All My Gettings

I'm not really up for writing a whole entry, so instead, some bullets:

• There was a freezing rain storm today. I wish it had been brutal, but it was very light and wasn't even that cold. But, the droplets of water frozen to any metal object made it look like all the handrails were sweating ice.
  
  
• EPL's subscription to NoveList is restricted to in-house use. The error message you receive when you try to sign in remotely shows that someone wanted to have a little fun: Sorry, this fine product only works inside the library walls.
  
  
• For my practicum, I'm copy-cataloguing some Chinese books. I don't begin to pretend to speak Chinese (which, by the way, is considered monolithic by the Library of Congress--Mandarin & Cantonese are dialects), so it's sort of iffy. Sometimes the records include some beautifully ill-translated or overly specific summaries, such as these two:
  

  
  A story about a young boy who faced a hard time when his father ran away from home and mother got a mental disorder. But he stood still and got through this tragedy.

  
  Teh Luu Luu the lioin was so timid that if a leaf dropped on his head he got scared out of his wits. When he met a tiger, a panther or a cat he got frightened and ran away, and as he ran away his body shrank all the way down to the size of a mouse. Later he met a mouse and the two timid creatures became good friends. One day Teh Luu Luu heard his friend's cry for help and he rushed towards the cat, and strangely, became larger until he was the size of the cat. With Teh Luu Luu becoming bigger and smaller, what else wil happen to him?
  (note:this book is a picture book of less than 30 pages. Quite the extensive plot there, isn't there?)

  
  
• Next week, we're sitting for graduation photos. The photos are individual shots which are then compiled into a single frame for hanging in the library school. I'm trying to decide if I should leave the beard, as it represents approximately half my time here, or shave, because I simply look better without it. I'd appreciate thoughts on the matter.