I'm fairly certain that half of the food I ate this week was bell peppers. They were an ingredient in nearly every dish. I like bell peppers; they are versatile and add fun colors to a meal. But why are we eating so many of them these days? Answer - the kiddo. Kiddo is still in that picky eating stage. All things considered, she's eating well but most vegetables are still suspect. When she decides she likes a specific vegetable, I ride that for as long as possible. Right now, she's on a big raw red pepper strips and cucumber kick. Fine by me! I will keep those around until she moves on to something else. When it comes to meal planning, I try to balance what we adults like with what the kiddo might actually eat. I don't want to have to make two entirely separate dinners every night. Right now, I try to make dishes where she will eat least half of the ingredients. Alternatively, I'll make an adult dish that has a kid friendly tweak - i.e., omitting everything but the cheese from the filling when I make quesadillas. It's working for now, but I can't wait until the kiddo's palette expands a bit more. She promises that she will eat "mommy-daddy dinner" when she turns five. I'm not holding my breathe, but you never know. Kids surprise you like that. If you're feeding kids, what works for you?
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I land firmly in the camp that language is always changing. Meaning shifts over time, new words arise, slang is fun, and rules are meant to be broken. Grammar and syntax are important but understanding matters more. BUT I work in academia and grew up in a well read family. As much as I don't care about language rules, some things just sound clunky. I was educated a certain way and what's deeply engrained in my brain is hard to ignore. These days, I catch myself wincing when I overhear certain things. I was reminded of some of those things while watching a home design TV show this week. The narrator described ancient villages dotting the Scottish countryside as "countless." I literally recoiled at that comment. Growing up, I always heard my dad say that there are only two "countless" things: stars in the sky and grains of sand on Earth. Everything else can be counted. Using "countless" is just lazy writing. Another familial complaint is the use of the word "very" before "unique." Unique is unique - it does not need a modifier. In fact, AP Style just doubled down on this. When I'm editing, I try to remove as many "verys" as possible. More often than not, it's unnecessary. Finally, the common way we use "decimate(d)" annoys almost everyone in my family. "Decimated" means to kill one in ten. In modern usage, it means "mass destruction." Again, this is fine, but a different word would probably work better. What are your language bug-a-boos?
Another short intro this week because the kiddo and I flew back from Florida yesterday. Each bit of travel we do with the kiddo makes things easier. We're learning what we do and don't need and how much she'll tolerate. Fingers crossed that things only keep getting better. Our trip was great fun - even if I did need to work for most of it. Something about getting to log-off and visit the pool and eat dinner outside makes an average work day feel a bit like a vacation.
Short intro this week because yesterday was a travel day. Kiddo and I flew, just the two of us, to Florida to visit my parents for her spring break. The hardest part of the trip was the baggage. I was determined not to check anything. Thankfully, my parents have most of the kiddo's bigger items so I did not have to worry about those. I still ended up wheeling a small suitcase, diaper bag, kiddo's backpack, and my laptop bag through the airport. It was a lot but we managed. I probably could have packed way less. Kiddo is just going to live in the pool while we're here.
This week, my University offered opioid overdose and Narcan training for anyone who was available to attend. While this has not been an issue at our library, it is a concern for every library. The training was presented be HIPS, a local harm reduction non-profit, and it provided a comprehensive look at this issue. I am going to share my (lengthy) notes from the training. I have removed the DC specific information but I guarantee there is a local organization near you that would be happy to provide training. Whatever your views on the drug crisis, it's never a bad decision to save a life. (Note - Narcan is the brand name for naloxone.)
About a week ago, my colleagues and I received the peer-review comments for an article we submitted to a journal. At first, they were overwhelming. There was a long email with each reviewer summarizing their thoughts and recommendations. Attached was a track changes edition of the article. At first glance, it was daunting. We were happy the reviewers recommended publication, but it looked like we had a lot of revisions to complete. On second review, after I reminded myself that we did not have to take all the suggestions, things didn't look too shabby. We sat down, made a list of revisions, and got to work. My main job was taking the track changes document and completing a line edit. I like doing line edits, so this wasn't too bad. To show my work, I left comments for my colleagues when I opted NOT to accept a revision. Let's just say one reviewer was nit-picky. Their revisions were mainly stylistic and not substantive. As I line edited, my comments became more and more sarcastic. It's a good thing only we will see these notes. They say you never want to see how laws and sausage are made. I would add peer-reviewed scholarship to that list. What part of your job is messy?
For the past few years, we've let the kiddo put together her own March Madness bracket. She doesn't give a whit about the teams and she has no concept of seeding, but she does have strong opinions about mascots. Each year, I download a picture of every single mascot. Then, I pull up the image of the mascots for each game on my laptop. She tells me which one she likes best. It's not a winning method, but it is a lot of fun. We generally do it over dinner and I try my best to not sway her choices. While there are a lot of dogs, wolves, birds, and questionable Native American mascots, there's usually one or two random outliers. I, personally, was a big fan of St. Peter's peacock. Kiddo, on the other hand was delighted by Long Beach State's shark. It was an immediate favorite and she had this 15-seed team taking the championship. Spoiler alert - they will not be the champion. How do you pick your bracket?
I have a confession to make. I love going to conferences, but I hate most keynotes. They always start the event and, in the case of library conferences, there's generally one each morning. Rarely do I enjoy them. Generally, keynotes tend to be big blue sky speeches. They are full of large ideas and positive energy. You're supposed to leave feeling uplifted from all the rah-rah attitude. As much as I love this energy and forward thinking progress, these blue sky speeches are usually full of generic platitudes and vague concepts. Or, if not blue sky, the keynote is basic generalities. Maybe it's because I'm fairly plugged in to my profession and the world in general, but these keynotes tend to be content that I either already knew or could have read in a one-page memo, Or, the keynotes are examples of people doing truly amazing things.... with A LOT of money my organization does not have and will never get. I love hearing about the innovations but this kind of keynote is hard to translate down to organizations without the same level of resources. Every time I go to a conference, I drag myself to the keynotes because I know I should be there, but my internal snark level is high. What's your conference hot take?
This week, I had to submit my annual faculty portfolio. This is in addition to the promotion portfolio I submitted several months ago. It's a lot of work. It frustrates me every year. This year was no different. But, it's always a good reminder about just how much I've managed to accomplish. Plus, gathering all my "evidence" requires me to deep dive into my email. This includes my folder of happy emails. About two years ago, I started saving all the positive feedback students and faculty send me. At first, I did this so I could "prove my impact" in my portfolio. While I still do that, I mostly use this as pick-me-up on hard days. I like to open that folder and read all the good messages. Even re-reading just one message can help improve my day. Do you have a happy emails folder?
This week I (finally) got to book my travel for a work conference in May. It's out on the west coast which always presents a dilemma. Do I get up before the sunrise so I can minimize delays and arrive at a normal hour but show up exhausted? Or, do I sleep to a reasonable hour, leave in the afternoon, but arrive quite late? So far, I've always opted for option A. For some reason, I prefer getting up at 3:30 in the morning to make those 5 or 6AM flights. I like knowing that my plane is already there and that I have a better chance of making my connections. Then, when I arrive on the west coast, I have the chance to settle in and, just maybe, sneak in a few hours of sightseeing. But, I always end up struggling to stay awake past 8PM. At my last west coast conference, I fell asleep at 8:30PM and awoke at 5AM the following day. I never really did settle in to the time change. Getting up that early makes for some very long conference days. I generally break down and get an afternoon coffee for an energy boost which is something I rarely do. Do you prefer early flights or later flights?
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