This Side of Lost

Hi Steve, and thanks for your help in setting this up.

More soon...

Well, if you're here, you're perhaps wondering what I'm up to. So here we go.

I graduated from St. Olaf College with a degree in chemistry in May 2002. The following fall, pursuant with Career Choice #1 (teaching chemistry at the high school level) I student taught at Eden Prairie High School for 12 weeks, teaching chemistry to your average, suburban, mostly white 11th graders. This experience neither encouraged nor dissuaded me from going into teaching. I spent the rest of that school year substitute teaching, correcting tests at Data Recognition Corp., and at my part-time library job, all the while pondering what kind of full-time employment I should aim towards.

You see, Career Choice #1 was just that -- the first idea about what kind of occupation might suit me, a bright kid with diverse interests and a chemistry degree from a liberal arts college. I had never felt it was my true calling and passion, like some of my friends I student taught with. But neither did I think that it would be a terribly bad choice of a career -- it was in academics, working with kids, and using my degree. Honestly, it was my choice mostly because I lacked even a Career Choice #2, much less a #3 or #4.

Fortunately, this pondering came to an end in March 2003. The good news was that I found Career Choice #2. Actually, it was less that I found it and more that I finally noticed what had been staring me in the face for much of my academic life. Libraries. Duh -- the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to fit. And after a chat with Charlie Priore, my former boss at St. Olaf, I decided that getting my master's in library science (MLS) would be a good thing for me to do.

The bad news was that it was far too late to start a graduate school search for Fall 2003. So I was still left with a rather large period of time to fill with some sort of financially lucrative activity. And there I was, with a license to teach.

Well, one thing led to another and, a little over a year ago, I accepted a position at Robbinsdale Cooper High School (which I later learned is the second most diverse high school in MN after Patrick Henry High in Minneapolis), teaching 9th graders physical science. Somehow I knew this wasn't the right choice even on that day. The first week of school was the longest and most stressful week of my life. Needless to say, this was my cue to start the gears turning for Career Choice #2. I immediately began applying to graduate school in library science for Fall 2004.

So from then until January, I did as good a job as a first year teacher could, and also succeeded in driving myself crazy and depressed worrying about my job. Thankfully I had a caring mother, a fun group of friends, some awesome colleagues, two outlets to sing and -- most importantly -- my grad school apps and the knowledge that this job was temporary to keep me from going over the edge. Even so, sometime in mid-January, something cracked. Ask my students about the week their teacher was gone 3 days out of a 4 day week. As if I needed another sign that this wasn't the gig for me.

From February until school ended on June 4th, I did a better job of keeping myself sane, at the expense of doing a far worse job at teaching. <shrug> So it goes. I was bolstered during this time as well by exciting news from the graduate school front -- Indiana University offered me a scholarship package that will basically make tuition for my first year of study free, as well as a part time job in the chemistry library there. The decision was not hard -- IU, here I come!

The end of school could not have come soon enough. I soon found myself with more time on my hands than I knew what to do with. I've spent some of it rollerblading, reading, and fooling around on the Internet. And, of course, travelling. I took a four day trip to Indiana to search for housing, and I just recently returned from a ten day jaunt to Albuquerque to visit friends. But soon I will be leaving... my lease here in Edina runs out on July 31st, at which point I'll be crashing at my parents' house for two weeks until I can move in to my place in Indiana. In between now and then, I would love to see friends as much as I can... although the vagaries of moving and planning for moving restrict my time, I'm sure I will have evenings free.

After then... well, I guess you'll just have to keep checking back. :) It's been a long time since I've chronicled my activities in any way, but I will certainly do my best. I know that I am often curious what my far-away friends are up to -- what they are learning and thinking and doing. If you are too... then we're a good match.

Talk with you soon.

Stage 1 of the move to Indiana is complete. After a whirlwind 48 hours of moving (thanks to Tom and Sam) and cleaning (many, many thanks to Gillian) I have vacated my much-beloved apartment in NW Edina as of July 31st and now reside at my parents' house in Stillwater. Almost everything I own is sitting in the polebarn under a tarp. How lovely.

Speaking of my parents' polebarn, this Friday and Saturday, it will be host to a garage sale, in which we will attempt to sell some or all of the larger furniture items I own, in order to expedite Stage 2 of the move. So if you're interested, stop on out to 13519 May Avenue and check out our wares. 9-4 on Friday and 9-12 on Saturday. You will note, however, that I will not be present on Saturday, as I will be making my way to Madison to visit Jen Sarafin and partake in my first Dave Matthews Band concert experience on Sunday.

May I also mention that this would be a great week to head to the Metrodome and see our Minnesota Twins in action. They are atop the AL Central by 5 games and swinging some hot bats. Tues-Thurs they are playing the Anaheim Angels and Fri-Sun they are playing the Oakland Athletics. All guaranteed to be great games. I'd love to go any night except for Saturday and Sunday.

Thanks for checking in. Peace.

The weekend jaunt to Madison was mostly a success. My friend Jen is fabulous, as per usual. Dave was right when he said "Not where you are but who you're with that really matters." The show was... an experience. I learned that mostly drunken frat boys and drunken blonde girls listen to DMB, apparently. Also, Dave Matthews himself has some sort of psionic connection with his guitar - he only becomes awesome when he's playing it. Otherwise, he's a complete moron. I had difficulty actually laying eyes on the musicians (not a huge deal for DMB, but pretty disappointing for Guster, who was opening) because the place was so huge, but the sound was good and the weather was beautiful.

Stage 2 of the move to Indiana is rapidly approaching. Friday we get the trailer and I leave Saturday morning. Sunday I will arrive at my new abode -- a limestone house I am renting with three other graduate students whom I've never met. (!!!) Yes, this shall be interesting... The e-mails between myself and my future roommates (Dustin, Ramsey and Chris) are flying, trying to figure out utilities and furniture and move-in times. Crazy. I will be there in a week. This hasn't sunk in yet. So much to do before then...

I will be chilling with Joseph on Thursday, around 7:45-8:00. Give him or me a call if you're interested in joining us. This is my last hurrah...

Enjoy the cool weather. Peace.

A Minnesotan says goodbye to his native state for at least 1 1/2 years, and travels to a strange land where people vote Republican, they rally behind a mascot that isn't actually an animal (Hoosier) and daylight savings time doesn't exist...

Tomorrow morning, the caravan departs for Peru, IL, our halfway stop in between Stillwater and Bloomington, IN. Amazingly, everything fit in the 5x8 U-Haul trailer that we procured (through much trial and tribulation). Barry (my '92 Honda Accord) will be mostly empty on our trek, save for myself, a few precious items and Storyhill, of course. My mom is piloting the family SUV and trailer -- brave soul that she be.

Barring major catastrophes, Sunday I arrive at the Limestone Manor. (This is my preliminary nickname for the house I'll be living in. Yes, it is made partially out of limestone, as is much of Bloomington.) Tune in soon for first impressions of my new roomies and the process of arranging a house. Who will claim which rooms? Will Ramsey show up with a pool table as he threatened to? Will we find a dining room table? Will we get cable?! All this, and more...

I'll be back for New Year's and the first week of January. Until then -- peace.

I have been in Bloomington for approximately two full days now and things are awesome. Let me rank the following items regarding being in Bloomington as to their awesomeness:

My House: Severely Awesome. Set back from the road and behind some trees, it is in a prime location, if a little ways from campus (no matter, the bus stop is a short walk away and campus itself is a good 1/2 hour walk on a nice day). It is an older house, but our landlord is busy busy busy cleaning and adding things. I live on the porch, which is a window-heavy, very spacious and open-feeling room. The fact that it is not naturally a bedroom has been remedied by the addition of a wardrobe and many blinds on the windows. My roommates are three: Dustin, Ramsey and Chris.

Dustin: Moderately Awesome. He is another first year grad student, but in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs (SPEA). His girlfriend Jenn has also moved to Bloomington, but can't move into her place until Friday, so he's been spending most of his time with her. He is friendly and straight-forward, but a little grumpy right now. Perhaps this will ease in time.

Ramsey: Quite Awesome. A second-year SPEA student, he has a social life here already, of which I've been a small part of. He is intelligent and well-spoken and interesting to make conversation with -- but still very much a black man from Virginia -- listens to hip-hop, dresses the part, etc. I'm excited to spend more time with him.

Chris: Curiously Awesome. A Ph.D. candidate in Cognitive Science, he hails from South Africa. (!!!) Besides the obvious accent, he is a walking psychology experiment. The last time he has spent any significant time in the USA was when he was 11. Watching his reactions to things here is endlessly fascinating. He as well is quite smart (near as I can tell, at any rate) and will be awesome to spend time with.

That's all I got for now. I'm off to contend with the Financial Aid office and look into health insurance and other basic stuff. Peace.

The largest challenge I've had so far since I've moved to Bloomington is getting to campus. I live far enough away from IU proper that walking is a less-than-attractive option, but it is not so far that I am willing to drive and contend with the hideous parking situation here. This leaves me with a few possibilities.

1. Bike. Oh, wait, I don't own one. Nor do I really have a desire to purchase one. Shoot.
2. Rollerblade. I tried this on Tuesday and was moderately successful. The problem here is that Bloomington is a fairly hilly city. Going uphill isn't much of a problem, just a little more exercise. Downhill is the dangerous part. The route I took to and from campus has more than a couple serious downhill slopes -- and I managed to avoid killing myself only by wearing down my brake more than I should over one day and finding strategic uphill slopes and letting gravity do the work for me. This may be an ongoing project as long as the weather remains amenable.
3. The buses. This has been interesting. My first attempt ended up in me walking all the way to campus. Since then, I've had varying levels of success. It turns out that three bus lines go by 17th and College/Walnut, which is not far from my house. Right now, though, the timing isn't very good -- they all go by in between :45-:00 of the hour. So if it's, say, 12:02 and I want to catch the bus, I'm out of luck until 12:45. Hopefully this will change once the semester starts and they go back to their "school is in session" schedules.

In other news, we have a land-line in the house now (drop me a note if you want the number), our internet connection is on the way, Jenn is moving to her apartment today, and Ramsey and Chris have now both seen Transformers: The Movie. :) Things are proceeding well. And it's the weekend! I may venture into town and see some local music... or at least catch a movie.

Right now, it's time to find lunch. Peace.

School has officially begun at IU. And the undergrads are out in droves. The people here are beautiful. I'll make the comparison again -- it's like St. Olaf, only multiplied by 10. It's kind of creepy, really... where are all the not-so-gorgeous people? The weather's been nice, so everyone's enjoying the campus to its fullest extent so far.

I had my first class yesterday -- L524, Information Sources and Services. Which I'll just call Reference from now on. Prof. Pnina Shachaf is Israeli and appears to really know her stuff, if I can get used to the somewhat broken English she speaks.

Have I mentioned the gender ratio in SLIS? Yeah, it's definitely in my favor. I would estimate that in Reference alone, there's about three or four girls for every guy in the class. The people in SLIS are rather varied though -- for the most part, they do not look like the rest of the student population (i.e., tall, blonde and gorgeous). Which is... I don't know. More real? Anyway -- my roommates are very amused by this line of talk. Ramsey busted a gut laughing when I said (with tongue firmly in cheek) that "basically, all the ladies are mine." Yeah, right -- maybe I'll actually work up the courage to talk to some of them.

Callbacks for choir auditions are posted today. Maybe I can finally get my schedule nailed down now. Any guesses on whether they'll let me sing in one of the good choirs even with a huge Monday afternoon conflict? If I make callbacks, that means I have to skip the first session of a History and Philosophy of Science class I'm thinking about adding. :( It's a strange place to be... I think I'll actually be fine with whatever outcome presents itself. I just want to be settled...

Well, I'd better start reading. I figured I should turn over a new leaf now that I'm in grad school and do my reading. We'll see how long this lasts. Peace.

That's what my quaint little college town is colloquially known as (on zillions of t-shirts). Two topics on which this town is unlike any other I've lived in:

1. Alcohol. IU was named the No. 1 party school in the nation two years ago. I wondered what this meant for a long time. I think I'm getting some grasp of exactly why now. Let me tell you about some of the drink specials I've seen advertised recently:
   • Thurs at Bear's Place: 32 oz pitchers of Long Island Iced Tea for $5
   • Fri at Bear's Place: 22 oz Bud, Bud Light, MGD bottles for $2.50
   • Thurs at Yogi's: $2.50 specialty Smirnoff martinis
   • Wed at Jungle Room: 12 oz cups of MGD lite for 25¢
   • Thurs at Jungle Room: $1.50 Domestic Pints
   • Fri at Jungle Room: 24 oz Coors Light $1.50, 20 oz Killians Red $2
   And my current favorite...
   • Thurs at Axis: All lite drafts: 5¢
   Yeah. In Ramsey's words, "There's no reason not to get trashed every single day of the week here. Unless you want to pass."
2. Sports. Football season begins today. I went up to the stadium (within walking distance of my house) to watch the marching band's preshow concert and check out the scene. I've never seen so many red shirts in one place. There were dozens of mobile homes and people of all ages. I just heard fireworks go off (I'm back at my house now). I heard a dad telling his 3-4 year old son: "Can you say 'Go IU?' " "Go IU!" he parroted back.

Wow. And the football team is terrible. I can't wait for basketball season.

In other news:

• I'm through my first week of class successfully...
• Wednesday was L401, Computer-Based Information Tools. I waived the first two modules of this course, but I didn't learn until an hour and a half into class that I didn't have to be there, and won't until Week 6 of class. Ah ha.
• Wednesday was also C471, Chemical Information Sources and Services (aka Chem Info). The professor, Gary Wiggins, is apparently world-renowned for his knowledge in this. Neat guy.
• Thursday was L527, Management in Libraries and Information Centers (aka Management). I've never really given thought to a job in management before, but after this first class, the idea sounds vaguely interesting. This should be fun.
• Friday was L624, Information Sources in Science and Technology (aka Sci Info). This will definitely be my semester for broadening my repertoire of information sources across my field.
• ... and I have hundreds of pages of reading to do for next week. Whew. Here we go.
• Choir auditions are finally done. I am now a member of the Contemporary Vocal Ensemble. This was not my first choice or even my second choice. But Dr. Tellez was willing to take me even though I'll be missing most of Monday's rehearsals. I suppose I should be grateful for this.
• I have DSL at home now. It runs like greased lightning.
• I've eaten an entire package of Pepperidge Farm Soft Baked Chocolate Chunk Cookies over the past 24 hours. I'm not proud of this.

I'm off to find dinner and something to do besides sit in front of the computer. Wish me luck... peace.

Being a librarian is easy, right? You just sit at the desk and shush people who are noisy. That's all it takes, right? So why is Andrew wasting his time at graduate school?

In order to answer questions like this: "If a patron comes up to you and asks you for information on how to freebase cocaine, do you provide it?"

What would you do?

The unfortunate thing about this question is that however you answer, there are problems with your morals and ethics. If the answer is yes, you are clearly endangering the person you are providing this information to. Before, they did not know anything about freebasing cocaine -- now they do, and are possibly going to put their own life in danger. If the answer is no, you are in essence being a censor. You are not providing information when that is precisely what someone in your occupation is supposed to do -- provide information. You start sliding down the slippery slope. Now where do you draw the line? Books about marajiuana? Books about cigarettes and alcohol? Books about prescription drugs? What if this information is needed for important research? Are we, as providers of information, also called to be providers of guidelines for moral conduct?

Geez. This was the topic of my class session in Reference yesterday. This is not an easy job.

In other news:

• I have no class today. Four hours at the Chem Libe and choir rehearsal is it. Sweet.
• I'm teaching tomorrow. My boss at the Chem Libe has recruited me to do some bibliographic instruction sessions to some Intro to Biology labs. Whoo! So's I get to stand up in front of freshmen and talk about the library's website and Biological Abstracts, an indexing service. Send good thoughts my way (especially about the hardware I'll be using -- it's notoriously sketchy).
• A stupid sophomore sat down in front of me at lunch today. He had the audacity to be wearing a New York Yankees t-shirt. Business major. Yeesh.

Choir rehearsal is next. :) Peace.

NICKEL CREEK IS COMING TO BLOOMINGTON OCTOBER 10! WOO-HOO!!

<pant pant> Okay, I'm done. That was just really exciting. Probably the most exciting news I've gotten in months. I missed my last chance to see them in August when I saw Dave Matthews instead (a bad choice, according to Kari Pearson), and I thought it'd be much much longer until I got another chance. Imagine my excitement when I opened up the Indiana Daily Student today and saw the news brief.

That's pretty much it for my main entry. Sorry, my life isn't too exciting right now...

In other news:

• I've started my third week of school. I have assignments now. :( Unfortunately, I still hasn't kicked into a "school" frame of mind. I've already let some reading slide, and almost let an assignment slide yesterday. Yikes... I'd better kick it here...
• My choir started looking at a Daniel-Lesur piece yesterday. For you choral geeks out there, he's a contemporary French composer in the same school as Messiaen and Durufle. It sounds pretty awesome. It's also pretty hard.
• I lost the first Limestone Manor game of Risk. My opening position was fairly spread out, and I think I abandoned too many of my territories. That combined with an extremely unlucky and failed attempt to secure Australia was my undoing.
• Mad Mushroom is definitely the best pizza I've had in Bloomington so far. I've yet to try Mother Bear, so we shall see how long it reigns.

That's it. I'm at work at the Chem Libe right now, so I suppose I should actually do some work... peace.

Three weeks until Nickel Creek! :)

For those of you who didn't know, I'm a big fan of the Minnesota Twins, my hometown baseball team. And for those of you who don't know, they have a pitcher named Johan Santana. And this pitcher is unbelievable. Just head on over to the Twin's page at ESPN and you will find a number of links to this man's amazing season. Tonight, for instance, he pitched eight innings of shutout ball, striking out 14 batters. Fourteen. Wow.

I saw a few cool musical acts at the Lotus Festival here in Bloomington yesterday. Rachael Davis is a Michigan native making a name for herself in the Boston area as a singer/songwriter. She was fabulous. A band called Fruit from Australia sang some amazing and very passionate music, with great harmonies. And the Dorkestra was cool, too -- although honestly, I just wanted to be able to say I've seen a band called the Dorkestra.

In other news:

• My old enemy, procrastination, has returned. Hopefully grad school will be more forgiving than teaching was in this regard. Somethings tells me this is unlikely, however.
• Gillian sent homemade cookies last week. She's my hero. Unsurprisingly, they're almost gone.
• Summer is still here. Sigh. Has fall arrived yet in Minnesota?
• I've had a couple interesting e-mails exchanged with Megan... for those of you who know, they've been honest and very productive -- I'm feeling much more resolved about old, old issues. This is good news.
• Thanks to Rob for the personal note! I'll write back soon, Rob.

Time for bed. Ah, sleep deprivation, how I've missed thee... peace, y'all.

Have I mentioned yet that I'm really enjoying graduate school?

I'm really enjoying graduate school. :) First of all, IU is awesome. There's nothing quite like a huge, public university campus. I mean, look at the Chemistry building. Yes, not just the Science building, but the Chemistry building. It's so cool. It doesn't have a foofy name, like the life sciences building (Jordan Hall) or the physics and math building (Swain Hall). It is named solely after its purpose. And it's got element symbols and even the old alchemist's symbols engraved into the stonework.

The opportunities here are seemingly endless. I mean, I want to go into the field of chemical information and librarianship. And when I apply, voilà!, I am given a graduate assistantship in chemical information and librarianship. Indeed, I will likely graduate with a certificate in chemical information. What could be better?

When I registered, I ordered opera season tickets. So I just got my ticket in the mail for this Friday's production of La Bohème. I get tickets to opera in the mail. Sweet. The music school here is crazy -- there are concerts every week, with symphonies, choirs, solo artists, visiting musicians... most of them for free.

And the work isn't even that hard. (Not yet at least. We'll see what I have to say about that in a couple months.) So I've got time to explore all these things. I'd go to a Chamber Orchestra tonight if I didn't have life maintenance things to do.

Yeah. Things are good. :)

In other news:

• The Twins clinched first place in their division. Yes! Playoffs, here we come!
• My friend Samantha beat me handily at NTN Trivia last night. Sigh. This is vaguely related to the previous item, as I unfortunately missed the question asking what famous Chicago landmark is at Addison and Clark. Jeremy would be ashamed of me.
• I've eaten waaay too much pizza in the last week.

Less than two weeks until Nickel Creek! :)

Reality is starting to set in here. This is a good thing, actually. I was kind of irresponsible all weekend, and it bit me in the butt Monday morning. And it probably will again before the week is out... I've got my first big paper due on Thursday, and naturally, I haven't started. Sweet. I'm realizing that perhaps I still haven't kicked in to a "school year" frame of mind. I guess it's about time.

I did go to my first (and possibly last) Hoosier football game on Saturday. The weather was beautiful, the company was great, and the football was painful. But then I had Japanese for dinner and Cold Stone for dessert. So that redeemed the day.

I think Tuesday might be my second favorite weekday (after Friday, of course). It's very pleasant to have no class after Monday. It reminds me of my friend Galen Heimerl from high school, who would frequently skip school on Tuesdays his junior year. He figured that was his reward for getting through Monday. This is the man who was choir president the next year. You're awesome, Galen.

In other news:

• My Sci Info class is visiting the Chemistry Library on Friday. Whee! Roger said I get to help teach a little about structure searching. I'm teaching my own class! I love graduate school. (For those of you who are chemistry nerds: yes, you can actually use ISISDraw or some other structure drawing tool, 'port the picture into a database interface and it will search for substances and/or reactions involving that molecule. This blew me away the first time I looked at it.)
• My Reference course has an ongoing assignment to collect relevant sources on a particular topic as we learn about them. My topic is alchemy. Apparently there's a lot more to it than just trying to transmute lead into gold.
• Quote of the Week 2: "My Molecular Biology prof has a Boston accent. I could never live in Boston. I can't understand why everyone in Boston doesn't walk around punching each other." - David, Chem Lib front desk worker

I'm working on a chemical crash course for my Sci Info class. Better finish up. Peace.

One week 'til Nickel Creek! Hey, that rhymes. I'm a poet, and I don't know it.

I had a very choral weekend. It started on Wednesday or so (well, the weekend didn't, but this story does), when I saw an ad for a "Choral Evensong" being performed at St. Thomas Lutheran, the church I attend. So I e-mailed my friend David who plays the organ at St. Thomas and asked him if he was involved, what was up, etc. To make a long story short, I ended up singing in this event. I made it to the last of three rehearsals -- which was at 8:15 on Friday night. Yes, I am a huge choir nerd. But you knew that. The performances were Saturday evening at St. Thomas and this afternoon at an Episcopal church on the east side of Indianapolis.

It was good times. And I realized something rather depressing -- this little choir, made up of organ majors and other church musicians at IU, on three rehearsals, sounded better than CVE has in a month and a half. Sigh. Chats with J. Marty (who is in a master's program here too, for those of you who know J. Marty) further substantiated something that has been growing in my mind -- that the choirs here really aren't that great.

I also realized that, while I had a great weekend doing what I love doing the most (singing), I have failed to accomplish one lick of homework. So now that I'm home and settled, what have I done? Updated my weblog! Sweet. I'll be surprised if I get out of here with a degree at all...

In other news:

• The Twins open the postseason against the stupid Yankees on Tuesday. Santana vs. Mussina. I predict a close game and can't rightly say who'll win. If Morneau, Ford and the other heavy hitters can be as productive has they have been, and if the bullpen can hold themselves together, I think the Twins have a very good chance of winning this series.
• I have shared Storyhill with two people here so far, and they both like them. One has even suggested going to their upcoming show in Chicago! Oh yes. Soon I'll be hightailin' I-65. Anyone else want to go?
• Ramsey and Chris spent about 15 minutes this evening discussing their various prospects for dates and female companionship. This is not ordinarly newsworthy, except that they did so under the auspices of discussing their strategy in the NFL draft. Example: "It's not my style to aggressively pursue my draft picks. As a perennial playoff team, generally I haven't needed to." "My likely pick is pretty new to the game and I don't want to go after them too hard or they get scared off." <shakes head> There's such a thing as stretching an analogy, right?

Perhaps I should sleep if I'm going to get to work on time tomorrow and not flake out like last week. Good call, Andrew. Peace, y'all.

That's right -- Nickel Creek will be here, in Bloomington, playing their magical music just for me -- in two days! Hoo-rah!

Too bad I have to sit through this dork too. Ah well. Small price to pay.

In other musical updates: if I were still in the Cities, this is what my extended musical schedule would look like. Why am I bothering to tell you this? Because these are all awesome gigs -- performers I have seen and are either 1) independent and struggling to hold their own or 2) less popular artists who deserve to be much more well known. Check them out.

• Mon, Oct 11: Brenda Weiler @ Bryant-Lake Bowl
• Sun, Oct 17: Justin Roth @ Gloria Dei Lutheran Church in St. Paul
• Sat, Oct 23: Mindy Smith @ the Fine Line. If you go to one of these shows, make it this one. Smith is truly a rising star. Maybe you've heard her song "Come to Jesus" on Cities 97. If you have, and it sent shivers down your spine (like it did me the first time I heard it), do yourself a favor and buy your ticket now. I'm considering driving to Chicago to hear her the following day.
• Thurs, Oct 28: JoAnna James (and others) @ the Fine Line (I haven't ever actually seen her, but she's a Stillwater grad, very musically talented, and her sound bytes sound pretty awesome)
• Fri, Nov 5: The Olympic Hopefuls @ the Triple Rock Social Club
• Fri, Nov 12: Caitlyn Smith @ Borders Books in Woodbury
• Mon, Dec 13: Tres Femmes @ the Fine Line

I gotta run. Game 3 of the Twins/Yankees series is on tonight. Oh please oh please oh please, Carlos Silva, don't suck...

Peace!

The Nickel Creek / Howie Day concert on Sunday was very cool. It was great to hear Nickel Creek live. I hadn't before and I believe in seeing any musical act I enjoy live at least once. They were a little rougher around the edges than I thought they'd be, and my rock star girlfriend Sara Watkins was decidedly less hot in person than I expected. Sorry, Sara... maybe you're not the girl for me. Please don't stop playing awesome fiddle, though.

Howie Day was cool too -- very genre-bending. I'd never heard the singer/songwriter genre blended with the electronica genre quite the way he did with his looping guitar tricks. And that's mostly what they were -- tricks. But still interesting to listen to.

I also have a concert coming up. Come at your own risk.

In other news:

• The Twins got eliminated from the playoffs by the stupid Yankees. Sigh. Just because they can hit the ball a lot doesn't mean they're a good baseball team. I just wish the Twins would have hit the ball as much as they did. Next year's the big year, though: Twins '05, World Series Champions! Oh, and go Red Sox!
• It's getting steadily more fall-like around here. Still not as consistently cool as I'd like it. But the trees are getting pretty.
• Turns out grad school is still not very hard. Just time consuming.
• I'm actually learning things in my L401 class now. We're doing UNIX. It is good times.
• Umm... well, I'm dating someone. Yeah, I was surprised, too. I guess being a mac pays off. Her name is Samantha (the same as I've mentioned twice previous) and I've been thinking she's really awesome basically since the first day I met her, but she claimed to not really be interested in a relationship, per se. She changed her mind. :) I'm glad she did. At any rate, I'll try not to let this decrease the amount of posts I make. Indeed, it might actually improve -- I think she reads this too...
• Quote of the Week 3:
  "You guys are Risk players?" - Susan, referring to my roommates and me
  "Yeah." - Me
  "You guys are so hot right now." - Susan

"That is one nerdy woman." - Dustin, in response to being told about the previous exchange

Enjoy watching the debates tonight. Be sure to tune in (and watch my man John crush Georgie boy) in case you're still undecided as to who is more fit to run our country. Peace.

It's been a great weekend. Somehow great weekends always leave me tuckered out, though. Here's the rundown:

Friday: Katie Dunn, walking into SciTech, looks at me and says: "Ah. Hawaiian shirt. Must be Friday." Pumpkin-shaped iced sugar cookie from Sugar and Spice. University Chorale had their first concert -- Byrd, Batten, etc. Went out with Samantha to support my local organist. Go David! Hung out at Borders afterwards.

Saturday: Up too early for a couple reasons, one of which being the dress rehearsal for my choir concert. Dress rehearsal didn't suck too bad -- no guarantees for the real thing... Went to the mall -- found and immediately bought the coolest t-shirt I've ever owned. Wiffleball in the backyard. Chris looked like Santana (with moderately less control) out there. Very impressive. Inspired by the t-shirt purchase, subjected Samantha to Transformers: The Movie. Says she, while Kup was telling war stories: "He's just makin' that s**t up." Cheeky!

Sunday: Watched part of the Astros/Cardinals game with David while eating his Astros Victory Cookies. With milk. Almost fell asleep in his super-comfy chair. This was definitely the icing on the cake (or cookie?) for the weekend.

In other news:

• The stupid Yankees are busy crushing the poor Red Sox. Boy, I'm glad I'm not a hard-core Sox fan -- I mean, the Twins losing was a bummer, but this is downright painful.
• A quick shoutout to my teacher friends back in Minnesota. Happy short MEA week this week, guys! Manternach and Miller better be staying up until 4 am for me this Wednesday night.
• Ashley Simpson's single won't get out of my head. Freakin' A.

<shakes head> I'd better wake up here. Time to grab some dinner before the show... wish me luck. Peace.

I really don't have much of interest to say. I just wanted to express the fact that my life is just fabulous right now. I'm happier than I can remember being in quite a while.

It's actually kind of strange. I haven't had things go this right for so long, I can't take it without feeling a little bit guilty. Yeah -- screwed up. Blame my midwestern Lutheran upbringing. I'm sure this will pass -- either I'll get better with the guilt or things will come crashing down. Hopefully the former. :)

Factors in this (in case you're curious):

• Classwork continues to go very well. It is not overly taxing, but still interesting and truly applicable to my future career. What more can I ask for from my classes? I'm looking at registration for next semester and am excited for what my classload will look like then, too.
• My stress level is nearly nil. I can't remember the last time I haven't felt stressed about something -- work, future plans, family situations, etc. Wow.
• Things with Samantha are excellent. Excellent. I won't gush about this but feel free to ask. :)
• Oh, and most importantly: holy &%#$, Curt Schilling and the Red Sox. We'll kill those Yankees yet! I'll be watching the game tonight.

Work work work! Peace y'all!

I generally don't like Mondays. But the way my Mondays have been going the past couple weeks, that may be turning around. What an exciting development.

Things continue to cruise along here in library science land...

• Done with the UNIX module of 401. Easy as pie. Next is HTML. Why couldn't I completely waive this class? Sigh.
• I actually did my reading for Reference today. Of course, it was on dictionaries, and really, there's only so much to read about dictionaries... at least, once you get past the whole prescriptive vs. descriptive debate... and (much to Samantha's dismay, apparently) I think I fall on the descriptive side of this one. ... did I just write all that? Wow, I'm a nerd.
• Rocked and rolled my assignments for Management. I almost forgot that we get grades here. I care so little about grades, honestly. If I'm learning what I need to learn in order to be a good librarian, isn't that all that matters?
• I've registered for classes for next semester. Collection development and online information retrieval, here I come. I will also be taking a class in the History and Philosophy of Science department, as a trial run of what it might be like to get a master's over there as well. Cool!

In other news:

• These Red Sox are on a roll. Never mind that the things they have to do to Curt Schilling in order for him to pitch make me want to hurl. <shudder>
• Kantorei had their fall concerts last weekend. I was feeling sad the last few nights, knowing Axel & crew were out doing their thing without me. Someone drop me a line and tell me how it went.
• I'm digging this weather. High of 71 yesterday, and 69 today. Winter? What winter?
• Samantha and I will likely be heading to Chicago the weekend of November 6-7. Saturday will be busy finally buying my desk from IKEA and seeing Storyhill (yes!!!), but we'll have all day Sunday to bum around. I've never planned a trip to Chicago all by myself. Any suggestions on things to do?

I must be off - happy Mondays are still busy Mondays. :) Peace.

I've changed my mind about my comments policy on this weblog. Steve has struck a preemptive strike against spammers (thanks Steve!), which was my primary reason for not allowing them. That and it'd be fun to hear from y'all every once in a while. So comments are now allowed on this post and all the others you see right now (including the one below, where I ask for your suggestions about Chicago -- hint hint). I'll get around to enabling the rest of the site later.

Peace!

EDIT: This has changed. See the November 15th post.

Congratulations to the 2004 Boston Red Sox, World Champions for the first time in 86 years. They did things no one thought possible. They came back from being three outs away from elimination in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series with the Yankees. But not only that -- they won eight straight postseason games against the two toughest teams in major league baseball.

Unbelievable. What a wild ride. Thanks, guys. And congrats to all the Red Sox fans. This one's truly for you.

In other news:

• I dreamt that Kerry won the election. I'm taking this as a good omen. By the way, did anyone else notice that headline about 58,000 absentee ballots gone missing in Florida?
• Wait... it's Halloween on Sunday? Wow, where did October go? Shoot, I don't have a costume. Looks like last year's might get a replay.
• Choir was cancelled today. My immense joy at this is definitely not a good sign about my attitude towards this group...
• I was veering between boredom, despair and insanity for most of 401 yesterday. "This is a link tag. Make sure to close the tag at the end. The close tag has a slash..." Aaarrrgh. <beats head against monitor repeatedly>

Perhaps I will go now and make good use of my time. Unlikely, but possible. Peace.

Tomorrow is All Saint's Day. Many of you know this because of the far-more-frequently-celebrated All Saint's Eve, aka All Hallow's Eve, aka Halloween. But I think you should know that tomorrow is a holiday too. It needs love just like you and me.

Yesterday Samantha and I attended the SLIS Halloween party. (I reprised my mad scientist costume that some of you may have seen last year -- Sam went as Britney Spears a la the "... Baby One More Time" video, primarily because her first idea -- Moaning Myrtle from the Harry Potter books -- didn't quite work out, but provided her with an ultra-cute school girl outfit. Raaahr.) There weren't as many literary character costumes as I had thought, but still a good number of entertaining ones. Especially couples costumes. I had never realized or even thought of the phenomenon of couples costumes before this year. What a brilliant idea. Dustin and his girlfriend Jen went as the White Stripes, for instance. Awesome!

In other news:

• The baseball season is over now. :( Umm... go Twins 2005!
• I get a desk next weekend! You can't understand how excited I am about this, unless you've seen the pathetic setup I have in my room for my computer. Picture a bunch of cardboard boxes with a mousepad and my DSL modem sitting on them, and my monitor sitting on top of an inverted milk crate. Yeah.
• Election day is the day after tomorrow. This really snuck up on me somehow. I'm going to try to take the day off of work, however, with the intention of somehow doing my civic duty of encouraging people to get to the polls. I mean, even though Indiana is doomed to send it's 9 electoral votes towards the enemy's camp, that doesn't mean we shouldn't exercise our citizen's right, does it? Does it?!? Sigh.

That's all I got. Supper calls. Happy -- err, I mean, spooky Sunday. Peace.

Is how long it's been since I updated. Many apologies for this. Grad school suddenly got hard this past weekend and week. So I was pretty crunched for time. Things are slowing down a little... probably just in time to get geared up for the crunch at the end of the semester. But I'll make use of this breather to catch up.

Last weekend Samantha and I drove up to Chicago to a) buy my desk from IKEA 2) see Storyhill in concert 3) visit my uncle John and aunt Marti and 4) have fun poking around Chicago a little. It was 95% successful on all of the above. The missing 5% comes from the fact that I did not come away from IKEA with my desired desk, but the one I bought will do just as well. The Storyhill show was wonderful -- they played a lot of favorites, and some surprises -- Cecilia by Simon & Garfunkel, as well as some older tunes I've never heard live before. (For those of you who know, this is really pretty incredible for me.) John and Marti were gracious hosts as always. And fun was had, both in Chicago (puttering around Navy Pier and Millenium Park) and on the road. I was worried that my inexplicable love for driving long distances would not be shared by Samantha, but she certainly didn't mind, and perhaps might have enjoyed it as well. She was, as she has been in all things, a great companion. You cannot imagine how happy it makes me to have someone like this. Well, maybe you can.

The week so far has been as busy as the weekend was pleasurable -- which is "very." I had a collection development assignment due in Reference on Monday that took much, much longer than I anticipated it would. It got turned in on Wednesday. Whoops. A "quiz" (the teacher in me wonders how you can call 8 essay questions a quiz) in Management on Thursday, as well as all the weekly stuff, and top it off with a sore-throat-turned-runny-nose-turned-chest-cold, and I'm about done. Whew. I'm glad it's finally Friday.

And Friday is cool -- I am going to the opera again tonight. Three operas in under three months... damn, I'm cultured. And it is finally cold enough to wear either a suit coat or my dad's fantastic woolen dress coat. Very excited! This weekend should be good -- I am hoping for a little R&R time with Sam since we've spent a lot of time this week on schoolwork. I'll be sure to check back in again soon.

In other news:

• I am becoming some sort of absent-minded freak. I have lost no less than four items of fairly substantial value (>$10) in the past two weeks. Luckily (and I do mean due to purely dumb luck) I have retrieved three of them, but the umbrella is still MIA. The common joke about losing your head if it wasn't screwed on is hitting a little too close to home right now.
• We saw the Incredibles last Friday. It was (to steal a pun of startling originality from Joseph) incredible. Did anyone else out there notice the rampant Fantastic Four allusions? Also, fans of the They Might Be Giants documentary Gigantic may have recognized the voice behind the character of Violet as being Sarah Vowell. Cool!
• Johan Santana was unanimously awarded the Cy Young award for the American League this year. This was very exciting for me -- seeing a pitcher I have been watching and rooting for since 2002 exceed all expectations. The Twins have him and Brad Radke to thank in large part for their third-straight run to the playoffs this year.
• I've been using my web skillz quite a bit recently. We're in the HTML section of 401, so I've built an online resume, and am in the process of completing the second assignment, a small website "for a company or organization." I have perverted the intention of this assignment to suit my own twisted agenda -- witness the further elevation of my Storyhill nerd-dom on the web. More on the way, as Roger starts letting me get into updating the Chemistry Library webpage. Good times.
• Last week I unwittingly purchased the weirdest floss I've ever seen. I just grabbed my favorite brand off the shelf, and somehow I ended up with Reach Tartar Control. It's bizarre. It's like, woven, sort of, like a piece of yarn, but not as thick, but still kind of... hmm... I guess I can't really explain it very well. And I can't seem to find a picture of it online. It's just weird -- take my word for it.

Thanks for checking in. Peace.

The spammers invaded my weblog over the past 24 hours, posting no less than 70 prescription drug themed comments. Shoot. I don't think your anti-spam tactics were entirely successful, Steve. To try and combat this, I've closed most of my posts to comments -- I'll try leaving them open to comments for two weeks following when they are posted.

In other news:

• It's Monday again. They just ain't as bad anymore. :) The weekend was great -- I did have plenty of down time, as I had hoped. This week won't be nearly as bad as last week, but I do have the threat of final projects looming on the horizon... sigh.
• La Cenerentola was fabulous -- Samantha and I agreed it was the best of the three we've seen so far. Well-balanced voice talent, a great sense of staging and costumes, and the opera itself is just a joy to watch -- full of energy and colorful characters. What fun.
• For those of you who know me at all, this is how pervasively my relationship is having an effect on my life: I purchased running shoes yesterday. (!!!) Whether I actually use them or not remains to be seen, of course...
• Turns out that it's the middle of November. Christ the King Sunday is next Sunday, meaning Advent is just around the corner... unbelievable. It just doesn't feel like Christmas should be close yet. Although the weather is getting pleasantly cool now.
• Quote of the Week 6:
  "Have you ever had gelato? It's really rich." - Samantha
  "Rich, eh? So, does it, like, own multinational corporations?" - Me
  "<without pause> It could." - Samantha

Oof. <stretch> I need a backrub. Time to sit up straight and jump into the week... peace, friends.

I don't even know what meme means. Did I use it right?

15 years ago today, I was...
1. Still confused about what was so great about girls.
2. Laying waste to some spelling tests.
3. Role-playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles on the playground.

10 years ago today, I was...
1. Reading Romeo and Juliet for the first time in 9th grade English.
2. Dreaming about Brandy Escabedo. Siiiiiigh...
3. Rehearsing for a terrible middle school play called Lagooned. I was the Witch Doctor.

5 years ago today, I was...
1. Doing my organic pre-labs and registering for second semester classes.
2. Rehearsing Vaughn-Williams' Ring Out Ye Crystal Spheres and marvelling at the new Buntrock Commons.
3. Dreaming of a farm girl 330 miles away.

3 years ago today, I was...
1. Cruising through Biochemistry and Genetics, and rehearsing with Garrison Keillor with the St. Olaf Choir.
2. Heartbroken and confused.
3. Deciding my student teaching placement and setting myself on the path for an apartment in Bloomington with Gillian and Amy. :)

1 year ago today, I was...
1. Still glowing after seeing Storyhill in Duluth.
2. Giving 120 9th graders a test on the periodic table.
3. Taking solace from my loneliness in a few friends, my choir and the far-off possibility of graduate school.

So far this year, I have...
1. Stopped being a teacher. Whew.
2. Moved to Indiana and started studying library science.
3. Found a rather wonderful young woman to share my time with.

Yesterday, I...
1. Completed two assignments in the space of 90 minutes.
2. Ate lunch outside without a jacket. I love Indiana.
3. Saw Jesus Christ Superstar!

Today, I...
1. Was bored stiff "learning" about Excel in 401.
2. Explored an area of campus I'd never been to before.
3. Had some marvelous chili made by my roommate Chris.

Tomorrow, I will...
1. Do laundry, hopefully.
2. Rehearse Bach's Mass in B minor.
3. Actually do my reading for 624. Wouldn't that be cool.

Enjoy. Pass it on.

It's the Monday before Thanksgiving. And apparently the break has already begun. No one told me this. At St. Olaf, the campus is bustling up until Tuesday. Here at IU, a lot of people seem to be gone already. The bus was deserted this morning.

Ah well. I will be taking my leave relatively late, I guess. I'll be hitting the road as early as possible on Wednesday morning and arriving in Stillwater Wednesday night, if all goes well. My first time back in MN since August! It won't be for long, though; I plan on doing the same thing only reverse on Saturday, arriving in Bloomington Saturday evening. I think I'll need Sunday to get a start on final projects... guh.

I will have much of Friday free, though. Anyone want to call first dibs on me? :)

Highlights of the past week:

• Tuesday, seeing Jesus Christ Superstar. This production was pretty comparable to the version I saw in Minneapolis in January 2003, with the notable exception of Jesus. Instead of being played by some washed up metal band vocalist, he was played by someone actually talented. Much improved. Samantha did not really like the show itself (citing the too frantic pace and lack of characterization) but noted that Jesus was hot and the girls in tight red leather were an interesting addition to the Passion story.
• Friday, seeing Thoroughly Modern Millie (the movie, not the musical). Any fan of Julie Andrews who has not seen this is definitely missing out. Why did it take them so long to put this on Broadway?
• Saturday, having a chocolate chip pancake at the Village Deli. :) Also realizing that it's probably the first one I've ever had, after watching my older sister have about 10,000 during Perkins trips of my youth.
• Saturday, helping Samantha clean her apartment. This was more fun than I thought it would be -- especially seeing the final result. (Wouldn't Gillian be proud! :) )
• Sunday, Thanksgiving-style dinner (referring to dinner as the noon meal -- ack, some folks in NW Minnesota would smirk at this) at Pastor Kyle's house. Drove out to his house in very scenic Brown County with Carrie and David from church and met his ultra-cute Norwegian elkhound Yente. Warmed up for the main event on his wife's delicious sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie.
• Sunday, supper at the Irish Lion with Samantha and her uncles. Good food and fun conversation about her extended family. Apparently she's the sane one?

Enjoy your Thanksgiving. I have much to give thanks for this year. I hope you do too. Peace.

"Back to life, back to reality..." This song usually echoes in my head after periods away from so-called real life. I always enjoy the reprieves from the grind that holiday breaks offer. Here's how mine went down:

• 11 hours to MN on Wednesday. Snow in northern Illinois, but not bad the rest of the way.
• Unsettlingly patriotic and right-wing Thanksgiving church service Wednesday night. God Bless America is not a Lutheran hymn.
• A very enjoyable Thanksgiving (barring one major mishap) with family. I guess it just wouldn't be a family holiday without the paramedics showing up.
• A trip to Maplewood Mall on Friday. Not as painful as you might think, and actually rather fruitful. Found what I was looking to get Samantha for Christmas. :) And no, I'm not telling what it is...
• Hung out with Joseph on Friday night. Watched Young Frankenstein ("Call it a hunch!" Bwa-ha!), went to Chevy's with Fomps and Yuri, and played an utterly insane and wonderful video game called Katamari Damacy. Good times.
• 11 hours back to Indiana on Saturday. It rained the whole. Freaking. Way.
• Did nothing productive on Sunday. But it was a fabulous day nonetheless. :) Contrary to what Matt Kuhn lead me to believe, Shrek 2 is not as funny or good as the first. Sorry, Matt.
• Quote of the Week 9: "So, it's kind of like 'fuck?'" - Samantha, in response to me trying to explain the usage of the word "Uff-da."

So now it's Monday. And I have, like, two weeks of school left. Wow. It will be busy with final projects, which I don't like of course, but actually is pretty okay in the broad scheme of things, seeing how unstressed I've been for most of the semester. First on the list: look for a popular article on nanotechnology that I was supposed to have identified two months ago. Hmm...

Happy almost December! Peace!

It's supposedly Dead Week here at IU, but you couldn't tell by looking at me. This will be the busiest week of my semester, judging by the two final project-type assignments due on Thurs and Fri that I effectively haven't started yet. Yikes! Well, I guess it's time to see if I really do do my best work at the last minute... so I'll see you on the other side!

Oh, before I go, here's the rundown of last week:

• I did a lot of puttering on my final projects. So you can't say I didn't try to get started! I did! It just didn't work. :(
• Garlic steak at the Malibu Grill Friday night. Very tasty.
• A glorious vegetarian potluck at Mari's apartment Saturday night (as if to make up for the steak the night before... the juxtaposition of this just struck me... weird). The company was great, and the food was even better. Samantha and I brought a chili cheese soup w/tortilla chips, which was a big hit. Who knew eating without meat could be so good?
• Lots of choir rehearsal -- 2 hours on Tues, Thurs and Fri in preparation for...
• Choral concert last night. Got out the tux for the first time this year. Reports indicate that the Orrego-Salas went off well, despite being a difficult and non-stop bizarre piece. The Bach of course was lovely. :)

Umm... not a whole lot else to report. I guess it sounds like a boring week. But it really wasn't. Part of this may have to do with the fact that it was spent, like much of my life these days, with Samantha, who continues to be absolutely wonderful. Some of you who are in committed relationships may be able to sympathize with me when I say: it seems you can be doing the most mundane things in the world, but when they're with someone you love, they become, at worse, not so mundane, and at best, a lot of fun. That's where I'm at these days. It's awesome.

So. Speaking of mundane, time to do some HTML markup. Peace.

Well, folks, I've lived through the week so far. The pathfinder is in and Reference is over. Not a bad class overall. Lots of work, but worth the effort, I think. The term paper is in and Management is over. That class turned out to be monumentally boring and I won't miss it. I've got one major project left (with deadline extended thanks to a scheduling error), then it's mostly piddly stuff into next Wednesday or so. We're in the home stretch...

It hasn't really been as bad as I thought. The term paper wasn't great, but came together with even less effort than I expected. I haven't really tackled my Sci Info project (bibliography) in earnest yet... that may surprise me. Not in a good way. :( But I'm looking forward to being done for a while and having some free time to spend with Samantha before break. Especially since I'm not going to see her for two and a half weeks... :(

Recent highlights...

• Seeing the first theater performance I've seen here (outside of opera) -- Happy Birthday, Wanda June, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.'s only play. It was very good, if not a little bizarre and very satirical. In other words, very Vonnegut.
• Actually learning something in 401. The last module is on databases and I know have an elementary grasp of Microsoft Access. Seriously, this may have been a first.
• An excellent free food experience: a couple Cingular employees stopped me in the hall early evening in the Union, ascertained my cell phone allegiances (AT&T -- close enough, apparently), gave me a bag of goodies, and directed me down the hall, where a free buffet of bread, deli meats and potato salad was awaiting my Freegan¹ consumption. I must say, it's definitely worth it for other people to have high cell-phone bills so I can get a free ham sandwich, stress ball and highlighter.
• The recent appearance of gingerbread man cookies at Sugar and Spice and other bakery locations across campus. They're really good, and cheaper than my favorite iced sugar cookies.
• Watching the St. Olaf Christmas Festival on DVD with Samantha. I missed it this year for the first time since before being a student there! So I had to watch. This precipitated Quote of the Week 10 from her: "All those happy boys and girls, being so earnest... I'm not sure I'd make it in Minnesota. I might puke."

It's Friday... I'm off to enjoy some of my weekend, before I have knock out the bibliographies I gotta do. Peace!

_____________________
¹ Freegan is a word stolen from Brad Vifquain, the art teacher at Cooper High School. It is a mutation of the term "Vegan" and refers to people (like Brad and myself) who tend to have an above-average interest in free food.

For those of you who care, this is when I'll be where over the holidays:

Dec 21-27: in Marco Island, FL, for my uncle's 70th birthday and Christmas with the extended family for the first time in years.
Dec 27-Jan 5: in Minnesota, probably staying with my family. Likely the only time I'll be back in Minnesota for a while (summer's looking really iffy). I recommend taking advantage of this.

That is all.

"What do you want for Christmas?"

Well, try this. No need to stick to it exactly... if it gives you some other ideas, go for it. I like music/movies/books in general and I'll probably be pleased if you're giving me something and not charging me for it. Note the comments... there are a few items (one in particular, the Olympic Hopefuls CD) that Amazon doesn't sell (yeah, I know, shocker, there are things Amazon doesn't sell) that I'd like too.

Note also that I don't actually condone buying items from Amazon (they're just the only place I know that does online wish lists). Please support your local retailers!

Q: What has two thumbs and is done with his first semester of graduate school?

A: This guy.

Whew. That's a good feeling. That means that in between 5 pm today (when I get off of work) and 5:15 am on Tuesday, December 21st (when I get on the shuttle to the Indy airport), I have 129 hours to do whatever my little heart desires. I even have all my Christmas shopping done! You can bet that I'll be sleeping quite a bit, eating out in celebration, doing some packing and wrapping of presents, and hanging out with my current favorite person in the world, Samantha, 24/7. 'Twill be grand. Here's how it all finished up:

• The bibliographies for Sci Info came together pretty well. They were not very well balanced, but oh well. They're done.
• Final commentary for Sci Info - done. Access and 4D comparison for 401 - done. "Final paper" (basically an evaluation) for Chem Info - done. Whee!
• Went to Mari's last night for homemade sushi. Many of the diners there are vegetarian, so there wasn't actually much raw fish involved, but lots of nori, rice and fresh veggies. So, so good. Man, I eat well at this girl's place. I need to go there more often.
• Saw the Reverend Horton Heat at the Bluebird after sushi last night. One word for this guy: psychobilly.
• I'm hoping Samantha would like to go out tonight to celebrate (she's done today at 5 pm too). Maybe to see a movie? Has anyone seen Closer or Ocean's Twelve yet? Are either of them any good?

That's it. Thanks for coming along for this first semester. Peace.

I am nearing the end of my second full day on vacation at Marco Island, Florida. It's been a lot of fun so far. For those of you who didn't know: my uncle John is celebrating his 70th birthday and his 30th anniversary with his wife Marti this year, and invited family to Florida for the holidays.

The last folks arrived today, and there are 15 all total. We are quite a handful. The waitress last night was almost scared to be in between John and my mother, and we had to be spread across three tables tonight. This brings to mind the idea of critical mass for nuclear reactions -- mustn't have too much of a volatile substance in one place. :) We have eaten out a lot and it's been very good. I've had shrimp, grouper and scallops. You don't get seafood like that in Indiana. Go fig.

I wish Samantha were here, though. Everything I've been doing she would enjoy as well -- the seafood, going to used bookstores, and sitting around laughing and telling stories with family. She has been inquired about. I think she would fit in wonderfully. Which bodes well, at least.

In my spare time, I've been reading a little-known children's book called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. And even if you have heard of it, you probably didn't know that there are sequels as well. Anyway, I've finished it, and it was an enjoyable read. I was impressed by the mention of Nicolas Flamel, one of the most famous alchemists, in very appropriate context. I was confused by the term Sorcerer's Stone itself, however. The object they are referring to in the book is actually called the Philosopher's Stone. I have been informed, though, that the British version uses the correct name. Leave it to the Brits to be historically accurate. I am on to the second one now -- more news on that as events warrant.

Speaking of which, I think I'll get back to that before bedtime. Tomorrow is shopping for the gift exchange we'll be doing and more tomfoolery with the Wick clan. Enjoy your Christmases, friends -- assuredly they're more white than mine. Peace (and joy)!

I am in Minnesota now. It is Wednesday. I have until next Wednesday to get my fill of all things Minnesotan for another indeterminate length of time. If you wish to do any of the following things:

1. See me
2. Meet my girlfriend Samantha, who is (to my immense delight, and against all better judgment, fiscally or chronologically) making the trek up here on Friday and will be here until Wednesday as well
3. Have a well-trained soprano and baritone-bass at your service
4. Get help moving into your apartment (Kari?)
5. Go out to dinner or see movies or concerts with company instead just by your lonesome, you antisocial loser
6. See the Olympic Hopefuls at Station 4 in St. Paul on New Year's Eve

... please e-mail, or call this number: 651-430-2464. This is not my cell phone number. Do not call my cell phone, because it is in Indiana somewhere doing me no good. It is the number for my parent's house in Stillwater, where I am staying for the week.

Did I mention that Samantha is coming up to Minnesota?

Samantha is coming up to Minnesota. :) I have this inexplicable urge to squeal like a schoolgirl. It's embarrassing. But very nice.

Anyway! Call me! E-mail me! Let's do this thang!

As promised, here's highlights from my time in Minnesota.

• My first time making candy-cane cookies all by my lonesome. I daresay they turned out pretty well.
• The family gift exchange on the 28th. My family (read: my sister) received a fancy-pants digital camera from my father. I received a number of sundry items that I will detail when the final count has been made.
• Samantha arrived on the 31st. :) We spent some time with Joseph and Steve before going to a crowded and extremely loud show at Station 4 in St. Paul. Champagne was had.
• Saw Phantom of the Opera on the 1st. This should have been on my list. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Emmy Rossum was not too hard on the eyes or the ears.
• Khan's Mongolian BBQ with Matt Peters and his girlfriend Sacha. No, Erik was not there, the punk.
• A moving party for Kari Pearson (and Peter, in absentia), followed by sandwiches at Cecil's Deli. Samantha got a crash course in my largest group of St. Olaf friends. Which she passed with flying colors.
• Breakfast at the Original Pancake House in Edina at 7. Freaking. AM. This was awesome, needless to say. Or, in other words, it was definitely not hand-made. Spent the rest of the morning at the Mall of America as well as a stop at the public library in Hopkins (a former workplace of mine).
• Got our book nerd on by browsing one of the antiquarian bookstores in Stillwater. Yes, there are more than one. I love my hometown.
• Attended a shindig celebrating the centennial of the Minnesota Capitol Building. In case you're curious, the only reason I went was because Kantorei was singing. Managed to catch up with Jeremy and Gillian (and later, Brad Miller) afterward.

All in all, an excellent visit. I saw almost everyone I wanted to see (sorry, Matt!) and introduced Samantha to many of the important parts of my life in Minnesota. I'm very glad she could make the trip and I hope we can find time to visit again. I still need to walk the hallowed groves on Manitou Heights with her... :)

I am now plunged back into the routine here in Bloomington. Nothing like 7 hours at the Chemistry Library to start off your week. First reports on classes coming soon. Peace!

Life is all about change, to make use of a banal cliché. I've been making all sorts of adjustments of late and I'm sure I'll have to make more.

One of the more pleasant ones has been downloading Firefox and Thunderbird on my computer at work. I must recommend these products as being very pleasant to use and much more security oriented than their Microsoft counterparts. Clearly any software that is named "<insert natural phenomenon here><insert one syllable animal here>" is superior. Feel free to comment with some more awesome software names... the only natural phenomenon I can think of right now is hurricane, due to Brian walking to the library earlier today and quoting the infamous Scorpions song.

Another adjustment is to get back into the routine for doing classwork. I've had three of my classes so far, and none of them are really going to be slack classes:

• I590 - Information Retrieval from Chemistry and Life Science Databases (hereafter referred to as "Cheminfo Retrieval"). This is a seminar in the Informatics department taught by Gary Wiggins, one of the premier figures in chemical information in the country. Sweet. After I'm done with this course, if I can't find info about some chemistry topic, it can't be found.
• L528 - Collection Development (hrta "Coll Dev"). Taught by Yvonne Oliger, a real librarian with lots of real experience, and a real problem with meandering and rambling in her presentation. More news on this as events warrant.
• X507 - Survey of History of Science since 1750 (hrta "History"). My token HPSC course this semester to see if a dual-degree program might be for me. And it's a whopper. 11 books required for the course and we'll be reading one every week. That's a book a week. These ain't no 50 page paperbacks either. If I can keep up with this, I can do anything...

Last but not least is L570 - Online Information Retrieval (hrta "Info Retrieval"), tomorrow morning. And then my week's done. Yes, that's right, I don't have anything to do on Friday -- no work, no choir, no nothing. Let's hear it for three day weekends every week.

In other news (adjustment related or not):

• Sunday was an almost completely Freegan day (see this entry for definition of that term). The nice people at my church fed me for lunch, and I ate dinner courtesy of the Village Deli while attending their holiday party with Samantha. Sweet.
• I'm having to adjust from being a Harry Potter disparager to a Harry Potter enthusiast. Some of you will know how difficult this is for me. I'm on the fourth book now and trying to carve out some time to finish before my classes swamp me.
• I jogged a mile yesterday. (!!!) Can I adjust my schedule to keep this up? We shall see...
• Today marks three months that Samantha and I have been dating. :) This makes me very happy to realize. It also strikes me that it feels like it's been a lot longer than that.
• Quote of the Week 11: "It was this that made me realize that cicadas are basically land shrimp." - Brian Winterman, chatting about the infestation of cicadas in Bloomington last summer. "Land shrimp" has to be the funniest phrase I've heard all week.
• My History prof used the word "scads" in class today. Sweet.

Better run. Scads of reading to do. Peace, all.

I am in the process of dropping my History of Science course. I had a heart-to-heart with myself, and I said to myself, "Self, do you really think you're going to read a book a week with three other classes to attend to?" And the answer was a resounding no. I'm not sure what made me think that it was actually plausible that this would occur. I was seriously kidding myself. Sadly this is the first time an academic course simply scared me out of taking it. I am not impressed with my behavior. I've been trying to rationalize it to myself all day and it's only sort of working.

So I hope to be adding L546 (User-Centered Database Design) in it's place. "Hope" being the operative word. Unfortunately for cowards and Johnny-Come-Lately's like me, the drop/add process after the first week of classes is hellish -- involving multiple redundant signatures and a 25% tuition fee. I'm not sure how this is going to work with my fee remission -- Rhonda the Amazing SLIS Office Worker filled me in a little and assuaged my fears. But we shall see.

Otherwise things are situation normal. So, 'til next time...

Okay, so I'm no Jean Reno. But I feel kind of professional today. This is my 7 hour day at the Chemistry Library, so I was able to tell someone (looking for help following up my bibliographic instruction last week) "Yeah, I'll be here all day..." and I looked all know-it-all for a dude looking for a journal article. "Looks like our subscription for that only goes through 1994... would you like to order it through ILL?" "Why... yes. Yes I would." Boo-yah.

For those of you who care, I have dropped the History of Science course and added the Database Design course. I think this is for the better -- having some experience with databases fills in another hole in my repertoire of computer skills. Even though it condemns me to staring at a computer screen for three out of my four classes this semester. Alas.

So I have that class (hereafter referred to as Databases) on Wednesday mornings. My prof is a big friendly-looking dude named Andy, who is apparently a Ph.D. student in SLIS. I've started a little of the reading, and it's pretty dense... but I'm actually kind of looking forward to sinking my teeth into a more serious computer class. I know I'm good at this stuff, so it'll be an opportunity to see how far I can take it.

My last class, finally, is Info Retrieval. Both this class and Databases didn't meet the first week, due to their professors being out of town. The prof for this one is another Ph.D. student, this