Counting Down to April

The countdown has begun in earnest. As of last Thursday, I am now officially working on my last class, my last project for my MLIS. The official deadline for this work (the one set by the department) is April 21. However, my e-portfolio advisor--the faculty member in charge of reviewing my e-portfolio, providing feedback, and giving me my grade--has a deadline of April 7 for all 15 competencies.

It has been a head-on rush since last Thursday. With so much going on outside of school (I'm still working full-time, volunteering for two organizations, and oh yeah planning a wedding), I'm trying to do as much as I can as early as I can to give myself some breathing room when all hell breaks loose later (an eventuality I'm hoping won't come to pass but one I'm planning for nonetheless). I have 15 competencies to address, an introduction, a personal philosophy, and a conclusion to write. All but one competency require 4-6 single-space pages of writing to adequately address them and present my evidence of proficiency. That brings my total to anywhere from 56 to 84 pages of single-spaced writing for the first 14 competencies. I tend to write more than less, so I anticipate I'll be much closer to the upper end of that range, say about 80 pages. The other sections will add probably another 7 or so pages, bringing my estimated total to close to 90 pages. That's a lot of writing--about four times what my longest solo paper written in the program would equate to (it was 50 pages double-spaced). Each part of the entire work is given a grade of 1 for satisfactory or a 0 for unsatisfactory; to have a complete and acceptable e-portfolio, each section must be present and have a grade of 1. I'm pushing to try and get 2 competencies written a week to allow plenty of time for revisions.

So what are my stats so far? Here's an overview:

Competencies completed: 1
Competencies graded satisfactory: 1
Competencies in progress: 1
Competencies yet to address: 13
Revisions required: 0
Pages written: 8
Days remaining until advisor's deadline: 68 days
Days remaining until department's deadline: 82 days

There are a few things that I am thankful for, the first being that I hoarded everything from every class: every article, every discussion post, every assignment, every book, every one of my instructors' lecture notes. It means that I have plenty to use, but it also means that I have a lot to comb through. I am also thankful that I starting thinking about this project before last week. I made a lot of mental and physical notes that really helped to organize my thoughts and give me somewhere to start when I officially began to put it all together. I'm especially thankful that I backed up all of my work; I would hate to think where I would be right now mentally if anything I had done had gotten lost in the void.

For the next 2-3 months, I will need help with the stuff that's not school. School is the priority, so some of the other stuff is bound to fall through the cracks. Scooter and I already talked about this and he offered to help cook dinners during the week (yay!!!), among other things, so my at-home to-do list will shrink significantly. I just have to take things one day at a time.

Oh, and I know I promised an article on library cats. Here's the article. I think more libraries should have resident animals; if they're sociable, they can help libraries connect with patrons. If you're interested, you can also check out this library cats map that shows information on library cats around the world.