Police Deaths and the Ferguson Protest Movement

Posted on December 21, 2014 by A Dreamer

I haven’t written much at all on the Ferguson protest movement, but I have been following it (and supporting it) closely since August.

The violent deaths of two police officers in NYC last night is nothing short of a tragedy. I extend my sincerest condolences to their families and coworkers. Losing a friend, colleague, or loved one to violence is terrible, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

But please, if you genuinely think that the protest movement “caused” this man to shoot his girlfriend, shoot two police officers, and then shoot himself – you are misinformed as to what the movement is about.

No one wants more violence, or worse, senseless deaths – on either side.

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So, what now?

Posted on December 11, 2014 by A Dreamer

Sent off my final write up for my archives class this morning. 9 pages of “what I did at the archives!” (Seems that spending 70+ hours in a bar and new BRAND NEW work environment will give you a lot to talk about.)

Unless I somehow managed to fail one of these classes, I’m done with my Masters program. Which all semester long has prompted the question, “So what will you do next?” I don’t mind when people ask – it’s a perfectly reasonable question, and the vast majority of people who have asked have genuinely cared about my grad school career and my general well being.

So, I feel kind of bad that my answer is still the same: Damned if I know. (Unless someone wants to give me buckets of money right now to go to library school. That would answer the question.)

It’s not that I haven’t cared, it’s been more that I just needed to focus on finishing the program in the first place. Now that I’m finished (I think, fingers crossed) I can think about what is next. I’ve come up with a few things so far while thinking about it today. Most are very short term.

– Celebratory enchiladas and a half price Thirsty Thursday margarita at Anita’s. (I might be writing this from one of their tables right now.)
– A nap. (See margarita above.)
– Get caught up on unread comic books. (I have an embarrassingly tall stack waiting to be read, and a author/artist signing Saturday. I’d like to have that particular series done before seeing them.)
– Finish reading Game of Thrones. (There are beers riding on whether or not I can finish it before the show starts again. I’m getting my beers.)
– Get back to non-academic writing.
– Get the other blog that is broken, not so broken.
– Enjoy the holidays.
– See if I can sell some of that non-academic writing.
– Look for a paid position in the DC metro humanities community. Museums, archives, libraries, historic sites, parks, human rights organizations, public education – I’m open to quite a bit.

So, I kind of, sort of have a plan. And the point in the plan right now is to finish this margarita.

It is enough of a plan for today.

image

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One down, one to go…

Posted on December 9, 2014 by A Dreamer

The digital final is done!!  2,811 editions of Eleanor Roosevelt’s “My Day” column turned into text files, thrown into the topic modeling blender and some pretty charts spit out in the end.

Archives final isn’t due until Thursday night – pfft, that’s YEARS in grad school time.  (It doesn’t hurt that it is also a write-up of my practicum work at the archives.  All the “research time” has already been put in.)

But, just two more days of being head down in my laptop, and then my time is mine again for a while.

Lily sleeping

Helping with final projects is exhausting

 

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In the throes of my final finals.

Posted on November 24, 2014 by A Dreamer

For this degree at least. (Anyone want to give me buckets of money to go get my MLIS next? Just figured I’d ask.)

But at the moment, finals are stressing me out far less than they have in semesters past, and that’s always a good thing.

First, I am so glad that I took my research seminar this time last year. (It’s the closest thing to a thesis we do that isn’t a thesis. Yeah it’s weird that we aren’t required to do a thesis.) I’ve been watching one of my classmates go through 711 hell, and while I am genuinely sympathetic to her plight – I am also so damn glad that is in my rear view mirror. It was a frustrating, crazy, yet, great class – but I’d not like having that standing immediately in between me and done.

Second, I am even more thrilled now that my archives professor pulled strings to get us practicum slots in lieu of large final papers. It’s far easier to spread out 50+ hours of final project work by going up to DC and working at the Rinzler archives twice a week for a while than it is to jam it into the last three weeks of the semester. We still have to write up a narrative of what we did and do a presentation on it – but that is a hell of a lot easier when you’ve already done the research.

My digital history professor gave us this Tuesday off, but as he said, “It’s not because I want you to have a nice Thanksgiving, it’s because you will need it.” (Though I’m gonna go out on a limb and say he would like us to have a nice Thanksgiving, or at least a holiday where we come out with good stories about the crazed in-law who always sends emails about how the President is really an alien.) Me? I’ll certainly take the extra six hours that class cancellation affords me. I’m doing a topic modeling analysis of Eleanor Roosevelt’s daily columns, and do you know has many of her columns you can convert from a webpage to text in 6 hours? 2 years worth. (I’ve done the math. No, I am not going to attempt to analyze 27 years of them. Maybe if I had come up with the idea 2 months ago rather than last week. It may be a post-grad personal project.)

Most of the semester has been “read this, write that, play with this digital tool, read this, write that, attempt to collaboratively write with practicum partner, and oh yeah, write that, too.” Lots of (necessary) bouncing around. It’s nice to be at the point of no new readings – and a whole two weeks of them to boot – just go write your finals, and I can just tunnel-vision into these two last projects. I’ve had classes where we had new readings right up until the week before the final. It’s not helpful. Sure, we have to do a presentation in each class, but that is a week before the final is actually due. Archives shouldn’t be a problem – I’ve done all the research already by just being up in DC. Digital history professor has repeatedly reminded us that he doesn’t expect a presentation on a finished product since we still have another week to actually finish it.

I’m not sure I’ll ever say finals are fun, but it sure is nice to be able to just obsessively channel all my energy into two things for the next two weeks.

Though as I said at the beginning of the semester, if you see me trying to finish Game of Thrones or reading comic books in the next two weeks – I’m just trying to be kind to my brain so I can finish everything else.

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Flaky day, saved by the cats.

Posted on October 25, 2014 by A Dreamer

And today (or yesterday, or whatever Friday was in your timezone) was one of those days and yay for my cats.

My archives administration professor called in some favors and got his students the option of a practicum/mini-internship in lieu of yet another term paper for a final.  I signed on immediately.  (I have already proved I can write long papers.  It’s quite nice to actually do “a thing” rather than writing yet another paper.)  It has been really cool and fun.  I’m processing archival records for a big yet small, or small yet big (I’m not sure how to quantify it yet) record company.  I’m not dealing with tape masters and such, but the bits and bobs of paper trails produced with each album.  And I am absolutely loving it.

The “problem” (and there are worse problems to have) was that between classes and practicum time, I basically scheduled myself for close/open/close/open.  The good bit is that I have a decent amount of time on the Metro in the morning and a Starbucks stop in the morning to get all my brain cells facing the same direction before I start processing these production files.  The bad news is that it’s not always quite enough.

Today, it went all sideways, everywhere except the office.  (And trust me, I am grateful for small favors granted by the universe.)

First, I was halfway to the office before I realized I forgot my badge.  (Cue many, many cusswords here.)  This worked out OK, as there was someone there to let me in the office, and my supervisor wasn’t even there yet – and the actual archive room alarm was still set – so I would have been stuck anyway badge, or no badge.  Database temporarily out of commission, but that was OK, since I had a bunch of manual processing to do anyway, and I can do data entry on my head, and doing a whole slew of it all at once is not the end of the world for me.  (That accounting career path still comes in handy sometimes.)

So, other than the badge, all OK, despite being in “OMG, I need a nap so badly, why can’t I just be someone that goes to bed an hour after class??!?” mode basically all day.  (TGIF!)  Finished up processing, and grabbed some lunch from one of the many food trucks around the building.  (The crabcake truck is worth your time.  Trust me.  As is Señor Taco and Peruvian Brothers.)

This is where I really shouldn’t be let out on my own some days.  Finished lunch and decided that I’d go to the Metro entrance on the other side of the building.  Nice day!  Need some exercise!  Want to finish my soda!

Well, I not only managed to overshoot the turn around the block, I managed to overshoot it by a good two blocks.  The upside?  I got to see this:

A church. I have no other details.

A church. I have no other details.

Got myself back over to the Metro, caught the Yellow line out with all intentions of then changing to the Blue line once I hit the Pentagon.

A combination of not paying attention/misreading arrival boards/being on autopilot and assuming the trains went yellow/blue/yellow/blue, even though I *know* it’s more often yellow/yellow/blue – and I happily hopped on yet another Yellow train…  Which would have been fine had I actually realized I was on a *@Q#*$&b Yellow train right away.  (This is not helped by the fact that depending on the time of day, the Yellow line is actually the Blue line once you go over the river.)  So, backtrack a couple stations and back on the Blue line and finally HOME.

When I left the house, I told the cats to sleep and send me the energy for working, and promised them an EPIC naptime whenever got back home.  Bless their crazy feline hearts, they did.  I did fine while actually working – and it all fell apart when I wasn’t working.  (I need to be slightly more specific in my energy transfer instructions!)  And when I got home after my misadventures in metropolitan transit, when I crashed, they crashed with me.

There is a lot to be said for having critters that are ready and waiting for you after a long day (and trust me, they are terribly confused at this “alarm at 0630” stuff happening) and they not only guard the room for you while you’re napping, but position themselves on either side of your ankles to make sure you stay put and get some sleep.

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I found the food trucks!

Posted on October 9, 2014 by A Dreamer

Those of you in more urban/cosmopolitan/not-the-suburbs areas may be thinking, “So?  There are food trucks all over the place.”  Yeah, not so much where I live.  Sure, the county has finally given the green light for food truck operators to apply to sell at the park near my house, but I can’t say I blame the operators for not lining up to serve the Burke/Springfield badlands.

Today I had an appointment up at L’Enfant Plaza, and I’ll be honest – I’ve never had reason to actually step outside that particular metro station, so I didn’t really know what I would find.  Google maps told me that it may be a challenge to find a place to grab lunch after my noon appointment, so I was surprised to find myself thinking, “Wow, something smells good!” as I came up the metro escalator.  Then I walked out on to the sidewalk to see this:

A lovely line of food trucks outside L'Enfant Plaza Metro Station

Food Truck Heaven

Well, lunch was no longer a question, but a dizzying array of choices.  I had time to peruse my options before I had to go to my appointment, and I found myself in lunch heaven.  Cheesesteaks, tacos, pho (with a zombie theme), Indonesian, Indian, Peruvian, southern BBQ, Italian, lobster rolls, Ethopian, crepes, Greek, Halal, Jamaican, and a host of other options.

Seriously, if you look through the 18 trucks (I counted) and could still not find something to eat for lunch – then you probably aren’t actually hungry – or you just can’t make a decision.   I settled on the pan con chicharrón from the Peruvian Brothers truck – and it was fantastic.

Pan con Chicharron, courtesy the Peruvian Brothers food truck

Pan con Chicharron, courtesy the Peruvian Brothers food truck

I’m going to be up at L’Enfant Plaza twice a week for the next month and a half.  If I want any chance of maintaining my current weight given all these lunch options, I’m going to have to start running again.  And maybe throw in some pilates, yoga, and zumba to boot.

What’s interesting to me is that I am old enough to remember when the only time you saw food trucks was at a constructions site – and even then it was the basics – hot dogs, chips, maybe hamburgers if it was a really ambitious truck.  Today?  You could send pretty much any homesick UN delegation to L’Enfant Plaza knowing they’d find something great to eat.  Mobile food from everywhere FTW.

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Sometimes you need to take a day and ride roller coasters

Posted on September 27, 2014 by A Dreamer

So I did.

This semester has been good, but kind of a grind and it seemed early in the semester to feel quite so mentally bogged down, but there you go. I looked back at LiquidPlanner and discovered that in the past month I’d only taken one day for myself. Other semesters I have made a point of making sure there was one day a week that grad school didn’t touch. (I think it’s healthy. Other would say it demonstrates my lack of commitment to academia and why I am not cut out for a PhD. I would say that is exhibit 1 in why academia is unhealthy.)

Fortunately my planned crashing of my brothers vacation in Williamsburg couldn’t have been better timed. Spent all day yesterday riding roller coasters and generally not acting like an adult. Then we had a great dinner at Christiana Campbell’s tavern. Even hit the Columbia Sportswear outlet on the way back and scored some dress shirts so I look slightly less like a grad student at my practicum gig.

I am relaxed and rested and ready to take on the rest of the semester.

As long as I don’t go another month without taking a day off.

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So, my archives prof either thinks I’m diligent or an idiot.

Posted on September 25, 2014 by A Dreamer

The good news is that I have not broken the class wiki again…

But this week I have had to email him about some assignment dates because there had been some talk about two of them changing and I couldn’t find anything in my notes if that had actually happened or not… I just despise having to send an email where the answer could be, “Have you tried reading the syllabus that I spent several hours creating for you?”

Fortunately, the prof is a pretty decent human being and confirmed the dates for me and even said to let him know if I had concerns or conflicts with the two potentially squirrelly due dates. (My only concern was with having the wrong dates in LiquidPlanner and discovering at 7:20 pm that I had missed a deadline. Conflicts seem to be a given in grad school.)

Then tonight, well, I’m starting to think I turned in an assignment that didn’t actually exist. Every week we knock out a 500ish word piece on the reading, with a couple of questions we can bring up in discussion. It’s due Wednesday night and there has been a submission link waiting on Blackboard every week. Well, today was Wednesday, so I did the writing piece, went to Blackboard…and no submission link. So, I just emailed it to the prof.

Class tomorrow is over at the library archive. He mentioned last week that it was why we didn’t have as much reading as usual. But I swear I don’t remember him saying to skip the writing.

So yeah, I might not have only done an assignment that didn’t exist, I turned it in to boot.

Friday’s mental break of riding roller coasters all day can’t come soon enough.

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Fun stuff in Digital History

Posted on September 13, 2014 by A Dreamer

So, this week we had to create a small exhibit using Omeka (it’s a content management system) – and here is what I did!  Had way too much fun with it.

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Some writing & reading tools – Scrivener & Evernote

Posted on September 10, 2014 by A Dreamer

In readings for my classes, I’ve seen photos of stacks of index cards and post-it notes used by academics to compile their books, and heard complaints of the inability to keep notes and ideas and actual writing all in one place electronically.  Well, let me tell you something – I have a tool that does that!

It is Scrivener by Literature and Latte. It is not a word processing program, it is a writing tool that you use and then you can export your work to an word processing program, A .pdf, or other formats including eBook formats.  My favorite features are:
— The ease in which you can split up a document and then rearrange it in any way you want.  Just drag and drop.
— If you decide to cut something out of your writing, you can just move it to your research/notes section. The “cut” piece will no longer export as part of your finished piece of writing, but it will still be there in the scrivener file if you ever want to put it back or just refer to it again while you’re writing.

It does have some mobile apps that it can sync with, but I’ve not used those, so I can’t say anything either way about them.  I have been using it for a couple years now, for everything from 5 page papers on up.  When I was doing my final paper for my research seminar, it saved my sanity with the amount of adding, subtracting and rearranging I was doing while working on it.  I don’t even like to think about trying to do that in Word.

The only downside is that it doesn’t connect directly to Zotero for citations.  You can add footnotes and such, and I just do author/page and then when I’m done and have exported it to Word, I just use Zotero there.

It’s $45 for the Mac version and $40 for the Windows version, and both versions have a 30 day free trial.  It has a very good tutorial and I recommend that anyone that downloads the program to take the time to go through the tutorial.

On the reading side – well, more the reading & marking up side – Evernote has finally upped their game when it comes to marking up pdf’s.  You can highlight, underline, drop arrows, add text notes – and it works beautifully on the iPad.  I just drop the pdf’s into Evernote on my laptop, and they’re on my iPad waiting for me, I mark them up six ways from Sunday and when I sync again, there all their with all their marks on my laptop.  I discovered I was not the only one looking for a markup ability like this until I was sitting at a bar reading and gleefully marking things up and the gentleman next to me leaned over and asked, “Please tell me what you are using to mark up your pdf’s like that!  I need it!”

It can create a summary page of all your annotations, but I advise against it – it combines them all in to one very large page at the beginning of the document.  (You can turn it off, the option is in the dropdown next to the Save option in the upper right corner in iPad, and if you forget, you can just go back in and uncheck it and it removes the summary page.)

Evernote syncs across platforms, I’ve used it with Windows, OSX and Android with no problems.  It is free, and the Premium version is $5 a month or $45 a year.  (I have the Premium version for offline access.)

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