Final Reflection

Well. It’s all over. The fat lady has sung. I completed my final quizzes for Cataloging last night and sent in my notes to her about the graded assignment, everything is done for Library 2.0 and has been for a while, and once I finish writing this entry and submit it on Sakai, everything will be done for Research and Evaluation as well.

This has been quite the semester for me, since it’s been more like a mini-mester and I’ve never had to do that before. I also haven’t taken summer classes since between my sophomore and junior year of high school, when I had to boost my math skills and prepare for the SAT’s.

I finally paid my summer term bill the other day, and it costs more than it’s going to for me to go to Greece, even accounting for all the extra sunscreen I’m buying. In the memo line on that check, I was so tempted to write some rather off-color remarks. I think I’ll save them up for my final semester(s), which are coming up fast anyway.

In terms of the proposal process, which I realize is what I’m really supposed to be writing about here, it was definitely a lot trickier than I was anticipating, and to make matters worse, I believe I did it kind of incorrectly anyway – I wrote more of a research paper than a research proposal. As I believe I have mentioned, if I had to do it over again, I would have either not signed up for summer classes knowing that I had a big trip at the end of the semester, or not signed up for the trip in the first place because it really hampered my ability to think clearly and devote as much time to all the projects I had on my plate as they deserved and required. Ultimately, I’m pretty sure that if I had been able to stay focused enough to write more of a proposal than an actual paper, I would have had a much easier time of it anyway – not to say that writing research proposals is an easy task, but it’s steeped much more in analysis of methods and questioning rather than analysis of conclusions and then answering all your questions. Ah well.

As I also said in my individual journals, the ironic twist to all of my research was that it was on information overload and information fatigue and information anxiety, and I experienced all of these things to the Nth degree all throughout the research and writing process. It gave me a whole new appreciation for the topic. It was also interesting for me because every time I printed out a new article I would immediately wish that I had just done a CTRL+F search for key terms while it was still online but reading online makes my head, and one of the things I had tired to learn about while researching were the different ways that technology can help and hinder the issue of information overload. Life imitating art?

But hey, I survived and I am fairly unscathed – well, I will be unscathed assuming I don’t fail any of my classes, but I kind of doubt that will happen…not to jinx anything, obviously.

I hope you all enjoyed your semesters and will continue to enjoy your respective summers! For now, I bid you adieu and leave you with this tragically catchy Fall Out Boy video:

Research Journal Entry #16

I’m so close, I can almost taste it! I submitted my proposal for Research and Evaluation, along with my literature review and final project for Library 2.0 last night, and I just wrapped up my technical services report for Cataloging. Once this very journal entry is complete, I can consolidate entries 13-16 and submit those, and then sometime later tonight or tomorrow morning I’ll write my final journal reflection.

The only thing that really sucks currently is that I’m very on edge because Dr. Ma apparently doesn’t feel that any of my multiple emails warrant a response, so I have no idea when/how I’m supposed to submit my graded Dewey Decimal System assignment/follow-up quiz that’s worth 20% of my grade. Super nerve-wracking and extremely annoying.

Anyway, beyond that, I’m about as set as I can be. I may get out of work early today, which would be glorious (though financially disastrous, considering that I’m already missing all of next week and the following Monday, taking off this Friday and a half-day on Thursday) because then I would have more time to visit Steven at work (maybe), go for a run and maybe a tan, make something nommy for dinner or maybe get something to eat with mi madre, work on the reflection journal, and maybe even start on a movie until the boyf gets out of work. But in the worst case scenario, I won’t get out of work til the usual 5, and I’ll just have two extra hours of patient-free time to work on the reflection piece and also take care of all the listing I’ve been meaning to do for Greece – things to bring in my carry-on, things to pack, things to take care of before I leave, emergency phone numbers, addresses for postcards, etc.

Research Journal Entry #14

I had a breakthrough with cataloging today and I think I might just pass the class after all. I don’t want to give anything away, but I think I may have gotten myself to (or possibly beyond) the halfway point that will get me at least a 50 on the project and then a 78 (?) for the course overall.

Anyway, said breakthrough took up virtually my entire morning and now I am going to reward myself with some mindless interneting. I might tan later, I might not. Who knows. I’m so wild and unpredictable. I feel like my whole life has opened back up again, because I’m virtually done with the summer semester at long, stressful last. I could go on a longer run than usual tonight! I could go to the library! I could read a book! I could go shopping! I could hang out with friends an hour or two later! I could go to the beach! I could hang out with my mom! I could start packing for Greece! I could actually BE excited for Greece for the first time in ages, because my departure date is no longer necessarily synonymous with my date of academic execution!

Research Journal Entry #13

My amazing weekend is definitely over – I spent several hours this morning crying on and off about all the cataloging nonsense I have to try to make some sense of, and I just don’t get it. It’s frustrating, disheartening, and terrifying that I could fail the whole course based on having severe difficulty with one project even though I’ve been pulling 90’s/100’s on all the quizzes, doing my homework and actively engaging in the online forums, and really focusing on the material, and all for a class that means absolutely nothing to me and has virtually nothing to do with my future career (assuming I ever even get a library job anyway and don’t spend the rest of my life as a secretary or waitress).

Anyway, to cheer myself up, I did start chipping away at my graded Dewey Decimal System assignment, and that’s not entirely unapproachable…merely confusing and contradictory at times, but maybe I’m just doing it wrong. I also put the finishing touches on both of my papers (the protoproposal and the literature review), tweaked a few things in my implementation plan for the 2.0 service project, and all my citations are done, and I did some mental packing for the trip to Greece (which is only 10 days away, ohmaigash). So it wasn’t a total loss of a day. I guess.

I am now looking forward to eating some lovely berries and cheese and heading home cause I get out early today (at 3, woohoo!) and body planting myself onto the boyf asap.

Research Journal Entry #11

I got so much work done on both my papers this past week! My research proposal is about 98% finished at this point, thank goodness. I just need to proof-read it once or twice for errors and awkwardness, and I will be totally set with it. The literature review for 2.0 is about 90% done – the concluding paragraph is still unfinished, and I need to proof read it all to make sure the topic sentences go with the thesis and all, but otherwise I am happy with it. I’ve also made a lot of progress on my 2.0 final project – the blog is up and running, though a little lacking in updates because Ashaway is a sleepy little town and summer reading is only just kicking off. I wrote the majority of the implementation plan for it yesterday on my lunch break, and it’s going pretty smoothly. Oh, and I also aced my last Cataloging quiz, which is a small miracle because I had to guess at a lot of it. I am beyond thrilled that everything is running so on schedule and I was able to stick to my own deadlines – I’m a little proud of myself, too, I have to say.

I’m not out of the woods, yet, though. I still have to get through the rest of Cataloging, and while I have managed to build a decent margin of error from doing so well on the quizzes, that can easily be shattered by the fact that I do not understand MARC whatsoever, or almost anything else for that matter.

Anyway, I’m giving myself the weekend off cause it’s the holiday and I deserve it. I’ll still have to check in at some point to copy/paste or upload my annotations and these journal entries onto Sakai, but since they’re basically done, I’m not counting it. Otherwise, I plan to be at the beach for as much time as possible – basking in the gorgeous weather that the meteorologists have promised, dancing at one of the two foam parties going on at Paddy’s, and/or attending the Pimps & Hoes Ball…also at Paddy’s. I might finally get around to making that berry pie I’ve been dreaming about for a month, too.

Research Journal Entry #6

Well, I’ve hit another road block regarding my research. Basically, I’ve read approximately a dozen articles, but only four of them are direct reports of research done by the authors themselves, and I need at least five. Sugar fudge.

Besides that, my annotations are going pretty well. It’s difficult for me to gauge what the strengths and weaknesses of each study are, but I’m managing. Figuring out the intentions of the researchers, the methods, and the results is pretty easy.

My goal is to finish the annotations by tomorrow afternoon on my lunch break, and then finish my readings for the Library 2.0 Literature review by Friday so I can start putting both of these projects together by the start of next week, and hopefully finish both of them by the end of June, so then I’ll really only have to worry about Cataloging for the first two weeks of July and then I’ll be g-o-n-e.

But in order to finish the annotations, I will probably need to figure out a fifth article…and there just isn’t that much research out there already on my topic specifically. Lots of information on how it relates to marketing, lots of information on how to manage it, but not a lot of information on information overload itself, which is weird.

And in order to finish my readings for 2.0, I will need to be able to stay awake while reading for more than half an hour at a time. Ugh. Easier said than done. The topic (how Facebook/social networking has affected interpersonal relationships) is actually really interesting to me, but I am not a natural reader. I am a natural sleeper.

Anyway, time to make dinner (mixed veggies sauteed in garlic and olive oil with whatever spices I can find in the cabinet…I wish I had some kind of sauce to go with it, but alas, I am a poor girl and a poor meal planner sometimes) and start on all that homework.

Research Journal Entry #3

I am at a temporary standstill with my research progress – I’ve read through all the articles I printed out last week, and only half of them were relevant or useful, and virtually none of them contained actual statistics. I’m at a loss. I’ve spoken with the reference librarians at URI, I’ve gone through all the databases I can access. Currently waiting for Dr. Adams to get back to my email(s). I guess I’ll just take the most relevant articles and look through their bibliographies…but there’s no guarantee I can find the full-text of them. Ugh. I’ll tackle that later tonight, after I go for a run and then try to figure out what on earth all the ugly little abbreviations are supposed to mean in my cataloging class with Dr. Ma.

I should maybe (probably) just choose a different topic, but I hate to throw away any of the little progress I’ve already made, and given the results my searches are generating and the issues I’m having with sifting through all the articles, I am even more adament about investigating and exposing the crippling effects of information overload. There is genuine fatigue, anxiety, frustration, a feeling of hopelessness – at least, for me.