And the living is easy

The plans for this evening include meeting up with S after he gets off work, then heading to mass at the Cathedral. After that, we have 'homework' to do together (we have this relationship book that is kind of fun and has exercises in it, "Big Picture Partnering," written by a woman in Minneapolis, that we've been neglecting for a few weeks since S started classes).

Now that I've got a weekend off, it feels more like summer vacation. How weird is it to be 26 years old and think of my summer as "summer vacation"? Whatever, it's just nice to sit on our deck and read for pleasure (I'm working on three right now, "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion, "We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed with Our Families" by Philip Gourevitch, and "The Tummy Trilogy" by Calvin Trillin—the two former books are very serious and sad and interesting, and the latter usually makes me ravenously hungry, which is v. dangerous).

I am also on a bit of a movie theme, inadvertently so. I watched "The Queen" with Helen Mirren, a week or so ago, and the next film in my Netflix queue was "Marie Antoinette" with Kirsten Dunst, and I enjoyed both of them so much, but they showed wildly different portayals of royalty, and I had the revelation that I'd watched two movies about queens, that I felt I needed a third to round it out. I did a library catalog search, and realized that I already had the perfect movie at home, due to my recent Elizabeth Taylor fascination (I highly recommend her book about her jewelry), so I just started watching "Cleopatra" the other night. Queens of England, France, and now the Nile. There is one more movie in this queenly genre which I have already seen, but not for a while, and that is "Elizabeth," with the lovely Cate Blanchett.

Heading outside to eat more cherries and enjoy the sunshine.

Not my problems

One thing that S has taught me is that I am not in control of most things I worry about. My tactic for calming myself at night now includes listing the things I cannot control.

I cannot control people at work.
I cannot control every situation at work
I cannot control S.
I cannot contol friends.
I cannot control Dominican University/St. Kate's.
I cannot control course schedules.
I cannot control the price of health care.

Reminding myself of these things helps a lot, actually. Consequently, it's not my responsibility to worry about any of them.

Free as a bird (sort of)

My last class meeting for Management of Libraries and Information Centers was last night, so now I am free. My group got our project back as well, and we earned an A by my calculations. This is good news, since I'm a little concerned that my final paper did not include enough 'analysis' as per the rubric. Oh, well. I did what I could with the time I had left, I suppose. I asked a classmate (Liz) to pick up my paper for me in July and tell me what I got on it, so here's hoping for a good grade in the class overall.

In other news, my department at work will very likely be completely restructured within the next two months. This is slightly baffling and scary, but I have very little control over it, so I am acknowledging that fact and attempting peace about it all. I did voice my concerns/comments to the appropriate people, and found a lot of support for the points I made from my coworkers, so that was good. Solidarity is nice in a work team, which I think we are—a really great team, at that.

I caught part of "Manon Lescaut" on the radio last night on my way back from St. Paul. I knew it was Puccini from hearing about two minutes of it, but I couldn't for the life of me remember which opera it was. S called and I talked to him for a minute or two before the piece ended and the announcer started talking. The announcer confirmed my suspicicion, and I revelled in my triumph for about a second and S said, "Oh, of course you knew which opera it was." It's just a little parlor trick of mine to be able to guess which era/country composers are from by listening to a bit of music.

I love Radio Lab

Since I was a kid watching "Newton's Apple," a Minnesota-based science show, and later, "Bill Nye the Science Guy" every day after school on PBS, geeking out about stress and tension, and other random but awesome information about the world we live in, I have loved science.

High school science classes kind of whomped that love right out of me. Except Mrs. Williams, at Cathedral High School—she was friendly and made science kind of fun, relative to my other science classes.

So it makes complete sense that I love Radio Lab, from WNYC, which plays on Minnesota Public Radio and I've caught a couple times. I'm just now enjoying the podcast version of the show on Time, wherein they interview Oliver Sacks and explain Einstein's Theory of Relativity in very easy to understand terms.

It's so fun! I'm so glad this program exists.

Plan B, or This is Not the Life I Ordered

It's weird to think, sometimes, how different my life is from how I expected it to be at this same point many years ago. In college, I thought I wanted to be an editor and live in a metropolitan area and be single and fabulous.

Well, that kind of worked out, except that I was in Lincoln, Nebraska as a copy desk chief , and it wasn't glamorous, but I was pretty good at it. I was, however, terribly lonely.

Now I'm in graduate school and I've been working at the library for a long, long time (almost nine years!) and I am pretty sure I'm going to be a librarian. Also, I have this great guy I've been dating for a while, and I think there's a pretty okay chance this may work out.

I know a couple of people who have the life I thought I might end up with, after I moved back in with my parents and wasn't sure what I was going to do with myself. I figured it was a very real possibility that I would never move out, never fall in love again, and things would stay that way forever.

What a nice suprise.

More than fine

My group presented our budget proposal last night in class, and I think it went really well. We were quite well prepared, with lots of supporting documentation to back up our request for an hours increase for our fake library, and our presenting skills were fairly seamless. We won't know until next week, probably, our grade for the whole she-bang, but I'm not worried that we'll get anything less than a passing grade.

Now to work on my library description/SWOT analysis paper (SWOT=Strenthgs, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). I already have a page single spaced, and I have lots of material from my interview, so mainly I have to do a little more description and then the SWOT points, from which I have a lot to choose.

I feel a lot more at ease today than I've felt since our trip two months ago. It's that feeling of this class wrapping up, and knowing that work is going pretty well despite not having an official supervisor for the present time. I'm getting used to the changes, and I'm feeling better about potential changes.

I'm also really looking forward to July/August and no classes, and possibly picking up some extra hours at work, which will mean more banked vacation time and more to put into my savings account, which always makes me feel good. I may still live at home, but by-golly, I'm not wasting my time here.

By the way, this week I am the master of the house, since my parents left on the family's annual resort vacation on Saturday. My sister went up for a couple days and was back in town yesterday. With S's abundant help, I've gone grocery shopping, cooked some very healthy things for us, and kept the house from falling apart and the rabbit still alive. Now I just have to make sure that my sister doesn't just eat crap and fast food the rest of the week and do laundry and remember to take out the garbage tonight.

Just an idea, really

I got an e-mail from my school, saying that they are going to be offering four graduate assistantships in the Masters of Library and Information Science department, helping four professors with different projects. One is helping a professor proofread her self-published textbook.

As soon as I read it, I decided to apply. Who knows how many applicants there will be, but I took that professor's class and told her I would volunteer to help edit the thing if she wanted help. Now it's being listed as a 10 hour a week job for $10/hour. Not bad at all. I know there are a lot of writers/editors in the program already, but the ones I've met already work full time. Not the case for me. I know I could be really helpful, and would probably learn a lot in the process.

Fingers crossed and all of that!

Trying to take it easy

Yesterday evening, S and I went to see the Krista Tippett, host of "Speaking of Faith" on MPR (or, really, NPR) talk and read from her new book by the same name. It was interesting to hear what she had to say, and I'm looking forward to reading the book once I'm done with my class. Plus, S and I got our copy of the book signed together.

Today, I need a nap or some coffee before I head to St. Paul. I'm really dragging, even though I got to bed at a reasonable (11 o'clock) hour. I need to proofread my memo assignment for class, grab some dinner, and check my oil. Luckily, I have two and a half hours in which to do all that. Whew.

Needs more practice at the management thing

Well, I kind of boffed today at work. We had a bunch of people gone, and I called my sister, who also works in my department, to see if she could come in and work some make-up hours (since she was gone in Chicago over the weekend and had a day off) to help us out. She came in, thankfully, but misunderstood and I didn't communicate properly that she would be working her regularly scheduled time in addition to make-up hours, not able to go home early.

I was really trying to manage the situation, and since our department officially has no manager (his last day was last week) I wanted to find a solution to the problem of the staffing level. Otherwise, it would have been me and one other employee covering the entire department for three hours!

I really felt stupid. I don't have the authority to say she can leave early, and I also don't really have the authority to ask her to work make-up hours, but I thought I'd give it a try. I hope it works out, that she can forgive my mistake, and that she won't hold it against me that I actually am leaving early today, though my request was approved weeks ago.

Kind of intense

I have four assignments left to turn in for Management class, and only three weeks left. This means I have to turn in my fake salary allocation paper/spreadsheet today, a memo next week, our group project the week after that, and my SWOT analysis. Thankfully, I already have an interview set up for the SWOT, and I am done with the salary allocation. It's down to the group project/presenation and a short memo.

Agh.

What I am doing on 'le week-end'

Tonight I will be going out to celebrate the birthdays of two coworkers. I think it will be dinner at Sawat Dee (Thai) and then hitting the Martini Bar. Haven't decided yet if I should go home after work and come back downtown later, but am very excited to go out and have fun with friends. And to have a Mocha-tini.

I don't work this weekend but have a larger homework assignment to complete tomorrow (budget stuff, giving people raises, making a spreadsheet) before S and I go camping! I have never been camping before, so we are just going for a night somewhere so I can get a taste. This is what having an outdoorsy man will do to a woman. I love S, therefore I must go camping. I think it will be fun, and I hope it will be relaxing. I know I can sit around and read and cook for a day and a half and enjoy it, I am just a little concerned about going to the bathroom in the woods. Hmmm...

So, the goal of the weekend is to take it easy, yet still get ahead on homework for the coming weeks. Only one month of class left! Whew, it's flying by. And there's lots left to do. I know, though, that I can always take some time off work to do homework instead, and that's comforting.

Subbing tonight at a different library from the one where I normally work. A very nice change. It's just a few hours, but to see how things work in branch libraries every once in a while is good for me. I used to work in branches before I moved to the main library, and I appreciate both in so many ways.

Differences:

-In a branch, you are often the only one working at the desk. At the main library, you can "ring" for back-up help and another staff person will come to assist you.

-In a branch, the area is smaller, only one desk/point-of-service, so you are overseeing the entire library and doing everything anyone asks of you. At the main library, I am just a circulation desk worker and don't answer reference questions or place items on request for patrons.

-In a branch, if something goes wrong (from the toilet overflowing to an angry, screaming patron), you are the decision maker for solving the problem. At the main library, there's always a supervisor to make those decisions.

There are benefits to both positions. Branch staff have autonomy, but main library staff have quantity. To call in sick at the main library means the schedule might be tight--to do so in a branch might mean finding a substitute last minute. To not get a break at the main library would mean you get an extra break the next day, but to not get one in a branch (due to lack of staff) is a normal thing.

Out of break time for now!

Bad management joke

My family spent time yesterday putting up our above-ground pool, and S helped. He was in the pool after we'd gotten it standing upright, but asked, "Beth, do you know how to flatten the bottom?"

"No, but I know how to flatten an organization."

Increased dependency on foreign oil

The last two trips to the cities I've made have involved terrible traffic, a missed a college friend's wedding, more than two hours in the car one way, and being able to read four pages of an article for class while driving less than 5mph.

I really don't like driving this much when gas is at the prices that it is, and when anyone complains to me that gas prices are high and all they do is drive to work each work, I want to remind them that during the Reagan administration, gas prices were even higher than this, relative to the value of the dollar, and that I drive to freaking St. Paul twice a week to go to class for a whole three hours.

Anyway, clearly I'm venting. I like the cities, I really do, and one of the goals of going to school is to be able to move someplace else, perhaps the cities or elsewhere. It's just kind of hard, going back and forth, living at home, working not enough hours to support myself independently, and feeling productive.

Learning about management from the best (and saying goodbye)

I started my Management of Library and Information Centers class (now hereby known as "Management class" for blog purposes) on Monday night, wherein we discussed "good" managers and "bad" managers, Myers-Briggs, and the "Queen's Croquet Ground" (Chapter 8 of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland"). I am definitely pleased about this class and group of classmates, especially since I found out that Liz from my previous class got into this class, and will be in my group for our project! Score.

In our introductions, I freely admitted to the class that this course might be hard for me, since my direct supervisor has given his notice and will be leaving in June, so if we're talking about great managers and I start to get a little misty, they'll know why. I got an "aww" from the class. Really and truly, my boss is a wonderful manager, and I will miss him.

It all came as a bit of a surprise to me, but I know that his job is demanding and I'm trying not to worry about whoever they hire to replace him. I'm sure it will all work out, and having a variety of managers throughout a career is a given variable and I am excited to see what will happen next, as I always am with anything in life.

Excuse any lack of regular posting for the next month and a half as my life is more complicated with driving to St. Paul for class two nights a week and trying to get my homework, social life and work life to mesh.

Date night?

S and I had a bit of a disagreement at the beginning of our official dating relationship (to distinguish it from our friend relationship wherein we went on "denial dates" for many months). He thought it would be nice if we had a specific date night each week, wherein we would take turns planning a date and then make each other the priority for that night.

I, however, thought this idea was lame.

I had a number of reasons at the time, but I can't seem to remember them now. I think it was the idea of being forced to plan something, even if we weren't getting along, or feeling obligated to hang out with each other instead of getting things done, or maybe it was just that we hung out all the time anyway, so why make a specific night the "date night," when practically every night we were on a date, if you define "date" as "hanging out with someone you are interested in getting to know better." Our whole time together was one big date.

S was disappointed. He has close friends who have date night, and liked the idea very much. So a few days later, I came around. S planned a date night.

And then, he changed plans last minute to spend time with some family. This was not good for my need for order, but I went along with it, because I was still getting to spend time with him. I did tell him, though, that I thought date night was supposed to be just us. Then he didn't like the idea of date night so much anymore, because he couldn't switch things around to include other people. We then dropped the idea altogether.

Later in our relationship, I complained that we didn't get to go out on dates very much, and S remedied that pretty well. Then it went to zero dates while he was gone, and then just a long of hanging out once he was back.

Last night, I was surprised when he called me in the late afternoon and said he was going to take off work and wanted to take me out on a date. He did just that and showed up at my house at 4:30, dressed nicely. We looked at movie times and decided on our showing, then waited to get hungry by watching a Japanese movie, "Densha Otoko, Train Man" which was fitting since we planned to get sushi.

One delicious sushi dinner later (awesome California roll tempura style and a couple of pieces of yellowtail), and we were at the theatre enjoying "Spiderman 3." While it seems unlike me, I think I enjoy the spontaneous date night more than the planned one. I certainly wasn't expecting to even see S yesterday since he works until 10pm and I had to be to bed early to work at 8am, so it was great to have an unexpected evening of good food and even better company.

Why is it...?

Why is it that I can put on mascara and a little extra blush, and suddenly, S is asking me what it's like to be so hot?

Why is it that I decide to wear a low-cut top because it's warm outside at last, and I get hit on at the circulation desk?

I know it's true that men are visual creatures, but man, is it ever easy to get attention that I don't necessarily want. Of course I don't mind attention from S, and I'm glad he appreciates my efforts to look nice, but I think women really do have to be careful about these things.

Photos from Nate & Julie's wedding (5/5)

A few photos from S's cousin Nate's wedding on Saturday. S served as usher, hence his lapel decoration (calla lily). It was held a the Como Park Conservatory in St. Paul, and was quite lovely.

Me and S in our classic pose from vacation:



A random person I didn't know offered to take one of us:



The Como Park Conservatory:



Exchanging vows with the help of Pastor Dom from Calvary Chapel St. Cloud:



Me and S's cousin Rebecca, in our (lovely, I would say) Asian-themed outfits:

Quite contrary

Since we got back from our California vacation, I've felt a lot better about life in general. Going to work is easier and taking another summer class is a little less daunting. I am excited for my new work schedule to begin as well, and looking forward to the Winnipeg Folk Fest in July gives me an end goal.

I think S and I are both suffering from spring allergies/jet lag in the same way. We've goth stayed up very late a few nights in a row and slept most of Sunday away after going to his cousin's wedding on Saturday night. It took me quite a while to fully unpack, and we're still working on compiling our stories into our travel journal.

I am trying to be on my best girlfriend behavior lately, but it's backfiring in a big way. Being with S for an entire week was great, and we kept it together really, really well, which most people say is a good indication that this relationship is built to last, but of course, I am a worrier. I could worry professionally, and S has an elaborate backstory wherein I actually do make money with my anxiety, working for the Department of Worry. I need to trust S, believe in him and believe what he says, and I need to trust God above all things.

Summary of San Francisco

My boyfriend and I got back from San Francisco on Tuesday evening and are back to work as usual, except that I don't have class for a couple weeks here.

The trip was a great time, and when asked what the best part of it was, I said, "Being with S." He made an excellent travel partner, even when I was not at my best or in a very good mood. We got so sore walking up and down hills and all over the city (our luck with the bus system didn't kick in until Saturday) that our routine was foot massages each evening.

We went to Chinatown, Japantown, Haight-Ashbury, the Tenderloin (kind of scary even in full daylight), and inadvertently wound up in North Beach a number of times without planning to, which became our running joke. We saw Golden Gate Park and hung out on Hippie Hill, and walked along Marina Boulevard and enjoyed the architecture. We visited the Japanese Tea Garden, Huntington Park (my favorite little park), and Union Square.

We went to the Asian Art Museum, the de Young museum, the Exploratorium (their equivalent to the Science Museum of Minnesota, but more interactive), and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. We went to Alcatraz on my birthday and it was cold and windy but really interesting. We saw Ocean Beach, the Sutro Baths ruins, and ate a number of really excellent little places. We had a lot of Chinese and Japanese food, and some awesome pasta on my birthday, and even ate steak at a little French bistro. We shopped and got cool souvenirs for ourselves and our families.

I posted all the best photos on Facebook (more than 300 photos!), and I will add the links here for all to see once I get a chance. Steve was a shutterbug, and had it not been for him, I don't think we'd have all the great shots we do. What a great guy, and what a great vacation.

Album 1, which includes our first days.

Album 2, which includes Alcatraz.

Album 3, which includes more Alcatraz and Golden Gate Park.

Album 4, which includes our Sunday in the City.

Album 5, which includes a lot of random things.

Album 6, which includes our last days.