Our kiddo is in a phase of development where she has a decent vocabulary but context is still missing. For example, "tomorrow" is basically any time in the future and "yesterday" is any time in the past. When she says she "slept" during nap time, it means she laid down and stopped playing - it doesn't mean she actually slept. The most complicated issue, at least in terms of parenting is pronoun usage. She gets "I" and "You." She's sorta got the idea of "we." But, when it comes to the third person, everyone is "he." I know that this is mostly because she finds the "sh" sound a bit hard. But, I also want to be cognizant of teaching her basic usage while also retaining inclusiveness. Our kiddo is not yet 5. She's not at the stage where she can fully comprehend ze/zir, xe/xem, ve/ver, or the other pronouns. I've taken to saying, "He for boys, she for girls, they for everyone." I know this falls woefully short of the complexities of pronoun usage, but it's the best I've come up with. If you have tips for teaching pronouns to a youngster, let me know!
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I don't always get along with my University's Office of Information Technology (OIT). What they do is incredibly important but they are understaffed in "doers" and overstaffed in management. (There is literally one manager for every tech. There are only three techs. It's bonkers.) That means a lot of things go wrong and fixes aren't happening. Like many organizations, our University deals with a lot of spam email and phishing attempts. OIT has tried various ways to help mitigate this issue. The first attempt was sending an email for every externally sent message that said "The next email is from an external source. Proceed with caution." Not only did it double the amount of email we got, but it didn't catch any of the phishing that came from compromised internal emails. That "fix" lasted all of the day. Next, they started marking all externally sent emails with [EXTERNAL]. This is annoying and makes it hard to read subject lines, but I can ignore it. Then, since many spam/phishs were still getting through, they instituted a quarantine system. This means that any email a Microsoft AI deems as suspicious gets shunted to a folder off our email system that we have to review later. I've found speaking proposal acceptances and other REALLY important material gets caught. (I can guarantee you our University is losing grant opportunities because of this.) We get one notification a day if there is material for us to review. It's a pain and not intuitive at all about how to mark something as safe. AND we're still getting all the internal spam and phishing attempts so it's not actually fixing anything. As the outreach librarian, this means everything I send out through our email vendor is ending up in quarantine. (Not to mention our automatic account notifications AND our University's advising system emails are getting caught.) My open rate has plummeted to less than 3%. I asked for our vendor to be added to the safe list but was told that the "fix" would be for individual people to add us to their safe senders list... BUT THEY DON'T KNOW THESE EMAILS ARE COMING IN THE FIRST PLACE. I asked several times for these materials to be added to the safe senders list. Then, this week, I was sending out emails to every individual faculty member. This is the biggest ROI outreach I do. It's a lot of work, but I get a noticeable increase faculty communication and requests for library services out of it. I do this each semester. I use a form message but the attachments and number of recipients varies with each email. In past semesters, I've completed this without issue. This week, my email address was marked as spam. About halfway through I started getting bounce-backs saying my account was locked. That meant I could not send out ANY email at all. ARRRRGH! I put in a ticket with OIT and our director escalated the issue. Luckily, I was back to work in a few hours. AND since I explained (yet again) what I do for my job they finally added my work email AND our vendor platform as safe senders for bulk messages. Fingers crossed this fight with OIT is finally over. What's aggravated you at work lately?
In the past nine days, we've had two days of childcare. As much as I love getting to go sledding with my kid, I am very tired. Snow days don't mean what they used it. I love having a hybrid schedule and the ability to WFH, but that just means I'm working two full-time jobs when our daycare is closed. In the past, when an office closed it CLOSED. Sure you might answer an email here and there but that was it. These days, it's business as usual just from a new location. Some technological advances come back to bite us. Why can't we all just enjoy a random day off from time to time? Does it really hurt the bottom line of capitalism that much?
I had to edit a lot of writing this week. First, my article for Computers and Libraries Magazine was due Wednesday. I drafted the piece before the holidays and let it sit while I enjoyed my time off. Last week and this week, I did several rounds of intense editing. It was too long and I managed to drop 1,300 words by the final draft. I also noted three additional paragraphs that could be removed if the editor requested more cuts. Luckily, he was good with the article as it was. Next, my research team and I are in the final stages for our research article. I spent two days editing to chop out material. I de-that-ed all over the place. You never realize just how unnecessary "that" is until you have to edit something line by line. We're reviewing my edits as a team to ensure we're all on the same page. So far, we're mostly in agreement. I love clicking "accept changes"! Finally, I wrote a book chapter for an upcoming ALA Editions title. I've been working on this piece, off and on, for over a year. Thursday night, they sent me the "last chance" edit. Essentially, what they sent is what is being printed but I had one last change to tweak. My review showed only a few minor revisions. Oddly, despite having a blog, two newsletters, and writing a lot for work, writing is not one of my favorite activities. Editing, on the other hand, I adore. I love turning on track changes and being ruthless with something. If I'm writing a solo piece, I will print it out and attack it with a red pen. Editing speaks to my need to make things simpler. Plus, I'm not a great writer. Editing is one way I hope to improve. (Although I will never be someone who gets commas. They are my nemesis.) What do you like better: writing or editing?
Happy "Circling Back" season to those who celebrate. Before the holidays, I punted so many things into the new year. Now that we're back, my to do list is all over the place. Classes for our University start tomorrow, I've got an article due Wednesday, there's another (longer) article I need to line edit, I'm still digging out of my email avalanche, there are about 10 meetings in my week, and there's a dentist appointment in there somewhere. I only have myself to blame. I deliberately chose to push a lot of these things off and now I have to get to them. Past me was not kind to present me. But, at least I'm not alone. We all seem to do this. The amount of emails I'm getting that start with an apology is almost hilarious. No one wants to be adding to someone else's plate. At least we're trying to be kind through the chaos. How's your new year going so far?
It's Christmas Eve and we're hosting. This will be a short one. If you celebrate, have a very Merry Christmas. If you don't, have a great week!
Tomorrow is my final work day of the year. I'm making it a no major projects day. Aside from the two meetings on my calendar, it's strictly an admin day. My plan is to finish the following:
I plan on doing all of this while listening to my backlog of webinars. I want to end the year with a crossed off to do list, empty inbox, and organized plan for the new year. How do you end your work year?
This week, I went to grab a pen from the cup on our reference desk. It felt sticky. I looked down at my fingers and noticed blue streaks. One glance into the cup showed me a pen had exploded. There was blue ink everywhere. I wish the clean up was as simple as dumping the pens and washing my hands, but it was not. We kept our (only) key to some book cabinets in this cup. The drying ink had adhered it to the bottom and someone had to rescue it. I tossed the other contents of the cup and doused the bottom in hand sanitizer. (Alcohol is a great ink solvent.) This helped me loosen and, eventually, free the key. In the process, my hands became so stained I looked like I was applying to be a member of the Blue Man Group. It took several rounds of hand sanitizer and hand washing to lessen the staining. Luckily, the few flecks of ink that splashed on my sweater came out with even more hand sanitizer. And I thought it was going to be a slow day on the desk.
I love our neighborhood. We walk almost everywhere and the metro is just down the street for longer trips. The National Zoo is our neighbor. For the majority of the year, this is fine. Yeah there are tourists, but we can take side streets to avoid the worst of the crowds. But, a few times a year, the zoo hosts nighttime events and the streets turn feral. Right now, it's ZooLights season. The display is great and draws tons of people. This is good for the zoo and local businesses. I 100% support it. The downside is the traffic. The zoo charges a steep parking fee. People don't want to pay so they park in our neighborhood. During the day, we are zoned for a 2-hour limit unless you have a residental permit. That stops at 6pm. So, we (*cough mostlymyhusband cough*) are left circling and circling for spots if we don't luck in to one of our building's few lot spots. It's rather annoying. Now, if parking was the only problem, I would tolerate the inconvenience and move on with my life. But, it's not. Parking is so difficult that people park illegally all over the place. They park in front of hydrants, the park overlapping driveways and crosswalks, they park in our private spots, and they park in no-parking zones meant for busses and loading. It's like the rules no longer apply. If there is a space, a driver will cram a car in - no matter how poorly. On top of this, drivers are frustrated which makes them more aggressive. More people drive through red lights, unexpectedly change lanes or make turns, and slam on the gas when they break free from traffic or see an open spot. It's scary when you're in a nearby car. It's terrifying when you're walking with your preschooler. This year, we're going to try to pick up our kid by metro as much as we can simply to avoid the chaos. It's less convenient, requires one of us to leave work early, and takes longer - but at least we stay off the roads.
I was out of town with my family and yesterday was a travel day. This is going to be a short issue. Have a great Sunday!
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