A Weekend Far From the Things of Man (well most of them anyway...)

My sister and I took the kids and headed up to the Hill Country for the weekend. We spent our time in a lovely guest house near Leakey. Creekside Guest House is our new home away from home.

The plan was for Laura to get together with painting pals and craft their little hearts out while the kids and I wreaked havoc on the local landscape. We all had a wonderful time. Only one scorpion and it was bravely running away from my perfectly presentable camp fire. It was removed from the equation - the four year old didn't need to discover it later (and we had no idea where the nearest hospital was...)

Deer, ladderback woodpeckers, stars. A hot tub that would probably fit twice as many as we brought and a gloriously modern kitchen. The last time we stayed in a "cabin" in Leakey the roof leaked on our beds...this way a huge step up.

I'd love (considering the current state of the economy in general - much less to mention mine...) to be able to get back here later in the year. It's not far from Lost Maples and Garner State Park...glorious places to be in the fall.

Golly, that didn't take long

The first rule of blogging - isn't it...never abandon your post. (hah!)
But first things first.
I'm sure I've missed others, but the last I remember was Sarah's tag and she had rules...

here's the rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on the blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Six random things...

1. I like Heinz Ketchup on my Macaroni and Cheese.
2. I don't ride a bicycle very well at all - it's a concentration thing, I try to see in too many different directions and lose my balance or forget to pedal.
3. I'm not conflicted about who to vote for, and the mysterious vice-presidential choices probably won't sway my decision.
4. I love scrabble, but play by different rules than most.
5. I prefer black and white to color in pictures and film.
6. I wish I had the time and energy for a puppy.

There, now I feel better. I could tag Alita, but I know she's already fulfilled this particular request. I'll try and think of someone else I can harass with this and grant them a new quest.

I wrote the passwords and the account numbers down, so that I will no longer be foiled by denied access.

Bad Jennifer - But with Chocolate!

It's a really long time since I've had time for this. But of course, that truly isn't an excuse... The holidays have come and gone (and of course I'm still paying for some of it.) I'm getting used to the new job and discovering how much free time I don't have have at work anymore...I've managed to get myself into the Employee Wellness Program and go to (or try to get to) group fitness classes during lunch during the week. I've discovered just exactly how much MORE you work in a class with an instructor than when you work out at home with a DVD. By the time I can actually walk again from my last class, it's time to go again. But it's something that needs to happen. The personal trainer that I met with won't let me lift anything lighter than 5 lbs anymore. It doesn't seem like much, but apparently it's all I can take right now! On the machines I'm lifting 30-50 lbs depending on the muscle group, but in the class with the continuous reps and free weights five is all I can take...

I've started teaching again this semester, more Biology Labs and this week was the first upper-level English class, an adventure, but it went pretty well.

The biggest news is that the job is really cool (playing with books all day!) and on top of that I get to go to conferences. I got to fly to the MidWinter session of the American Library Association in Seattle. The conference sessions were interesting and I got to see a little bit of the city while I was there. Just enough to really want to go back...I've been to the Space Needle and eaten at a restaurant on Elliot Bay. I've been to see the Pike Place Market and managed to see the Troll in Fremont (which is the center of the universe, by the way.) I got to play around in Archie McPhee's for a bit before having to return to Texas - which oddly was colder than Seattle.

I managed to pick up a huge stack of Prepubs (advanced reader copies that they give away like candy during the conference) and can highly recommend several things. First is Melissa Marr's Wicked Lovely - which will end up between Emma Bull and Charles De Lint on my book shelf. By far and away the best modern twist on the fey court that I've read in a while. The Princess and the Hound by Mette Ivie Harrison is nice, and World Weavers: Gift of the Unmage by Alma Alexander is really good as well. I've also just finished Maria Snyder's second book Magic Study (not a prepub, a library book) which is very very good. The first book Poison Study ended in frustration and the second installment was well worth the wait. Now, sigh...I get to wait for the third book...

They give away (besides free books) all sorts of prizes, iPods were everywhere and there was another cruise raffle, but sadly no one I know got that one. I did manage to drop my card in the fishbowl at Absolute Backorder and end up with a lovely basket of Godiva that came UPS to the library today. Amanda had great fun laughing at the people who never appear back in our corner, but were willing to show up for chocolate!

Watson...

I must admit that I cheat a little - I read the Peter Watson at work and when I come home I am guiltily blazing through the second book in a vampire trilogy...so it may take me a bit to get back on track.

As far as I can tell this will be the biggest downside to my new job. sitting alone and unhindered cataloging stacks and stacks of books. I was given a PDA as a perk and to date it seems to be a mobile "things to read list" that can conveniently be carried up into the stacks for quick reference when browsing the shelves. I catalog books, PDA faithfully at hand and create a list of things I want to read! I'm trying to be good and will return the Watson before I indulge in anything else (at least - ahem! - from the university library)

I actually checked and Watson goes on for 1015 pages. I'm not sure my non-fiction interest level can hang on that long - but so far so good. Today I made it through the author's notes, introduction, prologue and into chapter one! It starts as a rather fascinating look at "pre language" ideas. The author's note was a really frightening list of other sources I should be reading, which we kindly appreciated and patently ignored. The introduction is a survey of what others have considered to be the most important ideas in history...and the interesting discovery that most people group these ideas or phases into groups of three or more. My personal favorite (let's see if I can type with my tongue jammed into my cheek) is Thomas Carlyle's list "the three greatest elements of modern civilization are gunpowder, printing and the Protestant religion." still giggle about that one. The author has decided to group his ideas into the soul, Europe and the experiment. The soul being of more consequence than god in this particular sense and the idea of Europe rather than the place on map. There is a note to Arthur O. Lovejoy at Johns Hopkins by way of celebrating his ability to drum up interest in the history of ideas.

The prologue starts to illuminate the discovery of time in history. There were camps of course believing that Genesis was the guide book on the creation of the world vs. scientists who were discovering very quickly that those dates couldn't possible be right. With the early discovery of animal fossils and possible stone tools this leads us nicely into the first chapter which starts in Ethiopia 2.7 million years ago. So far pre-language ideas include bipedalism or walking upright, the use of stone tools, more refined tool creation, fire, cooking and so forth. Interestingly the brain sizes of these people increased whenever a new shift presented itself...There was a note about burying the dead. From the mass majority of artifacts, fossils and civilizations unearthed - the number of people that they can undoubtedly say were "buried" is astronomically small - and the majority of these were young boys.

The table of contents - which Alita says is a novel in and of itself says I have a few more ideas in chapter one yet (cave painting and Venus figurines!) so I will keep reading the "ideas" and moderate the posting of them :)

The little frog man

The little frog man
Originally uploaded by diarmuidsmom.

Well, since Task four is really geared toward PLCMC Librarians - I jumped ahead to Task five. I have been learning about Flickr and have posted pictures of the little monster. Since kitty pictures seem to be appreciated by almost everyone - I thought I'd give him his time. Next up a synopsis of the Watson book so far!

Testing how well I follow directions

So far things seem to be running smoothly, my first night with Learning 2.0 and I'm on task #3. I think that is all I can manage this evening. but we'll try and put some finishing touches up before we call it quits.

7 1/2 habits of Lifelong Learners:

1. Begin with the end in mind.
2. Accept responsibility for your own learning
3. View problems as challenges
4. Have confidence in yourself as a competent and effective learner
5. Create your own learning toolbox
6. Use technology to your advantage
7. Teach and mentor others
1/2 Play!

well, let's see. habit number one is usually a problem as I want to do and learn entirely too many things to actually think them through. so the trick for me will be to focus and create a plan for a few things, and just make a list of the rest of those pesky curiosities...

habit number two is really kind of a no brainer I think for anyone who is out of school - but I could be totally biased on this one!

habit number three is not difficult when discussing learning and new ideas, but in real life...well they wouldn't have a word for "problem" if they didn't happen, and our vocabulary would be a lot less colorful if everyone felt challenged instead of dumped upon occasionally.

habit number four...I still think I could become spontaneously wealthy if I could just get that book written about how to be your own best friend (including chapters on how to love yourself and a bonus appendix of how to say no and not fret about it) but that is a whole other post. confidence in continuing to learn is a somewhat lesser evil though.

habit number five is to create something organized out of my haphazard - yet huge - collection of interesting bits. this will be a tough habit to acquire...

habit number seven should not be a problem for me, I like to share

that extra 1/2 habit - yikes! I suck at this...but I'm working on it honest...playing is great fun, somehow unless you count a reading addiction - running mostly to fantasy and folklore than this horse doesn't go...I'm not sure, but does checking out Ideas A History from Fire to Freud on my staff library card count?