Work experience

Tuesday:

Jasmine came to my library to do her work experience last week. It was great having her there. The other staff showed her various things but she also spent a lot of time with me on a couple of major projects. I think she enjoyed her week.

One of the things we worked on was preparing for a storytime. Jasmine helped choose the books and music, helped prepare the craft activity (cardboard Christmas-tree ornaments) and we made musical instruments out of rice in balloons so the kids could shake along to "Jingle Bells". At the end of the session the children presented me with a huge card that they had all drawn on and told what they liked best about coming to the library. How lovely! Of course it was not just for me, Lyn has done most of the storytimes until the last few, and everyone helps when needed, so I left the card in the tea room but took photos for myself. (This is one of several pages.)

It was my last week at the library for the year. I'm a casual, so I don't know yet what is happening next year, neither do they. I brought all my stuff home, and they gave me a poinsettia (flowering pot plant) to thank me for my help this semester - it felt a bit too much like a farewell! But I hope I'll be back next year, whenever someone takes a holiday. There is going to be a bit upheaval in the department that owns the libraries next year, so even permanent staff don't know what will happen.

We put up our Christmas tree, and I've done a tiny bit of Christmas shopping. Still a lot to do!

Aiden suddenly looks like a teenager instead of a little boy. He has shot up, his feet are bigger than mine, he seems to be growing a moustache, and his voice is breaking. I'm not sure what his school report card will look like this year, he is smart and does well in class but doesn't do much homework or complete assignments if they have to be done at home - too addicted to computer games - and I'm not home to make him. We'll all have to make more of an effort next year to get him studying, and away from the screens. Jasmine has had advance notice that she got seven As and four Bs, (while doing dance, band, and competitive acrobatic gymnastics before and after school!) she doesn't know it but she'll be getting an award on Presentation Day next week. 

My weight remains stable, around 73-74kg. I've stretched out my script for Duromine (phentermine) by going on and off it. It only supresses my appetite strongly if I take a break, then it works for a couple of weeks. I have a few left but stopped taking it five days ago. I've been so tired that I've been having a couple of naps every day since I stopped work. As far as the internet can tell me, phentermine not addictive and has no withdrawal symptoms (unless you really abuse it with high doses and inject it or something), I used to be this tired sometimes before ever starting phentermine so I think taking it was masking my sleep apnoea issues. Also I have in the past had pernicious anaemia because although I eat plenty of red meat etc I don't absorb vitamin B12 very well. I couldn't find the B12 brand I had been taking and I think the alternative I found didn't work so well, I had some odd symptoms (tingling feet, mouth ulcers, muscle weakness, the exhaustion) and found that they can all be attributed to the low B12. Without B12 you can't produce healthy red blood cells. So I'm back on the "good" pills that you dissolve under your tongue instead of swallowing and I'll see if I improve within a few more days or it's back to the doctor. 

It's working

Saturday:

After one week on Duromine (phentermine) I am down to 74.3kg, a loss of 2.7kg in the first week! Awesome! I know half of that is water weight, but who cares? The first week is so motivating. My clothes already fit better and my stomach is less bloated. No cravings for junk food, and although I get hungry at mealtimes I'm satisfied with less, and I can wait for the meal instead of having a snack to tide me over. Hunger seems less life-or-death when it is not paired with cravings.

Perhaps best of all is I've had a whole week with no night sweats! I don't know why Duromine has that effect for me, but it nearly always does. I have some other sleep issues but I'm getting so much more sleep than I was, I feel normal again - tired at the end of the day instead of exhausted all the time. A human again instead of a zombie.

We saw an echidna last week on a family walk to the local shops, in a tiny pocket of bushland beside the road. I've never seen one in the wild before, not for certain. It's a prickly creature like a hedgehog or porcupine. It and the platypus are the only two mammals in the world that lay eggs. It was bigger than I expected. You really do see kangaroos all the time in Australia, in Canberra I've seen them on the school oval or literally hopping down the street, but echidnas, koalas and platypus are much more elusive.

I've finished this block of work at the library, the original plan was that I have four weeks off before they need me again, but they may actually need me earlier. Either way is fine, as long as I get this week off! I need a haircut, and I've got a tradesman coming to fix our dodgy lights, and a few other things lined up. It's hard to get everything done when you're working.

I ran storytime at the library last week. Although it is an adult education institution, we teach childcare (so why don't the students do it?) and there is a childcare centre next door. They come over once a week. Lynn usually does the storytime but was needed elsewhere, Maya refuses to do it, so they asked me. I was really nervous when I ran it once last year as part of my work experience but I was fine this time. They are just kids - 23 of them! 3-4 year-olds.

I chose a theme and read them "You can't take an elephant on the bus" to which I added lots of little comments (did you know a blue whale's tongue is a big as an elephant?), got them up to dance to "Going to the zoo" then another story "Too many elephants in this house." Then we coloured in - guess what!? - a picture of an elephant that could be turned into a mask. It all went very well. And I got a comment from a bystander on how nice my singing voice is, which was lovely of them. 

Sickness has struck the house again. Jasmine was home the last three days, luckily she is mostly better as she has the State Final Acrogym competition this afternoon! Tim came home early Thursday and is still feeling awful. I stayed home yesterday (so I'll have to go to the library next week to hand in my keys and pick up my stuff) but wasn't as bad as them, and I'm fine today. Aiden seems to have dodged it so far.

I saw this tip on English spelling at work and it made me laugh:
"i before e - except when your foreign neighbour Keith received eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters. Weird."

Library Week

Thursday:

I stayed home from work on Tuesday because Jasmine was sick. I didn’t feel great either. Obviously we’d caught whatever Tim had, he was home Monday. I was supposed to be setting up for my Storytime, but I sent an email and the others did it for me. Luckily everything was ready and organised and all in one place. Well, not “luckily”, of course, I made sure it was ready!

On Wednesday Jasmine was still sick and I felt worse than the day before. I lay in bed for quite a long time going back and forth in my mind. Do I go into work, feel awful, maybe infect 20 children with whatever I’ve got? Do I stay home, feel guilty about making someone else do the activity unprepared, maybe have my future referees think I’m unreliable? Eventually I dragged myself off to work. Tim stayed home with Jasmine.

I was glad I went in, in the end. I met the two staff who’d rotated in from the other branch of the library, they seemed nice. They’d set everything up for me. The National Simultaneous Storytime went smoothly and I didn’t feel too sick. I got the children’s attention with a game where we made our arms into clock time shapes while I moved the arms on my poster clock. Then I read the story - along with hundreds of other librarians around the country! - and then got the kids to colour in pictures from the story to make into finger puppets. Another small group of children came in, late for some reason, so I read the story again. It takes a bit of practice holding a book so an audience can see the pictures, and reading it more or less upside down!

I was kept busy the rest of my shift writing up the event for the website, and preparing for Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea (a fundraising event for the Cancer Council) which was the next day. I was feeling ok and stopped to do some quick shopping on the way home as I hadn’t gone out the day before and we were out of food. But as I was finishing that I started to feel really sick. I got myself home and was glad Tim was there to make me some tea and look after me. I had an early night. It was a big day for me! Jasmine seemed a lot better.

But today Jasmine was still sick. I decided to send her to school but she called me halfway there and got off the bus and I went and picked her up. I decided to leave her home alone while I went to work. She’s 14 and not so sick she needed constant attention so no big deal, but it’s the longest I’ve ever left her home by herself. I still didn’t feel completely well but it was another important day.

It’s such a quiet library usually but it was very crowded today! The hospitality students donated cakes and slices, we bought biscuits and tea and coffee, and it seemed like most of the students and staff of the TAFE came in during the morning. We had some quizzes and guessing comps, plus there was all the usual students needing help with borrowing and printing etc. It was fun. But it was nice to do some quiet cataloguing in the afternoon.

Next week I’m changing to the other branch of the library, which means I’ll be back with the librarians I know. Half my work placement time is over. With Library Week over, there will more time for normal library stuff.

I put in a job application last week for a job basically identical to what I’m doing now, in a different library but still quite close to home, they’ve acknowledged receiving it and said they’ll let me know when they are doing interviews. Does that mean I’ll be getting an interview?

Sharp

Thursday:

Another week of work placement finished, mostly spend on getting ready for Library Week next week - biggest week of the year! I've been part of the preparations for "Blind Date with a Book", creating a quiz, a lolly jar where you guess how many are in it, making a slideshow, Australia's Biggest Morning Tea, and of course the National Simultaneous Storytime reading and activities which I am pretty much doing by myself.

Even more "by myself" than I had realised. Out of the four people I have been working with at the library, zero will actually be there on that morning! Working the late shift that day, or in the other library branch or whatever. All away. I have no idea if the head librarian will be there or not - she wasn't in today - I've barely met her. I guess the other two staff I haven't met yet will be rotating into my library next week. I'm a bit nervous about the whole thing (reading to 20 children and leading them in a couple of activities, with the help of some childcare workers) and it would have been nice to have moral support from someone I've actually met!

Here's a couple of pictures of me dressed for work. Looking sharp.

And here is the clock poster I made to do a warmup activity with the kids (I'm going to get them to put their arms in the shape of the movable clock arms). The cat and mouse are printed from the cover of the book I'm reading "Hickory Dickory Dash" but the rest is my own work: I drew it, brought it home and painted it. Considering I have zero artistic ability, I'm pretty proud of it.

Suddenly winter

Sunday:

We had a very long hot summer, about one week of autumn, and now suddenly it’s winter. Only 10C when I got up this morning. Sydney doesn’t really get a lot colder than that!

I saw my doctor on Friday and she gave me a new script for two more months of Duromine. I didn’t lose any weight in the past month (I blame Easter!) but I already dropped half a kg in the past couple of days and I’m at a new low, but I’ll wait until official Monday morning to report. Even without that loss, though, I’ve been mostly feeling a bit thinner. My new skinny clothes fit better. My rings and watch are looser. I’m happier with photos. So maybe my shape changed a bit while my weight stayed the same. Nothing wrong with a bit of consolidation.

Very unusually for me, I had high blood pressure. The doctor checked it several times at the start and the end of my appointment because we both thought it might be a momentary aberration. If anything, my blood pressure is usually a bit low. But it was high each time, something like 140/100. I’m assuming it’s stress from work placement (just because it’s new and tiring, it’s not particularly stressful in itself) and I’m to revisit the doctor in a couple of weeks.

I didn’t mention it to the doctor (I will next time) but I’ve been having some pelvic pain on and off the past few months and it’s been quite bad since Thursday, especially at night. Lying down has always made it worse. I had fibroids removed from my uterus a year and a half ago - grape sized non-cancerous growths that are really common but don’t bother most people, it depends where they are - I know they couldn’t remove them all because of where they were. I think either the remaining ones have got bigger or more have grown. I’m not keen on having an operation every year, or a hysterectomy, and since those seem to be the only options my plan is to do nothing for the moment. I know the doctor will send me for another ultrasound and I hate them so much. Having to drink a lot of water and holding it for two hours is torture. There will be tears. And sneaky visits to the toilet when the pain gets too bad.

I’ve decided to fully embrace this National Simultaneous Storytime thing even if it’s not my assessment task (still trying for cataloguing) and I am full of plans. A giant clock poster (the book is a sequel to the Hickory Dickory Dock rhyme, with mother mouse looking for her baby who ran up the clock) and warming up the children by copying the clock and making clock time shapes with our arms, a colour-in and make your own mouse finger puppet activity after I read the story, and morning tea. If I’m going to do something I want to do it well and wholeheartedly.

Speaking of which, my friend Cathy from TAFE finished last year as she was studying full time and just had her graduation ceremony, and received an unexpected award for excellence. Congrats to Cathy! I didn’t even know there was an award, but now I want one! I know I’ve done well in all my classes, first or equal first in the ones you get told the marks for (but most you just get told “satisfactory”, which sucks), but a couple of subjects I know I wasn’t perfect. And Lauren already got that internship I wanted grrr.... I don’t know if there is only one award for best. When I did my Grad Cert in Editing I got the Dean’s Award for Excllence, that was for anyone with a Disctinction average I think so there wasn’t just one available. Feeling competitive!