owlmoose: (Default)
That feeling when the research paper you're reading has the exact info you need in the appendix, and the appendix isn't included in the online version? Yeah, that's been my day today.
owlmoose: (rickman)
Finally, finally this quarter is over -- Saturday was the last day of classes, Monday I had a presentation to faculty, and today was our all-school meeting, which pretty much rounds things out. I guess I never did write that epic post about why it was such a stressful time, but I promise you aren't missing much besides lots of complaining. I don't expect anything much to change next quarter, sadly. But I think we have a better handle now on how to do what we can within the staff and financial limitations the corporate overlords have imposed on us, so it should go more easily. At least until they pull the rug out from under us again.

In today's meeting, and also in his announcements to the faculty yesterday, the dean mentioned me and the other librarian, and gave us kudos for keeping everything together in the face of changes and cutbacks. It was a surprise, and a nice one. I think a lot of us in academic administration are so used to the idea that we will bend over backwards to shield the students and faculty from financial constraints and bad decisions by upper management that it just becomes expected. So it felt good to be acknowledged, to hear that they know it's not an easy thing to do and that our efforts are appreciated.

Anyway. Now I can start putting the last three months behind me and start looking forward to tomorrow, when I will get on a plane and then be in Rome. So excited, you have no idea. Can I just close my eyes and be there now?

My computer is coming with me, and I do have wireless where I'm staying, but I don't expect to be online much, so this is me, mostly signing off for now. Ciao! See you in a week. :)
owlmoose: (bunny)
Let's catch up on the last couple of weeks, shall we?

1. Work: Things have changed pretty drastically recently and I'm scrambling to keep up. The upshot of it is that I have fewer people to get more things done -- isn't that always the way? -- so I expect my life to be a bit more constrained for awhile. For one thing, I'm moving to a Tuesday - Saturday schedule for awhile, starting this week, probably at least through August. I'll probably also have longer hours in general, and my time while at work will be more constrained. Everything is balanced on a knife-edge, no slack whatsoever, and although I understand a desire to make things more efficient, if you pull too hard on a rope with no slack, it breaks.

So I guess we'll see.

2. Fandom: As planned, I've started a DA:O replay. I went for a Brosca game; her name is Kasia, and I love her to death. Right now we're back in Orzammar, and so far it's everything I could have hoped for. Very different from Aeducan's homecoming, and honestly I think better developed. But more on that when I've played it further. I've been blogging the game over on Tumblr, under the tags KJ Replays DAO and Kasia Brosca, if anyone is interested.

Also, don't forget Doink! signups close tomorrow!! Have a link. I have signed up and am really looking forward to it.

3. In other news: Chorus has started, we're doing Schumann's Mass in C Minor, which is a new piece for me. Very nice so far, although tough in some places. As of yesterday, I am going back to Rome in June, for a week with A and M, which should be extremely awesome, and there's also talk of spending Memorial Day weekend in Las Vegas. Whatever can get me through this ridiculous quarter, I'll take it.
owlmoose: (art - gorey neville)
I haven't been silent, really, just more active on Tumblr because it's more my speed right now -- I can dash off my quick thoughts on a reblog, or write a tidbit rather than an essay, and it all feels much less serious. To actually sit down and compose a journal entry takes more mental space, more energy, and so I've been less likely to do it.

For one, work has really been getting me down these last few months; there's a part of me that wants to talk about it, lay out all my unhappinesses and frustrations, and there's another part that finds the whole idea depressing and oppressive. And if I got into it here, I'd want to tell the whole story, whereas on Tumblr I feel like I can get away with a couple of sentences, or even just a paragraph, ranting vaguely about how I'm having to work another long shift or why the students are being annoying or what exciting new shenanigans my corporate overlords are up to this week.

So I'm sorry I haven't been a very good journal-reading or -writing friend lately. Maybe someday soon I'll tell the whole sordid story of the Winter quarter (which ends this week THANK GOD) and then I'll be able to take a breath and move on.

Ugh

Nov. 9th, 2011 07:46 pm
owlmoose: (let go)
Looks like stupid Ed Lee won the stupid mayor's race. They're not officially calling it yet -- some absentee and provisional ballots left to count -- but he declared victory this afternoon. Dear San Francisco politicians: can we maybe get it together and run a smaller field next time? You do not all need to be mayor.

Work was stressful and annoying for reasons I'd rather not get into right now. Shoes keep dropping, but it never feels like the last one has fallen.

Mega Flare would be going well, but there's this one scene that I really hate, and I don't know how to fix it. I suppose I could cut it, but there's some important character interaction and canon crossing stuff. So I need to wrangle it into submission, somehow. I knew I should have put more effort into finding a beta.

Our water heater is leaking gas fumes, and last night I noticed that I was getting lightheaded when I sat at my desk for too long. T's upstairs trying to fix it right now, but he's not too hopeful.

At least there is new Top Chef tonight.
owlmoose: (quote - i can fix this)
Hey everyone, hey hey hey, [community profile] megaflare_ff story claiming for artists is open until Sunday 10/3! We have 10 great-looking stories across several different FF canons, and so far only one is claimed. That's a lot of opportunity left for the right artist. Come check it out!

Other fannish things: making decent progress on my Mega Flare, but currently taking a break to work on my [community profile] newgameplus assignment, since that's due much sooner -- yes, I did decide to sign up, and it's going a little slowly, but not too bad; I like my prompt a lot -- and a sequel of sorts to my Anders + Cousland story, which is threatening to become yet another monster. What is it about Dragon Age that compels me to write mini epics? I've been playing around in prompt memes a little bit, too, with mixed results, but it's still fun to write up little ideas I'd never do anything with otherwise. On the gaming front, I'm closing in on endgame for my m!Surana replay (I could trigger the Landsmeet, but there are a few little things I want to clear out first); next I think I'll play Awakening again, with f!Cousland this time, and then use that as the backstory for my first DA2 replay (since that will get me Warden!Alistair).

Linkspam: in the name of sharing cool stuff and closing out some tabs, here are some links following up on things I've posted about recently:

1. Game of Thrones/Sady Doyle -- A Kind of Half-Hearted Defense of "A Game of Thrones" by braak (hat tip to [personal profile] lowkey for the link) which does an excellent job of pulling out the problems I had with both Doyle's review and the way she framed it:

I want her to be right, but I feel like her argument here is a little inaccurate. And worse: it’s framed in a way that makes me feel like not only can I not defend the series, but I can’t even ask for a more nuanced discussion of the subject without branding myself a raging misogynist fanboy. It’s like I’ve been set up in such a way that my choices are: agree, or else dismiss myself by the very virtue of my disagreement.


Go read the whole thing; it's very worth it.

2. Another thing worth reading in its entirety: [personal profile] cleolinda's overview of the Gay YA issue. If you haven't been following the story, it's a great way to catch up; if you have been following it, you've probably seen this already, but I link it for you just in case.

Life: Another quarter is about to end, thank god. This quarter has just been beyond difficult, for reasons I can't really talk about here; none of them are going away, really, but I hope with the new quarter we can reset and figure out a way to make it all more manageable. Only one week of break, and we're spending the first bit of it in San Diego, making our annual summer trip to visit T's mom. On the upside, he's finally going to install wireless at her house, so we'll be Internet-enabled for once. Should be a nice change.
owlmoose: (ff13 - vanille)
I don't have anything exciting to post about, really; it's only that I realized it's been a week since I've done so. So, what have I been up to? Not a lot, really. Let's break it down:

Work: Stuff going down that I don't want to say too much about; personnel changes, mostly, for good, for ill, for big scary unknowns. It's been a really busy quarter, the kind where I feel like I'm just keeping my head above water. The Tuesday-Saturday schedule would be fine if I could settle into it, but it seems like there some exception every other week that keeps it from becoming routine, and now it's almost over -- possibly at the beginning of September, definitely by the end of the month.

Media: After getting it recommended by tons of friends over the years, I finally started watching Friday Night Lights last weekend. I've seen the first four episodes, and it's good so far, if a bit predictable. I look forward to seeing where it goes. I've also seen the first four episodes of Game of Thrones, which will definitely get its own post when I'm done. Current book is In Ashes Lie by Marie Brennan, which is good so far, although it's the second in a series and I've forgotten too much of what happened in the first volume. More later, I hope. Also, we went to see Captain America today, and it gets the thumbs up. Steve Rogers is so adorable in his earnestness. I just want to give him a hug and tell him that everything will work out.

Games: We made a little progress on Dragon Age 2, although not as much as I would have liked, and I logged a good chunk of time on my third DA:O playthrough, this one with M!Surana -- I've been wanting to play as a mage, I haven't tried out being an elf yet, and I was definitely curious to see how a male Warden affect things. (And, as long as I'm making true confessions, I'd like to branch out on my romance options, and I just know that if I play as female, I will be unable to resist Alistair's charms. It's hard enough to resist them when I know they can't go anywhere.)

Writing: I didn't get anything else written for the Porn Battle. A few ideas, but nothing that gelled for me, and I ended up spending most of the week's writing time on yet another DA:O conversation, a new one. I think it's almost finished, so look for that soon. And then I really, really need to get cracking on my Mega Flare. Anyone up for some Larsa-related brainstorming sometime soon?

The Rest of Life: It rolls merrily along. One week will be crammed with social events and the next will be quiet, which works okay for me. The whole "offset weekends" thing is fortunately not wreaking as much havoc with my social life as I was afraid it might, although I am having to skip a weekend trip I would have really liked to take. But not much to report, really. Except that I am still in love with my MacBook Air. So, so in love. I bought a new laptop bag for it, a smaller, classier one, and I am ridiculously excited for it even though it's backordered until mid-September.

And now, bedtime. Goodnight, moon. Goodnight, DW, Goodnight, LJ.
owlmoose: (art - gorey neville)
How quickly, once found, the zen can be lost.
owlmoose: (art - gorey neville)
Standing around the printer, hoping that it will magically refill itself with paper? Yeah, that's not going to work.
owlmoose: (tea - tea cup)
Because of upcoming changes to my work schedule, today is my last pre-work Panera morning for the foreseeable future. No need to work until 9pm; no excuse to come in to the library at noon. There are definite advantages to never having to cover another night shift, and I'll still be able to come here after work and on days off, from time to time. But I will miss my weekly date with a bottomless cup of coffee and a laptop. I've never found a writing atmosphere I like quite as much, even though sometimes I end up doing more chatting and websurfing than actual writing. I'll miss that, too: my regular morning of Internet socialization. I'll find another way to get my fix, but it won't be the same.
owlmoose: (quote - back to work)
Dear student workers and library patrons,

I know the finer points of the Library of Congress call number system can get fairly arcane. Not everyone can be an expert, and there are a lot of call numbers that look alike at a glance. But still, what makes you think that a book about soup belongs in the pattern making section, no matter how similar the call numbers are?

(And then they wonder why we ask them not to put the books back on the shelves...)

This rant brought to you by an afternoon spent in the stacks discovering lots of things that were not remotely where they actually belong.
owlmoose: (library - evelyn)
I am going to exert meme-writer's privilege again and switch around the order of topics, because the question originally slotted for today is one that will take time and research, and my schedule today is more suited to tapping out a post on my iPhone. (There's a post idea: the ways in which owning a smart phone has affected my life, for good and ill. Hmm.) So: [personal profile] justira asked me to talk about the things I love and do not love about being a librarian.

Getting this out of the way first: I love being a librarian. A colleague once told me that librarianship is not a job or even a career; it's a calling. And that stuck with me, because it really is like that, not just for me but for most librarians I know. I cannot, at this point in my life, imagine wanting to do anything else with my life. So take that as a given.

Top three awesome things about being a librarian )

Top three non-awesome things about being a librarian )

This question comes at a weird time for me, because that last point has recently manifested itself quite forcefully at my place of work: book budget cuts, centralization of some services, and just this week a reduction in staff. So right at this moment, I'm not feeling too positive about my job. But my confidence that I've found the right line of work (and there is a difference) is unshaken. I'm proud of what I am, and what I am is a librarian.

30 Days of... Project! Complete list of questions / Ask a question on LJ or on DW.
owlmoose: (beethoven)
Did I really go a whole week without posting? I don't remember the last time that happened when I wasn't sick or traveling. And this week was neither, just busy with finals week and all kinds of irritating work stuff that I don't really want to talk about here. So, random update time, Five-Things-Make-a-Post-style:

1. Chorus started this week! Since I didn't sing Spring quarter and I always take the summer off, it seems like it's been forever. We're doing "Hodie" by Vaughn Williams, a piece I do not know. Parts of it are quite beautiful and parts look to be fiendishly tricky, but I'm looking forward to getting to know it. Coming back to singing after a hiatus always makes me happy. The biggest challenge this quarter isn't going to be learning the music, though. Instead, it's going to be getting to Stanford, because of...

2. T's car went to its final reward on Thursday. He was having trouble with it a few weeks ago, and the mechanic pronounced the death sentence: new transmission, a repair that would have cost him far more than the worth of the car. So the mechanic took it off his hands for $500, and now we are, for the time being, a one-car household. He's started the car shopping process, something he tends to be quite methodical about, so it could be awhile. Since we both take public transit to work most days, we could probably make it work for quite awhile, although we are talking about signing up for ZipCar to make it easier. Fortunately there's at least two pick-up spots within easy walking distance. Also, I took my car in this week, and it got a clean bill of health, so I feel better about depending on it as our primary vehicle. It's strange, in a way, because my Civic is three years older than his Accord was, and I had always expected it to go first. On the other hand, these little Civics have a reputation for lasting forever, and so far it's living up to that reputation. It's a good little car, and it makes me happy, so I'm content to keep it running for awhile longer.

3. I keep churning away on the Mega Flare story. A scene here, a few words there. At this point I don't think I'm going to have a draft by October 1st, although anything is possible, but since I'm not working with an artist, it doesn't matter much if I miss that particular deadline. If I keep up this pace (and ideally kick it up a bit), I don't have any real worries about not finishing by the hard deadline, which is mid-November. Assuming I can come up with an ending I like.

4. I checked out one new TV series so far, Undercovers, the new JJ Abrams show about a married couple who met when they were CIA agents and retired to get married. The pilot shows them coming out of retirement and working together for the first time. I had been hearing some buzz about it, partly because it's Abrams and partly because the leads are black (the characters are African-American but both actors are from Europe); both of those aspects caught my interest, but I'm watching mostly because I saw a preview for the series on Scott Pilgrim that made it look entertaining. I liked the pilot enough to record the second episode, so we shall see.

Also, Top Chef: Just Desserts, two weeks in: I like Gail, I like Johnny (although I'll like him better when he finds his own voice and stops trying so hard to be Tom Colicchio), but oh my god I hope they dial back on the inter-contestant drama, or it's going to get unwatchable real quick. If they don't get rid of [spoiler] next week, I might have to give up on it, or at the very least watch on heavy fast-forward.

5. Nothing much planned for this weekend, which pleases me, because these last two work weeks have involved a lot of running around and a lot of stress. Working a six-day week followed by a five-day week always drags me down; I should really remember to make better arrangements to get a short week immediately after covering a Saturday. On the other hand, this way I get a Monday off in the midst of our first honest-to-goodness heatwave, so maybe I shouldn't complain too much.

Bored

May. 17th, 2010 07:30 pm
owlmoose: (Default)

Covering desk. Very bored. (It's not like I don't have stuff to do, but I can't really work on any of it at the desk.) Distract me?

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

owlmoose: (Default)
New quarter + upcoming travel = one busy KJ.

It all kicked off this week, with a messy mix of switching around shifts, working short days and long days, meetings galore, cumulating in a full day of work today. I'm not sure why it's been so exhausting, but I'm really fried -- I could barely keep my eyes open at my desk. Tomorrow I get my one-day weekend, the centerpiece of which will likely be an afternoon of laundry.

Then I work three days, during which time I have a half-dozen projects to wrap up. Thursday morning I leave for Boston, where I'll spend the weekend attending a librarian conference. Monday I hook up with [livejournal.com profile] amybang, we spend a couple of days hanging out, and then it's back home on Wednesday, where I immediately head back to three days of work, including another full shift on a Saturday, two weeks from today.

So basically I lose three weekends in a row: two to working on Saturdays, and the one in the middle to the conference, which, while not exactly "work", isn't exactly "not work" either. I'm not complaining, exactly, but it'll be hectic. And if you wonder why I'm not around as much in the next little while, now you know why. I might have to steal myself another three-day weekend sometime next month.

MIA

Dec. 20th, 2009 11:17 pm
owlmoose: (Default)
I am here, really. Just too frazzled with the end of the quarter to be of much use, and then I took the weekend to be a lazy bum. Break starts tomorrow -- as my co-worker H puts it, "the week without students", although Winter Break is actually three weeks, and we do get four days off for the holiday, two four-day weekends in a row. I'm taking a couple of extra days so we can visit T's mom; we leave on Wednesday, come back next Monday. I hope it feels more like a break than the last one did.

The end of the quarter was just nuts; I don't know why it seemed crazier than usual, but it really did. So I'm glad to see it over, and considering how I can plan better for the next one, along with finishing all my break projects. Perhaps it's problematic to hope that the next three weeks can be both productive and restful, but I intend to give it a shot. Ask me in January how it went.

PS: Does the white ornament on the top of the main LJ page look like a moose to anyone else? Or is it just my poor addled brain?
owlmoose: (Default)
I turned on my work computer today and discovered that an "upgrade" to Firefox had wiped out all my bookmarks, settings, and plug-ins. It was as if it had been reinstalled from scratch. Anyone else experience this, or am I uniquely blessed with having to start over again?

Fortunately, I keep most of my bookmarks on Delicious, but the ones I use most are in my toolbar for "easy access". Not so easy if I have to keep re-doing them all the time... Boo.
owlmoose: (Default)
When you go in for a 10:30am meeting on a day that you don't normally work until noon, and it turns out that the meeting was never even scheduled, you know your day is off to a fantastic start. It would be one thing if I had gone in and then it was cancelled. Then I could be annoyed with someone else. This way I only get to be annoyed with myself.

None of my other five meetings were cancelled though. (I bet you think I'm exaggerating, but I counted.) And then the student worker who covers the night shift called in, so I got to work the last two hours alone. Fortunately the place was fairly quiet, and I only had to throw out a few people. Ah, the sound of students panicking as finals approach.

So, that was my day. It did improve toward the end, when the girlfriend of a student worker brought in cookies her mom had sent from home. Mmm, homemade cookies.
owlmoose: (Default)
Poof!

I didn't really mean to vanish. Time just got away from me, and then I looked up and realized I hadn't posted for a week. Mostly it's that my mental energy is being consumed by a work thing that's been dragging on forever, and annoying me to my last nerve, and too complicated and boring for me to want to talk about here really. Maybe once it's all resolved I can tell the sordid story.

[livejournal.com profile] amybang is in town for work, and I lured her out here a day early by promising otters. We went yesterday, and they were, as always, awesome. Best cure for a stressful week/month/year/whatever: going down to Monterey to watch the otters play. Pictures soon.

After a bunch of false starts, both mental and actual, I made some progress on one of the "out of the comfort zone" meme stories. It was fun to write once I actually was able to get going on it. I need to rethink the ending, but with a little luck I might be able to post it tonight. This meme seems like it will be good exercise, but writing exercises only work if you can motivate yourself to sit down and, you know, actually write.

Brrr

Jan. 31st, 2008 11:07 am
owlmoose: (Default)
There is no heat in my office. It's not working anywhere on the floor. It was out yesterday, too. This isn't the problem here that it would be in, say, Maine, but still. Not good.

My nose is cold. I had to put my coat back on. I'm drinking tea like there's no tomorrow. People are raiding the lost and found for scarves. It's getting kind of ridiculous.

I'm off to boil another pot of water.

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