3 Weeks

I'm on the last couple days of a 3-week 1-credit course on books, paper, and preservation--right in the midst of working on my final paper on the preservation and conservation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

This course is taking place during "UWinterim"--that gray area between Fall and Spring semesters that is synonymous with "claw out your own eyes."

Normally, a 3-credit course takes 15 weeks, so 1 credit is usually the equivalent of 5 weeks, not 3. The information we've been going through has been super-compressed, and I am experiencing info overload to the point where I've been out sick the past couple of days.

Yesterday evening I wrote five pages, but today I have reached the deer-in-headlights point. I stayed up too late last night working on it, and now I am forgetting to drink enough water.

It's about lunch time, though--maybe I can put off that paper for another half hour and make myself eat something.

Review - Girl Meets God

Girl Meets God by Lauren F. Winner

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Another book that I just couldn't get through... although Lauren is a great teacher (took a writing class from her), and I've read snippets of her other books which were excellent, this was one I couldn't get into. It's very introspective and just goes on and on and on, with a writing style that got on my nerves. The style is very forced, like she is trying too hard to pattern her sentences the same way most of the time.

I like the setup of the book, though--the division into vignettes that have to do with various religious seasons. However, I think the chronological setup of the seasons was deceptive since she did not relate her story entirely chronologically. Maybe that wasn't the point, and the vignettes were just supposed to go along with the themes of the various seasons, but it left me pretty confused about what was happening after what.

Maybe I also couldn't get into it because I don't know a lot about Judaism. I could identify with her spiritual experience in the sense of converting from one worldview to another--in my case, agnostic to Christian--but I couldn't really identify with her spiritual anguish in choosing one faith over another, since I have never identified with another faith as strongly as I have with Christianity. Oh well. I suppose some books just don't speak to some people.

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Review - The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea

The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea by Yukio Mishima


My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Mishima is clearly a brilliant writer--his prose (at least, the English translation of it), puts you right in the situation. Unfortunately, this is part of the problem for me, for as well as a brilliant writer he was a profoundly disturbed man (he eventually committed seppuku, Japanese ritual suicide).

The book is, loosely, about a sailor who turns his back on dreams of glory on the sea to love a woman, and how that relationship and the world is seen by the woman's son, Noboru. Noboru is part of a gang of boys who see the world as useless, and killing, or rather the ability to end life, as the ultimate proof of their superiority over the world.

Disturbing stories used to not bother me like they do now, and I just couldn't finish this. It had an interesting concept and beautiful writing, but I had to draw the line at the kitten-killing.

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Review - Pickets and Dead Men: Seasons on Rainier

Pickets and Dead Men: Seasons on Rainier by Bree Loewen


My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A fascinating book about Bree Loewen's experiences over three years as a climbing ranger on Mt. Rainier. Those rangers face an incredibly tough life, and I don't blame her for quitting. Not the life for me, thanks, except maybe for the copious amounts of macaroni and cheese that Bree eats throughout the book.

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At Last

Finally, finally, I'm seeing the light. The MLIS program I'm in requires 4 core courses and 8 electives. On December 17th, I'll complete the last of the core requirements with one elective under my belt t'boot! 5/12 of the way through the program... almost halfway done.

When I started this, I didn't expect the degree to take me this long. I didn't expect a lot of things to happen--people dying, pets dying, getting married, buying a house. This is technically my third year in the program, and it's going to run at least another year and a half before I can complete it.

This semester has been going better now that I have taken to heart the advice that I don't need to get straight A's. There are things that are more important than school (gasp!) It's been working well for me... less stress, less time spent on it, and I'm still averaging over a B.

And now I get to take whatever classes I want for the rest of the program! Woot!

Yesterday I signed up for Spring semester--taking "Genealogy I & II" and "Information Resources for the Health Sciences." The Genealogy series is two back-to-back one credit courses which end in April, so they will overlap with the other three credit course for the first three months, then leave me a month of breathing room to finish up finals for the second course in May.

It is exciting and sad that for the first time, I am truly looking forward to my graduate classes.