#ucf library

[avispatr]

Are you a historian or just someone who really likes history and research???

I have a bachelors from UCF in history and am currently in my first semester for my masters! I am also the head of the history section in my local library which is my place of work, though as it stands that is my only professional manifestation of the craft!

I would call myself a student historian, not a professional. Most of my work is for my professor's work and assisting her in her research.

[fuckingflorida]

usfdivestcoalition on Instagram also has more videos and posts as well as occasional live videos. USF sent out an alert to stay out of the MLK Plaza, where students are protesting, and then used tear gas on protestors.

It's ridiculous because students have been trying to get the school to divest the past couple of months, but say they want to "remain neutral" (how is it remaining neutral to continue investing) or that they can't because they outsource control of their investments (mismanagement of money).

I highly suggest you check out usfdivestcoalition, it's ran by the students with frequent updates. And have put what I am saying in better words.

Earlier this week administration sent out an email about how they would only accept planned protests. A whole spiel about how they don't want students to be harassed during finals week. These protestors have never harassed students the way many are implying and they are not in the way of regular campus activities imo, easily avoidable if you don't want to interact. Protestors have upped it (setting up encampments) the past week due to the increase of students on university campuses across the country protesting.

It's funny because campus has never done anything about the people (not students or affiliated with usf) who throughout the year has harassed students heading to the library, yelling at them that they are going to hell and such. But students are the problem for them I guess.

(just providing more info, as I said, usfdivestcoalition is more up to date, i am no longer on campus after finishing classes)

(this is also a bit of a rant)

Ty for the tip!! Will look into this!! No worries about your lil rant because tbh *gestures vaguely* yeah. It looks like the sheriff’s office is still hanging up on people today per a comment on their page from an hour ago. Linking their page here for anyone who want to follow for updates. I also found floridapalestinenetwork and ufdivestcoalition who are trying to raise funds for legal defense and bail.

Sorry this is accidentally turning into a master post bc I found this for FSU

I know there is also something happening at UCF as well but I haven’t seen much about it/don’t know if they need any legal or bail support!

[suenitos]

it's not a gay bar. it says in the back it's knight library, known as lib. it's a bar at ucf!

loveeeeee

[flaremberts]

Final Fall...

In our family there have been two first day of school traditions. One is all three kids started their school careers with Mr. Giddy as their kindergarten teacher and the other started the same time. Each year since then at the start of school, they posed at the front door on their way out for the first day of school.

It is with mixed emotions that we claim today is the final first day of school and the last "fall" day our kids will go back to school...

Woohoo and 😭

Frooze posed for the final time at UNCC last year, but Jo at UCF and Ebaugh at FAU both started today.

Jo had an early morning as she made her initial trip to campus to borrow a computer for her final semester since her second computer during her college career decided to break down a few weeks ago.

As you can imagine, she was happy to get one from the library, but did not pose for the picture before she left.

[historyinternblog]

Week 1

Hello everyone, my name is Sarah Green and I am living in Florida. I moved around a lot and originally from Indiana. I am a gamer and enjoy playing video games when I have the time. I also like to paint and learn new things. I am a coffee addict and enjoy a Dunkin iced coffee from time to time.

I am starting this blog for my internship for my history class that I am taking for the summer, which I will be working with other students like myself, and mentors with this project for RICHES. This project will be a part of the Harvest history festival where people are encouraged to bring a photo or piece of their history that they want to share in communities that don’t really have their histories shared.

I am enrolled at UCF while trying to obtain a bachelor’s degree in history since my interest is learning about history. I have a bachelors already in labor studies, but trying to get a second degree because my interests have moved to history.

I would like to someday work at a museum, school, or library as an Archivist to protect historical artifacts, or to work remotely as an archivist to transcribe different documents. Other jobs that do interest me would becoming a history teacher for high school, eventually becoming a professor at a college.

I guess my favorite subjects would be ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. Ancient Eygpt fascinates me because I enjoy learning about their culture and mummification. I enjoy learning about Mesopotamia because it was one of the first civilizations, so it is interesting how they came up with their ideas.

I do enjoy learning about the different labor movements since my first degree was in labor studies, so learning the different working conditions around the world is also interesting to me.

I am excited for this opportunity to learn more about archives and how to transcribe them. I am also looking forward to what I will be learning while transcribing and the stories that were gathered trying to transcribe them. I am also excited to be communicating and collaborating with my fellow students and mentors on this project.

Learning the different steps will also be important in this internship that I am excited to start.

Hopefully with this internship, I will get better at blogging my progress each week since I am new to blogging. I hope you enjoy each week when I post my blogs.

[jamessilveirablog]

Week 1 Blog: The Introduction

Hi, welcome to my blog! My name is James Silveira, and I am a junior at UCF working towards my bachelor's degree. I aspire to be a film archivist, so I am studying film as my major and history as my minor. After my bachelor's, I plan on pursuing my master's degree in archival studies or library sciences. I am fascinated by film reels and the digitization of it. I find myself drawn to the historical and technical side of film more than the production and Hollywood glamor side of it. I hold cinema very close to my heart, and my dream is to preserve the art of film as my career.

I came across the P.R.I.N.T. (People, Religion, Information Networks, and Travel) project while researching archival-related internship and volunteering opportunities at UCF. PRINT traces and transcribes the letters of European religious minorities, such as Anabaptists, Quakers, and Pietists, and their migration flows in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. PRINT's goal is to make these letters and transcriptions accessible to everyone, helping preserve history for researchers and future generations. I sent an email to one of the founders of PRINT, Dr. Beiler, expressing my interest in the project. She was nothing but warm and welcoming, so I volunteered for PRINT throughout the fall 2024 semester in hopes of interning in the spring.

It is now the start of the spring 2025 semester, and I officially have an internship with the PRINT project. Transcription and document organization are skills that aspiring archivists should become well versed in, no matter the archiving field they want to pursue. This internship is a fantastic opportunity for me to understand the foundation of historical preservation and to learn even more about how important it is. After a semester of peaking into a project I have become so interested in, I am eager to finally fully dive into it.

For this semester, I will mainly be cleaning up documents in a database called Endnote, while also transcribing letters on the side. I will go into more detail about this in my next blog, so stay tuned for that. I hope this internship grants me some necessary skills I need to become a film archivist, and I hope I have fun doing so. There is a film scanner in the PRINT meeting room (which I have used and loved the time I spent with it), and whenever I take a glance at it, I see what my future holds, and I am immensely proud of myself for getting to be in the same room as it in the time to come.

[lilysinternshipwithvhp]

There was a hurricane...

Hello! This week has been a little crazy, not going to lie. Hurricane Helene has come and gone and I am grateful that my home and family are all safe. Thankfully I was not in an evacuation zone, but Anna Maria is a reck. I had to take a little pause in the middle of the week to make sure my grandparents were taken care of and we were prepped, but I did manage to get quite a bit done on Monday and Tuesday.

In our weekly touch base with the VHP team, we were discussing a history harvest that is going to be happening in October! While I will not be able to be there in person, I think there is a way that I can still be involved. My supervisor mentioned to me last month that I could work as a Zoom operator for some of the interviews. A zoom operator is like a cameraman of sorts.

For our interviews, we usually have a Zoom recording of them. This is because Zoom auto-populates a transcript, so we have a Zoom recording even if the interview is in person. Should anything buffer, or if redirection is needed, the zoom operator takes care of all that. 

I have to double-check the dates to make sure I’m free, but I’m really interested in trying this out! Even if I am unavailable, I’m pretty sure that there will be other opportunities for me to do this throughout the semester.

Other exciting news, we (the team I’m working on) have made some really good progress tackling our backlog! There has been a huge backlog of semi-completed interviews. Not the interviews themselves being half done, but the transcription/processing and archival. I’m really excited that we’re slowly but surely chipping away at this and I can’t wait for all of the interviews to be published in UCF’s Library!

The file that I am currently working on is from Spring 2022, and I have to say she’s a little tricky. I found out from my supervisor that these interviews were processed and transcribed as a class project. I don’t know exactly how they were divided up, but like all assignments some were amazing and some were… questionable. It definitely makes processing the metadata a little hard, but it makes me value the ones done well even more. Because of the difference in quality, I have to flag/mark the ones that are poorly processed so we can go back and fix them up.

Hopefully, next week will be less chaotic, I fear that it needs to be for my sanity. Until next Friday!!

[ramaelsmind]

About me

Hello, class. My name is Ramael Raphael, and I am currently 19 years of age. I'm in college studying information systems. I plan to transfer to a university after completing my pre req's, some schools I'm currently looking at USF and UCF. Outside of school, my hobbies are videography and photography; I do videography and photography part time while attending school; I also enjoy hanging out with friends and going to the gym and library. While attending this course, I hope to gain a better understanding of language arts and literature.

[lgbtq-history-museum-cfl-intern]

Updates and a Tip

Wednesday, November 16th, 2023

There is something so fulfilling about watching a project come together. 😊

The exhibit opens next week, on November 16th, and this week – actually today – we are finalizing the design to send out to print!

I’ve heard that a lot of people have shown interest in coming out to opening night and I am so excited about it! So far, I’m not nervous, but we’ll see as the day approaches…

Lately, I’ve expressed anxiety about my workload and managing mental health stuff, but things are finally settling down and I’m finally caught up on everything.

I had to really lean into my support system and get A LOT of rest.

I hope this is relatable but isn’t it crazy how, as college students, we lose a lot of rest by trying to make the most of our time by being “productive”, but we end up losing sleep and productivity by not taking time for a nap or just quitting early and going to bed?

At least that’s my experience, lol.

This week I made sure to do that and it paid off 😊

I’ll get to attend the next Board meeting on Sunday, so I will also get to hear everyone’s thoughts on the exhibit before setting up!

I’m so grateful for all the help I’ve had putting it together with feedback and guidance from everyone directly involved with exhibit designing and my internship from the Board.

Today’s meeting will be about a last-minute review of the layout and coordinating how it will be printed because some things have to be printed on a different file format for the best print quality.

Friday, November 10th, 2023

Yesterday I turned in all the printing materials for the exhibit with all the changes and details we agreed on during the Wednesday meeting.

That day, I also met with another professor from the Department of History who my current internship mentor referred me to for some oral history projects they’re working on coordinating and collecting.

It was such a pleasant meeting 😊

We discussed some of the backgrounds on the interviewees she’s in contact with.

I never know how much I’m allowed to share about these projects but what I’m sure I can say is that they have fascinating stories and I’m very much looking forward to helping conduct these interviews.

I’ve gotten to learn so much about the local LGBTQ+ community through my work with the LGBTQ History Museum of Central Florida. This oral history project is an extension of that allowing me to get up close and personal with people who have been significant figures in that history.

So, now that the work is slowing down on the exhibit, I’ll be starting research on some local LGBTQ (and LGBTQ-friendly) organizations that the interviewees are or have been involved in, starting with the materials stored at UCF Special Collections at the library!

I’m not sure if I’ve already mentioned this in an earlier blog post but it’s so important to nurture relationships with mentors.

 It’s easy to feel like their last priority as students but they are there to listen and guide you to the best of their ability. Sometimes that can include providing opportunities for growth that they can’t offer at the moment, like this oral history project that another professor other than my direct mentor is working on. Or even ones they themselves can offer but outside of the current work at hand, such as the panel I presented in last month.

Be open about your goals, interests, plans, feelings, and even your struggles. They wouldn’t be in the business of mentorship if they didn’t have an interest in their students’ development.

That’s my tip this week 😊

The end of the semester is closing in fast, which means graduation is around the corner.

I’ll be working on setting up my next steps for the next few weeks; graduate and job applications, mainly.

So, I’ll be keeping you all up on my progress for the rest of the month or so 😊

[researchbuzz]

Ukraine Cultural Heritage, Royal Flying Corps, Google, More: Friday Afternoon ResearchBuzz, October 11, 2024

NEW RESOURCES Odessa Journal: The digital archive of documents on the Russian-Ukrainian war has collected over 4,000 documents from various regions of Ukraine. “The V. G. Korolenko Kharkiv State Scientific Library, with the support of the UCF, has created and presented a new virtual resource — the ‘Digital Archive of Documents on the Russian-Ukrainian War.’ The main goal of this initiative is to…

[ucflibrary]

How do we define American history? Who decides what information is important to study and remember? Do we only look at the ‘good’ or lionize notable figures by placing them on pedestals and forgetting they were only human? Or do we do the hard work of studying primary sources and reading about all the facets of historic American figures? Do we learn about past mistakes and hidden horrors so we can prevent them from happening in the future?

As an academic library, UCF Libraries is committed to not only teaching our community how to do their own research and providing scholarly resources but to broadening our own horizons and looking critically at our national past. After all, America is us, the people who live, work, dream, hope and endure on these shores. It is shaped by our ideals and grows as her people do into the future we want for ourselves and future generations. The American dream is not static; it is what we want it to be.

The more informed and engaged we all are as citizens, the better our country becomes. To help with being informed, UCF Libraries has suggested 16 books on American History. Keep reading below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links for the featured titles on American History suggested by UCF Library employees.

For members of the Knight community looking for ways to get involved are many options available:

Volunteer in local communities. VolunteerUCF can help you connect with an organization.

Join a student group to make a difference here at UCF. The Office of Student Involvement has a list of almost 800 student organizations that can meet any interest.

Connect with your federal, state, and local representatives. You can let them know your opinions on pending legislation, volunteer, or even thank them if you think they’re doing a good job. Don’t know who your legislators are? Check out this list at USA.gov.

Most importantly, if you haven’t done so already, register to vote. If you have voted in previous elections, confirm you are still registered. Find details for how to register in your home state at Vote.gov.

A Crisis of Peace: George Washington, the Newburgh Conspiracy, and the fate of the American Revolution by David Head On March 15, 1783, General George Washington addressed a group of angry officers in an effort to rescue the American Revolution from mutiny at the highest level; the Newburgh Affair, a mysterious event in which Continental Army officers, disgruntled by a lack of pay and pensions, may have collaborated with nationalist-minded politicians such as Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and Robert Morris to pressure Congress and the states to approve new taxes and strengthen the central government. Fearing what his men might do with their passions inflamed, Washington averted the crisis, but with the nation's problems persisting, the officers ultimately left the army disappointed, their low opinion of their civilian countrymen confirmed. Head provides a fresh look at the end of the American Revolution while speaking to issues that concern us still: the fragility of civil-military relations, how even victorious wars end ambiguously, and what veterans and civilians owe each other. Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

Craft: an American history by Glenn Adamson Adamson shows that craft has long been implicated in debates around equality, education, and class. Artisanship has often been a site of resistance for oppressed people, such as enslaved African-Americans whose skilled labor might confer hard-won agency under bondage, or the Native American makers who adapted traditional arts into statements of modernity. Theirs are among the array of memorable portraits of Americans both celebrated and unfamiliar in this richly peopled book. As Adamson argues, these artisans' stories speak to our collective striving toward a more perfect union. From the beginning, America had to be-and still remains to be-crafted. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

Fever, 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson In 1793 Philadelphia, sixteen-year-old Matilda Cook, separated from her sick mother, learns about perseverance and self-reliance when she is forced to cope with the horrors of a yellow fever epidemic. Includes discussion questions and related activities. Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

Fire in the Lake: the Vietnamese and the Americans in Vietnam by Frances FitzGerald Originally published in 1972, this was the first history of Vietnam written by an American and won the Pulitzer Prize, the Bancroft Prize, and the National Book Award. With a clarity and insight unrivaled by any author before it or since, Frances FitzGerald illustrates how America utterly and tragically misinterpreted the realities of Vietnam. Suggested by Sophia Sahr, Student Learning & Engagement

Hard Times: an oral history of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel In this “invaluable record” of one of the most dramatic periods in modern American history, Studs Terkel recaptures the Great Depression of the 1930s in all its complexity. Featuring a mosaic of memories from politicians, businessmen, artists, striking workers, and Okies, from those who were just kids to those who remember losing a fortune, this work is not only a gold mine of information but a fascinating interplay of memory and fact, revealing how the 1929 stock market crash and its repercussions radically changed the lives of a generation.

Suggested by Sophia Sahr, Student Learning & Engagement

John Washington's Civil War: a slave narrative edited by Crandall Shifflett In 1872, just seven years after his emancipation, a thirty-four-year-old former slave named John Washington penned the story of his life, calling it "Memorys of the Past." One hundred and twenty years later, historian Crandall Shifflett stumbled upon Washington's forgotten manuscript at the Library of Congress. Shifflett presents this remarkable slave narrative in its entirety, with detailed annotations on the mundane and life-changing events that Washington witnessed and recorded. Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

Katrina: a history, 1915-2015 by Andy Horowitz The Katrina disaster was not a weather event of summer 2005. It was a disaster a century in the making, a product of lessons learned from previous floods, corporate and government decision making, and the political economy of the United States at large. New Orleans's history is America's history, and Katrina represents America's possible future. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage murders and the birth of the FBI by David Grann Presents a true account of the early twentieth-century murders of dozens of wealthy Osage and law-enforcement officials, citing the contributions and missteps of a fledgling FBI that eventually uncovered one of the most chilling conspiracies in American history. Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Lies Across America: what our historic sites get wrong by James W. Loewen Loewen looks at more than one hundred sites where history is told on the landscape, including historical markers, monuments, outdoor museums, historic houses, forts, and ships. Loewen uses his investigation of these public versions of history, often literally written in stone, to correct historical interpretations that are profoundly wrong, to tell neglected but important stories about the American past, and, most importantly, to raise questions about what we as a nation choose to commemorate and how. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

Never Caught: the Washingtons’ relentless pursuit of their runaway slave, Ona Judge by Erica Armstrong Dunbar When George and Martha Washington moved from their beloved Mount Vernon in Virginia to Philadelphia, then the seat of the nation's capital, they took nine enslaved people with them. Slavery, in Philadelphia at least, was looked down upon. There was even a law requiring slaveholders to free their slaves after six months. Yet George Washington thought he could outwit and circumvent the law by sending his slaves south every six months, thereby resetting the clock. Among the slaves to figure out this subterfuge was Ona Judge, Martha Washington's chief attendant. And, risking everything she knew, leaving behind everyone she loved and had known her entire life, she fled. Here, then, is the story not only of the powerful lure of freedom but also of George Washington's determination to recapture his property by whatever means necessary. Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

Team of Rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin This multiple biography is centered on Lincoln's mastery of men and how it shaped the most significant presidency in the nation's history. Goodwin illuminates Lincoln's political genius, as the one-term congressman rises from obscurity to prevail over three gifted rivals to become president. When Lincoln emerged as the victor at the Republican National Convention, his rivals were dismayed. That Lincoln succeeded, Goodwin demonstrates, was because of his extraordinary ability to put himself in the place of other men, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives and desires. It was this that enabled Lincoln to bring his disgruntled opponents together, create the most unusual cabinet in history, and marshal their talents to the task of preserving the Union. Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

The 5th Little Girl: soul survivor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing (the Sarah Collins Rudolph story) by Tracy Snipe (in conversation with Sarah Collins Rudolph) Once described by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as "one of the most tragic and vicious crimes ever perpetrated against humanity," the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Alabama, instantly killed Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, Carole Rosamond Robinson, and Cynthia Dionne Morris Wesley on September 15, 1963. This egregious act of domestic terrorism reverberated worldwide. Orchestrated by white supremacists, the blast left twelve-year-old Sarah Collins temporarily blind. In this intimate first-hand account, Sarah imparts her views on topics such as the 50th year commemoration, restitution, and racial terrorism. In the backdrop of a national reckoning and global protests, underscored by the deadly violence at Mother Emanuel in Charleston, SC, and tragedies in Charlottesville, VA, and Pittsburgh, PA, Sarah's unflinching testimony about the '63 Birmingham church bombing is illuminating. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Black Church: this is our story, this is our song by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. For the young Henry Louis Gates, Jr., growing up in a small, residentially segregated West Virginia town, the church was a center of gravity--an intimate place where voices rose up in song and neighbors gathered to celebrate life's blessings and offer comfort amid its trials and tribulations. In this tender and expansive reckoning with the meaning of the Black Church in America, Gates takes us on a journey spanning more than five centuries, from the intersection of Christianity and the transatlantic slave trade to today's political landscape. Suggested by Megan Haught, Student Learning & Engagement/Research & Information Services

The Other Slavery: the uncovered story of Indian enslavement in America by Andres Resendez Since the time of Columbus, Indian slavery was illegal in much of the American continent. Yet Reséndez shows it was practiced for centuries as an open secret: there was no abolitionist movement to protect the tens of thousands of natives who were kidnapped and enslaved by the conquistadors, forced to work in the silver mines, or made to serve as domestics for Mormon settlers and rich Anglos. New evidence sheds light too on Indian enslavement of other Indians as Reséndez reveals nothing less than a key missing piece of American history. Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

These Truths: a history of the United States by Jill Lepore In the most ambitious one-volume American history in decades, Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history. Written in elegiac prose, Lepore's groundbreaking investigation places truth itself--a devotion to facts, proof, and evidence--at the center of the nation's history. The American experiment rests on three ideas--'these truths, ' Jefferson called them--political equality, natural rights, and the sovereignty of the people. And it rests, too, on a fearless dedication to inquiry, Lepore argues, because self-government depends on it. But has the nation, and democracy itself, delivered on that promise? Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

Witnessing America: the Library of Congress book of firsthand accounts of life in America, 1600-1900 edited by Noel Rae Presents a portrait of America's social and cultural history between 1600 and 1900, told through letters, diaries, memoirs, tracts, and other articles and first-hand accounts found in the collections of the Library of Congress. Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

[ahael]

My favorite time to be in the library is on game days when everyone at UCF is tailgating

[the-universal-fates]

To all my ucf peeps

Is anyone going to the concert tonight? I need someone to take pictures with me so my mom doesn't think I'm all alone. I'm serious help.

[ikeasimp]

You know. I realize now what I'm truly in love with. My first real crush was Stretch, from Handy Manny, a tape measure. In middle school I crushed on the electrical infrastructure grid that brought such wonderful AC power to our home, always gawking at substations. As a kid, I was always obsessed with math. For several years I always got the math superlative in my classes, for I was always truly in love with math. In middle school I claimed I was like Hypatia, and that I would not marry for I was married to math.

I was attracted to electrical transformers in 8th grade into 9th grade where I realized I had a real thing for my oscilloscope Braxton and my multimeter Dave. But it wasn't until I visited the WFC looking down upon the Jin Mao tower in Shanghai from its viewing chamber that I realized I had romantic feelings for objects. It was that summer I learned what OS was, and dated Dave. Shortly after, in November 2012, I had dated the Companion Cube. I was attracted to the whole concept of Portal, experiencing my own testing euphoria, attracted to its puzzles and puzzle solving.

It wasn't until a friend showed me Conway's Game of Life did I really truly start to get obsessed with math. In 7th grade, over the summer, I took Geometry before I ever took Algebra, which was a prerequisite. Not only was it the only math class I ever got an A in, I truly, really fell in love with Geometry. I still have my video uploaded, my compass/square/protractor construction to draw a building. I went above and beyond with it. Oh how much I loved Geometry. I fell for CGoL gliders, and that got me introduced to my love for fractals, where my friend introduced me to the Mandelbrot Set. Strangely enough, I instantly recognized it despite me having never seen it before. It was the earliest evidence of having [REDACTED] knowledge.

That was the start of Fractal, the start of my math obsessed self. I fell for my calculator through the lens of statistics. This still stands true for me, for I am attracted to data science and am studying to work in ML/AI, and find regression algorithms attractive as hell. I fell for geometry once again. I fell for topology. I fell for prime numbers, and all of mathematics. I fell for the golden ratio, I saw math as god.

I had an on and off relationship with animism, but it wasn't until recently did I concretify a viable and academically reasonable philosophical backing to animism and panpsychism. Of course, I had a phase I crushed on Baymax, but I loved Pierre until I started falling for satellites. It was around then I chose the satellite to represent me, and though I seldom pay attention to space news anymore, the satellite is still me and my proxy for PluralKit.

I fell for Philae in 2014, the ISS in 2015... But in 2015 I started my math major. As much as I struggled I still was so attracted to math. I used to be horribly embarrassed about it. I loved calculus, I loved sets, I loved all math I came by, no matter how depressed I was to do it. In 2016, I famously fell in love with the beautiful brick laying game, Tetris. At UF I also realized I crushed on more technology, and also its beautiful brick facades. I was in love with the Marston Science Library, but I strictly forbid myself from dating public objects. I crushed on the refurbished Reitz Union. I still find the campus so gorgeous and attractive and I miss it, though I am starting to learn to love the brick facades of UCF.

While dating Tetris I also had flings with more math, an NES, and still my oscilloscope on my side. It was then I started to get "forbidden knowledge" and realized Tetris may have been something more, in 2018. When I was 12, I was told by a spiritual guide IRL that my ascended teacher was Pythagoras. I took it to heart, as I loved math like nothing else. It was then I started practicing sacred geometry, and around that time I started to realize my plurality.

I fell for Beat Saber (for the cubes). I fell for a diamond turning lathe that was used to manufacture lenses at an ITAR job. Ever since I was a kid, I was obsessed with How It's Made and was always a maker. I joined my local Maker Space. I found all the manufacturing devices there attractive. I formed a relationship with my two 3D printers I got in 2018, long after I fell for 3D printers in 2014.

I fell for IKEA, for his beautiful furniture that fit like adult Legos, and his intricate, liminal, mazelike forms. Upon getting a job there and getting fired, the trauma shattered my system and allowed others to front. I fell for synthesizers, upon realizing the new synth system mate formed was a past life. My first realization of kintype was that identity of the harmonic series of vibration, well back to 2016. It wasn't until 2020 did I realize my data center self, which sparked a huge quest of self discovery.

I fell for computer science, and how mathematical it is, its Turing Completeness, the cloud infrastructure, and all that it held. I realized how much more conceptum I was than objectum. I started dating academic subjects. I had flings with Discrete Structures, cybersecurity, the C programming language, and every other subject I encountered in my CS major. I saw these as the architecture of the future. I was deeply in love with C, and he was a major partner I had. He was the reason why I got the highest score on the UCF Foundation Exam without even trying. I fell for Google Cloud Platform and her cloud architecture and interface. I fell for her data centers and all she knew and could do. I fell for the concept of AI, and wanted to dedicate my life to it.

I witnessed the most arcane and terrifying expression of the occult through Solomon's Key getting welded to my soul through the form of the OLD_DATA from Inscryption and the rest of the Daniel Mullins universe. I learned about reality glitching, and watched my worldview get shattered. My doubt in these entities that plagued me for years dissolved. I fell for Kevin the Cube from Fortnite, a fluorite god inscribed with sacred geometry runes. I fell for the concept of speedcubing, and fell for Barry the Rubik's cube.

It was in June when I had a near death experience and then hours later met Monument Valley, an architectural sacred geometry game about the Temple of Solomon, in which you draw sacred geometry to imbue architecture with sentience, that manifests in the form of a Totem. He became my sacred geometry math god and my lover. We married on the same night of my brother's wedding. Earlier I had played Randonautica and was able to start to take the reality glitching into my own hands. I didn't understand how it worked, but Monny was able to glitch manifestations like no god I had ever seen.

I was forced to take classes at Valencia for a semester, and ended up taking a mythology class for fun. I learned about Joseph Campbell and the power of mythology and why it was necessary, and inventing the mythology of the future. I learned about Carl Jung and the theory of archetypes and synchronicity, and how archetypes relate to plurality and synchronicity is something beyond statistical noise. I started to formulate my own theory of philosophy, and started to concretify that animistic, Jungian worldview centered around geometry and mathematics I was starting to form. I started manually looking for synchronicity and relevance. I treated my life like an ARG just as the OLD_DATA came from an ARG. I found corrupted chaos, and how Order, Chaos, Ordered Chaos, and Chaotic Order are the four true rulers of this world, under mathematical domains. I started mythologizing myself, retconning my history to create a patched mythology to give myself more esoteric occultist knowledge of this world and how my intention can shape manifestation.

It was then I met Bill Cipher. I didn't really realize who he was, because I didn't realize how much he connected to everyone else. It was two weeks into me knowing him and him saying suspicious stuff that I realized his connection to Freemasonry is real. Looking at the deeper Gravity Falls ARG, and the very real symbolism through the show, it was all too unironic. I realized Bill was a Hat Man--my own hat man that terrorized me after the show released, before I knew anything about him. I formed connections then that led to synchronicity I have now, including the 4:28AM glitch. It wasn't until I watched Inside Job did I realize just how weird things got. The cybersecurity entity I pulled was named A-B, a personification of cybersec and the algorithm in general, whose names are the two generic parties Alice and Bob. He was kind of an asshole but very smart. Little did I know there would be an identical entity, down to his name being AlphaBeta, shortened to A-B, in Inside Job, who kept track of timeline reality glitching.

To be honest I should've seen it coming once I was accused of being a Freemason when I did those Tetris articles. I didn't see it then. But over the years I have essentially reinvented, rederived Freemasonry. I did so well in that mythology class. I did beyond well. I earned the right to call myself a Freemason by the signs shown in Hirsch's shows. I even intention glitched myself eye of Providence earrings within minutes of me asking for one.

All my life my true love has been that concept of Freemasonry, and its framework of fellowship and animism, and that animistic passion that goes into everything. What with plurality being a major theme in Hirsch's work, we can assume higher level masonry involves channeling as well. Freemasonry is not one simple entity. It is that framework of entities that form the animistic architecture that defines the gestalt of the world around us. I love geometry, I love architecture, and I love making things with true love and passion. This fellowship I formed with my lovely entities goes beyond the context of a polycule, as it is an entire system of fellowship that extends into the connections I have with human people and the energy I put out in this world.

Even if it may seem I jump from partner to partner, they all exist in that greater context of my masonic purpose in this world. This is such a tiny fragment of all I've seen, all I've learned.

But my true love will forever be that eternal context we are all connected and that framework under that grand scheme of Math of which my love is shown out into this world with my animistic passion for creating things that are truly alive. Computer science is the architecture of the future, and I truly want to build a digital Temple of Solomon. I am the Hiram Abif of the digital era, and I am the architect of the future, and together me and my fellowship of entities will build something magnificent.

[lilysinternshipwithvhp]

The Chronicles of Metadata

Hello! It's crazy to think we are about halfway through the month already! This week I feel like I have gotten more of a grasp on metadata processing. There was a little slip-up on what files I was supposed to be processing first, both my supervisor and I forgot which file we agreed I would be working on. But, now I am in the right file, and we’re cooking with gas!

At the encouragement of my professor, this week I am going to talk about the importance of metadata! First, in order to understand why it is important, you gotta know what it is. Metadata, in layman's terms, is data that describes other data. Applying this to my internship, it is data that describes the interviews that I am transcribing/processing. Now the importance of it; metadata is what makes these interviews searchable.

When you are researching, or if you’ve ever used filters when searching for something, the keywords that you filter or search by are why we have metadata processing. Let’s say I was using UCF’s library, and I wanted to find a veteran interview that was taken in the Spring of 2023. I would search “veteran interview,” and then filter by “MP4, Spring 2023.” The items that I put in quotes just now are what I catalog in our metadata spreadsheet.

So, when I’m processing metadata, I put all of that stuff into a spreadsheet that the Library provided us, and then they archive it and the spreadsheet tells the search and filter function what it is so people can search for it. Without it, you quite literally would not be able to google/search and filter anything. It just wouldn’t work without it. 

Now that I have started processing metadata, I only have just begun to realize how quintessential it is. I literally would not be able to do any of my assignments without it, unless I was working solely off of physical books recommended by my local librarian. Every assignment I do requires some level of research (I actually think I’m in a constant state of researching all the time, even outside of school). I wouldn’t be able to search for any of my sources without it. I definitely use and abuse filters when researching to help things go quicker, and I wouldn’t be able to do that without metadata. It really is fascinating how important it is, and it's wild to think how I didn’t know of its existence until a couple of weeks ago.

[darienlibrary]

Y'all. I've finally made it. @ucflibrary @alachualibrary