If you don't hear from me for a while...

As I mentioned in my previous post, I'm taking a class called Social Media for Information Professionals and the funny part is, I don't have time for this blog right now. I'll be blogging elsewhere for a while.

Summer School

I'm taking 2 classes this summer and they both started the week of July 12th. One is a 100% on-line class and the other is an intensive (Six 7 hour days in class plus a week-long reading and research period). The intensive class ends on July 29th just in time for me to go to Maine for 2 weeks. The on-line class ends on August 20th. Fortunately for me we have WiFi in Maine.

What is that jumble of words, you say? That's called a word cloud. You can make one for yourself in Wordle. I made that word cloud from an introduction I wrote (about me) for the on-line class that I'm taking called Social Media for Information Professionals. It's taught through the WISE (Web-based Information Science Education) consortium at the University of British Columbia. That's right, Canada, and not just Canada but West Coast Canada. I'm trying hard not to let that interfere with my on-line experience but it already has. I'll spare you the gory details but just trust me, it's been frustrating. As usual, I will "suck it up" and do my best and get all the work done in a timely manner and likely receive a good grade for all that.

The other class I'm taking this summer is at the opposite end of the spectrum.  It's called History of the Book and it's taught at Smith College in the Mortimer Rare Book Room. Our instructor is Martin Antonetti, curator of the Rare Book Room at Smith College. I've been very excited, almost to the point of giddy, about taking this class. Not just because it's at Smith College (a mere 7 miles from home), and not just because it has received rave reviews from other students, but because it's taught in the Rare Book Room at Smith College which is comprised of approximately 30% manuscripts and books written in Latin, 30% in French, and 30% in English and 10% in other languages (like Ethiopian). Plus the room is chock-full of EARLY, like really OLD stuff. It's amazing! The craftsmanship that went into the production of books in medieval times is mind-boggling at times. We've had the opportunity to look at absolutely stunningly gorgeous 15th and 16th century illuminated Bibles. I'll stop gushing about this class because the on-line class pales in comparison and I don't want you to think I'm not enjoying the other class but it's just different in a very 21st century social media kind of way. 

4th of July weekend

After feeling as though I lost an entire week last week due to my misadventures in airline travel, I was really looking forward to spending the holiday weekend in Carver with my pal Beki and her husband Jason. Trevor had a gig in Burlington VT on Saturday night, and was hired to stilt-walk in the Hingham, MA 4th of July parade on Sunday afternoon. I love the Hingham 4th of July parade so I decided to drive to Carver on Saturday and enjoy the company of Beki and Jason and Trevor would meet us there much much later (like in the wee hours of the morning.) Beki and I enjoyed refreshing cocktails on her deck before dinner and got caught up on "news" (AKA gossip). We had a yummy home-cooked dinner and were snoozing by 9 p.m. Trevor arrived sometime around 3:30 in the morning and somewhat surprisingly, went directly to bed.

On Sunday, he was up and out the door by about 9:30 a.m. and headed to Hingham for the parade. We planned to meet him at the end of the parade route and drive him and his fellow guild member and stilt-walker, Henry, back to the start of the paraded route to get Henry's car and Trevor's stuff. We arrived in Hingham square just moments before the route was barricaded and parked at the town beach. Since we were at the end of the parade route it wasn't until almost 12:30 (parade kick-off was 12:15 p.m.) when the parade reached us. Trevor and Henry arrived sometime around 1:30 p.m. looking hot and tired! Since it was a bit of a scorcher on Sunday, Beki, Jason & I decided we'd seen enough of the parade and found Trevor and Henry just around the corner from where we were sitting taking off their stilts and wiping sweat from their brows. We walked to the car and then took a round-about route back to Hingham High School where Henry's car was parked. Loaded up my car with Trevor's stuff and drove back to Carver.

Later on Sunday afternoon we visited Beki's brother Sean and his darling 18 month old cutie-pie daughter Caroline for a short while. Caroline is, without a doubt, adorable! From Sean's house we drove to Fairhaven to Beki's BFF Amanda's gorgeous beach house on West Island to hang out, play Quiddler, watch the sunset (above) and then watch an absolutely amazing display of fireworks across the water. Trevor counted a total of 36 different shows in surrounding towns.

On Monday we drove to Scussett Beach and were disappointed to find the the parking lot was full so drove north back to Plymouth in search of a beach with parking and eventually ended up in Plymouth to see the Mayflower II and Plymouth Rock. We drove home that afternoon in scorching heat in my car with no AC.  We all had a such a great time that we hope to do it again next year! Except the part where my car has no AC and beaches were too full.