Ninjas and action figures

My on-boarding session this morning went smoothly, and I am all set to start my internship on January 3. As far as I know. Apparently FSU is still waiting to receive some paperwork from LCPS, but they told me to go ahead and start anyway on the 3rd.

Soon enough, I'll be a real official librarian. Like this? (Thanks for the librarian action figure, Heatherly! Shhing action!)



Or maybe I'll be a librarian more like this.... (Thanks for the amigurumi ninja, Jess! I love the tiny crocheted ninja throwing star!)

Gearing up for my final semester

I can't believe that in a couple short weeks I'll be starting my last semester of graduate school. This week I'll be getting everything in order to start my internship. I need to run to the doctor's office today and get my TB test read so that hopefully they'll say it's negative and give me a print-out that I can bring tomorrow morning to my "teachers-in-training" on-boarding session at the LCPS personnel office. Tomorrow morning I'll do that, be re-fingerprinted, get a new badge, and probably have to watch the hazardous waste spill clean-up video again.

I had hoped to be able to take the VCLA (Virginia Communication and Literacy Assessment) this week, but there were no open spots at the test center for this week or next. The earliest opening that I'd be able to go to was Saturday January 22, at 4:15 pm, so I signed up for it then. This is the last test I need to take (I think) in order to be eligible for a Virginia teaching license. That should give me more time to review for it, which I guess is nice.

I have a placement...

I was in meetings all day today, but when I finally had a chance to check my e-mail, I saw that I officially have an internship placement now. Starting in January, I'll be doing my school media internship at Farmwell Station Middle School!

I also just turned in my last paper of the semester! Woohoo! Time for a couple of weeks of relaxation before the internship insanity begins!

Next semester is going to be rough...

I just signed off from the spring internship orientation meeting. Wow. Next semester is going to be a ton of work. A TON! The internship involves not only going to the internship site 20 hours a week for 15 weeks, but also doing, if I remember correctly, 10 projects. In addition to the projects, we also need to do several video taped or remote observations and our internship coordinator/university supervisor also has to do a site visit at least once during the semester. Like she'll actually come to Virginia to observe me in-person at some point during the semester. Plus, evaluations that need to somehow be done jointly between the supervising media specialist and the university coordinator.

I thought I was done with classes once I turn in this semester's last paper. Ha! I'll have more assignments to turn in next semester than with two classes in a normal semester!

During the meeting, everyone introduced themselves, said where they were from, and where their internships are. I was, of course, the only one who still didn't know. Very frustrating, but I know FSU is following up on it (I was assured of that again this evening during the orientation, so I know I wasn't forgotten).

Winding down...

Class meetings for the semester were finished last week. I turned in the last two assignments for my digital media class (LIS5313) over the weekend. I have one more paper due on Thursday for my teaching class (LIS5524), and then I'll be done with classes.

Either tonight or tomorrow night (or both? There was an announcement about an informational meeting tonight and an e-mail about an orientation meeting tomorrow night...not sure if they are the same things or different things), I have a meeting/orientation session about the internship process. I still don't have an actual internship placement yet, which makes me nervous. The way things stood on Friday, FSU was going to follow-up with Loudoun County to see if there were any status updates, so I'm in a waiting mode. Hopefully, I'll hear something soon, especially since I'm supposed to start on Jan. 5! Still, it will be interesting to learn about what is involved with the internship.

It's very weird to me that once I turn in my last paper on Thursday that I'll be totally done with classes at FSU. In the first half of January, I'll be applying for graduation. Crazy!

Here's a screen capture from my the video I took for my final teaching project in LIS5524. The kids are blurred out for privacy.