Yesterday, I pulled a college student day. I've been known to be a ridiculous procrastinator on so many things in my life--school work very much included. However, since moving to Portland and starting fresh, I've been very focused and really good with my school work, until recently.
I hate research papers. Let me explain this. I hate the research part of research papers. I have so many high school flashbacks of breaking down in tears in front of the computer at 3 am because the Great Firewall of China had struck once again. To this day, I have nightmares about my internet connection shutting down because of the wrong phrase typed into Google all for a school assignment. Yes, yes, I know that I am free of those restrictions, but I still hate it. Research papers tend to leave me with the overwhelming feeling that I could have written so much more because there was so much more information I could have used but never got around to. Research papers are daunting.
Don't get me wrong, I can write an amazing research paper, and given the right topic, I can somewhat enjoy the topic. But there's a reason I decided to drop the science major, and there it is.
My writing class was assigned a research paper a few weeks ago. The catch? The topic we chose had to be a current international issue...and we were allowed only ONE internet source. Sure, I understand the stipulations of this. This is a lesson in using resources out side of Wikipedia and that third grade web report on George Washington. But, of course, I chose a topic I wouldn't be bored to tears with and had no chance of being duplicated by any of my fellow classmates. I chose to write on the effects that blogging has had on the media industry. Of course, this topic limited my offline resources severely, and I knew this.
So, I avoided it like the plague.
While avoiding this paper like SARS, I contracted my own illness. Irony, awesome. I spent the last couple weeks running into the doctors with my mystery illness and the rest was spent paying more attention to what was wrong with me, rather than what was due. On Monday my mystery pain was finally diagnosed, and the sudden realization that I hadn't even looked at this paper let alone started it hit me and I scrambled to find my original proposal for the essay.
In a move filled with awesomeness, I entered the library 7 hours before the research paper was due, emptied the bookshelves dealing with blogging, the internet, ethics, and journalistic media forms. And there I sat for 7 hours, reading, highlighting, copying, typing, sourcing, and contmeplating taking a nap on floor. But I got it done without completely wanting to kill myself or shred the books infront of me. Success.
But I noticed something during my time spent scouring the bookshelves and flipping through pages; I miss libraries. I've always found comfort in sitting between the stacks and flipping through some volume from the past. I love the smell of books. I love the delapedated covers from the 60's that stare back at me. I love the idea that someone else read the same book I posess and that they were standing in the same place I am when taking it from the shelf. I love searching for a book from the call number on the spine; it's like detective's work.
When I was at school in Hawaii, the library was massive, but it was also...unwelcoming. The library was being remodled while was at school and it was never truly and completely peaceful. The books were being placed in boxes and everything in the place felt incomplete and missing. Not to mention, the school was small and when you live on campus, you know everyone. People constantly came over to talk to you in the library, to say 'hi'. It wasn't a place where you could lose yourself. You couldn't sit in the stacks because someone would come by for a chat or the spines of the books you ran your fingers over were screaming for their missing counterparts, burried somewhere within a box, remembered only by their barcodes. The windows were tinted, the flouresent lights were blinding and the air conditioner was set far too low. The place was cold and dark, and not in a welcoming way.
When I sat in the confines of the Rock Creek library yesterday, I wan't affected by the atmosphere in a negative way. I fell in love with the library's book collection last term when I found myself reading Dostoyevsky infront of Shakespeare (there's something brilliantly beautiful about that moment). The library is open and bright, inviting, warm, beautiful. The frustrated kids frantically flipping through their books, don't look that frustrated after all. The library has couches, and ample outlets for laptops in the desks.
But here's my favourite part. Lamps. The library contains personal lamps at every desk, rather than depending upon the harsh, loud light of flourecents. They're primary light source are the 180 degree floor to ceiling windows and sky lights. Beautiful.
Plus, it helps that I don't know anyone on campus well enough to hold a conversation with.
I think I've found my new inspirational sanctuary, and that makes me giddy inside