life+running » ISU

I’m a librarian, I speak for the books.

jaclynnejacijax — Sat, 05 May 2012 15:00:06 +0000

Today’s post comes from my friend (well Blend or Tweep really), Jaci, was kind enough to write a post for you today about librarians. She’s on her way to becoming one. And I’ve thought of becoming one myself. Maybe. It’s on the short list of “What I want to Be When I Grow Up.” She just sent me a lovely message earlier this week with all the paths that are possible with an MLS (master of library science) degree*.

Jaci is an Iowa State alum and is also extremely active with WeightWatchers and has lost 90+ lbs on it since she started (MAJOR PROPS). She works and plays on the east coast, and has run more miles than I have thus far this year.

Anywho, enjoy!

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In case you couldn’t gather from the title of the post, I’m a librarian…well, a library student, so a future librarian.

“What?” you say. “You have to go to school to put books on shelves?” you ask.

[ source ]

Yes. In fact, you have to go to graduate school and in some states you must pass a test to be a public librarian.

“But, aren’t e-books and the Internet making librarians obsolete?”

That’s always the next question.

No, with all this new information floating around, there is an increased NEED for librarians. I bet if you look at a “Help Wanted” section you’ll see jobs for librarians, except the positions will read “Information Scientists”, “Digital Architects”, “Metadata Specialist”, and the like.

Same thing, new technical names; more information has resulted in more computers, and the name changes reflect it.

But, I prefer Librarian because it’s just so much more charming

My name is Jaci, I’m a librarian and I speak for the books. More importantly I speak for your right to find and gather reliable and relevant information. That’s the cornerstone of librarianship: organizing data so a user is able to find it; making sure the data is reliable; saving what is important; discarding the rest.

Librarians organize the world. We make the world easier for you.

We make it so you can find your tax forms online.We make it so you find e-books (which are available at some public libraries, now, btw) easily. We make it so you can make some sense of a world that is increasingly complex. We know about metadata and the importance of user experience testing.

And, there are libraries and librarians for everyone:

Like gardening? The New York Botanical Gardens Library is there for you
Into comics? Check out MoCCA (yes, it says museum, but museums and libraries are siblings)
Crafter (duh, you read Calee’s blog)? Maybe you’d like MAD
Health concerns or questions? We gotcha covered.
If you want to take out a book or catch-up on news, your public library is the place to be
And, so on…

Librarians are geeks who geek out when we help other geeks find what they love to geek about. That’s our joy and our purpose.

I’m a librarian, I speak for the books…but mostly for you.

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Related: I have to share — I just got accepted to Iowa State University for the MFA in Graphic Design program. Today is exactly 5 years (to the date — it was a Saturday too) from the day that I graduated college. So the news couldn’t be any more timely.

[ gratuitous photo of me and Kelly from graduation in 2007 — seriously. no wonder our profs couldn't keep our names straight ]

What do you want to be when you grow up? Did you ever think you were going to land where you are currently?

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FLASHBACK FRIDAY: Kelly Presents: A Photographic Retrospective of the Top 15 Calee-Kelly Moments

kelalea — Fri, 04 May 2012 15:00:25 +0000

While I’m out at BLEND this weekend, I scheduled some pretty primo guest bloggers for your enjoyment. Today’s guest blogger is Kelly from [ insert clever title here ].

It’s been a while since I’ve done a flashback Friday. When I asked one of my best friends, Kelly, to guest post, she immediately decided to do a photo post. Of course. This girl takes a lot of pix. And she’s got some great ones from our younger years. Many more adventures to come, I’m sure.

Also, we are almost too much cute to handle. I selected my honorable mention from the photos she uploaded for this post (sneaky!) for the featured image. It was us at the I-80 truckstop on our way to our friend Meredith’s wedding in 2008. This was right before we both got a desperate call from her asking if either of us had a camera because her photographer sucked. Why yes. Of course. We both had a camera.

Sit back, and enjoy. She’s an excellent writer as well. If you like, head over to her blog. She also writes the Cook It Yourself (CIY) section on Twenties Hacker — the same website I write Fit Your Fancy (FYF) for — we like acronyms.

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I don’t quite remember when or how I first met Calee. I’m sure we had some freshman design classes together, but I don’t really REMEMBER meeting or knowing her until our sophomore year. At first, I only knew her as The Girl That Sat In The Front Near An Outlet In Art History And Took Meticulous Notes On Her Laptop (I can, to this day, remember the exact spot she sat in the design auditorium… and it wasn’t until a while later that I realized that bringing a laptop to art history was brilliant, for more than just taking notes. HELLO, INVENTION OF FACEBOOK.)

Then I think we did some time together on our residence hall student government council. Then we had more design classes together. Then we just hung out all of the freaking time and have been rather inseparable ever since. It drove our professors crazy because we always sat by each other and our names were so similar (not to mention that we both had long, curly blonde hair for most of our college careers), and they always got us confused.

For my post today, we decided it would be fun to do a retrospective of old pictures. Because nothing is more awesome than putting old (and frequently awkward) pictures of yourself out there for all to see.

This was really hard, guys. I have a LOT of pictures of myself and The Chimes. (I mean, I have a LOT of pictures, period.) I scrolled through as far back as Facebook would let me, and landed somewhere in 2005.

I decided to narrow it down to our Top 10 15 Moments in Photographic History. Which… roughly translates to My Top 15 Favorite Photos of Us, as of today.

#1 – The time that we met Chip Kidd

Year: 2007

#2 – The time that Calee’s roommate taped us together

Year: 2005

#3 – The time we showed off our skillz at ISU Senior Portfolio Night

Year: 2007

#4 – The time we got photobombed by a small child

Year: 2011

#5 – The time we had an 80′s themed New Year Eve party

Year: 2008

#6 – The time we dressed up for Halloween

Year: 2009 (left) – Robin Sparkles & Little Red Riding Hood
Year: 2010 (right) – Catwoman & Poison Ivy

#7 – The time we had the traveling birthday tiara (where the hell did that thing go?!)

Year: 2008

#8 – The time with the crash helmets and Kamikazes at Fong’s Pizza.

Year: 2010

#9 – The time our friend Steph got married

Year: 2011

#10 – The time we took an adorable picture at VEISHEA

Year: 2010

#11 - That time we made/ate homemade pizza for my birthday

Year: 2007

#12 – The time we were both a lot shorter than our friend Shelly

Year: 2010

#13 – The time we posed because we were adorable.

Year: 2005

#14 – The time we posed with a statue on Calee’s 25th birthday

Year: 2009

#15 – The time we went bowling and on a double-date.

Year: 2012

HONORABLE MENTION – The very first picture I have of us:

Year: 2005

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Do you have a friend, or friends, that no matter WHAT you’re doing or where you’re going (even if it’s to the bathroom), you have to get a group photo?

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Flashback Friday: I’m with the band (2005)

chimes — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:00:00 +0000

First of all, I have to tell you that last night’s Doomtree show was awesome! And awesomely loud. I brought ear plugs for once. Loudest show I’ve been to. And you know what kind of music I listen to … \m/

The show was SOLD OUT. Which still made for an intimate event at this venue (love it!) … but so many white kids rapping, and putting their hands in the air (which was strange to me — putting my hands in the air with no devil horns??)

… and I met Mike Mictlan and Dessa after the show. My friend Seth picked up one of all of their albums. I’m definitely FINALLY picking up the rest of Dessa’s albums on emusic this week. I have Badly Broken Code, but need to grab the rest.

Also, can we say kickass drum machine? LAZERBEAK rocked it.

Which is a nice segue into this post about being in “the band” … because for a while, the band had a drum machine named Rebekkah Von Stroff (yes, there was a blow up mannequin that manned it).

^I felt so badass holding that flying v. What a dork.

So in April of 2005, I got a wild hair to be a rockstar. And conveniently, there was a band looking for a lead singer. So I tried out.

The band was called “Assault Company”. And yes, I realized they were kind of metal. “Kind of” being the key phrase. I wanted something super badass.

I had a tryout and I made it into the band. The height of my career came a month later when we were accepted into the battle of the bands at the “Springfest” event (ISU didn’t have VEISHEA that year … um, the year before was a riot). And we played a set at Harambee, which was a cultural festival, that same day.

I mostly spent time with the band designing cool alter-egos and a nifty website. I had swag up on CafePress before I memorized the words to all the songs.

This was our band. And I apparently thought that hot pink frills were über-metal. As were photoshop filters.

^My alter-ego. Note the super boobs.

Also, I think this might have been another one of my alters. Which is hilarious, because I’m pretty sure that the face paint and hair match my costume from Super Prom. Again, SUPER BOOBS. I took great care with this illustration to make sure the guy was doing the devil horns when he was being smacked upside the head with a flying v.

Unfortunately there is no evidence of my aural assault. I was a screamer/growler, and it was not pretty. I threw out my voice, but it was so much fun that it was totally worth it. It was like Kittie lite, which is so not badass now that I know about black metal. I remember having band practices and dicking around to no end — the main riff from Dammit by Blink 182 was busted out at least once a practice. And there was definitely a trash can dedicated to spitting between the lead guitar and myself on more than one occasion (hey, all the growling makes your throat all gross).

This photo was in the paper. I love how my friend Mark, the guitarist in this photo, never wore a shirt. Ever. And he kind of looks like Dave Mustaine here.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. I met MY Mark this day. Yep. Him and our friend Drew lived down the hall from the bassist and drummer, so they came to watch. And yelled “Slayer!” the whole time, while my friend Eric yelled “Freebird!”.

Love this photo. We were so badass here. Kasey, the bassist in this photo, busted his hand open halfway through the show (<=== the lost footage. It’s bad. I didn’t know this song well and it was one of the ones in which I sang instead of growled). Also, the two of us broke up the band a few months later in order to form The Duct Tape Pirates, which was a fail from the start, and basically resulted in my irresponsible purchase of a cool bass guitar, and learning the riff to Megadeth’s Trust … as well as making for a badass Courtney Love Halloween costume. Yup. My mom’s suggestion, though she doesn’t play bass usually … it still looked cool. And no, that wasn’t a wig. That was my hair. Unwashed and ratted up.

Also, I kind of want to get a t-shirt with one of my alters on it. I might re-tool the 2nd one (and clean it up … designed during my 2nd semester of graphic design) and get some cool swag.

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TOTALLY unrelated side note — IT’S DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME THIS WEEKEND. Spring forward. And groan, because we’re losing an hour this weekend. BOO!

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LUNCHRUN

chimes — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I’m so sad that my iPod wasn’t playing nice last week so I couldn’t post these the DAY I went.

So again, like everything else I’m posting, this is old news. *sigh* I really need to get on top of that.

It snowed last Monday. I know, right? We normally have HEAPS of snow in Iowa at this time of year, but this 1-3 inch sprinkling in Ames last Monday has been the highlight of this winter.

I’ve not run much this winter. I love running in the snow. Not so much the cold. If there’s snow, it makes me happy enough to brave the cold.

I assure you, I’m happy to be outside running. I don’t know a single person who’s ever had a GOOD photo taken of themselves running. If you look good while running, you’re doing it wrong.

Brookside Park, Ames, IA. Gorgeous. No scooping. No other footprints. PURE snow.

And yes, these tights are fierce. ~~I am returning them because they are falling apart already~~. That’s not to say these are BAD tights, just this pair. I have them in pink too, and those have been washed more and worn more and are doing just fine. Apparently I’m not returning them because they don’t have any more in my size in this color. So, I guess I’ll keep them. They work just fine, I just got poorly constructed pair, which wasn’t worth the $60 I spent on them. The other pair has been more than awesome.

LOVE. This is my favorite little park to walk / run through over lunch. So pretty. Close to campus. Quiet. Zen.

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Time Warp: College Roomies

chimes — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:00:00 +0000

I recently attended the wedding of the first of my 3 college roommates to get married.

For those of you who don’t know, I lived with boys. And one of my long-time girlfriends. She informed me that I need to get on that engagement thing because my other male former-roommate is now engaged. Just us two single ladies left.

Anywho … FLASHBACK to 2005

[clockwise starting on the left: Danielle, me, Joe and Nick]

This was from Nick’s 22nd birthday party — the first party we had in our new apartment as roomies. He and Joe were at the ISU game earlier that day and Nick got SUPER burnt. I’d like to point out that I have pink hair in this photo. And I apologize for the mesh cutoff sleeve shirt I have on — I was in a band at that point and was seriously into finding my own “metal” style. AND I have no clue whot he girl behind Joe is but she seriously looks like Robin Scherbatsky.

…

Moving on

…

So this is 2007, the year we all graduated college. This is one of my favorite roomie pix! Thanks, Danielle for digging this up.

[Danielle, me, Nick and Joe]

Yeah. This was at the Bali Satay House, which, sadly, no longer exists. We used to go see our friends’ bands play there. And my boss informs me that they apparently had incredible food.

…

Fast forward 4.5 years: 2011

[photo by McClanahan Studio — from left to right — Joe, me, Nick and Danielle]

This was November and Nick got married. Joe was his best man. Danielle and I were the queens of the dance floor. I’m amazed at how much we’ve changed in four years.

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First Day at ISU

chimes — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 11:30:00 +0000

Today is my first day at ISU. Which means no more commute and oddly enough that I have to get up EARLIER than before to get to work. I was leaving Ames to get to Drake at 8:15ish but I have to be at work by 8 today. Let’s see how I do. Also, I’m biking. This should be interesting.

Oddly enough this post is going to be mostly about my last day at Drake.

Here is my super-empty cube. Bye bye cube!

And Shelly is really sad to see me go. Mostly because this is my list of jobs. I got everything done that I could on all of my jobs, except a lot of them were stuck in limbo (ie. proofing internally or with the client). It’s color coded so she knows where everything is.

Okay, so she might be a little sad that I’m leaving because I won’t be there anymore.

Also, I will miss the “Can’t Touch This Award” — the weekly award given to somebody who kicked ass the previous week. I got it before I left and I passed it on one last time.

Also … I ran out of stuff to do by 10 AM. So I may have played an hour of N64.

After work we met at Star Bar for drinks. I had a Dirty Blue martini (um stuffed blue cheese olives anybody?).

I’m excited to start a new chapter in my life at ISU: Hopefully getting my grad degree (paid for), getting to spend more time with Mark and my Ames friends (LUNCH anybody?), biking or bussing to work and best of all 2 more hours added to my day every day! I will miss most everybody at Drake and I will most definitely miss having design as my major responsibility. But, I need to hone some of my other skills in addition to design if I want to be a well-rounded teacher some day.

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Big News!

chimes — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

So I promised big news last week and I was so busy I never delivered.

The big news is that I got a new job! I’m leaving Drake and heading to Iowa State University.

[goodbye spike, hello cy*]

Besides the obvious commute change (as in NO MORE COMMUTING) there’s another major change: I will probably not be designing so much.

My new job is Communications Specialist II for Student Recruiting in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. I’ll be doing social media, a bit of writing, a bit of design, student recruitment (so some travel) but mostly I’ll be in charge of the first-year student experience. So I’ll be planning events programming for first-year students to keep them engaged with not only ISU but specifically the college.

So are you freaking out? I’m kind of freaking out. I just realized last week I don’t get to pick paper anymore. Or print vendors.

Calm down. I’m planning to enroll in the College of Design MFA in Graphic Design program while I’m there. It’s not my TOP pick for MFA programs *cough cough* MCAD *cough cough* Yale *cough cough* … but it will be free. And really, I want to teach college students. So what matters is that I HAVE the degree. Not where it’s from. It’s not a BAD program either. So I’ll be getting my design in as well as honing some other important skills.

*I realize that this is the OLD Cy ISU athletics logo … but I reallllly hate all the new athletics logos. Which is funny because I always bitch about Drake constituents that feel the same way about old marching spike that I do about old cy.

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Ceramic Class at Reiman Gardens on Saturday!

chimes — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Want something to do this Saturday? Even better — want to learn something new this Saturday?

Sign up for my class at Reiman Gardens in Ames. I’m going to be teaching how to create fun and pretty mugs from old unloved ceramics. Added bonus: I’m curating a playlist for this specific event. Not only will you learn something new, you’ll get to listen to some new and (hopefully) exciting artists while you do it.

What do you get out of the class besides a new skill? You get the tools to continue painting up your own ceramics, ideas for how to implement this skill beyond just mugs, and a creative spin to your Saturday morning. Mugs will also be provided.

Not an artist? No drawing skills? No problem! Doodles and text are great accents to unloved dishes. And I will also be teaching a transfer technique for those of us who are really uncomfortable with drawing anything freehand — even a doodle.

Today is the LAST day to sign up for the class. Click here to sign up. There is a discount for Iowa State Students. If you and a friend sign up, tweet @chimes about it and receive an awesome prize from my Etsy shop.

Here are a few examples of mugs you’ll be able to create after taking this class.

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Rec Milers 2008

chimes — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 04:15:27 +0000

Okay, so I guess I’m not done.

Just thought I’d pop in and say I’ve logged over 1000 miles this year on Rec Milers since August.

These miles are actual miles run/walked/jogged, 2 miles per 8 glasses of water a day, 1 mile per serving of fruits/veggies a day, a few miles for so many minutes of weight lifting, exercise class, exercise bike or elliptical. But yes, 500 or so of them are running miles.

So I guess that means I get yet another Intramural Champion t-shirt and another Rec Milers club shirt. I’ll have to pay 5 bucks a piece for them, but hey, cheap t-shirts.

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my friends are all grown up.

chimes — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 18:32:48 +0000

I’ve been out of school and in the “real world” for about 2 years now, but a lot of my friends were/are still around ISU and are still in school.

This last weekend was December graduation at ISU and a few of my friends graduated and are leaving to embark on their first “real world” experience…which is kinda scary. Makes me feel old.

These guys (Drew and Malachi) were originally Kasey’s friends that he met freshman year living in the dorms…but I met them and Mark and Matt when I was in the band and they kind of grew on me.

I didn’t know Malachi as well because he wasn’t around as much as the other guys, but I got to know Drew pretty well in the last 4 years. The first time I met him was at our performance at Springfest when I was in the band Assault Company (haha one of two performances with them). Him and our other friend Mark were in the audience and Drew kept yelling “SLAYER!”

Every time I hang out with those guys it’s bad news for my alcohol intake. I don’t know what it is, but Drew and Mark have this incredible ability to talk me into drinking things I normally wouldn’t drink (whiskey), playing drinking games or drinking a lot more than I realize (they tend to keep my drink filled).

What I’ll remember most about Drew are four things: his great taste in music (Andrew WK, The Faint, Norma Jean, etc.), his sense of humor, his love for PBR and his ability to get into some pretty interesting situations.

My favorite memory of Drew is from three years ago. It was the last day of finals week and Kasey and I (who weren’t dating at that point) went over to Drew, Mark, Malachi and Matt’s over in Freddy Court. I was armed with a bottle of wine and was a few beers deep already. Either way, Drew and Kasey had been sporting “chick pants” as a fashion statement in the few months/weeks prior to that. Well, somehow Drew and I decided we were the same size and swapped pants.

Hilarity ensued. We ran into his room and I remember both of us turning around and Drew saying something to the effect of, “Let’s do this. I won’t look if you don’t.” The lights were off to ensure that nobody would see anybody’s underthings. Somehow we managed to pull it off. We went out to the living room to show off our swapped pants, which I thought fit pretty well at the time…but photos of the event show otherwise.

The pants didn’t fit either of us. But it was fun thinking they would.

The funny thing is that this favorite memory of Drew lead to an important turn of events in my life.

We decided to swap back pants, so we ran back into Drew’s room and locked the door (or at least shut it. I don’t remember). Anyway, pants swapped–nobody looked. Drew decided to tell me about some cool stuff he did over the summer and show me some of his photo collection on his computer. Which lead to us in his room in the dark with the door shut (with people knowing we were at least taking our pants off) for like 20 minutes. Then we started talking about how Kasey and I should hook up and how I really was in love with him and that I should go for it. And OMG, crap! I realized that people outside Drew’s room (namely Kasey) probably thought we were doing something naughty, and that I should get out of there as soon as possible.

I ran out of his room and at the same time, Kasey opened the door to the guys’ apartment. He’d been outside smoking and got locked out…so he didn’t know I was in Drew’s room that whole time. Anyway, I ran up to Kasey and put my arms around him and said something to the effect of “thank goodness you made it inside” (like being locked out in the cold was a life or death situation). And that’s when we had our first kiss.

So thanks, Drew, for getting in my pants. Hope I’m not the first (or last) girl to say that and mean it. I’m going to miss you!

This was the most flattering of the two pictures we have of this event. You can't really tell, but Drew's pants were hanging down off my butt.

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