Three day weekend

I'm taking care of the animals while my parents sort things out at our other house. Our dog has an infected cut on her foot and an ear infection so I have this entire regimen for treating her twice a day. Poor thing hates being left alone; she insists on being wherever I am, even waiting outside the bathroom door while I shower. She takes it hard when my parents are gone. She does wake me up in the middle of the night, however, and that gets old quickly. Then this morning my mother's alarm went off at 5:45. Half-asleep, fumbling with the buttons on that huge-ass thing she calls a clock radio I thought I'd managed to shut it off but it started up again a few minutes later and...well I think I might need to buy her a new one.

Work is tiring and a little bewildering. I still have no idea how much money they're willing to spend on resources. They want databases and journals but anything you buy for institutional use is hellishly expensive. Even a subscription for a once every two months journal from LWW through Ovid costs $1088 for full onsite access. If you pay $288 you can onsite access for one IP address. One! You may as well buy an individual subscription for the print edition if only one person can use it at a time. There are far fewer options for small institutions and I'm going to have to convince my bosses that free resources can be just as good. Make use of everything you can. Many journal sites allow you to view a number of free articles and Medscape and Pubmed are free to use. Netlibrary seems to be reasonably priced but they already have ebrary. I'm in contact with EBSCO about a couple of their databases so we'll see how that pans out. I'm just a little tired of talking to these people when I know we probably don't have the money to afford what they're offering.

I still need a new computer and the IT guys haven't fixed the printer for the students. I can use the printer fine which means I can print out call numbers but I have no tape. I've requested book tape so we'll see if I get that in a timely manner. I am also apparently in charge of faculty development so I've been looking for good books on curriculum and syllabus creation and planning seminars on using internet resources like ERIC. I want to find out more about the student population to judge what would be best useful for them.

Less reading, more movie watching. I finished Tropic of Cancer. It was amusing and I liked the writing though it wasn't always stellar. This was an early book though so maybe it improves. I'll have to read Tropic of Capricorn. The Tao te Ching was excellent; I'll have to read a more literal translation though for comparison purposes. Kismet was entertaining. There were cultural things that I didn't quite get. The Hessian, Frankfurter, Berliner stuff was confusing. Or maybe Frankfurters are Hessians? To Wikipedia! Okay, yes they are. And wouldn't you know it but some of my ancestors were from Hesse, Darmstadt to be exact.. Course they were Jewish. Anyway the tone of the book is noir-ish at times with its barely scrapping by private detective going after the bad guys to settle a personal matter. The writing is wry, sly, and friendly though sometimes the sentences are a little convoluted. The main character, Kemal Kayankaya, goes after a protection racket when he and a buddy end up killing two of its members while helping a local businessman. He wants to know what's going on and why these two people had to die. He gets beat up a lot and blunders around investigating (seriously, I think most of it was less detective work and more being really lucky) until he reaches the conclusion. It was a decent book and Kemal was an interesting character. He was blunt, a little unethical, and grumpy but a decent guy for the most part.

I'm reading The Fire Engine that Disappeared and it's not as good as the first few books in the series but it's still a good read.

I watched District B13, a French action film written by the director of The Fifth Element and wow, this is an awesome movie. It's short and not too complicated; the fight scenes are highly watchable and the two main characters are pretty hot. This is not a movie to spend much time thinking about; it's pure entertainment. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance however, is a movie to think about. Done by the director of Thirst it tells a story about desperation and revenge and ultimately shows how the drive for payback can lead to utter annihilation. The actions of the characters just seem to send everything spiraling into a black void of nothingness. Again, it could have used editing. Long shots of people sitting around eating or staring into space can set the mood or show the mindset of a character but you need to distinguish between the necessary shots and the self-indulgent ones. Anyway, good movie and Oldboy is next.

I also watched a French zombie movie called The Horde because, well, French zombie movie. It was eh. The characters were mostly 2-d and the action was so-so. The plot was only half told. The one thing I found odd was when the African guy was killing the zombie who killed his brother. He started screaming about how he was Nigerian. I wasn't quite sure what his nationality had to do with anything. Maybe Nigerians have a reputation in France of being bad-ass? I don't know.

I am reading Lao-tzu's Tao te ching and it's like woah

There are very few people around on Fridays so I spent most of the day by myself. That was fine. After four days of activity it's nice to have some alone time. I spent the morning putting the books I've already cataloged into some semblance of order so people can use the books in the library even if there's no OPAC up and they can't check them out yet. I need the new computer I've been promised; the old one keeps having conniption fits and it no longer lets me enter books correctly into the OPAC. I need the adapter to allow me to use the scanner to speed things up but that's a fairly low priority. I need the bar codes I ordered. I called the lady at Brodart and she said that the vendor will have them ready in 2-3 weeks. I had no idea it was that hard to print bar codes! I thought there would be some computer that could calculate what they should look like and just print them out. At some point, when I'm really bored, I should learn more about the complex world of bar code production but as long as I get them I'll be happy.

More pressing is that I need a printer to make call number labels and book tape to affix them to the spines. I could at least organize things better then. Everybody who comes into the library now looks at the shelves of books at marvels at how fast everything's coming along. Seriously, a collection of books on shelves does not make a functional library. After that there's policies to create and journals to subscribe to and instructional sessions to plan. Oy. I'm glad people seem happy though.

A co-worker has loaned me her Stephen Mitchell translation of the Tao te ching and I'm loving it. Some of it meshes with how I think anyway but makes clearer things I haven't been able to articulate. Some of it seems unattainable to me; I hold onto certain possessions very hard and I don't think I would be able to face death with such peace but it sets out something to strive for. Or not strive for as the case may be. To let happen. "...just do your job, then let go."

Getting close to finishing Tropic of Cancer. I've said enough about him already, I'm sure but he's fascinating in a way. His philosophical ramblings and clunky metaphors are mush and his attitudes towards other people, cultures, and religions show him to be a close-minded, juvenile little tit but the extent to which he opened himself on the page is captivating. I don't think he meant for it all to be there. He's like one of those teens who write fanfic self-inserts, making themselves to be clever and cool, looked up to and catered. They have a put on tortured facade but really seem like children pretending to be world-weary adults. He attempts to paint himself as some tragic figure surrounded be imbeciles. He's so silly but for all that he's very human in his need to make himself the hero. For some reason it's very interesting.

I'm reading Kismet by Jakob Arjouni. A Turkish detective in Germany gets involved in figuring out who's behind a bizarre new protection racket in the station district in Frankfurt. Kayankaya is a little grumpy and something of a smart-aleck. I'm about 90 pages in and it's been a good read so far. Quite a bit about the immigrant situation in Germany. The English edition was published last year but the book takes place in 1998. I don't know when it was first written.

I wish my appliances would stop nagging me

Library is almost done, furnishing-wise. Now I just need a computer with the scanner hooked up and I'll be set to get everything into some sort of working order. Oh, and some way of fixing the labels to the spines. I'll use scotch tape if I have to but there must be some better clear tape. The desk is big and dark and the chair is black leather. It all looks so shiny and important. One of the drawers even locks. I can have a locked desk drawer, how cool is that? I know, my standards are pretty low. Of course, I'm still getting used to the idea that I can decide when I'll eat lunch. I can use the restroom when I want without calling someone to break me and I can go home without being relieved from my post. I'm no longer constantly on camera. I find I don't know how to behave in such an unstructured setting.

Henry Miller amused me today in a way that may or may not have been intentional. His avatar character self-insert talks about how he lost his job. He has no home and roams about cultivating people he can attach himself to so he can leech money and food off of them. One of them gives him a wad of cash and while for a while he resolves to find a place to live, he instead starts blowing it on food and whores. The last woman, he steals the money back while she's out of the room. Next chapter he's talking about a friend who has invited Henry to live with him for a bit. Only this friend Fillmore has trouble with a woman he picked up, Jackie, who won't leave. As Henry says about Fillmore, "He had a genius for attracting homeless bitches." Yes, apparently he does. Fillmore gives him pin money each morning and leaves him to his writing. Henry feels pressured to put out (pages, of course) and muses that it would be easier if he were a woman because then he could "slip [Fillmore] a piece of ass." He only thinks this, of course, because he knows it will never be expected. Much easier to brag that you'd totally do something many people think is unpleasant or demeaning when you know that it will never be an option for you. Still, if he were serious he could still totally "slip him a piece of ass." Maybe the reason it hasn't happened is because Fillmore knows Henry wouldn't be worth it.

I think it's hilarious that some people see this character as a portrait of a nihilist, a free spirit doing only what pleases him, damn the constraints of bourgeois society, living without pretension and what I see is a nebbish little man with the impulse control of a five year old.

It's damp out

Work, work. Walls are coming down, carpet being laid, walls painted. That chemical mix of paint, drywall, and adhesives that doesn't actually smell good but does because it is associated with newness. The admin offices across the street are done but no one can move in because the internet hasn't been hooked up yet. Staff are floating, sharing space. Everybody is busy, harried, and tired. I try to stay out of the way and work on my cataloging list. There are a lot of donated books for the start of the library. Hopefully that means more money for more specialized books and for other subjects. A well-rounded (and accredited) library has more than just one subject.

The only thing I'm a little concerned about now is hours. They want the library to be open at all times they have classes. They have classes seven days a week, from about 8am - 9pm. Yeah, I can't work that often. A student could get a break on finances if they help out in the library but if that doesn't happen right away the hours are going to have to be shorter. Besides, school libraries aren't open that often. No library is open like that. Most close on Sunday, open a few hours Saturday, and close early Friday. I don't get paid to work lawyer hours.

I can't wait to actually move into the library. I'll have a space to put the resources I have already to organize them. I would like to get the students access to AJN and Nursing2011 if possible. I still have no idea how much money they are willing to spend on this. Database subscriptions are expensive but I don't know which ones they can afford. Cochrane Library? Something from Gale or EBSCO? Uptodate? That last one comes recommended but the cost can be about $25 per student. I don't know if the students really need something so sophisticated for their reports.

I feel like I'll be able to concentrate better when I have a permanent space with my own computer. Somewhere I can order books into piles to keep track rather than storing them in someone else's office. Maybe it won't feel so much like people are watching me. I know they don't quite understand what I'm doing. One of the women referred to my cataloging efforts as "your little project." You can't just slap a random number on the spine and stick them on the shelf.

I finished The Widow Killer by Pavel Kohout. The first part of the book was pretty good but the second half lost focus and became something else entirely. The killer lost focus as well, switching from murdering "whores" (his definition of "whores" was basically the same as "women") to murdering Germans. The uprising of the Czechs at the end of the war provides a backdrop of chaos that the German, Buback and the Czech, Morava have to contend with. Only they spend a lot of time dealing separately with the revolution and almost none looking for the killer. Buback turns out to be an entirely worthless character, good only for repenting of what Germany did to Europe. His character is almost purposeless to the plot. He questions his nationality (he's half-Czech) and eventually goes on and on about how horrible the Germans have been. You could have cut him out and assigned the few investigative parts he played to Morava and still have a solid story. That is if the author hadn't interrupted his own plot. If Kohuot had wanted to write about the chaos at the end of the war then that's what he should have done. A tense, dramatic story could have come out of that. The search for the eponymous Widow Killer would have led to a good story by itself if it wasn't derailed by the main characters losing focus halfway through. There were two good story ideas but instead they got mashed together into an uncomfortable mix.

Tropic of Cancer is still interesting. The writing style is meandering and loopy but I like that. The main character is disagreeable and very immature but he's stopped going on and on about "cunts" and started talking about more interesting things. Losing his job, mooching off the friends he cultivates for the express purpose of a free ride, exploring the city, going out to eat. It's weird. I don't often come across a book I can appreciate even when I think the main character is utterly obnoxious. He reminds me of something the Nostalgia Critic said about Bella Swan in his Bum review of Twilight. "I think I'm tortured but I'm just pretentious." That's Henry. Oh, and for those who are curious because this book is known for it's explicit sex scenes? (I certainly was.) There really aren't any. There is talk about sex in an almost self-conscious 'I'm breaking the rules kind of way' but no real "scenes". When he does talk about it his descriptions are mechanical, focused on just hammering it home and it gives the impression that he must have been a crap lover. When he talks about what a woman wants there is only mention of her desire for 'that package of love shuttling between her thighs.' I'm paraphrasing a bit but that euphemism is his. At least he hasn't used the word wand, I suppose.

If Henry Miller weren't dead already I'd hunt him down to punch him in the mouth

I did my first bit of cataloging today. We haven't ordered any books yet, no where to put them, but they have extras to give the still being born library. The walls were knocked down today, everyone is getting displaced. People are office-less, wandering, sharing the computers in the faculty office where I've been placed. I listened to a student cry about her grade today; I just wanted to give her a hug. The fridge was moved across the street and there was a wheelchair and handicap toilet in the hallway. I think this will be the norm for a bit, though no longer than necessary with the director in charge. She knows what she wants and how to get it. For now I'll work at all the little various things that need doing and than, I'm sure, discover all the things I should have done. When things are less hectic I'll need some feedback on the books I've chosen. I think they look nice and I know they're pretty good but I don't know if they're great. I'll get better with practice.

One thing that struck me is the sort of images I'm coming across. I was looking for a free medical videos website and came across one that seemed likely. First page has a selection of stills from the archive that you can watch and one was a how-to for inserting a catheter into a man. Right smack in the middle of the page, hand gripping the goody and I hit the back button real quick while making sure no one was looking. Then I realized that they practice this stuff on dummies and there's no need for a NSFW tag. It is for work.

I've dug out Taylor's Introduction to Cataloging and Classification to take to work tomorrow so I can look up specific points about AARC2r. There is much tedious and anal work to be done.

I finished Six Geese A-Slaying. It was eh. It was bland and mainly inoffensive. Those damn city dwellers with their snootiness and their inability to deal with weather. Why, if they had weather like rural folk have weather, nothing would ever get done. They'd spend all day on the internet writing letters to the editor about how they can't be expected to work under such conditions and basically diva-ing up the place. Because everyone knows how big city Washington DC is. Drive ten minutes and you're out the other side dodging deer. And geese.

Henry Miller. Oh Henry Miller. Tropic of Cancer was quite revolutionary for its time, (mainly because of the sex), but now you can find more raunchy stuff for free with a simple Google search. Granted, you still don't find this sort of stuff in most printed matter, but it just doesn't have the same illicit feel. Back in 1934 you could get in big trouble for having something like that sent to you through the mail. (The guy who was basically in charge of America's morals was Anthony Comstock, who was batshit. Wikipedia him.) So the sex is there but the shock value that made it such a "thing" in the '30s and '40s is gone. What you're left with is wonderful, brilliant prose wrapped around a disgusting little turd of a man who thinks he's too clever for this world. Let's see, what have I written about it in my notes.

Cynic of the more annoying sort. Enjoys portraying everything as filthy and then wallowing in it. Smug, believes he sees more than most people and feels clever about it. Starts off the book by telling us about the "cunts" he's fucked and how big his dick is, if that gives you an idea. Declares he no longer has a need for societal norms, how they hold him back and mean nothing, like he's practicing the defense for his own rape trial. Inwardly mocks all his "friends" who actually work while he sponges off them.

He talks about needing to do anything to survive, like he's been done a great wrong and is just barely getting by, but refuses to work which just makes him seem silly. Actually, his entire attitude and the way he and his "friends" interact puts me more in mind of a bunch of teenagers.

Oh, and he's a misogynistic, racist pig. All women are "cunts". There are two subspecies, the slut and the whore. That's it. Of course, he has great disdain for all people not himself but his supreme contempt is saved for the ladies. Seriously, I'll usually let this slide if it's one character that's a jackass but all the men in this book talk the same way. It's a very heavy layer of I want to stomp his head in, yes. Overall he shows a very dim understanding of people.

However, the book is interesting. I just have to grit my teeth and try not to laugh at the parts that are on the emotional level of a thirteen year old.

I like the book, I'm just not wild about the author.

Watched Fritz Lang's M, a German film from 1931 . Damn that's a good movie. This was one of the first modern movies. Peter Lorre plays a child murderer who's actions have started a city wide manhunt, creating terror, suspicion and paranoia among the populace. The police have the problem that any serial killer creates; he strikes at random and people don't notice him. Eventually the criminal syndicate, angry at the increased surveillance disrupting their business, decides to catch the murderer themselves. The whole thing is well-paced and at times very tense. Lorre gives a riveting speech at the end about his compulsion. I seriously recommend this movie.

Third day of job

Now in note form.

Need to check my email a lot apparently even though there are long periods of time when I don’t get anything. Had to fill out a faculty form but I’m not a teacher! Nor have I gone to professional development seminars or joined any organizations yet. I just finished school. Gotta join SLA. Did a lot of pricing on Amazon and through Google Books. Amazon is so much cheaper and the marketplace is a bargain sometimes. Other times people sell stuff at weird prices. Who’d pay 285 for something that goes for 135 new? Examined EBSCO and ebrary. Hunted down articles on faculty-library collaboration and information literacy. Wrote mission statement, vision, core values, blah, blah, blah. They’re mainly bs but I suppose they help with identity and a sense of legitimacy. I mean, most of these things say that the library is dedicated to furthering educational goals and providing users with resources pertinent to their interests, that their core values are honesty and excellence and accuracy, which is great I guess as who wants a lying, misinformed, mediocre librarian? But eh. Got a few recommendations in from staff. Very helpful. The Physician’s Desk Reference is an obvious choice but I wouldn’t think of it on my own. Not my area of expertise. Got introduced to a class. Everyone seems pretty excited about having a library. I’m starting to make lists of resources, just have to get them approved and bought. Need to find out how the purchasing will be done. DCT 2011 is available next Wednesday. Want it now. It's an electronic resource for crying out loud. You don't need to wait for the printers. Populi's version of an ILS is handy as the school already uses the company and I think it can work out quite well only you can't delete items out of the library at the moment which seems like a serious over-site. Nor can you change a copy's status between available and unavailable. They say they're working on it. I sincerely hope so.

Going to finish Six Geese A-Slaying soon. It's cute but it doesn't have as much pep as the previous books in the series.

Resident Evil 4 is so much fun. The plot is fairly standard take over, maybe not the world, but at least Spain. Maybe the world, I don't know. Infected people mindlessly doing their master's bidding in his attempt to right some long ago wrong or possibly that's just an excuse and he really likes guys in robes. Leon is the most pleasant character I've had to follow around since the Prince in Prince of Persia 3. Considering that there seems to be an entire team in Japan that does nothing but program breast physics on female characters it's a refreshing change of pace to be playing a good-looking male protagonist in tight pants. Adds to the game value, you know?

Have gone through several bosses, onet of which was a large bearded man with a fetish for strangling Leon. He eventually turned into a giant bug which I then set on fire. There was a giant cleverly name El Gigante that I shot repeatedly in the face and a gigantic fish that I took out with a harpoon. Ashley is your escort for most of the game and she's one of the least annoying I've seen. When you swing your gun towards her she ducks. What a radical concept.

Organized chaos

First day at my new job. They're getting ready to move the admin offices to a building across the street and everyone is getting ready to be uprooted from their old places. The guy doing IT was in trying to make sense of a system he hadn't been in charge of for a year. Details of my job trickled in to me in bits and pieces as I sat at a borrowed desk and worked to create a budget and set up the ILS. There was a window next to my chair and through it I could see children playing on the blacktop in a makeshift play area. There must be a day-care nearby. There was one little girl wearing a floofy pink tulle skirt, like something from a costume.

Everyone was very friendly and very busy. The director is energetic, gregarious, does things fast. Quick at all things it seems. She's determined to move as fast as possible on this project and I hope I'll be able to keep up. I'm rather the opposite but I think I'll have to be less systematic and slow than I normally am.

I have a parking tag now so maybe I'll be able to park closer. Not that the walk to the shopping center was unpleasant. There are a number of affordable lunch choices close by, much more so than at my last job. There's a barbecue place next door and an Italian-Australian deli across the street, then Chinese, sandwiches, and noodles nearby.

I've been reading Kahout's The Widow Killer. Takes place in the Czech Republic right at the end of WWII. A Czech detective must work with a member of the gestapo to find a serial killer. Buback, the German, has been charged with inserting himself among the local police to discover any resistance as the Reich starts to disintegrate in a last ditch effort to keep control. The front is getting closer and Buback is starting to question his loyalties. Morava, the Czech officer, has to watch his back as things start to come undone and he worries about doing his job and protecting his mother and lover as the front sweeps towards them.

It's, again, an interesting look at another segment of this major world event and how different people might have viewed it depending on their circumstances. The mystery in and of itself isn't much. A man is killing widows because, basically, he's a crazy momma's boy. Who has far too much luck. I mean seriously over the top amounts of luck. The relationship between Morava and Jitka is a little too gauzy-romantic based-on-true-hearts-as-one for my taste. They're good people and they love each other and that's it. The affair between Buback and Grete at least shows progression and trying to fit together although it's still a little unrealistic. It might just be me. I have little patience for relationships that don't show real development or that try to be things they're not. Anyway, lack of human qualities makes me not care when one of them dies (due to setting up one of the stupidest plans to catch a killer in police history). So, the story and mystery is so-so but the atmosphere and the plights of most of the characters are interesting.