Meghan Kowalski
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  • Resume
  • Presentations & Publications
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  • Blog
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The Weekly Wrap: August 7, 2022

8/7/2022

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One of the last tasks I complete before leaving on vacation is setting my Out of Office message. In the past, I always worried about missing something.

Setting my out of office time was easy; everything else gave me anxiety. Did I give a reason why? Did I set expectations for how often I would check my email? Would I let people know what types of messages would get responses? How many places should I redirect people?

My second guessing of these questions always depended on the duration of my leave and the point of the semester we were in. I wanted to be helpful but I also wanted a real break.

Then I went on maternity leave. I had zero qualms about staying offline then. My automatic reply essentially said: I will be gone these dates on maternity leave. Contact this main email or schedule an appointment with another librarian here.

That was it. 

It's a recipe that still works. Now, I just say what dates I will be away, give an alternative email, and link to our appointment scheduler. I don't say why I'm gone. I don't say I'm going to check email. If I do check (and reply) to email, it's a bonus.

I've been using this system for three years now and it's never been an issue. People don't complain. Nothing gets missed. More importantly, I don't feel the need to justify why I am on leave or working while I'm away.


All of this is a nice introduction to say that I will be out of office next week. There will be no posts on the blog. I will resume my regular posting schedule on Monday, August 15, 2022. 

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  • Glutamates make things taste better. [Atoms vs Bits - reader submission]
  • MLB's baseball mud comes from one man. [NYT - may be paywalled]
  • Academics are finally refusing to work for free. Good! [Slate]
  • How to dejunkify your Instagram. [NPR]
  • The people who keep the cloud running. [Aeon]
  • This highlights why our kiddo is in swim lessons right now. [Popular Science]
  • Adding this culinary adventure to my list of things to do. [Atlas Obscura]
  • If you need to make a decision, use pen and paper. [HBR - may be paywalled]
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  • Spicy Food: For flavor or the kicks? [Short Wave]
  • How to be less online. [Life Kit]
  • But does the wild horse fire brigade get to wear cute helmets? [Short Wave]
  • I need to use my olive oil faster. [Gastropod]
  • There's a reason the monkeypox vaccine has been so hard to get. [Science Vs]
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  • I haven't watched a Men in Black movie in, perhaps, a decade. Men in Black 3 is an amped up version of the first two films in the series. There is more tech, more CGI aliens, and more backstory of the characters. Additionally,  a masterful casting decision makes this movie work. Nothing will top the first film, but this one is pretty darn good. [Netflix]
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  • While we're staying with my in laws, we're trading off cooking duties. My mother-in-law made a delicious version of our gnocchi with summer vegetables. Her version was just zucchini and, I think, had a little more lemon. I added several cranks of freshly ground pepper which gave it a nice zest. [Martha Stewart]
  • On our second night here, my in laws made duck. It was a quick cook from CostCo. The packages came with half a roasted duck and an orange sauce. They were a fast cook paired with rice pilaf and roasted carrots. So good! [Maple Leaf Farms]
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Just Good Things #48

8/5/2022

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I'm on my last day of work before vacation. What's different is that I spent the whole week working from my in laws. Instead of having to race home to pack and prep things, I can just log off and declare myself done. That is very exciting.

Here's what else was good in my week:

  • Clear skies and light traffic for our long drive
  • The kiddo's tablet loaded with movies and apps making for almost zero issues in the car
  • Playing a new card game
  • Getting a little extra sleep on a work day
  • Walking barefoot on really soft carpet
  • Walking barefoot on really soft grass
  • Citrus fizzy water
  • Snacking on a delicious cocoa oatmeal bar
  • Delighting in watching my in laws quaint murder mystery shows
  • Perfectly timed toddler nap leading to easy evening professional family pictures

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The Now: August 3, 2022

8/3/2022

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I'm working from home this week. But "home" is actually my in laws place in South Carolina. They set me up with a desk in the guest room and I have more space here than I do in my actual home. It's nice. Plus, they have super soft carpet that feels great on my bare feet. 

While I'm working, our kiddo starts her mornings with swim lessons and then gets all day grandparent daycare. I'm fairly certain she will not want to leave.

Also, another slight change to the format of the post this week. I want it to reflect more of how my job is structured.

Here's what I'm working on:
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WORK
  • Research Assignment Design: I finished all my coding. (No thanks to a Dedoose breakdown that gave be a heart attack. Always back up your data!) Then I reviewed my colleagues codebooks. Tomorrow, we are meeting to collaboratively design a codebook to complete our research from. I am very excited for this process because we all did the same stuff just differently. I can honestly say that my one colleague's codebook is far superior to mine and will provide a great basis to start. Also, it is fascinating what we each read in the data.
  • Presentations and Publications: Brain dumped some ideas for my photography webinar. I also chatted about it with the husband.
  • Instruction: We kicked off the new request form! I am thrilled because our old one was clunky and difficult. I shared the form with a faculty member to test and updated all of the links on our website. Hopefully, this new process works better for everyone. I'm also doing some maintenance on our Library 101 tutorial course. I'm checking in with professors and updating announcements in the course management system.
  • Reference: We've received several chat questions about "religion in politics." That's a broad topic and difficult to provide effective reference for. It's stuff like this which informed our desire to look at how faculty design their research assignments. Also, I threw together a Roving Reference plan. Since we are in a not great temporary space, we want to go where the students are. Assuming the Director gives the all clear, we will start this sometime in early September as an added service.
  • Outreach: I drafted a blog post and am working on ways to increase our newsletter subscribers. I want to add at least 25 more this semester. It doesn't sound like much, but that would be over a 25% increase. Also, I drafted and shared a website usability testing plan with the team. We want to see if the new format is working and what we still need to improve. Finally, I made new one sheets that we can use as handouts. I directed one towards students about our new space and the other for student support staff and offices about what the library can do for students and faculty.
  • Administration: Not much movement here. I'm checking things off the list I made for myself.

PERSONAL
  • Estate Planning: Nothing. 
  • Email Newsletter: More subscribers are still rolling in and I'm bouncing. I'll be on vacation  next week, so I am going to announce that in the two issues going out this week.
  • Home Projects: We left the table still flattening while we're gone for two weeks. Turns out, our in laws have a rubber mallet. If the heavy object flattening doesn't work, we'll try popping it out with the mallet when we get back.
  • Hobbies: I set up my bullet journal for August. I forgot to bring my wider nibbed pen with me, so I will need to go back and bold some of my monthly pages.

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Tuesday Tips: Developing Keywords

8/2/2022

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Keywords are important terms, concepts, or phrases you can use to help you search for  information. If your keywords aren’t right, you’ll have trouble finding what what you need.

When developing keywords, try the following:

  • Underline Your Thesis: Look at your thesis or research statement and underline the most important words, ideas, and topics. These are your starter keywords. 
  • Find Synonyms: Don’t get tunnel vision and only focus on the keywords in your thesis. Look for synonyms to those words. You can use a website like Thesaurus.com or a print thesaurus to help you find related terms. The reason you should look for synonyms is that the keywords you use might not be the keywords an author/creator uses even though you're both looking at the same thing.
  • Expand Your Idea: Expand your topic a bit. What are the overarching ideas or topics that cover your topic? If you want to research gentrification in a local neighborhood, it’s worth looking for articles on gentrification in a specific city or gentrification trends overall. 
  • Narrow Your Idea: Find an example you can use. If you’re researching social media, pick a specific platform like Twitter.
  • Specific Examples: If you are writing about a general idea, it can be useful to include specific examples of that idea as keywords. For instance, if you're looking at Black authors, you could include Octavia E. Butler as a specific example.
  • Related Ideas: You can also look for keywords that are related to but not directly about your topic. If you’re looking up healthy eating techniques, you might want to find articles on other healthy habits like exercise or sleep. Information you need may be included in an article on another topic.

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The Weekly Wrap: July 31, 2022

7/31/2022

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This was a rush of a week.

I had a bunch of things to wrap up for work while preparing to leave town for two weeks. No matter how many lists we have to keep us on track, that last night at home and the few hours before we leave are always chaos. I love going places, but I hate the anxiety that comes with preparation and the actual travel. 

Now that we are settled, I can breathe. Yes, I will be working remotely for the next week, but the grandparents are providing daycare services and I can sneak out with my laptop to work on their screened in porch if I want. (Or even sit on there lawn. Their grass is that suspiciously soft kind that feels really nice on the toes.)

I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm going to be more productive than usual this week. First, there's no worry about daycare drop-off and pick up. Second, a new workspace always comes with productivity vibes. Third, I saved a bunch of work I know can be done in smaller bursts. Finally, the following week is vacation time and I always have the urge to clear out my task lists before logging off.

Dare I say, I am excited about this work week? I love my job and rare is the day I grumble about work. But there is something about this week that has me hopping.  I'm eager to get a bunch of things done.

Now I get why my brother is enjoying the digital nomad life so much.

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  • Google docs has some fun features. [@thatroblennon]
  • How to limit what you share on LinkedIn. [WaPo - gift link]
  • I was today year's old when I learned about heavy duty mayo. [The Takeout]
  • Much of college offered financial aid is a crock. [Slate]
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  • Why pigeons are urban residents. [Every Little Thing]
  • How do you define "household?" [The Indicator]
  • This sounds like something out of a Doctor Who episode. [Atlas Obscura]
  • I did not know that MSG is the taste of umami. [Short Wave]
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  • WOW! [@TheFigen]
  • Netflix has really been pushing The Gray Man. We gave in and watched it. This movie feels like James Bond meets Jason Bourne but with worse writing and more unbelievable action scenes. That said, it was still a lot of fun. [Netflix]
  • On the Husband's night to pick our movie, he went with Army of the Dead. He warned me ahead of time that it was zombies. I can do intense action but horror films make it hard for me to sleep. That said, I can definitely handle zombies when there is humor. These zombies start out in Vegas and there are some true laughs to be had at the start. Then things exit the humor and really get going. This film was shockingly good. It added new levels to the zombie lore and was unexpectedly complex. [Netflix]
  • Army of Thieves is a prequel to Army of the Dead. It focuses on the safecracker who is a bit of a character. This movie is a bit slower as there are almost no zombies. It fell back on heist tropes but was still a good watch. There was a great narrative arc to the story and it sets up Army of the Dead nicely. [Netflix]
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  • This week was a lot of eating down our fridge before we left. I made skillet shrimp fajitas to help us use up some tortillas and sour cream. I cheated and used a packet of fajita seasoning. Even with having to peel the shrimp, this dinner came together in about twenty minutes. Love that. [Taste & Tell]
  • We had some carrots to eat up, so I tossed together an easy honey dijon chicken sheet pan meal. The chicken took longer to come to temperature than I wanted so the surface dried out a bit. That was easily fixed by making a honey mustard dip. I used whole grain mustard for that and it was fantastic. [Tasty]
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  • I have one of those pre-printed packing lists that's great for a single person. The Husband did us one better. Before our first major trip with the kid, he made a packing list in Google Keep. He dumped everything we needed in that. Then, when the trip was over, he archived it. Now, we have a master packing list to work from instead of making a new one each time. We just update what we need and change the amounts based on how long we'll be gone. Plus, when we don't need something, we can move it down the list to a Do Not Need section instead of deleting it. That way, we don't forget the item for another trip. It's eased my anxiety about forgetting stuff. [Google Keep]
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Just Good Things #47

7/29/2022

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We are on the road to visit my in-laws. This is a split trip where one week we are working remotely and the second week we are on vacation. Our kiddo gets two solid weeks with grandparents and I know she is going to love every moment. I am looking forward to getting to work outside with my feet on their very soft grass.

Here's what else has been good lately:
  • Mass market paperback sized books. So easy to hold.
  • Citrus fizzy water
  • Kiddo decided to eat her veggies when I called them "twirly bites." 
  • Our daycare parenting text group
  • Being able to grab COVID rapid tests from DCPL
  • Making lists
  • Crossing the 500 newsletter subscriber threshold!
  • Better than expected movies
  • An empty laundry room when I need it
  • Raisin bran for breakfast

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The Now: July 27, 2022

7/27/2022

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We were supposed to be joining friends to celebrate a birthday in Asheville, NC this weekend. That was relocated to New Orleans and we're not ready to take the kiddo on a plane. Since I already had remote work approved for next week, we decided to venture to my in laws a week early. Now, we'll be at their place for two weeks. We're both going to WFH one week and then take leave the next. The grandparents are kindly providing their own version of daycare. Kiddo is going to love it!

I am in the midst of menu planning and packing list checking. Long gone are the days of packing in an hour. Now I've got to make sure we've got everything for the kiddo (and enough snacks and battery power for a 7+ hour car trip). Thank goodness the Husband had the foresight to maintain a constant packing list. Makes things a little easier.

Here's what else I've got going on:

WORK
  • Research Assignment Design: I am on my last round of individual coding. I'm also getting my code book in shape to share with the team. Then, we're going to meet and decide how we want to do our collaborative coding.
  • Presentations and Publications: I am making notes for my webinar on how to improve your photography skills. I'll just brain dump everything into a document and organize it later.
  • LibGuides: These are on pause for now. I can only do so many at one time. That said, I am promoting all of the new ones.
  • Instruction: We are in the lull before the Fall semester overload starts.
  • Administration: I made a list of things I want to tackle while I'm WFH next week. Hopefully, I can plow through some things while catching up on webinars.

PERSONAL
  • Estate Planning: Nothing. 
  • Email Newsletter: I decided to start using Substack's automated posting to Twitter. I also broke the 500 subscriber threshold today. I am very happy about that. I decided to use this as a promotional opportunity and shared the news in a few places.
  • Home Projects: I built our new sofa table. It's very nice, but one shelf arrived with a bit of a dent in it. We're trying to flatten it out with heavy books. It's not bad enough to send back to Wayfair, but we figured this was worth a shot.
  • Hobbies: I wanted to spend at least an hour of my short birthday vacation coloring, but I never did. Probably not going to get any time on this until we're back from our trip.

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Now Reading: Death by Dumpling

7/26/2022

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Death by Dumpling
Vivien Chien
 
I'm not normally a mystery reader, but I saw this on the shelf at the library years ago and the cover stuck with me. I’ve decided I’m going to read her whole Noodle Shop Mystery series. It was easy to spot who the murder victim would be, the suspects are lining up, and we've entered the whodunit pages. 

This falls under the "cozy mystery" subgenre and I'm finding it quite enjoyable so far.

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Now On My TBR

7/25/2022

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The lovely recommendations from Wowbrary strike again!
Y​ou can see my complete TBR list on Pinterest.
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The Weekly Wrap: July 24, 2022

7/24/2022

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Somehow, our daughter managed to make it through three exposures and a week of test-to-stay without testing positive for COVID. We are, understandably, relieved to have dodged the virus again. While we know this is more luck than anything else, an article I read in the Washington Post [gift link] about those who haven't gotten COVID yet got me thinking.

While constantly testing negative could be immunological mixed with luck (lots of luck), I would posit that it is because some these folks (us included) are still taking the pandemic seriously. 

Our family has no known pre-existing conditions. We are fortunate to have jobs we can do from home. We are privileged to be able to send our child to a daycare that had a more conservative response then most. This all helps a lot.

More importantly, I think it's because we don't really go anywhere or do anything. We do not dine indoors. We do not go to large outdoor gatherings. We are careful with who we see and how. Crucially, we still wear masks everywhere. I'm in a cubicle in the office. I wear a mask all day. Our daughter still wears a mask at school - even when they went mask optional. Every time we step foot inside a public place, we wear our N95 masks. 

When we know we are going to see friends indoors, we ask about symptoms, vaccinations, and the like. We ensure that others are rapid testing before they visit. We test ourselves.

Essentially, we never changed our behavior. 

I don't fault anyone who tests positive at this point. You can do everything right and the BA5 variant can still get you. We know that, eventually, we will test positive for COVID. But I think the difference is, we have not yet given the pandemic the shrug.

Our kiddo got her second dose of Moderna this week. That Garfield Band-Aid on her arm is a measure of relief and gives us a touch more flexibility. We might start doing more things, but we're still going to mask. We may be the only ones doing so, but we don't care.

At this point, it's going to feel weird when the masks finally come off for good.

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  • The beauty of the lowcountry boil. [What To Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking - may be paywalled]
  • The healing beauty and community of bread. [Wordloaf]
  • This is a good list of things. [Milan Cvitkovic]
  • More taco trucks. Less police. [@nessguerrero]
  • A dearth of Dijon in France. [David Lebovitz]
  • The ERA has been ratified. It is the 28th amendment to the constitution but it's not in effect because of ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. JUST SIGN IT AND BRING BACK ABORTION RIGHTS ALREADY! [Men Yell at Me]
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  • The dates on food are almost pointless. [Planet Money]
  • Our judicial system is so broken there’s a prison consultant industry for those who can afford it. [The Daily]
  • 18th century space studies were fascinating... and deadly. [Short Wave]
  • Love your clothing and keep them longer. [Life Kit]
  • The fishy history of ketchup. [Gastropod]
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  • Why the US is so bad at bread. [Johnny Harris]
  • I was in the mood for a lighter movie and put on Murder on the Orient Express. This is Kenneth Branagh's take on Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot. First, it was just a pretty movie to look at. In honor of the character, there was a lot of symmetry and dynamic angles. The style of the sets and costumes was lush. The mustache is its own character. I did not know the ending to this one and was surprised by how the mystery wrapped up. Finally, Josh Gad is rather underrated as a dramatic actor. [Amazon Prime]
  • We also watched Death on the Nile making this a full Poirot week. The same styling carried over from the first film which was lovely. What was not lovely was a character, who I did not want to die, was killed off. It was an utter shock! The way Branagh played that scene conveyed real emotion and it broke my heart a little. [HBO Max]
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  • I tried my hand at a new vegetarian recipe this week: chickpea gyros. It's a lot of components but they are all tasty. The meal itself is easy to make, but the construction of my sandwich was lacking. Everything fell apart on my plate. Next time, I'll either warm the flatbread or just stuff a regular pita. I ate the leftovers by just tossing everything in a bowl. [40 Aprons]
  • As a side to the chickpea gryos, I made roasted radishes. I love the peppery flavor of raw radishes, but that's not something the rest of my household enjoys. In roasting, the radishes became almost sweet. I thought the texture would be closer to roasted potatoes, but the insides were softer. I'm not sure if that was an error on my end, but it was just something unexpected. [Budget Bytes]
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