It's True!

Hi! I had to post a very quick blog entry since I just saw the coolest thing. I am sitting in an internet cafe in Edinburgh Scotland... posting homework and working on my webpage (fyi - this is extremely difficult in an internet cafe). I just looked over and saw a young guy paging through a comic book using Google Scholar. It is too cool! I realized he was not a native English speaker and he was using the comic book to learn English or at least improve his English. It was really cool to watch him sound out the words and see him using the page through technique. The images and digital quality was excellent and it totally made sense to see this in action. Big kudos to google!

It was a big librarian moment for me, even if I did have to keep it to myself.

Too cool for school!

See Ya Later Alligator!

It's a big goodbye as we fly off into the friendly skies this evening! We've really enjoyed our time trying to live on the cheap, cheap in DC. Today was the highlight of the trip as far as I'm concerned with our tour of the NPR studios on the edge of Chinatown. It's nice to hear the reinforcement again that they are not for profit and they do not stand for influence from politicians or anyone else. Yeah! My husband even recorded a sound bite to hopefully be used at a later date. We explained how we live out of the country and we use NPR for their music and video clips in the classroom to teach students about American culture and other great things. They were excited to hear we were expats and asked us to record another clip about living abroad. We'll see if John's voice was authoritative enough for real radio.... we can only hope.

See you in a few days in Edinburgh.

Let the Good Times Roll

I wanted to post a note to express my thanks to the staff and my fellow members of cohort 7. The time that we spent getting to know each other and the time taken to review concepts and connect the dots, was invaluable. I was a little hesitant before arriving but I was assured as soon as I met everyone and realized we were all here for the same reason. For that reason, I think the bond we formed is true and I'm glad to be a part of it. I'm definitely looking forward to the next few weeks in class.

We are also sadly leaving Pittsburgh tomorrow morning (at 5:30am ugh!) for the muggy heat of DC. We'll see the sights and make some memories and then hit the skies for some international seat time.

Stay tuned for an update on those adventures!

Get to Know Turkey

Here's a good general summary of some of the common mis-perceptions of Turkey.
http://www.turkeycentral.com/country_of_turkey.html

Do I have boogers in my nose?

Just checking. Now that I am on site for the residency portion of the UPitt MLIS program I hope everyone else is enjoying the opportunity to meet their peers as much as I am. It's always so important to put faces to names and really get to know the people that I am going to rely on heavily for the next 2 years. Good thing they all seem fun and friendly!

During the lecture today, we were talking about technology and the resistance to change that some library professionals seem to exhibit. As we discussed, perhaps the best approach to warm objectors is to present examples and real life situations where they might use technology and sophisticated tools and that would help with the comfort level. I can understand the resistance but I think the lure to be "innovative" and "cutting edge" is more alluring to me than remaining static and unchanging. Go figure, my past life revolved around redesigning processes and tools that employees used to make their experience better and offer as many things through a self-service model as possible.

Here are a few humorous examples of general everyday people using technology in interesting ways.
1. As we were leaving Turkey on a bus to reach the town where we would fly from, we witnessed a wonderful, inventive phenomena. People that want to send packages or boxes locally to towns that are close by will often stop a dolmus (small bus) and just give them their package and a small fee and the recipient will pickup the package from the bus station at the other end (or from the side of the road as the bus travels through). My husband and I watched an enterprising young man hand off his package, pay his fee, and then whip out his cell phone and take a digital photograph of the license plate of the dolmus to presumably send to the recipient so they could identify the bus (and more likely to have proof in case of foul play). Ingenious!

2. At the end of this trip, we stayed for one night in a hotel and left very early the next morning to catch our flight back to the US. Upon arrival to San Francisco, I realized I had left my precious school notebook with the passwords and user account names for all of the tools we've used in LIS2600. Major trauma! I send an email asking the owner of the hotel to please type the information in an email and send it to me. I begged and pleaded and explained the importance and how I would absolutely DIE without this information. A few hours later I received an email and opened it to find a .jpg attachment. My wonderfully helpful host had taken a picture of the page I needed and then mailed my folder on to our new home. Again, what a clever and insightful way to use technology to save time and reproduce images.

Bravo to my creative Turkish friends!

Koha Catalogue Books

Here is a list of books, catalogued in the open access OPAC system , Koha. The theme of the list is women in history. Enjoy!

1. Animal Dreams
2. 1000 Years, 1000 People
3. 10 Women of Mystery
4. 100 Greatest American Women
5. 100 Most Important Bible Verses for Women
6. Secrets for Women in Their Prime
7. Civil War Women
8. Girls' Guide to Building a Million Dollar Business
9. Welfare and Charity in the Antebellum South
10. Hell Hath no Fury
11. 200 Australian Women
12. 21 Under 40
13. 21st Century Sister
14. 25 Notable Las Vegas Women
15. 25 Years of Emancipation

Seeing Red!!!

Life is not good. I had completed my Koha assignment some weeks ago but needed to create my own bookshelf and post in order to complete. So, I completely forgot about this task until tonight at about 10:00pm so I hurried onto Koha to finish. After one hour of frustrated searching for a way to generate a report that would list only the books I had catalogued previously, I put myself on a 30 second timeout and then proceeded to re-enter 10 books from the LOC. Just as I was swingin' and entering book #11 I received the dreaded 500 system error, "The system hates you and wants a divorce... please try again later". Ugghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, here I am. It's 11:33pm and I'm exhausted and I can't finish the assignment and I have once again tried so hard and simply feel as if my effort is not worth anything because I'm just struggling through. This is rather ridiculous and I'm defeated.

Sleep tight!

I've arrived!

As you can see it's been ages since my last blog posting so let's see if I can play catch-up from my last session.

Saying goodbye to friends is never easy but we are staying in Turkey and we will see everyone again. I keep repeating this over and over to make myself feel better...

Drumroll please... the grand total of STUFF (and I do mean stuff with a capital S) shipped to Izmir was 428.2 kilos. Holy cow are we packrats! No wonder it took so long to pack and give away the accumulated contents of our apartment. The good news is it all arrived and is patiently waiting for our return in August.

So, you can see why a vacation was in order. John and I traveled with a group of fellow teachers from Uskudar to Fethiye for a famous blue cruise through the Med. We were able to see lots of famous beaches, lots of ugly speedo bathing suits and even a few sea turtles. The cruise was wonderful and I would highly recommend it for anyone. The boat was an average sized sailboat with 10 cabins and lots of deck space to lounge, hang out and chat. The only drawbacks for me were the undercurrent of stress for taking time off of school and not studying as much as I should have been and a run-in with a nasty family that couldn't lighten up and respect the other guests on the boat. It's always unfortunate when you meet people that show ugly behavior and give Americans a bad name. Anywhoo... I did study everyday while we cruised but really who can complain when studying is done laying in your swimsuit 10 feet from the Med.

After relaxing on the cruise we embarked on our 17 hour travel adventure extravaganza from Olimpos to Antalya, Antalya to Istanbul, Istanbul to London, and London to San Francisco. The beginning of the trip seemed deceptively quiet and uneventful but little did I know that the notebook I use for schoolwork was left in our hotel room in Antalya (since I spent the evening reading and working) and therefore it will take a break and relax in Izmir while we travel the world. The was a minor incident in London as we were evacuated from our boarding gate due to a bomb scare at the airport. The staff were very courteous and helpful but not fantastic in the communication department. After we returned to the gate we were informed that our flight was delayed further since the air conditioning system on the place was not working. After many hours of waiting for our departure and sitting on the runway (in the sweltering plane) we finally took off for SF. My husband and I were sitting in different rows, which is not okay, as I require entertainment and a human pillow for any flight over 3 hours (so the 11 hour flight definitely qualified). Luckily, two friendly comrads on the flight agreed to switch seats so in the end our groups were all able to sit close together. Good for John since he beat me twice at cribbage. I also highly recommend the movie, Amazing Grace. It's about the end of slavery in England and was truly inspiring and again reminded me of why it is important for each person to understand their purpose and how they can do what is right in their communities.

Well, back to reality of life as a student and responsibilities. I am loving seeing my family and friends and I know 10 days is not enough time but I will do my best to thwart my vicious jetlag and make the most of this time.

Keep your fingers crossed for John as he traverses the US in a car with 3 smelly boys on a roadtrip, living the good life without their wives :)

Peace Out!