Saturday, January 30, 2010
update
I'd like to amend the previous entry. I do not have twelve microfilm rolls. Twelve is only round one, since I can only have that many at a time. Which means that once I finish these ones, I get to wait for more. Huzzah.
paper, paper and more paper
As a historian, my lord and almighty master (as any of my co-history majors will tell you) is documents. There is nothing more essential than getting those elusive facts, numbers, statistics or images. Good history students by the end of university will have the e-resources completely figured out and all the backdoors to get into any of them.
For those massive final papers - you know, the ones where you see your history major friend huddled in a library in a fort made out of books and emerging from their rooms only at mealtimes, in which case all they talk about is their paper anyways - these documents are of the utmost importance. Students become a cyber bank robber of sorts; they will scheme and secretly try to coerce the librarians into ordering a book in that the library technically already has, but some second year who clearly has no grasp of the desperation that you are feeling has already signed out. The only difference is that bank robbers end up with pieces of paper that everyone thinks has value, whereas historians end up with copies of documents that have sat in some state department basement for decades and can mean absolutely nothing to 95% of the world population.
This entry comes at the time when my respect for the Inter-Library Loan office has grown in their ability to find me something I didn't think existed, but at the same time hatred for my addiction to documents. My fourth year essay is an examination of news coverage of the Rwandan genocide, which I thought was a neat idea. This was before I started acquiring all of the articles. The New York Times gave me 244 Word pages of articles that I not only have to read (which isn't a big deal, I'm used to reading a book and a half a week), but I now need to try and figure out the cheapest way to print them off. I've already spent $30 at Print Plus on my other major paper, and this essay doesn't end at the New York Times.
Waiting for me right now at the ILL office is microfilm of the Washington Post. I'm not sure if anyone else has used microfilm, but it's the kind way of saying "Haha, you chose something that isn't digital!" Silly me, I expected a reel or two of the stuff for what I'm looking for. NO, my order came in a BOX. With TWELVE reels. Remind me again why I took history?
Oh, right. I liked documents.
For those massive final papers - you know, the ones where you see your history major friend huddled in a library in a fort made out of books and emerging from their rooms only at mealtimes, in which case all they talk about is their paper anyways - these documents are of the utmost importance. Students become a cyber bank robber of sorts; they will scheme and secretly try to coerce the librarians into ordering a book in that the library technically already has, but some second year who clearly has no grasp of the desperation that you are feeling has already signed out. The only difference is that bank robbers end up with pieces of paper that everyone thinks has value, whereas historians end up with copies of documents that have sat in some state department basement for decades and can mean absolutely nothing to 95% of the world population.
This entry comes at the time when my respect for the Inter-Library Loan office has grown in their ability to find me something I didn't think existed, but at the same time hatred for my addiction to documents. My fourth year essay is an examination of news coverage of the Rwandan genocide, which I thought was a neat idea. This was before I started acquiring all of the articles. The New York Times gave me 244 Word pages of articles that I not only have to read (which isn't a big deal, I'm used to reading a book and a half a week), but I now need to try and figure out the cheapest way to print them off. I've already spent $30 at Print Plus on my other major paper, and this essay doesn't end at the New York Times.
Waiting for me right now at the ILL office is microfilm of the Washington Post. I'm not sure if anyone else has used microfilm, but it's the kind way of saying "Haha, you chose something that isn't digital!" Silly me, I expected a reel or two of the stuff for what I'm looking for. NO, my order came in a BOX. With TWELVE reels. Remind me again why I took history?
Oh, right. I liked documents.
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
Nerd Alert
Being a full-time student means that the time you allot yourself for completely unproductive activities gets exponentially smaller as the year goes on. Those carefree weekends of actually reading a textbook are replaced by weekends where you have to skim that textbook, just so you have time to read the other five that are due for the next week. Plus research for papers. Fun?
My television habits have changed, too. Even with all this work, everyone needs a mindless TV break in between books the size of my desk that are due back in Windsor in less than 24 hours (what would we do without the Inter-Library Loan office???). Rather than tune in to the latest primetime dramas or comedies, my entertainment choice as of late has shifted to my roommate's XBox games.
Yes, you heard me, I'm addicted to plot lines and characters that are animated and get points for looting treasure boxes. Lame? Hardly! I'm greatly entertained by the fact that I can identify the setting of his video games simply by looking at the architecture in the background. Yes, I am a nerd, thank you for silently thinking that in your head. (Side note: Assassin's Creed 2? Great game!)
The great thing about the games, though, from a student's point of view, is that they can be played for hours, so there's no need to waste time changing the channels. Also, it's easy to get some reading done at the same time. Just look up when exciting things are happening. I'm not particularly intriugued by the five minutes of running around looking for things. Secondly, that means there's company in the room! Having separate things on the go in the same room means you can spend time with your roommates (or at least escape the maddenning solitude of your room or the library) and you can still both be doing things you want/need to do.
Somehow, this arrangement seems to work. Sometimes there's snacks involved.
I'd still rather be watching Glee.
My television habits have changed, too. Even with all this work, everyone needs a mindless TV break in between books the size of my desk that are due back in Windsor in less than 24 hours (what would we do without the Inter-Library Loan office???). Rather than tune in to the latest primetime dramas or comedies, my entertainment choice as of late has shifted to my roommate's XBox games.
Yes, you heard me, I'm addicted to plot lines and characters that are animated and get points for looting treasure boxes. Lame? Hardly! I'm greatly entertained by the fact that I can identify the setting of his video games simply by looking at the architecture in the background. Yes, I am a nerd, thank you for silently thinking that in your head. (Side note: Assassin's Creed 2? Great game!)
The great thing about the games, though, from a student's point of view, is that they can be played for hours, so there's no need to waste time changing the channels. Also, it's easy to get some reading done at the same time. Just look up when exciting things are happening. I'm not particularly intriugued by the five minutes of running around looking for things. Secondly, that means there's company in the room! Having separate things on the go in the same room means you can spend time with your roommates (or at least escape the maddenning solitude of your room or the library) and you can still both be doing things you want/need to do.
Somehow, this arrangement seems to work. Sometimes there's snacks involved.
I'd still rather be watching Glee.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Shifting Gears
How many of you can say that you have pieces of journals lying around, filled with thoughts, emotions and best intentions? Everyone wants to keep a journal or diary - or blog. I can think of at least three cute notebooks that have the first twenty pages or so filled with detailed descriptions of my trials and tribulations as a high school student, a university freshman, and so on and so forth. All of them spiraled pretty badly into oblivion once things got busy. So this blog is a goal for me: can I actually keep it going for the rest of the school year?
I have thoughts, everyone has thoughts. I'm usually pretty vocal about my thoughts, sometimes too much so and my professors have to stop me from arguing about some obscure fact with another member of the class. So let's just see how far I can take this.
I'm sure my notebooks are cursing me from their dust-covered final resting places around my room. I have always preferred the traditional pen and paper to typing, perhaps since typing usually means work and essays and I get enough of those in my life without trying to record my opinions on the newest season of Battlestar: Galactica. Nevertheless, since I am an honours student and I am always in front of a computer screen, having an electronic journal might just make things easier.
As a history student, I am compelled to have a thesis for anything I write, online journals included. As the title suggests, the last semester of my university career has seen me shift into an academic gear not experienced since my uncle finished law school with a family of six girls waiting for him at home - and he was a doctor at the same time. Okay, it's not quite the same thing, but it sure is a level of intensity I have never experienced before.
Fourth year history major.
English minor.
Research assistant.
Model NATO team.
Frosh leader.
Musician.
Oh, and I have friends and family in there somewhere, too.
Therefore, this blog has the very general purpose of explaining a very busy life of a fourth year university student, on and off the playing field.
I'm only a little bit terrified.
I have thoughts, everyone has thoughts. I'm usually pretty vocal about my thoughts, sometimes too much so and my professors have to stop me from arguing about some obscure fact with another member of the class. So let's just see how far I can take this.
I'm sure my notebooks are cursing me from their dust-covered final resting places around my room. I have always preferred the traditional pen and paper to typing, perhaps since typing usually means work and essays and I get enough of those in my life without trying to record my opinions on the newest season of Battlestar: Galactica. Nevertheless, since I am an honours student and I am always in front of a computer screen, having an electronic journal might just make things easier.
As a history student, I am compelled to have a thesis for anything I write, online journals included. As the title suggests, the last semester of my university career has seen me shift into an academic gear not experienced since my uncle finished law school with a family of six girls waiting for him at home - and he was a doctor at the same time. Okay, it's not quite the same thing, but it sure is a level of intensity I have never experienced before.
Fourth year history major.
English minor.
Research assistant.
Model NATO team.
Frosh leader.
Musician.
Oh, and I have friends and family in there somewhere, too.
Therefore, this blog has the very general purpose of explaining a very busy life of a fourth year university student, on and off the playing field.
I'm only a little bit terrified.
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