Meet Me In St. Louis

We had a great day in St. Louis yesterday; we went to the temple for a session and then went to Forest Park and to the St. Louis zoo.


There were not many people at the temple at all. We couldn't even find anyone to take our photo!

Forest Park is a huge, lovely place with all kinds of (free) attractions. This is the Jewel Box, a giant greenhouse that was built in the 1930s:

The St. Louis Zoo is touted as America's #1 zoo. I don't know how they gathered their data, but I would rate the zoo pretty highly. We had a great time riding the train, seeing Big Cat Country, and just wandering around to see the different animals.

The ostriches

The tiger

On an entirely different topic, our old dryer gave up the ghost (it emitted sparks and a burning smell when operating for the last time) and we have a new dryer. Here's the old appliance, sitting out in our front yard in classic "white trash" fashion (it's been there for a whole week now):
And here's the new dryer:
And some sad news: Dobler has been missing since Tuesday morning. We've canvassed the neighborhood with his photo plus our phone number, but it seems that no one has seen him. We're sincerely hoping that he's just on a little kitty vacation and will be back soon. So if you're the praying type, please think of Dobler.

Mike took this picture of us last Sunday.

Autumn musings

It feels like an early autumn in Urbana now. Temperatures have been in the 70s during the day and the 40s at night. We're enjoying the cool temperatures and I've been using my bike more for transportation in addition to recreation. :)

We were very happy to have lunch this week with Mike's Grandma and Grandpa Brough. They were on their way from Washington, D.C. (where they've been on an LDS mission for the past 18 months) back home to St. George, Utah. We enjoyed chatting with them and only wish we could have spent more time with them. Don't roll your eyes at this and think that I've turned into one of those Mormon housewives who do all that self-sufficient stuff that M.H.'s do (I'm really not there yet), but I've started doing lots of baking on the weekends. We're eating nothing but homemade bread these days:


and I also make the granola that we eat for breakfast every morning. It's wonderfully therapeutic to not think about class and work for a few hours and make something delicious.

Me in our teeny-tiny kitchen

Classes are going well. I'm working on several projects that are all due in the first week of October. These projects are: redesigning a website for a public library (with a group), a group presentation and website on research ethics, a presentation on choosing biographical reference sources for a small academic library. It's sort of frustrating that all of these projects are due within the same week, but it will be nice to get it all done and not have to worry about it later in the semester. The project I'm most interested in is the biographical reference sources. There are lots of things to take into consideration, like scope, arrangement, cost, usability, and more. I'm finding that library science is theoretical and philosophical enough to satisfy my intellectual side and also practice-oriented enough that it satisfies my practical side in ways that the study of literature never did. So here's my love song to library science:

Library school
you satisfy me
in ways I've never
been satisfied before.
I love you for your
practicality
for your theoretical constructs
and for information theory.

Labor Day Weekend

Having a little cuddle with my Dobler.

We've had a relaxing Labor Day Weekend after a very busy week. The first week or two of school is always a bit stressful and very busy, but things should probably settle down in the near future.

On Friday night we had dinner and played games with our friends Heather and Devin. It was so fun! We played Rook, Clue, and Rummikub. (Don't worry -- I was a very good sport even though I didn't win at even one of the games.)

The weather was really nice over the whole weekend -- the temperature stayed below 90 and humidity was relatively low. Saturday morning Mike and I rode our bikes to the farmer's market in downtown Urbana, where we bought some lovely peaches and a squash. We're looking forward to some butternut squash lasagna this week.

Today we went to one of the county forest preserves: Lake of the Woods. We were pretty disappointed in what they call "hiking trails" out here. There were some gravel footpaths, but no real hiking. We did enjoy the botanical gardens and the historic one room school house.

We took a picnic lunch to the park, too!

Tonight we broke out the Whirly-Pop and made a delicious batch of caramel popcorn. Mike is very excited about the Whirly-Pop. He thinks it's a great kitchen toy.

Simone has been relaxing this weekend. Isn't she precious?

I just finished reading The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri and really loved it. It's an interesting portrait of life in the U.S. in an immigrant family. Also fraught with identity crises, the difficulties of growing up, figuring out how to get along on your own, etc. A fantastic read. Next up: Animal Dreams by Barbara Kingsolver.

Sweet Corn and more

It's been a very eventful week. I started school on Wednesday and things are going great -- I really like my classes, professors, classmates, and my work at the reference desk is going well. (If you want to hear about my first few "real" reference questions, I'd be happy to talk your ear off about it. Call! Email!) I'm really, really interested so far in the stuff we're covering in my classes and I've been recapping it all to Michael, whether he wants to hear it or not. By the time I graduate HE'll be qualified to be a librarian, too! I'm so lucky to have a spouse who is an excellent listener. :)

Pretty corny, huh?

My spouse is also very cute as a corn cob. Yesterday was the Sweet Corn Festival in Urbana. It's kind of a strange thing -- not much sweet corn is grown around here. It's all feed corn. Also, you'd think this kind of festival might take place around harvest time, right? Well, they haven't harvested the corn yet. But it was a fun event, nonetheless. We saw a cool band that played covers of Michael Jackson, 38 Special, and Journey.

Last night we went to Hessel Park for a little "Shakespeare in the Park." A community theatre group did a production of Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a pretty uneven performance, to put it nicely, and we left at intermission. But it was fun to be there for a while and observe the crowd, if nothing else.

Titania and the fairies

I think Dobler's got the right idea here. Just stretch out next to Michael. And relax.

First day of school

Ever since I can remember I have been excited - not just excited, but ecstatic - about the first day of school. Even as a graduate student at Utah State I found myself unable to sleep the night before the first day of classes. It's as good as Christmas. I just don't know what I'm going to do when I'm not a student anymore. Luckily, as an academic librarian I'll still have a "first day of school" and daily opportunities to learn stuff. This is one of the most attractive things about being a reference librarian: when people ask questions at the reference desk I get to help them find an answer. Questions come on various topics and librarians get to be generalists -- to know a little bit on a lot of different topics. The library is a great place for a curious person.

On Wednesday classes start here at Univ. of Illinois and I can hardly wait. I'm taking three courses:

• Information Organization and Access
• Reference and Information Services
• Interfaces to Information Systems

The first one is a theory class that is required for the degree. The second is on reference sources (like bibliographies and online databases) and how to use them, and the last one is an online class that's all about how to create better computer interfaces for library catalogs and other info systems. I'm pretty nervous about that one since I'm not the most tech-savvy student. But I think I know enough (hopefully) to make it.

This past week has been a really busy one; training for library graduate assistants started Tuesday afternoon and continued Wednesday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. These were pretty exhausting days, with lots of information packed in. We practiced using different databases, learned about policies and procedures, had an introduction to the print reference collection (the largest in the United States besides the Library of Congress), and learned all about the library's online catalog. It's been very fast-paced and interesting, but a bit overwhelming. I work my first shift on the reference desk this coming Thursday and I hope I remember enough to answer the questions that will be coming my way.

The other GAs seem like a really nice group. We've spent lots of hours together this week in training and we also went out as a group on Friday night to a restaurant called Crane Alley. There are nine new grad assistants -- we range in age from 23 to 39; three of us are married and one moved here with her boyfriend; we are all female; we came here from Michigan, Oregon, China by way of Texas, various cities in Illinois, and Utah. Those are the demographics in a nutshell.

What I'm reading: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, a bridal shower gift from Momma Jo. It's a really different book about Nazi Germany, narrated by Death, about a little girl who steals books from a Nazi book-burning party and from the mayor's library. I'm not done with it yet, but hoping to finish this week.

Bikes & Mike

Yesterday we got bikes! We found a bike mechanic in town who fixes up used bikes and sells them (mostly to students) and we each got an aluminum-framed mountain bike. Mike's is a Schwinn, mine is a Diamondback and we LOVE them. We spent almost four hours yesterday riding around town, mostly on campus. We had a fabulous time and got a little bit sunburned.

Here's Michael on the engineering campus. (Click on the picture for an enlarged view.)

Melissa by the Admissions and Records building.

Some of you, dear readers, may be curious about Michael's new job. Today I sat down with Michael for a brief interview about what it means to be a banker at Main Street Bank and Trust:

Q: What do you do as a personal banker? What are some of your daily tasks?

A: Well, I'm new on the job, so I'm sure I haven't learned all of my daily tasks yet. But, mostly, I'll be opening new accounts, closing accounts, helping customers manage their accounts, and, eventually, helping customers with loans.


Q: What do you like best about the job so far?
A: So far, I've enjoyed the people I've met. I'm really impressed with the other employees at Main Street, and (almost) all the customers I've met have been very nice. Some have been, shall we say, interesting...


Q: What do you think will be your biggest challenge as a personal banker at Main Street Bank and Trust?
A: I'll be working at the campus branch with a large international student population, so I think my biggest challenge will be to communicate effectively with students who don't necessarily speak the best English.


Thanks, Michael, for your contribution.


Notes from Primary: One of my favorite kids in Primary, Macy Holm, was SO entertaining today. During the closing hymn in Sacrament Meeting I could hear someone singing loudly and I couldn't understand the words that were coming out. I looked across the aisle, and there was Macy (who is 3) with her eyebrows knit, mouth wide open, singing nonsense words to the tune of "I Believe in Christ." Later in Primary, during singing time, Macy asked me: "Did you know that cats can purr?" (This came out of nowhere, as far as I can tell.) AND the three little girls who sit on the front row -- ages 3-4 (including Macy) sang so loudly and fervently on one of the Primary songs ("An Angel Came to Joseph Smith") that I started giggling so hard I couldn't sing at all.

Here's one of the purring cats that I know.

You look like a monkey and you smell like one, too

Here at the Bowles-Terry household we have had two fabulous reasons to celebrate.

1. Michael got a job as a personal banker at Main Street Bank and Trust, the campus branch. He starts Friday. There are a lot of nice things about this job: it's on campus, so we can travel to work together; he'll be working mostly with students, according to the branch manager, because students form the main clientele of the branch; we will no longer be in the ranks of the uninsured! Hooray!

2. Yesterday was Michael's 28th birthday! We went out to dinner at KoFusion and had some very delicious sushi and Michael got presents.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and a new watch. Very exciting.

I also baked a Boston cream cake. This was quite a project. I have had some difficulties baking in our oven and at this altitude, but I thought that I was overcoming said difficulties. On Monday night I baked rolls and they were delicious. But I baked the cake and this is what came out:

I said several cuss words. Michael said this thing looked kind of like a pancake. But by some miracle of transformation (namely a yellow cake mix by Betty Crocker) we ended up with this lovely concoction.

Let's hear it for Betty Crocker!