Dithering, packing, & waffling

Perhaps that title should be waffling, dithering, and packing; either way I am not getting much accomplished this evening. How so? I am currently dithering about what I should pack to wear with my lovely new black trousers the second day of the conference. I probably will determine it is necessary to take more than one option (so I have a choice Friday morning). If not, I will spend the day resigned to the fact I look like a lump all the while viciously wishing I had chosen the other top, shirt, blouse, and/or sweater. In the big scheme of things it is not that important, but you never know when the weird vanity gene will surge to the forefront. Because I am dithering about what to take, I have also decided to put off packing for this short, overnight trip, until morning. Then if I change my mind concerning what I have already selected(and ironed) to wear tomorrow it will not be too late to change what goes into the overnight bag.

Some days I am just a bit too neurotic for my own good. Especially considering my mantra about how people look; someone will always look better, someone will always look worse, I am fated to land in the middle. Be that as it may ....

I am waffling, of course, concerning the new library web page design. Up to this point I have been content to know I would be able to duplicate, simplistically speaking, one or two of the more sophisticated looking library web sites. I say up to this point because this afternoon I was leafing back through my notes from the Dreamweaver workshops I took last fall and stopped on the page concerning layers. Yes, layers and how Dreamweaver can easily convert tables to layers, making it a simpler matter to attach style sheets to templates. On my way out of the library at the end of today the last thing I grabbed from my office was the workbook. Sometime this weekend I will take a second, and a third, look at the assignment.

The second bit of waffling is the article due in two weeks. I have yet to put serious pen to paper, rather typing to word processor, beyond the point to transferring the poster session information from it's current web home to Word. This weekend I must craft the abstract and a rough draft of the article. It is imperative I do not flub (great word, flub) this opportunity. Since I have not done a great deal of library research, and shame on me for that statement, chances to be published based upon previous presentations and work are not commonplace. Write, write, write.

ALA, Posters, and Expedia (oh, my)

Good news came last week in the form of not one, but two acceptances for ALA poster sessions I submitted in January. University funding for conferences, professional development grants, is tied to presenting as opposed to only attending, therefore the good news was also a fiscal relief. Early bird registration ended several weeks before session acceptance and/or denial were slated to arrive. What are the topics? One poster is on a successful library and college of education conference collaboration we held at the university last spring and the other is on different library blogs I am currently using both in the resource center and for professional development.

A quick aside: It is interesting to me that the ACRL committee rejected these topics, yet ALA accepted them. I would hazard a guess that the longer ALA conference has more poster session time slots, a larger pool of poster applicants, and a wider variety of needs to be met (academic, school, public, etc.). I would be interested to see the statistics for acceptances and applications on both. But, as advertised, I digress.

The most exciting part for me, beyond the conference money and presenting of course, is I have plenty of time to design and polish these presentations. Unlike last year's ALA conference when several conference gods were laughing as I had a session accepted, then had to decline due to the roaming gnomes travel plans, only to have a last minute chance at presenting after all with only a week to prepare. Last year I went from wanting to be brilliant ... to settling for not wanting to embarrass myself. This year I am going to plan more diligently (not to mention earlier) and set reasonable goals for the sessions.

Flush with the good news, I had already placed my travel plans on Expedia with hopes of acceptance for at least one of my proposed posters, I was thrilled (sarcasm alert) to see an email message from Expedia arrive over the weekend. After much dithering about choosing an airline and airport, all the flights out of Columbus flew from Columbus to Cleveland before departing to BWI, I went with Continental Airlines and Cleveland Hopkins. My joy was complete as both flights were non-stop at reasonable times. Hesitant to hear the flight news, I put off calling until this evening. Praise be, the only change was in departure times; instead of 7:35 am it is now 8:45 am.

Now I am editing this post while going in to the next room to see my favorite couples on Dancing with the Stars. It is now officially after 9:00 pm and my evening and weekend minutes are reading and waiting my vote. So far my favorites are Ian and Cheryl and Apolo and his partner (her name escapes me).

Tags: ALA, ALA poster session, Travel & Expedia