Four Concerts & New Classes

Back in Philadelphia, which is quickly vaulting itself into Spring (with some crazy thunderstorms – hail!), and classes have started once more. This quarter looks promising – I was unsure at first whether or not Cataloging would be for me, but the kind of cataloging I do is so different from normal cataloging that I think the overlap will be minimal.

I’m in a web design class, called “Internet Information Resource Design” (why that instead of “web design,” I’ve no idea), which is fairly fun so far, although we haven’t done much except for create blogs for class.

However, I’m most excited about my Content Representation class. This is really the first class that has felt like graduate school. My readings for the first two weeks fill a binder completely (memo to self: buy much larger binder), and are really quite interesting – a lot of broadening of definitions of things like “information” (ie, a train can be a document), learning about metadata, reading about Dublin Core, and so on.

I’m excited to learn how to catalog and classify things like images, or music. We also have to create a thesaurus (not a Roget-esque thesaurus – for an explanation of the kind of thesaurus I’m talking about, click here), and that’s where I’m currently running problems – no idea what I would want to create a controlled vocabulary for. Regardless, this class will keep me on my toes, but I think I will get quite a bit out of it.

I’ve been managing to see at least a concert a week, even while in San Francisco. (See explanations of the concerts below the cut)

In Which I Eat Pastries & Drink Tea

Currently in San Francisco, making everyone jealous. Managed to sleep a good 11 hours last night – I woke up at 3 am yesterday to catch a 6 am flight here, and woke up at 7. Walked down to the Thorough Bread & Pastry bakery, which has really, really, quality pastries. Not overly yuppified, just normal muffins that are absolutely delicious. I got a sticky bun to eat there, with some tea (see pictures below).

So far have just enjoyed walking about in the 65°F and sunny weather, wearing tshirts and sandals, and occasionally snuggling cats. Oh, and drinking a lot of tea (click pictures for larger versions):

With snow!

So green

Skyline!

From Thorough Bread & Pastry

Nice atmosphere

Cranberry muffin from Thorough, a cara cara, and tea

where the teatime is occurring

Dvorák and Friends

This afternoon I attended my second concert using the EzSeatU program (see previous post). Due to the lack of people at the last concert, I did not hurry to get to the concert far ahead of time. And so I was surprised to see at least 40 students waiting to be seated with the program. However, I ended up with a really wonderful Orchestra-level seat (more towards the back, but in the middle) despite the crowd. I later realized that maybe people just like Dvorák much more than Berg and Mahler (though no clue why, as there was no giant hammer at all in the program).

The program was:

• Milhaud – The Creation of the World
• Walker – Lilacs, for voice and orchestra
• Mahler – Songs of a Wayfarer
• Dvorák – Symphony No. 9 (”From the New World”)

Walker himself attended, and sat in the row ahead of me. I had never heard Milhaud, and really enjoyed this piece – a small ensemble, but really jazzy at times.

I reserved my tickets for the April performances, so in the next couple of months I’ll be seeing:

• Gil Shaham Performs on March 29th, (Debussy Printemps, Khachaturin’s Violin Concerto, and Dvorák’s Symphony no. 8)
• Prévin Plays and Conducts on April 3rd, (Mozart’s Piano Concerto no. 24 and Strauss’ Symphonia Domestica)
• Masur Conducts on April 18th, (Brahms Symphony No. 2, Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, Strauss Till Eulenspiegel’s Merry Pranks)
• Access: Gotcha! on April 21st, (Strauss’s Merry Pranks again, but this time with a different performer and a lecture by a Temple professor)
• Denève Conducts on April 24th, (Connesson Une Lueur dans l’age sombre, Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 3, and Mendelssohn Symphony No. 5 “Reformation”)
• The Damnation of Faust on April 29th, (Berlioz, with Thomas Quasthoff, Magdalena Kozená, Giuseppe Sabbatini, and Eric Owens as soloists)

Feeling really cultured!

Philadelphia Orchestra

Yesterday was my first concert using the Philadelphia Orchestra’s new EzSeatU program. Basically how it goes is that I pay $25 up-front, and then get into (nearly) every concert for free for one year. The only drawback is that you don’t get to choose where you are seated. 5 minutes before the performance starts, the ushers take the poor university students in and fill empty seats in the orchestra level.

So at 2 P.M. yesterday, I ended up with an amazing seat for the “Jurowski Conducts Mahler” concert, which was pretty amazing. First Berg’s “Three Pieces for Orchestra,” and then Mahler’s “Das klagende Lied.” I mostly went for the Mahler (and because the concert was cheap-as-free), but surprisingly liked the Berg. Maybe because there was a GIANT HAMMER smashing in one drum. Or the 100+ member orchestra.

Speaking of large orchestras, did not realize how insane Mahler was until I counted up the 130+ choral members, 100+ orchestra, oh and secondary orchestra playing OUTSIDE the concert hall. To supplement this one. Fantastic.

Next week is Dvorak’s New World Symphony!

ALA Convention

With one more day to register for the early bird special ($95 for the full convention), I’m wondering if I really ought to go to the big ALA convention in Chicago this summer. I do get a discount (a normal person, reserving in advance but not before 3/6, would pay $215), but it’s still a bit expensive for a grad student. I was hoping I could volunteer, but I can’t seem to find any options for that.

Is this conference worth the effort? Will it be what the ALA promises? Or is this one of those things you only go to if your employer tells you to?

New Classes

All finished with midterms, I just signed up for next quarter’s classes. Drexel does 10 (or 11 sometimes) week quarters, and this one ends March 30th. When I entered Drexel, I’d planned on studying primarily Academic Libraries, with thoughts of going into reference work.

After dealing with the tanking economy and having taken a few classes, I started panicking slightly and contacted a few different librarians, and graduating Drexel students, to ask them what was most useful to them in library school. The answer? Not those academic library classes, but the more technical ones.

A lot of the academic library classes seem to be highly theoretical, which I’ve heard rarely matches up with what one encounters on the job. I’ve switched gears from academics to now wanting an actual skillset to use in the profession. I might still take the Academic Library Service class, but for now, want to actually learn what metadata ACTUALLY is and how these things work in a more digital world.

So, after contacting my incredibly helpful (and patient) adviser, I’m going on a new track, and focusing much more on archiving, preservation, databases, digital libraries, and so on. I can’t learn these things on my own, and I think I have a better chance of potentially using them to be innovative. As such, here’s my new and improved course schedule for next quarter, with links to course descriptions:

• Content Representation - I get to make a thesaurus! This is supposed to be a highly challenging class, and is the one replacing Academic Library Service
• Cataloging & Classification I - Not required anymore, some people frown upon this and say cataloging is outdated, but I don’t necessarily think so. We’re not at a point yet where we can not classify things.
• Internet Information Resource Design - Required for a few things, looks very useful regardless.

Winter Break

The new quarter has begun (actually, we’re three weeks in), and with it, some more challenging courses for me. I’m taking a Statistics class, an Information Systems class, and a third class that focuses on rare books & manuscripts, so my time has so far been limited. However, I do have pictures and things to write about, I just need to get to them!

Snowstorm in N.E.

The flash turned the snow into a terrifying snowattack!

All lit up and snowy.

Is this a word? It ought to be.

The big snowstorm has hit, and already in some areas of the yard we have 10 inches of wet, snowball snow. We lost power for a good three hours, during which time my mother and I had to resort to playing Scrabble (I won, 317 to 184), and she viciously berated me for being a terrible daughter for playing words like “dog” that would then get something like 36 points.

Back on the Cape

Yesterday I took the train from Philly to Cape Cod – the rain kind of destroyed any hope of nice scenery, but I got a couple of pictures of NYC through the mist, and also one of the feet of the little girl in the seat ahead of me.

The rain we had yesterday turned to ice in northern Massachusetts and NH and Maine, but here it thankfully stayed just rain, but very nearly caused the local river and dam to flood. Click on the pictures to enlarge and enter GALLERYVIEW!

Little girl on Amtrak stretching out in the seat ahead of me

Mist and rain in Manhattan, from Queens

Baby animal cuddling time at the nursing home!

At the nearby pond, the water just doesn’t know what to do with itsself.

The pond turned half pink, half blue.

The foam on the water near the dam turned pink with the sun.

The sunset intensified over a field.

Christmas in Philadelphia

Well, not really Christmas. Yesterday the roommate and I went to Rittenhouse Square to see the tree-lighting. The promise of booths and fun was sort of ruined by the rain – there ended up being about two booths, 50-odd people, and a somewhat disappointing tree, although there were some good times had thanks to free felt, jingly elf hats and 3D glasses. Past the break includes some kitten videos, and holiday pictures.