Through the Fire

Last Wednesday, at approximately 2:30pm the biggest chapter of my life ended. Even though I technically had two more classes to attend, I handed in my last two assignments - an essay on cataloguing the fashion world & an infographic on library mobile apps if you must know - a whole two days early. That makes it official: I've spent the past 20 years in school and I have never handed anything in late or pulled an all nighter to finish a paper. (Though there were those two participation assignments that I just didn't do at all, which I don't count). Regardless of the academic drama, it feels distinctly strange to think that I'll never have to set foot in another classroom or pay ridiculous amounts for tuition again. Or have to go back to school shopping. Damn, I'll kind of miss that. Apparently I'm supposed to feel stressed out and depressed about not having structure in my life. But you know me:  I don't believe in stress, I just deal with it. 

I'm still waiting for the new phase of my being to begin officially, but the cocktails I consumed last night (along with the entire day of Sex & the City and Suits re-runs today) are a great start. My project list is about a million items long, and I'm looking forward to having plenty of time to work on my writing, my art, and having many many adventures. Bring it on 2013, I can hear the awesomeness calling. 

Image from Hapsical, Alexander McQueen Fall/Winter 1998.

Books, Glorious Books!

I found out something pretty amazing the other day. But I should really start at the beginning of the story...

So you know how at the public library you can request to borrow a book from another library outside your own library, and usually you don't have to pay for shipping or anything because that's how we do things in the Canadian public library systems? Well, universities (specifically my university) do this as well. But I always assumed that because they have a big list of loaning prices on their website that I would have to pay unless it was from another library in our region. So for ages and ages I found the vast Worldcat catalogue to be the worst booktease on the planet because they kept bringing up books I was dying to read, but were only available from libraries outside my system.

Then one of my classmates told us that as grad students (or library students, I can't remember), we don't have to pay those aforementioned fees because they build it into our tuition costs.

Wait up, wait a second; they build it into our tuition? So I've spent the last year and half paying for a service that I didn't know I had access to? WHAT. THE. FUCK.

As soon as I realized that I rushed straight to the Worldcat catalogue and ordered up some books from far away libraries, because really I'm paying for it anyways. Sure, I could probably get the books from the public library (which I pay for with my tax dollars), but I pay way more in tuiton than I do in taxes. Actually, I don't pay taxes because I'm poor/unemployed/a student. So I might as well make my university library pay for my expensive loans rather than the public library, because I spend more money on tuiton than taxes.

And now I think I'll go order some more!

Images from here and here