Much of what I might normally say about the last thirty-six hours seems trivial in the light of the news that a fellow Odyssey graduate, Roxanne Hutton, has died after a long illness. I never met Roz in person--I attended the '96 workshop, she '99--but I read her many times on the main Odyssey email list. She was something of a cheerleader, always encouraging people after rejections or other disappointments. My condolences to her loved ones.

I've been able to get my email, so I know that "Screen" was rejected at Ideomancer (that was fast) and "Mike's Place" was rejected by The New Yorker (not that fast, and not exactly a shock). I suspect that Roz would say that the only thing to do is to send them right back out again, and I'll be doing that as soon as I have my computer back up and running (knock wood, salt over the shoulder, yada yada yada).

As to things here, yesterday was non-stop meetings--tech training (we got to try out a class session, and I like the format a lot), tour of the library resources on campus (which we won't be able to use long-distance, but whatever), HTML training (which anyone who's been to the Dogtown page knows I need), the intro lecture for our course (LIS 390: Libraries, Information and Society), meeting our TAs, an optional session called Libraries 101 (on basic organizational, funding, and other concerns) . . . it was a long day. The good news is I'm still ahead on my reading--I did some last night and this morning--and I'm not freaking out yet. The readings are right up my alley, for the most part. Lots of stuff about the intended function of libraries as repositories of the information needed to maintain a democratic society, the history of mail and how it encouraged the development and archiving of newspapers and magazines, the rise of the university as shepherded by the endowments of the Robber Barons (love that term), implications of legislations like the Patriot Act, the process of learning as codification/decodification vs. consumption, the expansion of copyright protections . . . man, have I really read all that? I hope I know what any of it means by the exam a week from now.

Must read more now.

For some reason, I really miss Johnny Cash today.