Course, Faires, and Castle- oh my!

     It sounds like I am about to give a lecture, ut it is quite the opposite.  It has been quite a while for me, blogging and chatting with you viewers, because I have been in my first weeks of classes.  This is my first semester as a graduate student.  I decided to take things light and playful, with only three courses to start.  I am taking LSC(why it is LSC instead of ILS, I have no idea) 502, which is focused on making me into library management/ director material.  This class should be interesting because I feel like I had a really good experience with my director at the FPL.  She was very knowledgeable and I want to learn more about what she does behind the scenes.  It should be an easy course because it is online- though t would seem there are things to be forgotten...- if not for light reading, then for my class partner.  We just held a Skype conversation where we co-wrote an entire essay that isn't due until next Wednesday.  Jurronimo!

     Another class  have is LSC 504, information and reference services.  This class will be relevant to me if I get a full-time assistant reference librarian position I interview for last week.  It will be relevant or the future of course, but more so at present.  504 has also proved to give me a few smart "choice words" at an interview I had today, assistant children's librarian, in that I had some context to library science n which to answer the age old question of "If a child, say ten, want to check out_, which may be intended for _ age range, do you let them check out the book?"  My first answer was that I would need to be familiar with and assured of the library's policy's regarding this query.  My old library ran with the library bill of rights in that we didn't believe in censorship or restriction of patrons, and to stress this we made adults aware that young patrons were their responsibility when signing them up.  As a result, we ran into fewer issues.  I think this answer, which was much smarter at the time and full of more catchphrases from my 504 textbook, did well by them.  Afterall, the interview was forty-five minutes long.  I really want this job.

     Lastly is my LSC 510 class.  This course I took as an elective.  For fun.  I seem to be sorely mistaken.  The syllabus is far more intense than the other two courses, all of which are "beginners" courses.  The teacher has a nice backgound, but there are at least a dozen books, all of which are highly overpriced.  So, I will be spending a lot of time in my library, as well as others, doing the 100+ page assignments each week.  While it meets in person and I can take plenty of notes, I dread the one week where there are over 300 pages of reading....

     Moving on.  I have made a few friends amongst my classes and tomorrow have a coffee "date" to get to know one of them more.  She lives alone and we both agreed we are in desperate need to find out how to make friends as freshman again.  If tomorrow goes well, I will not only have joined a club, but I will have made my first Rhode Island friend that is not my roommate.  (Roommate, I love you, but I want more people so we can play Apples to Apples and Pirate Munchkin :D )

     So, while I am not sure when I will get my first paycheck, I really can't complain.  I can watch Doctor Who on Saturdays as it airs on the BBC.  I can read or swim in the ocean that is slightly up the road from me.  The land is flat so that I can go running more consistently.  I have unlimited streaming, which means I can catch up on Castle before the season five premier.  I have electricity, meaning I can use a toaster or perk coffee- something I neglected before the summer.  And there are all new, shiny straight guys.  I have already begun to be able to spot smokers and fratboys, now if only I can find the hot nerds....

     ...speaking of nerds! King Richard's Faire began last weekend and, as always, it was awesome!  I was really surprised that there were still new things for me to see.  While there were a few hurdles with friends that day, I was able to see The Tale of the Tiger, Jacques Ze Whippeur, all of the King's Tournament(our guy, Sir Vincent the Vain(only the second half of that is my naming)  the frenchman wearing gold and purple won!  And a friend of mine gave him his token/favour, which was really cool!  We didn't know you could actually interact with the actors.  Next year!)  as well as other sideshows and shops that I passed.  I was most excited that I did the archery section- shooting twelve arrows at a red heart- and that I found my dragon claw gems, of which I purchased a yellow for last year and a black for this one.  The story to that is that the first year I went I bought a green one, for ten dollars, and decided it was a much better souvenir than the Faire t-shirts.  (Though I bought one that year as well because it made a pun; "joust do it!")  And when I went last year I was unable to find them, which made me le sad.  And then this year, voila!  I intend to keep this tradition but, next year, I am switching back to going in October, when the weather is cooler and cloaks are fashionable.  

     So, until next time my viewers, wish me luck and good night!

Dewey's Cousin (okay so not really)

     I think I finally took the cake of events- yes that phrase is a lie, but I have been making great cupcakes!- at the Public Library this summer.  This story doesn't exactly start with me, so let's back up.
     My director has dogs.  They sound a little high-maintenance to me, but she adores them and so she goes for long strolls with them.  On one particular stroll, she walked by our library and was met by two strangers- a couple. They asked her if she had a flashlight, of which she said no and wondered if this was a mugging or scam in progress. They then began to explain how they believed there was a kitten by our library and they were trying to see it so they could catch it.  Not thinking, and still not fully believing them, she handed them her phone, using it's flashlight app.  She followed them and the couple started meowing to a cat that was unseen.  As they rounded the building, they heard it, and looked down into the stairwell, low and behold, to find a very tiny kitten. My director went inside, grabbed a shirt to toss over it, and called one of her friends to help. By this point it was almost midnight. Her friend came, and they almost got it, but reached just shy as it darted under a shrubbery.
     The next day, my director told everyone at the library about it and we kept on yellow alert. We speculated why it was so young and outside but if my experience with Arya the week before had taught me anything it was that we could only guess at the unknowns.  We didn't fins him that day and so pulled in our food dishes so nothing larger than the kitten would be attracted to the library.
     By the second day we had forgotten a little more about yellow alert and spent more time indoors.  I need stamps and to mail a resume, so I went downtown. When I headed back I was on hold for the umpteenth time with enrollment services and out of the corner of my eye I saw slight movement. I looked and saw a tiny, fluffy gray kitten darting away from me.  My first thought wad I could go after it, but he was headed for the old folks back yard- and then he went to the Baptist church and that I could do.  So I frantically called my co-worker and asked her for help. Along the side of the church, he hid under the bamboo-like shrubs and I could hear him crying but he wouldn't come out.  Eventually we saw him and confirmed he was small with handsome tawny eyes.  Try as we might, he worked his way out quicker than we could and around the building.  My co-worker's vet husband arrived and we found the kitten under the wheelchair ramp off the church.  By then, my lunch was over so I left the endeavour to my friends. 
   They put towels around him so he could only come out and into a 'have a heart' trap with kitty food.  By nightfall, nothing had happened.
   In the morning, my co-worker rechecked the trap and it had sprung with no kitten. So she changed the food, reset it, and waited a minute before it shut again- this time with the gray kitten.  Then we took it to the vet downtown and, as of now, we are waiting to see what the verdict is. We don't know the age, gender, or which librarian- not me!- is taking it home after. I may have an update in a few days.

Life After the Unexpected

     I went to Portland this Saturday and, expecting only to catch up with good friends, now fins myself feeling very odd about the trip.
     I got to Portland in the after noon and my friend, AG, and I wandered up and down the art tents that filled congress street.  It is a very fine area, as was the Old Port, but I just don't see the allure of the city that my friends do.  At least not a city without vast amounts of scenery.  Anyways, I took some cute touristy photos, bought a Doctor Who/Star Trek comic book, a SHIELD magnet and Princess Bride magnet, had a good Black Beach smoothie, and good pizza. 
     Then the talking really began.  AG left our college town on the mends of a three year relationship and, since then, has had a few nights of fun and gotten her confidence back.  I am really proud of her for keeping on and look forward to hearing her stories.  She still hasn't gotten to settle into her own place yet, but she looks like she feels better for the change.  At some point we got to discussing our exes.  We laughed about how hers ditched his phone at a thrift store and how we both got odd new texts, which I ignored.  Turns out the guy was forty and creepy.  Mine, I discovered, has switched to Google+ over Facebook, and I had to ask if she knew anything because we have a friend reunion at a Renaissance Faire in two weeks- she thought he might be seeing someone new.  So we finished out our day and, as I started to leave Portland, I got this overwhelming feeling that I shouldn't leave before I see at least one more friend.  So I called BK and GD and drove there.
     With a place to themselves, one making bank at a lawfirm and the other living the part-time librarian dream of not having to do shelving, they seemed fine.  We chatted, swapped stories, and discovered that they knew more about my ex, whom is in fact sleeping with a "friend" whom threatened our relationship six months in.  GD's ex, whom is living with mine and one other person, still vies for her attention and will be moving to Portland in a week.  In the meantime she too is having fun, and BK is giving online dating a go.  Not for me, I have decided, because if there is forced chemistry then I could end up in another lie of a relationship.  
     I did not go to Styxx that night, unlike everyone else I ran into that day, but I did leave Portland with an appreciation for my new living situation.  Rhode Island is small, there are things to do, new people to meet, and it will be my home as much ad my roommate's.  I am ok, for one in my life, being single.  I don't feel the need to have someone while I wait for the person I rally want- whether I have will meet them someday or not, who knows?  I am just at terms with enjoying myself and being on my own schedule.  It is a wonderful feeling.  While I have a whole new bag of feelings to sift through from my two and a half year relationship- of which ended in March- I am ok that it will take time.  All scars fade eventually, right?

The Doctor, Inside the Mirror, and Other Things

I don't really have a lot of time to talk about myself today, thought maybe later, so for now here are some cool things I have found this week:

-Doctor Who Season seven airs September 1st.  (I have a few episodes away from the end of six! agh!)  I ordered a TARDIS beach towel for Rhode Island, but maybe you'd prefer thisw:

http://fashionablygeek.com/t-shirts/11th-of-hearts-t-shirt/

Disney keeps getting awesome with their imagineers:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/105880911/original-watercolor-deer-wear-the-crown?ref=usr_faveitems

-The Big Bang Theory resumes this fall(September to be precise), here's this link for fun!(It looks like a 8bit sketch): http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2012/08/22/floor-map-of-the-big-bang-theory-pic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+geeksAreSexyTechnologyNews+%28[Geeks+are+Sexy]+technology+news%29

-Need pictures for a room?  Try these!:

http://nerdapproved.com/approved-products/i-would-like-all-of-these-modern-art-style-star-wars-prints/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NerdApproved-NewsAndReviews+%28Nerd+Approved+-+Gadgets+and+Gizmos%29

For more cool things, give /film a browse.  I hope to have a post up soon about some nerdy things I have bought/made for my house.  I also hope to be able to share some library stories from this week.  For now, toodles!

Alonzy!

   First off I want to start out by apologizing for not posting as normally this week as I have been- I'm still here!  That being said I want to thank everyone for getting my blog to over 100 pageviews!  That's amazing!  While I don't have many(if any) regular subscribers, pageviews are what makes that happen.

     It's been a crazy-busy week.  As I have mentioned before, I had found a kitten and for a good chuck of the summer she has been a regular resident at my friend's apartment.  After a month of not having found the owner(we called our local animal shelter and they said just to let her go back outside, which we didn't want to do because after having her in our house for two nights we discovered she was deaf.  Also we only received twp calls by our posters, which were plastered all over town)) and another month in which Ahnna and I thought we were the owners, I took her to the vet this past Tuesday.  What we didn't expect to find was a microchip.  They scanned it and decided not to do any shots or regular check-up things because they had to see where the chip went to.  They did check her for ear mites, which they found and then showed me what they looked like under a microscope, and clipped her toe-nails- she has one thumb that is double clawed ^_^ - and placed a call for me as to what to do next.

   Later that afternoon I heard back and my vet told me I had two options, A) get an attorney to fight for my rights and see what my rights are, or B) to call the 24 hr Pet Watch that the chip was registered to and go about locating the original owners.  Now, after believing she was mine for over a month at this point, I was devastated.  Arya knew me as mum in my head and we had kept her safe with love.  Well, being a college student going in for round two, I wasn't about to ask for an attorney's help or advice.  So, I called the watch.  Ten minutes later- not an exaggeration- I was connected with a real person  They took my information, name and number, and said they would contact the chip's owner.  The first time they did, they said it rang and rang.  The second time, they left a voicemail.  Then I went home.

   The next day at work, I turned my phone on during my lunch break and realized I had a voicemail.  It was from "the owner"(or whom I thought was the owner at the time) and he had left a name and number which, the day before, they told me the person wanted to be anonymous , that and the chip was registered from a town an hour away.  One, I was miffed that my information had been given out- working in the public sphere, this is something you just don't do.  Two, I was shell-shocked that this had all happened in the span of a day and a half.  I contacted my mum and Ahnna to tell them the most recent news, then I made the call to the voicemail person.  He seemed grateful that we had kept her safe.  When i asked him how she got out, he said they had left the window cracked- without a screen- and she had escaped from their third floor window.  'That's my Arya,' I thought.   We set a time to meet, in between my work shifts, and see what happens.

   We met at my vet's place.  When the guy walked in, I recognized him from a class I had taken this previous spring.  That ruffled my feather, I was already nervous enough being the middle man.  He was shocked at how much "Misty" had grown.  I immediately felt myself getting emotional, I had grown so attached to her but my moral compass told me that if this was my cat I would want to get her back too.  As it turned out, the guy that came was the emergency contact and not the owner.  That made myself and the vet uncomfortable, leaving me with an unfinished feeling, and so, after crying a lot, I didn't give her back.  The vet told the guy she believed Arya wasn't really theirs anymore but that it was my call to make.  I asked him for his roommate's- the owner- number and told him we should both tell him to meet after his roommate and I got off work.  

   For the second time that day, I had to take Arya out of her pet taxi and then back in. She goes in cycles being in there, one minute cute and grooming herself and the next rambunctious and wanting out.  So, I sat in my car for forty minutes and waited outside of Ahnna's work- a neutral zone in which both of us could say goodbye.  I somehow pulled myself together.  My first thought was to scan this guy, his car, and gather details.  College age, smoker, but works.  What surprised me was that the owner seemed genuinely happy to see her even thought it had been over two months.  I explained how she was now deaf, the earmites the vet found had stunted her ear canal's growth.  I told him about her summer with us and how I had become attached.  He offered us money, but I said it was okay and that it wasn't about that; the only thing he  had to pay for for me was the initial vet visit.  I managed to make a parently joke, that he had to do me one favour and that was to get his landlord to get a screen on that window.  When I gave her back to him, he cuddled her and I felt she was safe.  In hindsight, I am still worried about her being neglected, that they won't be home with her enough, and I feel off that I was ready to tackle this responsibility in my new life and she was taken away.  I've lost a lot in this last year, but I have also gained a lot slash achieved some good karma.  Like I said before, if it was me, I'd want her returned and, the best bit, was that he was appreciative of what we did for her.  

     When I went home, I was still sad and processing, so I decided to make cupcakes.  Not just any cupcakes,  but Malibu coconut rum cupcakes.  I added blue gel colour dye, which ended up making the vanilla base a tropical green.  I frosted them with vanilla.  Making them in my folks kitchen was a great distraction because, as I've only cooked in it once prior, I was distracted by looking for the whisk, the bowls, ingredients, etc.  I felt better in the end and made so cool looking cupcakes.  (If I was to fix them I'd add one more oz. of Malibu and sprinkle on some coconut flakes to pull out the flavour.)  Baking rocks.  I need to bake more.  And crochet.

     In other news, I am catching up on Doctor Who.  I will be starting season 6 tonight, eventually getting caught up enough to view season 7 alongside my roommate.  And thanks toThinkGeek, I purchased a TARDIS beack towel, which I intend to put on my bedroom door to transform my room into a TARDIS. 
     In /film world, I am behind.  Last I knew there were some nifty things going on in page 2.  If I find anything this week, I will post the links here in a newer post. 
     Stay tuned.  Days til I'm going for my MLIS: 18. 

Update: Corrections Made! Mischeif Managed!

Alonzie! My apologies in my last blog. I seems to have linked the Storm Knight instead of Push the talking Disney crash can. I will fix it when next I have computer access. This post is vía smartphone. Bueno noches gatos.

Updated: Scrat, Diego, and Fans

     It's been awhile since my last post and a great many things have occured in the meantime.  The first is that plans to move to Rhode Island are firming up.  'Move to Rhode Island?  But your blog says you live there?'  you may be inquiring.  This was a premeditated decision on my part as I knew I was moving, having accepted my acceptance into graduate school, found a roommate, picked an apartment, and, at the time, waiting to sign a lease to my beach house.  So, now that I have signed said lease, I have begun to buy some odds 'n' ends for my apartment and started making some things- like a statuette of the TARDIS, likely for my living room. 

     Last Friday I put in my two weeks for my Dunkin Donuts position.  Now, my trust in people is shady to begin with, but I thought I had quite the rapport with my employer at Dunkin.  She high-fived me for getting into grad school(which apparently my subconscious had my back because I guess I had mentioned it before during my first interview), she said thank you for the two weeks, and said I could stay on the schedule for the last two weeks if I wished.  I said yes.  Two days later I went in for what turned out to be my last shift, as I was not in fact listed on the schedule at all the next week.  As far as Rhode Island jobs, I have applied to many work study and apprenticeships at my grad school and, jsut alst night, many customer service ones.

     On the movie and tv front, as in my old blog, I have found a few things and, for the sake of time in writing on the circulation desk, I will produce them in list form.

A) The Munsters is seeing a remake to tv called Mockingbird Lane.

B) Sherlock season 3 is taking too long to get here.  I'm having Benedict Cumberbatch withdrawals.

C) Joe Manganiello is going to be in an upcoming movie with the former governator himself.

D) Harry Potter fans are THE best, see this and read it at your leisure: http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Harry-Potter-Fan-Decodes-Wizarding-Genetics-32325.html

E) My favourite doctor, Christopher Eccleston, will be in Thor: The Dark World, but he hasn't seen a script supposedly.  I'd like to see him as a villain, he can get hella serious.

F) Star Wars keeps getting better and it'd be great to see this chick at the Ren Faire I am attending in September(can you guess my costume?  it has nothing to do with hers!) http://bitcast-a-sm.bitgravity.com/slashfilm/wp/wp-content/images/ZZ6FC88D53-550x416.jpg

G) Meet Push ^_^ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kILCt5w4pSs&feature=player_embedded

H) You should watch this one and the one with Jason Segel (<3), Jack Black, and Will Ferrel.

I) Josh Radnor, Ted on HIMYM, will star in Liberal Arts and it sounds as though he plays a character I'd love to hang out with :)

J)(last one promise!) Go see Ice Age 4: Continental Drift.  Why? You ask, because you'd never guess how many awesome people are in it.  I won't say the who's who but Peter Dinklage, Kunal Nayyar, and Aziz Ansari are awesome additions to the already established crew- inclkuding Ray Romano, Denis Leary(Diego <3), John Leguizamo, Queen Latifah, Sean Williams Scott, and many maaaaany more. :D

and lastly, the best item in this list, this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=M-ilQtsazZU