nirak.net - Musings of an LIS Student

I realize that I have to blog now, because I can’t write an in depth piece about social networking and then have that be the last thing on my site for a week, right?

Things are busy around here- which is great - but it also means I’m having a hard time fitting everything in. I have more blog post ideas than I know what to do with, but I’m having trouble bringing things into a cohesive form.

This semester has been a little weird for me. My first semester of library school, I tool Library Administration- and since I knew nothing about libraries, I soaked everything up like a sponge and most of my blogging had to do with what I was learning in class. Now, though, I have different interests, and not all of them match up with my classes. My attention is more fragmented than ever- because I want to read all about what I’m learning in class, but I also want to read more about other topics, and there’s not enough time to do everything.

I’m also realizing that my attention is becoming more and more fragmented- I find it hard to sit down and just do homework at home because of all the distractions. I can think of two ways to solve this- either work at work (that is, either come in early or stay late and do homework at the library) or create a dedicated study space at home. May have to go with the library for the short term since I can’t think of anywhere to put a study place at home.

New Blog 

I have also found I’ve missed being able to blog about anything and everything that is on my mind. Here is not the place for that- I want to keep this space for library issues. So my solution is to start a new blog. You can find me over at os-agnostic.com, where I will ramble on about non library related tech stuff, talk about my art, and just generally be off topic. Feel free to subscribe, or just stop in and check up on me. OS Agnostic is probably more of interest to techno-geeks and my friends and family than the library crowd.

karin :: Feb.11.2008 :: School Stuff, Site Updates, Sites and Stories :: No Comments »

4 days left in the blogging scholarship competition, and it looks like I don’t have a prayer. It doesn’t really bother me- as they say, it’s an honor just to be chosen, and hey, I’m in the top half. Make that #10- vote if you haven’t ‘cuz I’d like to finish in the top half. Thanks to Jenny at the Shifted Librarian, John at johnmiedema.com (now at slowreading.net), Lynn at Hypothetically Speaking, and Diane at Library Cloud for mentioning me in their blogs. Sorry if I missed anyone!

My subscription rates are up because of this competition (hi new readers! Sorry I’ve been slow lately) and lots of people have emailed to congratulate me, which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

I’ve been incredibly busy. And it’s not that I’m just busy in one area- that would be OK. No, work, school, and home life have all gotten busy at the same time. At work, I’ve been asked to work on a few new projects- I’ve been helping get the National Digital Newspaper Program started, I’ve been asked to design a couple of sites (which I can’t link to yet), I’ve been helping with some grant stuff, and of course, there’s still the meeting setting and note taking.

I somehow expected that taking three classes would be just as easy as taking two classes. Nope. Three classes is enough to qualify me as a full time grad student (I just wanna get DONE) so I’m busy. Most evenings are spent doing homework or fixing the house or one of my computers.

It seems like every time we fix something in the house something else breaks. I guess that’s the way it is with a 100 year old house. As for the computer, that’s my fault. I just HAD to upgrade to Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon the day it came out, and I fell in love with the desktop effects. Then I realized I needed more memory. So I found a great deal, and now have 3 gigs of RAM. Unfortunately, my mysterious black window problem wasn’t caused by a lack of RAM but a lack of video memory- or a faulty nVidia driver, depending on who you ask. I’ll have to make sure I have the latest driver. I can still do lots of pretty video effect, and I’m loving the desktop wall feature. I’ll stop making fun of Vista for all the memory hogging video effects now.

The weather has been beautiful lately. My house, despite the problems, is wonderful. Life is good.

karin :: Oct.24.2007 :: House and Home, Site Updates, Sites and Stories :: 1 Comment »

I am going to start the process of moving my site over to Wordpress- so if you encounter a few broken links over the next week, don’t worry. I will (hopefully) be done sometime next week (what a way to spend vacation…)

karin :: May.10.2007 :: Site Updates :: No Comments »

I have added a link on the side to my Google Reader shared items. A few recent highlights:

• A (Really) Modest Proposal
• Wrap and carry items with a Furoshiki
• Charlie Brown’s Pathetic Christmas Tree
• PSP GPS Hardware Ships, Software to Follow?
• the new privacy: the professional and public online identities
• College Is An Economic Gamble That Doesn’t Pay Off

Once again- I love the internet!

karin :: Dec.10.2006 :: Site Updates :: No Comments »

I am working on a new page to go with my Nebraska State Capitol page, and I wanted to use Thickbox 2.0 but I can’t figure out how to make it work with an image map. Hmpf.

At least I got Thickbox working - it was ridiculously easy.

Here’s the Page

karin :: Aug.20.2006 :: Site Updates :: No Comments »