Who knew work could function as a break?

Well here I am again. It's Thursday evening and I'm 22 minutes into my 5 hour shift working in the Collaboratory. For those of you who don't know what that is (probably all of you), it's a computer lab in the Undergraduate Library at UNC. (((Oh my god - the fact that UNC has a library dedicated to undergrads has to astonish you as much as it did me. But it makes sense once you get here and realize there are what, like 15 or so libraries on campus!))) So anyway, the Collaboratory is just a tiny little computer lab for image editing and web design. There are 10 computers (2 of which are Macs) that are all equipped with scanners and the most up-to-date image and web applications. It's a pretty cool place. And every time I come in here, I want to redesign my blog. Maybe one day I'll figure out how to make my own Blogger template. The ones I find searching Google just aren't cutting it for me.

It's actually kind of sad though - I've been so busy lately that these 5 hour shifts are like my BREAKS! I am always on the go, that it's nice to be able to sit down at zone out on the internet for 5 hours. Well, minus helping people when they come in and tallying how many people are in here every hour. So I guess I'm actually pretty busy for a good portion of the time. But it's nice to zone out for the rest of it. I always plan on starting the book I have to read for my popular materials class, and then I never do.

Oh yeah, side note! I am taking Seminar in Popular Materials this semester, which is awesome because all I have to do for that class is read a novel a week, then go to an evening class once a week and talk about the book. The course is broken up into genres that we discuss for 2 classes. So one week, we have to read a book determined by our teacher and then the next we read one of our choice. The first genre is fantasy: I read A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin last week and this week I am reading The Frogs of War by Andrew Harman. Other genres we will be reading are science fiction, graphic novels, western, crime, romance, and Oprah's Book Club (THAT's a genre???). Anyway, I love Oprah books! Many of the best books I've ever read have that sticker on the cover. Don't judge... I think my favorite part about that class is when I get to go to the Chapel Hill Public Library and just browse the stacks for the next book I'll read. Last night, I went to find one fantasy book and came away with 3 books: the sequel to called A Wizard of Earthsea (called The Tombs of Atuan), the fantasy novel of my choice (The Frogs of War - what a weird book!!!), and a science fiction book I want to read in 2 weeks (Humpty Dumpty: An Oval by Damon Knight. I had to literally drag myself away from the stacks just so I didn't keep pulling books of the shelf. I only have 2 eyes and they can only read so much in so little time. In addition to reading a novel a week, I have to read hundreds of pages of PDFs for my 3 other classes. And I REALLY need to remember to do that cataloging assignment! CRAP!

Oh the places the mind takes you. I had completely forgotten about that assignment for the millionth time. Crap.

I don't know if anyone ever reads this anymore, since I got so bad about posting last semester. Katie, I see you still do occasionally! Maybe I'll be better about it this semester, especially since I have this awesome 5 hour shift to take a break from everything. It's refreshing to sit down and just write whatever comes to mind...