Surprise them with Politeness

I've been trying my own little "social experiment" lately...when I go through a fast food drive through or a checkout lane at a store I've been saying two words:

"thank you"

What I find odd is that often people don't know how to react...sometimes I get a "your welcome", sometimes I get silence, sometimes I get indignation that I "stole" their line (not that it was what they wanted to say, but that they were suppose to say it).

I don't understand, maybe it was the 12yrs of Catholic School, maybe it was being raised by people who believed in basic courtesy, maybe it was the 10yrs that I worked in the service industry...when did we get to the point that "Thank You" and "Your Welcome" had to become scripted phrases...

Books for the Families of the Troops?

Taking this blog off hiatus for a quick post...

Are any libraries out there sponsoring programs to give books to the families of the troops? or sending books/magazines/DVDs/CDs to the troops?

I don't know if the USO or the military has a program that already does this, but it seems like it would be a great idea to take some of the great materials that are going to a library book sale and sending them to the troops or troops families...I know the military probably has libraries as well, but I'll bet they're underfunded...

Blog on Hiatus

OMG am I bz.

For a little while I'm not going to maintain this blog (of course I'm fickle so I'm sure I'll be back).

Instead I'll be focusing on my blog on the SCILS website:
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/directory/sgarwood/index.html

I post a regular S(C)ite of the week there with new and interesting things that grab my interest...sorry no rss there yet (10.15.07) but hopefully soon.

New Blog at SCILS

As part of the School of Communication, Information and Library Studies website redesign, all Faculty members now have blogs. One of the areas I'll be posting on mine is a "Site of the Week" to give people more of an insight into who I am, what I do, what I like, etc.

The Blog is available from my SCILS Profile:
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/directory/sgarwood/index.html

Sorry, no rss yet :-(

Bad things can be Good

So I got totally taken by the stupid Quechup service - http://tinyurl.com/3dxj38

After the stupid service sent out email to all those in my address book w/out permission, I sent email out to all those in my address book apologizing that that happened...

At first I felt like an idiot, I'm a damned computer instructor...don't I know to read the fine print? Duh, of course I do...but do I read it? Nah, who's got time.

Two really good things came out of this though:
1. I'm about to go into the class I teach on malware, etc. It actually feels good having a little "practical" experience after successfully avoiding this stuff for awhile

2. In response to the apology I sent, lots of folks that I haven't written to in awhile have written back. I spend too much damn time with my machine and not with the people that this machine helps me to connect to...funny how a bad thing turned out to be really good.

New Product in the Store

Thank You to my former students for the idea, the lowercasenospace shop is here.

http://www.cafepress.com/librarysteve/3501923

Now make sure those file and folder names are:
lower case & no space

Back to School

Wow, I didn't think I could ever dislike these words more than when I was a student. Trust me they're far more horrible as a teacher :-)

Don't get me wrong, I like teaching, I love being in front of the room, I enjoy seeing those students who push to learn as much as they can (I will admit I teach some pretty cool things), and I love that they keep me on my toes...but, WOW the time commitment necessary to teach is a bear.

Is there a point here? I don't know, but I do know that I've learned one thing in the last 3 years of teaching...teaching is hard!