I don't think I like grad school. Or maybe it's been so long since I've been in an academic environment, that I can't quite adjust. Everything feels so arbitrary and disconnected. I mean, I know why I have to read books in several genres for my adult materials class and why I have to analyze a community's demographics for my management class. I even know why I have to participate in the discussion board every week---despite my having nothing to say.

But even as I'm doing these things, even as I'm aware of the reasons *why* I'm doing these things, it all seems rather pointless, as though I'm playing pretend. Will I even remember how to do these things when I'm an Actual Librarian? I don't retain information purely for the sake of retaining it. I have to *do* something with it, fit it into a larger framework. And while I suppose theoretically I'm supposed to be building a larger framework, my professors contradict each other with disconcerting regularity. Add in all the journal articles and textbooks and their writers' opinions, and it's a wonder I can even grasp what a librarian does.

I don't want to read books or analyze statistics or post nonsense messages. I want to start working in a library and learn as I go how it works and what it does and what it means to be a part of its human heart. Bother.

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