The Day After.. on learning and Libraries

Here I am again, finally, live and totally unmedicated. Spent most of the last three months getting OFF medically prescribed prescriptions and guess what, folks? I feel 100% better than I did before. Not 100% sane but I don't think I've ever been that. We shall see how it all turns out in the end, but for now I feel more like ME than I have in YEARS. No more Pink Floyd songs floating around inside my head while I lie on the couch and stare at the ceiling.

So.

Last night, instead of attending what was certain to be a most excellent celebration of Second Life's Justice League's 2nd anniversary, I completed the application for admission to Northern Illinois University. Since I am a transfer student, I am not required to submit a personal statement with the application but I think I may include one anyway since I have missed the deadline for the particular colleges I am most interested in (early childhood studies and early childhood education), but there is still English, and anthropology which don't have earlier deadlines. I marked my major as undecided which is completely true. I don't know if Ioan, patient though he is with me, would understand my desire to be a perpetual student. He is rather more practical than that, and would like for me to contribute to the household financially again at some point and sees my education as a way to secure a better financial future for all of us. As for me, I see a =real= university as a candy shop of knowledge and I have a terrible sweet tooth.

Bottom line for university is that I have to sit and talk to an advisor and see how many of my 48 Indiana credits will transfer here, and which will be most applicable to ANY major and go for that first. I don't believe any of the education classes I took there will transfer at all, so my net total for transferable credits may be substantially lowered. Not that I regret any of the classes I have taken. See aforementioned sweet tooth.

Yesterday was also my very first attempt at leading a discussion group. Riven Homewood and CeAire DeCosta allowed me to introduce a discussion series at the Steelhead library. I had helped with the children's section at the library's grand opening, and I seem to have fallen quite happily into the role of children's librarian for Steelhead. It amuses me that I am librarian for a nonexistent segment of the SL community but that is a whole different subject. Truth is, doing this is PERFECT for me. Yesterday's discussion was about the story of Little Red Riding Hood. Since this was our first session, I tried a number of different venues for delivery... the single notecard giver was probably the least effective since there were four different versions given out that way. The Thinc book Tanarian set up was undoubtedly the best - especially since everyone could take a copy for themselves. That one was a 1869 version of the tale, selected for that format because is one of the likeliest versions the good citizens of Steelhead might have actually had access to during our time period of play.

I didn't get any photos of the discussion - Riven did, so I will post at least one here when I get those. CeAire came as a gorgeous black wolf and her husband Hawc came as a Robin Hood sort of hunter/woodsman. We actually had another wolf in attendance - Nonesuch Ra. I was delighted! A number of Consulate employees and extensions thereof attended (the Baron as well as his sister Melanippe, Annechen, Searra, and my own sister Tanarian), and our sturdy Steelhead citizens (Riven, CeAire, Hawc, Lumina Elvehjem, Kara Timtam. There were also some people I had never met before, which is an extra bonus! Bill Friis, Nonesuch Ra, Codex Kamenev, and Magdalena Kamenev stayed until the end; I know there were some other who had to leave earlier whose names I did not write down, so please forgive me! I would like to personally thank everyone who attended. The conversation was animated, and quite well spiced with great information and differing points of view - everything a good discussion should be!

I took suggestions (and solicited notecards with ideas, comments and suggestions) for future discussion topics. My hope is to have ongoing discussion series on children's literature, covering the different literary traditions. I chose the fairy tale for the first series and Little Red Riding Hood as the first of the series... Beauty and the Beast and Snow White were suggested in the discussion. Probably the most discussed suggestion was Robin Hood, which is actually considered a "Legend" rather than a fair tale... I don't want to kill the fairy tale topic by lecturing on them incessantly ... and honestly, Robin Hood sounds like just TOO much fun to wait on. So perhaps two more fairy tale discussions then Robin Hood. After that I want to move on to strictly American tales... I have more thoughts on Rip Van Winkle than you can even imagine.

Thanks for your patience in waiting for me to get my head back into a place where I could even thing about blogging again, and thanks to Tanarian and Corgi who have learned that unrelenting nagging about something actually works with me. :D

Until next time, when I hope to discuss some of my recent shopping ventures, to all readers I bid au revoir and remind you to PIMP STEELHEAD BOOMTOWN!!

Myfi

P.S. Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE Steelhead??