Information literacy scavenger hunt and plagiarism

One of the best things about working here in the summer is that the pace is much slower, which allows me to do more fiddling with projects that I may not have had a chance to work on during the academic year. Today I worked with an instructor to build together an info lit/intro the library scavenger hunt that he will be using for his fall classes (EN 098/CLS 100). As we worked, we fine tuned what he wanted to become more of an intro to the library then a true information literacy hunt. Since this particular prof didn’t want actual information literacy but more on how to use the library and what library services were available, this changed our plan of attack.
While searching to see what other libraries were doing, I found the following:

There a couple of things that came to mind as I searched:

  • Scavenger hunts for college age students were almost exclusively geared for mobile use (namely smartphones that had barcode/QR code readers on them), which keeps perpetuating that the digital age prefers this method of learning then to physical objects. This despite what Pew data that less then 50% of American adults over 18 own a smartphone.
  • Many of the scavenger hunt/get to know the library games (regardless of age appropriateness) were almost all online.
  • The theme seemed to be that many of the games were almost identical to the other, which lead one to ask, “Where did the game originate from?”

When I asked the question of the later to the prof I was working with, he informed me that in teaching it’s considered accepted, even encouraged, to appropriate ideas from one program to another because it’s (essentially) for the greater good. This not only means ideas and concepts, but also handouts/worksheets/homework assignments where a nod to the source is almost always removed or forgotten. I will not tell a lie: This bit of information blew my mind.
As a librarian, and an educator, I teach plagiarism, in any form, is bad and that the consequences are and can be tremendous. So why are there educators otu there thinking that because it’s for the great good, plagiarism is totally okay? What kind of message are we sending to our students?

Spider-Fly

Dear Internet,
I’m terribly afraid that some days I’m going to completely bore you with my tales. I hope you will forgive me as those days appear for life is not always going to be sunshine and gumdrops. Or grey days and thunder clouds, though as the summer progresses, the latter will be nice.
I woke up with a fright this morning as I dreamt a giant spider with wings was flying around in a room that TheHusband and I were sitting in, and I smashed it with a newspaper, drawing blood down the wall. The body landed in bowl of chips and TheHusband turned his nose up to me when I offered him the bowl of chips with the dead spider-fly body laying on the plates, as if it were purposefully dressing the plate for this occasion. I shot straight up in bed and saw the alarm clock read 6:22 AM.
I have no idea what it means.
Renew is perhaps a good word for today. I’m renewing myself on some projects, renewing my interest in music by listening to Spotify, and renewing my connection with people in general. When I woke this morning, I decided to give a shit today, and just by giving myself permission to give a shit, suddenly I can see a bit clearly.
The blog is not meant to be a quick fix, this I know. But the purpose of this is to chronicle my feelings and thoughts on a more consistent basis. Some days there may be a flurry of long winded posts and others, there may be a dearth where I post nothing but pictures of kittens. I’m just sayin’.
x0x0,
Lisa

And it slows, but for a dream

Dear Internet,
It is nearly midnight.
After my confession, and the cascade of tears that followed, I feel more at ease in my skin. Plans were made for a birthday dinner with my brother and husband, apparently a new family tradition, at The Chop House. Retail therapy cures everything, so before dinner I headed to the mall where I bought myself a new dress and shoes for the evening. The shoes, which while Instagram’d to death, are nude cork wedges. Totally un-Lisa like. But I’m tired of being Lisa-like, so the shoes were bought. While perusing the racks at Macy’s, I considered shoplifting as something also un Lisa-like, but decided that buying shoes that were not my style was more in speed with change. I didn’t fancy spending my 40th birthday night in jail.
Continue reading “And it slows, but for a dream”

The Summer Tale

Dear Internet,
Yesterday as I was leaving work, someone started calling after me I was walking away from the entrance of the library. As I walking and digging in my bag for my phone, it took me a few seconds to realize that someone was yelling my name. When I looked behind me, I saw a woman limping towards me and who, after my confirmation that I was who she was looking for, she began telling me she had lived at Throbbing Manor for nearly 25 years and is currently battling the bank to get repossession of the house. Taken slightly back (How do you talk to a crazy person?), we had a stilted conversation about the gardens, then she had this off-centered laugh about our battle with the ivy, and that she had also met my mother-in-law last year when TheHusband and mother-in-law were working in the gardens during the MIL’s visit. When I could think no more to say, I walked away from her with a twitchy smile on my lips and a what the fuck just happened in my heart.
Today is my 40th birthday.
I’m in my home office, still in my PJs at 1:30 3 in the afternoon. Wednesday is snoring on her pillow under the window fan. I have both windows open, the blinds are pulled down as far as they will go before they go over the lip of the opened window frame, shrouding the room in semi-darkness.
I am severely depressed.
This isn’t “JESUS FUCK, I’M 40!” depressed or even, “Christ. I’m fat” depressed or even a million things that would make us sad and blue on a daily basis. This is different. Far different. This is enveloping not only my heart, but my entire being, it’s physical as well as mental. When I walk, I feel like I’m moving in half-solidified Jello. When I am still, my skin feels like it’s being pushed on at all of its pores. I feel like I am of single mind and two bodies at once: one physical and one epheremal. I watch myself during the motions, a panel of Lisa judges on how well we passed (8.5! Work on your backflip, girl.) through the motion.
Even at my worst stages of BPD, even at the stages of when things were so bad that I felt like there was no way out, there was almost always some small thread of hope that would keep me from being incredibly stupid.
I don’t have that now. At least, not in the same form as before. I don’t have a desire to kill myself but I don’t feel like there is any hope. It seems that I’ve presented myself with a conundrum. Perhaps I am my own unreliable narrative for the second I had written the above, I knew it to be a lie: I want this to go away and I want to be happy.
On paper, everything looks great: I have a great husband, a lovely house, an awesome job. I have old and new friends who are incredible and supportive. I have a brother whose relationship I’m beginning to depend on and materialistically, I want for nothing. For the first time in over a decade, I do not need to calculate the price of an item down to a per hour working cost. But something is not right in Denmark, as all I want to do is do nothing and feel nothing. I just ate a bar of my favorite chocolate. It tasted good, because something tells me this is what I knew to be my favorite bar of chocolate, but it does not make me happy to have eaten it or treat it with joy or even acknowledge that it is good chocolate. It was a bar a chocolate, so I ate it. It’s boiled down to being that simple.
Food is not consumed because it tastes good but consumed because I know it is there for me to eat it. I drink to hydrate, not to enjoy. I watch television to block out hours, not to enrich. (Except for True Blood, because well, that’s True Blood.) I used to read 10-15 books a month, I have finished two books in the last six. When I read the news, of any kind, I have the same emotion for war pieces as I do for saving kittens from a tree. I can’t tell you the last time I felt sexy. Or when the last time I laughed because I was overjoyed. While I never particularly thought of myself as being vain, I did take care of my appearance and even that is slipping. When I do something that should fall into being beautiful, I find that I’ve placed a mask on my body instead. I’m miming what you think I should be doing because that is socially what people know Lisa to do so that is what I’ll do.
So far, over 50 people have wished me a happy birthday on my Facebook wall but I’m crying because no one has sent me a physical card, because I feel that if they really did care, they would spend the few bucks for the card and the stamp. Then I beat myself up over that bit of hypocritical wants since when is the last time I randomly bought someone a card and sent it (i.e. never). Again, a lie: Today’s post revealed a quick written post from my mother who jotted that she was far too young to have a 40 year old daughter.
I am told by people they care about me (see earlier remark about new and old friends being supportive), but I feel like they are just telling me this to soothe their own souls, even when they are being sincere and true. I have stopped engaging with most people locally because I do not know how to be a friend to them anymore as I don’t know how to react anymore to someone loving me, even platonically. When my husband says he loves me, my first reaction is that I feel like he loves me because it’s habit not because he genuinely does. Then I start to cry because I know that bit about my husband is a lie and I feel like an awful human being for even thinking this to be true. And if there is anyone in this world who loves me pure and true, it’s TheHusband.
I am an emotional mess of contradictions and fallacies, and I’m barely keeping my head above water. You were good to me years ago Internet for working things out (and cheaper then therapy). I hope you don’t mind me coming to you again.
x0x0,
Lisa