System Fail: A Busy Life

Okay, so the plan to post thrice-weekly sort of fell through. Apparently, I have one too many things to do on a schedule, and I was setting myself up to fail by establishing deadlines for here.

But, I'm back! And I still plan to post reviews, memoirs of my time as a librarian larvae, and on topics related to reading, writing, learning, and libraries. I'll tentatively say "expect a weekly post," and see if that's do-able. I'm off work and classes from 12/18 to 1/18/11, and have only knitting for Xmas and books to review for Horn Book, so there might even be a bit more posting between now and then.

Speaking of which, I am now a freelance reviewer for the Horn Book Guide. Not the magazine, sadly, but reviewing for the Guide is still good experience, it still looks good on the resume, and it still results in free books. (It's also a tiny lil bit of money, which will be nice, as this month "break" from work leads to a 6 week period with no income).

Semester one of grad school is THIS far from being survived. I have to revise a grant proposal draft before Thursday, and I'm DONE! Unless my final projects turned out way worse than I thought they were, I expect all As, which is nice.

Next semester brings the following courses: Library Buildings, Libraries in Society, and Youth Literature. I'm hyper-excited about the first and the last, and hoping that the reputation of 502 (Lib in Soc) turns out to be turn (that's she's very honest, direct, and a Foucauldian). The library buildings class should be good practical experience, as I want to make spaces for teens in libraries. And the youth lit class I decided to take, as I needed a reminder of why I'm doing all of this. And perhaps because I miss the world of English/Lit (teaching and student-ing), and it'll be nice to analyze literature, even in this different context.

Expect a review soon-ish (my loyal 2 or 3 followers), as I have 18 books coming this week from the HBG and 6 coming so I can get a jump start for the youth lit course. I also have Malinda Lo's Ash, Robin McKinley's Pegasus, and a few ARCs from the YALSA conference to get to when the urge to read darker fantasy kicks in again.