My own little library

Friday:

Hello again! I haven't had much to report on the weight-loss front; I've gained a couple of kilograms over Easter and Mother's Day. I actually haven't weighed myself for a few weeks. In denial. No formal exercise, but I move around quite a lot at work and generally get close to 10,000 steps. I know I need to do more.

Work has been keeping me very busy. We just had Library Week which included hosting an Australia's Biggest Morning Tea event, raising money for cancer research, in two libraries over two days. 200 people in one and over 500 in the other! Spread out over about 2 hours each time, but still constant work preparing food and running back and forth from the kitchen keeping the plates and milk jugs filled, collecting donations, running games and quizzes, cleaning up afterwards. I've got today off because I was exhausted! Actually I asked for half a day, but then the shutter people called to say they could install our plantation shutters, so I got the whole day. Luxury.

Work is going really well. After finishing my Diploma last year, I started work in March this year at a TAFE (adult education) library. The three tiers of responsibility/prestige are Librarian at the top, Library Technician in the middle, then Library Assistant. I qualified as a Tech but was only able to find work as an Assistant at first. But one of my colleagues is currently on Long Service Leave so I stepped up into her job - finally being paid/treated at a Tech! The biggest difference is that two days a week I'm staffing a quiet little library all by myself (back at the old library the other days). I think this shows my boss has a lot of faith in me. I only had about three hours handover so trying to work out where everything is is a challenge! It's mostly the same systems as at my previous/main library but I have additional duties because I do everything. I love having my own little library, I feel like the boss (actually my real boss manages four libraries so I still answer to the same person), but it is quite lonely not having other staff to chat to. Of course I talk to the students a bit but it's not the same as having a chat to people you see every day.

First morning at my little library, before anyone comes in:

Full of people for Australia's Biggest Morning Tea, held all around the country to raise money for cancer research:

This TAFE teaches Horticulture and the students maintain the gardens so it is quite pretty, it's a pity I never get to go outside! Being there by myself means I'm always available, I have lunch and breaks in the office where I can see if anyone needs me - luckily there are plenty of quiet times.

My "dream job" is doing the same duties but back at the TAFE library where I did my work experience last year during my Diploma. It's closer to home and also includes some cataloguing, which is my absolute favourite part of being a library tech and they don't do it in-house at the cluster I currently work in. And guess what! I got in contact with the manager there, who of course I'd met when I did work placement, telling her how keen I was to work there, she said there might be some casual positions coming up and she'd let me know. She did, I had a formal interview (along with a lot of other people) a couple of weeks ago and got rated as suitable to be on the approved applicants list. When preparing for the interview I read about the importance of thanking your interviewer the next day, which seemed weird and uncomfortable to me, too pushy and obviously "pick me!", wasting their valuable time. But the day I got the approval I emailed to thank her for helping make the process so stress-free and how much I was looking forward to maybe working with her in the future. And the next day she offered me a position! I don't know if the thank you triggered that, but it certainly didn't hurt.

It's not a permanent job, but it's as a Library Tech in July/August while someone is away (by then I would have dropped back down to Assistant where I am), with more work probably coming up later in the year. My current boss previously indicated that she would try to backfill my position there with a casual so I could come back to it, but even if she can't I think it is worth the risk. A month at work, a month off, two weeks on, two weeks off, two months on, Christmas off.... sounds perfect!! Actually looking at the dates that have been suggested, I would be working most of term time and not during the school holidays which really is ideal for me. Of course there always the chance I would end up not getting much work next year but I'll risk it. Getting my foot wedged firmly in the door!

Excellence again

Monday:

The state final of Acrogym was on Saturday, and Jasmine and her partner Rebekah came 4th! Excellent result. Jasmine and Elise were 7th last year so that is a great improvement. Level one last year, level two this year, we're expecting her to definitely go up to three with that result. Nearly on the podium! The air conditioning in the gym was broken and it was 33C outside so it was a long hot afternoon, worse down on the floor for the acrobats in their long-sleeve leotards. I think quite a few of the kids were struggling due to that. Jasmine's partner made a few mistakes. Still a great result.

Today Aiden's school had its Excellence Awards, he won in Mathematics for his class as he did last year but also received a special science award (only two for the school) with a lovely medallion from the nearby nuclear science research facility. My father-in-law used to work there, and is not allowed to talk about it. We're so proud of Aiden! Only a few more weeks of Primary School. Jasmine is also getting excellent results in her school work.

My weight is currently 74.5kg. I've started the CSIRO low carb diet, but fruit is so gorgeous this time of year I'm not being as low carb as I'm supposed to.

I'm getting to the gym two or three times a week, not too bad but I should go more. On the other hand, it's keeping me out of the garden as morning gym class time is the best time to be out working in the garden - it gets too hot later - and the gym doesn't have lunchtime classes. The garden is suffering from a bit of neglect, everything is growing crazily and needs attention.

I haven't heard anything from that TAFE library job but I have an interview in a week for a position at a public library on Saturdays, which mostly suits me ok as Tim is home with the kids. Of course it would interfere with various things, but I need to get some experience on paper so I can get a proper job. It's in the city in a well-to-do area near the harbour, pictures on the library on the internet look lovely. Travel would be over an hour each way, but at least it is near a train station. Only one day a week advertised, but you never know what it could become.

Library Thing

Monday:

This morning my weight was 71.7 kg, up more than a kg from last week, but I think this is a false high due to a salty meal at a restaurant on Saturday night. I was around 71.1 kg most of the week, so I'm back up to my plateau weight. I'm not feeling any real urgency about losing weight. I have a lot of nice clothes that look good and I feel quite healthy. But nevertheless I would be healthier another 10 kg or more lighter, so I'll be a bit more focussed.

I'm working on another job application. The last one (that I haven't heard back from yet, and actually I don't want the current job as it's too far away and full time but hopefully I will be on the Order of Merit for future part-time/closer positions with that employer) wasn't too stressful because I wasn't desperate to get it, although of course I did want to impress. But this current one could hardly be more my "perfect job" if I wrote the description myself. Close to home, part time, my favourite duties - cataloguing. I really really want it! I fulfil the "essential" requirements but not the "desired" - like 3 years experience! So my application needs to be enticing to even get an interview. Then I have to convince them in person that recent classroom training is as good as workplace experience. I did get 99.6% in the relevant subject!

I've also been playing with a website/app called Library Thing. It keeps a record of all the books you own (you can scan in the barcodes) and it downloads information like title/author, reviews from the web, and cover art; it's a social platform so you can interact with other people who have similar book collections. It can be as simple or librarian-level complex (like Dewey Decimal numbers) as you like. You can record your own tags, ratings, reviews, put books on your waiting list to read, record when you finished reading it, all sorts of things. You can even set up a mini library site to record people borrowing your books! I need that, we never get ours back from family. I've been scanning our collection in, I'm up to over 1000 books which is probably about two thirds of what we own. Some older books don't have barcodes or even ISBNs so they take longer to type in, and then of course adding ratings and reviews takes much longer when I get to that. Plenty to keep me busy.

I've been sorting and weeding/culling (and dusting) as I go so the bookshelves I have finished look lovely. We have quite a few rows doubled up - books in front of other books - so we've decided nine big bookcases (plus little ones in the kids' rooms) isn't enough. Most are in what other people would use as a dining room. I think we can squeeze two more in the lounge room.

My sister-in-law was here for dinner last night, we were wearing the same pants and I realised I owned an almost-identical jumper so I went and put it on - and my Ugg boots. Twins!

Smooth interview

Thursday:

I had my interview today. It went really well, and they gave me very positive feedback. I was poised, confident, and had lots to say about every question. The actual job coming up in September doesn't really suit me: it is at the furthest location of the cluster of libraries and it's full-time with a compulsory evening shift one day a week. But they are creating an order of merit list for future positions and the interviewer who manages one of the closest libraries said they'll have some soon and thought they could be more accommodating with part time hours there. So something may come up. I also mentioned that I will be more flexible from next February, for instance being able to start earlier, because both my children will be at the same school instead of my son starting an hour later than my daughter.

The campus they interviewed at (not where either of the jobs will be) was lovely, lots of green space and the library was so warm and cosy!

Someone I knew from TAFE was there for the interview slot after me, she graduated at the end of last year and this is the first time she's been offered an interview in six months. I hope that doesn't reflect a lack of jobs. I haven't seen many since I started looking. She was very nervous about the interview. I thought she was doing well in class, so there might be fierce competition for positions.

Emails

Wednesday:

I called the interview people yesterday about how the date I'd been told over the phone wasn't the same as the date on the follow-up email. I was told 'yes we changed it'.  Excuse me?? Of course I just said ok, but that seems a really shoddy way of doing things. I agreed to a time and date and then they changed it without asking, or even highlighting the fact it was changed. The email didn't say it had been changed, it just mentioned the date along with all the info like what I needed to bring. Luckily I read it carefully and didn't rely on what I'd been told. And I was able to change my work experience days this week to accommodate the interview. They sent exactly the same email again to me today. Maybe they got a lot of queries! I go to my interview tomorrow feeling slightly reserved about their organisational and communication skills.

Today I sent (or tried to send) a document from my work email to my home email. It was blocked due to "banned words". I'll have to read it carefully to find out what naughty words are in a cataloguing manual!

My supervisor at work filled in her part of my final assessment today (my teacher visits on Monday to watch me work and will fill out the other half) and emailed it to me tonight and it was lovely. Everything ticked at the highest level and very nice comments. I've really enjoyed working there and everyone has been great. My husband jokes that they get free work from students, but actually they spend far more time teaching me than they get in return. They have all been so generous with their time. A box of chocolates seems a bit ordinary as a thank you gift, maybe a plant for the office? I'm a bit worried it will die in the freezing conditions in there!

We have a lot of little children in the family (five, at the moment) and we tend to host the big events like Christmas so even our big extendable table is getting crowded. So I ordered a kids' table and chairs online and it came today. My kids and I put it together this afternoon. I've ordered an extra chair which hasn't come yet. I'm a bit worried that all the chairs are different colours - what if they all want to sit in the same one! But the set is sturdy and attractive.

Happy Birthday Your Majesty

Monday:

It is a public holiday here today to celebrate the Queen's Birthday. As far as I know, no one actually does anything remotely to do with Her Majesty's birthday. It's just a day off.

My weight is back up to 71.4 kg, where it was two weeks ago. I lost and then regained nearly 2 kg over the past two weeks. I've been eating really badly this past week. Stress, cold weather, no vitamin D from sunlight, no exercise, getting over the flu, I don't know. I've been feeling a bit sad too. Yesterday was like having PMS, except it was the wrong time of the month. I started the day by crying over a couple of news articles (a father with mental health issues killed his son, and a tourist lost for five days in the bush was found unharmed). And I continued crying on and off for no particular reason throughout the morning. While trying to hide the fact from the kids.

We had people over as usual for Sunday afternoon and dinner. It sucked. They were supposed to come at 4pm for board games, but they dribbled in between 4 and 7, and some had to leave again before dinner, or leave and come back later, so we never really got any games going. Just sat around waiting for people, or starting games which were interrupted by people having to go. Then the five year old cried all through dinner because the four year old sat in the only pink chair. Which shouldn't have been at the dinner table in the first place, and got milk spilled all over it and it is fabric and will probably start to stink pretty soon. If we had any sunlight I'd wash it and leave it out to dry but as it is it would just go mouldy. It probably will anyway. Mouldy and stinky. I was not having a happy day.

Today was much better. No rain, so we got out for a walk in the morning and a bit of slightly damp gardening in the afternoon. A hint of sunlight was worth the itchy reaction I seem to have developed to one particular plant.

I'm having a (hopefully minor) drama about the job interview; when they called I'm sure they said Wednesday the 13th and I wrote all the details down and confirmed the date at the end. I was thinking it was particularly convenient because I don't work that day. But they sent a follow-up email saying it was on Thursday the 14th! Now I'm not sure which is right. And it was too late to call when I saw it, and it's a long weekend. I'll call tomorrow morning. It shouldn't be a problem if I have to swap my work day, but it makes me look incompetent if I got the day wrong and have to check (less incompetent if their email is wrong!)

Oh well, I'll sort it out. Here's hoping for a better week.

Interview!

Friday:

Aiden’s home sick from school today. He’s finally succumbed to the flu that the rest of us have already had. That makes a total of eight days we’ve taken off work and school between us. I don’t work on Fridays so I didn’t have to stress about missing another day.

I all in a tizzy this afternoon as I got a call to go for a job interview next week. Very exciting. It’s exactly the same position as I’m doing for my work experience, but in a different location. Still a TAFE library, so it should use the same computer system and more or less the same procedures. Every workplace is a little different of course. They are offering part time, and it’s about half an hour drive away. Pretty ideal. My main concern is they’ll probably want someone who can work evenings which - with two youngish children - I don’t want to do. I don’t like leaving them alone at night, and they have a lot of after school activities they would have to drop out of. I already missed out on one job because of that. I need to work out before the interview what lengths I’m prepared to go to to get the job.

Interviews are scary - so easy to get flustered and have a mental blank when you need to answer a simple question!

Interview at the library

Thursday:

I had my interview today. It was barely an interview really, more a ten minute chat. She mentioned a couple of points on my resume (You worked for Centrelink for ten years, so your customer service should be fine) and told me about the job (four hour shifts mainly returning books to shelves, told me wages etc). What they are looking for is someone who can work weekends and evenings  - the head library is open every weekday until 9. I can do weekends and I offered one evening (which was a compromise for me because evenings aren't really convenient for me). I don't know if that will be enough, she said evenings were important. I suppose it depends what other applicants can do. She said she will be letting people know tomorrow.

It's not a challenging position but it would be a foot in the door. It's in a good location for me and decent money considering the level of difficulty. But on the other hand I'm not prepared to completely neglect my family for a casual job.

I saw my doctor in the afternoon and got another prescription for Duromine. I told her that the past two weeks it hadn't seemed to have any effect any more, and she supported my suggestion that I wait a few days before restarting, but she said a 10-14 day gap was needed rather than the shorter gap I'd planned (it's already been 3 days). So I'll try that. I certainly haven't experienced any withdrawal symptoms or cravings for it or anything like that. I've been eating more, and making worse food choices, but that slide happened well before I ran out of pills. I need to keep a rein on myself, I'm ok with maintaining for a couple more weeks but I don't want to regain all I've lost! And I need to start some other kind of exercise now the bulk of the hard work in the garden is done - pottering around and watering like I'm doing now isn't the same as hours of digging and carrying rocks.

Interview

Saturday:

Well, that was unexpected.

You may remember a while ago I applied for part-time work at my local group of libraries, I didn't even get an interview and I thought that was fair enough as I wasn't even half-way through my degree and they said they had lots of more qualified people applying. And I was disappointed but not devastated, and got over it.

Well this afternoon I'd just gone out into the garden to start planting all the things we bought yesterday, when my phone rang. And it was a librarian asking if I'd like to come in and talk to her about doing some casual work! Of course I said yes and we set up a time Thursday next week. I suppose it is an interview, although it sounded more like an offer. Oh my goodness, how long has it been since I'd done anything like a job interview? More than 20 years?! Suddenly I am very grateful for those two face-to-face exams I had to do last week! Very good practice in answering questions confidently on the spot.

But what do I wear!???

And how much am I willing to compromise on working at times inconvenient to me (like when I should be driving my children to activities)?

I'm sure the work itself will be very basic - putting books back on shelves, manning (womaning) the front desk etc. But it would be such good experience working in a real library, and wonderful for my future resume.

Time management would become a lot harder. Start juggling!

But really - what am I going to wear?