Moving!

Hey all,
I'm moving my blog to WordPress
There's a lot more I can do there and I want to begin experimenting with HTML and CSS more. Please read my blog there. I'm trying to update it more, also. It'll be easier because I can update it through my cell phone!
Thanks,
Me

Trying out a new layout

I'm making a pact with myself that I will blog more often. Mostly because I always think of things to write and never do because I'm away from my computer. The acquiring of an iPhone has helped immensely in that department. And I've figured out how to add posts from my phone to the blog! Hurray! I'm still in the testing it out phase but I'm hoping it will increase my frequency of writing.

The newest news is that Boyfriend and I are engaged! So I guess he will be Fiancé from now on. We're not really planning the wedding until I'm done with this semester but I have some really great friends helping me out with it. I also lost one of my jobs but I'm collecting unemployment. I did this mainly because it will give me a chance to focus on school without worrying about money too much. Because I'd been working so much, I think I let some of my school focus slip a little but I'm dead set on correcting that. Here's to trying harder at everything!

In which I get all girly and talk about hair and shoes. Sorry dudes!

I've been looking for nice fashion-type boots for a while. I originally thought I wanted cowboy boots although when I was younger, I made fun of my friend Amy for wearing them. She was too cool for me then, I think. I went to the mall looking for a spring jacket, regretting not buying that one from H&M. I walked into every store and didn't find anything I liked. Until, Anthropologie. I love this store. Which is unfortunate because everything is way, way too expensive for me. I mainly go in the store for masochistic reasons and dream about how I want my house to look and how I could totally make a lot of their clothes but am too lazy.

My search for a spring jacket led me to the sale room because, who am I kidding: $68 for this? Do you know how many fruits and vegetables that could buy?! About a million. What I did find in the sale room were these boots:

These were exactly what I was looking for. The appropriate color, tallness, bootyness (not to be confused with bootyliciousness), etc. One of the biggest problems facing me and boot wearing is my calf muscles. They. Are. Huge. My legs look like drumsticks. Seriously. But these boots were a size 10! And they fit over my calf perfectly! They were just a little too big in the toe area but I knew that I had some shoe repair items from my time at the shoe repair. Now, the boots fit well! And I can wear them with my super cool vintage dress and all my great skirts in the summer. If only Michigan would cooperate and stop being cold and stupid.

I also got a new haircut. It's not drastically different from how I looked recently but there are more layers and cuter bangage. I reluctantly have to blow dry my hair in the morning but I'm getting better at it and my hair looks vaguely similar to how the hairdresser did it. Which is good, because I was afraid I would never be able to shower again. Here is the new hair:




I'm not sure why I look so green in the smiling one. Probably because I was experimenting without the flash. This concludes the girly entry. I'll try to come up with something super non-girly for my next post.

Tales from the library! And library-esque tales!

I recently sat down with an advisor and made a plan of work to get me through school. The LIS program recommends students do this after completing their first semester, which I think is a bit unfair. I can't decide what I want to do! I have to follow rules, though. I was assigned an advisor who was on sabbatical last semester so I took it upon myself to switch advisors and I picked a professor that I had a class with, assuming I would feel more comfortable with her because I knew her.

We had to reschedule the appointment two times because one of us was not feeling well each time. Luckily, this gave me extra time to come up with a more coherant plan than "I dunno... I just want to touch books." I hadn't really thought about my experiences at the Opera House as something I would want to do for real but the whole time I was scanning things I kept thinking that there had to be better methods to doing this. I have very minimal scanning experience and even less experience with photo software (like Photoshop or the like). On a whim, (well, a friend said I should take this class with her) I enrolled in a Digital Imaging class for the winter semester. It's only offered every other year and I'd heard awesome things about the professor. This is my favorite class I've taken in the program so far. We're learning all kinds of information about proper scanning techniques and about the retention schedule of digital files. Our group project this semester is working with the Charles Wright African American History Museum. We're helping them digitize some of their random collections for a future web collection.

So I'm officially going into Digital Archiving. This means that I'll be focusing on technology and building web collections for things. I'm really excited about this. I think that this will really help me after I graduate. I'm hoping that I can work for the Library of Congress doing something similar to the Flickr project they have. I also came across a job posting for the CIA that needed archiving experience.

The other news is that I'm going to be given more responsibilities at the public library I work at. I mentioned to my boss how I liked my cataloging class because to me, it's about fitting data into a puzzle and formatting things the right way. She decided that she wants me to learn how to process new books and do minor repairs. I've been feeling annoyed at that job because I don't have anything to do except help people at the circulation desk, so I'm glad that she's giving me a project. I have realized that I'm not sure I could ever work at a reference desk in a public library. I would really love to make the library I work at better but the director is super back-in-the-past and doesn't care about improvements. The reference librarians are all older and seem to like the job stability the most. There are also some annoying patrons I can't stand. I'm fine with chit-chatting and there are som patrons that I absolutely love, but I could really stand not to hear about which pet food is the best and did you know that Obama wants abortions for the whole world? It's totally true, the internet told me. I did manage to create a piece of art based on a patron's hair. He was an older gentleman but was going for that Bob Dylan-my-hair-is-its-own-entity thing. Here is what I produced in MS Paint:



I obviously need to learn Photoshop.

I love making inside joke T-shirts!

A while ago, Boyfriend and I were looking up Darkwing Duck on Wikipedia (what? No one else does this?!). In the Wiki entry, it listed many ways to say his famous catch phrase, "Let's get dangerous!" in different languages. I found the Finnish translation of the phrase and used it in my next e-mail to my friend Laura, who is Finnish and taught me how to say the only phrase I know in Finnish: Olen ötökkä. This of course means "I am a bug." So when she pointed out that the phrase "Let's get dangerous!" in Finnish can combine with the only other phrase I know, I decided to make a T-shirt. Because I'm in graduate school and apparently can't be bothered to do my homework. I apparently love making T-shirts. So, for your viewing pleasure, here's my T-shirt. The shirt reads, "Olen ötökkä. Ollaan vaarallisia!" The translation of this is, "I am a bug. We're dangerous!" So true, so true. Also note my bangification. I opted to get bangs because I was bored with my hair. I like it. Even though the camera used a flash, I really am still that pale.

The infamous Christmas post.

Today is January 22nd which means it's the perfect day to bring out the Christmas pictures! Hey, at least it's less than a month since Christmas. That counts for something, right?

Because I'm in grad school and not financially wealthy, I opted to make most of my Christmas presents this year. The couple of exceptions being for Boyfriend (because I already had the perfect gift for him) and Mom (because she is notorious for not liking anything she specifically tells you to get her. Harrumph.). I made my sister a cute apron and it turned out wonderfully! Here she is enjoying it in its apron glory!


I wanted to make my Dad something that I knew he could use but that other people would see it and think, "Wow, that is a sweet thing, Mr. Reile!" so I made him a tie.
It turned out kind of lumpy and very wide at the top but it was my first tie and he promised he would wear it. When I talked to my mom last week she asked my permission to make it smaller and hopefully less lumpy. I told her to go ahead because she's better at sewing than I am. To her credit, even though I didn't make her anything, she was really proud of what I did make. I also made a couple of pillows for my Dad's University of Michigan themed room. It's kind of been the default present for my family to give my Dad but he still likes those kinds of presents. Or he's good at pretending. Either way.

I got Boyfriend a video game and this T-shirt from Threadless.com. He's wanted that shirt for a long time but I ordered the wrong size and when I sent it back to exchange it, they were out of his size! So I was foiled on the awesome present front. He did like the Lego Batman game I got him, though.

I did manage to be secretly awesome on getting my parents to buy Boyfriend the present I really wanted to get him: Mac OS X Leopard. He was so surprised and happy! Look at his happy face! I told him that I had sent my parents a list of things that we wanted but I left off that I asked them to get him this. And I'm glad my parents decided to get it for him, too. I got a lot of really great presents, too. Boyfriend got me these super cute slippers and I got more sewing accouterments from my mom. What did I get my mom? I bought her a weaving book she said that she wanted. The funny part was that she forgot that she told me about it and was really happy when she opened it. Then I told her that she told me to get it and it was funny that she hadn't remembered that.

When we were at Boyfriend's family's house, we had lots of good food and quality time with his niece and nephew. His nephew got Guitar Hero World Tour for the Nintendo Wii and we played it. We've vowed that when we get out tax returns back we are going to buy it because those drums are too much fun to play. I sometimes think about buying it now but I suppose food is more important.

So this was Christmas. I think this holiday went very, very well. I was glad that my presents went over well and I genuinely had fun with our families. We're going back to visit family during my Spring Break in March and for a whole week so that will be great. It's weird that the older I get, the more I enjoy my family. Someone must be drugging me or something.

I also wanted to post these Christmas cards I made for Laura and Sheree. I'm super, super, super bad at sending things like cards out and just sending them things in general. I'm going to try to send them more things because I need distractions from homework and what better way than to send things to friends overseas. So, Sheree and Laura, here are what your cards would have looked like, had I sent them. The star represents where I am currently located in Michigan: the city of Royal Oak. Or at least as much of an approximation as I could eyeball.

I also couldn't decide which one to send to which person so that's my other excuse for not mailing them. And they're bigger than my hand (here's a picture of one of them by my hand) so how could I have mailed them?! There isn't anything written inside because I got lazy. But I cut out all of the Michigans and animals myself. It was hard to get that penguin's wavy thing right. Just so you know. This is what I do with my down time at work. Halfway make Christmas cards. Please know that I do miss you two and thanks for not being as lazy as me and sending me cards!

That's all from the Christmas holidays. I'm actually going to make a post tomorrow of this really awesome shirt I made and my new haircut.

Quick update, yo!

I have a really huge Christmas post planned but I keep getting sidetracked (read: I keep reading books and watching movies and drinking beer). But I have many things to say about Christmas and some funny pictures to show everyone.

On books: I cannot get through the last "Twilight" book. It is painfully boring and I don't care about the characters anymore. I'm taking a break from it and in the meantime I've read "Who Censored Roger Rabbit?" and I'm currently reading "The Botany of Desire." The Roger Rabbit book was way, way different than the movie. I love the movie and the book was great but it was much more noir-y and adult. "Botany" is amazing so far. I really love Michael Pollan's writing style and I am never bored by what I'm reading.

On movies: please, please, please go see "Slumdog Millionaire." It is great. I also rented "Penelope" and found that it wasn't as bad as critics have said. But I love Christina Ricci so maybe I'm a bit biased.

I'm trying to do as many fun things as possible before school starts next week. I'm also trying to organize an Obama Inauguration party that is turning into just an excuse to make a weird cheese dish and drink wine. But anyone that wants to come is invited. I'll get writing that Christmas post for real.