This morning began with procuring ID cards…PHOTO ID cards. Don’t you hate having your picture taken for a permanent record? It never really looks like you…unless you’re looking into a camera again. Just like the picture on my driver’s license. The young man checking my license as a prerequisite for issuing me another form of identification had to look twice to make sure it was really me…and that picture is only 3 months old.
There’s always some doubt as to the facial expression you should use: should you smile in the picture on your license? I don’t think so; when you’re pulled over, do you usually grin at the officer? Or do you have that deer-in-the-headlights look? Can you imitate that expression when you get your picture taken? Probably not. What about that college ID? Should you imitate that been-out-all-night-partying-last-night look? or the been-up-for-three-days-working-on-a-presentation-and-high-on-caffeine look? In my opinion, these are more likely to be the conditions under which you are asked for your ID, so that’s what the photo should look like. Never gonna happen.
Then it was off to the library. Oklahoma State has a beautiful library. Plenty of room for quiet study, research, and just plain reading. We were given instructions on using the available databases and I am pretty sure that we will be doing exactly that. When the librarian (I thought they were all referred to as media specialists now…whatever) asked how many of us were familiar with the Dewey Decimal system, only three of us raised our hands – and 2 of us are over 35! What are they teaching the kids these days? Oh, well, with computers, who needs card catalogs any more anyway. Do you remember the card catalogs in the libraries? Cabinets with drawers in them filled with cards filed alphabetically by subject, title, or author? Nevermind….
The last meeting of the day was a little informational session hosted by the directors of the program. We were given some suggestions concerning defining our own goals for the summer, things to put on our CV, and the discussion was opened for questions. Have you ever noticed how you can go into a meeting like this with the intentions of asking a specific question and totally forget to ask it? Yeah…I had one of those. That’s OK…I’ll ask her Wednesday at our next meeting…unless I forget again. Maybe I had better right this down. Umm, I can’t seem to find a piece of paper. Oh, well…I’m sure I’ll remember it this time.
I’m going to turn in now…I meet my mentor in the morning and I want to look like my photo ID, not like I’ve been up all night.