Am I back? I have no idea.

I have had my better job for one year. Better pay, better benefits, a demanding but fair boss, better commute, occasional telework... Let's try to keep this up. Now I need a car that's not twenty years old and needs new parts.

Carn by Patrick McCabe; Thank all that is Holy for air-conditioning

Poor Norway! God watch over and comfort them. I just don't understand the mentality that allows people to feel as though they are justified in killing innocent, unsuspecting people. It's like a giant toddler-ish temper tantrum. "I'm upset so I'm going to hurt you." And what does it truly accomplish? Nothing good for anyone, not even the people who did it. It's just cruel lashing out.

The poor students and faculty where I work! Many of them seem to be from areas that don't get this sort of humidity. At least that's what they tell me. I'm basically stuck indoors for most of the day until 6:00 so I feel no need to complain. The air outside is smothering though; this is the only part I hate about summer. I love catching fireflies and the sound of cicadas and the green tunnel of the parkway near the river but the humidity...the humidity that fogs up my glasses as soon as I step outside and sucks the breath out of me when I get in my overheated car, that is something I could do without.

Work has mainly consisted of helping students with APA format and finding references and helping with computers and the copier/printer. Oh, and putting call numbers on books and cataloging. A lot of that. I got two orders of books in this week. I'm trying to build a slightly more diverse collection than just textbooks. The director said the acid-base, fluids, electrolytes book I asked for was too complicated for the students. I had thought that the reviews made it sounds like a good bet but even so that is why I sent the list to her and the Director of Education asking them for approval! They're the nurse and doctor! Anyway, I'll tell her to send it back and choose one of the alternatives on that subject from the list of possibilities I compiled. I also need to find good English and computer texts.

I finished City of Tiny Lights. Eh. Conspiracy theories aren't really my thing. Nor the cynical reasoning behind the "twist" at the ending of the book. Tommy was active and interesting for the first half of the book and then got pretty ineffectual and downright stupid for the second. Of course he had been hit in the head. The book was all right. I'd read another of his.

Now I'm reading Carn by Patrick McCabe and why haven't I ever heard of this author before? This book is so poetic. I bought two of his books at the library sale for fifty cents. The story is set in the small town of Carn in Ireland during the 1960s. A returning native has used the business know-how he acquired in New York to turn the place prosperous. The story is partly about the changing place as it opens up to the world and the new era of Elvis, "longhairs", bikers, and cinema. The priest who used to terrify villagers is no longer in charge and commerce reigns. The main characters are a young woman who dreams of leaving Carn for London for rockers and mod styles, a woman who escaped the stifling clutch of the nun at the orphanage at 16 and has come back home from London now that she can no longer find work, and a young man who is just discovering that the world holds more than his one small town can contain. It's beautifully written.

I am also reading Chinese Letter by Svetislav Basara. It's a short novel where the protagonist, who is also ostensibly the author, comes across as incredibly emo and also quite insane. The "I wish I didn't exist" mantra would be eye-rollingly annoying if it wasn't balanced out by his paranoia.

I miss Spring; Troll by Sinisalo

The heat! 99 and humid. That's all I've got to say about that.

All staff have to work on this self-study narrative from the accreditation board so I spent yesterday writing the library part. Today I'll enhance it and turn it in. They ask awkward and weirdly worded questions. What information technology do we have? How broad do you want that? What is your definition of it, accreditation board? How many titles of the collection are business related, how many are on general education, and how many are other? Do you want an exact figure? Do you think I have them marked that way? That I've divided them up by that classification? What evidence is there that the resources are up-to-date and course related? You mean other than the library catalog? What "evidence" do you want? What are the procedures for students checking books in and out? Accreditation board, you don't actually know what librarians do, do you? Or do you mean you want to know what my loan policies are? Bah. I'll answer but it's very hard not to be sarcastic.

We had an HR training session yesterday with our new HR person. Who is actually the director of admissions so she's going to have a busy time. We had to go over the student catalog and come up with questions that might be good for a FAQ page on the website. Then we got a crossword puzzle based on the catalog as homework. I finished it pretty quickly.

Today I'll work on the narrative and put call numbers on books. Good times.

I read a book called Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo. Hah. Well, it was interesting. This photographer finds a hurt troll cub and takes it in to nurse it back to health. There are four other characters that he interacts with because of his need to help the troll. Each character's thoughts are told from their point of view so you might have a paragraph or a page with their name at the top telling their side of a scene. These alternating POV scenes are intercut with book excerpts and news clippings about trolls. The main character, nicknamed Angel, grows more and more infatuated with the little beast until his actions totally center around it. Angel is a beautiful young man who a lot of people want and he uses that and gets used in return. He didn't have much personality though. The ending was kind of abrupt. I was left with an unfinished feeling, like it cut off right when the next part of the story should have started. However, the read as a whole was whimsical and different and rather enjoyable. I'm not quite sure what the Filipina mail order bride was doing in the story. She could easily have been cut out.

Apparently the autism awareness symbol is a puzzle piece. Consider me informed.

Here's my great-grandmother.

I have a new computer at work; I am thrilled. I spent most of today (re)familiarizing myself with various databases and search engines and writing tutorials about how to use them. I need to write search strategies and reading comprehension sheets as well. I was glad of the air-conditioning today. The other building is having problems with the A/C and the heat outside was like a second skin. I got in my car at lunch time and the dashboard thermometer read 107. I need to remember to put my driving gloves back in the car so I can steer better and more easily handle the car key now that it's summer.

My parents drove to our poor flooded and stripped house over the weekend to save as many wet things as possible. My grandmother's year books and fairy tale books are gone but I was expecting that. So they brought me back a plastic bin of soaked things. While you don't want to store old paper in plastic (the fumes given off by old paper products would hasten their deterioration), it kept the moisture in long enough to allow me to separate a lot of pages. It's much harder if not impossible to peel apart dry paper. A number of photos are gone, stuck together with their own chemicals, but other photos remain along with a number of newspapers and correspondence.

There are a few papers dealing with the Hindenburg disaster. My grandparents were just parking the car to go watch it land when they saw it explode. One paper deals with conspiracy plots about sabotage. I think Bolsheviks were involved, I haven't gotten a chance to look closely.

There are a couple announcing the death of President McKinley. I'm drying one of those out now.

There are a lot of invitations to my great-grandfather to go to various events. He was chief clerk to the secretary of state of New Jersey during the 20's, 30's and 40's. Now the title is assistant secretary. There are a number of photographs of him working in his office. They must have had an official photographer. He always looks like he's been surprised at work but they had to have set those shots up.

There must be an entire ream of paper dedicated to my great-grandmother's high school graduation, including her last report card (she was an excellent speller and did quite well in rhetoric) and a poem she composed on a typewriter to commemorate the event.

There are several booklets on weird subjects. "The Germany of Asia" written around 1917 about Japan. "The Hole in the Hauptmann Case" about the man convicted in the Lindbergh baby case. I'm still drying that out but I think Bolsheviks are involved in that also. There's one on the German-Bolshevik connection written around WWI as well. There's Masonic Temple stuff but that's not surprising as my great-grandfather was a Mason.

Once everything is dried out I'll start taking photos.

I'm reading Treasure Island because I wanted an adventure book and I remember enjoying it as a kid.

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.

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.