May 24, 2025

8 Credits Down, 32 to Go

With a 4.0 and a few assignments to share

📚💻📜🏳️‍🌈🤘🏽🤘🏿🤘🏻

UIUC • Scholarship • Libraries • Technology • Severance
Promotional cover of the Odesza Severance remix album.

Promotional cover/image of the Odesza Severance remix album (there's no CD selling??? It's only purchasing the MP3 through streaming services or vinyl 😭

Mood: Relieved

Music: Music To Refine To: A Remix Companion to Severance LP by ODESZA and THEODORE SHAPIRO (damn now I want it in Vinyl) 👀

To Do List: Heat transfer vinyl of the Lumon logo onto a lovely soft men’s small navy t-shirt I thrifted; see if I can tape OFMD onto VHS with my new VCR+DVD+TV setup; list the student discounts I’ve found and started; shower

To Watch: Gotta catch up on the Newkirk Museum of the Paranormal patreon 😀

I am done with my first semester at UIUC, woohoo!!! I got A’s too, which means I feel okay now to share some of my academic content.

Let’s start with the course, Information, Libraries, and Society, one of UIUC’s two required classes for the MSLIS. This class had a lot of reading and discussion leading (all classes are online & synchronous). The biggest thing worth half the grade was a final essay, which was a thousand percent influenced by my current obsession with Severance. In particular, how Lumon's severance floor is so artificial, sterile, and when it refuses to accept aspects of human existence like death into its atmosphere, it feels contextually accurate. It feels like the ideal of that space, and it’s completely dehumanizing. And all of it is disturbingly, comically familiar. There’s some kind of collective subconscious in its design that has us recognizing it as something we’ve lived and felt, even if it was just a walk down white hospital hallways; a drive through a street with identical houses; a stroll through a perfectly-planted corn field.

This course’s anchor was Foucault’s Discipline and Punish, and now I’m wondering if I could’ve just submitted an essay examining Severance through Foucault and left libraries out of it altogether. I didn’t though, because libraries are the thing, haha. But also let’s face it: libraries contribute to our collective recognition of artificial, sterile, overly-ordered spaces. And it has a ton to do with the development of western European (read: white) culture subjugating non-white populations. Read my final essay for this course, and ummm yeah idk, think about Milchick :p

The other course I had was Information Services for Diverse Users, which I adored and it featured reading that I cited a ton in my Info, Libs, Society essay. Loved how handy that was, and oh and also Mendeley in particular was amazing. UIUC is linked with Mendeley too so when I created an account with my illinois.edu email, it was like the world of scholarship had cracked open for me. 10/10 UX.

So, two assignments. One was a zine, that I didn’t know how to do because all I could think about was the history of fanzines, fans attending conventions and passing around slashfic in 8-page spreads, haha. It was on libraries and tech, and the readings for that course section really brought out my personal repugnance for relying on FAANG + Big Tech give us money for the ultimate goal of an educated and informed population. Puh. Or hoping gajillionaires will ever be like Carnegie again. Yeah, right. Most public libraries are funded by taxes. We could take that money and find ways to build out the independent, decentralized internet that won’t be bought out or infiltrated by those who would seek to make money off us in increASINGLY UNETHICAL WAYS */*endrant*/* But here’s the zine in video form (bc I’m tired and it’s easier to upload a video than figure out a cool way to display this as an image gallery webpage).

Okay and lastly, a cultural programming assignment, where I design a program series for a specific population. I did Android 101 for Older Adults where I really got into how older adults + technology education = excellent health outcomes. So now IRPL (In Real Professional Life) I’m getting into designing a telehealth program and also looking forward to applying to pilot ALA’s Digital Pathways: Online Health Literacy Programming for Adults’ toolkit.

The very bottom of the last part of my libraries and technology zine where I warn librarians they'll become community moderators.
↑ The very bottom of the last part of my libraries and technology zine where I indicate the biggest galaxy brain thing would be for libraries to host their own digital communities and my funny warning to librarians to brace for becoming online community moderators (haha).

Severance

3D Printing Corporate Dystopia A E S T H E T I C

My recent obsession with Severance has me getting SO makery. Stickers to transform my work ID card, and 3D design and printing a Severance-themed dock for my Boox e-reader.

Read on...

VALENTINE'S & IMBOLC

An elixir, independent art, and self-love

February 2 was Imbolc, first day of spring!

Read More

ChocoBread

Phone Case DIY Project

Hi yessss I made this chocolate bread cell phone case! But how? What supplies and materials did I use?

Read on (there's even a 4 min vid!)

VALENTINE'S & IMBOLC

An elixir, independent art, and self-love

February 2 was Imbolc, first day of spring!

Read More

IN THE LAIR READING

DIGITAL READING JOURNAL AND RESOURCE CENTER

As part of my resolutions for 2025, I want to get back into reading books (in addition to the considerable, tasty amounts of fanfic I read) and diligently tracking it. After all, I am on count down to begin my masters of science in library and information science!

Webpage orientation

NYE

Starring Michael Sheen, written by Tim Price, directed by Rufus Norris

A topical, interesting, nourishing story about the man behind the U.K.'s National Healthcare System (NHS). Michael Sheen plays Aneurin Bevan, the Welsh minister of health and housing that created the NHS in 1948.

Read More

FACING NOVEMBER'S REALITIES
AND THE NEXT FOUR YEARS

AND THE NEXT FOUR YEARS

Trump won the election. I have some thoughts, some learning opportunities, some tools. Topics include: tarot, decentralizing social media, privacy and security, security and AI, and supporting digital and physical knowledgebases

breathe and lock arms with me

SKI LIFT GONDOLA PAPER ORNAMENT

WITH A LITTLE DOOR

Silhouette Studio design files for this festive winter ski gondola papercraft for indoor decor projects like garlands or ornaments! This has been a month in the making ❄️⛷️

Buy the Silhouette Studio file for $2.00 on my Etsy

HOSTING AN ÁLFABLÓT

A CHRISTMAS FOR THE ELVES

Read an excerpt from The Old Magic of Christmas, Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year by Linda Raedisch about how to host your own "Christmas for the Elves" around early-mid November

Get witchier every month with me

MY TAROT COLLECTION ON DISPLAY

AT MY LIBRARY

All the attention and admiration they're going to get, they're gonna love it! The kawaii tarot has been the most brutally honest and unsympathetic with me, lol./p>

Visit the Cauldron for my takes on each tarot deck

NEW WEBPAGE: THE COLOPHON

LOOKS LIKE A BOOK

Important website source/citation information. I share accessibility love, tool recs, acknowledgements, and design choices about my lil ol' website.

Visit the colophon

GOOD OMENS FIC REC

COUPLES THERAPY - JURASSIC PARK EDITION BY RAINBOWUMBRELLA

As a huge fan of Jurassic Park, and to see someone merging the premise with an interesting AU of Crowley and Aziraphale, I was so there.

Couples Therapy - Jurassic Park Edition by rainbowumbrella on AO3

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