[It’s aSquared’s First Birthday … we’re celebrating by looking back at events from a year ago … skip these retro posts if you’re not into sentimentality.]

Rethinking things …

Developments

Our blog (specifically, my entry about the library-lessness of orientation yesterday) has been linked by librarian.net (which I found out after getting a couple of e-mails from alums of the SI program indicating that my experience with orientation was, shall we say, not unique). I don’t know whether to laugh or pack my bags. No, seriously: thank you, Jessamyn West. I have always loved and respected librarian.net and consider it a privilege to have been linked (and quoted to boot) by you.

My remarks yesterday were written at the end of a very hot and exhausting day. I want to say a few things in my own defense, and to make some necessary amendments to what I said yesterday, and then I will shut up on this subject (for now).

Number one, the students I have met have been friendly, unpretentious, motivated, highly intelligent, and excited about the project in front of us, which is always good news. Every single one of the students I met in my scavenger hunt yesterday was a pleasure to talk to and to interact with, and like I said, I had a great time with them discovering some of the i er sanctums of central campus. I look forward to working with the students I have met and to meeting many more of them. I also have to admit that I haven’t met as many people as I “should” have. I am what you call an INFP, and that personality profile doesn’t definitionally align itself with a number of the behaviors that social events like orientation are designed to encourage. But I definitely look forward to meeting other students and my professors in less intimidating settings.

And, despite my comments yesterday, I absolutely look forward to the work ahead. I know that Michigan is a great school, I know that SI is a great program, and although there are aspects of what I saw in orientation that bothered me, it’s only been two days, for God’s sake, and I could undoubtedly benefit from being less of a critic. There was part of me that would have been more comfortable staying in the Bay Area, sticking with my City of SF job, moving to some leafy quiet neighborhood in San Mateo (maybe in the hills behind Alameda de Las Pulgas), and commuting to San Jose State, where everything would perhaps have been a lot clearer and a lot more straightforward.

But where would the fun have been in that? I have no regrets about my decision to move to Ann Arbor, other than, of course, the natural regrets that come with nostalgia and sorely missing friends, loved ones, and loved pets (yes, I’m talking to you, Gracie, Rudy, and Suki!!!).

—Posted by Frank at 19:57:24 | 29-Aug-03