Well I think that was the Sunday from Hell! Didn't go at all how I planned. I ticked a few boxes on the to-do list but didn't do what I wanted to do most of all. I was hoping that I was going to be able to sit quietly, alone in the spare room on the lounge (sofa bed for when guests stay over) and enjoy a book for a couple of hours. Instead after finally being able to fall back to sleep after my over half was up early to go to work, my youngest decided he was going to make as much noise as he could then at precisely 6.18am he decided to go thru our DVDs, which are in the spare room (next to my bedroom), to watch downstairs. I again get back to sleep to be woken at 8.15am by my mum yelling at the kids.
It all went downhill fast from there. I tried to go to sleep again but gave up due to the noise the kids were making in bedrooms after being sent there by their grandmother. I got up dealt with the kids, had a shower and went downstairs and then managed to end up in a major argument with my eldest son, soon to be 9. This argument went on and on and ended with me cleaning his room up over the course of 2-3 hours. Then there were bathrooms to be cleaned, washing to be put away, dinner to be cook. Mum had kindly done the bit of ironing that I had to do so that was something.
I was so angry and the arguing and yelling went on for so long I can't even tell u now exactly where in the house I was at the very beginning of the argument nor exactly what set the argument off. All I know is that today which held such promise went to shit. Even the weather didn't co-operate, it was forecast to be 20 deg but instead got cold enough that I closed the blinds at 3pm and put the heater on. Suppose tho if the weather had been good then the wasted day would have been even worse.
Ah well, its over now and life goes on. Son and I are speaking and playing nice. The over half's not long home from work and the kids are asleep so all is right with the world again. Back to work tomorrow...oh joy! :)
World of Jo
Formerly Learner Licence Librarian but the L plates are off so its time to expand the horizons of this blog. Sure there'll be some library related talk but also some general randomness and ranting lol
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
twitter fun
The ACT gov has harnessed the power of social media to interact with voters via twitter. The ministers have now held a couple of 2 hour Q&A session on twitter, with the first one held back in July. Tonight was the 2nd session (found out it was on via the Canberra Win news) and thought I would join the conversation this time and pose a couple of questions regarding their thinking on introducing a needle exchange program into the Canberra Jail.
Have to say whilst I didn't get any definitive answers (not surprising really - they are politicians afterall) it was a good opportunity to air my thoughts on the matter and as I got replies from the Chief Minister I at least know she has read what I had to say and at the end of the day that's all someone can do - stand up and say what they think.
So next time the ACT Gov holds one of these twitter Q&As I'll be there again with bells on.
Oh and if you're interested to see what went on all questions and answers can be found under #actvcc
Have to say whilst I didn't get any definitive answers (not surprising really - they are politicians afterall) it was a good opportunity to air my thoughts on the matter and as I got replies from the Chief Minister I at least know she has read what I had to say and at the end of the day that's all someone can do - stand up and say what they think.
So next time the ACT Gov holds one of these twitter Q&As I'll be there again with bells on.
Oh and if you're interested to see what went on all questions and answers can be found under #actvcc
Monday, August 29, 2011
Toot toot
In that time honoured tradition of blowing one's own horn I present another blog post I wrote for a blog called The Eloquent Page. I wrote about a zine I recently catalogued which took my fancy, if your interested the post is titled Creativity rules!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
What will they think of us in years to come?
Was having an email conversation with a friend the other day, just one of our typical random and far ranging convo’s, when she mentioned that after seeing the Tutankhamun exhibition a while back, she wondered what archaeologists would find of ours in 3000 years time. This set off a bit of a convo re the issue and left me pondering the topic for some time.
We all visit museums and exhibitions and marvel at objects and ideas from yesteryear but do most people ever wonder about the legacy we’re leaving for future generations? There’s certainly lots of talk about the legacy we’re leaving in terms of the environment but what about in other ways? We live in a society that prides itself on progress and technological advancement. Goods are mass produced and often designed to have a short life span. For other goods, their life span is short due to tech advances making them obscelete as we look for the next shiny and fast gadget which promises to make our lives better.
Will anyone 3000 years from now marvel at what we left behind? Will there actually be anything from now which is capable of surviving 3000 years to be unearthed and put on display? In particular I wonder about our knowledge/information. As I am part of the so called information profession I know it is grappling with the issue of preserving our knowledge/information as I write this. Academics much smarter than me are debating and musing about how best to preserve what we know, not just that which is in hardcopy but particularly that which is in electronic forms. I’m sure my thoughts on this matter have already been pondered and researched by wiser heads than mine, however I do wonder if these wiser heads sometimes focus on a too narrow picture.
The issue of preserving knowledge/information that originates in electronic form came up more than a few times during my uni studies, but an aspect which didn’t seem to attract attention was who decides which info should be kept. There was lots of talk of migrating electronic formats and converting hardcopy to digital. There also seems to be a presumption of preserving that which is viewed as scholarly or literary but what of other knowledge/information out there? How many recollections, ponderings, discoveries etc have been recorded by people just like you and I in their personal diaries, on webpages or on blogs? Will efforts be made to capture this information or is it just viewed as dross to be discarded at whim?
Isn’t the everyday thoughts etc of you and I just as important as great literary works or scholarly articles? Afterall which provides a better picture of our current society? Something which I think illustrates this point is Facebook. I’ve not noticed any push to preserve its content but at present there is meant to be approx 600 million profiles on it. What a snapshot of the world all those profiles would give in future years. Of course the logistics of capturing something like Facebook is way beyond this post but the concept is certainly food for thought I think.
Maybe the problem lies in that the so called experts are so busy trying to work out the how that they overlook the what. Or maybe they’re blinkered by the fact that as experts they belong to the literary and scholarly worlds so don’t figure anything else to be important. Or maybe the answer lies in looking at the how and what together or on not going for a ‘one size fits all’ approach as it will be just like ‘one size fits all’ clothing in that it ends up usually fitting no one.
My wish is for a balanced view of my world to be left for future generations and to me that means capturing the available information/knowledge from a variety of sources and fields, from layperson to expert. I’ve always looked at life as having 2 types of intelligence – ‘street smarts’ and ‘academic smarts’ – and as such any knowledge/information preserved should be an even mix of the 2.
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Pet peacock? - Bananas!
Just doing a bit of research (if u can call looking at a couple of website including Wikipedia research lol) about peafowl. Male peafowls are known as peacocks, females are peahens and babies are peachicks (awwww isn’t that cute!). Seems they like to roost in trees but prefer to nest on the ground and when its mating season not only do peacocks fan out their tails to attract attention, they also like to give a loud, high-pitched cry.
Ahh now I can hear u all asking why I should care about peacocks, well it’s like this folks, it seems my place of employment has its own pet peacock. One day he turned up, out of the blue, after a while the rangers came and took him away when it became he wasn’t going anywhere but, he came back and there he has stayed since. The suspicion is he was living in another suburb at a garden nursery centre which has several peacocks and he decided that the grass was greener at the library. Fortunately for him it has certainly seemed to work out that the grass is in fact greener as he’s looking pretty healthy with a new tail presently growing in rather quickly.
All in all I like working somewhere which has its own pet peacock and like to see him when I get to work and leave again. Not sure though that I’m looking forward to mating season if he’s going to be noisy...
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