Month: September 2006

Hokay, we’ve been out since Sunday. We spent two days at sea running around the ship and eating ENTIRELY too much. Food so yummy, can’t stop filling plate. Monday we were at St. Thomas (US Virgin Islands), very nice snorkeling tour. We saw sea turtles and lots of fish and coral. We went there and back on the “pirate” ship Bones, and got Bones temporary tattoos. We also had unlimited rum punch as well, so last night was pretty hazy. I know we went shopping once we hit the pier as there is more stuff in our stateroom than we arrived with. Today, St. Maarten/St. Martins (the island so nice they named it twice) more snorkeling and lots of shopping. No rum punch, so we had to go and get our own rum. It’s less expensive here than water, so we’ll be bringing some back. Tomorrow San Juan, PR and then Labadee, Haiti. Then two more sea days and back to NJ and the drive home. I’ll post more later. No pirates yet. We’ll keep looking.

We got off to a bumpy start as the train from Fayetteville was stalled on the tracks south of the station for over 3 hours. We finally had to give up on the train and take a taxi home and get in the Saturn and drive here. 9 hours through NC, VA, MD, DE and NJ to the terminal. Then we parked the car and just made the boat with about 1/2 hour to spare *whew*.
We had a super dinner with the parents and family in the big dining room and then explored all over the ship. It was WINDY, but we had a lot of fun running around and finding everything we had been reading about.
The library on ship is a little pathetic. It looks like most of the books are things the former passengers left behind (very eclectic). I’m going to see if they have a person who works there and if they get to select the books. Cruise ship librarian wouldn’t be such a bad job.
Today we had room service breakfast, then I finished my skirt for the formal night (tonight) and Tom went swimming. After a nice buffet lunch, we went to the pool and then we came to the e-lounge to do some internet surfing $.50 a minute, so updates will be short.
One more day at sea and Monday we’ll be in St. Thomas.

It’s been a pretty darn productive day. I’m now officially ensconced in the boss office (gotta bring in my tchotchkes). I have OCLC search software and passwords to make it work and I can find and download item records to the catalog. Life is good.

Now I have to spend $20,000 on books by next weekend. Can we do it? YES WE CAN!

I have to go through my closet and decide which clothes I’m going to take with me on vacation. I think I’ll have no trouble with my sportswear and casual clothes but I’d like to make a nice “dressy” dress for the formal nights. I have some fab fabric to work with and a nice adaptable and flattering pattern. This means I can spend some money on shoes and not feel too guilty.

We also have to go out and acquire a suit for the Tom-ster. A chore I have been putting off as he has been somewhat less than enthusiastic about it. Maybe I’ll make him a deal. if he comes out to get a nice suit, we’ll buy something from the International Male catalog to go with it (my hubby wants to be a fabulous male model, or just dress like one).

I hope to get this done this weekend.

Decisions, decisions…

So, I’m re-listening to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and I realize that Ron is Harry’s Id and Hermione is Harry’s Superego. I expect one of the serious Harry scholars has already done a thesis paper on this, but it amused me.

Hooray. Now I can work instead of thumb twiddling. Spent most of today ‘figgering’ out the ILS for the library. Still trying to determine if this is a union catalog and if so how I will know what items are held by other libraries.

I am in the new job.  I am the Supervisory Librarian at the Womack Army Medical Center.

It is not completely without bumps.  But on the whole it looks to be a good thing.

I’ve been jetting around from office to office filling out and dropping off paperwork in the approved fashion, so that’s good.  It looks like it will be the end of the week before I get computer access, but as that’s pretty darn fast for an activity of this size (over 3000 employees) I’m not too upset.  I’m taking my time and being extra conscientious.

Now for the bumps…in addition to no computer, the guy who is my new boss is out this week on vacation.  Therefore, I’m in kind of a weird limbo which is complicated by the fact that the library is supposed to be moving from his activity to the library’s education department and I can’t talk to the Col. who will be the new boss until this transfer is complete.  

Also, the lady who has been out sick since May (and the absence of whom was the impetus to hire me in such rapid fashion) has returned from sick leave about a week ago and is squatting in the librarian’s office (both physically and figuratively).  This is a difficult situation for me.  I want to get in there and establish myself, but I don’t want to alienate her.  If they cancel the temporary girl who has been holding down the fort, it would just be the two of us, so I definitely can’t afford to have her P.O.’ed at me.  It’s a tricky thing and they DEFINITELY don’t cover this in library school (they should though, “How to deal with paraprofessionals who have more senority than you” would be a very useful class).  It’s not that I’m particularly covetous of the office, but I always feel unsettled in a place until I can set up my “space” and there’s a computer workstation in there that I will need to use for cataloging.  Maybe I’m territorial or something.  What I’d like is for the boss to come along and say “OK, the librarian is here now, so clear out the office and give her the keys.”  That way it’s a directive from above, not me trying to muscle her out.  She’s been doing a lot of little things to deny me access, locking the door when she leaves and “forgetting” all the passwords so she doesn’t have to tell them to me and saying that she has to get everything straightened up before she can pass anything on to me.  I’d like to just let her handle stuff and move on to dealing with the people who have already stopped by to request particular “librarian-y” things like pathfinders and briefings but I need to know what’s already in place before I start making changes and doing new things.  I hope that we’ll be able to meet with the Information Management Director soon and that he’ll be able to straighten everything out.

Ah well, change brings stress.  I’m just going to ride it out.