Ponderings on the "American Idea"

I'm taking a course on the role of higher education in a democracy, and class discussion is bringing up interesting thoughts.

I was fascinated by "A Religious Idea Called 'America'" by David Gelernter (Bradley Lecture, Washington, February 13, 2006). Many of the statements the author makes solidify aspects of America that had puzzled me for some time.

The first of these is what the author refers to as "American Zionism." This is a particularly apt metaphor for this feeling that seems to be inherent in many Americans that America is the best country that ever is or was, a chosen country, perhaps even chosen by God. This is something that I never questioned growing up, but became abruptly aware of when I took my first trip abroad after my sophomore year of college. It seems bizarre now, but before then the "outside world" (meaning anyplace outside of America) was simply an abstraction to me. I believed that other countries existed, that people lived in them, but I didn't truly grasp what that meant. When I landed in Italy, suddenly the rest of the world was concretely real to me. I realized that the faceless people I had imagined living in these countries were individuals just like me, who were simply born somewhere else. I realized that there were other worldviews, other contexts from which to understand world events.

And that made me suddenly question America's historic foreign policy of helping (or meddling, depending on your perspective) in other countries' issues. Helping when asked is one thing, but as we all know, America has done more than that--just look to Vietnam or Iraq, to use the obvious examples. I can see why the potential to free a people and give them a democracy is an attractive idea, but is it our business to do so? Why do so many of us seem to think that it is our right, perhaps our divine right, to decide that a country should be governed in a certain way, and to invade and wage war to ensure that this is so?

I find it difficult to define ethics outside of a specific moral code (as is discussed in James Campbell's Understanding John Dewey, chapter 4, the idea of ethics as a secular moral code). I find it difficult to define "right" and "wrong" without a specific code or criteria. I'm sure that some of this difficulty is because I was brought up in a religious home, and my natural pattern of thinking has been defined by a specific moral code. However, regardless of my own beliefs, I believe that America as a country is defined by and exists in large part to protect religious freedom, and as such should be ruled in as secular and nonbiased a manner as possible. It's simply difficult for me to define how that governing should run, what moral code it should adhere to, without having something specific against which to judge that government's actions.

This post doesn't specifically relate to education thus far, but I have had similar intellectual struggles with education in similar manners. How can we teach a variety of worldviews, values, and perspectives in an honest manner to students? Is disclosing our own personal perspective a helpful insight, a cautionary disclosure of our bias, or a harmful influence that creates more bias?

The more I study and think, the fewer answers and more questions I have.

Busy Week...

I'm currently at a conference on civic engagement and deliberative democracy called "No Better Time" at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. It's incredibly cool, and their conference logo this year was made using Wordle! On Saturday, I'll fly directly to Chicago for the rest of ALA Annual (hey, if anyone's free Tuesday morning/early afternoon, want to join me on an architectural boat tour?). Rather than flood my blog with live-blogging sessions, I'm posting notes on my wiki and brief thoughts/greetings/blatherings on my twitter feed.

I return on Tuesday evening and shall immediately collapse.

December

In my daily agenda book, there are three or four little post-its with ideas I've been hashing around and other things I'd like to blog about. Unfortunately, November and December visited me with a certain vengeance--too many work projects and final schoolwork projects only begin to tell the story.

Today begins three glorious weeks off, weeks away from both both and school. I would love to think that I'd use this time to catch up on this blog... but eh, let's not push me. ;)

Today I also get on a plane to meet my husband in Kharkov, Ukraine. He's been there for the past month (also visited for a week in September and another week in October). We plan to let him wrap up work there and then spend a few days vacationing in Kiev, then spend the night in London on the way back, and arrive back in town the evening of Christmas Eve. (I will try to periodically check my personal email a bit while we're gone.)

I wish you all a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a great New Year, and any other holidays you're celebrating... like No School for a Month, that's one of my personal favorites.

Summer = Travel

I've lost count of how many times I've traveled this summer. The professional experience has been great, but it's made the schedule hectic, and made it very difficult to keep up with everyday-type work. I'm looking forward to returning to a more normal schedule at the end of next week--by normal, of course, I mean that I'll also be returning to taking a full-time courseload. I'm sadistically excited about this semester, however, particularly about one course titled "Essentials of Academic Publishing." Practical, interesting, immediately applicable--right up my alley.

But in the meantime, I've got one last trip to make. This, finally, is the vacation trip--not a semi-"vacation" tacked on to one of my or my husband's work trips--just six days in New York City for fun.

I look forward to returning in a more work-ready state of mind... and to a regular schedule. Hooray for fall!

IFLA: Presentation Done!

Well, that was a fantastic experience! I was fortunate to share the session with five great panelists working on very similar projects, and we had a bunch of insightful questions--some of which had me jotting down notes to consider later. I got to meet some people interested in our CyberCemetery--always great to be able to share and exchange ideas. In fact, I even got to meet someone from the Congressional Research Service, which of course had me geeking out a bit, as I do whenever I see something stamped with "CRS."

Note to any attendees or those otherwise interested: I"ll be posting the Powerpoint for my presentation later, and I'll happily provide other documents as you're interested. I know one woman was interested in the metadata schema we use for CyberCemetery websites, so I may just post the current version to my wiki to make it accessible to everyone. I'll link all of that content back here--I think it also might be good for me to include the questions and answers I got, for future reference. And I hope tomorrow to be able to type up and post more of the notes that I've taken in other IFLA sessions (including the other presenters from my session).

I also have to add that that IFLA's wifi connection here is quite nice--it actually inspired me to drag my laptop down here and I'm currently taking notes. Er, back to those notes.

(And also: Quebec is beautiful, I must come back!)

How Is It August?

Yes, you, too can create your own READ poster.

I got the green light for some travel funds for IFLA next week in Quebec City, so I'm in a flurry of preparation. I was already trying to catch up after having been at Interagency last week, and now knowing I'll be gone for another week is... yeah. I'm racing to complete this year's Albino Squirrel Calendar, catch up on emails, and get some things posted to the GODORT wiki.

I got all the month pages completed today: that just leaves the "other" pages (6 of them), the cover, and listing out all the relevant dates to include for each month.

At least my IFLA paper has been written for months--but I do need to pull some screenshots together for an interesting Powerpoint... and to reduce my 6-page paper into something that I can state in 15 minutes or less. Slowly, since there will be simultaneous translation.

Interesting... this summer, my blog has become my to-do list. Sigh. At this point, folks, I'm just crossing my fingers until September--the return of a regular schedule (albeit one that includes three classes), and only one professional trip (that I know of). Whew.

I was hoping to blog about how awesome Interagency was, and all the fellow librarians I met (particularly the geeky crowd), and maybe even the touristy DC things we did on the weekend... Yeah. Just like all my to-do photo editing and uploading, it will just have to wait.

Oh! One fun tidbit, however: the book for which Suzanne, Annie, and I wrote a chapter, Academic Library Outreach: Beyond the Campus Walls, is set to be published this December, a month earlier than expected! Hurrah!!

Dilemma: Photo Release Forms

I was so glad to see the Librarian in Black point to this issue. It's something that nags at me a lot, because I'm a librarian by career and a photographer by hobby--as well as being the frequent graphic designer/photographer for various library projects. And yes, for patrons to take photographs or videos in Willis Library, they are required to stop by the Administrative Office first.

I can certainly understand people's reticence to have their kids show up in photographs all over the internet--and in fact, that's one reason why I almost never tag kids in my Flickr photos with full names. In fact, I rarely do this with adults--when I do, it's usually colleagues that I photographed at a work-related event. I'd rather have very specific tags, for my own use, but I'm also reluctant to be the reason that someone's embaressing or silly moment shows up top in a Google search by their potential employers.

I'm frustrated with how awareness of this issue has cramped my photography in the past two years. If I'm taking photos involving children in a public place, but I don't personally know them, I tend to take photos from the back or side. I try to take images of adults in groups, and if they are individuals, again try to get them without a full front view of their faces. But perhaps I'm being too cautious.

I'd like to take photos freely, without worrying about release forms--but I'd also like to take photos knowing that I'm not making my subjects uncomfortable. Meh.

And on that note, I'll get back to web updates and my current graphic design projects: library calendars and reading fesitval posters. Perhaps if I cross my fingers very, very hard, Photoshop won't crash my system this afternoon.

Note: GovDocs librarians or those in the DC area, I'll be in DC for Interagency from Friday, July 25 through Saturday, August 2. Anyone who wants to do lunch or site-seeing, let me know.

Back in Denton

Actually, this is my second day back in the office, but I'm only now sane enough to post. The whole Anaheim/Abilene/Austin thing kind of threw me for a loop the last two and a half weeks. I'm whittling down my to-do list, but being as I have another week-long trip (Interagency in DC) at the end of the month, IFLA in Canada in August, and a personal trip to NYC at the end of that month, I doubt I'll make dramatic progress on my projects until September. Whew.

I primarily wanted to say that I now have all the Austin trip photos up, or you can just view the TLA ones. Take note: there has been no cropping or editing of any kind yet, so these are a bit rough.

I'm still working on the ALA photos... in fact, I didn't even finish editing/uploading the photos from my vacation-y time on day 1. Sigh. All in time.

Amidst my myriad projects are a couple of more recent and short-term things:

• propose and prepare an OPAL on designing a GovDocs website
• prepare a proposal (and/or article?) related to one or two aspects of Gaiman's Sandman
• draft a new copy of the Texas Depository Library contact list (then send it out to our state list-serv for further corrections)
• prepare this year's UNT Libraries Albino Squirrel Calendar
• design this year's Denton Reads promo materials
• go through my long list of possible articles, and pick at least two to begin writing

If I list more than that, my ears might start smoking, so we'll leave it there, as the projects that are most immediately on my mind.

Anyone else feel like the summer that was supposed to be their downtime ended up being more stressful and/or busy than the spring was? I had about two weeks of relative peace and quiet, but that's it.

...Where Am I?

I'm kind of wondering this myself. I didn't so much unpack my ALA suitcase so much as stuffed Alex's dirty laundry from his St. Petersburg trip into it, and we took off to spend the holiday weekend in Abilene. We had high hopes of doing laundry while we were there, but ended up sitting around playing video games and trying to stop our heads spinning in between business trips.

We got back Saturday, and Sunday I had to get up and do the laundry in order to re-pack for the business trip I'm currently on, TLA Annual Assembly in Austin. Got here Monday and am leaving tomorrow(--I think; is it really Wednesday?). I'm on the Conference Programs Committee, so it's a lot of proofing, discussing, lias-ing with my groups, and finally scheduling. It's been a nice trip and I've had fun, but I am quite ready to get home and get re-acquainted with my husband. (After all, I've got a full two weeks home before I'm off to DC for Interagency).

At this rate, it almost--almost!--makes the Fall semester seem less intimidating. Sure, I'll have fulltime classes again, but maybe less travel. Maybe. One can hope. I love travel, I love being involved in professional groups and getting things done and learning... but man, it will be great someday when my life's purpose doesn't seem to be redefining the word "busy."

On the other hand, my husband is convinced that it's simply a part of who I am, and that if I had evenings without homework or articles to read or write, that I'd have a mental breakdown. He may be right.

I must say that I am learning the value of the word "no," however. Slowly, to be sure, but I am learning to wield its power. After all, I've got to make time to get home and discuss Battlestar Galactica with my husband--there are some things in life that are just non-negotiable.

Saturday

No creative title tonight... I'm just too darned tired to think more.

I went to four programs today, and they were all really interesting, but the best was definitely the LITA session on Information Technology and Information Rights of the Individual, with four scifi/fantasy writers. The highlight was that Cory Doctorow spoke (allow me a fangirlish "squee!" here), but each of the authors were fantastic: Eric Flint, Vernor Vinge, and Brandon Sanderson. In addition, Tor Books generously handed out bags with catalogs and a book by each author to the first 150 people (there were easily 400 in the room). I got there 45 minutes early, and thus got one of the prized bags and a seat on the second row. Plus, the authors generously stayed after the program to autograph everyone's copy. I scored waaay better at that one session than the time I spent in the Exhibits Hall today!

But the best part was simply hearing them all speak on the topic. I took notes, so I'll be posting them a little later, along with my notes on the other sessions of the day.

I don't think I'll be posting more photos until I get home, though--I simply don't have time to keep up with my content at the moment.

Suffice to say--if you get a chance to hear any of those four authors speak, go!

Happy Hour

Met quite a few other librarians today, wandered through Downtown Disney, caught up with my husband, who is now back in the States, got a bit of work done, and met up with the GODORT crew. I stayed to chat quite a bit longer than I had planned, caught up in a conversation about (what else?) shared regionals. It was particularly nice to be able to chat for quite awhile with Jesse and Ellen.

The venue this year was, I thought, quite a bit better than '07 in DC. It was still a bar in a Marriott, but this one was much roomier, and there was a lot of seating, which made it easier to navigate, as well as hold actual conversations.

I had briefly considered going to the Gaming event after the Happy Hour, but I ended up staying later than expected. I've also got to look over my schedule for tomorrow one last time, so here I am, back at the laptop.

In Anaheim!

Well, after leaving my house at 4:30am, flying out at 6:40am, getting to LAX at 7:40 (California time), and then spending a fun, long day sight-seeing around LA, Hollywood, and Santa Monica... I'm wiped out.

I did manage to pick up my registration materials at the Convention Center--I'm always glad when I can get that done the day before conference truly begins. Since the shuttles weren't yet in operation, I walked the 1.2 miles there and the 1.2 miles back... which was pleasant and gorgeous, but perhaps not the best situation in which to wear high-heeled sandals. Ah, well.

I've been going through the program guide and exhibits guide this evening, and I think I'm about done for the night--just want to see if I can manage to edit and upload a few photos to my Flickr account first.

Observations thus far:

• wish the shuttles ran on the preconference day, although I'm sure it's not cost-effective
• am very pleased to have free wifi not only at ALA, but for once in my hotel room (usually I just get wired connection for free, staying at Marriott locations)
• also very pleased to have had my Residence Inn room upgraded for free--I'm in what they call a "penthouse suite," which is insanely roomy, particularly for one person. I have three--yes, three--closets in this place.
• I have far too much "extra work" to be doing in the evenings when I'd rather be vegging, having fun, or editing/uploading photos. Meh.
• I've already met several interesting and fun people; Matt from Melbourne with Biblioteca (shared the shuttle ride from LAX), and a woman from Library Journal with whom I swapped thunderstorm stories.
  
• I'm already sunburned on both shoulders... and now get to spend four conference days toting my laptop backpack on those very same shoulders. That was spectacular planning on my part...

This isn't even all of the selected photos from today.... but it's a start.

Blogging ALA: Prep!

I'm always amazed at the necessary last-minute flurry of activity. It's only exacerbated this year, since in addition to my daily work, my last-minute GODORT stuff, my TLA stuff, and personal things like packing and dropping off yet another vehicle for repairs... I'm also trying to finish writing up a summary of my work this year for my performance review, while simultaneously preparing to re-apply for my current position (which has been re-posted as a permanent position, since I've been a visiting librarian for the past 2+ years).

Whew.

If you want to reach me in Anaheim, I'm at the Residence Inn Anaheim Maingate, which is something like 1.4 miles from the Convention Center, and I'll have my cellphone with me. I'll try to do the typical email check, but that gets harder and harder each conference, as I get busier and busier.

Let me know if you'd like to do lunch, or something, though! If you don't already have my cell, email me at work (the gmail account linked here will probably languish while I'm gone).

Have fun, kiddos!

Prepping for ALA...

I've had some correspondence regarding this blog lately, and I fully intend to respond before Thursday, but at the moment am trying to keep afloat and put out fires.... something that sounds metaphorically impossible, but I assure you, it's not.

I've been working on my ALA schedule for the past couple of hours, always a complex and confounding process--and, as usual, the most interesting sessions seem to be scheduled for the same times. Ah, well--compromise is a skill, I suppose.

Also a, shout-out to my fellow blogger and GODORT-er, Rebecca Blakely of McNeese Library, who is moderating a session on gender and race messages in Disney films, which I would dearly love to attend... were I not in a GODORT Publications Committee meeting at that time. (See my dilemmas?)

I will be arriving in Anaheim a day early, Thursday morning. I plan to take a mini-vacation to see friends, get to the Santa Monica pier, and soak up some of my native state's atmosphere. If you'll be in the area and have some free time Thursday/Friday for some adventure-seeking, let me know and maybe we can hang out for awhile.

Anyone else dreading the mail lines at the Exhibits Hall? With the added checked-baggage airline fees, I'll bet many more of us will be in that line this time around. I guess if nothing else, the line will be a good place to start all that ARC reading...

Abilene--Literally a Whirlwind Trip!

Yesterday, I woke up at 5am to leave my house at 6am, in order to meet Suzanne in Denton. We drove to Abilene and due to some ferocious Fort Worth traffic, didn't make it to HSU's Richardson Library until 11am. We had a great--though brief--chat with my friend Ellen Simmons, who is the govdocs librarian there. This is the second library visit I've made with Suzanne--we went to see David Rankin in Commerce last semester, and Suzanne went to visit with Tom Lindsey at UTA earlier this month (sans myself). It's oddly helpful to walk through other libraries' govdocs collections--by comparing them with ours, it's somehow giving me a more complete view of depository collections and what the core items are in a depository collection.

Ellen treated us to a fantastic lunch at the Cypress Street Cafe, an Abilene legend. Then I dropped off a Wii Guitar Hero guitar with my friend Jared on our way out of town--geeky errands, you know--and after just 3.5 hours in Abilene, we were on our way back out of town! (We had to leave so abruptly because I had a class that evening, and Suzanne had to drive to Tulsa that night.)

But as for “whirlwind,” it wasn’t just that we spent less time in Abilene than it takes to drive there… one-way… “whirlwind” signifies the fantastically enthusiastic/crazy wind that was going on. Yes, windy even by Abilene-ian standards, which is a bit terrifying. (This morning it was even worse in Denton: winds at 56 mph+ and grassfires that made the whole city smoky.)

It was nice to see my alma mater, though, for however brief a time.

Midwinter Progress Report

Notes from Midwinter:

• GODORT Steering I meeting
• GODORT Update: "Libraries in the Digital Age"
• general notes (primarily reminders for myself)
  

Photos from Midwinter (flickr)

Comey of Errors

The whole Houston trip was an interesting saga, briefly summarized here:

• nearly missed plane from DFW
• workshop was amazing, met some interesting people
• got four fantastic hardbacks of Tufte's work
• stuck in traffic for an hour and half on the way to Houston Hobby
• missed 6:30 flight--last flight of the day!
• spent 45 minutes trying to find another flight or lodgings
• was picked up by a family member
• back to the airport at 4am, flew to DFW at 6am
• drove directly to Denton for work to meet 2 of the 4 deadlines from last week

Do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not get any sleep.

Anyway, this is my week of playing deep catch-up at work, so I'll still be lying low on the blog-radar. I'll try to post more info about the workshop next week.

TLA Transforming Texas Libraries: Day 1

It's beautifully easy to get to the Hilton from the Austin Airport--less than a mile away. I ended up taking a shuttle with Dreanna Belden, Sue Compton, and a bunch of other TLA-ers. Dreanna and I had lunch and got to visit with several colleagues. The restaurant service left something to be desired, but the food was fantastic--we had sweet potato soup and blueberry/peach salad. Then we registered and ran down to the General Session with two library futurists: Joan Frye Williams and George M. Needham.

Here's a boil-down of what attracted attention in the General Session:

1. user's point of view
2. constituents and civilians
3. make quality convenient
4. make it easy (aka "easy is not stupid")

Here's my summary of each of those points:

1. The primary focus of the session was that to better serve our users, we need to take their point of view. Stop patronizing patrons and making them learn our system.
2. Think in terms of constituents (includes community that doesn't use the library), and civilians (people who aren't in the library world). Get their perspective and step outside of the librarian mindset.
3. Our constituents are using what's convenient--they don't care about quality like we do. So to bring them to our quality resources/services, we need to make them convenient.
4. Our users aren't stupid--but we make them feel that way in our libraries. We shouldn't make users feel ashamed or dumb--we need to make our libraries and resources easy enough to use that civilians can use them independently, with confidence.

There are large sheets of paper posted around the main ballroom--one sheet for each group to brainstorm on, and sheets near the door where we posted keywords from the first general session, which were later collected into a tag cloud. I love this idea--it's textual and visual, and creatively stimulating. Yay!

Then we broke into individual groups.

Group 6, Work Session 1
I'm in group 6, which is tackling library structures. Our conversation veered away from this issue, partially because we weren't sure to define "structure" in terms of physical building, an organizational structure, etc. We reacted and brainstormed instead on ideas related to the general session. We talked about how to start changing ourselves. (And incidentally, Ellie Collier, our TLA blogger for this task force, is in my group.)

After that, we had a short break, during which I chatted with some fellow Denton-ites, Melody Kelly, Eva Poole (director of Denton Public Libraries), and Shawne Miksa (UNT SLIS prof). It was a fun chatty time, and then we all went down together to the dinner and final speaker of the day. Dinner was fine (not as good as lunch, for then chicken for 100 people tends to turn out that way), and the speaker, Kathleen de la Peña McCook, was interesting. Her focus was on library involvement in the community in non-library groups and human rights advocacy. I'm not entirely sure how I felt about everything she said--she made some very strong, passionate statements that made me think, however.

And then I came upstairs to my room to catch up with my husband, write these thoughts down, edit my photos, and be frustrated at the lack of in-room internet access. I could go downstairs to use it, but I'm already in my tracksuit and not entirely sure that the internet access is worth traveling four floors for. I believe I'll set my alarm early instead and update my online life before our next work session starts at 9am.

There was so much thought that this has stimulated already--I wish this was three days instead of two. It's going to be difficult to process all of this into something useful in such a short period of time. At the same time, I know most of us can't afford the time of a longer session, particularly this late in the year. Ah, well.

'Tis the Season

Yes, to be jolly, but also to heighten that usual sense of the word "busy." Ah, how well I know it after having spent over two decades enrolled in some form of school.

And I've got a bit of good news to post: I've been accepted into UNT's PhD program in Higher Education! Yes, I'm back for more--but as my husband supportively points out, this degree has that helpful distinction of "terminal," meaning that I could, conceivably, one day be done with school. (No, really.)

Why, you ask, particularly as I've argued in the past that most librarians don't need PhDs, and that often it doesn't seem to be worth the time or money invested in the degree? Well, because much as I currently love my job, I know my ambitions and my dreams, and I'd like to be able to move not only into library administration, but potentially into university-wide administration. And it seems pretty par for the course to have a PhD attached to your name in those positions.

Why in Higher Ed, instead of an Information Sciences doctorate? Well, I'm attracted to that program, it looks quite interesting--but at the end it seems to me that a Library/Info Science PhD is best if 1) you want to teach at a library school (I don't), or 2) you are interested in a highly-focused area of library science research that you'd like to pursue (I'm not). I want to administrate, and I'm going into Higher Ed because that's a good, practical preparation for university administration--lots of helpful courses on academic finances and of course the ever-present statistical information (which, being a documents librarian, I'm actually looking forward to). And I'm interested in researching library support for distance education--support both in terms of library services and library materials--and thus, I've already got a potential dissertation topic.

I embark upon that adventure in January 2008. In the meantime, our emerging technologies group at UNT is more deeply discussing options for standards in technology competencies for library employees... we're trying to see if that's a good road for us to take in the Libraries.

And of course there's a desk full of stacked papers requiring my attention--Thanksgiving is a lovely holiday and it's great to rest, but I'm mighty tired of moving some of my "to-do" items from week to week in my calendar. I'm pondering a work-fest week in the second week of December, to try to wrap up a lot of this end-of-the-year deadline stuff (and then hope to write an article or two in that "spare time" over the Christmas break).

Next week, though, it will be hard to keep up with the normal swing of work--Monday and Tuesday I'll be in Austin for the Texas Library Association's Transforming Texas Libraries Summit, which has a lot of potential to be interesting, and then Thursday I'll be in Houston for a fantastic workshop on the visual presentation of data (no, it's really not boring!!) by Edward Tufte. My father, an optics engineer, attended this presentation a few years back and said it's about the best one-day seminar he's ever been to, and promptly bought me one of Tufte's books that Christmas. I've been fascinated with him ever since, and since my current position deals a lot with both graphics and statistics, this seemed like a good training opportunity.

Also, I'm on the Conference Program Committee for the TLA 2009 conference--we're beginning to brainstorm sessions and speakers. If you know of anyone who would be a good speaker on graphic design and/or library marketing, please let me know. I'm particularly interested in organizing a session on that general topic, as it's something that's quite relevant to work I've been doing for UNT, and I'm sure it's a problem for other libraries as well. Or if you have other session ideas, things you'd like to be educated on, people you'd like to hear speak--please just let me know!

Where in the World is Starr Hoffman?

(Not to be confused with Carmen Sandiego.)

So... I've given five presentations and been in four different locations in the past two and a half weeks. Forgive me if I'm slow in responding to email, calls, or even vocal communication--I'm a bit dazed at the moment. (Going through several hundred email messages this morning didn't help ground me further in reality, either.)

Audience at my CRS reports presentation in DC, October 15th.
We estimated about 125 attendees--thanks so much, everyone!

I can't chat long--must get back to the email and general work catch-up, of course--but I must say a huge "thanks!" to everyone who helped me prepare my presentations and to everyone who listened, particularly all the great feedback I've received. I am so appreciative just of the experience to give these presentations, all of which were fabulous, fun, and a learning experience--all those comments were just icing on a very large cake. And thanks to my family, who gave me three days of vacation in the middle of this madness, and who were quite understanding about my crazed schedule and need to be constantly revising PowerPoint files.

And now, back to the long process of getting back into the swing of things.