An Update On My Actual Life...
Feb. 12th, 2003 04:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rushthatspeaks...since I've noticed that I spend a great deal of time writing about whatever movies I've seen recently, political philosophy, and what an anime junkie I am, which must tell so much about my day-to-day existence for those of you in other zip codes.
Well, my classes are very good, and both the Athenian Archaeology and Interpreting Mythology classes are downright brilliant. I won't go off about them as I would get writer's cramp again and would be here all week talking about how cool they are, and I have other things to do this week. I still don't actually like calculus, but the professor is so good at making it comprehensible that it doesn't matter at all that I skipped Calc 101 and went straight to 102. She fills in the background where needed, and I'm reasonably sure I had a lot of it in high school anyway, although I probably wasn't paying attention. Some of this stuff sounds naggingly familiar. Greek is Greek is Greek. I have gotten to the point where about half the time I can just sit down and read the translation assignment and the other half the time it takes about six hours and needless amounts of swearing and I still don't actually get it right. Roman History is my one dry spot of the semester, though hopefully it will perk up as soon as we get out of the time period I have memorized. I can draw a detailed family tree of the Julio-Claudians; heck, I can tell you what the Julio-Claudians ate for breakfast, and I could do all that before I started this class, so listening to the basic lecture on said dynasty leaves me just wishing we could all go watch I, Claudius instead while the professor hands out a little pamphlet about the various degrees of historical accuracy within it. Still, it's a good excuse to read Suetonius, as if I needed one, and next week we get the Antonines, about whom I know diddly-squat. So that's the academic front. It eats large portions of time, as there has not been a week yet this semester in which I did not have more than five hundred pages of reading plus the Greek homework and the calc problem sets. The readings crept up beyond one thousand pages this week, and I am done with everything but the Roman History and today is Wednesday, so that all works, although I think things will get a little tight when there are papers. So far I have read, done, thought about, submitted, etc. Absolutely Everything assigned this semester Absolutely On Time, and I've only missed one class that was actually held and the eight inches of snow and lack of motor vehicle transport from Glenmede are a mitigating circumstance, I think, although I still feel kind of guilty.
I'm also working anywhere from seven to twelve hours a week, depending on my free time. Half of it is shelving, half shifting, and my back is protesting. We're shifting the third floor because they finally wised up and moved ALL of the Classics books to Carpenter, instead of just the ones they felt like dealing with at the time. The shifting is going very quickly; I've done about twelve bookcases worth at this point, and I started last week. I am also learning the vagaries of dealing with the library management. For example, my boss turned up randomly during my shift yesterday-- he does that, although his office is down on first; I suspect it is a way of hiding from the twenty different people who are always looking for him with matters of extreme urgency--looked at what I was doing, and said something along the lines of 'That's going very well, but I really hope whoever it was who made the mathematical calculations as to where to start putting these was right, as that looks like an awfully big space, and if there's too much left over we're going to have to move everything three feet to the right.' As in, the contents of some thirty bookcases. Three feet to the right. Yeah, that'll happen. But I have already learned the primary skill of interacting with the management: do not scream until they are out of earshot. Nod and smile, and they will forget about it unless it is something that *actually needs to be done*. Or, as Alys always says, 'If they come up to you with a big and ominous-looking sheaf of papers in their hands and start talking about something that sounds like absolute doom, just gaze over their shoulder, say 'Excuse me but my mother is on fire', and walk away in the ensuing confusion.' She also asked me what I intended to do if I finished the shifting and discovered that there was, in fact, a massive gap, so I told her: pretend not to see it. She told me that I should thrive in this job, as that is exactly what everyone else is going to do. Oh, don't get me wrong, this library is very well managed and what really does need to be done gets done, but it is understaffed, under budget, and overloaded-- we haven't been able to afford a bookmender for years-- and consequently if people start worrying about the small details that don't matter, as opposed to the ones that do, the only thing that will happen is that everyone's blood pressure will skyrocket. Shifting the third floor three feet to the right is a classic example of Somebody Else's Problem. So I get along well with my job, because I know what I'm being paid to do and what I'm not being paid to worry about. I only wish my back muscles would get used to it, though; I'm starting to worry about that, as a cane would have been damn nice the other day.
Sports-wise, well, there is Scottish, and I am still going for teacher training. And I'm doing self-paced walking for a gym credit. Frankly, I think they ought to be giving me gym credit for my job, but no.
Sassafrass goes well; we've got Enepet surprisingly down considering we started it this semester, and are working on the Magician's Song, which I wrote the lyrics to and Jessie set to music. RenChoir goes well although whoever thought of putting the concert on February 16th should be shot, as we are having to learn an entire new repertoire in less than a month. We are, however, doing Janequin's Chant des Oiseux, so I get to hear the entire choir sit around and sing 'ti ri ti ri trrr fiou ti ri ti ri trrr fiou fiou fiou' at one another in six parts, which is hilarious. Um, other extracurriculars... well, I write for Unpopular Opinions regularly, and I am technically still head of Elsinore, although C. is really doing all of that, and there's High Table, and DoubleStar-- I have actually made it to two of the DoubleStar movies this semester-- and I show Twin Peaks and a following movie every Friday night, and there's Witches' Collective every Tuesday... and the novel is progressing, albeit slowly, and my Yaone costume is starting to look like an actual costume, and I managed to watch all of Gasaraki earlier this semester in my down time, which was great; next I'll finish Angelic Layer...
Right. So that's everything I'm involved with on a regular basis. I think they should be forwarding my mail to either Carpenter or Canaday, but I'm having fun and I certainly don't lack for interesting things to do. Going to need a genuine vacation at some point this summer, though, a while where all I do is sit around and watch bad movies and sleep, and it doesn't look like I'll be getting one. Ah well. Time to burn that bridge when I come to it.
Actually, time to go do more Roman History reading, at the moment. But you know what I mean.
Well, my classes are very good, and both the Athenian Archaeology and Interpreting Mythology classes are downright brilliant. I won't go off about them as I would get writer's cramp again and would be here all week talking about how cool they are, and I have other things to do this week. I still don't actually like calculus, but the professor is so good at making it comprehensible that it doesn't matter at all that I skipped Calc 101 and went straight to 102. She fills in the background where needed, and I'm reasonably sure I had a lot of it in high school anyway, although I probably wasn't paying attention. Some of this stuff sounds naggingly familiar. Greek is Greek is Greek. I have gotten to the point where about half the time I can just sit down and read the translation assignment and the other half the time it takes about six hours and needless amounts of swearing and I still don't actually get it right. Roman History is my one dry spot of the semester, though hopefully it will perk up as soon as we get out of the time period I have memorized. I can draw a detailed family tree of the Julio-Claudians; heck, I can tell you what the Julio-Claudians ate for breakfast, and I could do all that before I started this class, so listening to the basic lecture on said dynasty leaves me just wishing we could all go watch I, Claudius instead while the professor hands out a little pamphlet about the various degrees of historical accuracy within it. Still, it's a good excuse to read Suetonius, as if I needed one, and next week we get the Antonines, about whom I know diddly-squat. So that's the academic front. It eats large portions of time, as there has not been a week yet this semester in which I did not have more than five hundred pages of reading plus the Greek homework and the calc problem sets. The readings crept up beyond one thousand pages this week, and I am done with everything but the Roman History and today is Wednesday, so that all works, although I think things will get a little tight when there are papers. So far I have read, done, thought about, submitted, etc. Absolutely Everything assigned this semester Absolutely On Time, and I've only missed one class that was actually held and the eight inches of snow and lack of motor vehicle transport from Glenmede are a mitigating circumstance, I think, although I still feel kind of guilty.
I'm also working anywhere from seven to twelve hours a week, depending on my free time. Half of it is shelving, half shifting, and my back is protesting. We're shifting the third floor because they finally wised up and moved ALL of the Classics books to Carpenter, instead of just the ones they felt like dealing with at the time. The shifting is going very quickly; I've done about twelve bookcases worth at this point, and I started last week. I am also learning the vagaries of dealing with the library management. For example, my boss turned up randomly during my shift yesterday-- he does that, although his office is down on first; I suspect it is a way of hiding from the twenty different people who are always looking for him with matters of extreme urgency--looked at what I was doing, and said something along the lines of 'That's going very well, but I really hope whoever it was who made the mathematical calculations as to where to start putting these was right, as that looks like an awfully big space, and if there's too much left over we're going to have to move everything three feet to the right.' As in, the contents of some thirty bookcases. Three feet to the right. Yeah, that'll happen. But I have already learned the primary skill of interacting with the management: do not scream until they are out of earshot. Nod and smile, and they will forget about it unless it is something that *actually needs to be done*. Or, as Alys always says, 'If they come up to you with a big and ominous-looking sheaf of papers in their hands and start talking about something that sounds like absolute doom, just gaze over their shoulder, say 'Excuse me but my mother is on fire', and walk away in the ensuing confusion.' She also asked me what I intended to do if I finished the shifting and discovered that there was, in fact, a massive gap, so I told her: pretend not to see it. She told me that I should thrive in this job, as that is exactly what everyone else is going to do. Oh, don't get me wrong, this library is very well managed and what really does need to be done gets done, but it is understaffed, under budget, and overloaded-- we haven't been able to afford a bookmender for years-- and consequently if people start worrying about the small details that don't matter, as opposed to the ones that do, the only thing that will happen is that everyone's blood pressure will skyrocket. Shifting the third floor three feet to the right is a classic example of Somebody Else's Problem. So I get along well with my job, because I know what I'm being paid to do and what I'm not being paid to worry about. I only wish my back muscles would get used to it, though; I'm starting to worry about that, as a cane would have been damn nice the other day.
Sports-wise, well, there is Scottish, and I am still going for teacher training. And I'm doing self-paced walking for a gym credit. Frankly, I think they ought to be giving me gym credit for my job, but no.
Sassafrass goes well; we've got Enepet surprisingly down considering we started it this semester, and are working on the Magician's Song, which I wrote the lyrics to and Jessie set to music. RenChoir goes well although whoever thought of putting the concert on February 16th should be shot, as we are having to learn an entire new repertoire in less than a month. We are, however, doing Janequin's Chant des Oiseux, so I get to hear the entire choir sit around and sing 'ti ri ti ri trrr fiou ti ri ti ri trrr fiou fiou fiou' at one another in six parts, which is hilarious. Um, other extracurriculars... well, I write for Unpopular Opinions regularly, and I am technically still head of Elsinore, although C. is really doing all of that, and there's High Table, and DoubleStar-- I have actually made it to two of the DoubleStar movies this semester-- and I show Twin Peaks and a following movie every Friday night, and there's Witches' Collective every Tuesday... and the novel is progressing, albeit slowly, and my Yaone costume is starting to look like an actual costume, and I managed to watch all of Gasaraki earlier this semester in my down time, which was great; next I'll finish Angelic Layer...
Right. So that's everything I'm involved with on a regular basis. I think they should be forwarding my mail to either Carpenter or Canaday, but I'm having fun and I certainly don't lack for interesting things to do. Going to need a genuine vacation at some point this summer, though, a while where all I do is sit around and watch bad movies and sleep, and it doesn't look like I'll be getting one. Ah well. Time to burn that bridge when I come to it.
Actually, time to go do more Roman History reading, at the moment. But you know what I mean.
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-12 02:34 pm (UTC)Love.
Ruth.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-12 04:12 pm (UTC)