Archive for December, 2005
Back home after four days in Rockford with the family. I’m sick, exhausted, and a bit out of sorts – but a long night’s sleep in my own bed will cure two of the three ills. I can’t decide if this sick is just The End Of Semester Sick Revisited – or if it’s my lungs starting to clear out all the junk I’ve put in them over the last few years. My last cigarette was December 14, and the last one before that was December 3, and I’m hoping to keep it that way.
Christmas was nice – good to be home, got to see people I haven’t seen in ages, spent lots of time with the family, saw Narnia, etc etc etc. I maxed out on family togetherness Sunday night so spent most of today just driving around listening to music and seeing familiar places – or places once familiar. I spent the whole weekend longing for the family I’ve made for myself in Champaign – it felt strange to be home but not home. I guess that’s part of growing up, right?
December 26th, 2005
I spent half the afternoon in a working group meeting that included my boss’s boss, people from NCSA, and the CIO for the university. I spent approximately 2/3rds of the meeting quietly having a panic attack. My part went well, though – I felt calm and confident because the stuff I was talking about? That’s MY stuff. I know that stuff inside and out, and I tend to forget that until I’m under the gun to present.
Now I’m in the office and am having more quiet panic attacks as for the first time I’m really worrying about what’s going to happen in the next six months. I have no contingency plans because every single indicator points to staying here in a professional or academic (or both) capacity – but what if…..?
On an unrelated note, I feel like things are going to change in the next month. I’m not sure what that means yet, but a change is in the wind.
December 22nd, 2005
This week feels like the end of summer camp, and between my friends’ departures and a champagne hangover and some weirdness, I’m feeling a bit fragile today.
December 15th, 2005
Copied almost verbatim from an email I received from my boss this morning. Thanks, Jill.
From: Jill
Subject: Public enemy number one?Ok, I don’t know how many of y’all heard about a recently released FBI email that complained the FBI hasn’t been allowed to search library records to nab terrorists. This is a dust-up over a section of the “Patriot Act” commonly known as the library provision which allows the FBI to search the records of any library patron and that librarians are not allowed to report when search warrants have been issued. Many librarians are opposed to this provision. The FBI claims they have never used said provision (although that’s open to dispute). However, here’s the section of the email that caught my attention:
“The inability of FBI investigators to use this seemingly effective tool has had a direct and clearly adverse impact on our terrorism cases. While radical militant librarians kick us around, true terrorists benefit from OIPR’s [Office of Intelligence Policy and Review] failure to let us use the tools given to us.” (click here for more
information).
Chew on that for just a minute.
If you’re one of the folks I’m emailing with a library science degree, you’re already either laughing or crying. There’s no hope
for you.
If you don’t have a background in library & info. science, take a moment to think about me. After all, you know me pretty well. Some of you are related to me. I have a degree in LIS and while I don’t work in a public library, I work in a library school helping to educate other librarians. And according to the FBI, I am kicking their butt and helping the terrorists win. I had no idea! Wow! I hope They don’t come for you guys in the middle of the night as a result of my nefarious activities…
So to help remind me of my new status, Garret created some t-shirts and other swag on Cafe Press. You don’t have to buy anything, but it might make you laugh to look and we’d appreciate it if you pass the link on to any other America-hating , terrorist-helping people you may know.
http://www.cafepress.com/1stfactory
The little cartoon guy may look bookish, but you can tell by that growl he’s radical! And militant!
Yours in fighting the man,
Jill”
December 14th, 2005
9 december 2005 – this skylight is at ground level and opens up to the basement of gslis – it’s a fantastic place to watch storms and sunsets, but today it’s covered in snow. this shot makes me proud of my cameraphone.
December 8th, 2005
20 and i am sitting at your feet, a bar in amsterdam, never to be found again. you sing “no woman, no cry” and we all sing along. this moment could be any city, any bar, any anonymous group of people sharing a moment in time despite differences in language, ethnicity, beliefs or backgrounds. we sing, the lot of us, canadian, american, australian, dutch, perhaps others that have slipped through the sands of time. we sing, and we drink, and we are together in this moment. i have often said “how could i ask for more?” in reference to love, to life, to experiences – but in this moment, holding back my tears, holding back my desires, holding back everything for the sake of absorbing anything – i cannot ask for more.
five – almost six – years later i am in a bar, a lifetime and half a world away, and i am listening to two guys play piano and guitar and sing “no woman, no cry” – and it is as if no time has passed, and i am still that twenty year old innocent crying at your feet. how strange this life is.
December 1st, 2005
