my first official "shush"

Oh, glorious day! As of this moment, having just finished reading an article for Wednesday's Ya lit class, I am done with the semester. It certainly was a more intense semester than I had expected but well worth the hard work and effort. Not to mention the blood, sweat and tears. Man, what a great band.

All my crowing aside, I'm happy to have found the light at the end of the tunnel. I'll be using the time wisely, to finalize some wedding preparations, begin the process of looking for a job, visit family and friends in Indiana, and read a few good books. That doesn't mean I'm not hard at work, as I'm taking on extra hours to pad the wallet. And therein lies, ladies and gentlemen, the reason behind this post!

I've picked up an extra shift tonight, which is the day before finals for undergrads. The students are, understandably, both anxious and punchy--a regrettable side effect of the pressure they're all under. In this highly emotional state, many of the students have forgotten that two floors of the library are deemed "quiet" floors. You can't talk on your cellphone, you shouldn't be talking to your neighbor. That's all gone out the window now and it's up to me to put an end to it! And so I'll do, with a little humor. I found a couple of good pictures, so there'd be a little variation, and tried to make it as easily understood as possible. Can you tell me who the lady is? First one who gets it right earns a cookie!

you can shake it, you can break it

It's officially the end of the semester for me. Had my last class yesterday, handed in all my papers the day before that. Now it's time for job hunting--out of the frying pan and into the fire. A few months ago, I made it my goal to have interviews lined up after classes ended and I've been successful at that. I have an interview today at the Peabody Institute Library, which is the public library for the Town of Peabody. It's for a part-time Reference Librarian position, only 14 hours but a good job for someone still in grad school. Tomorrow, I have an interview at Simmons for a full-time position in cataloging and interlibrary loan. Seriously, the past week I've been more worried about these interviews than I was my semester-end projects. There just aren't that many library jobs out there and the applicant pool is pretty saturated with grad students, so there's a lot of competition for what little there is.

All this worrying and work doesn't mean that I haven't been enjoying myself, however. Since I had all my projects done by Sunday, I've picked up a few books and begun reading for enjoyment. At the moment, I'm reading Moanin' At Midnight: The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf and Gene Luen Yang's American Born Chinese. I figured it was time to get back to the blues--had been a while since I had listened to the greats and the biography on Howlin' Wolf is a great way to get back to it. American Born Chinese is a graphic novel that's been out for a year and has won all sorts of awards and recognition, so I figured it was high time I read it.

Aside from some recreational reading, I've got a couple of things I'm looking forward to in the next week or two. Tonight I'll be heading into the lovely Town of Brookline (one of the wealthiest towns in the Boston area, home to John Henry, owner of the Boston Red Sox) where I'll be visiting with classmates and enjoying fine Belgian Ales at the Publick House. Later next week I'll get to see my first Sox game of the season, where they take on the Detroit Tigers. I had tickets for a game in April but it was rained out and postponed until August. Anyway, the game will be shown on ESPN, so keep an eye out and you might see me, cup of Guinness raised high and in full Sox regalia.

So it's getting to the time where I should start thinking about my interview. Means it's time to get to the weekly music! Since I'm reading about the blues, I'm going to post some of 'em.

The first tune is done by Bo Carter, better known as the guitarist for the Mississippi Sheiks. Their tunes are some of my favorites, with songs like "World Gone Wrong" and "I've Got Blood In My Eyes For You" representing greats covered by all sorts of musicians. But Bo Carter was a little bawdy on some of his solo recordings, playing tunes such as "Banana In Your Fruitbasket" and "Pin In Your Cushion," which made for lighter fare than what the Sheiks recorded. The recording I've made available here is a great jumping tune where Bo admonishes a woman that if she doesn't change her ways, "the law's gonna step on your . . . yes yes yes." Seems to me that plenty of times in blues music "yes" is substituted for "ass"--just listen to how close it sounds.

The second tune is by Howlin' Wolf, whose worn his .44 so long, he's made his shoulder sore.

As an added treat, I'm posting the always-difficult to understand Charlie Patton to confound you. It's an amazing display of his guitar prowess and one of the tunes that's easier to understand. He'll be serenading you with tales of "those happy days, where I didn't know your name." Or at least that's how I hear the song--see this great article (the first line of which is "Who was Charlie Patton, and what the hell was he singing about?") on arguments surrounding interpretations of his lyrics. Good stuff. Anyway, enjoy the music, posted below:

Bo Carter "The Law Gonna Step On You"

Howlin' Wolf "Fourty-four"

Charlie Patton "Some Summer Day"

shout, sister, shout!

It's almost the end of the semester--classes will go on until Monday, May 14th, but all my class projects will be over with by this upcoming Monday the 7th. Hooray! It's high time for this semester to be over . . . or so I feel. Taking four classes and working over 20 hours a week has been mentally and physically draining. Sam and I didn't see each other during the week--thank god I made the stipulation of not working weekends when taking the jobs I had. Now we'll have the upcoming summer, where Sam will be home all day and I'll hopefully be off, working a full-time job so I can bring home some bacon and give Sam a break in that department.

And with the end of the spring semester, I was greeted with a pleasure I haven't had since my days as an undergrad student--namely, having some big project due on my birthday! This year it was a fifteen page paper and a fifteen minute presentation on an instruction program (and, for the purposes of the presentation, actually instructing a class) for a library. My specific topic was instructing senior citizens (patrons of the public library) on Internet navigation. The paper was interesting, got me to think about what all goes into having a program like this in a public library. The presentation was fun, I was able to get people to laugh and even had a few ask if they could use, in the future, what I had prepared. If you're interested in seeing my presentation, here's the links:

for the powerpoint:
http://web.simmons.edu/~wick2/User%20Instruction%20Presentation.ppt

for the instructional web site:
http://web.simmons.edu/~wick2/page1.html

So even though I had all that due on my birthday, it was still fun. Throughout the day, I got to talk to family and friends--even got a call from my buddy, Spongebob! My sister found a website (from Nickelodeon, I think)that you could request a birthday call from a cartoon. It was pretty creepy, to tell you the truth, because the association between the voice and the cartoon character wasn't there (no visual representation of the cartoon character) so I was able to associate the voice with an actual person. The more I thought of that the creepier it became.

To end the night, Sam took me to my favorite restaurant in the area--Redbones. There I stuffed myself with BBQ piggies and had a couple of great beers. I have to admit, the only reason I was reluctant to move to the area was because I didn't think it would have good BBQ.

I have the whole day to myself. Well, myself and the two projects I have to complete before Monday. I don't have work at Pine Manor College during May--they don't have the $$ to pay their part-timers during this slow month--so I'm enjoying the fact that I don't have to make that trip. If I drive it takes 45 minutes and if I take public transportation it takes 1 & 1/2 hours.

So I'll be using the rest of the day for these projects . . . but will I be able to get them done? For one thing, I'm worn out. Another, I have the wii I can play. And to add to that, they're working construction on the road outside of my house. Big noise, see below!



Since I'll be listening to jackhammering all day--then again, maybe not! I hadn't heard regular construction noises (engines, beeping, scraping, hammering, shouts, hoots and hollers at the pretty women, etc.) in a little while, so I set out to investigate. Here's what I found--at 9.00am in the morning it was already break time!



It's a hard life but somebody's gotta do it.

Enough of that, I have to cut this short and post my music of the week! My mom and dad sent me a compilation of Sister Rosetta Tharpe, a gospel, blues, and jazz guitarist/singer from the late 1930's into the 1940's. And since it's gospel music I'm playing I can't leave out Sam Cooke. Enjoy Sister Rosetta Tharpe singing "Rock Me" and Sam Cooke singing "Jesus Gave Me Water."

slacker!

I find myself again in the position of apologizing to no-one for not having posted in the past few weeks. Why apologize? I don't know, absolves me of my blogging sins?

Two weeks ago I had my fiscal management course, taken over Spring Break. So while all those girls were going wild, I was keeping my shirt on and being studious. Take it from me girls, it ain't all that and a slice of pie. But at least my family wasn't ashamed of me after seeing my Spring Break escapades. The class was great, really--we had a variety of very interesting individuals who gave talks. Most notable was a board member of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), who dropped this line: "last week when I was at Warren Buffett's office, I asked him what he wanted to see on accounting sheets . . ." In case you're not sure who Warren Buffett is, here's a good article from Salon, and here's the Wikipedia entry. We also had a Vice President from the Federal Reserve talk to us about media concerns and their impact on the market. Really great stuff, but it's not for everyone.

Sam and I will be going to New Hampshire this Saturday to see a few places we have pegged as potential spots for our wedding. The one I'm most excited about is the Castle in the Clouds, which isn't too pricey and is freakin' beautiful.

So I've just seen word from my friend, Jess, that he's done with the blogging experiment. Or, as he says it, there's "nothing left to write." I find that hard to believe--this from a guy who just published a book of poetry. But sometimes it can get a little silly, writing a blog that you're sure no-one reads or, much less, cares about. That and blogging makes it difficult to divide the truly personal and that-which-should-be-blogged. I know that there's enough going on in Jess' life that he could talk about, but it's not always appropriate for the blogging forum. Same goes for me--I've written one post that was lost because Firefox crashed and, in retrospect, was happy that it did because what I had written wasn't appropriate for a public forum, no matter how little it's read. Along this line, my dad had told me about a workshop he had attended, made mandatory by his employer, that discussed the implications of correspondence through the digital environment, where anything inappropriate you say can and will be haunting you at some point in the future. Just type "MySpace" and "arrest" into Google and you'll see some implications of this.

Anyway, I hope Jess will get off his duff and come back to blogging. I've been enjoying his posts, there hasn't been a dull one yet.

I've been kicking around the idea of posting a song to the blog once a week, so this will be the first one. And in honor of St. Paddy's Day, I bring you The Dubliners singing Finnegan's Wake. If you're interested in understanding what they're singing, I suggest seeing the lyrics here. Enjoy!

beavers and their eating habits

Samantha's been entertaining me these past few weeks with a funny story about one of the kids in her school. Apparently when Sam asks this kid a question, she can't answer it but instead goes off with some nonsensical statement. This is a recording I got Sam to make, with my favorite nonsense response yet.