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Thursday, September 30, 2010

To Do Lists....

You know my drill. Here's what I've got a week to do... that I can remember...

Tonight:
- Run sprints/hill for 2.5 miles
- Core work-out & shoulder PT

Friday:
- pick up a car rental
- wave my love good bye as he leaves for a 2 week course in NC
- run 5 miles at a comfortable pace

Saturday:
- avoid game day stupids
- try not to get too mad because the library is closed from 5:00PM on Friday until Sunday afternoon for a Saturday home football game.
- run 10 miles at Lake Lurleen, because the gym will only be open for 3 hours or something stupid because of the stupid home football game.

Sunday:
- Climbing at Sandrock (all day event)

And somewhere during any of that:
- Finish the most insane library scavenger hunt ever
- Write an 8 page paper
- do a lot of reading
- apply for spring scholarships
- actually work on my research
- Get started on a 15 page paper
- dangit... I know I'm forgetting stuff...
- Schedule a physical

Monday, September 20, 2010

ALHeLA 2010

Last week I went to my first professional conference, the Alabama Health Library Association (ALHeLA) 2010 Annual Meeting in Birmingham. I am extremely grateful to have been given this opportunity through a generous scholarship. Overall I think I learned quite a bit. I was able to attend two classes by the NN/LM - one on website usability and the other on pubmed searching. I also met several awesome medical librarians and learned more about librarianship in Alabama.

Now it's time to catch up on my work and homework!

Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Tashka Trail 50K

This is gonna hurt....

I will be running the Tashka Trail 50K this December 11th.

Here is the homepage for the run: Tashka Trail Home

Time to start training!!!

Monday, September 13, 2010

Vertigo

Sometimes life just makes me plain dizzy. And sometimes climbing does.

Last Sunday Derek and I got to spend a wonderful day climbing at Sandrock, Alabama. The weather was perfect with a warm breeze and fluffy clouds. Derek had several routes he wanted to do, most of which were way past my current physical abilities. I got pretty creative in my attempts to follow his leads, doing everything from placing & pulling on gear to hucking myself up & holding on just long enough for him to take up slack before falling off again.

It was frustrating at times, but a good work out and an obvious wake-up call for me to get back into shape. Needless to say, I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

Our last climb on Sunday was Derek's new project - a trad 5.12 that goes up a blank face to the underside of a short roof. Derek made it to the underside of the roof when he hit his physical/psychological wall and decided to try again another day. We climbed up a dirty 5.9 next to Derek's route so that we could rappel down & retrieve his gear before heading home.

At the top of Derek's 5.12, we set up for me to rap down first then Derek would follow. I was going to rappel using a gri-gri on a single fixed line of rope. After double checking the system, I stepped to the edge of the 50 foot cliff and looked down. And the world spun.

I closed my eyes, took a breath, and looked again. Still spinning.

Stepping back away from the edge, I looked at Derek, at our anchor, and at my attachment points to check again that everything was correct. I was not keen on stepping off a cliff to free fall to my death. I realized that I had not had enough to eat or drink, which was the most likely culprit for my dizziness. I understood that my body's reaction was something I would have to overcome if I wanted to get off that stupid cliff. So I checked everything again. I made Derek check everything again.

And then I backed up to the edge and stepped off.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Going to B'ham!!!

Yup. I'm going to the ALHeLA meeting in Birmingham next week!!! :) So stoked!!

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Cross your fingers...

Today is the deadline for an essay scholarship competition. The scholarship will provide the winner with funds to attend the 2010 Alabama Health Libraries Association (ALHeLA) Annual Meeting in Birmingham. I submitted my essay for the contest last week.

If I win, this will be my first ever professional conference - and I am soooo excited about the possibility. I would love the chance to network with other librarians, attend one of the classes, visit the Lister Hill Library, and listen to the speaker - Dr. Hendricks.

The class I want to attend is also super relevant to one of my work projects, and the research I am going to be doing next semester. It concerns website usability and accessibility, and it is being given by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NN/LM). They are a pretty legit organization and have one of the most accessible websites I've seen so far in my studies. I am confident that these folks know a great deal on the topic, and that I would learn a lot in this class.

This conference would also be my first time actually visiting Birmingham, which is kind of insane since I live only about an hour away from the city and drive through it on nearly a monthly basis. I hope I get the chance to change that.

I'm getting ahead of myself though. I don't know if I won, and if I didn't win then I won't be attending the conference.... so... cross your fingers for me!