Hello and welcome to my introductory post for this blog/course! I am Splendid Speckled Mosscap (they/them), named after one of the main characters in Becky Chambers’ A Psalm for the Wild-Built. Mosscap is a robot, and in the book’s world, robots name themselves after the first thing they saw when they were created. Throughout the duology, I found myself really appreciating the sustainable, community focused universe Chambers built. In a time when I was struggling to see myself in the future doing anything, this duology as well as my love of afrofuturism taught me that the world can’t change without us imagining different realities. Reading is something I used to do a lot in grade school, but soon enough the only things I read were textbooks and scientific articles; reading started to be associated with drudgery as opposed to joy and wonder. I figured it would be fun to name myself on this blog after a character from the first book I read in a long while that left an impact.

I started this degree with sweaty palms in Fall of 2023. I recently received a master’s in microbiology, but burnt out along the way. It made the thought of working in the field in which I had spent 10 years terrifying, so I needed to switch things up. For a while, I worked with my hands, making art and hoping that maybe it could pay my bills as a business. It didn’t.

At the suggestion of my partner, I started working at a local library and finding peace again. I still make and sell art, though, because it has been nice being in community with other creatives, as well as being able to share my work with others. This week in crafts, I mixed a few different skills to create silicone coasters for my partner. It started with making a 3d model of the coaster, then making a box that had the negative of the coaster, then pouring into that box to make silicone coasters. They came out super neat, and it inspired me to try making different types of coasters.

I am hoping that during this program I can find meaningful ways to connect my love of making with my job. I recently was able to help lead a program in collaboration with a local maker space, and I am angling to have more of those programs in the future.

Currently, I work as an aide, and the work has been relaxing, but I am eager to do more. When telling people I am in this program, the follow up question tends to be what kind of librarian do I want to be. In the beginning, my answer was one that could pay their rent. But the other major reason was that I had a lot of ideas that had to continue being ideas at my current classification. I knew I needed to learn more about what it means to be a librarian and begin the path to advancing if I wanted to make some of my ideas a reality. This week in work, I was helping with a program that gives participants a laptop if they finish the series of classes. The classes focus on tech literacy and cybersecurity. And in conversation with a coworker, I learned that our library is going to host its own tech classes throughout the year. I am hoping that I can be involved in that work and help our community feel more comfortable with their devices.