shinylib

Summer

Summer is a weird time for a 9 or 10 month academic librarian. I am only working Wednesday afternoons this summer as everyone advised me to take some time off after year one. I’m glad for the time to spend on various pleasures involving geekery and bike riding, but there are frustrations as well.

As you know, the library sure as hell doesn’t stop going when I’m not at work. The emails don’t stop coming, the thinking never ends, and the dreaming big for fall goes on all summer. To some extent it feels like I might as well be a 12 month librarian, I’m doing 12 months of thinking about it all.

There are also project management aspects that are frustrating. I agreed in spring term to undertake certain ongoing projects and responsibilities. I can’t really make them all happen in 4 hours a week, so other people have to forge ahead with them. This is good and I love working with a team who makes stuff happen. On the other hand, it was going to be my project and I wanted to be the creative force behind it. I’ll still be the coordinating force, but you know that’s a bit different.

It’s just the way summer rolls, but it takes some getting used to.

Falling asleep in my shoes…

I am exhausted today. Staying up until 1am packing was neither good nor smart. Bleh…and I’m not at all sure I managed to pack anything logical.

Today’s Bio class went fine although there were some frustrations with the timing. If I see I am scheduled to teach a class from 11-12, I don’t expect that the instructor will tell me at 11:50 that I’m out of time… it makes me look ill-prepared and you, dear readers, must know that the shiny adores preparation and planning!

On the upside, I have never had a class find me as entertaining as these guys did. It was awesome. Usually I make jokes knowing that they groan at me and think I am a total n3rd. These guys just kept laughing, one cat in the front row was actually havin’ a belly-buster laugh. This is kind of funny…because I’m really not, at least not intentionally.

Well, lunch is over and I’m out of caffeine. I better go walk around before I slump over at my desk…

Issues with time and maybe a little freaking out.

Argh!

Sometimes you just need to begin a post with ‘argh’. It’s true. Why am I so bad at leaving work on time? I swear I had a better reason than I usually do–I was helping a student this time, but still. I am terrible at leaving work on time.

At my previous campus it was not such a big deal because we were a micro-sized staff and we spent a lot of time flexing around our individual inabilities to go the freak home. {A total aside, but can someone tell me what it’s called when you take a profane word and turn it into a wimpy word? I know there’s a specific term for it, forgotten many years ago. } Anyway, yes, it actually doesn’t matter what campus I am at and what flexing is possible. The point is that I need to have more distinct boxes around my time. End of story.

Speaking of time, I am having other issues as well. It’s just about 10pm and I haven’t packed for Philly yet. This is something of a problem since we leave after work tomorrow. You might be wondering why I’m leaving so early when this thing doesn’t get off the ground till Friday. Let’s just say Delta is extremely in the ? zone. That’s right, NO LOVE, Delta! So yes, we’ll be flying overnight and stopping at too many airports along the way. We don’t even get to Philly until Thursday sometime.

Friday I have an all day leadership thingy. {Thingy is a technical term, at least that’s what I keep trying to convince my students. Is it working? I dunno, I haven’t done any assessment. Heh.} Then my Midwinter calendar starts to look wicked scary; why do people insist on scheduling important meetings at the same time? I have to see umpteen committee members and attend many, many meetings–but the sick thing about me is that sometimes I really enjoy those activities. I don’t enjoy running or scrambling from one place to the next. Srsly.

I suppose I can’t procrastinate any longer or I won’t have clothes to wear in Philly. Not exactly the kind of impression I want to make as a so-called Emerging Leader, eh? This time I resolve to bring home less free crap. I sent 17 pounds of free books home from Annual last year. Have I read any of them? Pfft…