#Iberry skool

[mappingthemoon]

man, all the procrastination i did in school has really prepared me for the Real World™ experience of waiting until the last minute to put together a powerpoint i don’t even wanna make so i can give a presentation i don’t even wanna give on the day after tomorrow

[mappingthemoon]

Jimerson, R. C. (2009). Archives power: Memory, accountability, and social justice. Chicago, Society of American Archivists. Greene, M. A. (2013). A critique of social justice as an archival imperative: what is it that we're doing that's all that important? The American Archivist, 76(2), 302-334. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.14744l214663kw43 Jimerson, R. C. (2013). Archivists and social responsibility: a response to Mark Greene. The American Archivist, 76(2), 335-345. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.2627p15350572t21 Caswell, M. (2013). Not just between us: a riposte to Mark Greene. The American Archivist, 76(2), 605-608. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.76.2.89324135v02r2q74

Ramirez, M. H. (2015). Being assumed not to be: a critique of whiteness as an archival imperative. The American Archivist, 78(2), 339-356. https://doi.org/10.17723/0360-9081.78.2.339

*ahem* This paper will examine how wrong u r based on a theoretical framework developed by Your Mom (1984) in which

The holy grail of searching through academic literature is coming across a string of publications that are like:

Here’s An Idea. Smith et al. 2016

Terrible Idea; a comment on Smith et al. 2016. Johnson 2016.

You’re Wrong Too; a response to Johnson 2016. Nelson 2016.

Guys Just Stop Fighting, None Of Us Know What’s Going On; a Review of the Current Literature. McBrien 2017.

[mappingthemoon]

01. Wood panel + tile bathroom in a rest stop off 441 (wHiCh I dRoVe To), Athens GA, 7/9/17

02. “No one will give it so just take some”: photographing Kasabian at Terminal 5 NYC, 9/14/17

03. documenting the experience / experiencing the document, or, a portrait of the photographer getting her shit wrecked: Gogol Bordello at the Georgia Theatre, 10/19/17 (R photo by Simone Cifuentes)

04. neighborhood kitty on Whitehead Road, Athens GA, 11/4/17

05. actually already cannot believe I spent much of last year looking so shitty and exhausted! wow. I remember thinking at the time that this was an A+ selfie, now i am like y i k e s. UGA Libraries secret bathroom, Athens GA, 12/4/17

06. last-minute anniversary cupcake + photo by Pete, 12/11/17

07. oh hi, photo by Pete, 12/13/17

08. reflection with the inside of a music machine at the Morris Museum in NJ, 12/17/17

“cleaning out my selfies for the end of the world”

some other stuff I did in 2017 besides (complain and freak out about) grad school. this feels like a million years ago now and not just bc even stuff that happened last week feels like a million years ago on the internet. I had a lot of Big Organizational Projects I thought I was gonna complete this summer in a whirlwind of “becoming a person again,” but mostly I was fixated on the project of finally getting caught up on editing/organizing/posting my photo backlog in some semblance of chronological order, however belated. it’s kind of a weird temporal feeling bc I remember, even at the times these pictures were taken, I was already starting to get behind on “life”, i.e., if I do not have enough time to write in my journal and/or process photos, I tend to not really process experiences/feelings -- I remember kind of spending the past year always being like "I'll have to deal with this later", and dumping pics into my /1edit folder; collecting little scraps of paper with notes on things to journal about at some later date, provided I could then remember what was so poignant about whatever barely-legible phrase I'd written; letting the mail pile up, overdrafting the bank, late fees, etc.; leaving the house, forgetting phone or keys or coffee, running late, insisting "this isn't me," wondering if this disorganized, distracted mess IS, in fact, who I am, who I have become, a person who doesn't know what the fuck is going on anymore! ultimately realizing that the nearly 10 consecutive years I have spent in school has been, in part, academic accomplishments notwithstanding!, an excuse, a valid procrastination, a way to avoid acknowledging problems and having feelings; realizing that 10 years have passed and suddenly I don't know "who I am" at the exact age in which I am supposed to be developing out of late adolescence and settling into a stable adult identity but holy shit sometimes I feel so goddamn moody and rapid-cycling in a way I haven't felt since I was like 18, which is kind of fucking annoying. this is also probably still cigarette withdrawal (psychologically) in part... anyway I spent two hours crying in the bathroom the other day which might be more than I have cried in the past five years so I guess that's a start.

[mappingthemoon]

me: do you want to split the cost of my graduation photos? it's $99 for the files and i can make as many prints as you want my mom, a republican with an information science degree: $99 just for the files? *scoffs* information should be FREE me, a bleeding-heart anticapitalist with an information science degree, who is also a photographer who struggles to get PAID anything at all in an image-saturated world where people on the internet think saying "image credit: internet" means free/fair use: ok listen...

[mappingthemoon]

AAAAA MLIS! Valdosta State University, 05.04.18 (L photo by Geoffrey Arnold, R photo by Peter Erchick) PS: @fuckyeahpilesofdirt

[mappingthemoon]

I know it’s a brag brag more than a humblebrag but I’m actually a little miffed about this even tho it doesn’t matter but try getting a first-born “gifted” child w impostor syndrome to *personally* believe GPA/formal education is a lousy measurement of “intelligence” even if they already believe that from a conceptual standpoint ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mappingthemoon]

giving my capstone presentation tonight. current mood: st jerome in his study

[mappingthemoon]

BOTH copies of “Archive Fever” checked out from the library, no electronic access, not available for sale on scamzon ebooks, BUT THANK YOU FELLOW SCHOLAR ON SOULSEEK, 2004 CALLED AND THEY’RE GLAD YOU STILL EXIST ON THIS PLATFORM

[mappingthemoon]

So it looks like no one in my immediate family will be able to attend my MLIS graduation: my brother is graduating for his BS that same weekend so mom & dad both have to go to that *and* help him move out of the dorm, sister J will be out of the country on a work/study abroad thing, sister M will be in another city for a work thing, and sister C is terrified of flying...ofc all this is completely understandable to my adult brain but I confess my inner child (oldest sibling/gifted child/impostor syndrome) brain had the knee-jerk reaction of totally crushed feels: HOW CAN I PROVE THAT I AM WORTHY OF YOUR LOVE PERHAPS I SHALL GET A PH.D THAT’S WHAT I’LL DO THAT WILL BE ENOUGH FINALLY, RIGHT? YES

Anyway I just got off the phone w my mom and she is going to send me her academic regalia (c. 1996?) to wear when I walk — she has a Master’s in Information Science (which she attained while working full-time and helping to raise five kids) so the colors are the same as mine! (Lemon yellow tho, ugh.) I was so happy about this totally awesome symbolic gesture that I actually expressed a sentimental feeling about it to her via phone 💕

[mappingthemoon]

Like two and a half years ago I was joking about how it wouldn’t be a big deal for me to “sacrifice” my social life to grad school bc it’s not like I even go out much as it is but goddamn I was not prepared for such total isolation…I’m going to graduate after next semester (?!) but I’ve gotten so drained that this hardly feels like an accomplishment. Which is not meant to be a humblebrag or a plea for encouragement/praise but just a record of the FEEL, as it’s been so difficult for me to set aside time – or MAKE time (as I used to frantically be able to no matter how sleep-deprived or busy [but I was in my 20s then…]) for personal writing.

Everything since August 2015 is a blur, as if my brain was too cluttered with assignments & anxieties to be able to convert any short-term memories to long-term. I know I went to a lot of baseball games with Pete, saw Labyrinth in a theatre with my daughter, photographed concerts -- but when, actually? My attitude towards anything non-school-related – anything without a deadline – has been mostly “I’ll deal with this later, I’ll deal with this later” – I have loads of saved blog drafts, email drafts, lists of links to read and watch later, a backlog of hundreds of photos to edit from 2017 which I’ve barely looked at, piles of books I bought at thrift stores and never opened, handwritten notes for longer-form things I wanted to write in my journal or elsewhere. And then sometimes I just don’t do it later, I forget, I arbitrarily decide enough time has passed that it’s no longer important; some things get shoved out of the way to bite me in the ass later; some things got transferred to my five-page single-spaced nested-bullet-point list of how to get my shit together after school when I can finally be a person again. I mean, I’ve always been a list-maker but I’ve never felt so far behind on just everything in my life, even mundane shit like “check out this new album” or “blog a photo of your new kitten” or whatever.

I’ve always felt like I don’t write “enough” (tho “enough,” in an ideal world, though, would mean I get to write whenever and for however long I wished, without having to worry about things like dayjobs and debts) but the past few years have been different: months & months pass between journal entries and I start to feel like I’ve forgotten how to do it. I’ve consistently been able to churn out academic bullshit the night before an assignment is due and still get high A’s, but I blank out when it comes to expressing anything personal. And in a weird way, I think that cycles in on itself: I can’t write because I can’t write; I haven’t afforded myself the time to indulge in personal reflection, which is what journalling is, for the most part. Nobody reads my journal. Sometimes journal entries become parts of public writing pieces but I mostly use it as a tool for organizing my thoughts and working through things in a more tangible medium. I think since I haven’t had that, everything in my feelingsbrain has gotten way cluttered. I don’t even know where to start.

& I don’t talk to a lot of other people anymore, either, which has gotten weird – for me, I mean. Like when I am in a social situation I realize how totally out-of-it I have been, just shuttling between work and home(work) 24/7. I look on facebox every day but I don’t interact with many people IRL so I have no idea what’s going on and I feel like when I talk to someone it’s just like

them: hey what’s up

me: ahhhh!! Research Paper! DiScUsSiOn BoArD pOsTs. APA STYLE CITATIONSSSSS. BLAAHHH. Also, political anxiety!!! Or perhaps u have a moment to discuss our lord and savior KASABIAN? ‘Cuz those three things are all that fit in my brain rn lol

Like I have no idea how to communicate anymore and even my online convos with my closest friends consist of sporadically sending either dank memes or text bricks and then not having time to actually really talk anyway... This level of academic anxiety has built up to the point where I get to feeling like anything I do or think that is unrelated to school is wrong and a waste of time, which I know is not a great attitude to have but my only method of fighting it is to berate myself into self-care: TAKE A GODDAMN BATH. ENJOY AN ONLINE CHAT WITH A FRIEND. YOU CAN’T BE A SAD BLOB FOR ALL ETERNITY, COME ON. PUT MCLUSKY ON THE STEREO AND DO THE DISHES, U LUV THAT SHIT.

*siiigh*

I only have to finish one more semester and then I can be a person again. & I’ve got Big Plans, the kind that would make a younger version of myself want to burn everything down now instead of waiting to start a New Life later, but I know better than that now and anyway I can’t quit now because I gotta get that student loan refund $$$ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[mappingthemoon]

my mom just told me that graduate school doesn’t even do latin honors so i guess i’ll take this 3.9 GPA and shoot it right into the goddamn sun

[mappingthemoon]

i’ve rly lost about 99% of my shit this semester ughhhh :C just a few more weeks

[mappingthemoon]

Anyway I just wrote a 14-page research paper in like 12 hours (a day late and 600 words over the limit lol) so now if I could just figure out how to convince myself that I’ll ruin my life by not writing in my journal n stuff then maybe we can get some REAL work done around here

[mappingthemoon]

TIMEMGMT.xlsx

“Eight hours for work, eight hours for rest and eight hours for what you will” ???

lol?? ????? ? ??

[mappingthemoon]

cause of death: working while grad school

Last night I finally had one goddamn evening free from obligations and responsibilities so I spent those precious five hours editing all the photos that have been piling up in my Incoming/to_edit folder since March!, which I actually consider a personal travesty that is directly contributing to my overall sense of malaise and looming dread which is expressed in the form of a real shitty attitude. (Sorry.) Anyway I’m queuing up a bunch of things rn and then will probably have to disappear again until the end of the semester but pls kno that I miss u, blog friends :,(

[mappingthemoon]

me every day:

me doing homework: