Elocution Lesson

I've determined that Middle Tennessee natives pronounce the name of our town, Murfreesboro, as follows:

"Murfeesburrow," with primary accent on the Mu and a secondary accent on the bu, and a slight "uh" sound to the ending syllable. Not sure I'll ever be able to accurately reproduce the sound. And no, I didn't make a mistake by leaving out the second "r" in the pronunciation. As near as I can tell, natives just don't pronounce it at all.

And, for those who asked, here is a quote from the city's Website about city population and size:

"The City of Murfreesboro, the county seat of Rutherford County, is located at the geographic center of the State of Tennessee approximately 35 miles southeast of the state's capitol in Nashville. Murfreesboro is located in Rutherford County, an adjacent county to Metropolitan Davidson County. It is included in the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA)

The City of Murfreesboro recently received its 2000 population figures from the US Census Bureau and, according to that federal agency, the actual count for the city was 68,816, which represents an increase of 53.2 percent over the 1990 census figure of 44,922.

Encompassing approximately 35 square miles, Murfreesboro is now the sixth largest city in the state, ahead of Jackson for the first time.

By the same token, Rutherford County's 2000 population was 182,023, which is a 53.5 percent increase over the 1990 census figure of 118,570."

see http://www.murfreesborotn.gov/business/economy.htm

(BTW, Jen, I was wrong--San Angelo has more people.)

Some Things Don't Change

You'll be happy to know that a pizza and soda at Sam's tastes the same in Murfreesboro as it does in Garland.

And I was pleased as punch to place my order in the Wendy's drive-through last night and not even have to repeat myself to the cashier (being a Wendy's veteran, I give them all the info they need in my initial order, including size and drink flavor, but they nearly ALWAYS ask me what size and what drink when I get finished). Though come to think of it, I got home and found Wendy's had put cheese on my burger. Guess that's typical too, however.

View from the Driver's Seat

I'm a Freshman All Over Again

Well, not really. Actually, it was pretty cool to walk around to places on campus today and tell the counter attendants I am a new faculty member. But driving and walking around campus this morning, lost most of the time, I felt like a freshman. Only being a freshman with a car is even worse, because that opens up whole new vistas of lost-dom.

I was carrying so many things with me today that I didn't take my camera, so pics will have to wait. As for the agenda, I didn't get to most of what I said I would. No PO box, no pedicure, and I haven't ironed a thing yet. But, I do have a parking tag, an ID card that will unlock the back door of the library, and 3 pounds of benefits literature to read and decide upon by Tuesday.

I went by the library today and dropped off my two boxes of "office stuff." I'm to report Monday at 8 am. I think that I will be working 8 to 4:30, with an hour lunch. Ha ha. I'll probably only be able to keep that schedule for a week, until I have too much to do (and of course, I'll have desk duty on nights and weekends sometimes). To answer previous questions, I earn two vacation days a month and one sick day a month.

When I got done on campus I drove north of town for a bit, looking at all the older ranch style homes in which I probably can't afford to live. I did see a few rentals, but until I figure out my benefits and know what I'll be taking home paywise, I'm reluctant to get my heart set on anything. And of course, the big dilemma is deciding how far from campus I want to live and am willing to drive. Particularly if I get an apartment, I don't want to be too close. But I do sometimes dream of my days in prisontown, when I was 10 minutes from work.

My New Home

Today's Agenda

Finish getting ready (the new transitional hairstyle takes a LOT of work)

Find a post office and rent a post office box

Visit the campus parking office and get a visitor's parking pass

Meet with HR for a benefits orientation

Pedicure?

Drive around town exploring?

Iron, iron, iron

Timeline of a Trip

Wednesday, 1:36 pm: Leave house, right on schedule, thanks to Dad (and Elizabeth and Mary). Armed with ham crescents, snickerdoodles, Diet Coke, two new cd's (thanks Mary) and Carl Hiaasen's Hoot on cd, I'm set. BTW, do you know that my mother is the world's best cook? I'll be very sad when the ham crescents and snickerdoodles are gone.

Wednesday, 20 minutes outside of Texarkana: Take a break from Stevie Wonder and Music & Lyrics to pop in Marty Robbins' Gunfighter Ballads & Trail Songs. This, of course, is requisite listening on any car trip, and I felt I needed to start it before I left Texas (sniff, sniff).

Wednesday, 8:30 pm: Having traveled 405 miles I end up at the Travelodge in Forrest City, Arkansas. The room's not much, but for $49.99, what do I expect? Head to Subway for dinner, unpack the car, and settle in to watch Lost on the tiny tv.

Thursday, 10:30 am: After sleeping in and taking my time repacking the car, checking oil and tires (see, I have learned something from you, Dad), I'm finally off on the second half of my trip.

Thursday, 3:00 pm: Arrive in Murfreesboro. On the way, I stopped in at the Tennessee Welcome Center to get a map and some brochures. I also managed to connect to the Internet in the parking lot and looked up the address of my hotel.

Thursday, 4:30 pm: Having partially unloaded the car, I shower, talk to Mom on the phone, and have a lie down.

Thursday, 6:30 pm: Unwillingly get out of bed, sort of fix hair, and head off to Cracker Barrel for dinner (my first visit, ok, but guess I was expecting something better).

Thursday, 7:30 pm: Wander around Target for what seems like hours, dropping an inordinate amount of money on supplies and some food, a watch, and a DustBuster.

Thursday, 9:00 pm: Log on to the Internet and find out there's no Barnes and Noble in Murfreesboro. Head back out to Super Wal-Mart to pick up the groceries I couldn't get at Target (eggs, Light Silk Soymilk, etc.).

Thursday, 10:30 pm: Back at the hotel after spending another obscene sum at Wal-Mart, on things like a frying pan, can opener, and groceries.

Thursday, 11:50 pm: Finish blogging, trying to decide whether to turn in or to first impose some order on my temporary home. Decide I have to do some picking up or there won't be room on the bed for me to sleep.

T Minus 3 Days

Note to the wise: Mistakenly hitting the Close Tab Red X instead of the Stop Loading Page Red X may result in losing a long post you just wrote but hadn't saved.

Now, on to what I meant to say:

This may be the last post for a few days (I'm sure you're heartbroken). I plan to leave here midday on Wednesday, drive to Little Rock and stay the night, and then drive the rest of the way to Murfreesboro on Thursday. All told, it is about a 615 mile trip.

Once I get to town, I'll be staying in a "hotel house" (suite hotel) until I find a place to live. I start work on Monday, April 2.

My phone number will be the same for a while, as will my email address, so no worries there.

My last day of work at the public library was Saturday, so that leaves me Mon and Tue to finish everything I should have been working on for the past month. Personally, I'm hoping for a superhuman burst of energy on Tuesday. Or some time/space anomaly to occur and result in an extra 48 hours between Tuesday and Wednesday. We'll see.

The Pizza that Auntie K Made

You may know that I aspire to be a baker, along with aspirations to be a knitter, a well-organized neat freak, a physically fit runner, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I occasionally venture out of the theoretical realm and into reality. In January, I tried my hand at pizza. I think it turned out tolerably well. Probably not the best looking pizza ever made, but the Pizza Margherita was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. Especially for a first attempt (OK, actually a second attempt. I made pizza once before when I lived in prisontown).

Here are the pics:

Dough, not so expertly formed.

Pizza Margherita, pre-baking

Pizza Margherita, fresh out of the oven

New Routines

I've been doing some research. Once I'm in Murfreesboro, the closest Container Store will be 216 miles away (Atlanta). The closest Ulta will be 204 miles away (Louisville). The closest SuperTarget will be 82 miles away (Huntsville).

Does this mean I'll save some money after I move?

Countdown

Yes, I am leaving in nine days. No, I do not have much done, beyond cleaning off my dresser, throwing away old nail polish, and packing the boxes to go to the office.

Last night I started having the old "paper due in two days but I haven't started it" dream. This time, it was two papers, and one was from the previous semester.

Reading the Last Page First, or, A Word to the Wise

If you fall asleep while listening to an audiobook, and then wake up before the cd has finished, you may find out whodunit before you want to know.

Library Item Count is Back

As I've said before, working in a library is a dangerous thing for a bibliophile with little control and little space. Turns out, working in a public library is even more dangerous.

My current library item count, spread between two public libraries, is 30 items. Of course, I'm not going to be able to read, watch, or listen to everything I have checked out before they're due or before I move, but the call of an interesting book is often irresistible.

How Did That Happen?

My slacks shrank.

Overnight.

It's Official

I have now signed on the dotted line, and starting April 1, I will be an Assistant Professor at Walker Library at Middle Tennessee State University. Y'all are invited to come visit me in beautiful Tennessee.



Go Lady Raiders!

My Day

I guess you could say I'm settled into the life of a part-time librarian. What, you may ask, does one do as a part-time librarian?

• I don't shelve or check out books.

• I don't "shush" people.

I do sit at the reference desk (Children's, Fiction, Reference, or Computer Help) and answer questions in person and on the telephone. In any one day (seven hour shift with an additional unpaid hour lunch), I may sit at two or three desks during the day, depending upon where I am scheduled.

This morning at the Fiction desk, in the first 45 minutes of the day, I spoke at length with Movie Man, one of our regular patrons, whose fondest dream is for a librarian to tell him the long forgotten title of a movie he once saw (opening scene is of an attempted suicide by gas who is subsequently revived by a stranger. If you know this title, PLEASE let me know).

After a lengthy conversation ranging from such topics as AIDS to whether or not the NYPL is open 24 hours a day, Movie Man left to go downstairs and I spoke to a mother on the phone whose high schooler informed her he needs to have a book for school by the end of the week. Said book, about which he has known since September, was published by a university press and is not widely held. We found some options that might work, however, and I sent the caller on her way. Immediately after, I spoke to a caller who could not remember the author of Sarah, Plain and Tall. Although I did not know the answer off the top of my head, the caller was impressed by how quickly I found the answer in my trusty catalog.

I suspect that the rest of the day will pass in much the same way. To keep myself occupied when not answering questions (or blogging), I have several projects on which I can work, including formatting some bibliographies written by other librarians, checking the catalog to see if we own certain books recommended by vendors, and investigating the possibility of using a wiki to disseminate certain information to library staff (incidentally, Starrlett, how did you get your wiki to stop displaying ads at the top? You aren't a paid subscriber yet, are you?)

All Dressed Up*

I showed up for work Thursday wearing a new blouse, lipstick, a new hairstyle, and nail varnish. You think at least one person would have commented on how nice I looked.

Here's the history: I stopped at the outlets on the way back from Austin on Monday and splurged on my first pair of Skechers and two blouses from Eddie Bauer**. Then Thursday morning, I went for my last haircut before moving, and finally took a more definitive step toward growing my hair out a bit. Hence, I'm wearing it flipped up all over, and I love it. Or at least, I will love it until the time I have to style it myself***.

As for the nails and lips, Wednesday, I came home from work and watched two episodes of Heroes and three epsiodes of Lost (yes, Starrlett, I am still watching). I felt guilty about watching five hours of TV (minus commercials--(I don't do commercials) without doing anything more than eating pizza, so I decided to varnish my fingernails while I was sitting there. And then, the lipstick seemed a natural match for the nail varnish (I am fond of lipstick, but usually don't wear it to work because it will rub off on the Diet Coke can I'm drinking in the car on the way to work).

*I started this post Thursday, when it had more immediacy and didn't seem so stupid and trivial. It's now Saturday, and I'm finally getting back to it.

**I thought the blouses I bought were current season items, but I can't find them in the catalog or Web site to show you a picture. If you're dying to know, they're both 3/4 sleeve cotton, one a blue plaid and one a sage floral.

***Friday night I had to style my hair myself, and it didn't look nearly as good as it did when Debbie did it Thursday. Imagine that.

The Life of a Librarian

I don't have much to report, but figured I ought to say something! Over the weekend I went south for a last visit with Curly and Sweetpea, who are both just as adorable as ever. Alas, I forgot to take my camera, so you'll just have to take my word on the adorable part.

Work progresses well, if quietly. I have a few projects to work on, and I'm working about 25 hours a week, so I'm happy.

Progress on the move is non-existent. Still no contract in my mailbox, and I'm burying my head in the sand about packing and moving. If you know the way I live and the amount of Stuff I have, you understand my reaction.

On a happy note, I happened across a fabulous find last week while browsing for an audiobook at the Plano library. On a whim, I picked up The Pale Blue Eye just because the cover looked good and it was billed as a mystery. Well, it turned out to be top rate. Audiobooks can be tricky, because the performer can ruin or redeem a great or lousy book. In this case, it was a perfect match. I often have difficulty listening to male performers in the car because their voices are so low that they are hard to hear clearly. Not so here. The mystery is set at West Point in 1830, and features Edgar A. Poe as a young cadet enlisted to help a retired New York City constable investigate the suicide and subsequent mutilation of another cadet. Despite the old-fashioned setting, the performer sounds straight out of the 21st century, and it's a nice fit. The story and writing are also top notch, and I recommend it to any mystery lovers in the audience. It's one of those books that has an unforeseen twist at the end, and for once, the twist actually works.

Anti Climax

I think my readers all know that I have an "unofficial" job offer from XYZ University. The offer won't be official until I receive the contract in the mail.

In the meantime, I am about to finish my first week of work at the Nicholson Memorial Library in Garland. They knew when I started work that I was waiting to hear about a previous job interview, but they said to go ahead and start the hiring process anyway.

Despite the still unofficial nature of the offer, my intended start date is April 2. My plan is to drive up there a few days before I start work, with enough in my little station wagon to get me by for a month or two. I'll stay in a hotel for a bit until I find someplace to rent, and then come back and move everything when I have a place into which to move.