’ve spent an enjoyable afternoon poking around the web looking for grants. I now present you with a braindump of the grant-ese that is currently swirling around in my skull. Mix n’ Match! Build your own funding agency! Try writing an abstract that uses all of the following words:

• Effective
• Develop
• Partnership
• Nationwide
• Resources
• Model
• Exellence
• Best practices
• Community learning
• Innovative learning
• Digital
• Enhance
• Integrate
• Standards
• Collaboration
• Institutional

here O where should this nice person go to library school?
I got this letter the other day:

I was thinking about applying to the Library and Information Science program at Wayne State University here in Detroit and was wondering if you had an opinion on their program? I’d love to go to U of M but I don’t think I’d get in nor do I have the money to go there. Just wondered if you knew or heard about Wayne State’s program.

Please keep in mind that I am not a career counselor, and am in fact a big web designer hypocrite who hasn’t spoken to a patron in years. If that doesn’t bother you, read on.

First of all: Nobody has the money to go to Big Expensive Schools like the University of Michigan. I certainly didn’t. My dear Partnerguy didn’t. None of our friends did, except maybe that one woman who wore expensive suits. The rest of us did three things: Took out Loans, Got Scholarships, and Worked Our Butts Off. Look, see? No butt.

Don’t worry about funding yet. Worrying about funding comes later and will represent one of the many delightful themes of graduate school. Worry about getting in first. Both schools are reputable and, I assume, have some sort of decent admission standards. Still, buck up little appleblossom. This ain’t rocket science. Write a decent essay, take the GRE a couple of times if you need to and cross your fingers. I’d apply to both schools just to cover your bases.

I suspect from the “here in Detroit” bit, that Wayne is geographically closer to you? This is nothing to sniff at, since driving to a distant city to attend class quickly becomes wearisome. If you are in a position to uproot and go to Ann Arbor, however, U of M is a great school. I have no complaints about my THREE years there (don’t ask). The library students I met were smart, funny, geeky and motivated. The interdisciplinary stuff was good for everyone, and you end up with all sorts of cutting-edge library and life skillz.

I don’t know much about Wayne because 1) it is a library school and I never wanted to be a librarian. Not a traditional librarian anyway, with the patrons, and the books and the reference. 2) it is in Detroit and 3) it isn’t as prestigious as U of M. I know this sounds mercenary, but hey, race you to the upper middle class.

If anyone out there can advise this promising young librarian about the Joys of Wayne State or any stuff I missed, please do.

I’m home sick with some sort of sniffy sneezy cold thing. I tried going to work yesterday but my contant snorfing made me a bit self-conscious in my four-person office. I kept getting those "You’d best not be contagious" looks that one gets from coworkers in these situations. So I went home and slept for 16 hours.  Today I hauled myself downstairs to the computer and realized that my blog comment spam software has been running in super-zealous mode, so some of your comments might have gotten held up. My apologies. I’ve punished the software appropriately – it’s not allowed to access my Itunes network for the next week. Bad software.

Speaking of software, I’ve just become addicted to Pandora, the internet radio software that tailors its playlist based on the Music Genome Project. It’s in beta right now, so you can request a free account. One of the worst things about being sick is I’m too lazy to get up and change the cd, so this is great. I typed in White Stripes and got back Belle and Sebastion, And You will Know us by the Trail of Dead, and Nick Cave. Not bad. I’m also too lazy to stick this entry in the spellchecker, just so you know.