Time to reflect

Image by Irargerich

It’s December now, which means I’ve hit the six month mark in my new job. Thought I’d have a little ponder and reflect on my time here so far.

Initially, I wasn’t sure how long I’d stay in this role as it entails a 65 mile round trip to one campus and an 80 mile round trip to the other campus. I find the drive draining, and although I try to use it as ‘down time’ I’m not really succeeding with that just yet. I live in hope that one day I’ll find the commute relaxing.

Looking back, I can see I’ve developed skills I didn’t make much use of in my previous role as a School Librarian. I spend a fair amount of my working week classifying new stock, although it is constantly a bottle neck in the book-processing procedure. It’s nice to get my teeth into Dewey again, I didn’t realise how much I missed it while I was at the school. There are some books for which I simply I can’t decide upon class numbers, and these tend to have extended stays on our classification shelf in the office; I know this is a weakness of mine, I shouldn’t pick and choose the books I classify, I’ll try to be more inclusive in the new year.

Study Visit Confirmation

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, so I thought I’d use this opportunity to share some good news.

Back in August, my line manager suggested I apply to attend an EU-funded study visit. I’ll admit to being quite dubious at the time – I thought only the best of the best were ever awarded places on these kinds of things. I was even more dubious when I saw the application form itself - it was solid! I brushed it under the carpet and ignored it for a while, and when the week of the deadline arrived I still hadn’t done anything about it. I was really in two minds – it’d be great to do but surely my chances were low, so why even bother. In a moment of madness, I posted my dilemma on Facebook. Usually, the majority of people just ignore my status updates but this one generated a huge response and everyone said I should go for it. So I did. I burned the midnight oil and with the help of my long-suffering boyfriend, put together the best damn application I could manage. Popped it in the post the day before the deadline and never expected to hear anything more of it.