dear racist classmates,

it's a good thing that i heard secondhand about your racist statements because if i had been in there, i would have surely given you an earful, friend or not.

i can't believe how openly you displayed your ignorance (i'm scared of black people in large groups, i wouldn't work there that's a black library, etc.) despite the fact that there are people of color in our program and in YOUR classes. would you have said these things without the comfy insulation of your white space? did you think that just because everyone in the room was white that it was ok to say these things?

classmate #1: i have come to expect such things from you (blanket, offensive statements on various subjects) but as long as you don't say this shit in front of me, i don't call you out. you know better than that. it's interesting that you said that you are "afraid" of large groups of black people. you should really reverse the script and think about what if you were black, you'd have more than ample reason to be afraid of a group of white people, given all the violence and terrorism aimed at black people in this country historically and currently. just sit awhile and think on that.  who should be frightened of whom?

classmate #2: your FAMILY is a multicultural/multi-ethnic family. what the fuck is wrong with you? would you say these things and insert your family's ethnicity in the sentence and see how that sounds. or what if you heard someone say these things about your family's ethnic group, how would that make you feel? would you take offense? would you stand up for your family?

you both talk pretty loud so i hope some other students besides the ones in the room heard you and now know what racist assholes you are. it's a shame too being that both of you represented our department last year on the student advisory council. hope you didn't represent our department like THAT while you were out there in the community.

no love,

semantress

ps- if you think that you won't have to deal with black people or "groups of black people" when you are out in the library field, you are going to be in for a VERY VERY rude awakening when you get a job. black people are students, black people are members of your community, black people WILL be patrons at your libraries.

a description from one of the books i'm cataloging.

""Typee was the first of the South Seas romances dealing with castaway sailors and dusky native girls and remains the most delightful. In it Herman Melville has captured all the glamour of distant islands, all the strangeness of native customs, rites, and taboos, all the thrills of adventure."

copy circa 1942.

didn't think i'd post twice in one day.

so i'm working this cataloging internship this semester. i thought after TA-ing for the cataloging class last semester that the internship would be a bit less painful than taking the class. i'm not sure about that yet, but i was sitting here cataloging yesterday and all i could think of was gob (y'know, from arrested development) -- "i've made a huge mistake!"

ugh. have to stick it out though. too late to drop it and pick up another class. would lose my assistantship too for lack of hours.

today at work i attended an online ACRL conference on special collections. the boss says it can go on my resume/CV. how cool is that?

still working on the comics call number order project. it is fun, overwhelming, frustrating, and exciting. it will be an accomplishment to look back at the collection and say, hey, i put that sucker in order. over three thousand comics. whoa.

working same hours but at smaller increments makes this project more manageable though. i was working 8 hours a day on it last week and was so totally burnt out on it by the end of the day that i couldn't imagine going back in and working on it the next day. this way, i don't get too sick of it and i'm excited to go in each day and work. i've processed about 16 boxes filled with approximately 140 items each. wonder what cubic feet  measure that comes out to?

tomorrow, box 17 and beyond.

i'm putting together an outline of what i'm planning to say/do tomorrow in my presentation on starting/building a zine collection in libraries. i find myself amusing:

2. Can we see some zines? We still don’t understand what they are or why someone would waste their time and money doing this?

a. Yes, have some zines. Lots of them.

grad school semester 2 = STRAIGHT A's !!!! hooray.

this summer means work work work on future projects, a scholarly paper, poster presentation, and more.

note to self: DO NOT look at lolcats during class. repeat: DO NOT LOOK AT LOLCATS DURING CLASS.

before a presentation i gave the other day about special collections libraries, my professor said to me, "don't throw any chairs."

huh?

this is admittedly the same class as the race/class incident took place in, but during that it wasn't like i was flailing angrily around shouting out what i had to say. i was calm and collected.

le sigh.

i'm not usually a shusher. i'm really not.

but there was this stupid undergrad sitting in the reference section SINGING. in a library. for about 15 minutes prior, she had been laughing and giggling pretty uproariously, but i held my tongue and continued to work. but the singing, which continued for a prolonged period of time just moved me to say something.

me: hi, you're being really distracting. do you think you could be a bit quieter?
her: *gives me dumb look like she is unsure if i'm talking to her, glances at her friend, back at me*
me: ok, so that's yes no maybe?
her: *slams her belongings down onto library carrel and scoots back her chair in a huff* jeeze you don't have to get an attitude! oh  my god, is this really happening, really?
me: yeah, it's a library. people come here to study.
her: *gives me evil glare*
me: *walks away*
her *continues to sing anyway*

wow. i'm so tired of people living out their lives as if they are in some reality tv show. i really tried  not to be rude. also, tired of people acting like they should be able to do whatever they want whenever they want wherever they want with no criticism whatsoever.

GET OVER YOURSELVES undergrads!

how much do i love it when i bring up race/class issues in my classes at school and the professors either completely ignore me and/or nod and move on, or someone in the class argues with me and keeps on pushing the same idea that "the children' or "kids" are all a monolithic group with no regard for the socioeconomics of children included in studies about reading and critical thinking skills. and the fact that some children don't have these support systems that they are talking about: the parents who go to the school to argue on their children's behalf, the teachers who give the kids the benefit of the doubt and pass them, etc.

or the professor points out the oh, he came from somewhere where kids walked miles in tshirst in the freezing cold, and oh he's seen poverty and blahblahblah. that's all well and good, but why can't we talk more about these issues and how they effect educational circumstances and outcomes.

yet still, no one is acknowledging that we are talking about socially privileged, race privileged groups of children. even though i came right out in class and said this. they all just looked dumbly on as if i was  making it all up.

this morning, i got up very early and got to the library as it opened. i need to finish my reference assignment and i've got a bit more to do. i planned on spending the whole day here (which i have to this point). HOWEVER.

since we are in a class, i saw some of my colleagues, one of which kept asking me questions. it was pretty clear to me that she wanted me to tell her my answers or strategies. this makes me angry, but i didn't wan to be a total bitch to her either because well, i would have to live with the consequences of that. mostly it was nod and smile kind of things, but i did encourage her when i felt she was moving in the right direction. but she seriously wanted to me to tell her WHAT TO DO. exactly. to the letter. and she didn't ask me once or twice about things, she was at my carrel back and forth for hours. i was continually interrupted by her questions and have gotten less done than i'd like to.

i'm not sure what her concentration is (school library media, archives, public, etc.), but this class is just the required reference class. this isn't even the totally kicking your ass reference class yet. i think that to be a good librarian, you have to know how to find things, even obscure things. no matter how hard or tiring the search may be (within reason). this is what patrons will demand. you are the librarian and that's why they are asking you to help them find things: because they can't/won't. cheating in your reference class is not going to make you a very good librarian. and it just feels better when you find things for yourself.

so yeah, now that she/they have left, i have the ref section to myself and more reference problems to solve. just had to vent.

ETA: and then she didn't reshelve ANY of the ten+ reference sources she used nor put them on the reshelf locations. i put them up because i know what it's like to work for this class and not find something on the shelves due to the laziness of classmates. or the malice.

i forgot and left one of my odwalla drinks in the department fridge for a couple days. when i came back tonight, it was still there. so i guess i can trust my classmates not to steal food from me. :)

two incidents within five minutes of each other that just make me wonder about librarians and that progressive reputation they have:

<B>incident 1:</B>

i TA for a public libraries class where tonight there was a guest speaker from a library system named, i kid you not: uncle remus' library system. so i'm looking at the slide thinking, this is not good. but guess what, this is library school where almost everyone is white. i sit and wonder if i'm the only person who thinks this is problematic. i  mean, it's a whole system of libraries with this name.

another student wanders into the room where i do my TA auditing from and looks at the PP slide on the screen and he's like...??!! and i'm all, yeah i know, not so cool. we get to talking about how there used to be some chain of restaurants right up to the seventies called "sambos." this shocks me to no end though at this point, i don't know why it should other than the fact that i was not brought up to think that things like this are ok. i show the guy a picture on my flickr account (which i will not link here thereby positively identifying myself) of something i cut out from an encyclopedia that i dumpstered. it was from the 1950s though i don't recall the exact year. three happy smiling african americans are depicted (illustration) in a cotton field with cotton sacks dragging behind them. they just look so damn happy to be there. he's like, wow. then i put it in context and tell him about how the preceding illustrations (entry was about farms and farming) were of a couple of white children do idyllic "farm things" like taking a hayride or eating apples (from the trees where others picked them) or carving pumpkins of entering baking contests. and then, the picture of the stereotypical "happy negro."

but back to the public library class. during the q&a session, the sole african american woman in the class asks the director (white male) if anyone has ever raised issue with the name of the library system before or found it offensive. the guy says (no, not jokingly or ironically), WHY WOULD THIS BE A PROBLEM?. my mouth dropped a mile to the floor. i lol-ed because i couldn't believe his earnest tone. he really did not see anything wrong with the library system name.

not too cowed, the student responded that some people might not like the way that it depicts african americans and reminds the director that the stories of uncle remus are not so flattering or even handed as disney would want us to believe. the speaker, a little flustered tried to explain away that the author's birthplace was located somewhere near there, no one had ever to his knowledge come forward with a problem, it would have to be voted on in the state senate, and that someone would have to raise the issue with the library board (he noted that he would not do such a thing, personally), etc. the student was "polite" (read: not too uppity) and didn't push the issue. i told her through im that i was also disturbed by the whole thing. she said it made her sad because even though everyone's celebrating all this recent "change" (i.e. obama) that it still seems like people have learned nothing.

<B>incident 2:</B>

i was going on break and walking by another classroom that was in session. i hear the professor say, "we once had a woman working for us... " and i stopped to listen because i thought that she was going to talk about the phd student who had been at the program years ago and had xacto-ed out plates from rare books and sold them on ebay. once discovered, she was expelled and even prosecuted and went to jail.

but no, this was not the story she was telling. she continued to tell a story about a woman who worked in a library where she had worked and who had worn inappropriate clothing (too tight, too low cut) to work. the management had told this woman time and again that she needed to put a tshirt over her clothes, that her clothes were not appropriate allowed or practical for the work environment, etc. but the woman continued to wear the clothing to work at the library.

one day the woman came in huffing and puffing and the professor had asked her what was wrong. the woman responded that she had been wolf-whistled by a patron and was angry. the professor had responded to the woman by telling her she had no right to get mad because of what she was wearing, it attracted attention and if she didn't want that attention that she should change the way she dressed.

i don't know the rest of what she said because i just walked away, head hung.

---
i think about this stuff all the time because this stuff happens all the time.

have people seen this <a href="http://www.kgb.com/help">kgb</a> thing? thoughts?

apparently i am too much of a weirdo (or too open with my opinions) for some people in my program. i was standing around waiting for someone the other night in the hallway at school and heard these two people talking about me.

they don't even know me.

i try to be friendly to everyone in my program and helpful and respectful of their (sometimes ridiculous) opinions. is it too much to ask that my GRADUATE PROGRAM is not like middle school?

grad school first semester: straight A's!!!!!

go me! even in my research methods class which was hell!

just had my first instance of writing an ibid citation.

*so proud*

i've been sitting in front of the computer for pretty much 6 hours today and sat here for about 8 yesterday. you think i'm exaggerating, i wish i were exaggerating. i just took a break to do housework, and the cat is restless because mommy has been working, nose in books/papers, all day. it gets tiring for him to sit on top of my monitor and stare longingly at me i guess.

and the paper. well it's supposed to be minimum of 12 and i'm up to 9. but i wrote a lot today and actually outlined the whole thing before i started writing, which i don't usually do. i usually just cut and paste the parts that i wrote first into the important and relevant parts of the paper.

i have also been cheating on my paper (possibly?) we're supposed to have a minimum of 12 sources as well. i have those sources covered but i'm labeling my bibliography "works CONSUTLED" instead of works cited or bibliography. because i don't directly quote/cite all of them, but i did use them for background information. that's ok, right?