The Library Crisis

Factoid #3746: I'm terrible at keeping a blog.

Anyways, now that I have made some sad version of an apology to my 3 FOLLOWERS (Hay, I love you guys), it's time to update my life, lessons learned and fantastic recipes. Where to begin...

Life Lessons!

9.  Just because I go to "library school" doesn't mean I'm a "librarian". To many of you this isn't a life lesson at all, IT'S OBVIOUS. I don't take ANY (repeat - ANY) library courses. My course plan for this year:
Semester 1: Information and Society, Information System Design, Archival Principles & Practices and Records Management.
Semester 2: Information Agency Management, Research Principles, Preservation Management and Archival Arrangement & Description.
GEE FOLKS, what's missing!? It is absolutely infuriating to talk to people about what I'm in school for. Generally I'll say "Archival studies and records management", which garners a confusing nod from most people. Then, flustered, I try and simplify it further - "I'm doing a Master of Library and Information Studies, I study information in all forms - however, I specialize in information that is at a semi-active or inactive stage, generally contained in archives" OH GOD. PANDORA'S BOX. "so... YOU'RE A LIBRARIAN. YOU STUDY BOOKS THAT NO ONE READS, YES." From this point, it is necessary to give up. Forever. I have no idea how the Knowledge Management stream explains what they do to their family members.
The moral of this lesson: We should really stop calling it "library school". I mean, it's cool when you're talking about it with other people in "library school" (because they realize that there are those in library school who wish to become something other than librarians), but to the outside world, they think that it's crazy that you have to do a Master's degree to shelf a book. One... two... *EYE ROLL*. 

10. Acclimatizing sure is hard work! There are days in Montreal where I am still wandering around in a T-shirt. I still open all of the windows in my apartment during the day. I'm always warm, no matter what. The few times where I have felt like I'm dressing like everyone else in the city have been the nights where it dips to 0 or below 0. I'm wearing a coat! Just like everyone else... Not stripping in the streets looking like a crackhead.

Recipes!

I'm not sure if I've come up with anything amazing myself in the last 2 months. For serious. I've been stealing a lot of other peoples recipes, for sure. I have made an excellent mayo dip for fries/yam fries/potato wedges, but it's fairly obvious/simple:

INGREEGAMENTS:

Mayo, Chipotles (in a can, with adobo sauce), Lime Juice, Garlic.

Ensure that you put your chipotles through a food processor OR just chop it up really well. Make sure to add some adobo sauce to the mayo. Combine all those ingredients to taste. Tex-mex chipotle mayo! It is delish. 

All of my other recipes have been plays on my original quesadilla recipe. Pour example: Cheesy rice. The best. shit. ever.

INGREEGAMENTS:

Some type of flavoured parboiled rice of your choosing. My favourite so far has been Uncle Ben's tomato and basil. You'll need some butter to make it.

Assorted vegetables: I use green peppers, sometimes red peppers, corn, carrot and onion. If you want spicy cheesy rice, add a hot pepper. 

Oil: A splash in the pan for frying.

Salsa of your choosing

Cheese: generally the key for cheesy rice. I use a medium cheddar, but any melting cheese works fine.

DIRECTIONS:

1. Make your rice as per the instructions on the back of the package. I usually make 1 cup of rice (which fills up pretty much the entire pot, just a warning).

2. Cut your veggies up to a fairly small "chop". Like you would for a salad. Heat your skillet (make sure it's fairly large) with the oil in it to medium heat. Add onion and any frozen vegetables you've decided to use (I always use frozen corn). I generally add carrot right away too since it takes so long to cook. After a few minutes add the remaining vegetables. Keep frying them while your rice is cooking. 3. When you think you've fried your vegetables enough, add some salsa! Enough to let it simmer until your rice is totally done.

4. When the rice is done, add it to the frying pan mixture and mix until the vegetables and mixed throughout. 

5. Put some of the rice on a plate and shred some cheese on that baby. Microwave for 40 seconds or until the cheese is melted. 

VOILA. It sounds disgusting but it is SO GOOD.

My Life: Currently dubbed "The Library Crisis"

Unlike most undergraduate programs, course selection and where you want to go with your career is paramount  to figure out while you're doing your graduate degree.  For a lot of people, this is not an issue. They've had time to live their lives, figure out what they don't want to do etc. However, for me it's a major issue. There are some days where I feel I would be happy being an archivist or a records manager. I quite like the work and I'm a natural classifer.

But some days I think that I'm destined for something a bit different. At first, I thought this meant that I should stay in academia: Finish my M.L.I.S. and head straight into a doctoral program. As the semester wears on, I'm not sure if I'm cut out for research at this level or in this discipline. I started to look at other options. Firstly, I considered finishing this degree and doing an M.A. in my previous discipline, history. I'm still considering this. I really miss my historical research and my research area was (and still is) extremely understudied. So I started looking into M.A. programs at UWO and USaskatchewan, which both have at least one Great Plains specialist. 

Other days, I think that I am cut out for research in this discipline, although not in what I originally intended to pursue. Although audio libraries and holdings are a big part of my "research soul", I'm more and more interested in records management and applied diplomatics (the basis for UBC's INTERPARES projects). I think this is also a nice segue into studying both history and archival studies concurrently within a PhD program. I also think the school that would be most apt to let me have this type of freedom is... *gulp*... UBC (my undergraduate alma mater).  The gulp is not for the school itself, more than it is for the worry of doing two degrees at the same school. However, my undergraduate degree and my potential PhD have relatively nothing in common, so it may not be an issue necessarily.

My last idea/combination of ideas was to graduate with my M.L.I.S. and work for a year or two on contract jobs and get an idea of how workplaces use the concepts I've learned within my graduate studies to fuel some creativity into my future research. A big complaint I've had since I've been here is that I'm not writing anything crazy or unique (something I was notorious for in my undergrad), because I really don't have the mindset to do so. A new discipline requires a whole new lit review process that can be intimidating and daunting (and really, I have a lot of assignments so time is a major consideration). Anyways, I feel strongly that some work experience would greatly benefit my academic research and experience and it may be a somewhat "refreshing" experience to be away from school for a while (by the time I'm finished my Masters, it will be 6 years, no break). And hey, if I fall in love with a career and decide that I don't need to go back and do my doctorate, so be it. I don't think that is necessarily a bad thing.

However, this does not help me in picking my courses for next year. Doing a PhD right out of this degree requires a lot of research intensive work. So I would be doing a six-credit research project, 3 credits of statistics and 3 credits of advanced research methods. That would leave me with only 12 credits of electives; hardly enough to help me develop some of the professional skills I would like.
At this point I'm not even sure if I want to do a research project or if I want to save my research ideas for when I can better articulate them down the road, when I'm less stressed about this "library crisis" (as I've come to call it). Instead, perhaps I should do a 3 credit lit review. It's so hard to say. If I come up with anything golden over Xmas break, I may go my original path. We shall see.
STRESS AND A HALF.

A fairly good recipe and some fairly strange news (oh, and life lessons)

So it's been about a week since I've posted anything in this blog. Mostly because not a whole lot has come up. I -did- however, start my program which has been a blast so far and I'm really enjoying my courses and meeting new people.
But I have to say, if you don't practice, you're going to lose skills. In this case, I say life skills. I'm normally not a *bad* cook (I don't set anything on fire, can time things OK, everything seems to taste like food and not death)... but lately I've been a mediocre cook in every sense of the word. HOWEVER, TODAY THAT HAS CHANGED AND I AM BACK TO MY FORMER BRILLIANCE. Anyways - does anyone enjoy Tex-mex food?

QUESADILLA RECIPE OF AWESOME

Iight, so you probably think a quesadilla is pretty wimpy shit when it comes to cooking, but there is an art to making a quesadilla that doesn't taste like stale soft tacos and overly fried chicken.

INGREEJAMENTS:
1) Soft taco shells, preferably some that are not a million years old. Take out one taco shell per quesadilla you would like to make.
2) Oil (Like canola but anything will work. Just don't use lard. That's gross.) I don't measure oil. I just throw some in a pan and hope for the best.
3) Chili Powder - Again, something I don't measure.
4) Salsa. You can use aaaaany type you like. I used President's choice mild cheap salsa and it was fantastique.
5) A variety of veggies. Howevs, this better include onion. I used onion and red and green peppers. OH AND I USED CORN. Riiight. So good.
6) Some sort of protein. I prefer chicken. Chicken is good.
7) Some sort of melting cheese.
8)) OPTIONAL THANGS: Sour Cream for dippin'. Pickled (or fresh) Jalapenos for an extra SPIIIIICY quesadilla.

INSTRUCTIONES:
1) Heat some oil in a pan, about mediumish. Medium high is probably okay too. Fry your chicken (probably best to cut it into strips or chunks first) till its almost done (all white in the middles). Add some salsa and any frozen veggies (like corn) you may have to the chicken so it all heats up into one lovely congealed mixture.
2) Take another pan and add some oil. Just a lil' bit. Throw your tortilla in there so it starts getting toasty and rub it around the pan so the oil sticks to it. Throw some chili powder on the tortilla (again, as much as you'd like really).
3) Start adding your crap. Put your fresh veggies and your onions on, then add some of that possibly now gelatinous chicken-salsa mix and top it with some cheese. Fold it into two like a calzone and press down with a flipper or something. Ideally, when the cheese melts, it will hold the two sides together, but if not, but careful when you flip it onto the other side or a plate or whatever since your junk might fall out and that would be sad. Actually not really, the innards of this particular quesadilla are delicious.
4) YOUR QUESADILLA IS READY TO BE CONSUMED.

Seriously, it was an excellent quesadilla. But in other news (and I'm going to say news, not necessarily life lesson style news), there is a pretty hardcore strike going on at my school right now (McGill University). All of the unionized administrative non-academic staff are on strike (and for pretty good reason, to be fair). But MAN do Quebecers know how to put on a strike. They've got megaphones and placards and chants. It's actually fantastic. That's how a good strike should be.  Anyone remember when the teachers in BC went on strike when we were in Grade 11? They just sat in lawn chairs and drank coffee for a week.

Okay, now to life lessons.

7. NEVER underestimate the weather in Montreal. Today the high was 26, which back home would be completely manageable, non-deathly heat. However, today was 26, but the humidity made it feel like 38. I LIVE IN A FLAT WITH NO AIR CONDITIONING. ;__; Now this isn't the end of the life lesson, no siree. I did all of my laundry last night since it was overflowing (I had ignored it for a while now) and it's still drying on the drying rack 24 HOURS LATER. It still isn't dry. Humidity sucks for pretty much everything (except my skin and lungs which seem to adore it).

8. ALWAYS underestimate Montreal transit. I've only had two classes so far and I've been late for both of them. Why? Well, the first class I had I decided to only take the Metro since I had time to kill. Well... The Metro was running extremely late because they had some sort of mechanical issue, so what I thought was me going to be extremely early for class turned into just the opposite. The second day I decided to take the bus since it was quite hot and the hill I have to walk up is extremely steep and horrible. Got to the bus stop no problem (from the Metro station) and the bus came perfectly on time but it was the travel - when we got to Sherbrooke and University, something had happened and traffic was clogged and there were ambulances and everything. So again, I went from being 20 minutes early to 10 minutes late because of this congestion and the driver wouldn't let the students off on Sherbrooke because it wasn't safe. :/ LIFE LESSON LEARNED WALKING TO SCHOOL FOREVER.

... hmmmm...

A thought: Why don't they make big gallon pails of yogurt? I eat yogurt every day. This would be extremely helpful so I don't have to run out to the Loblaws every four or five days (I have to take two trains to get to the Loblaws - there is an IGA down the street... like four blocks, but I really hate paying a $1.50 more for the convenience). But yeah - they make gallons of that horrible no name brand ice cream, why not do the same for yogurt? And instead of making it gross like the ice cream, make it fantastic.

 And now, back to life lessons:

5. In my quest to learn French, I've been completely avoiding it (Yeaaaah... I know. Shame on me).  However, it becomes apparent when people refuse to speak English to me (so far this has happened two or three times).  I'm not very good at actually speaking French, but I'm comprehending it better and better the more I hear it. So today (while buying yogurt, see above), the cashier wouldn't speak English to me even though I opened with "HELLO" (In Quebec that generally means that you would like to converse en anglais and most employees are required to be somewhat bilingual... so yeah.) But where it gets funny - She would speak to me in french and I would respond in English.  There was a queue starting to form and I couldn't think of the proper French so I just defaulted to what was comfortable for me. So it went a little like this: "voulez-vous un sac aujourd'hui?" "Yeah, that would be great." "sept-quarante-trois SVP" "seven-forty-three?" "oui" and so on.

6.  In other adventures of being an anglophone seulement, I had another hilarious language experience. My mom bought me a 40-inch TV as a grad present... and I was under the impression that my Wii was a DVD player (it can play DVDs without menus. WHAT DVD DOESN'T HAVE A MENU?)... So me being my completely rational self (*cough*) decided I should go to future shop and see what my options are for a DVD player, another game console or finding a way to hook up my computer to the TV. I go into future shop and couldn't find any DVD players or HDMI cables, so I ask the nearest employee who keeps looking confused and keeps asking me "parlez-vous francais?" and me going "NOOOO. JE NE PARLE PAS FRANCAIS. MON FRANCAIS N'EST PAS BON." He then asks his colleague if he spoke enough English to help me out. He shook his head. Normally at this point, I would give my shitty french a shot, but then I realized I had no idea what an HDMI cable is in french. I have no friggin' idea how to express "I WOULD LIKE TO HOOK UP MY COMPUTER TO MY TV WITH AN HDMI CABLE" (je voudrais TO HOOK UP/ATTACH mon ordinateur TO mon tele avec un HDMI CABLE). In the end he called over the speaker for someone to come speak English to me. Luckily there was a manager who was completely fluent en anglais. Surely enough an HDMI cable solved all of my technological problems (I didn't realize they ran audio too - neato!). Life lesson: I need to speak more French, learn more French, better my French etc. But in my defense, HDMI cable is not in my French-English dictionary.

I haven't even started my program and there are life lessons to be learned.

1. Just because you're in a big city doesn't mean the buses come frequently. The bus I take to school is one such bus. I found this out the hard way (Daaaaamn you Verdun bus!!).

2. Grocery lists are your best friend, especially when you don't have a car. You essentially have two hands and a personal old-lady cart (if you even remember to bring it). Note that I always pick up things I don't have on my lists. This has caused many elbow bruises from balancing plastic shopping bags filled with heavy things.

3. In the same vein, buying a 12 pack of beer from the grocery store across town without your cart is not a good idea. Ever. This is compounded when the only other things you need from the store are Orange Juice (also really heavy), butter and eggs (omgwhyyyyy!?). Carrying eggs and beer together isn't ever going to end well.

4. I sit on my balcony, drink and listen to Sam Roberts despite the weather conditions. BECAUSE. I. CAN.