Continual State of Becoming

I've have been making careful observations about how to commute into DC from the suburbs. I want to make sure that I follow proper procedures and ettiquette so that no one can tell how absolutely lost and confused I am. So now that I've been doing this for about a month, I am going to share some of the important things I've learned... Driving: Pick a lane, and stay in it. Drive as fast as the rest of the cars in that lane. We're all going to the same place, so working together is probably more effective than constantly cutting each other off. For the most part driving isn't much of a problem, so long as I'm clear of the toll road by about 7:10. After that it turns in to a parking lot (especially around Reston). And in all honesty, driving on the Beltway now feels much safer than driving down Route 7 and some of the local roads. Metro: Here's where I had the most to learn... -Morning Commutes: Monday - Thursday are pretty predictable. I get on the ...

On Thursday I was at the College Park Starbucks, meeting my friend Melissa for a cup of coffee before classes resumed. I got there a little early (thanks to the absolute lack of cars on the road) and went into the store to get my cup of tea. There was an older woman in line in front of me who ordered a tall coffee. Unfortunately, just as she did so, the timer on the coffee went off, meaning it was expired and had to be dumped out so they could brew a new pot. Well when the barista explained this to the woman (instead of just serving the old gross coffee... how nice of them), she went into an absolute tirade... on and on about how they should have been brewing a new pot already if they knew the old coffee was going to expire, and how ridiculous it was that she was going to have to wait a whole 3-4 minutes for her cup of coffee. The baristas did exactly what I've done in that same situation, they explained the reasons for what was going on, apologized for the inconvenience, and...

You have to watch this. It's incredible. (thanks to matt for sharing it with me). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fjyKc95upoM

It's snowing!! First time all winter (if you can call it that). I heard there was a chance for snow today, but usually those kind of predictions don't come true. Or if they do it only flurries for like 5 minutes and that's it. But it's been snowing for a good 5 hours at least, there's not a whole lot on the ground, but that's okay... it's snowing :) Other firsts... I got the flu last week for the first time since elementary school. That was awful. I spent most of the week sleeping and eating apple sauce (which was one of the few things I could keep down). The worst part was that the previous week at work I had made the comment to my boss's boss that I never get sick... and of course Tuesday rolls around (because we were off monday... did I mention how much I love my job?) and I had to call in sick... and then again on Wednesday... and again on Thursday... but I did force myself to go on Friday. I just couldn't miss an entire week. I felt SO...

Here's a new local artist I came across at work. Her images really stuck out. They're all done with colored pencil. www.amylinart.com

I recently realized that I've never really lived any where long enough for a radio station to change. In fact, until recently, I didnt even know that they did change. I just thought once a station established itself as an Oldies station, it played oldies music forever. I know that 99.1 had a big change a few years ago (though I just recently took it off my presets), but I thought that was controversial and rare. I guess not. Hmm... I wonder what other things change over long periods of time. The other day I made the comment that I had seen or done something about 10 years ago. Then I realized that 10 years ago I was in high school, and that made me feel old, because it doesn't seem like 10 years have passed since then. I nearly went into work on Tuesday. I know that Bush declared it a national day of mourning for Ford and therefore it was a federal holiday, but I couldn't get any information to confirm the fact that I didn't have to work. So early Tuesday morning...

Ahh... the holidays are over, for the most part anyway. Things here have been kinda crazy. The end of the semester did not (as I had hoped) mean that my life slowed down at all. In fact, I've managed to be even busier lately. But it's been a good kind of busy for the most part. I love my new job. Other than switching the subject to music (other than art) it's pretty much perfect for me. Although, if I can't work at a music library yet, art is the second best fit. I get to stay on top of all the current exhibits and artists going on all over the world. My boss is super nice (and I think she likes me more now that she knows that I actually know a little something about art... a very little something, but still, every little bit helps). And she's really interested in helping me learn as much as possible about the WHOLE library and art museum world as possible while I'm there (as opposed to confining me to my assigned tasks). So it's been a lot of fun. ...

Today was my official first day at the National Gallery (I went through processing on Monday). It was great. I think I'm really gonna like working there. And I have to say, I'm SO glad I took LBSC670 (Information Structure) this semester because I'm gonna have to use pretty much everything I learned there for this job. 670 (as it is referred to by us library students) most deals with the "back-end" of information. As in how to make it accessible rather than how to access it. Mostly we learned about ways to organize information, including various principles and standards used in the library world (AACR2, MARC, LC Authority Files, Dewey and Library of Congress classification schemes). The class was very difficult (the teacher was an EXTREMELY hard grader... but that just forced me to really learn everything) I really enjoyed it. I learned all kinds of new ways to organize things, which I think will end up making me OCD. Anyway, I'm excited about my new jo...

Days until New Job: 2 Days until Finals: 3 Days until Opera: 8 Days until Christmas: 16 Days until trip to New York City: 17 Am I ready for any of this? Not really. awesome. I have, however, managed to finally finish my portion of a take home final. For one of my classes we have to work on a take home final in groups, so the group I'm in divied up the questions amongst ourselves (there are 9 people, and 4 questions). Then I met with my partner yesterday to work on overall concepts and principles for our question, and we divied up the work we had to do, then today I typed it all up. Number of hours spent answering one-half of a question... hmm let's see... background research: 2-3 hours, discussions with partner: about 1 1/2 hours on Tuesday and 5 hours (nonstop) yesterday, writing/typing/editing/proofing/formatting: 4 1/2 hours today. Total length of one-half of 1 question out of 4 total questions... 10 pages. I am SO glad we didn't have to do the whole thing by...

My new least favorite word: kitschy The last time I heard this was the other day while watching a decorating show on TV. The designer created a "kitschy" piece of wall art for the room she was working on. Today I looked up the word kitschy, partly because I wasn't 100% confident in its meaning, and partly because I wasn't even sure if it was a real word. Here's the definition (according to dictionary.com): "Something of tawdry design, appearance, or content created to appeal to popular or undiscriminating taste" "Kitschy" is an awesome word for a decorator to use; and an even more awesome design aesthetic to be shooting for. (wow in one sentence I managed to use a word I hate (kitschy), a word I love (aesthetic), and end with a preposition... wahoo)

So in addition to changing my blog's layouts, I have a few other things that are going to be changing soon. The biggest change is that I got a new job! I'm going to be working as a student aide at the National Gallery of Art 's library. I applied for the job a little while ago, and didn't really hear anything right away. I actually applied for all 3 positions they advertised. But then one day I got a call for an interview and they said that they were "very anxious" to meet me as soon as possible, which I took as a good sign. My interview went really well, and I left with pretty high hopes (though I tried not to get them too high), and a short while later I got a call with the offer. I'm SO excited. And here's why: -first of all, my schedule is fairly flexible, I can work 20 hours a week (or less depending on my class schedule) during school, and full time during breaks (and it's paid... which is far better than the intern option I was considering i...

Okay, this is why You Tube is awesome. I found this clip of The Raconteurs performing Bang Bang. It's definitely worth checking out though it doesn't compare to seeing it live. But just thought I'd throw it on here in case anyone is interested. This is pretty similar to how they performed it when they opened for Dylan. The one difference I remember is that Jack White's guitar strap came undone about 3/4 of the way into the song so he just held the guitar up by the neck with one hand and strummed where ever with the other one. Appropriate for the song I thought. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhGnuHuD5Fc&mode=related&search=

Wahoo new layout. It was time for a change

These past few days (over Thanksgiving) have kept me busy... in a good way, so I haven't minded much. But I have definitely enjoyed taking it easy this afternoon, despite the fact that I should be working on my final assignments (not to mention studying for finals). I know, I haven't been posting much lately, but in all honesty I'm starting to hate computers. Well, not really hate computers, I'm just tired of them. Most of my work at school requires electronic research and e-journal readings, which means I spend A LOT of time on the computer. And in all honesty, lately I just haven't wanted to spend any more time than was absolutely necessary on the computer. Between email and search engines, I can't take anymore. So that's my excuse for not posting. But there are a few things I've wanted to mention, so I'm gonna go over some of them now. For a while, there just wasn't much music that I was really interested in listening to. But fortunatel...

Okay, in general I don't expect that people will be as excited about this as I am, but I found the coolest thing ever. George Mason just released an extension (I think that's what you call them) for the new Firefox browser called Zotero. I found out about it through the listserv at school and downloaded it immediately. Basically it's a way of managing resources... kind of like an online works cited thing. Anyway, I totally love it because one of my classes consists of pretty much nothing but citing resources and this allows me to keep track of what websites I visited, what my search strategies (and results) were, when I visited, and the citation information. So if you've been struggling to keep track of sources for papers or projects, or you're looking for something a little more sophisticated than bookmarks, I'd definitely recommend checking out Zotero (did I mention it was free?) www.zotero.org

1st Moment: Yesterday I was teaching a Beethoven tune to one of my piano students. Even though the lesson books I use have mostly original music (written by the publishers for pedagogical purposes) occasionally they will stick in classical themes that have been arranged to a level more appropriate for younger piano students. So to show which pieces weren't written by the publishers they will put the original composer's name under the title, along with the composer's birth and death years, country or nationality, and the word "arranged." So last night I was working on this piece with my youngest student (who also, by the way, is my hardest working student) and when he found out that Beethoven wrote this song he got really excited (which is true of nearly all my students... they all love Beethoven). And when he saw the dates underneath he asked "oh is that Beethoven's phone number?" and then I told him "no, those are the years he was alive....

Here's why i love Saturns. I mean, I realize they arent high performance or high luxury, but I really dont need that in a car. What I do need is something to get me from point A to point B with as few problems as possible (along with a few basic luxuries like heat and AC, and a CD player). And with all the experiences I've had with the cars, I've been pretty satisfied with the reliability and low maintenance. In fact my very first car didnt even need to be washed because it has some sort of special coating on it, so that when it rained the dirt would run of with the rain water. I got so used to that, that I havent quite adjusted to my non-special coating saturn (which means I dont wash it as often as I probably should). At some point in time everyone in my family has owned a Saturn, both my parents, 2 of my sisters (the 3rd one is only 12), my brother, me, and even my husband. At one point my dad lined up all our Saturns in the driveway and took a picture with all of us sta...

this is fun... go to this site and wiggle your mouse around a little. Jackson Pollack

Yay, midterms are over!! Yay, October is over!! I can finally go back to normal Jessica, as opposed to psycho-studying Jessica. I've had a crazy amount of work due in the past couple weeks at school, but now things are going to a more manageable pace (at least I dont have another day in which I have a major project/assignment/test/presentation due for each class... well not until finals anyway). I've been pretty much neglecting all other aspects of my life the past few weeks as I scrambled to get my school work done. So now that I'm over the hump, I can finally turn my attention back to other things... like doing laundry (apparently it doesnt do itself, no matter how long you let it sit on the floor), getting my dog groomed, vaccuuming, running errands, going to my yoga class (which I had to skip last week), talking to people, paying attention to my dog, posting an occasional blog... and so on. I still have to do school work this week, but that's fine, at least it w...

I'll never have a chance to go to CBGBs