Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in truffula_trees' LiveJournal:

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Monday, June 29th, 2009
11:58 pm	I'm moving Just to let people know. Quitting my crappy job was fun. Finding a job will not be fun, especially since my state decided to cut library funding. Again. Sigh. I'm really sick of working retail. What's the point of having a master's degree if I can't use it? Hopefully we can get Internet in our apartment soon... Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: none, since I packed up all my CDs... (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, January 25th, 2009
9:51 pm	Indigo Kings and Other Things... I've finally gotten around to reading some works by authors that I've been meaning to read for ages. One example is Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. I picked up the first three while I was in England (two at Waterloo Station and one at a used book sale on the banks of the Thames), and I've been reading more as rapidly as I can accumulate them. Good humor like his is hard to find in a book. His and Neil Gaiman's book Good Omens is probably the funniest book I've read. Another series I finally got around to reading was Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books - and while I'm not generally the biggest fan of "romance" books, her characters and her wonderfully-envisioned world made me search two library systems trying to find them all. Most of my Christmas consisted of books - mostly Discworld, but also a dictionary of world mythology, The Tales of Beedle the Bard (good, of course), and The Indigo King (which I had been waiting for since October when it came out). But naturally it was worth the wait - even though I'm still not sure what to make of an author who dares to make tongue-in-cheek remarks parodying avians in J. K. Rowling and Monty Python on the same page. I do, however, love reading stories that play with myth in new and interesting ways. Some people think there is "one true version" of a myth and refuse to see a story told any other way, but I find infinite possibilities far more entertaining. I swore I was just going to read The Indigo King and not reread the first two Imaginarium Geographica novels, but I lied. After I finished the third book I had to reread the first two, and as is nearly ALWAYS the case with rereading books, it was well worth my time. The Morgaine's prophecy in the first book, for example, takes on a whole new meaning after learning identities and bloodlines in the third book, as it is Bug who is the "Mapmaker's heir", quite literally. It's little things like that that make it worth rereading books. In other news, still working my retail pricing early-morning low-paying job, though now I'm down to four days a week, as I am doing my library practicum two days a week and I wanted one day that I could be dead. But I love working in a library, even if I have to pay my school to do it. It makes so much difference to actually care about your work and to feel like you are doing something morally satisfying... Current Mood: tired Current Music: The Sound of Silence, Silence Is Golden, and...just silence. (4 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 16th, 2008
10:26 pm	What not to do... Being me, I procrastinated starting a paper until the night before it was due. Naturally, the weather found out about it and sent a wind storm that knocked out our electric. Hence, no Internet, no resources that I had saved on my computer, no barely started paper. Although I did make some progress on battery power (yay laptops!). But luckily the electric came back on before the next morning and I finished my 20 page paper of awesome. In other news, management class is boring as heck (I wish it wasn't required), and MARC rocks. Current Mood: sleepy Current Music: quiet whrrr of new laptop (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 9th, 2008
2:18 pm	How I spent the past month or so So...what I did in Great Britain: -Arrived there on Independence Day. Ha ha, irony. -Lived in a petite dorm room in King's College, London, which is on the south bank of the Thames and right near Waterloo Station. -Found my way around the Underground and minded the gap. -Visited various pubs and enjoyed happy drunk people. -Saw a Mozart mass at St. Paul's - AMAZING. -Was given a tour of St. Paul's library by the quaint and wonderful Joe Wisdom. He is my new hero. -Rode the London Eye. In the rain. -Went to King's Cross to see Platform Nine and Three Quarters. They have a trolley half through the wall. -Was given a tour of the British Library (800 miles of books with another eight miles added every year - oh, and they have the oldest copy of Beowulf, the Magna Carta, scores of Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, the Beatles...). -Saw the stuffed body of Jeremy Bentham and various places that Virginia Woolf, Dickens, Yeats, and Eliot lived/worked/spent time. -Ate at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese off of Fleet Street where various famous literary figures ate and drank. -Went to the Barbican Public Library (they gave us tea because librarians are nice people) and was given a button that states that 'I Love the Libraries in the City of London'. -Wandered around Camden Town (very punk). They have a canal lock. That made me happy for reasons that anyone who knows where I am from will understand. -Saw Wicked, The Lord of the Rings (musical), and Avenue Q. I was far enough removed from having read Wicked that I enjoyed its happy, singing and dancing cousin. Avenue Q was just plain hilarious in a sick but realistic way. And Lord of the Rings...well, I was impressed by the way they managed to condense the three books in a semi-believable manner. Gandalf's Scottish brogue was rather interesting, as was Galadriel's prima donna status and the way all of the elves seemed to use some odd form of sign language every time they spoke or sang. Also, the ents were on stilts, and the orcs definitely had some sort of pogo-stick implements for each hand. But they seem to have used various bits of Tolkien's songs, and it really wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought it would be. I'm glad I saw it. -Explored Dover Castle and Canterbury Cathedral. -Went to the market stalls of Portobello Road (Bedknobs and Broomsticks, anyone?) and visited the Peter Pan statue in Kensington Gardens. -Bought and consumed sherbet lemons in Dumbledore's honor. (Also bought and read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to explore the differences between the British and American texts, a highly enjoyable exercise.) -Visited the Museum of London and saw the Aldersgate plaque commemorating John Wesley's conversion (rah Methodism) and a part of the old Roman wall. -Ate lots of pastries. Have I mentioned that I love pastries? -Toured the National Art Library at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Saw corrected proofs of Gulliver's Travels and David Copperfield. -Took a boat on the Thames to Greenwich, where we toured the National Maritime Museum and saw books and papers about ships and pirates and other exciting things. -Straddled the Prime Meridian. -Saw Paddington Bear at Paddington Station. -Toured the Bodleian Library at Oxford University. -Went to the English Faculty Library at Oxford. Tolkien had donated his personal library to that library. He was on the Library Committee there and had even signed off on the minutes on several occasions. I got to touch Tolkien's books. That he had actually read. And read little notes he had scribbled in the margins or stuffed in the books. -Went to the Rabbit Room in the Eagle and Child, also known as the Bird and Baby (of Inklings fame). -Saw a copy of Shakespeare's First Folio and various texts that Shakespeare might have used in the Shakespeare Centre Library and Archive in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Also saw Taming of the Shrew performed there (no, not in the library). -Walked around Stonehenge. I like rocks. -Wandered around great halls and castle ruins in Winchester. Saw King Arthur's Round Table and the house where Jane Austen died. -Stayed in an old "haunted" manor in Dalkeith, Scotland (near Edinburgh). Played the out of tune piano in said haunted manor. Several scared underclassmen came in to check and make sure I was a real person. I decided not to debate the nature of reality with them. -Explored the manor and surrounding grounds. Definitely contained Narnian wardrobes and groves as well as bridges and ruins reminiscent of Middle Earth. (And a section of the river near a little waterfall that looks just like the spot where Robin Hood and Little John fought in Prince of Thieves. Oh, and a circular clearing that would have been Edward's if it would have been in Forks instead of Scotland.) -Toured the National Library of Scotland, which now houses the John Murray Archive. (That's right - the seven generations of John Murrays who published everything from Jane Austen and Lord Byron to Charles Darwin.) Also toured the National Archives of Scotland. -Ate at The Elephant House, which calls itself the "Birthplace of Harry Potter" because J. K. Rowling was known to write there in the beginning. -Have I mentioned that half of the places we went seemed to have been used in the Harry Potter films? It felt like some tour guide or other was always telling us "such and such staircase was used in this spot of this film". Such was the case with the winding staircase in St. Paul's and a corner of the Bodleian that was used as the infirmary. -Ate more than one deep-fried Mars Bar. (If we had been in Scotland more than a few days...well, let's just say that my arteries might have objected.) But if you're even in Dalkeith, eat at Franco's. -Talked to the very nice faculty of the library program at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. They gave us tea and lunch and took us to see The Bridge, a combination library and community center in a deprived area of Glasgow. Quite spiffy. -Hiked up to Arthur's seat in Holyrood Park. My legs kept reminding me that I come from a very non-hilly part of the country, but the view was spectacular. -Saw the Museum of Childhood. Yes, there is a Museum of Childhood. I don't know why this surprises me. After all, we have a doll museum in my town (that I've never visited, I might add). And a barbershop museum, come to think of it. -Became the proud owner of a cheap tourist kilt. -Took a train to Liverpool, where I visited the Cavern Club, accidentally stumbled upon the Gustav Klimt exhibit in the Tate (fantastic), and spent the night in a hostel. -Spent most of the next day on various trains to Wales. Perfected my habit of looking out of windows. Talked to some interesting people. Ended up in Tenby, a little town on the coast. -Hiked up and down the trails along the coast of Wales. Waded in beaches. Ate an obscene amount of ice cream. Saw amazing views, tiny jellyfish, and lots of sheep. Got sunburned despite wearing copious amounts of sunscreen. Enjoyed NOT being in a city for a few days. -Headed back to London. Saw Abbey Road. Paid five pounds to hang out in the gallery of the Royal Albert Hall during one night of the BBC Proms, where I laid on the floor by the railing while people sprawled and picnicked around me and listened to gorgeous classical music. -Visited Westminster Abbey and paid my respects in Poets' Corner. -Visited the Tower of London and was entertained by the humorous yeoman tour guide. -Visited 221b Baker Street, which the museum has stuffed full of good old Victorian artifacts. -Ran around the British Museum like a chicken with my head cut off. That place is huge, to put it mildly. -Meandered up and down the south bank of the Thames. Bought used books there. -Finally began reading and became addicted to Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. -Had fun imagining wars on cloudscapes (whenever I had a window seat on a plane, that is). Awesome month. Have I rubbed it in yet that librarians get to see all the cool things? For anyone who cares/wants to read more about the libraries I visited, I had to keep a blog for class. It suffers from spelling and grammatical errors as well as boring writing. You can find it here: http://mleuk.blogspot.com/. Current Mood: happy Current Music: The Fellowship of the Ring (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 19th, 2008
5:06 pm	Right. That. Tortillas, cheese, pineapple tidbits, almond slices, and cinnamon can be combined to make lovely quesadillas. Particularly when dipped in strawberry salsa. I discovered a lovely little trail that runs along the creek not very far away from my house. This made me very excited, as I have always wanted to explore that woodsy little area. I was convinced that hobbits live there. Also, I plan to take a break from all things Internet in July. 'Cause I'll be in Great Britain. Looking at libraries. For a class. Current Mood: crazy Current Music: some of my sister's techno (8 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, June 2nd, 2008
3:12 pm	RRrrrrrRRrrRrrRrrrrrRRrrrrRrrrr There are jackhammers right outside my window. They are noisy. Current Mood: tired Current Music: jackhammers (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
9:18 pm	Oh, the CDR... I was having a discussion with my parents this evening and for some reason my father asked me if I had ever written any music. I actually did have to write a four-part vocal piece for my final in music theory, so I dug it out and played it. It was quite horrid. I greatly dislike four-part harmony, and some of the chords that we were required to use were just...*shudder*. Still rather amusing. Even better, in finding that I unearthed quite a few of my old college papers. I had forgotten how many of my papers I had turned into poems merely because I was so bored of writing papers. And because I was lazy. I will confess. Some of them were rather snarky (especially my final for Wilkerson's class - it's still enjoyable to make fun of Habits of the Heart). Then, of course, there was the ridiculous poem I wrote because Keifer assigned us a paper on the subject "What is geography?", and he, instead of seeing it for the silly thing that it was, thought it was wonderful and gave me extra credit. I think my favorite by far was the play I wrote for Brit Lit II. I don't remember what the subject of our paper was supposed to be, but I turned it into a play set in the CDR (Central Dining Room, for all you non-Wittenberg types), and it featured our lovely cafeteria lady Ann. My horrible pretense for getting deceased British authors to attend was that Wittenberg had recently started a "Bring Famous Dead People To Campus" Series (and yes, I made fun of my own horrible pretense in my play). But most of the play (and I call it that, although it was only eight or so pages in length) revolved around Byron and Dickens as they navigated the cafeteria of a small liberal arts college and interacted with the students and staff. Byron was most depressed that they did not serve alcohol and that his fork was bent and not made of silver, while Dickens was disheartened by the fact that very few people seemed to have read his works, save for a few mysterious "English majors", and those who had read them found them rather long and boring. One girl did get her textbook autographed by them, but when they asked her which of them she preferred, she said that overall she'd rather read Tolkien. Obviously no great work, but it still amused me to read it. Oh, the CDR... Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: wait...air conditioner...why is it on? (Comment on this)
Sunday, April 20th, 2008
5:41 pm	BEST SIGN EVER!!! In my job of sticking price tags on items, I came across the best sign ever: Needless to say, I didn't put it up. Current Mood: amused Current Music: Iwo Jima soundtrack (Comment on this)
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
8:16 pm	Not for those who dislike foul language. Today I learned two things. One: embarrassed people provide interesting conversations. Two: saying that you go to library school invites interesting conversations. How I learned said things: I was outside in the garden center casually trolling the area for items going up or down in price, rolling my flat-top around, scanning things occasionally, when I was approached by an older gentleman with a question. This happens quite a lot in the course of my work. I wear a red shirt. Nearly every other employee in the store wears a red shirt. Customers assume that people in red shirts know where stuff is. The fact is, however, I don't work in the garden center or in any particular department. I price stuff and therefore move around a lot. I sometimes know where stuff is, but not always. Something all customers ought to know: although my name tag states that I can help, it lies. It ought to come with fine print stating "Void where prohibited." In this case, however, I could answer this gentleman's information need: he wanted to know where peat moss was, and I showed him. On our way to the peat moss he banged his hand and uttered an explicative - namely, the word 'fuck'. He was quite embarrassed to have done so in front of me. I explained kindly that I was not offended in the least, as I have been to college and therefore have been exposed to a variety of curse words. He asked me what I was studying, and I said library science. His embarrassment seemed to make him want to continue babbling at me, and he assumed that as a "library scientist" I would be interested in the etymology of words. Therefore he decided to tell me the etymology of the word 'fuck'. He also included a further discussion concerning the etymology of the word 'shit' as well, apparently in case I was interested. BEST DAY OF WORK EVER. Current Mood: amused Current Music: my parents watching a movie (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
9:31 am	Things I have seen go down Washington Street: 1. A tractor. 2. A golf cart. (Washington Street is around the corner from my house and is one of the "main" streets of my village with suburban pretentions.) Current Mood: amused Current Music: soundtrack to Howl's Moving Castle (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
8:19 pm	"This," said Reepicheep, "is where I go on alone." The ground finally thawed out enough for Dad and I to bury my dwarf hamster Reepicheep this afternoon. (He died a week and a half ago in a peaceful sleep.) I wanted to put him in a coracle and sail his little funeral ship down the creek near our house, but that wouldn't be environmentally friendly to the local drinking water. It would have been fun to picture him sailing over the End of the World like his namesake, although I don't think the Little Walnut Creek would have borne him there. Current Mood: sad Current Music: my parents watching a movie (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, February 28th, 2008
9:52 am	stolen from Sarah What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Midland   "You have a Midland accent" is just another way of saying "you don't have an accent." You probably are from the Midland (Pennsylvania, southern Ohio, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, and Missouri) but then for all we know you could be from Florida or Charleston or one of those big southern cities like Atlanta or Dallas. You have a good voice for TV and radio. The South   The West   The Inland North   Philadelphia   The Northeast   Boston   North Central   What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: my mother listening to progressive talk radio (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 11th, 2008
8:14 am	sunrise I saw the most beautiful sunrise as I was driving home from work this morning. It was perfectly framed in my rearview mirror as I drove west along 33. The clouds were a frozen, glowing pink. It's freezing here, by the way. I was wearing boots, two pairs of socks, three pairs of pants, three shirts, my long winter coat, two scarves, three pairs of gloves, my lumberjack hat, and my hood as I was walking the parking lot sweeping the trash at four in the morning. I supposedly have only one more night as a cashier before I switch to mornings and pricing. I decided I needed a change. I don't dislike what I'm doing, or the people I work with. I have quite a bit of fun with a couple of them, actually. But there was an opportunity - oh, the mixed feelings I have for that word! - and I took it. I will no longer have to deal with cash register problems or people complaining about the self-scan. Nor will I have to deal with customers who do not know proper English any better than they know soap. I will have moved away from my arch-nemesis, that swampy, stinking bog that is our utility closet. I will not have to clean the lanes, or the pop machines, or do the trash, or tape the carpets, or push carts, or sweep the lot. I will not pace the rows of cash registers in set patterns at five in the morning when the rest of the work is done, and I will no longer have decidedly odd conversations with my workmates. Both the good and the bad...let them pass, let them pass. Perhaps I shall still see the sun rise. I shall miss the stars, and the rabbit in the moon, and my solitary walks filled with creative thinking. Current Mood: awake Current Music: the smell of muffins baking is music to my nose (Comment on this)
Monday, December 31st, 2007
9:09 pm	I never know what to write in this line... I thought The Search for the Red Dragon wasn't supposed to be out until January 1st, but I was pleasantly wrong, because I have it in my hands now. Too bad I have to work all night...otherwise I would be reading. Having a New Year's Eve dinner with my family was quite nice. I think I'll go into this new year with no expectations and just see what happens, for once. Current Mood: apathetic Current Music: my sister playing her new Hairspray CD (7 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, December 6th, 2007
6:03 pm	You know you've been reading too many books by British authors when... ...you're convinced that "catalogue" is the correct spelling of the word and think your American textbook is spelling it wrong every time the word "catalog" comes up. I also think that "traveling" and "traveler" should have two l's each, but spell check says I'm wrong. For those of you who aren't where I am, we've had some lovely snow - the nice, white, fluffy kind that blanketed everything in a few inches of powder. I've recently reread some children's books and realized that they are just as interesting when read as an adult. For once, I can actually understand all of the social connotations and high literary references. That's all for now - finals next week, and then one semester is over. Current Mood: pensive Current Music: the quiet of an empty house (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, November 14th, 2007
2:07 am	Paper! Again! I am once again writing a paper (which is ironically often when I post on livejournal, since that is when I feel like procrastinating). For this one, I had to pick a user group and analyze it. This means that I get to study people who play role-playing games. If I have to write a paper, it doesn't get much better than this. It does make me miss gaming, though. Damn but I'm homesick for Wittenberg tonight. Current Mood: nostalgic Current Music: Mysterious Ticking Noise; Ziggy Stardust; Do As Infinity; other senior year favs (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, October 25th, 2007
5:52 pm	book time I finally finished reading Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell...yesterday, I think? (This is what happens when nights are your days...you never know what day it is, really.) Anyway. This book was a sporadic buy - my sister, our friend, and I had gone into a bookstore in order for me to purchase Stardust since we had just seen the movie (I really shouldn't have seen the movie before reading the book). While we were there my friend and I found two copies of this book on clearance (as in, a $30 seven hundred and eighty two page hardcover book marked down to under $7). It sounded vaguely fantasy-ish, and it was a bargain, so of course I bought it. When I started reading it after finishing Stardust, my immediate reaction was to wonder why I had bought this book instead of getting it from the library. It is more than a little on the tedious side. But as I continued reading, I realized that for all of its tediousness, it is brilliant, as well as very, very British. It reminds me of Jane Austin (as far as the writing style and descriptions of social interactions) and Charles Dickens (as far as quirky, eccentric, very human characters)...except it contains lots of magic and a rather large quantity of footnotes (and is pseudo-historical to boot with appearances of historical figures such as Wellington and Lord Byron). Brilliant, I tell you, and worth buying. Now I'm on to Karen Armstrong's The Great Transformation, which is about religious development in the Axial Age. I started reading it and immediately remembered why I love Karen Armstrong - she makes conclusions and formalizes connections that I have made myself, although perhaps not so concretely. She never forces a reader into these conclusions, though, which I also like. She just...presents them, in a very convincing, eye-opening fashion. I've barely started it, and I'd already recommend this book. After all, who wouldn't love a book containing the duke of Zhou? (This is a shout-out to anyone who's ever had Professor Oldstone-Moore.) Current Mood: mellow Current Music: a distant radio (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 9th, 2007
4:10 am	something must be wrong with my voicemail I know that I am guilty of almost never having my phone on, but between work, class, and sleep, there isn't a lot of time for me to have it on. That said, I have turned it on several times in the past few months, but apparently my phone has decided that even if I have my phone on, it doesn't always have to tell me that I have voicemails. Just sometimes. Like on Saturday, I turned my phone on and found out that I had a new voicemail from Rachel. However, there were also a few other voicemails on my phone from Adam and Sarah that my phone had never mentioned that I had. Ever. Suck. So, very sorry Adam and Sarah that I didn't get your summer-y messages until now. Obviously I can't call you back or anything because you are way out of range, but please accept my humble apologies for my phone's delinquency. Current Mood: aggravated Current Music: the clicky sounds of my computer (Comment on this)
Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
7:06 pm	Creativity is not valued at my work place. Neither is inventiveness, ingenuity, or independent thought. If it is not the same thing that everyone else is doing, or the way things have always been done, then it shouldn't be done, even if it leads to better customer service. That's what I was told, anyway. Current Mood: sad Current Music: something from Princess Bride (6 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
9:41 pm	why librarians are awesome Today my professor said that librarians should aspire to be like Jean-Luc Picard. Or something like that. It made me happy. Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! Current Mood: geeky Current Music: pirate-y music in my head (3 Comments |Comment on this)