So I post about wanting to get married and Josh proposes. I post about being all kinds of wigged out about graduate school in part because I can't get anyone at the library to talk to me about volunteering and I think my professor loves another Alex more than she loves me and the guy from the library emails me the next day and the next weekend I see my professor and she still loves me. Jury is out on whether she loves me best, but even I know she's allowed to love other people.
I also know that reads a little creepy. I mean it as a joke.
Anyway. Life is aligning and I realized as I was updating everyone at my story class get together on Sunday that I was describing life as "sweet" lately and it's true. So now I just need to get going on my graduate school application. Oyyyyyyyyyy.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Thoughts (second, third...) and Waffles (waffling, rather)
I'm not sure about library school. I want to be a librarian, I want to work in a library, I want to help people find the things they need. I don't want to give up. But i feel like I'm getting all these siigns that it isn't the best thing, maybe, despite all the hope I had (and have).
I volunteered at an event at the library in Middleton before we moved, and it was great. I knew we would be moving soon, so I didn't set up volunteering to do shelving and stuff like that. I now wish I had, because I've been trying for nearly a month to start volunteering at the library that's close to us and I'm getting no response after the initial "Thank you, I will forward your information to the person who handles that sort of thing." I hate being whiny about this and I looked up the guy's email address on the city website and emailed him directly... No response. He could be out of town. But if I don't hear from him soon, I'm not sure what to do. The most specific instruction I got from the school was that volunteering in a library would help my application. I'm not sure if going to the library and asking for him or explaining the situation and asking for someone else is appropriate, but tic toc, tic toc.
There's also a really pitiful pride issue: there's another Alex, who is gorgeous and comfortable in her own skin and super competent and even while I'm crazy jealous of her I like her, too. But the professor who taught us over the summer seems to like her better. It could very well be that they've just got more to talk about (that Alex is already in SLIS, she's been writing for a very long time, I dunno, she's perfect...)-- and even if the professor does like her better, it's no reason to not apply. People do like me there. The students in my summer class were great, and even Alex said taking a class as a special and reapplying was almost a surefire way to be admitted. I think my ego was hoping that everyone would be so impressed with me they'd just love me best from the get go. I know that's childish. I don't know how to express that this was my hope and expectation but not really something I'm shocked didn't play out.
I think the volunteer thing has me most discouraged. I've always been nervous about dealing with new people, and the not knowing whether they will respond well or ill to persistence. I fret over that way more than can be good for myself or poor Josh, who has to deal with a me that's so anxious. After last year's application the person in charge of application updates emailed everyone saying (politely) "CALM THE FUCK DOWN, WE WILL EMAIL YOU WHEN WE HAVE MADE DECISIONS" and I was so glad that I'd just waited for word and not prodded them. It helps in this case that there was a deadline by which I knew I'd hear something. But in the wider world, where there are no deadlines, choosing my words is hard.
There's also this job, which is by no means a job I want to hold for the rest of my life, but it's a good job, and the people in the office treat and pay me well. I've felt like rushing the past few years as much as possible in the interest of getting to be up here and be with Josh so we could start our life (in the same place) together, and since we're going to be getting married next year and that's going to take some cash to do justice, regardless of size, I feel like it would be prudent to wait. I could apply and defer admission for a year, the school gives you that option. We're not going to try to have a child until after I'm finished with graduate school (and it would be prudent to work first). I think this shift of thought from must get done on to the next one go go go! to alright, well, in the future is big, and since I'm so emotionally wrapped up in this library school thing I can't tell if the shift is really happening or if it's a way I'm trying to fool myself.
And there's also the whole concept of study. I was free to major in whatever I wanted for my undergraduate degree because there isn't a bachelor's focus requirement to go on and get a master's in library and information studies. So I studied anthropology and really enjoyed it. I know now that if I'd studied education I might have been able to pair my (one day? hopefully?) master's degree with a teaching certificate and work as a school librarian, which is an idea I like. I want to work in a public library and I'd like to work with youth services, but a school library gig sounds really nice. I don't regret my anthropology major. But I want to make sure whatever I graduate study is the right decision. There are museum studies programs at other schools, and I don't want to dismiss them as pipe dreams, since my time studying anthropology might have been better spent focusing on something else. I want to know about and support archaeology and other anthropological pursuits, but I don't dream about being an Egyptologist anymore.
I want this to be a well-considered decision and to be as comfortable about it as I can. At the moment I'm all over the place about it. I'm miserable that library school suddenly doesn't seem a highly desirable thing, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to proceed. I wrote earlier that I don't want to give up, and I don't. Maybe I need to just focus on that and not give up, and commit to pestering the library until I get a response.
But there's that part of me that I'm not sure is scared or smart that says maybe I need to give up.
In general, not sure what to do.
I volunteered at an event at the library in Middleton before we moved, and it was great. I knew we would be moving soon, so I didn't set up volunteering to do shelving and stuff like that. I now wish I had, because I've been trying for nearly a month to start volunteering at the library that's close to us and I'm getting no response after the initial "Thank you, I will forward your information to the person who handles that sort of thing." I hate being whiny about this and I looked up the guy's email address on the city website and emailed him directly... No response. He could be out of town. But if I don't hear from him soon, I'm not sure what to do. The most specific instruction I got from the school was that volunteering in a library would help my application. I'm not sure if going to the library and asking for him or explaining the situation and asking for someone else is appropriate, but tic toc, tic toc.
There's also a really pitiful pride issue: there's another Alex, who is gorgeous and comfortable in her own skin and super competent and even while I'm crazy jealous of her I like her, too. But the professor who taught us over the summer seems to like her better. It could very well be that they've just got more to talk about (that Alex is already in SLIS, she's been writing for a very long time, I dunno, she's perfect...)-- and even if the professor does like her better, it's no reason to not apply. People do like me there. The students in my summer class were great, and even Alex said taking a class as a special and reapplying was almost a surefire way to be admitted. I think my ego was hoping that everyone would be so impressed with me they'd just love me best from the get go. I know that's childish. I don't know how to express that this was my hope and expectation but not really something I'm shocked didn't play out.
I think the volunteer thing has me most discouraged. I've always been nervous about dealing with new people, and the not knowing whether they will respond well or ill to persistence. I fret over that way more than can be good for myself or poor Josh, who has to deal with a me that's so anxious. After last year's application the person in charge of application updates emailed everyone saying (politely) "CALM THE FUCK DOWN, WE WILL EMAIL YOU WHEN WE HAVE MADE DECISIONS" and I was so glad that I'd just waited for word and not prodded them. It helps in this case that there was a deadline by which I knew I'd hear something. But in the wider world, where there are no deadlines, choosing my words is hard.
There's also this job, which is by no means a job I want to hold for the rest of my life, but it's a good job, and the people in the office treat and pay me well. I've felt like rushing the past few years as much as possible in the interest of getting to be up here and be with Josh so we could start our life (in the same place) together, and since we're going to be getting married next year and that's going to take some cash to do justice, regardless of size, I feel like it would be prudent to wait. I could apply and defer admission for a year, the school gives you that option. We're not going to try to have a child until after I'm finished with graduate school (and it would be prudent to work first). I think this shift of thought from must get done on to the next one go go go! to alright, well, in the future is big, and since I'm so emotionally wrapped up in this library school thing I can't tell if the shift is really happening or if it's a way I'm trying to fool myself.
And there's also the whole concept of study. I was free to major in whatever I wanted for my undergraduate degree because there isn't a bachelor's focus requirement to go on and get a master's in library and information studies. So I studied anthropology and really enjoyed it. I know now that if I'd studied education I might have been able to pair my (one day? hopefully?) master's degree with a teaching certificate and work as a school librarian, which is an idea I like. I want to work in a public library and I'd like to work with youth services, but a school library gig sounds really nice. I don't regret my anthropology major. But I want to make sure whatever I graduate study is the right decision. There are museum studies programs at other schools, and I don't want to dismiss them as pipe dreams, since my time studying anthropology might have been better spent focusing on something else. I want to know about and support archaeology and other anthropological pursuits, but I don't dream about being an Egyptologist anymore.
I want this to be a well-considered decision and to be as comfortable about it as I can. At the moment I'm all over the place about it. I'm miserable that library school suddenly doesn't seem a highly desirable thing, and I'm trying to figure out the best way to proceed. I wrote earlier that I don't want to give up, and I don't. Maybe I need to just focus on that and not give up, and commit to pestering the library until I get a response.
But there's that part of me that I'm not sure is scared or smart that says maybe I need to give up.
In general, not sure what to do.
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