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March 7, 2006
4 days from China
My days are now consumed with packing, trying to get all my work square before I leave on Friday, and assuring my husband I love him and that I'll be home very soon. I'm exhausted, and I haven't even left yet. I'm also *terribly* excited.
I leave for San Francisco on Friday morning at 6a EST, and leave on a flight to Beijing via Hong Kong at 12:10a PST on Saturday morning. At some point in between, I believe the plan is for the group to somehow aggregate near the Cathay Pacific area of the international terminal. Planning with the group has been... interesting. I'll have more on that after my trip. I have some friends I might see in San Francisco while I'm there on Friday and on Monday, March 20, but if you're in town and you feel like hanging, send me email and let me know.
Many thanks to those who have sent donations, which I found both heartwarming and helpful. The worthy include (in alphabetical order):
Laura Blalock of The Creative Librarian
Sam Haynes
Colin Heyes
Jeanne Kramer-Smyth of C-Section Recovery (and who recently started the MLIS program in the archives concentration at U of Maryland)
Clifford Lawson
Steve Lawson of See Also...
Jen Muehlbauer of Not Too Late to Change the Name
Dorothea Salo of Caveat Lector
Carrie Tobey
Chris Zammarelli of Libraryola
I'm still accepting donations, big and small (the smallest donation was $10, the largest $50), since every little bit counts. The $200 I've raised in the past 2 weeks through the Paypal button covered my travel insurance, and will cover half of the professional gifts I'll be taking with me. Wanna be one of the worthy? Click the happy button below.
After much internal struggle, I've decided that I'm not taking my laptop with me. At first, the thought was horrifying, but really, I'd rather be without the laptop for 10 days than to lose it, or have it confiscated or stolen. Besides, it will be quite the adventure to try to do this guerilla style: I'm going light, flexible, highly mobile, grabbing computer and internet access in a surprise hit-and-run, as-available fashion via libraries, business centers, and internet cafes (which, as my fabulous visa-acquiring friend and librarian colleague Jennie Pu points out, are smoky but cheap and easy to find). I'll probably do a little light research on possible access locations, but not much, since that would diminish the festive guerilla adventure flavor of the trip.
Going the handwritten notes route for this trip should be fairly interesting, since I know tend to think at the rate I can type (which isn't too shabby), so overcoming the frustration of matching my thought speed to my handwriting speed will be a hoot. If they'll allow me to record the sessions, I might look into an inexpensive digital voice recorder, if there is such a thing. I figure if I can upload 5 photos a day to my Flickr account, and get some short summary up at least once a day on my blog, it'll be a nice real-time account. I might even be able to post something to the PLA blog about my public library visit. Since I'll be hitting PLA as soon as I get back (I'm taking March 21 off for jet lag, I'll be at PLA March 22 - 25), I can fill out my experience more in April.
No, seriously. I'll do it. This trip and the PLA conference will be the big bang for better posting habits to my blog. There, I've said it out loud, and it is therefore resolved. Heck, I'll even take a Carnival of Infosciences sometime in the summer (I've said it out loud, so I'm committed), after I've caught up on my blogging, and some much-needed sleep.
March 7, 2006 10:04 PM