full moon?

I have been at work for less than an hour this morning and have already had 3 fun encounters:

1.) Older gentleman, who I know is in his 50's because he told me, came to ask me if we have true crime books because he loves to read about real murders and has since he was 14.  I refrained from asking if he was getting ideas from them.  He goes on to show me the book he is reading and shows me the pictures in it of the murder victims and their families as well as the accused.  He was carrying a small cooler with him - I think there may have been a head in it.

2.) Another gentleman needs help figuring out how to use the webcam on his new laptop so he can take pictures of albums he wants to sell on ebay.  I figure out the process and he proceeds to take a picture of me in front of the computer.  I hurriedly figure out how to delete that picture.  I then spend quite a long time sitting next to him while he tries to remember his log-on information for ebay.  He does not remember, but rather than register again, he decides that learning how to take the pictures was enough for one day.

3.) A third gentleman is waiting to talk to me to reserve a room for a meeting he will be having here at the end of the month.  I know that I have talked to him before but could not tell you what about.  While we are working out the details of his meeting, he says that he refers to me as his 'library wife.'  Awkward laugh.  After we've made the arrangements he says that he's got to thank me for all my work and he'll take me out to dinner.  He says he knows I'm married, he's just being a nice guy.  Or he asks, do I like sports like basketball or baseball?  He gets tickets and we could go sometime.  Or sometimes he likes to organize trips to New Hampshire to go horseback riding or rafting, and he pays for it all.  "It would be cool, I know you're married."  I'm supposed to look at my schedule and get back to him with my availability when he gets back from some work trips next week.  I'll be getting right on that.  Or using my panic button for the first time the next time I see him.

fun morning

crochet skillz

Last week my dear friend Cap came over and taught me how to make this bracelet.

 
Basically, you crochet with wire and weave beads along the strands as you go.  Then, when you have five or six strands, you braid them together, twist the ends and tie on a clasp!  It was pretty quick work and I made the whole thing in less than an hour.  It was tricky to figure out where to place the beads on each strand so that they weren't all clumped together, and that's something I will have to work on more for the next time.  And working with the wire hurt my fingers after a while, but at least it was quick work!

And speaking of my Capitano, she got engaged this weekend!  Beet and I are so thrilled for her and her fiance and I can't wait for many afternoon's of wedding related crafts!  But these are two of my absolute favorite people and I am so happy they are so happy.  We did a lot of celebrating this weekend with brunch, champagne toasts, candlepin bowling and Justin Bieber balloons.  I'm excited for many more fun times with them.

Good weekend!

not an idiot

So, the teens here most of the time think I'm pretty dumb and that I can't see through glass or if they squat down under a table I can't see what they're doing.  Mostly this involves eating or drinking, which they're not supposed to do in the library.  But yesterday morning when the library was pretty empty, a girl asked if she could use my desk phone.  I told her that phone calls are supposed to be made at the circulation desk and that someone up front could help her out.  She wasn't too happy with that answer, but she wandered over in the direction. 

About 20 minutes later she came back and asked if she could use my phone now.  I asked her if she had used the one at the front desk and she said that they wouldn't let her.  When I asked why, she just shrugged and acted like she had no idea.  So I asked her who she had to call, and a half second after she said "my friends" I continued my sentence that you can only use the phones to call parents.  She immediately said "yeah, I'm calling my parents."  When I said that I heard her just say that she was going to call her friends, she denied that she ever said that.  She continued denying until I told her that our standard practice was for the librarian to speak to the parents and ask that they come pick the teen up or whatever else the request was going to be.  She decided she didn't need to make that phone call then, but did ask to use my cell phone.  Surprisingly, that didn't fly either.

Woohoo

Some days, I get a lot of laughs.

good things

So, there are definitely a lot of great things that this library provides to the community, and it is really amazing to see how much the area uses this space.  But it really reinforces how important places like this are when I see people constantly coming in to use the computers to write their resumes or apply for jobs or take out books on studying for the GED.  Computer's don't seem to be ubiquitous in this area, which is something I know I just take for granted in my own life.  I can count the amount of laptops I've seen in this library on one hand even though we do offer free wi-fi.  The teen's are maybe not using the computer's here for things as important as job hunting and exam studying, but it's good for me to remember that they may not have a computer at home to check facebook or play silly games like I do.

To sum up, this place is still hard and challenging, but it's good for me to keep things in perspective.

resumes are hard to explain

an update

So, the blog has been quite quiet lately as I've been settling into my new job.  It has been a pretty crazy 2.5 weeks, and I've really just been insanely tired and whelmed.  The job is....good?  I guess?  It's ridiculously different from anything I've experienced and could have prepared for.  I'm not used to working with so few co-workers and I am certainly not used to being the one in charge when the manager is out, which has been quite a few times already. 

And the kids are tough.  They have been without a YA librarian for a few months, so we're all getting used to one another and I have hopes that once that get familiar with me being here it will be better.  But already I've had to call the police on a girl who took someone else's headphones, refused to give them back, and then refused to leave when I told her to.  And yesterday, we banned a girl for six months after she screamed in my face for not allowing her on the computer after I warned her 4 times that if she didn't stop shouting at her friends I would kick her off said computer.  Additionally, I heard some girls refer to me as a cowgirl, which sounded vaguely insulting the way they said it.  But I'm not quite sure what it meant.

It's really incredible to see how much they use this library.  They come here in droves after school and stay right up until we close.  They come in pretty early on Saturday, as well, and again stay all day.  I will be super interested to see if this continues once the weather gets warmer and when school lets out.  I have never experienced this in a library before, and it's great that they are using the space and that there is somewhere for them to go, but it just adds to the challenge.

So, that's the update!  I plan to be more consistent now that I'm getting into a routine here, so check back to read about the shenanigans that go down here.

So...this is insulting?

yes, please

I'll take it for my birthday

'stache necklace

the end again

Today's my last day at MIT (again) and I am pretty darn happy about it.  While I am nervous about the new job because it's unknown and I feel like I finally know what I'm doing at my current position, it's just really time to get out of here.  But, as all things should end with cake, they are throwing a little going away party for me today.  I have normally tried to avoid a lot of social interaction here in the office, so I think this will be nice and awkward.  But.  There's cake!  So it can't be too bad.

If the event is as awkward as I am foreseeing, expect some updates later.  Maybe I should just liveblog my last day here to keep record for posterity.  We'll see what happens.

Yum