Start of the Fall 2015 Semester!

The first year of graduate school has come and gone as did my first year as Graduate Assistant for Special Collections and Archives in Kent Library. Good news is I SURVIVED! Other news is here comes another year of papers, projects, and crazy hours. Alongside those though are gatherings with fellow graduate students and the history department for social things called Happy Hours, workshops, and the return to the hustle and bustle of routine on campus.

That being said opening week of the Fall 2015 semester here at Southeast has come and gone. The first week back both at work and classes seemed to go off without a hitch. Others and myself are still trying to get used to my new schedule with 9 hours but again, so far so good. Work at the Archives started in the week prior with researchers (in-person and e-mail), preparations for a UI100 class that will be researching buildings on campus (oh, architecture galore!), continued work on surveys and assessment (that's a whole new can of worms right there!), meetings, and getting ready for student workers to come back.

Now the actual first week back we had a couple of researchers with various interests, coordinating coverage with student workers and staff (it's an on-going project so to speak), a whole new meaning of "waves of UI100 students doing the walking tour of the library", meetings (within the Archives and out), work on scheduling Facebook posts of our page, several reference requests via e-mail, continued prep work for the UI100 class coming in for research, getting surveys ready for researchers to fill out (paper and online), train student workers on the new microfilm reader the Archives received during the summer, coordinating meetings and gatherings with student workers, and of course all of this on top of beginning coursework readings, brainstorming ideas for projects and homework. Plus having to go back in time to help with first grade and third grade homework with *new* math curriculum. (Psst.. I still haven't ever had to figure out if a train leaves Point A at 5 AM and reaches Point B at 9 AM. Another train leaves Point B at 7 AM and reaches Point A at 10:30 AM. When will the two trains meet?)

Pretty soon the beginning of due dates for projects and papers will be here before I (we) know it and the insanity that is being a graduate student taking 9 credit hours, working 20 hours as the Graduate Assistant for Special Collections and Archives, the I don't know how many hours outside the classroom for homework and projects, while juggling first and third grade, being on call with the school and social events - cheerleader, after school reading, Girl Scouts, etc., doctors appointments and commuting an hour and a half both ways will begin. So that being said here's to a new semester!

Whoo hoo! Let's do this!