Germany vs Greece

I might just live

Surprisingly enough I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel they call library school. It was debatable last week, when I was in one of the worst moods that has hit in a long time and I was swamped with work. But things are better now. I really only have 3 big projects to get finished (and some blogging for my online class) before next Wednesday. I will officially end my time as a student at midnight December 6 when the last assignment is due.

I can't see myself joining the madness of school again anytime soon, but we know how seductive the Ph.D. strikes me as now and again. Yes, I realize that I used the words seductive and Ph.D. in the same sentence.

Last night was the final trivia evening at the Grad Club. I didn't keep the answer sheet, or else I could have shared some random trivia with you. Such as what country used to be known as Siam? Thailand. Who has scored the highest number of goals in the NHL after Wayne Gretzky? Gordie Howe. Who publishes the Watchtower Magazine? The Jehovah's Witnesses.

Given my fascination with various religious groups, you can likely guess which answer I contributed. Our power trivia team did quite well, though I still think they should have had a special "library round" to weed out (no pun intended!) those pesky Chemistry students.

Monday night I rewarded myself for a weekend of hard work and a pretty stellar presentation by going to see Jill Barber at the Salt Lounge. She put on a great show, and is just the most lovely person with a gorgeous voice. Becca and I both bought her new CD and she signed them for us too. She also has that great style I wish I could pull off - cute dresses with tights and killer boots. I need to try that in my professional wardrobe when I get to that point. Mandy, she is coming to the UofA on December 7th - you should really try to go and see her if you like the sound of her MySpace page.

Oh and a quick update on the job front - this week I applied to jobs in Virginia and in Washington D.C. The D.C. job sounds AMAZING and how wonderful would it be to live there for a year or two? Just need to be patient and get through the next week before I worry too much about employment.

Hope all is well in your respective parts of the world.
Love, Susan

God's Gonna Cut You Down by Johnny Cash

"I see celebrities"
Love the song, but the video is a bit baffling. Gotta love Jay-Z throwing up the Hovah sign, regardless. Also, I know I've asked this question before but how is Keith Richards still even alive?!

"I'm out of my Roman and into my Greek"

I should be in bed, but have now reached the point where I'm so tired that I can't sleep, so of course, what's a girl to do but blog?

This will be a pictoral essay of sorts, featuring Elisha and Josh's snazzy new Christmas tree and the decorating efforts that it inspired.

Christmas balls and angels (or angles)

Sugar cookies were consumed, festive music was listened to, and of course there was lots of lewd talk, as we are wont to do, regardless of the holiday or occasion being celebrated.

Elisha, Me and Meg! The Josher and Elisha

I'm sure the format of this entry is completely wonky but you get a good idea of the general mood, even without any eggnog.

Dead Plagarists Society

So apparently I have become a blog-a-holic over these last few days. But I had to share this very interesting article from Slate, where I've recently been finding a lot of good reading material.

The article discusses how in the future, Google Book Search may be used to find plagarists from long ago. Of course there are only so many turns of phrase and word combinations that you can use in writing, but it would still be neat to see if not whom plagirized whom back in the day, at least those writers who acted as (literal) inspiration to others.

In honour of Stu - "you give loooove a bad name!"

Happy early birthday STU! I hope you have a wonderful day. I thought I'd throw you a little blast from the recent past in celebration of you and your awesomeness. Hopefully we can catch up soon to do some celebrating.

I survived my mega-presentation today. But now I feel like I'm in one of those kung fu movies where villains attack one by one and it is up to me to fend them off individually. The villains of course being the assignments that I still have remaining. I guess it'll just be a matter of karate chopping them one by one, til the bitter end.

Today I heard from North Carolina State University about the application that I sent there. Basically they just acknowledged they received it, but still, it's a rarity to actually get a polite response indicating where the hiring process is at. A much appreciated gesture even if it goes nowhere.

Tonight my archives class toured the London Life building and archives. I've always loved the corner of Wellington & Queens Ave. in London and it was neat to see my very favourite apartment/condos from inside the London Life auditorium. The old part of the building is very much in an art deco style. Beautiful light fixtures and ornate door handles and marble everywhere. Sure damn pretty for an insurance company!

Aside from the Stu content, this is a fairly boring entry. Must go write paper.

This is a public service announcement, with guitars!

Oh, John Cusack, will my love for you never end?

Today I found Mr. Cusack's blog through the Huffington Post which features writings from and about a whole host of celebrities, politicians, critics. Unfortunately, there was no RSS feed for his particular blog which I suppose makes sense given that his last entry is from around this time last year. But what an entry it was; all about the passing of Joe Strummer and his thoughts on the man.

"I know for certain he challenged, inspired and demanded us to think and feel in ways we hadn't before... demanded we use rebellion and anger as fuel for the journey to other, better worlds, never as an end in itself. Demanded we reach for the transcendent in everything and everyone, and to never suffer those fools who will not think and feel their way home."

Jesus, Mary and Joseph; then read this:

"If Roy Orbision sang for the lonely, Joe sang for the hungry.... His voice was liquid desire and it ignited as it left his mouth, his body shaking to contain the heat, like a rocket in the first phase of lift-off...."

I was listening to the Clash this weekend after a bit of a hiatus, and it was a welcomed reunion. Mr. Cusack's words completely sum up why I love Mr. Strummer. I actually only got into the Clash about 3-4 years ago and remember thinking at the time, "how did I ever live without this band?" That has to be one of the best/worst feelings when it hits, because you know that this music will alter the way you see the world which is intoxicating in itself, but you also wish it would have happened sooner.

Library Welcome Video

"We have superpowers"

In defense of freedom

December 6 will be the day to beat all days - my final day of school.

That means there are approximately 17 more sleeps;
11 more assignments & presentations to get done;
2 remaining Trivia Nights at the Grad Club;
1 Joel Plaskett concert;
1 bottle of Crown Royal;

and countless dreams of "life after library school".

Hook a sister up and give me a call or shoot an email. I need contact from the outside world.

P.S. Plans are in the works for par-tay in London as a celebration. Right now I'm trying to decide where the line between tasteful and tacky falls re: throwing a party for oneself.

SecondHand Songs

If anyone else is a cover song junkie like myself, you should take a look at Second Hand Songs. It's a fun database that you can search by song, artist, and album. There is an advanced search too that you can use to specify relationships between songs, if the song was a tribute to someone, what label it appeared on and in what medium, etc. The site also provides you with interesting bits of trivia, such as:

California Dreamin' by Royal Gigolos was originally written by John Phillips, Michelle Phillips and performed by Barry McGuire in 1965.

(Everyone knows it's a Mamas and the Papas tune, but I didn't know my fave Barry McGuire covered the song!)

It doesn't seem to include live performances, but only those covers that have actually been recorded. You can also contribute to the database if you see any gaps.

It's Monday, that means music!

sean lennon - "home"


For something a bit different, here is Mr. Sean Lennon. It seems the perfect tune for a grumbly November day. Plus, the video is directed by Spike Jonez AND it features some crazy goldfish.

Tag Cloud...or how I learned to love social software

Coolest thing ever, courtesy of one of my classmates in the Social Software Course. This website has a tool that generates a tag cloud of the most popular phrases that I use in my blog. Not surprisingly, the biggest words mean that I use them most frequently. I think it captures my blog-self quite nicely!

Lyrical genius

Courtesy of Sarah Harmer.

HOW DEEP IN THE VALLEY
How deep in the valley must you go
To find what your footsteps already know
The way on is the way out
There are signs to follow
There is deep in the valley
And I’m bound to go

How deep in the valley must you stay
To know why your footsteps led you that way
The way on may be truly to stand in one place
And let the deep of the valley
Fill you will grace

And treat yourself lightly
Treat yourself kind
You’ve got nothing to worry on
You will be fine
You will leave this place laughing
And somebody will cry
There is deep in the valley
Wonder not why

Wonder not why go
Wonder not to stay
If it takes me and I follow
Or if I lead the way
It can come when it wants to
But it might have to wait
There is deep in the valley
I don’t hesitate

I don’t take it too lightly
But it don’t weigh down too low
There is high on the cliff top
And there are deep creeks below
There’s a green shade you can’t miss
Where the spring water flows
There is deep in the valley
And I’m bound to go

How deep in the valley must you go
To find what your footsteps already know
The way on is the way out
There are signs to follow
There is deep in the valley,
and I'm bound to go.

Monday Musical Moment II

The Bens - Just Pretend


"Ben" is one of my favourite names, so imagine my delight a few years ago when three of the best Bens in music got together for a tour. Here are Ben Folds, Ben Kweller and Ben Lee.

Tyler and I saw Ben Lee play in Hamilton this summer. I have adored this particular Ben since grade 10 so was absolutely thrilled to see him live. Great show. You can also see by the look on Tyler's face what a good sport he was about the whole thing considering he did not know what he was getting into in terms of my rather intense love for Mr. Lee.

Of jobs, dreams, and ice cream

My research week is coming to a close, not surprisingly with very little research having been accomplished. I am rather annoyed with myself about this, but really the mental health break was likely just as useful as getting tons of work done. But wow, with only 5 weeks left it's going to be hard to keep my focus.

I've been hearing word from library school buddies that people are slowly yet surely starting to get jobs, so there does seem to be hope. Travels to see all of them will hopefully be ensuing on my part (Chicago, Labrador...Vaughan) I've now officially applied for jobs in North Carolina and at Cornell U. -aaaahhh- and this week to Virginia and Massachusetts. Scary and wonderful all at the same time. Weird to think that I have no idea where I will be at this time next year.

After hallowee'n celebrations I did actually do school work on Wednesday. Our group traveled to the Elgin County Archives for whom we are creating a digital exhibit. We went to The Wayside for a lunch break, which is apparently a St. Thomas institution and had their $8 buffet. There seemed to be some speculation at the archives that we had attended happy hour since the lunch ended up lasting 2 hours. oops. Great group of people I'm working with for this class. If I haven't said it once I'll say it again, library school has been made by the amazing people that I've met here.

Thursday was Waterloo day with Meg. So fun! Our Meg/Suse time doesn't happen as often as it used to when I lived in the city, so this week was a real treat. I also attended a dream interpretation workshop that night which was exceedingly interesting. I got to share a dream with the group, and then it was "analyzed", though I learned you are not supposed to think of it as analysis but rather interpretation. Tomato tomato. I went through a whole period (a good 8 months'ish) of not remembering my dreams at all which was strange given that I've always had really vivid dreams that I consistently remember. But I learned that Jungian dream interpreation holds that when you are under excessive stress your ego revolts and won't listen to your subconscious in dreams, because your everyday self isn't ready or willing to hear the truth of a situation. Very very interesting. Anyway, there were a lot of associations in my dream that I hadn't even picked up on and I thought I was fairly good at that sort of thing. (The dream itself was pretty whacked - I was trying to get to a prison archives, but ended up trapped in the prison instead and none of the prisoners would talk to me!)

Yesterday, Becca and I went for a November treat at The Marble Slab, a newish ice cream shop on Richmond Street. You pick your base flavour, in my case vanilla, and then you choose the ingredients you want in the icecream. Various types of chocolate bars, fruit, gummy bears, graham crackers, etc. etc. They mash it all up on a marble slab and it was divine. Kate - you would absolutely love this place! We then spent a long time next door at an optical store, trying on the most amazing glasses I have ever seen. Of course the pair I liked most were something like $650 without lenses (this is Richmond Row, after all:) but it was certainly fun to try them all on. I think new glasses will be added to my increasingly lengthy list of things I want to purchase when I get a job. Becca found an amazing pair that were more affordable so I'm hoping that at least one of us will be sporting some sexy librarian wear in the near future!

For your listening pleasure, you might want to check out The Biltmores from Rhode Island. I need to track down their actual album somehow, gotta love prices to ship to Canada. I see they will be playing in Boston at the beginning of December. Would it not be perfect if I could somehow wrangle an interview there at the same time?

~S