Month: August 2012

03 Aug 2012

the real live librarian

I’ve been sitting on this news for a few weeks because it just hasn’t felt real. It hasn’t felt possible that after a 2012 that was made of constant ups and downs, after three years of ridiculous schedules and harrowing schoolwork and jumping without a parachute across the country that yes, yes, things would just work out.

After years of work, countless risks, and months of planning for the worst, I just wasn’t prepared to get the best. Yes, I got a job. Yes, it is a librarian job. Yes, I get health insurance and paid time off to do things like, oh, go on a honeymoon, and yes, I get to take public transportation and yes, I get to stay in Boston.

Yes, it is everything I am looking for in a job right now, and more things that I just didn’t think existed in a library job – I saw the posting and my jaw dropped because, perhaps, this job posting had been written specifically for me. I dropped all my evening plans to apply, my jaw dropped again when I was asked to interview, and I crossed every finger and toe for the long three weeks I spent waiting to hear back.

I start on Monday, so I’m sure that this will be like any-other-job and come with its fair share of challenges/annoyances/pressures, but yes, I am excited I am excited I am excited.

I’d like to keep the specifics away from this personal space, but if you are librarian-ly incline, please email me and I’d be happy to dish, in full.

But broadly speaking, I am getting paid to buy books. Children’s and YA books.

This might be as close to a dream job as it can get.

Thank y’all for reading through all of my career and job searching angst… I’m sure there will be more angst along the way, but for now, everything is falling into place. Sometimes, you work hard and get what you want.

Me = Over the Moon.

01 Aug 2012

librarian at the library

Friends and neighbors, I am in a reading rut. Granted, there is so much going on in my life right now that I can’t even put on music without feeling sensory overload-y, much less surrender my consciousness long enough to enjoy a story… but it feels wrong. Like I haven’t been exercising.

(Which is also somewhat true. Story for another day)

I went into the library today to do two things – return an overdue book (The Art of Fielding, which had JUST STARTED TO GET GOOD!!gaaahalejr23a2#$fs) and leave a stack of magazines in the “Take A Magazine” bin. However, once I entered, I decided that maybe I would just check to see if one book I was looking for was checked in. And then, maybe I would just look around at what was new and then find something that piqued my interest and then BAM out of my reading rut!

Of course, this is unlikely. I enjoy shopping for books – library or otherwise – in person, but I make bad decisions. It’s like grocery shopping when everything is on sale – I can’t eat more just because I bought more. Stuff goes bad, books return to the library unread. And so it goes.

Also, the boy was in the car, waiting for me to “drop off some magazines” while I plundered on through the stacks. I had to make quick, potentially terrible decisions.

Today, I walked out with

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool. Because nothing says “Reading is Fun” than a Newbery Winner! Really, though – this might not be true for children, but maybe is true for me? I don’t know. Although I mostly picked it up because it is set in Kansas, a state I am quite fond of after living with a Kansanian for a span of time.

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray, which I have been meaning to read for a long time. At the ChLA conference, I listened to a compelling academic paper presentation comparing this book to Treasure Island, returning said book to my radar.

Recovery Road by Blake Nelson. I have only read one other Blake Nelson book – Prom Anonymous… which is probably the least well-known of Nelson’s books and I remember exactly zero things about it. While library browsing, I saw the Nelson name, remembered that I wanted to read his other books, remembered that I sometimes love books about drug addicts, and picked it up.

Who’s to say if I will actually finish any of these books? My life is not looking to settle down any time soon: maybe my brain won’t be able to finish a book until early November. However, I did start Recovery Road on my way to the RMV (second time this week omgkillmenow), and I was digging the short chapters. Maybe that’s what I’m in the mood for? Short chapters? Maybe I should have asked my librarians for recommendations, a little Reader’s Advisory Challege – “Look here, I can’t read a book, I’m under some stress, I need something with a lot of drugs and short chapters. Any recommendations?”

This has been yet another episode of Librarians Visit the Library…