my Kindle and download directly to it. I am finding the Kindle3 is much better and faster online that the Kindle2 and am really pleased with it.
Rebecca, thanks! I did have a wonderful break though of course breaks are always far too short
Which Dickens? My writing couldn’t be further from his in time and place, but I never tire of rereading Bleak House. Endlessly fascinating.
Congrats on your grade! I hope your first day went great.
I haven’t used my Kindle pretty much since I got it. That’s terrible isn’t it. I think what I need to do is follow your lead and load up some classics and get going.
Shelly, I downloaded about six or seven Dickens novels, one them is Bleak House. My husband I are planning on reading it at the same time.
Iliana, thanks! First days are always a little overwhelming but it did not go badly. The Kindle is my secret way of getting myself to read more classics
I hope your class goes well! I’m reading the Hazzard book very slowly, partly because I don’t have much time to read, but also because I’m nervous about the ending. I don’t want it to end badly!
Dorothy, don’t let me keep you from delaying getting to the end! It doesn’t end badly, or rather, it does, but not in the way you are probably imagining.