Sunday, September 30, 2012

Day 11: Catalogue Dialogue

I awoke again on Friday to get to 9am classes and was greeted into the classroom by one of the cheeriest and flattering remarks someone can make to you, "You're not a morning person, are you?" It's true though, I can't deny, my classmates jokes about me seeming tired and out of sorts were true. It was too early and I was dreading being on campus for so many hours and with no food as I had run out of time to pack a lunch.
Quickly though, my fatigue faded upon the entrance of Sir Alan MacLennan. The lecturer for the cataloguing half of my "Cataloguing and Classification" Module. (Not actually a Knight except in my heart), but for those of you back home, I completely see this guy's potential to reach a level of esteem reached by none other than Chuck Whipkey, Jack Bales, and maybe not Jean Ann, but...close.
Assuming his position at the front of the classroom, the hour lecture seems to be proceeding with all marks of postgraduate officialism.  Then you realize the link he was bringing up on the screen was an Alice Cooper song. He looked over the roll sheet and let out a sigh of relief that there was no one in the class named Kevin. (He has a tendency to use Kevin as a derogatory term, apparently). Then, in his Scottish brogue, he excused himself in advance for letting out any small profanities ("well actually they usually end up being very long strings of profanity"). He was. HILARIOUS. And it is to be expected that, though most people laughed at his jokes, I was the one who continued to laugh, or let out a giggle five minutes after the fact just because I remembered what he said. He began to describe the course and define cataloguing, and alluded several times to the fact that cataloguing is one of the nerdiest branches of library studies: it is the creating of bibliographic records so that people can easily find the books and documents these records stand in for, seemingly the quintessential librarian duty, a position upheld by those that MacLennan described as the leather elbow jacket-wearing, pipe-smoking folks, ("and the men aren't any better" haHA!), as the specialists that view card catalogues as sacred artifacts and collect them for their homes. However, he did mention that they like beer, so that could be a good thing for potential fun times, discussing the Dewey Decimal over some draughts.

After his lecture, I had three hours to kill before the next one. Not enough time to go home and do anything productive, so I went upstairs to find a "Silent study only" room in the library, tucked away in a back corner to have some peace, and opened the pages of my creased and worn copy of Wuthering Heights. Reading for two hours, my eyes had reached the point where they could barely stay open, and my head was consistently bobbing down to my chest. So, I did as any normal person would do...I pulled two chairs together, curled up, and laid down, falling asleep in the middle of the day in a school library. Luckily, as I napped, a boy came and sat at the same table under which I was sleeping, and I can only imagine what he thought as he entered the silent study area and saw it was being used for cat naps. I awoke, laid for a few moments thinking how I should pop up from such circumstances without it being completely awkward, and realizing it wasn't possible, I lifted my body, bid him a "Good Morning" as I donned my scarf and jacket, and made my way off to my next lecture.

After school was over, I got home, lazed around, read some more, and was ushered to one of Jenkins' friends' "Rugby game" against my will, only to find out upon arrival that it wasn't even a game! Not even a scrimmage! He was purposely conniving; we showed up to watch maybe the first practice of the year with about 10 girls, half of which had never played rugby before and were just joining the squad this year. Great entertainment...not.
But the evening looked up upon arrival home again. Jenkins cooked some chicken, I baked some delicious fries (chips), and we had our own little dance parties from everything from Alicia Keys to Blue Oyster Cult. It was hilarious, and then I slept.

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