Still Waiting

Anyone besides A2 read my new profile description? Yes, I'm an official LIBRARIAN now, even if it's only part time. And SuperTarget is now only a fun place I go to shop, not a boring place I go to earn near-minimum wage.

I just finished my first day of "work" at the Garland Public Library, and now I'm off to drool over Matthew McConaughey and Matthew Fox in We Are Marshall. The supervisor at Garland knows I'm still waiting to hear about another (more desirable) job, but they're so desperate for people that I guess they'll keep me until I tell them otherwise.

Have yet to speak to my contact at XYZU, because he has outside reviewers visiting today and his phone goes straight to voicemail. Maybe he'll call after hours?

Going Out in Style

For the last purchase with my 10%(!) Target Team Member discount, I bought these cute Nick & Nora Poodle Paris pajama pants (they're cuter than the picture on Amazon indicates--look at the closeup pic of the fabric). Of course, I only knew of their existence because a guest bought them in my line earlier in the evening. I paired them with a pink tee on clearance (as did the guest in my line). I'm wearing the ensemble as I type.

What Next?

For those who don't know, here's a summary of my current job situation.

Today(!) is my last day at SuperTarget. Monday morning at 8:30, I report for orientation at the City of Garland. The job at the Garland Public Library is part-time, an average of 19 hours a week. I'm not sure when or how much I will be working next week, other than going to orientation and then to the library to have my picture taken. I told Garland that I was waiting to hear about another job for which I interviewed, but they said they would take their chances and for me to go ahead and proceed with the hiring process.

To complicate matters, I expect to know about the job at XYZ University on Monday. How, you ask, am I so prescient? My contact at XYZU left me a message Thursday evening (I was at work) asking for me to call him on Monday (he was going to be out of the office on Friday). So, your guess is as good as mine. Stay tuned for more details!

Guess Who's Entered the 21st Century?

How cool is this? I'm creating this post on my laptop, sitting in my car in front of the public library using their 24/7 wireless connection. And my mother just drove past me.

Survey

Some of my readers have informed me that the right-hand sidebar information is gone now that I switched both to the "new" Blogger version and to this pink template. Anyone else care to weigh in and tell me what you see these days? If you're an "anonymous" poster, which is more than fine with me, sign your first initial so I know who you are :-)

BTW, I switched to the pink because I was kind of bored with the old template and it looked anemic on the display on my new laptop. Someday I may get the energy to design my own template instead of just copying from Blogger. Don't hold your breath, however.

Going Home Day

Today is going home day. According to Grandma Redd, I wouldn't need to bathe today, since tonight I can bathe at home. This is a practice to which I often adhere when traveling, but I went ahead and took a shower last night anyway. After the salmon dinner and walking among all the food aromas in the blazing hot gymnasium last night, I felt a shower and shampoo were in order.

Niece #2 originally asked to go to the shopping mall today, but I believe this was motivated mainly by a desire to visit the play center, not from a desire to bond with her auntie. Instead, we are going to the public library and to Target. Then, I leave for the airport about 5 pm.

International Fairy Day

This morning we went looking for fairies. It was quite cold and the gutters were filled with snow and slushy mud. Our first stop was Peaceable Kingdom. There was no closed sign on the fairy door, but the lights in their shop didn't apppear to work, so perhaps they were closed after all. Peaceable Kingdom itself was open, and the girls each spent a long time choosing a toy to buy (Niece #1 settled on worry dolls and Niece #2 settled on a (machine) knit piggy finger puppet). I bought some magnets, including a Paper House Productions Stop Sign and a Mind over Magnets Weights & Measures Conversion Chart.

Next we scurried over to SweetWaters Cafe to see their fairy door. Again, no actual fairies were sighted, though both girls had their nets ready just in case. Then it was off to the "bread store" for a piece of bread, and then we had a super quick (15 minutes start to finish) lunch of Mexican food, with the best chimichanga my sister in law has ever tasted. We made it back to town and to the girls' school right at start time: 12:32 pm.

After school (where both kindergarten classes had an ice cream party), the girls emptied out their Valentines and we inspected all the cards and candy. I lobbied in vain for someone's Blow Pop, but she declined to share. The other child, however, generously gave me the licorice jelly beans out of the bag of 100 beans she had taken to school for her Hundredth Day collection (Her sister took pom poms for her contribution).

After a yummy dinner of salmon, asparagus, and potatoes, we hit Multicultural Night at the school. We arrived late and only saw the last few minutes of the performances, but then we spent the next hour in the gymnasium, visiting Japan, Pakistan, the USA, Mexico, Canada, Romania, Ireland, Russia, England, Armenia, India, China, and Japan. The girls had their passports stamped at each stop, and sampled lots of food.

Both girls said their favorite food samples were the native apples. Niece #2 also liked the Irish table water crackers and the Russian yogurt. Niece #1 liked the Russian yogurt, Chinese shrimp crackers, and the Chinese fortune cookies. I didn't taste much, but I loved the Mexican anise-seed cookie that Niece #2 to finish, and I also liked the Armenian baklava. The only other thing I tasted was an Indian coconut sweetmeat.

Many of the students' younger siblings performed and were also dressed in native costume, and the little Pakistani and Indian girls looked cute in their finery. Someone at the Indian table was painting Mehndi on students' hands. I would have liked to have that done, but the line was long, and it was all little girls, so I didn't think I should horn in.

Snow Day

Happy Valentine's Day to all of Auntie K's readers. At her place at the breakfast table this morning, Auntie K found a Hello Kitty candy necklace kit, Vanilla Creme Marshmallow Peeps Hearts, and a box of Harry London chocolates. There is one Buckeye in the box that she is saving for last.

It snowed and blew last evening, and blew even harder all night, and today, school was cancelled (much to the neices' chagrin). So, the whole family had a leisurely breakfast featuring red and purple pancakes (pictures to follow--Auntie K didn't bring her card reader). The girls played outside for a bit after breakfast, and Niece #1 was brave enough to put her face into the snow to see what if feels like.

This afternoon, Auntie K and her brother downtown visit a behemoth used book store in a four-story factory building. The store puts even the mothership Half Price Books to shame. It was quite cold, however, as they have turned off the heat in the building as a measure of economy. The only warm places in the building are the "warming stations" on floors one, two, and four.

In between activities, you can see that Auntie K is trying to improve her blogging habits, and she has also knitted a bit and copied some music (Lenny Kravitz' Greatest Hits and The Beatles' Anthology 1) onto her MP3 player.

Hundredth Day

Tuesday we went to school for Hundredth Day. Niece #2's party was at 1:30, and Niece #1's was at 2:30.

Both girls say that their favorite activity was making Hundredth Day Snack Mix.

In case you want to make your own snack mix, here is the recipe:

10 pretzels
10 marshmallows
10 M&M's
10 goldfish crackers
10 popcorn
10 Cheerios
10 Kix
10 raisins
10 Teddy Grahams
10 Fruit Loops

Happy Valentine's Day

A Valentine

OH! little loveliest lady mine,
What shall I send for your valentine?
Summer and flowers are far away;
Gloomy old Winter is king to-day;
Buds will not blow, and sun will not shine:
What shall I do for a valentine?

I ’ve searched the gardens all through and through
For a bud to tell of my love so true;
But buds are asleep, and blossoms are dead,
And the snow beats down on my poor little head:
So, little loveliest lady mine,
Here is my heart for your valentine!

- Laura Elizabeth Richards

in Stedman, Edmund Clarence, ed. An American Anthology, 1787–1900. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1900; Bartleby.com, 2001. www.bartleby.com/248/. 14 Feb 2007.

Vacation

I'm writing to you from the balmy midwest, where it currently feels like it's 9 degrees F. I'm here performing my auntly duties and having a jolly good time. Today we played tic tac toe and colored in our Color Wonder coloring books. While the nieces were at school, my sister in law and I went to Costco and Trader Joe's. (I bought the new Harry Connick, Jr. cd at Costco and UFO's and chocolate orange sticks at Trader Joe's). After dinner, Niece #1 taught the Family Home Evening lesson about honoring and obeying our parents.

Tomorrow, we're going to the dentist and to school for the Hundredth Day party.

Details, Part 4

The Search Committee Interview
You usually think of the search committee interview as the real meat of the interview, so it was surprising to me that they held it at the end of the day. It really turned out to be more of the same--answering a bunch of questions, this time posed by any of eight people, including the dean, the administrative services librarian, the two managers I already met with, and three non-supervisory librarians from the user services department. This part lasted about an hour. I found out that the distance education librarian, a younger woman whom I really liked, is interested in using wikis in the library and has thought about writing on the same topic I have--faculty authorship. I hope that made me look good. Right in the middle of the interview, the dean blurted out the question, "So, do you like to eat?" I thought that was a bit random, but I answered, "Of course!" Maybe it's a test question he asks to set apart the live prospects from the duds?

The Tour
After the search committee interview, Dean Craig drove me around town on a 20-30 minute tour. R_____ County is, I believe, the third-fastest growing county in the country, and there is a lot of building going on in the town itself, including a new hospital complex, new open-air shopping center, and a new hotel/convention center. The city recently gave the university 5 million dollars to renovate its sports facilities because so many state high school athletic tournaments are held there and it brings money to the city. On the way back to campus, the dean drove past and pointed out the local LDS meetinghouse. I thought that was particularly kind of him (he either guessed my religious affiliation from my alma mater, or he read far enough into my resume to see that I have church organist listed under community service (for lack of anything else to list)).

Wrapping it Up
When we got back to the library after the tour, I still had about 15 minutes before the shuttle was to pick me up. The dean said it was too cold to wait outside, and that I couldn't see the shuttle from inside the building, so we sat in his car and talked until the shuttle van came. I tried to sound intelligent and ask a few informed questions.

The Trip Home
The shuttle driver is also a real estate agent, and she told me all about the town, where to get good Mexican food, which grocery stores are in town, etc. The shuttle was a bit late, and I was worried about getting to the airport in time to change out of my suit and still check luggage for my 7 pm flight, but it all worked out just fine. There were only about 30 people on my flight, and I had the row to myself.

The Wait
I valiantly wrote thank you notes to nearly everyone I met in the interviews, and now I'm just waiting to hear if they liked me enough to have me back permanently.

Details, Part 3

The Presentation:
The room in which I was to present is huge, with two screens and probably 50 workstations. There were about 12 people who came to listen. We had to wait for at least 10 minutes for the computer technicians to fix some problem on the instructor workstation, so I had the chance for some small talk. I made a joke about why no one wanted to sit in the front row, just like in a real class. I think that went over ok. The computer was finally up and running, and I launched into my presentation. I think it went well, except that when I went to move from slide one to slide two, I hit the B key by mistake, which gave me a blank screen. So I covered (sort of) by apologizing and then explaining that it was a PowerPoint trick I just learned--hit the B key to toggle back and forth between a blank screen if you want to take the students' focus off the screen for a minute. I stayed within my twenty minutes, and when I was done I asked for questions. No one said a word. That was a bit disconcerting, but I guess it's just how they're used to conducting themselves in interviews. Or they were bored to tears and could think of nothing to say.

The User Services Librarians:
Immediately after the presentation, we pulled chairs around a table in the classroom and I met with some of the User Services Librarians, who took turns asking me more questions. That probably lasted an hour. One cool thing they told me about was their Reference Blog, where everyone who works at the reference desk can post notes about assignments that students bring to the desk or things that other people working the desk need to know about. I think it's a fabulous idea, far better than sending an e-mail to everyone and then taping the e-mail printout to the desk.

Lunch:
After the librarians' meeting, it was off to lunch. The lunch party ended up being 6 women, though I think all the user services librarians were invited. I rode with Sue, the Curriculum Collection librarian who grew up in Anna, Texas and says "ain't." I really liked her a lot, and she asked me about people at UNT and in North Texas, including Dr. Totten. Lunch was at B. McNeels, where most of us ordered salads or sandwiches. Jiannan, the unlucky soul, ordered fried chicken, and apparently, the kitchen was out of chicken. It took at least 40 minutes for us to be served. Why on earth someone didn't come out and tell us they were out of chicken and we should choose something else, I do not understand. I had wilted spinach salad with grilled chicken on it. Very tasty. I tried to ask questions of the group about what they like to do outside of work, do they have families or children or hobbies, etc. I didn't get a rousing response. We did talk some about knitting and about food. I let on that I like to bake and am learning (sort of) to knit. There were a few crocheters in the group, but no knitters. They did say, however, that Murfreesboro has a nice LYS.

to be continued (don't worry, we're about to the end) . . .

Details, Part 2

The Interview, continued

The Rest of Sunday Night:
After the taxi dropped me at the hotel, I walked down the block to have dinner at IHOP (Vive la French Toast and a Diet Coke). There was too much cigarette smoke escaping the hotel restaurant into the lobby for me to even consider eating there. Of course, at IHOP I was seated inches away from the smoking section and had to ask to move to the other side of the dining room, but it worked out fine. Back at the hotel, I enjoyed a long hot shower, read all the background information I had on XYZU, its city and county homes, and then buckled down to finally finish writing my presentation. I turned in at 2, much chagrined that I wouldn't be able to spend more than 4 or 5 hours in the extremely comfortable bed.

The Frantic Rush:
I of course hit snooze more times than I should have Monday morning, and raced out the door of my room at probably 7:47, two minutes after Bill Black was supposed to pick me up downstairs. I got to the end of the corridor and couldn't find the elevator. Certain I had taken the correct direction out my room door, I nonetheless went back to the room and down to the other end of the hall. Nothing. After several passes up and down the hall, I realized that a door at the end of the corridor leading to the elevators, which had been open the night before, was now shut. Strike One - Late for the Pickup. The car ride to campus took about 15 minutes, and we passed it making small talk.

The Interview Begins:
After entering the building by the staff entrance and taking the staff elevator to the Administrative Offices, I left my things in Bill's office and he took me on a tour of the library building. They have over 300 public workstations in the library; this for a school with 23,000 students, which I think is pretty impressive. We spent several minutes looking at the impressive replica Franklin printing press (it really works!).

After the tour, I met with the Library Dean for about 30 minutes. He told me about the history of the university, what its makeup and operation is like now, and told me about the library organization. He was very nice and seems extremely approachable.

After meeting with the Dean, I met for an hour with the Reference/Instruction Team Leader (Sharon, who I met Sunday night), and her manager, the coordinator of User Services. We talked about the job and what it entails, about some of my experience, about how things work in the library etc. They also talked about promotion and tenure, because the job is tenure track. Everyone has a one-year contract subject to continuation, and has until their fifth or sixth year to achieve tenure. At the end, Sharon asked if I was still interested in the job after hearing all about it. Of course, I was.

Sidebar:
Let me say at this point, that I really was not nervous at all during any of this. I woke up with so little time to spare, and was so focused on getting down to the lobby, that by the time I was able to think about it, I was already deep into the interview. The Sunday night scouting trip also helped.

Amenities:
As I mentioned, the library is eight years old. All of the administrative offices are in one corner of the building, though on three or four different flours. They are connected, however, by the staff elevator. There is a rather large staff lounge with tables and chairs, and a kitchen with a vending machine, full-size refrigerator (might be two of them), sink, and microwave. The user services librarians' workspaces are in a nice suite with enclosed offices and a stainless steel sink in the hallway. I hear they lobbied for a mirror above the sink, but that didn't work out.


Panic Ensues:
My one moment of terror occurred when after meeting with the two managers, we went back to Bill's office on the way to my presentation (15 to 20 minutes, on the topic of how I would apply my teaching philosophy to successfully administering a formal literacy program). In an effort to meet the strict 1+1 carryon rule, I bought a "business" tote at Target and used that as briefcase and purse. Apparently, it's too difficult to find things in a bag that big, and I don't recommend such consolidation as normal everyday practice. Anyway, when we got back to the office, I couldn't find my notes in the folder that had my handouts. I couldn't find them in my tote. So, I had to kneel down on the floor, unzip my suitcase, and I still couldn't find them. This is when panic set in. Keep in mind that I only finished writing my notes at 2am that morning, and I was in no position to speak completely without notes (Sidebar - that morning I figured out that in my haste to print my notes before I left home on Sunday, I didn't even get all the notes printed--I apparently had more than one page of notes for most slides, and whatever wouldn't fit on the first page just got left off, so I was already working from a handicapped position even before I finished writing notes). Finally, I figured out that the notes were in another compartment of my tote, so I was good to go.

to be continued . . .

We Interrupt this Broadcast

Must take time out from telling you about The Interview to tell you that the local public library, at which I interviewed for a part-time position on December 8, finally phoned me back two days ago (nearly two months later) to offer me a job. You may know or recall that the day of my pickle jar accident (Dec 19, I believe), I thought I heard the library supervisor's name on the walkie at Target, but I hear that she (the library supervisor) was never able to speak to anyone at Target about my suitability as an employee. Apparently, the library decided to offer me a job even without knowing what Target thinks about me.

Because I subscribe to the policy that honesty is the best approach, I told the public library that I am interested in the job, but I interviewed this week for a full time position that I will accept if it is offered. After consultation, the supervisor called back to tell me to go ahead and proceed as if I can come to work there, and they will take their chances (I hear they just had two more people quit this week, so they can't really afford to give me an ultimatum right now). Hence, I have given notice to Target, and I have an appointment at the city clinic next week for a pre-employment drug screen and physical.

It's nice to finally have some good news to tell you. Now, if I can only follow this up with even better news about a more recent interview . . .

Details

OK, first of all--no photos. I did think about taking my camera, but I figured I had enough to worry about without adding the camera. Those of you who were so kind as to speak to me on Sunday as I drove to the airport, at which time I was so nervous I was about to cry, will understand why the camera would have been too much.

Travel: Left the house only 20 minutes after I planned, with one checked bag, one carry on tote from Target, and a suitbag. Arrived with no problem, and even had time to spend a few minutes before my flight riding Skylink, reminiscing about old times at my former job. During the flight (AA), I listened to Black on my (relatively) new mp3 player, did a bit of the crossword, and read a professional book for my presentation. Had to wait about 45 minutes for the shuttle to pick me up at the airport (where it was 30 degrees F on Sunday), but that worked out fine. And none of my fears about lost luggage came to pass, thank goodness. Shared the shuttle with a couple returning from a two week Caribbean cruise. They were still wearing their cruise clothes and were very cold.

Sunday Evening: Checked in at the Doubletree hotel at 4:45, where the desk clerk told me Bill Black had just called to say he would pick me up Monday morning at 7:45. She handed me a warm (delicious oatmeal chocolate chip) cookie, and I was off to my room. After fooling around a bit, ironing my trench coat (yes, ironing my trench coat), and unstapling and stapling all my presentation handouts, I called a taxi to take me to the library. Incidentally, the Doubletree is across the street from Target. (Alas, the closest SuperTarget is 85.6 miles away, in another state).

Sunday Night Reconnaissance: The library has a snackbar featuring Starbucks coffee, study carrels, a vending machine with headache remedies, and a popular magazine rack just inside the entrance. This area stays open until 2 am, two hours after the library closes. Only bottled water is allowed inside the library proper. The library itself is 8 years old, and is quite nice--open lobby with views to the three floors above, carpeting everywhere except the lobby, many soft chairs and nice wood study tables, and art on the walls. I walked around, admiring the 300 available computers, and then wandered past the reference desk, where the librarian properly asked if I needed help. I said "No, just looking," and then, recognizing her as the reference team leader from her nametag, went ahead and introduced myself. Sharon replied, "I wondered if I would see you tonight--I have your resume right here in front of me." She got an assistant to (wo)man the desk, and spent about 25 minutes walking me through some of the library and showing me the room in which I would present the next day. She was quite congenial, and asked where I wanted to go to lunch the next day. After we parted, I checked out the current library budget from the reserves desk, so I could peruse current librarian salaries. They seem quite generous, considering what I'm used to seeing at UNT.


to be continued . . .