Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses
There is nothing like snail mail to make one feel special and loved! Today, I got a package from flyakate. It is a rather belated (or very early) May Day package, which includes an opaque container, many flowery things, and the cutest little beribboned wooden hoop (like those old fashioned hoops people used to whack around with sticks for fun, you know? except it's tiny and adorable). There is also a grow-your-own duck toy which, besides being a Bryn Mawr joke, also matches my shower curtains! And bestest of all, there is a tiny lantern! Which is immensely happy-making because my actual lantern is back home in California since it's safest there until I find a place where I can settle in all the way. But now I have my very own mini!lantern, assembled with love by a fellow Mawrter, and I just love it to bits. flyakate wins the Awesome Award for this week. ♥
Also happy-making, I spent the entire afternoon today at two libraries acquiring many kids' books. First I went to the uni library to pick up a book on hold, but they also have a children's literature collection there, so I managed to find a few of the books I needed for class. (And I did get one adult book. But it's for the potential term paper for the children's lit class, so it's still fun. :P ) And then I went downtown to the main DC public library to raid their children's room. Among other delightful things, I picked up a copy of Uncle Bobby's Wedding (mentioned here), which is wonderful AND I figured out that the vague woodlandy creatures who are the book's main characters are, in fact, guinea pigs (a fact which is hidden away in the author bio on the back flap). When I finally got back to the apartment, I had two cloth shopping bags full of kids' books. For homework! Whee! \o/
And now highlights from the rest of the week that I never got round to posting:
-MVA: Successfully made it to the MVA on Monday to get my Maryland ID and register to vote. They were even nice and made an exception for my not-quite-proper proofs of address, though that meant they had to mail the ID to me instead of printing it up for me on the spot. But it arrived later in the week, so now I am all set!
-Classes: OMG the Children's Lit class is so awesome!! The professor is great, and the projects are all fun/interesting, and we get to read kids' books for homework! adkjfhkjskjfhdh!! I can't even tell you how much I love children's literature. I'd say easily 90% of what I read every year (for fun, not assigned readings) is from the children's or YA sections. And the prospect of reading and discussing these books that are so dear to me just makes me glow with dorky academic glee. :D (Oh, I'm taking another class, too, so I guess I should mention it. It's called Organization of Information (formerly known as "cataloguing"), it's my last required core course, no one ever has good things to say about the class (whether with the evil prof or the boring one), but it doesn't seem quite as bad as I'd heard. At least not yet. At any rate, since I am taking it with the nice-but-boring prof, I can definitely survive it.)
-Bathrooms: The bathroom contractors started work on Tuesday. They started in J's bathroom, and are not done yet. So, since J has a guest over this weekend, this means I have two people traipsing through my room to use my bathroom in the wee hours, but it's okay. And we will have shiny new bathrooms! According to the contractors, our bathrooms are "dinosaurs". So we should be getting all shiny new fixin's. Yays!
-Work: I started back to work at D.Oaks on Wednesday, where I was warmly welcomed back. My boss finally managed to hire an assistant curator who also started this week, so we're not all alone anymore. I'm very happy for my boss because she was way too frazzled by herself. Also, our archive space now has floor! It used to be bare concrete, which was ugly and depressing, but now it is at least covered with linoleum (except in the stacks). AND I now have a real desk! It's a nice full desk, so there's room for the computer and for workspace. Before we just had a dinky little computer cart and I had to use the researchers' table for projects. And then we had a staff party on Friday at the president's house, with tasty food and alcohol and stuff. The party was a sort of last hurrah for us staff before term starts on Monday, which means the live-in fellows descend upon us.
And now I'm off to read some more picture books before bed. :D
Also happy-making, I spent the entire afternoon today at two libraries acquiring many kids' books. First I went to the uni library to pick up a book on hold, but they also have a children's literature collection there, so I managed to find a few of the books I needed for class. (And I did get one adult book. But it's for the potential term paper for the children's lit class, so it's still fun. :P ) And then I went downtown to the main DC public library to raid their children's room. Among other delightful things, I picked up a copy of Uncle Bobby's Wedding (mentioned here), which is wonderful AND I figured out that the vague woodlandy creatures who are the book's main characters are, in fact, guinea pigs (a fact which is hidden away in the author bio on the back flap). When I finally got back to the apartment, I had two cloth shopping bags full of kids' books. For homework! Whee! \o/
And now highlights from the rest of the week that I never got round to posting:
-MVA: Successfully made it to the MVA on Monday to get my Maryland ID and register to vote. They were even nice and made an exception for my not-quite-proper proofs of address, though that meant they had to mail the ID to me instead of printing it up for me on the spot. But it arrived later in the week, so now I am all set!
-Classes: OMG the Children's Lit class is so awesome!! The professor is great, and the projects are all fun/interesting, and we get to read kids' books for homework! adkjfhkjskjfhdh!! I can't even tell you how much I love children's literature. I'd say easily 90% of what I read every year (for fun, not assigned readings) is from the children's or YA sections. And the prospect of reading and discussing these books that are so dear to me just makes me glow with dorky academic glee. :D (Oh, I'm taking another class, too, so I guess I should mention it. It's called Organization of Information (formerly known as "cataloguing"), it's my last required core course, no one ever has good things to say about the class (whether with the evil prof or the boring one), but it doesn't seem quite as bad as I'd heard. At least not yet. At any rate, since I am taking it with the nice-but-boring prof, I can definitely survive it.)
-Bathrooms: The bathroom contractors started work on Tuesday. They started in J's bathroom, and are not done yet. So, since J has a guest over this weekend, this means I have two people traipsing through my room to use my bathroom in the wee hours, but it's okay. And we will have shiny new bathrooms! According to the contractors, our bathrooms are "dinosaurs". So we should be getting all shiny new fixin's. Yays!
-Work: I started back to work at D.Oaks on Wednesday, where I was warmly welcomed back. My boss finally managed to hire an assistant curator who also started this week, so we're not all alone anymore. I'm very happy for my boss because she was way too frazzled by herself. Also, our archive space now has floor! It used to be bare concrete, which was ugly and depressing, but now it is at least covered with linoleum (except in the stacks). AND I now have a real desk! It's a nice full desk, so there's room for the computer and for workspace. Before we just had a dinky little computer cart and I had to use the researchers' table for projects. And then we had a staff party on Friday at the president's house, with tasty food and alcohol and stuff. The party was a sort of last hurrah for us staff before term starts on Monday, which means the live-in fellows descend upon us.
And now I'm off to read some more picture books before bed. :D