today i was working on an assignment about reference sources. it was just a list of questions, which we're supposed to answer, using a list of sources including the thomas register and hoover's. the thing is, librarians aren't supposed to answer things without checking. if someone comes in and says 'who was the first u.s. president?,' you're supposed to say something like 'well, i think it was george washington, but let me make sure...' this is relevant because one of the questions was 'what is iambic pentameter?' i know what iambic pentameter is. as aretha pointed out, it was mentioned in a recent visa commercial. i wrote an answer featuring, like, quoted examples from shakespeare ("shall i compare thee to a summer's day?"), whitman ("i celebrate myself, and sing myself") and frost ("two roads diverged into a yellow wood"), digressions on blank verse and details about the other varieties of metrical foot. _then_ i remembered that i had to find a source of this information from a list of directories, handbooks, yearbooks and almanacs. it should be no surprise where this is going--i couldn't find a freaking thing. i finally gave up for the time being when the computer lab closed--i'll give it another shot tomorrow.   ¶ 11:50 PM