Well, if my year “goal” was to get to bed by 11pm, I already failed. :) But it’s not! So I’m in the clear. I am, however, drinking some sort of calming/sleepy loose leaf tea from Berkeley (no, not marijuana) to help me get to sleep. I don’t really know how I can feel so wired right now when I only last had a chai latte at 7pm, but thus is life.
I am actually feeling much more in balance than I was. I went into my calendar and scheduled days to go over my next semester plans, possibly getting another archiving gig (about 5 hours a week), and planning for papers and projects coming up. I also set up a date to study with my classmates next Tuesday … I do hope it becomes a regular thing! Because I really like being around them. The other day I actually had an almost uncontrollable urge to hug everyone around me; obviously, I controlled it.
Tonight I spent a couple of hours with the Madison student chapter of ALA, brainstorming for the homecoming parade that we will be in. We’re going to do a book cart drill team! The theme for the parade is music across the century, so each of us future-librarians will be dressing up for each decade. We didn’t want to go deeply into the land of librarian stereotypes, and just dress up as “bun-y shushers” (direct quote from one of my professors) to make people on the sidelines laugh. We really wanted to showcase our spunk, creativity, and the ability to have fun. It helps to not perpetuate the idea that we aren’t approachable, mean, or uncaring. We want to help people! Isn’t that why most of us are here?
I chose the 40s to highlight. I get to pick some iconic book covers/titles from the 40s and we’ll be putting them on our carts. In a week we’re meeting for a fun crafting session. Right when I got home, I started spending way too much time looking at vintage clothing sites. It was a lot more expensive than I imagined, and costumes were usually quite provocative extremes of our conceptions of even pin-up girls, so I went with a dress I already own. Now I just want to get a few finishing touches and perhaps get a wig, because I can’t get my hair to do this anymore:
The day after my super-short hair cut, my hair curled quite nicely.
It is exciting to be a part of something — and not just eating out for brunch (don’t get me wrong, I still love it) — but something that helps to advocate for libraries. We are literally parading the wealth of knowledge we have to give to the public.
Downside of this 40s outfit search? I started to look too much at clothes I want to buy in general, for me, for winter. I do need a winter coat and winter boots because my California gear won’t cut it, but probably not 3 or 4. I think I can convince myself that I need more cardigans though. For layering, you know.
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I wanted to show you all a recent blogpost by Stephen’s Lighthouse I found very interesting: Is Google Memory? I have thought of this so much. One time, when I worked at the Bancroft Library, I came across the word “holograph” and since the document was so old, I was pretty sure it couldn’t be from the technique “holography” (or, a hologram). I decided to go to every one of my coworkers to ask what it was before using Wikipedia or Google. It took a long time (and a lot of “Why don’t you just Google it?”) before I finally found someone who knew that it’s something handwritten by the same person who wrote the signature, so not something like a secretary writing something dictated to her. It was my boss who knew the answer, which made me feel even better about working there. :)
I know I wrote a fairly anti-technology post a little while ago, so you’d assume I’d absolutely agree with the horrible state of our minds, but I have to admit my mind is changing the more I’m in school. One way my professor pounded into our heads about how much easier it is to use the databases with advanced searches now is we had to find abstracts in a large book of abstracts from 1973, and then find similar titles with the same subject. It sounds so easy to us now, but all of us got very frustrated working on the assignment with the big book. We also all came up with very different new titles.
I am still not, however, a “cyberprophet” or a “technophiliac.” I do not find it worth my time or money to buy and try the next latest computer, laptop, tablet, phone, whatever. I didn’t grow up with constantly getting new technology in our house (except when we bought new computers because they didn’t last very long between the three of us). Derek and his family were probably appalled to see my tiny, tiny TV that I used (Derek diplomatically suggested that, when we moved, we sell my TV and just use his). I don’t think I will ever find it not-rude for people to bring out their phones and start browsing the Internet. I don’t think my eyes will ever get used to screens.
Mostly, I don’t think I will ever attain that balance I so desperately want if I keep focusing so much effort and time into something like browsing the web. Constantly having something to look at and never truly being bored makes me feel so busy, so full, and so lacking in a space where I can just breathe and ponder. Technology erases silence.
That said — I don’t find it too fair of this graphic to have such a tone about something like writing things down in the Google calendar to remember an appointment. We’ve been writing appointments down for … how long now? And how is it that much different from something like Outlook’s calendar, besides being much more convenient because you can access it from anywhere?
Google Reader also just makes sense for most people. There are two sides to this that I’m personally conflicted with: one being maybe those sites I follow on Google Reader, that I think are important for me to keep up on and read, maybe I should just … breathe and let go. For example, Pinterest seems like a great way to collect all sorts of inspiring images we see from across the Internet, but maybe we should just let go. However, I think for many people, myself included, that feeling of knowing all of the things you’re missing and knowing all of the pretty pictures of decor or fashion you saw that you can’t have around anymore for inspiration can simply cause a sort of silent anxiety. In some ways I think that when I see a simplistic kitchen that I just love, and know I can’t have, I will forget about the image eventually but that feeling of WANT! stays. Which fuels our consumerist nature more: an extended, vague feeling of WANT! or direct images up on a bulletin board that we will probably get bored of?
Google Reader is a way to keep up on things without that vague, silent anxiety coming up. I feel like I have to follow 50 library blogs to be In the Know, but as I read them, I realize I can easily unsubscribe from a lot of them because actually, they’re boring or not applicable to me. Also, Google Reader helps me with what I spoke about in the last entry, about feeling overwhelmed and unbalanced. I am a deeply curious person who has always gobbled up new learning experiences like they were candy and who never felt satisfied. The Internet became so big that I could no longer be that 12-year-old using small specific parts of AOL chat boards that easily related to me.
I do lament the use of Google Maps or other map apps. I think it’s sad that almost none of my peers understand the geography around them anymore, and laugh as if they are uniquely bad with directions. No, it’s a generational thing; we know we can just be led with GPS. I still always resist Derek’s insistence to use his GPS if I feel like I can do it with my mind. I feel much more accomplished that way. And if I get lost, then we can use the GPS. :)
The graphic’s point about our memories pre-Google and post-Google are way too simplistic. It is as if pre-Google we lived in a completely unbiased, objective world in which people clearly remembered detailed facts. No one spun things to go their way or held up what they remembered to be as facts. Information has never been something that we merely read or experienced and then saved, to be plucked later as if from an untouched archive. And our minds aren’t empty now — I think if anything, they are more filled, because we have more stimuli to interact with. And a harsher thing to contemplate is the very fact that it’s difficult now for people to sit in a space that isn’t demanding every ounce of their attention as they just, well, contemplate. The graphic artist makes this point, and rightly so. The new world I’ve inhabited in the last decade is one that has sped up, and one that is more concerned with breadth than depth.
The graphic artist also points out that we are very much evolving with the technologies around us — however, is that not the story of humanity? Our culture changed with every new tool that came to us. I think the bigger question now is how we deal with the avalanche of information.
