Great links for Archivists

If you are interested in Archives, here are some good links that have been helpful for me.

Archives Gig: (Great listings for Jobs)
http://archivesgig.livejournal.com/

That Elusive Archives Job: (Great site for applying for jobs)
http://elusivearchives.blogspot.com/2010/04/table-of-contents.html

Archives Next:
http://www.archivesnext.com/


Here are the validation links that I found helpful:

For HTML, XHTML - etc.
http://validator.w3.org/#validate_by_uri+with_options

For CSS
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

You can upload the file or enter the URL to validate.

If you click on "more options"

and check "clean up markup with HTML tidy" - it will give you suggestions - or at least tell you where the errors are. It may take some work to figure out how to correct the error.


COOL: COnservation OnLine (its really cool - pun intended- but really it is)
http://cool.conservation-us.org/

SAA Glossary of Archival Terminology (really helpful)
http://www.archivists.org/glossary/

ODLIS: Online Dictionary for Library and Information Science (also really helpful)
http://lu.com/odlis/

Internet Archives (Check out the Wayback Machine and Archive It)
http://www.archive.org/

One more week!

It is really hard to believe that this first semester is almost over. I am mostly proud of myself for all that I have learned about in this short period of time, but mostly in regards to computers and the Internet. It is something that is really intimidating and very daunting to me. This course have motivated me to continue to learn and play with my computer and not to be so scared of it. I am actually thinking really seriously about creating a website of my own to display my portfolio of work and resume. I am actually very excited about taking on the task.

I have enjoyed the first semester here and I am really glad I have chosen to get my degree from this program, but I do have to say, I will be really happy to start to take classes that are more focused on Archives and Preservation. I can really see how these first two classes are important, but wish the professors could have addressed the lectures to suit all specializations, not just libraries. I wrote all my papers to address issues in archives and focused on preservation, this being the area I am specializing in and interested in, but I felt I was not really addressing the question posed to write about, although I received good grades on them.

I am a little scared to create my Portfolio of work done this semester, but feel that I think I know what I need to do. Just hope it all works out to be what I want it to be. Just found out about my quiz grade. I am OK with it. It is better than how I did for the first one, so I could not ask for more.

Quiz complete!

I just completed the quiz. Like the first one I took, I really have no idea how I might have done. Time will tell. I really hope that I did OK. There was one question in particular that I really was not sure what he was asking for. I answered it for what I think he was wanted and how he prepped us for the quiz in the lecture. If I answered it wrong, I hope I can get particle credit.

I have been overwhelmed with how technology has been affecting the conservation field these past couple of weeks. It is great to see all this in the news about the field. Here is another article for anyone interested in Master's works and how science is effecting the conservation field and allowing us to understand the techniques and the artists better.

French scientists crack secrets of Mona Lisa

AP – This recent undated photo provided Friday July 23, 2010, by the CNRS (National Center of Scientific Research) …

ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer Angela Doland, Associated Press Writer – Fri Jul 16, 9:38 pm ET

PARIS – The enigmatic smile remains a mystery, but French scientists say they have cracked a few secrets of the "Mona Lisa." French researchers studied seven of the Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the "Mona Lisa," to analyze the master's use of successive ultrathin layers of paint and glaze - a technique that gave his works their dreamy quality.

Specialists from the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France found that da Vinci painted up to 30 layers of paint on his works to meet his standards of subtlety. Added up, all the layers are less than 40 micrometers, or about half the thickness of a human hair, researcher Philippe Walter said Friday.

The technique, called "sfumato," allowed da Vinci to give outlines and contours a hazy quality and create an illusion of depth and shadow. His use of the technique is well-known, but scientific study on it has been limited because tests often required samples from the paintings.

The French researchers used a noninvasive technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to study the paint layers and their chemical composition.

They brought their specially developed high-tech tool into the museum when it was closed and studied the portraits' faces, which are emblematic of sfumato. The project was developed in collaboration with the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in Grenoble.

The tool is so precise that "now we can find out the mix of pigments used by the artist for each coat of paint," Walter told The Associated Press. "And that's very, very important for understanding the technique."

The analysis of the various paintings also shows da Vinci was constantly trying out new methods, Walter said. In the "Mona Lisa," da Vinci used manganese oxide in his shadings. In others, he used copper. Often he used glazes, but not always.

The results were published Wednesday in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, a chemistry journal.

Tradition holds that the "Mona Lisa" is a painting of Lisa Gherardini, wife of Florentine merchant Francesco del Giocondo, and that da Vinci started painting it in 1503. Giorgio Vasari, a 16th-century painter and biographer of da Vinci and other artists, wrote that the perfectionist da Vinci worked on it for four years.

Here is a link to an article in The New York Times about Art, Fakes and Science. This is something that I enjoy, thought maybe the science and technology aspect my interest some others.


http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/13/arts/design/13abroad.html

---

July 12, 2010

Old Masters and Modern Science

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

LONDON — At first blush “Close Examination: Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries,” here at the National Gallery, has the quaint, cheerfully scholastic earnestness of a science fair. Some 30 pictures from the permanent collection, most of them culled from storage, have been enlisted to anchor a flurry of wall texts, X-rays and the sort of enlarged microscopic cross sections of layered pigments and varnish vaguely resembling the cautionary photographs of plaque that elementary school teachers flourish before floss-wary fourth graders.

A celebratory primer on polarized light microscopy and other cumbersomely termed diagnostic tools employed by conservators today to determine when and how a picture was made, the show may sound like homework.

But it isn’t; far from it. It’s one of those gems, which, amid the hard science, stumbles onto squishier truths about what we are really looking for when we look at art. Out to instruct us in the chemistry of painting, it ends up suggesting how elusive art remains despite all the gadgets that we devise to master it.

Along the way it riffs on the mistaken-identity theme: a picture given in good faith by the City of Nuremberg to Charles I in 1636 as a work by Dürer that’s proved to be a copy; a copy of a Veronese that, after grime is removed, emerges as the genuine article. And there are forgeries, art’s whodunits, pandering to our basest instinct for knocking experts off pedestals. People love fakes because fakes play into the populist suspicion that much art is really just a scam, a suspicion encouraged by the fancy names wrongly attached to and insane prices often paid for the stuff.

Names, dates, prices, provenance — they do promise solid ground. In museums and galleries we can very often feel as if we’re adrift, swimmers on the open sea. Another Madonna and Child? Find the wall label. Raphael. O.K. We’re safe to grunt and nod approvingly.

I’m exaggerating, of course. We have plenty of serious reasons to seek out names and numbers connected to pictures: we need them to write history and occasionally to remind ourselves, when these names and numbers turn out to be wrong, not only of scam artists but also of the whole infinitude of human folly.

There is, for example, the Italian Renaissance painting of a young woman, brunet, demure and wide-eyed, standing before a window, that entered the National Gallery’s collection in the mid-19th-century. Was it by Lorenzo Lotto or Palma Vecchio? Experts debated. Either way, she was a beauty, they agreed, despite her blemish: a layer of damage visible just beneath her hair, which conservators only got around to checking in 1978.

They discovered — you guessed it — that the demure brunette covered up a sultry blonde whose hair had been darkened, jaw line and brow softened, eyes widened and breasts made more discreet to contrive what the unknown “restorer” more than a century ago thought fellow Victorians would regard as a comelier Renaissance portrait. The original was still Italian, still Renaissance, although hardly like the faux-Renaissance version that masked it.

To modern eyes the cleaned picture looks more striking, while the shenanigans that passed for conservation a century ago only prove how taste is hostage to its era. No doubt methods contemporary conservators use to restore art that we believe are unprejudiced and sage will come to seem just as time-bound and clueless eventually.

But isn’t this painting also more than just an object lesson in historical subjectivity? A different Italian picture, also acquired over a century ago by the gallery, shows another blonde, this time reclining in a landscape. It is titled “The Allegory,” for want of a better idea of what it’s about. Experts agreed when it was bought that it was by Botticelli, and the gallery forked over a fortune for it, more than it paid for a second Botticelli at the same auction from the same collector.

Critics tooted a few horns when “The Allegory” went on view, but there was one skeptic who wrote to the director — there’s always one! — and gradually she was joined by others, and soon the prize picture was becoming a kind of embarrassment to the gallery, which had to concede that maybe it wasn’t by Botticelli after all, because even everyday visitors now said they saw something seriously wrong with it. The blonde looked like a cartoon character, a costumed feline out of “Cats,” ham-fisted and nothing like the other, cheaper Botticelli the gallery had bought, which steadily rose in estimation to be regarded as a treasure and ingenious purchase

Presumed to be a fake, “The Allegory” soon ended up in storage where modern conservators one day, just for curiosity’s sake, decided to take another look. They realized it wasn’t fake. In fact it was an old master painting, from Botticelli’s day, just as those deluded experts had thought in the 19th century, even if Botticelli may not have been the old master who painted it. Although who knows? Maybe he was.

So “The Allegory” is what, then? A case study in dubious connoisseurship or mad money or gullible criticism?

It’s a picture. And the picture is the same whether it is said to be old or new, genuine or fake, an original or a copy. It becomes no more or less elegant or funny looking. Its role in the evolving narratives of art history changes. Its price can go up or down. But cost is not value.

And that’s what we’re looking for when we look at art, no? Something of value, deeper and more meaningful than a name or a number, which can’t be gotten out of a test tube or lab report, which, emotionally speaking, requires an effort on our part. It demands that we look for ourselves.

And then you never know what you might find. A “Virgin and Child With an Angel,” an early work by Francesco Francia, the Bolognese master and contemporary of Raphael, for years was said by the gallery to exemplify the painter’s training as a goldsmith. Its refinement was admired. Then an identical picture turned up. Gallery conservators examined their version and found that the tiny aging cracks on the surface had actually been painted, faked. Further studies revealed the use of latter-day pigments like chrome yellow, and an underdrawing that seemed more 19th century than Renaissance.

The work was a forgery. Science proved it. And so there it hangs in the show, on a wall of shame, surrounded like a mug shot by the evidence of its true crime.

But look, never mind what the label says, and you may notice something else about the picture, too, some other truth.

It’s beautiful.

Fastrack Weekend

The first fastrack weekend done!!! I was so nervous about meeting everyone and figuring out the campus. I think everything went pretty well. A lot of the information would have been a lot nicer to have had maybe the first week of classes to prior to starting classes. I am not quite sure why they make the fastrack weekend in the middle of the semester, especially for the first semester. Did not get a chance to wander around Pittsburgh that much, but I feel that I will have plenty of other opportunity to do in the next year or so. There was really no need to run around and see everything this time around.

I think the exam went pretty well for me. I studied pretty hard and was really nervous about this. I do not always test well, do to nerves. Now it is off to write this paper on copyright issues. This has been the only paper that I have been really procrastination about. I do not know to much about the subject, nor find it terribly interesting. I hope that I can find a way to twist it into a preservation paper.

Had the most frustrating evening figuring out the website assignment. Thanks to all the people that wrote in and helped, I was able to get it up and viewable. It is not quite the format I had, but it is going to have to work. I sill can not figure out how to get my background to work and I want to put a photo on my "home" page and can not get that to transfer either. I will keep playing, if I can find the time this week.

It was a real pleasure to meet everyone this weekend and I look forward to coming back in October and seeing everyone again.

Falling Water

Just got back from Pittsburgh. It is a long drive from me, so my plan is to try to take a day or so each time I come out for school to make a side trip to sites that I want to see and discover. This visit side trip was to see Frank Loyd Wright's Falling Water. It was great. I feel so lucky to have been able to see this. I feel like I was walking through my Art History textbook. It is such a surreal experience when you read and see something so much in a book to actually get to see and experience it. This side trip detour was absolutely the highlight of my mini Pittsburgh trip. I am excited to start to plan my next detour on my way to Pittsburgh!!

Derangement and Description

I have been making contacts with some Archivists in my area and was directed to view a very creative blog created by Rebecca Goldman of Drexel University Archives. Not only are the comics very amusing and entertaining, there are also some handy links and a blogroll to other very interesting blogs by others in the Archival field.

http://derangementanddescription.wordpress.com/

Take a look at it. Hope you find it as entertaining and creative as I do!!

Technology can be a great thing, but you need to be careful what you ask for.

My interests are in the conservation field and preservation field and I use science everyday in my career and at my job. I am really interested in what we can learn from our past and how new technology is allowing us to learn and discover more about our history. Science and technology is constantly changing history and it is changing what we believed to be true.

Here is an article from The Library of Congress of News. If you have any interest in our history and how we are using Science to reveal our history, you may find this discovery and use of technology to reveal this discovery as interesting as I do.......


http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2010/10-161.html

News from the Library of Congress

July 2, 2010

Hyperspectral Imaging by Library of Congress Reveals Change Made by Thomas Jefferson in Original Declaration of Independence Draft

Recent hyperspectral imaging of Thomas Jefferson’s rough draft of the Declaration of Independence has clearly confirmed past speculation that Jefferson made an interesting word correction during his writing of the document, according to scientists in the Library of Congress’ Preservation Research and Testing Division (PRTD).

Jefferson originally had written the phrase "our fellow subjects." But he apparently changed his mind. Heavily scrawled over the word "subjects" was an alternative, the word "citizens."

The correction seems to illuminate an important moment for Jefferson and for a nation on the eve of breaking from monarchical rule: a moment when he reconsidered his choice of words and articulated the recognition that the people of the fledgling United States of America were no longer subjects of any nation, but citizens of an emerging democracy.

The correction occurs in the portion of the declaration that deals with U.S. grievances against King George III, in particular, his incitement of "treasonable insurrections." While the specific sentence doesn’t make it into the final draft, a similar phrase was retained, and the word "citizens" is used elsewhere in the final document. The sentence didn’t carry over, but the idea did.

Fenella France, a scientist in PRTD, conducted the hyperspectral imaging in the fall of 2009 and discovered a blurred word under "citizens," France said, "It had been a spine-tingling moment when I was processing data late at night and realized there was a word underneath citizens. Then I began the tough process of extracting the differences between spectrally similar materials to elucidate the lost text."

Hyperspectral imaging is the process of taking digital photos of an object using distinct portions of the visible and non-visible light spectrum, revealing what previously could not be seen by the human eye. The hyperspectral imaging system is located in the Library’s Optical Properties Laboratory, on the sub-basement level of the James Madison Building. Fascinating details of our historical heritage have been coming to light with the use of hyperspectral imaging. For instance, recent imaging of the heavily varnished and visually obscured 1791 Pierre L’Enfant Plan of Washington, D.C., has clearly revealed invisible streets and special locations, including the "President’s House" and "Congress’ House."

The Thomas Jefferson word correction has been suspected for some time by scholars. In "The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Volume 1: 1760-1776" (Princeton University Press, 1950), Julian P. Boyd wrote "TJ originally wrote ‘fellow-subjects,’ copying the term from the corresponding passage in the first page of the First Draft of the Virginia Constitution; then, while the ink was still wet on the ‘Rough draught’ he expunged or erased ‘subjects’ and wrote ‘citizens’ over it."

The rough draft of the Declaration of Independence can be explored in stunning detail in the online version of the exhibition "Creating the United States" at myLOC.gov (and on-site, appropriately, at the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building).

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and the largest library in the world, holds nearly 145 million items in various languages, disciplines and formats. The Library serves the U.S. Congress and the nation both on-site in its reading rooms on Capitol Hill and through its award-winning website at www.loc.gov. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may also be accessed via interactive exhibitions on a personalized website at myLOC.gov.

Storage

I have been having more fun with Jing and Screencast. I think I am finally getting a good grasp on these programs!!! And maybe having a little bit of fun too!! Found this strip and thought some would find it funny. Hope you enjoy it.

Loved this!!!

I had a friend email this to me, so I thought it would be fun to use Jing and try to embed it into my blog. Hope this works!

Summer blues

Another week has passed. Long week at work and troubles with commuting transportation made this a longer week than usual. Still enjoying the class format, but starting to find some frustrations. I am finding it difficult to find things to talk about. I wish not to talk about too personal of things and wish to keep things simple and focused on school, but having difficultly with subjects that are relevant. I am a private person and do not want to have my life on the web for everyone to read and see. I will be happy when this assignment is over and I can figure out how to delete these posts.
The class is still beyond my technology capacity. I have been doing the reading and keeping up on the lectures. I seem to understand the items as a individual thing, but I am having a tough time putting all the pieces together. I think I could have used a more of a basic class on computers before I was immersed into this one. I am surviving, but wished to have been doing better.
Really looking forward to coming to Pittsburgh and seeing the campus and meeting my fellow students. Really glad about the discussion blogs. They are greatly helpful with questions and interacting with other students.

Commuting awareness

I have a long commute back and forth to work. I take a commuter rail line and I have noticed myself becoming more and more aware of the use of technology by my fellow commuters. I have noticed a variety of technology; laptops, i-pods, mp3 players are almost everywhere and now there seems to be a great amount of kindles and devices to read e-books. I also have noticed the increase of kindles in other situations. I have to attempt that as I sit next to someone with a kindle and I sit there holding my physically bound "real" book, I feel really old fashion and out of date. I am starting to get curious about them and would like to be able to play with one and see how it works and see how I feel it compares to reading from a "real" book. I have always been aware of the technology around me, but I am not one that needs to have the newest and greatest thing that just came out on the market. This may partly be lack of disposable funding I have. This course has helped open my eyes to what is out there and what they can do, their pros and cons, plus how they can be used in my profession and career.

Long Week

I thought this week was never going to come to an end. It has been a very emotional and tiresome week, maybe month or even longer. I have had some stressful Dr. appointments lately that have left me very concerned with my health that have constantly lead to more tests and more Dr. appointments. Friday, I went in for another test and consultation with my Dr. that I was really dreading. I do not think I slept a wink all week worrying about Friday. This test could have changed my life dramatically. I was really concerned that the doctor was going to tell me the "C" word. The news came back mixed. Not confirmed cancer, but with the way I look at things is that it is not confirmed that it is not cancer. They have decided to play the "wait and see" game and actively watch and monitor the tumor. I found some relief with this, but also some more frustration. Uncertainty is VERY frustrating, but life must go on..............I have decided to try to put this in the back of my head and follow my boyfriends suggestion, "we will worry about it and deal with it when they figure out what it is to worry about".

Now back to school..... Been trying to stay up on all the assignments. Doing the best I can with all the other aspects in my life. Work has been very busy right. Good thing, because job security is very important for me right now. Heard back about my quiz 1 today. Very disappointed with my grade. Thought I would have done better. All I can say is that I am doing my best with the time I have to study and prepare. That is all I can ask of myself.

Another assignment

I just finished my Omeka assignment. I was really confused about this one. I am not familiar with databases and I was not clear what I was suppose to do. Thanks for the help. I can really see the purpose of the assignments and having to do them. I would not learn about them if all I had to do was read about them. The only way for me to learn is to actually do something, so this format for me is great, but a bit frustrating. What I do not understand is the amount of entries we need to do. The first assignment was 50 entries. It got really boring after twenty or so and this assignment got real boring after about doing 8 entries. I am sure there is a master plan and it will all fold out in front of me by the end of the semester and I will fully understand the madness here.
Looking forward to hearing about the quiz. I want to know how I did.

Quiz 1

Just finished taking the first quiz. I am uncertain how I did. I feel my answers were too vague and by no means technical. I was also uncertain of how in-depth and lengthy to make my answers. For most of them, I answered as much as I could remember and recall that made sense. I really felt like a non-computer user answering the questions and felt really stupid second guessing every word I used like, program, software and application. Only time will tell to see how I did. Hopefully not too bad. The only good part is that now I have a better idea of the format for the next quiz.
I have a really busy week ahead and have started to look at the assignments that are due for next week. I am totally confused on the next assignment and my confusion is causing me to get VERY frustrated. I am really starting to dread these assignments. I read all the discussions on the course website and have read some information on the web, but still do not know how to get the references into Omeka to make the collection. I am sure it is very simple once I know how and that is what the most frustrating part of these projects for me. It takes me hours to figure out something that if only I knew the steps, would take minutes. I will attempt more tomorrow.

Trying to get it into the blog

Thought it about some more last night after I went to bed. Wanted to see if this worked better!!

I hope this may work!!! Well it is there at the bottom at the post. Thank you Tim for the steps..... I can not figure how to resize it. Sorry. I will keep playing. This assignment was a little trying for me. Learning and learning more.

Firefox extension demonstration

Link to presentation on how to install and configure Firefox extension for Zotero.

URL address:
http://www.screencast.com/t/ZTM1YWY3OG

Saying goodbye to Bermuda

Packing to head back home today. Back to the grind of work and studying. I did manage to get some reading in for the classes while I laid on the beach and tried to get some color to my white pasty skin.
As I laid on the beach and took the boats around Bermuda, I could not help but overhear the conversations about Kindles and i-books. It first made me chuckle that I came to Bermuda for a vacation and my mind is still on school assignments!!! I think something is wrong with me...... I noticed quite a few people using the kindle on the beach. I wanted to ask them what their thoughts were of the them, but did not have the nerve to talk to them or the want to disturb them. I also heard a conversation between two gentlemen about the newspapers and the internet. Both commented that they read the news on the web, but also purposed the local newspaper to read at home. They both commented that reading the paper on-line was not the same as the feel and texture of the paper newspaper. They also said the the paper version also holds a tradition and cultural that is not the same when reading off the computer. I have to agree with them. There is nothing better than a lazy Sunday morning, coffee in one hand and the paper in the other. I do not think the computer can replicate that for me.

Play time ahead

Time for another post. My life must be really boring.......... I am having a hard time finding things to write about twice a week. Another couple of days of work have passed, more reading and I am still trying to deal with learning about this computer. I still do not have enough time in the day to work full time and do school. Coffee is becoming my new best friend!!
I think I have successfully managed the assignment due for class this coming week. It took me some time to navigate the sites, and some slight frustration, but I think I figured it out. RefWorks seems to be a handy site for consolidating references. I am sure there are many other things this site is useful for that I have not discovered yet, but I feel I have got a good understanding of it. I really liked the ability to have the references turned into a bibliography and down loaded to my computer. Really handy and a lot quicker than me typing them all out!!! I have also not used Google that much. I liked the idea of Google Docs. It may be something that I will consider using more in the future.
Been reading the chapters in the text book. It is not a bad text book as text books go. I have it say it does not keep me awake at night, but I have most definitely have had to suffer through a lot of less interesting material and text books.
I am off to Bermuda tomorrow. I am sooooo excited, but I do have mixed feelings about the trip. This trip was planned a long time before I decided to return to school. Now I really worry this week away will put me so far behind in school, that it may not have been worth it. I sure hope not. My boyfriend and I are in need of some good time together and with me being in school again, our time together at home is almost slim to none. I have spent all weekend trying to get caught up on school and a little ahead, and will spend the weekend we return getting caught up again. I am hoping to be able to totally enjoy myself and only do some occasional reading (of course on the beach with a pina colada in hand). I return next Sunday. I will try to post some pics with my next posting.

Fish out of water

I totally feel like a fish out of water when it comes to learning about computers. I just finished watching this weeks lecture and feel sooooo lost and confused. I sit and listen to the lectures and I feel like I am listening to them in another language!! I am really going to have to sit down and really look at this and reread the textbook chapters to get a better understanding. I am getting frustrated. Before this class, I knew just enough about computers to get by. Now I am trying to wrap my head around how they work.
I do have to say that I am really proud of myself when I am able to figure something out and it works!! I am a bit stresses about figuring out to do our assignment with RefWorks. Then I have to figure out Google docs. This is all new to me and I am afraid I am going to get real frustrated and confused. Either this could be something that I will get down pretty quickly, or it could be a total mess of a day and a big headache for me. Every turn is a learning curve and new step. Deep breath.
I am really happy I am finally learning about computers and can really see what I can really do on them, but I do have to say, I will be happy when this semester is over and we get into some of the other classes that I am really looking forward to. I know this is an important class, but I have to say, I am having a tough time keeping focused and interested.

Need more time

Where does the time go? I have yet to find the balance of everything. I have been trying my best to keep up with all the readings, but have been falling behind this week. Is anyone else struggling with time? I have a day off from work at the end of the week and I hope this will give me the time to get back on track.

I have been really enjoying the format of the courses and the lectures online. I am also getting more familiar with Blackboard and how to find all the resources. This is making me feel more comfortable with things.

Sorry this is so short, but not much has changed since my last post. Will try again later in the week when I have had more time to catch up on the readings and view the next lecture.

Balancing Act Begins

This is my first attempt at creating a blog, so I hope this goes well and I am not to boring for you guys or ramble to much........

I have survived the official second week of graduate school. Not to overwhelmed yet, but still trying to balance a full-time job, family and the new load of school work. For once, I am glad for my long commute to work on the commuter rail. It is a great opportunity to get some of the readings accomplished without taking more time away from my family. The amount of reading is a bit overwhelming for me right now, but I have hopes it will work itself out once I find a routine.

I am real excited about this program and the classes I am taking. It has taken me sometime to finally decide on this degree and I could not be happier with my choice and deciding on the online format. I was particularly concerned with the online format. I have taken a few online classes before for my undergrad, but worried this was going to be my only "regular class" meetings. So far, so good. Enjoying the flexibility of the lectures and the format.

I am not what you say the most techno person, but once I get involved, I am totally consumed. I am embarrassed to say, it took me to only a couple of years ago to get a digital camera. I was totally against the idea and loved photography and felt it was cheating to use a computers. I finally gave in and bought my first digital camera and have not looked back since. I am totally in love with it. In the past, I have mainly used my computer for very basic applications, web, email, word processing and most recently photo editing and storage. This class will be a large learning curve for me and an eye opening experience. I am sure there is going to be many times when I will want to throw the computer across the room, but hopefully I will conquer and embrace this "new to me" technology and become a computer geek!!!