I got no writing done at all yesterday, dammit. Nothing on the outline for The Outer Darkness, nothing on “The Winds of Patwin County”, nothing. I did get quite a bit of research done for the homework assignment from Hell for my Ethnics Collections Development class, though, which is a Good Thing. I had planned on writing down a couple hundred words on the assignment last night, but I wasn’t able to; the assignment has me completely bamboozled, and my enthusiasm is low. I found plenty of resources, and this morning one of the other students in the class posted another great resource to the class’s on-line discussion board, but the writing has not yet happened.

If I were the responsible adult that I were cleverly disguised as, I would have had this assignment completed by now. In all of my other classes, I always made it a point to have my assignments done at least a week early, so that I could get them in to the professor for some preliminary feedback (if they were amenable to doing so). This time, however, it’s been different. The assignment itself has confused me; I’ve never done anything even remotely related to ethnic studies, so the task itself is beyond anything else I’ve done. I’ve gotten plenty of help from good friends (including my wife) and fellow library students who’ve helped me figure out the assignment, but my one query to the professor himself wasn’t as helpful as I’d hoped it would be. I’m afraid that what I write won’t be up to his expectations, and I’m afraid that I probably won’t be able to divine his expectations properly: hence, the lack of enthusiasm.

I think that from now on, I’ll probably be sticking to the technical and computer classes in library school as much as possible. That seems to be what I’m good at, and what I’m enthusiastic about.

Speaking of which: last night, on the way home from work, I also swung by the town’s public library and picked up the desktop computer that the librarian had set aside for me a few weeks ago for me to play with. The plan is to install LuMiX onto that machine and use it as a proof of concept installation: a Linux thin client that can be used as a public kiosk in the library alongside all of the Windows computers. Should be some fun times. I’ll be chronicling the adventure in The Literate Penguin.

And tonight I’m playing Chairman of the Board of Trustees at church, since the actual Chair is off to Bible Study tonight and I’m the vice-chair. Following that is the Administrative Council meeting which I’ll be attending wearing at least one — possibly two — hats. Jennifer has been hard at work building a website for the church, and I get to provide the technical support for demonstrating it to the rest of the council (including our pastor). And I may have to serve as a temporary member of the council by virtue of being the acting chair of the Board of Trustees.

In other words, I don’t expect that I’ll get a lot of writing done tonight either. Nor much reading, nor much done on the LuMiX installation.