Filed under library …

May 25 2012
Leave a comment
library, vancouver

first (and not last) jobhunt disappointment

A while back I applied for a Children’s Librarian job far from Vancouver in a much rougher place than here. Last week people from the library called and scheduled a phone interview, which meant I started to get a bit excited. On Wednesday I had the interview and I felt like it went really well. I never had to talk out of my depth, I was excited about the possibilities coming up at the library. In my head I was figuring out how the logistics of moving to this far-off place would work and how little Vancouver time I might have left. I was thinking about cool programs I could be running for the kids up there, and what a great job that would be.

I should know better than to want anything ever. I have a way better track record at getting things I don’t really care about.

So yeah, I didn’t get this job. Which is good because it means I’m not leaving Vancouver anytime soon. The crappiness of it is that I applied out there thinking it would be a less competitive situation. Jobs here in the lower mainland put me at the throats of practically all my librarian friends (note that we’re all very nice about the job competition so far and all the throats are more conceptual background thoughts than anything literal) and even more qualified people. Here, I’ll only be able to get the job that I’m absolutely perfect for, I feel.

But them’s the breaks and I’ll keep applying for things. One of my friends just highlighted a job in Kelowna that would be pretty good for me, and I’ve got applications in at a few libraries around here that it’s possible I’ll hear some word on soon.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Apr 18 2012
3 Comments
comics, games, library, sports, vancouver

all these events – i feel so social and poor

Post-school life is starting to come together (though I kind of need a job). I mean, I have classes coming up again in May, but now that all my friends have graduated it kind of feels like I have too. I’ve also gotten to play a new game and go to a conference and be part of Jamie’s four-night trivia blitz.

For a research project I’m working on I got to interview a former National Librarian of Canada last week, and she was adamant that going to conferences without having a job to do is pointless. I think that makes sense. This Saturday I’m going to be doing some liveblogging for the North Shore Writers Festival, which should be fun. I’m going to be a convenor for the BC Library Conference in the middle of May and I’m volunteering at VanCAF. I mean, I had fun wandering around at Emerald City, but I do like having something to do.

Also, when Sean comes to town in June the Vancouver Canadians will be playing. It works out that we’ll be able to go to a baseball game in the afternoon and then the Bombers-Lions CFL season opener in the evening.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mar 24 2012
1 Comment
books, library, school, vancouver

disposition in the sun

One of the quirks of the building I live in is how the lock on the front door is like a magic-eye poster. For the key to turn and grant you access to the wondrous 3D interior you have to insert it and then enter a zen trance enabling you to pull the key out just the very tiniest amount and apply the precise amount of delicate pressure. It’s a good way of measuring my state of mind when I return home on foot (when I bike I use a different door to the building which is much less finicky). How easy has it been to slough off the day’s events and enter that way of thinking?

It was sunny today, not warm exactly, but it felt spring-like. So I went out to the water to read and look at the mountains. I’ve written a draft of my last paper for the term and it’s turned from something I was ready to abandon into a piece of writing that actually has some interesting combinations of ideas (about irreverence towards books and how China Mieville should influence a youth services librarian). It must have been a very excellent day because for the first time ever I opened the front door on the first try.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Mar 04 2012
Leave a comment
books, library, photography, school

plastic people buckling their swashes

I have had a busy weekend making stuff, which is a pretty good way to spend my time, even if it is technically for homework.

I’m doing a video booktalk/trailer for an excellent YA pirate novel (A.S. King’s The Dust of 100 Dogs), and I own a bunch of pirate Lego, so using that Lego to illustrate the trailer seemed like a great idea. A few weeks ago I supplemented my Lego collection with extra hairpieces and some less masculine torsos and I was good to go.

Now, everybody in class has to make a video, but you can also just do a video booktalk. Getting out the Lego and building sets and taking umpty million macro shots isn’t a course requirement. But I’ve realized this term that what I’m really excited about in librarianship is doing cool stuff with young people. Playing with Lego and making something cool to show people is something I’d actually like to do professionally (and doing media-creation YA programs is something libraries can get into). This was completely the kind of project I can get lost in. If only all homework was like this (I’m sorry to my friends in cataloguing this term).

As of now I’ve got 30 pictures for my 90 second trailer and I’ve figured out exactly what gaps need filling. I need to do at least one more action sequence, a leaving home sequence that’ll recall the one already shot in the other timeline and a handful more Lego dogs (so I can turn them into 100).

I also appear to have left my phone in my jacket pocket with the ringer off since Friday night and never even thought about looking for it, so engrossed was I in Lego. Apologies to the person who tried to call me.

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 24 2012
1 Comment
journalism, library, school, tech, vancouver

a job i am totally applying for

Today, moments after I hung up from Skyping with my mom, I found a job I really want. I mention Skyping with my mom because in that conversation I’d been talking about how when I graduate I’ll be looking for work all over the place, and how one of the upsides of being unattached is being able to be mobile, and all that jazz, but also how I’d only try working in the U.S. if it was a great job. We talked about places I’d be more or less interested in. At no point in this conversation did Alaska come up.

Of course, Alaska is where this job I found is.

But I think I’d be a pretty excellent New Media Producer for the Juneau NPR affiliate. Here’s a snippet of the job description:

… an individual with experience and skills in journalism and online content management, including writing and editing for the web, graphic design and site management.

I could completely do that. And do that really well. And it would actually integrate my journalism side with my digital librarianish side (you know, content management kinds of things).

Anyway, I’m putting together an application for them. It’s probably a bit of a long shot (I am a foreigner and all), and it’d mean I’d have to finish my MLIS with a couple of web-delivered courses (which wouldn’t be a big deal), but it could be neat.

Sorry this didn’t happen an hour before you called, Mom. I might have been more excitable.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 19 2012
Leave a comment
library, school, vancouver

two bits without a segue

I did not get the job at the Art, Architecture and Planning library at UBC. Selah. I did get a very nice phone call from the librarian who interviewed me (along with two other staffmembers) saying that I did a fine job in the interview and he was sure my experience would be great for somewhere in the future, but they were going with a candidate who had a lot of experience with local art. Which isn’t something I could have made myself be, so yeah. It’s the kind of situation where their priorities were just things I couldn’t fill. I hear that happens sometimes.

The shitty thing is that was probably the last formal GAA position I could possibly have gotten at UBC. I don’t think they do those just for the summer months, and come September I won’t be a student any longer. So that means I won’t have any academic library experience on my resume when I’m off looking for work. I’ve been trying to diversify through this degree, not focus, but we’ll see how much that helps, or if I’ll just be every employer’s second choice when the real jobhunting comes around.

When I was coming home from school yesterday (on the bus because I don’t feel like biking through slush and snow with my fenderless bike) the second bus I got onto wafted with the aroma of weed. It was incredibly strong for a place where no one was smoking. I sat down and another guy got on and as he walked towards the back he just started grinning. “Now this is a Vancouver bus!” he said to no one in particular. A conversation began between a bunch of the people in the back about the guy who had just gotten off the bus, who had been the source of the smells. It was all very friendly and good-natured, about the blessings of being in Canada. Eventually the guy who’d been grinning and who’d started the talking wound it up with “All right. Enough of that. Everyone can go back to their iPhones now.”

Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 16 2012
Leave a comment
books, library, school, vancouver

the difference a phone call makes

My weekend was spent working on an annotated bibliography, a topic briefing, and reading. There was reading involved in the first two parts as well, but well, yeah. Yesterday I took a break from my indoorsyness and went for a walk down to the water to watch the seaplanes land and take off again. I enjoy how Canadian that feels, with the mountains and the water and the trees, right here in the city.

My weekend was also kind of crappy with my lack of being called about the most recent student librarian gig I’d applied for. On the posting it said the interviews were going to be today, so when I didn’t hear anything by 5pm on Friday I figured that was yet another job missed somehow. I dwelt on what I could possibly have done to make my application better, brooded on the possibilities of ever finding a job when I graduate without recent library experience, and generally buried my head in books.

And then this morning I got a call saying I’ve got an interview tomorrow. So that’s all right then. I still might not get the job, but I’ve got a chance. A little bit of income, and the experience in a university library setting, would be so very excellent.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
Jan 10 2012
Leave a comment
books, library, school, vancouver, whining

the studenty life

Today I gathered texts for assignments all day. Woo. Our management class has its first assignment due in a couple of weeks, and that requires a whole hell of a lot of books on management and economics and libraries to be annotated for a bibliography. Don’t you wish you were in library school?

Doing this kind of thing is much easier than I imagine it used to be when you couldn’t lie in bed with your laptop all day, reserving books from all over the area to be delivered to places conducive to being picked up, or just getting the documents loaded onto your computer. I did go out to the VPL to grab a stack of books. Just for the thrill of going to the library and hurting my shoulder by overloading my bag.

And I did laundry and bought groceries. Wee. Exciting. Aren’t you glad I’m writing about this?

So many of my classmates seem so much more busy than me. All with their multiple jobs and things. I’ve just got my classes and the assignments, which I might as well do now since maybe I’ll be getting a job at some point to cut into my schoolwork time. This term I don’t have any pressing reason to get my school stuff done early, but I’ve kind of gotten the habit started so it seems better to be working on that stuff than not. It’s basically procrastination from writing or thinking about the future to be working on homework.

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
Jan 04 2012
1 Comment
library, school, vancouver

cycling to school can now begin

I kind of wanted to bike to school today, but didn’t because I couldn’t find my red flashing light. There isn’t very much of me that wants to be riding around in the dark without something telling vehicles not to hit my fragile little body. Now I’ve got that sorted so tomorrow I shall set out to regain my fitness. Be prepared for a couple of weeks of me complaining mightily about this city’s stupid hills.

Classes began today and I think this Children’s Literature course will be good. And I know more people than I’d expected to be in the Management class. As it stands right now, since I have to take a course and a bit in the summer anyway, my data visualization class which starts tomorrow is a provisional class. It’d be some interesting stuff, but I’m interested in a bunch of the summer offerings so dropping it wouldn’t be too terrible.

Tagged , , , , , ,
Dec 23 2011
Leave a comment
food, library, movies, travel, vancouver, winnipeg

we haven’t watched miracle on 34th street yet

I’m in Virginia with Holly’s family for Xmas. We got into Dulles airport yesterday morning after taking the redeye from Seattle. Tim and Krista, Holly’s brother and sister-in-law, picked us up at the airport and drove us the couple of hours to Harrisonburg and Holly’s home.

Holly’s family (including parents Nancy and Harry, sister Amy) is really comfortable to hang around with. Everything’s real relaxed and Holly’s Virginia accent is strengthening by the moment. They have cows wandering the property. Yesterday after our (much-appreciated) naps we went up on a hike through the woods up the ridge behind their house. Out on the neighbours’ property they have a firing range set up for shooting at targets from a hundred to a couple of hundred metres away down a hollow.

Today we drove into town to run some errands and it’s kind of weird how spread out town is. It’s a bunch of scattered little settlement areas around hills from each other with farms in between. We went to visit Holly’s grandmother, got eggs from a dairy farm (I suppose there are also chickens around somewhere and these weren’t artificially-shelled cow ova), and got cinnamon buns at a place Holly might get a job. We also saw the town’s library, which was pretty decent, in a nice new building with friendly staff who recommended decent movies when they saw our stack of DVDs we were getting.

I think what I like best is seeing how happy Holly is to be home. I’m never this excited about being in Winnipeg. She’s enjoying the smells of her town and how beautiful the different drives out to her parents’ house are and running into people she hasn’t seen in a long while and being able to tell them she’s staying indefinitely.

The weirdest thing about being here is the lack of snow. It’s like 11 degrees Celsius and there’s no snow. I expected it to feel like fall in Vancouver, but this is a bit odd. The days are still pretty short though, so I don’t quite feel like I haven’t left Oz.

Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 237 other followers