Last Minute Mary

I don't put things off. I'm a worker-aheader, a planny-McPlannerson, an extremely-prepared kind of person. But the first 2 weeks of Fall semester this year has proved me incapable of juggling all the things I have going on. There is so much pressure at work to get the new systems up and running, and there are a plethora of meetings that I really wish I didn't need/have to attend. On the other side, I have unbelievable pressure from classwork and the added bonus of planning/researching my thesis this semester. On top of that, I, personally, have had 2 routine Dr.'s appointments, and Kyle had eye surgery yesterday. He has one more check up that will require me to drive him and miss work, and then he should be home-free for seeing well again.

Over Labor Day weekend, I had 400 pages of a dry, slow-reading novel to digest, plus 50+ pages of criticism/background, plus two essay questions due by 7am Monday morning (which was my birthday). We had 2 family reunions with 50+ people that weekend. Too much. All around, it was all just too much for me.

I thought I'd be able to get my mind back into a routine following Labor Day, but that proved impossible, and now it's Saturday and I finally feel like I can sit down and breathe for the first time in two weeks.

Last night was a due date for my general plan for writing this gigantor paper, the culmination of my grad career. Library school taught me how to research with the best of them. This English program is teaching me how to be a literary critic. And my final "test" will be a massive paper, a book even, on some literary topic of my choice. I've struggled to come up with something interesting, and was about ready to fall back on my favorite topic of female character moral development in 19th c. British lit., when I read Steph's birthday gift to me from last year, The Book Thief. It changed my perspective and made me appreciate modern fiction again. 

By yesterday, I was to turn in to my adviser a chapter outline of what I want to write on for this massive undertaking. I didn't really know how in depth I should go for this "Prospectus," but with the minimal time I had available to think about it in the 1-week time frame I was given, I thought it might end up only phrases, not even sentences, in length. I stayed late at work, after missing half the day for Kyle's surgery, and when I got home we wolfed down some food and did the mountain of dishes that had piled up since Monday evening. Then, I locked myself in the back room and began ruminating on what I wanted to say about The Book Thief and how I could make those ideas into 20 page chapters while still sounding intelligent. 

I needed to Google ideas like "death as narrator," which produced results of mostly fantastical, not-the-right-kind of books. I needed to brainstorm on physical paper the 5 different directions I could go and choose the best one (or the most interesting one to me). I needed to revisit my Critical Approaches to Literature Handbook so that I could see what criticisms might help me illuminate this text and any other works I chose to examine. As you can see, I had many decisions to make. 

In a few hours' time, I think I got it. But I'm going to wait to hear back from my adviser before giving any specifics, in case she doesn't like it and I must change directions. 

It turned out just like I thought it would...I needed two minutes to rub together (or 180 minutes, truthfully) so my brain could focus on just one thing. It felt good. 

The Office

To oblige a friend who asked quite nicely for pictures of my office, I snapped these this morning before any students were around to think me strange and narcissistic for taking photos of the place where I work 8 hours a day.

The view from the door.

The view from my chair into the Reference area.

The view to the left from my desk.

Note the fishbowl aspect of my existence. That's why I requested blinds last year. Now, I typically have the window to my left blocked off with blinds. I feel like people don't stare as much. :o)

"Were you having car trouble this morning?" A fellow university employee asked me quite early this morning.

"No," I said, confused. I couldn't figure out why he'd think that.

"It's just that your car is parked so crooked in its spot...I wondered if it was okay."

I flashed red. Was it possible that I had parked really crooked and not even realized? That's bad. He laughed and said he didn't think it was bad enough for me to get a ticket, but he wanted to give me a hard time about it. I felt like a fool.

Twenty minutes later, he sent me a picture of my car in its spot.

I still don't think it's a really bad parking job. The spaces are so wide you could practically fit two of my cars in one.

I knew August was going to be busy, but I was not prepared for the exhaustion that would accompany said busy-ness.

In the past 10 working days (well, including this week), I will have been in workshops, conferences, or meetings for 8 hours on 8 of those days. That gave me two in my office to try to come up with an agenda and handout for, and further organizing of, a training session that I'll be giving next week to new student employees, which I was informed about this week. Not to mention the 10 other items on my list of things to do. But, alas, no time.

Classes start on Tuesday, and I'm grateful, despite the somewhat stressful additions that have been added to my job this semester. I'll be grateful to have new faces to look at, more people in the library daily than I've seen this entire summer put together. And some old friends are returning; I must say, I've missed them.

Cheers to a new semester, new faces, new chances, new trials, new successes, and hopefully, some new hobbies. I'm fresh out of ideas!

How to Be a Tool at Work

1. Be ignorant about circulation policies
2. Have no power to resolve a situation regarding ciruclating books to a student from a partner university.
3. Be ignorant about how to locate home phone numbers of the people in charge.
4. Send students away empty handed.
5. Lock your keys in your office when you are the only person with a master key in the building.

Today was a great day at work, let me tell you.

O, GLORIOUS DAY!

I have Internet access at home! Amazing.

I apologize for the undue delay in posting. After arriving back in Indiana from a 15 day hiatus in Arizona, I plunged head-long into setting up house. Although, if you've read any of the previous month's posts, you might think I'd already done so. But alas, I found a room full of random things waiting for me at my parents' home and decided to bring a great deal of it with me. Books and whatnot, posters, bookends, scrapbooking supplies (getting ready for the class I'm taking!), etc.

Today finds me employed (oh happy day!), 4th day on the job and elated to finally have Internet access at home. What was I ever thinking that I could live without. I should never have entertained that thought!

I'd love visitors - provided you give me enough advanced notice to clean up.

Oh, and I love my job. Granted, there isn't much for one to do in the first week except clean up and arrange the office, set up the computer with all sorts of personal preferences, and think about the many things I will do eventually.

I'm back, and feeling good!

SORELY BORED

I'm so bored at work this week. Students don't bring many reference questions during finals week. The depth of their questions remain along the lines of - transfer me to the people who deal with fines, where can I rent movies, can I see the citation manual? Most requests they make for books end in fruitless searches, as their fellow students who don't procrastinate have already checked out ALL of the books on any particular topic.

Easy questions. No thought necessary. But makes for slow and extremely mind-numbing 3 to 3 1/2 hour shifts. I also picked up a couple of shifts this week for a friend who moved away on Monday. So here I am, working for the 4th day in a row with 2 more ahead of me. Langourous.

I waste the time here by chatting with friends, emailing everyone I can think of, and talking with my coworkers. One of them, my favorite librarian to work with, ceaselessly makes fun of me for always being on Gmail when he walks by. Today he said, "What're you going to do when you don't get paid to email people any more?", referring to the upcoming end of my tenure here. "Oh, I guess you don't have that long to wait before you begin your new job and can get paid there." He grinned somewhat maniacally as he walked away.