Entries tagged with "school of information"
Penny War is in my ears and in my eyes
posted by srah on March 27, 2007 9:31 PM
Tags: penny war, school of information, university of michigan
Hey SI blogosphere, are you aware that our school has suddenly sprung six new concentrations on the world? How about that? What do you think? Would you still have chosen your degree program, or would you have picked a different concentration? Or would you have just gotten overwhelmed and gone somewhere else? I don't know what to think about it all. David brought up the most salient concern that I've heard so far: How will this affect the Penny War¹? Soooooo many jars! ¹ What's up with the current crop of students? No love for librarians? Everyone knows that it's...
Dream
posted by srah on October 30, 2006 7:35 PM
Tags: borat, dream, school of information, university of michigan
I dreamt the other night that I took some time off work to go back to Ann Arbor and went to this SI lecture that was held in a trailer, way back in the wilds in some obscure corner of a University of Michigan campus. On the way I crossed a street behind this girl who was talking to her friend about studying abroad. I interrupted them and gave her all kinds of advice and she followed me as I walked toward the lecture, then she was going to have to find her way back to civilization on her own....
BEHOLD! IT'S AN ENTRY THAT'S ACTUALLY ABOUT SI!
posted by srah on August 22, 2006 5:40 PM
Tags: hci, ironing, reunion, school of information
I got my invitation to the SI Reunion today. It exhorts its recipients to: Iron your clothes!Pack your suitcase!Drive, fly or sail to Ann Arbor! What the heck? So we have to start ironing our clothes now? Thanks a lot, SI. What kind of computer nerds would we be if we showed up with our clothes ironed? How would they tell us apart from the archivists? I suppose next you'll be telling us we have to wear pants. I shall not be attending, in protest of this clothes-ironing policy. Either that or because I will be out of the country....
Freeeeeedom!
posted by srah on May 1, 2006 10:11 PM
Tags: graduate school, graduation, school, school of information, university of michigan
Many congratulations to the SI class of 2006! I went back to Ann Arbor this weekend to attend graduation and join in some of the festivities. The SI ceremony was marked by the least inspiring graduation speech I've ever heard, in which the dean basically said that the graduates knew no more than they had entering SI, but now they knew how to "fake it" better than they did before. So those are the useful skills that your money will buy you, and that's why we're something like the #9 Information school in the country. Out of all those information...
Connecting People, Information and Technology in blah blah blah nonesuch
posted by srah on September 3, 2005 10:56 AM
Tags: school of information
Help Hurricane Katrina Victims find housing "Finding enough offers for housing may not be as difficult as matching people in need with people who have housing to offer. Thousands of Americans across the country are offering spare rooms, motor homes and empty apartments to tens of thousands of refugees of Hurricane Katrina. However, very few refugees have access to the Internet. Meanwhile, relief organizations using the web to locate temporary shelter must sort through hundreds of web sites and thousands of postings offering assistance in towns and cities scattered across the United States. [...] "KatrinaHousing.net aggregates information from other websites...
Line of information professionals
posted by srah on May 1, 2005 11:43 AM
Tags: school of information
Ahhh, regalia. The School of Information is "lemon," not to be confused with Science, which is "golden yellow" or Social Work, which is "citron." I think they ran out of colors. Anyway, we represented, old-sk00l-style, even though we're something like the third-youngest. So go information professionals - it was your graduation day....
Pity to lose my mind after paying all that tuition...
posted by srah on April 25, 2005 9:32 PM
Tags: school of information
All I've been saying all evening is "I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done I'm done." The funniest joke in the world to me right now is: What's me and sounds like a bell? DONE!...
WOOOO HOOOOOOOOOO!
posted by srah on April 25, 2005 6:59 PM
Tags: school of information, university of michigan
Please feel free to download my current sentiments, which have kindly been set to music by a certain Mr Cooper....
Less than 24 hours left...
posted by srah on April 24, 2005 10:47 PM
Tags: school of information
... in my graduate school career. A little more than 23 hours in which to finish my last two papers! I graduate on Friday and become jobtitleless. I can no longer fill in "student." Now I am just plain "unemployed." Oh holy hell....
Note to archivists: HCI pwned j00!
posted by srah on April 20, 2005 1:28 PM
Tags: hci, information architecture, school of information, tv, wheel of fortune
Tuesday is my big day for watching TV, by which I mean I actually watch TV. The only times I do this with anything approaching regularity are Sunday night's Adult Swim lineup and Tuesday (basically 7-10 because... hell, it's already on...). Usually before our big American Idol get-together, we turn on the TV for Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!. Last night, one of the contestants on Wheel of Fortune introduced herself as an "interface architect." Pat Sajak was obviously confused by this job title but she said something along the lines of, "You know interfaces? I architect them." Hooray for...
SEVEN DAYS TILL FREEDOM!
posted by srah on April 19, 2005 10:39 AM
Tags: job search, school of information
AND THE TERROR THAT COMES WITH FREEDOM BECAUSE OH MY GOD I DON'T HAVE A JOB YET AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE ANY INTERVIEWS I AM GOING TO BE A FAILURE IN LIFE! ... but for now I think I'll try to enjoy the freedom....
Number one thought in my mind right now: 'Gllllllgggzzzz'
posted by srah on April 7, 2005 3:34 PM
Tags: school of information
Dear Sarah's brain, 3:30 pm is too early to fall asleep. That's going to have to wait about 12 hours, dearie. Stop snoring and get back to work on your paper. Love, Sarah's typing fingers...
If you are in SI 688, you are disqualified
posted by srah on April 4, 2005 10:21 PM
Tags: school of information
Quiz: What are these lists of? List One ShelvingPaperweightDoorstopMake water level riseWeightliftingBuilding somethingWeaponHome for a mouseFlower potBuilding a small, safe fireRaising appliances from floor levelStoolBreak it up and use it as paving material List Two Cleaning out a mouseChanging the time on a car clockClipping papers togetherExercising fingersReaching hard-to-reach placesPatching things in electric circuitsGetting electrocuted...
Psycho killer? Qu'est-ce que c'est?
posted by srah on April 2, 2005 2:36 AM
Tags: school of information
SI Proms attended tonight: 1 Hours I danced: approximately 3 Sore feet: 2 (on me anyway) Pairs of new shoes that are definitely now worn in: 1 Bobby pins I just pulled out of my 'do: 10 Contact lenses which I'm sure will be a pain to get out: 2 Coughs I seem to have contracted: 1 People I danced with: approximately 47,000 Pictures I done taken: A HILLION JILLION Hours I'm going to sleep now: about 14...
*dances*
posted by srah on March 24, 2005 3:17 PM
Tags: school of information
I am doing this assignment where I have to spend 7 hours in one place, observing people's behavior and taking notes. I still have four hours to go, and I have to do it before tomorrow morning. Somehow I didn't expect it to be this hard to sit in one place for hours at a time. It is hard. Awfully hard. Especially because I have Isidore and all of my other stuff here and I can't leave it alone and I don't really want to pack it all up... So, um, if you're in the area, please come to Bubble...
I'm head of the class in user tests!
posted by srah on March 16, 2005 4:43 PM
Tags: school of information
... or perhaps just Arvid. Ha! Last year, I took several classes that required user testing. I never had time to help out my classmates and I felt bad about that. They needed users! So this year I've been trying to volunteer for every user test I'm eligible for. It's my duty to give back to the SI community in this way. I am helpful! My voice will be heard! And... I will get free stuff! I did one user test for the new, improved SI website that is to come. I vented a lot about my own frustrations about...
'I'm not the kind of man/ Who tends to socialize'
posted by srah on March 2, 2005 11:59 PM
Tags: alcohol, alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2005, new york city, school of information, university of michigan
Jing, Ayca and I got killer seats in the cafeteria today. They were right by the back window, so we had a great riverside view. After work, I walked down (or up? It goes east-west!) 42nd street and did some window-shopping, then Jing and I happened to pass by the New York Public Library. We had about an hour to kill before the SI Alumni Reception, so we went into the building. We ran into Leslie, who's doing her ASB project there, so she was able to give us a tour and show us what one needs to see when...
I take comfort in the thought that ASB will prosper even as HCI has fallen...
posted by srah on February 18, 2005 4:40 PM
Tags: school of information
Despite all our efforts to defend the ideals of Userhood against the infidels, I'm afraid the time has come to admit that we've lost. I will have to be noble and valiant even in the face of defeat and go lay my sword* down at Jeremiah's feet. We fought a good fight, my HCI comrades, and you should be proud of yourselves. Now we will just have to get used to life under our cruel archiving oppressors and try to adjust to their strange, foreign culture by donning their garb (ugly plaid flannel shirts) and adopting their customs (using acid-free...
Penny War: Friday's contribution
posted by srah on February 18, 2005 3:29 PM
Tags: penny war, photos, school of information, university of michigan
Penny War: Friday's contribution - originally uploaded by srah. This is what $37.60 in pennies looks like when it's at home. My home. In case you wondered, $37.60 in pennies is really damn heavy. I am getting a ride to school....
I'm Darth... Darth Vader. I'm your density.
posted by srah on January 25, 2005 12:53 AM
Tags: school of information
In my afternoon class today, we talked about false memories, specifically of alien abduction. Somehow this related to human behavior in information systems, apparently, although I really didn't see more than the most tenuous of links. We discussed an article* about a psychological study on people who claimed to have recovered lost memories of alien abductions and another group of people who believed they had been abducted by aliens but had no memory of the event. The article said, "Participants in this group cited a variety of signs and symptoms that they believed indicated an abduction history (e. g. ,...
Oh behave!
posted by srah on January 25, 2005 12:08 AM
Tags: school of information
I am taking three classes this semester: Human Behavior, Fundamentals of Human Behavior and Information-Seeking Behavior. I don't think they will make me behave any better - they seem instead to be trying to teach me about the concept of behavior. Sighs of chagrin may now explode from the reading audience....
Computer-users are teh l33t!
posted by srah on January 6, 2005 1:03 PM
Tags: school of information
I thought that I wouldn't bother to bring my laptop to class the first week of classes. It's too early to be boring, I'll look like I'm on task and I'll have to look around and meet people. I tried that the first day. I was shy and didn't talk to anyone and I was annoyed because I had all this extra time before class and couldn't check my email. Today I brought Isidore and people started talking about laptops and I met two new people. Who says computers make people antisocial?...
They may take my social life, but they'll never take...
posted by srah on December 16, 2004 8:07 PM
Tags: school of information
I am DONE! I am SUBMITTING MY LAST TAKE-HOME EXAM! I am DOING A LITTLE DANCE OF FREEDOM! I am NEVER GOING TO DO ANY WORK EVER AGAIN! (Note to my teachers next semester and any future employers: Please ignore that last part.)...
(Amanda sucks)
posted by srah on November 24, 2004 4:22 PM
Tags: school of information
Amanda and I have been working on a project together all semester which was due yesterday. In addition to finishing the project, we had to tell the class about what we'd done. Amanda and I (or at least I) only really thought about this about a half an hour before class began. We jotted down some notes as to what we'd talk about and who'd say who, went to class, and saw the first group's PowerPoint slides on the screen. Jigga-whaaaa? Luckily there were plenty of groups who wanted to go before us, so we managed to throw some slides...
Whatever
posted by srah on November 18, 2004 1:26 PM
Tags: school of information
Oops. Forgot to register for classes this morning. Doesn't matter in the least - four hours later, all of my classes are still open. Hey, this may be the last time I ever register for classes! Meh....
In fact, it was a baton de colle
posted by srah on October 20, 2004 10:52 AM
Tags: internship, poster, school of information
Hi. How many hours of sleep did you get last night? Was it more than two and a half? Then you are a WINNER! I, unfortunately, did not have quite as many as you, as I stayed up quite late making a pointless, crappy poster out of construction paper and glue sticks* and sleeplessness. I was running on adrenaline or chai-caffeine or pure, unadulterated construction paper creativity and wasn't even that tired when I went to bed... but I had nothing better to do, so off I went. I felt better then than I do now. Small sleep is worse...
'It's a big enough umbrella'
posted by srah on October 12, 2004 2:31 PM
Tags: school of information
At least three times today in class, our professor has told us that something is "magic" so as to avoid explaining it to us and to shut up our incessant questioning. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! The Police - Every Little Thing She Does is Magic...
You say you want a revolution?
posted by srah on October 7, 2004 2:19 PM
Tags: school of information
I went to a meeting today which was the first step in making some significant changes in a terrible class I am in. I think a lot of the people at the meeting had unrealistic expectations of what would come from it. I feel energized and ready to start the process... I think they expected this to be it. No matter. Something will happen because something has to happen. I feel like sharing music with you, my close personal friends. Don't know why or how long it will last. So I bring you: John Lennon - Power to the People...
Cry for help
posted by srah on October 4, 2004 10:52 AM
Tags: librarydom, school of information
Is there a question you've always sought to answer to but have never known how to do it yourself? Are you looking for the answer to that trivia question you could never find? Do you need help finding sources to get started on a paper? Why not try the Internet Public Library's Ask a Question feature. Give a struggling would-be librarian something to do! Note: Don't use it just for the sake of giving us something to do - use only if you do have a tough question you can't answer on your own!...
Anarchists?
posted by srah on September 28, 2004 1:27 PM
Tags: school of information
At the hospital yesterday, the doctor asked my mom what she did for a living. "I'm an archivist," she replied. And of course, as usual, my mom had to explain what an archivist is and what they do. I realized then how lucky I am to be at SI. All my life, I've had to explain what an archivist is. When I told my first grade teacher that my parents were archivists, she tried to convince me that they were architects and I was saying it wrong. All of a sudden, I have a huge group of friends and acquaintances...
'Couldn't I start with, like, Wyoming and work my way up to it?'
posted by srah on September 26, 2004 6:09 PM
Tags: school of information, university of michigan
At yesterday's football game against the University of Iowa: Random guy in stands: FUCK IOWA! *pause* Me: I don't know... it's an awfully big state. It might take me a while. Fellow SI-seating section member: Is it bad that I was thinking the exact same thing? Me: I think maybe SI does that to you. Dirty librarians....
Complain, complain!
posted by srah on September 16, 2004 1:46 PM
Tags: school of information
Had a chat yesterday with the teacher who mentioned me in class, wherein I said something along the lines of, "You know, the best classes are the ones that ruin your life." I guess I didn't mean ruin per se, but rather "permanently change the way you look at the world so that you never see things in the same way again." I think I managed to backpedal enough that he got the general idea. Today I was annoyed to discover a user interface design flaw... with a parking structure. I parked in the S. Forest structure on the "4...
'He left River City the library building/ But he left all the books to her'
posted by srah on September 13, 2004 10:41 PM
Tags: librarydom, school of information
This week's reading in my reference-librarianing class is on the "freedom of intercourse between librarian and readers". I think I should have been taking more LIS classes from the beginning, because we never get such freedoms in HCI... "Personal intercourse and relations between librarian and readers are useful in all libraries. It seems to me that in popular libraries they are indispensable. [...] During the last five or six years, by the adoption of the means recommended in this paper, a large use of this department has grown up, and it has come to be highly appreciated in the community."...
I'm being quoted?
posted by srah on September 11, 2004 10:29 PM
Tags: school of information
Crikey. Another horrifying (?) overlap of my blog- and real- lives....
Isn't this always the way with me?
posted by srah on September 8, 2004 11:22 AM
Tags: school of information
Maybe it's because it's from 5pm to 8pm and preceded by seven hours of other classes, but so far, the class I was most looking forward to is looking the least promising. It is my normal course of action to fall in love with whatever class I am taking (Anthropology, English Language, Evaluation of Systems and Services) and decide it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. This time, I spent the whole summer claiming to be an information architect and got rather attached to the idea. And now that I'm actually looking at studying it...
Mo' money, les' eyesight
posted by srah on September 8, 2004 11:21 AM
Tags: school of information
Last semester, I spent over $250 on books and coursepacks for one of my four classes. This year, they've all unpredictably and insanely decided to go the online route, meaning that I'll instead only be spending about $27.17 plus shipping and handling. Plus optometrist bills from staring at a computer all the time. Plus cleaning supplies for when I try to use highlighter on my screen....
srah learns time management... the hard way
posted by srah on September 6, 2004 3:43 PM
Tags: school of information
Tomorrow is the first day of school! Are my pencils sharpened? Are my books covered in brown paper bags? Do I have a box of sharp new crayons? No. On the contrary, I am in no way prepared for school to start again. I haven't bought a single book yet, I never got around to getting my hair cut (it's been... oh, around four months now since I've even had a trim), I don't know what I'm going to wear, and I'm supposed to have started the reading for my Thursday class at the Business School (scary!) and be ready...
Hope is the thing with feathers. No wait, that's a duck.
posted by srah on April 30, 2004 12:44 PM
Tags: crying, internship, school of information, the abbey
"I don't see why that shouldn't count for credit," my professor said when I described my summer internship to him. Prior to that, I had given up hope of a for-credit internship and was mostly just happy to have something to occupy me over the summer. "They're pretty accomodating." He suggested that they had been known to bend the rules in order to get people credit. "We will get you credit for this," said the president of my organization. "Just let me know what I have to do." This gave me hope. So I set up an appointment for today...
Faith in the unknowing
posted by srah on April 27, 2004 12:35 PM
Tags: school of information
I don't like to admit that I'm wrong or that I can't do things on my own, which is why I am always panicked on Tuesday afternoons. I believe until Tuesday afternoon that I can program Java on my own. That if I keep working at it for two days straight, it will eventually sort itself out. I think it happened once. But the faith is always there. Well, it's Tuesday afternoon now. And I can't do it! This program has to work. And it doesn't. And I'm lost. And no amount of talking myself through it is helping. It...
We could file in to the strains of 'Marian the Librarian'! Who's with me?
posted by srah on April 24, 2004 1:10 PM
Tags: school of information
I think this year's SI first-year class should make a group effort to all (male and female) grow our hair long enough that it could be put into a bun by this time next year. Ours would be the best graduation ever!!!!1 I r lame....
'You kids are soft! You lack discipline!'
posted by srah on April 18, 2004 1:25 AM
Tags: school of information
I just wanted all of you to know that I'm really knuckling down and getting into Full-On Study Mode for finals. I even made up a strict schedule for myself, so that I would know, at every minute of the waking day, where I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to be doing. Ha ha! And this worked for almost six hours, which really impressed me! Then I had to eat ice cream and watch Labyrinth with Rachel and Mr B------. But it was perfectly justifiable because we... uh... we... found lots of examples of 503 terms...
'So would we need to do a giant queue then?'
posted by srah on April 17, 2004 3:36 PM
Tags: school of information
For those of you following The Continuing Saga of Why Data Structures Are Dirty, in our last lecture yesterday we learned that certain types of searches "require a queue as wide as big as the width of a tree" and studied iterative deepening. And Matt said it was boring! I'm glad to know that A. and I have poisoned the minds of enough of our classmates that the sniggering was at least double what it was last time....
'Hello my name is Steve I used to be addicted to crack but now I am clean and selling magazines'
posted by srah on March 31, 2004 10:45 PM
Tags: school of information
Just kidding. My name is srah, and clearly I have not kicked any such habit, as I have committed myself to a life of weekly suicide, to be committed every Monday night. I need to take a class outside of SI, but the Business School are stingy and won't let me register for their marketing class without an override, which I won't be able to get until classes begin. So for now, I've registered for four SI classes, with the intention of dropping one (which that will be, we shall never know). Here's the damage:...
Two more hours, please!
posted by srah on March 30, 2004 5:55 AM
Tags: school of information
Dear srah, What are you doing up at this ungodly hour? - A Concerned Imaginary Reader Dear Reader, Not sleeping, that's for sure! SRAH I don't know how long I've been at that point, but I woke myself up from a point between asleep and awake where I had been editing my Java program in a semi-conscious state of my imagination. I feel like I was in that state all night, tossing and turning over undeclared variables. I is not feeling mightly rested. I'm just glad I don't have JBuilder installed in my head, because I think I was really...
NPE? NMP!
posted by srah on March 29, 2004 11:24 PM
Tags: school of information
try { StupidProgram.doThatThingIToldYouToDo(); } catch (NullPointerException e) { System.out.println(e.getMessage()); } public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { System.out.println("DIE STUPID NULLPOINTEREXCEPTION DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!!!1"); srah.goToSleep(); }...
A message from the Nut-Kicking Council of Srah
posted by srah on March 27, 2004 12:54 AM
Tags: school of information
Next time someone asks you to transcribe dialogue from user testing videos, I suggest that you kick them squaaaaar in the nuts. That's what I'd do!...
Queue faites-vous?
posted by srah on March 26, 2004 4:18 PM
Tags: french, my favorite posts, school of information
Once my professor explained that he was going to be using the word "queue" in the British sense, it was all downhill from there. My friend-and-fellow-French-major and I had the same thought process, wherein we said to ourselves, The British sense? What other sense is there? ... Well... there's the French sense... (lock eyes, erupt in immature giggles). For you see, the French word "queue" can be a line that you stand in or it can be an animal's tail. Oh yeah, or slang for "penis." From then on, any mention of the penultimate entry in a list, slow or...
What am I going to do with forty subscriptions to Vibe?
posted by srah on March 21, 2004 3:18 PM
Tags: quote, school of information
I have discovered the future. And it is not pretty. Watching Office Space yesterday, I realized that there are at least two jobs in that film that match up to our School of Information training. First of all, after 501, we are trained in consultancy, which means that we could take over for the Bobs. If I chose that career path, I imagine a conversation something like: srah: Let's see. You're Neil... Diamond? (he nods) srah: Is that your real name? Neil: Yeah. srah: Are you in any relation to the pop singer? Neil: It's just a coincidence. srah: To...
Bevaaaaaaare the Curse!
posted by srah on March 14, 2004 11:10 AM
Tags: school of information
I have my Java Programming lab at 10am on Thursday mornings. Rather than taking over the SHEEPDIP several times a week, SI Computing gives us laptop computers from the Locally Accessible Machine Base for Developing Information Professionals*. Every week, I have a problem with the first laptop they give me. It has no battery life and I can't get it plugged in before it cuts out and has to reboot, or else it doesn't have the JBuilder software installed. Add to that the fact that my 9:00 class has recently been held in the boonies of the Institute for Social...
How I spent my morning
posted by srah on March 9, 2004 10:14 PM
Tags: school of information
The first thing I did when I woke up this morning was to look at my watch. OMG, I thought groggily to myself, for I always think groggily in internet acronyms when I wake up in the morning, It's one thingy away from the big 9. I only have two hours until lunch. I need to get up so I can do something productive with my morning. After I got up and hooked up to the jumpstarting machine that resets my brain every morning, I realized that while it was indeed "one thingy away from the big 9," I had...
Of all the Greek and Roman grandmas, Cupid, the god of chicken is certainly the best known.
posted by srah on March 7, 2004 10:27 AM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, mad libs, school of information
As you may remember reading, we played MadLibs in the car on the way to and from DC. My carmates have asked that I record some of them for posterity, but as most of the things involving our SI professors (whose names have been abbreviated to avoid Googlings) will not interest you, the results are all in the extension. Read on if you dare!...
Je me déplaise en faisant la Java
posted by srah on March 5, 2004 8:10 PM
Tags: school of information
I got an internship offer. First-year students at SI live for internship offers. It's in Peru, home of Machu Picchu, where I have always wanted to go. And I, ungrateful tart that I am, am going to turn it down. When I initially applied for internships through IAESTE, I was a young, energetic Java programmer, full of Hello World! and vim and vigor. I knew that I would pick up useful skills during the semester that would get me a crackerjack internship with plenty of lovely experience! Now I am old and jaded and have come to realize that if...
Stop your whinging, Eston, here it comes
posted by srah on March 2, 2004 3:09 PM
Tags: school of information
Definition of a bad day: Going to sleep and deciding to finish your programming assignment in the morning is a bad idea. You will have mysterious errors you have never heard of and don't know how to fix on one assignment and the other will be completely unintelligible and you will be so confused you will give up and decide to hand it in late on the same day that you find out you got yet another 15/20 on a homework assigment in that class. You will go to check out the results on your survey in order to do...
'I make it a rule always to park on beef jerky' [Day 8 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 28, 2004 11:42 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, school of information, washington d.c.
Amanda and I woke up early today so that we could see the White House before we left. I had seen it from Constitution Avenue, but hadn't gotten up to the gates. So around 8am, we set off down the street a bit and got a look. We couldn't see many snipers and guards and SS men, so we decided that either they were hiding or they were betting that no anarchists and terrorists would be up and about at 8am on a Saturday. On the gate, there was a button that said "Welcome to the White House". It didn't...
Je bois à trop fortes doses/ Je vois des éléphants roses [Day 7 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 27, 2004 11:47 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, amanda, crepes, school of information, washington d.c.
I work work worked today to make sure I finished my project before the end of the program. I took a break around noon when my supervisor took me out to lunch, then came back to the office and managed to finish before he left at 4. I spent some more time time foodling around on the Internet and taking pictures of the office for ASB, then went back to the hotel. We sat around and watched various TLC shows to rest up at the end of the week, then got to thinking about dinner. Amanda and I decided we...
'Six girls, only two guys... where are all the guys?' [Day 6 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 26, 2004 11:07 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, hm, school of information, washington d.c.
Amanda and I made an after-work date today to go shopping at H&M. There's one just down the street from our hotel, but we hadn't managed to make it earlier in the week. I found a nice little corduroy skirt but alas, do not have any appropriate shoes, so I have to wait to wear it until I get home. Seeing as we couldn't hit up the alumni for internships the other night, we instead hit them up for restaurant suggestions. So tonight we went to the Saigon Inn in Georgetown. I had never been to a Vietnamese restaurant, so...
The Electronic Records Pussycat Swingers' Club
posted by srah on February 26, 2004 11:51 AM
Tags: school of information
They should have swingers' clubs just for information professionals because really, so little in life is mutually exclusive....
Resolved: That working is (and oughta be) a whole lot better than studying
posted by srah on February 26, 2004 10:10 AM
Tags: job search, school of information, work
When you are a student, you have to do research and write reports during the weekends and your free time and at night, after your classes and the jobs you have to work to survive and to pay for your tuition. When you are in the Real World*, you have to do research and write reports during the day and that's all you have to do. And you get paid for it. I suppose I am in school for a reason, and that's so that I can do my research and write my reports and eventually get paid more for...
'You should listen to Sarah, because she always knows what she's talking about.' [Day 5 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 25, 2004 11:00 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, school of information, washington d.c.
I went back to the hotel after work only to find that I was the organizer for the group to travel to the SI Alumni Reception, based on the fact that I was the only one who had called Monique to ask for directions. Directions which I very cleverly wrote down, then left at work. Luckily a few other people had ideas of how to get there, and we were not too late after we subwayed it over there and walked the rest of the way. The big question of the evening was, 'What kind of librarian do you want...
srah's shocking realizations of the week
posted by srah on February 25, 2004 5:02 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, school of information, technology, work
1) I like group work. Maybe I'm just saying that because I get a week away from my 622 group and I have not yet gone through next week's heinous pain that is Project Managing the Survey Report. But working with my supervisor and his assistant, I realize that I actually have some skills to contribute and can come up with some good ideas. It's not so much that I'm great at HCI compared to other HCI students, but I am more aware of HCI issues than are non-HCI people. Having this work experience makes me feel like I might...
'Sporkie? That's what I'm naming my first-born child!' [Day 4 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 24, 2004 10:50 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, school of information, washington d.c.
There was a trip to the NPR archives scheduled today, but with a limited number of spots and starting at 5:30pm. So anyone who worked until 6 or didn't make it on the list had to find other plans tonight. Cari went out to dinner with a friend from DC, so Amanda and I sort of lazed around the hotel room until we decided it was time to get something to eat. We ran into Christy and got a call from Matt, who brought along Eunice and Eboni, so we ended up a group of six. After much deliberation, we...
Teh moon rulez #1 [Day 2 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 22, 2004 8:31 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, school of information, washington d.c.
We got up in the morning, showered and dressed and went off in search of a mythical Waffle Shop of which we had heard tell. It was kind of sketchy but cheap and kind of cool. There seemed to be a lot of locals in addition to the people the hotel had directed there. No one really had any firm plans or things they needed to see, so we set off wandering towards the Mall in a group with Rebecca, Teri, Amanda, Cari, Matt, Tom and Eboni. A group of SI students wandering along Pennsylvania Avenue is automatically going to...
'Please don't set my lipgloss on fire!' [Day 1 of the DC trip]
posted by srah on February 21, 2004 6:00 PM
Tags: alternative spring break, alternative spring break 2004, mad libs, school of information, washington d.c.
Amanda, Matt, Cari and I left Ann Arbor at 9:01, just on time. I was surprised that I was the lightest packer of all. I'd been afraid that I would take up a lot of space with my suitcase and additional bags for food and things, but I had the smallest suitcase in the group. As I was the second person in the car, I sat in the front passenger seat for the first shift. By the time we switched drivers, I had already created a nest for myself with all of my belongings, so I ended up staying in...
Everybody's working for the weekend
posted by srah on February 10, 2004 10:24 PM
Tags: school of information
Or at least tomorrow. I just need to get through about five hours on campus, then I can come home and nap from about 3pm to Thursday morning. What is wrong with this semester? Why do I feel so tired all of the time?...
'And when you got to check where the user's head is at/ Best pick up a copy of Beyer and Holtzblatt'
posted by srah on February 9, 2004 7:10 PM
Tags: school of information
Remember back when I whinged that there were no songs for the HCI professional? Well, I can't complain about that anymore... Uh, yeah. I want to cry, and I don't know if they're tears of sorrow or joy. I have listened to it three times in the 15 minutes since I downloaded it, though... [via little.yellow.different]...
Liberal Arts at Work on Ruining My Life?
posted by srah on February 7, 2004 2:53 PM
Tags: school of information, university of michigan
tbone and I also agreed that a liberal arts education has also ruined our chances at happiness. At the point where 50% of college-bound seniors in my graduating class were headed for the University of Michigan, I went to Albion College. At Albion, all of my professors had or were working toward PhDs but they actually taught me themselves. They invited me to their houses for dinner, they took me on class trips, they knew me well enough to write recommendations for me, and they still know me when I come back to campus. As an undergrad at U-M, I...
February is the cruelest month
posted by srah on February 1, 2004 11:49 PM
Tags: school of information
I'd like to give a big shout-out to the folks at SI Computing for making it through the month of January without a significant webmail outage! You go, people! Directly to Hell! Because it's out again!...
Collaborationist
posted by srah on February 1, 2004 5:50 PM
Tags: school of information
When I'm working in a group, I expect my responsibilities to be Foibles, Hijinks and Baked Goods because if I were my groupmates, I wouldn't trust me with anything important. What do I know about anything, anyway? So when one of my suggestions or ideas is met with a "Hey, we should do that" or a "Good point!" or someone lets me take charge of a situation rather than gently prying my fingers from the reins, I am constantly surprised and want to inform them of the errors of their ways. Other than the fact that I seem to always...
Yes, I have a question on the homework: WTF, mate?
posted by srah on January 22, 2004 12:36 PM
Tags: school of information
At this point in my SI career... ... if I had a friend who was interested in a career as an information professional of some sort and was looking at U-M, I would tell them to turn around and run as fast as they possibly can. ... if I hadn't already spent a semester's worth of time and tuition here, I would be thinking about dropping out. ... if I felt that the Choice & Learning foundations course was actually building a foundation for my career as an information professional, I would be rethinking my career path. ... I am...
Caw! Caw!
posted by srah on January 16, 2004 1:18 AM
Tags: school of information
Economics, as far as I can tell so far, seems to be all about defining problems and finding feasible solutions to them. Feasible schmeasible. Who's to say it's not feasible to hitch a ride to the Rose Bowl on a giant eagle? Economics is for people with no imagination....
Hello, world!
posted by srah on January 15, 2004 2:10 PM
Tags: school of information
One Java lab down. I'm not dead yet. I didn't burst into tears, either, and I even followed along as we created programs to do such fascinating things as print a character string to the screen and carry on intriguing dialogue like: program: What is your name? srah-user: Mr B------ sucks program: Hello, Mr B------ sucks! You may now address me as srah, Java Programmer Extraordinaire! Coming soon to a toaster near you!...
Microeconomics? Megasuckonomics, more like it!
posted by srah on January 10, 2004 1:21 PM
Tags: school of information
Our Search and Retrieval professors apologized for the fact that we are in the crappiest room in the crappiest building on campus (Dennison 269, if you're counting) and explained that SI is too stupid to realize they've grown too big for their own facilities, so we just have to beg to LS&A every semester and they throw us those rooms that aren't fit for their own uses. Okay, maybe those weren't their exact words. Anyway, the point is, they knew we had these complaints, they understood them, but they explained that this is why it had to be this way....
'I'd like to kill the guy who invented this'
posted by srah on January 10, 2004 12:20 PM
Tags: school of information
As Teen Talk Barbie informed us, "Math is hard." And in the words of Jimmy Buffett, "Math sucks." My semester is looking distressingly math- and logic- and computer-science-heavy. I was all ready to put all of my energy into Java Programming as my most insanely difficult hardest class when my Choice and Learning GSI informed us that the myths about his class requiring math knowledge were false. "You don't need to know calculus!" he laughed, "All it requires is a bit of advanced algebra!" Alge-who, now? I have also been informed by an SI alum that you need to know...
Then again, I was raised by dorks
posted by srah on January 10, 2004 11:23 AM
Tags: school of information
The difference between the dorks and the "cool kids" is that cool kids have to feign (or succeed in) disinterest in everything. They have to be nonchalant and not show excitement over anything. You are a dork if you get excited about things - especially if the majority of the population can't match your excitement. I think that dorks make the best teachers. Can you imagine one of the cool kids in high school going into education? "Today we're going to learn about, like, the end-to-end principle or something. Whatever. Why are you bouncing up and down in the back,...
It sucks... but in a cute way?
posted by srah on January 7, 2004 5:05 PM
Tags: school of information
Hi, yeah, I'm cursed. First I go blog-ranting on and on about how I hate our courseware program, then 3.5 hours later, I go to my first class of the semester... taught by one of the creators/administrators of said program. Teacher: Who here has used CourseTools? *all hands raise* Teacher: Who has used CourseTools:NextGeneration? *most hands raise, since this class' website is on CTNG* Teacher: And which do you prefer? *chorus of "THE OLD ONE!!!1"s, to the apparent surprise of the instructor* So much for all of those brownie points I racked up for logging onto the class website at...
Ye'll walk the plank, Robert H. Frank!!!1
posted by srah on January 4, 2004 7:24 PM
Tags: school of information
I thought that $122.50 was an insane amount to pay for one textbook (a textbook on microeconomics, to make it worse) until I discovered that I was getting off lightly. Ouch. At least my $90 Java textbook sounds potentially useful......
How'dya figure?
posted by srah on December 22, 2003 10:18 PM
Tags: bubble tea, grades, school of information
Not bad, considering that I have adopted as my new mantra B is for Bubble Tea; that's good enough for me. 6.5? How do they calculate this stuff? And why don't I care?...
Curse of the Information Professional
posted by srah on December 20, 2003 1:23 PM
Tags: school of information
I started bitching about the user interface of the labeling computers at UPS yesterday because my sister had to go from using the keyboard to the mouse and back again. GOMS GOMS GOMS! The end of the semester has not released me from critiquing user interfaces everywhere I go. I fear it will be with me for the rest of my life. Curse you, Tom Brinck!...
Things that I have learned after one semester at SI
posted by srah on December 16, 2003 2:28 PM
Tags: school of information
No one else knows what they're doing, either. The second semester will be easier, if only because I won't waste so much time wondering if I will ever make friends. The point of Social Systems & Collections was to teach us vocabulary and introduce us to articles and authors we will have to reference for the rest of our lives as information professionals. There actually was a point to Use of Information, and it wasn't necessarily just to teach us how to work in groups. Grad school is haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard. But I will survive, because I always do....
One exam to rule them all
posted by srah on December 15, 2003 10:19 AM
Tags: school of information
Less than six hours until I am free from the tyranny that is the shopping cart first semester. Vay-cay plans? Sleeping, cleaning my room, dreaded Christmas shopping, leisure reading and party-party-partying. Oh, and being a complete and utter nerd, of course....
Zis webmail, she goes down more often zan ze 'ores at SI North
posted by srah on December 13, 2003 10:39 AM
Tags: school of information
Mr B------ and I have imagined the inside of SI North, the building where all of our Graduate Student Instructors have their offices. We have speculated that it's full of French whores, lounging on giant mushrooms in old-fashioned lingerie, smoking hookahs and bitching about webmail being down (which comes to mind because it is right now, just as it is every weekend). You would think that in a school so focused on technology and so full of people studying Human-Computer Interaction, there would be somebody here who could make it possible for humans to interact with computers once in a...
Three hours in the life of srah
posted by srah on December 12, 2003 4:03 PM
Tags: school of information
The beast that is Social Systems & Collections has been defeated! Since I couldn't blog during the exam but I kept getting hung up on things, I took some wee notes on my thoughts. 12:50 - I'm hungry. Ten minutes to go, so I'll just log into CourseTools and go get some soup-- HEY! The questions have been posted! Start exam? Eat? Start exam? Eat, I think. Located some cup-a-soup and tortilla chips to nibble on. 12:55 - Now on to the exam! ... but I'm cold. Put on a sweatshirt. Still cold. Put on slippers. Still cold. It occurs...
Proctor me! Proctor me now!
posted by srah on December 12, 2003 11:50 AM
Tags: school of information
Bad idea: Scheduling a final exam. Worse idea: Scheduling a final exam to be taken en ligne from your home. Yes, it's open book and open note and yes, we're bound by honor code* not to collaborate on answers. It's not cheating that I'm concerned about... it's wandering off to find something to eat and forgetting that I'm in the middle of an exam. It's too comfortable at home! I need to be in a structured environment with someone threatening to slap me with a ruler if I get out of line! I need to be prevented from going to...
Walking in a Nelson & Winter wonderland
posted by srah on December 12, 2003 11:37 AM
Tags: school of information
One of the things that makes me sad about graduate school is that it's made me into a complete dork who has no idea how to interact in normal society. Well okay, I was kind of that way to start with. But it really scared me at our Super King Kong Mega Mega Study Group last night that we could tell jokes with punchlines like, "Well I've got a structuration theory for you right here!" Ha ha ha ha ha. Gives me a little giggle just thinking about it. So I would like to thank my blog and my readers...
Collaboration haiku
posted by srah on December 10, 2003 3:32 AM
Tags: haiku, poetry, school of information
End of group project. At 3am, groupthinking becomes nothinking....
Skirt +2
posted by srah on December 9, 2003 7:48 PM
Tags: fashion, public speaking, school of information
I wore a skirt for my presentation today. I was considered quite SEXXXY* by all who encountered me. But not S-E-X-X-Y, because that would be something altogether different. Wearing a skirt gave me magical powers, apparently. It was my maaagic skirt, to paraphrase Forrest Gump. I felt like I was dressed up and therefore must know what I was talking about. Either that or I was so sick of rehearsing that I wanted it to be over with. A little bit of both. I was perfectly ready to go for the first hour and 45 minutes of class, then I...
The Role of Emotion in the Songs of Neil Diamond
posted by srah on December 4, 2003 7:23 AM
Tags: classwork, school of information
I was somewhere in between dream and reality this morning as I tried to wake up. I had been dreaming about editing Mah 501 Group Mate's term paper when my alarm went off. Wow, that's really impressive how he worked this music into his paper, I thought. How did he do that? It's so appropriate for the paper, too. That's pretty interesting. I should have done that. Why didn't I do that? ... ...Waiiiiiit, this is "He Ain't Heavy... He's My Brother. What does that have to do with 504?" Hey, this isn't a 504 paper! I'm in bed! Note...
srah's roar of triumph and glory: 'mew!'
posted by srah on December 3, 2003 9:16 PM
Tags: school of information
I am so proud of myself for not putting off starting this 13-page paper until tomorrow night, since it's due Friday. Seriously, starting tonight - while sounding completely bonkers-insane to everyone I've talked to - is a great leap in anti-procrastination for the srah. I am srah, hear me roar! I think I have some kind of paper-writing hyperactivity or ADD, though. Not just because I am blogging right now when I should be writing a paper - that's just procrastination and being easily distracted. It's just that once I get motivated to write a paper, I want to write...
Professional what, now?
posted by srah on December 3, 2003 12:19 PM
Tags: my favorite posts, school of information
My body only went to discussion section today (instead of getting much-needed sleep) because we were doing course evaluations at the end. My brain, however, stayed in its hibernative state and tried in vain to follow the discussion while being distracted by the completely unrelated and unprovoked idea that SI Computing doesn't like the name of our computer lab, the DIAD (Digital Information Access and Dissemination lab). So while others discussed information professionalism, srah's little brain chugged away and produced these lovely replacements: Information Professionals' And Nerds' Electronic Manipulation Area (short and pale and young and lovely...) No Eating or...
'501: Now with 15% more bitchslapping!'
posted by srah on November 21, 2003 4:59 PM
Tags: school of information
The remarkable thing about me is that I can survive anything. This is only because I overreact in the first place and think that lots of work is going to kill me. It's not going to kill me. It's just going to make me suffer a little. It's 5pm and I'm not dead yet. Time for a break, then more suffering when I get home....
Ain't too stressed to blog, sweet darlin'
posted by srah on November 20, 2003 6:09 PM
Tags: school of information, stress
Have you ever wanted to kill people on the street because they're so happy and you have so much work to do? Have you ever wanted to kill people on the bus because they have seats and you have so much work to do? All of a sudden am stressed beyond my imagination. Am too stressed to cry, because tears would blur my vision and impede my productivity. Am too stressed to take the time out to make myself a tinfoil hat and go crazy in a proper tinfoil-hat fashion. Am apparently not too stressed to blog. Am never too...
Well... that was surprisingly easy...
posted by srah on November 19, 2003 10:31 AM
Tags: school of information
Last semester I struggled over a borrowed laptop, trying desperately to find things that would fit into my schedule. This time I got into all of the sections I wanted on the first try. It feels like I haven't worked hard enough for it. 9-10 10-11 11-12 12-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-5 5-6 6-7 M T 543 - Programming I W 622 - Evaluation of Systems & Services 503 DS R 502 DS 543 DS ...
Hooray! Now I can hate me on the bus!
posted by srah on November 15, 2003 4:12 PM
Tags: cell phone, school of information, shopping
After months of planning and stalling, srah finally gets around to going to buy a cell phone. Our scene takes place at the AT&T Wireless store at the mall. (approaches counter) AT&T Wireless Dude: Can I help you? srah: Yes. I would like a cell phone. (Rolls eyes, realizing that she is in a cell phone store. Continues.) AT&T Wireless Dude: Alright, what are you looking for? srah: I know exactly what I want because I tried to buy a phone on your website, but it's completely unusable so I couldn't. (Dies a little on the inside, realizing how SI...
Bring home my name/ on the wings of Gwaihir*
posted by srah on November 11, 2003 11:04 AM
Tags: conversation, lord of the rings, lord of the rings: the return of the king, movies, neil diamond, school of information, srahmom
(listening to Neil Diamond as I get ready this morning) srah: I always want to sing this "Sar... Saruman" instead of "Soo... Soolaimon". (pause) srah: I am such a nerd. Mom: Well, from what I've heard, you're in good company at SI. srah: This is very true. Hopefully Return of the King will come out after all of our exams are done. Otherwise we're in trouble! Mom: Why's that? srah: Because no one will show up for class the next day! Mom: Oh. Well, that's okay. Your teachers probably won't either. ––––– * thanks to Mr B------ for the nerd-assistance...
Tea. Sugar. Please? Hello. What?
posted by srah on November 6, 2003 8:00 AM
Tags: school of information
Sometimes when I stay up late doing a long paper, like, say a 540 take-home midterm, I am easily distracted and prone to insanity and random obscenities for the rest of the day. Luckily that won't be the case today, because I got me a good four hours of sleep. And on a related note, September Morn is a really fucking good song....