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. 

Doing something right

Sunday:

Jasmine had her Year 10 Formal (end of year school dinner and dance) this week. She looked beautiful. I can't believe she is nearly 16! We had her hair professionally done and it looked amazing. (Very expensive though!) She and her friends took a limo to the function centre which was on a clifftop down the coast a bit. I think I've been to a wedding there. I took lots of photos at home of course, including of her spinning by the pool.

There was a vote at the Formal, and a few people were given "Miss Universe"-type sashes. One of Jasmine's friends was given "Best-Dressed". Jasmine was given one that says "Quiet but Crazy". 

At the moment I feel like I must be doing something right. In an exercise at a mental health seminar at school, Jasmine was supposed to write something she hated about herself on a piece of paper and then screw it up and throw it away to symbolise not letting those feelings have power over her or something. Anyway, she couldn't think of anything she hated about herself!

And Aiden brought an essay home in which he said he liked my cooking better than restaurants, and on Friday I suggested getting takeaway but he wanted me to make dinner at home. A fine compliment from a 13 year old boy!

Jasmine is coming to my workplace for a week of work experience next week. Hopefully that will be fun for both of us. I wrote up a program for her that had her mainly under my supervision but I was told to change it and share her around with other library staff. I'll mostly only work with her on preparing and presenting a storytime with the little kids. We often have work experience students, but mostly they are older and studying for library specific degree - like me last year. A lovely girl, Carlie, just finished her time with us yesterday. It was great of my boss to accept Jasmine, a Year 10 student. My old boss wouldn't, last semester, because she was worried if she had to discipline Jasmine I would get mad!

It will be my last week of work this year, and I don't know what is happening next year. Hopefully there will be more work for me when term starts. But there will be big upheavals in the structure of TAFE soon and no-one knows what is going to happen. I may be looking for work again. At least I have some real experience now to put on my resume, and more people to offer as referees.

Bushfires haven't threatened my home, but the air quality has been horrible from fires further north. Choking smoke and dust. Magnificent sunsets though.

It's the first day of summer today but we're going to have a fairly cool week. The weather is all over the place. Hopefully the firefighters can keep us all safe.

Catastrophic fire danger

Tuesday:

The kids' school and my workplace are closed today due to the risk of bushfires - I don't know if that has ever happened before. The library I work in is right next to a National Park. My colleagues are working at a different location but I stayed home to be with the children. We are on the highest risk rating, "catastrophic". The forecast is for 37C, which is not unusual for Australia, but also very windy and we've been in drought for a long time so everything is very dry. There are dozens of bushfires further up the coast and several people have died and many homes destroyed. I'm not really sure what makes today different and such a high risk for the Sydney area, when there are actually no fires nearby, but I assume the RFS know what they are talking about. Stay safe everyone.

A few days ago my boss came over to my desk and said she had bad news for me. I assumed it would be to say she couldn't accept my daughter for work experience in the library after all. But no, it was that they have received a new directive that they can't hire casuals (to replace permanent staff on leave) during the TAFE holidays. They only need one or two people in the library over the break so they have to use permanent staff. As I am casual - almost constantly employed full time so far - it means about 8 weeks with no work over December/January. I said that was fine, no problem. Inside I was jumping up and down in delight! I never wanted to work during the school holidays anyway, it's such a hassle to organise things for the kids, but I was agreeing to be obliging. I'm still making myself indispensable. I want to always be the first person they choose to hire! For example I'm doing most of the little kids' storytimes now even though I still find it scary, the usual person has been on leave or busy and no one else wants to do it. Anyway, so the "bad news" was really good news for me.

Update 7:30 pm: still no fires on this side of the river, but there is currently one in the National Park right next to my work. Possibly only couple of hundred meters away. Small but not yet under control. It’s around 10-15 mins drive away from home. Something to keep our eye on.

Milk

Saturday:

My weight is disappointingly up a little bit this week, 74.0kg. I blame the freezing rainy windy weather. I only got out for one walk all week. And I eat when I'm cooped up and bored. On the plus side, I am still sleeping well with no night sweats.

There are six women I work with over the two libraries, all friendly helpful people. But I'm having a slight problem with Stacey, who I was in the same library as for the first time this week. She is … too helpful? Or just doesn't listen? It started with the milk. I brought in milk to have in my tea, not knowing if there would be any there already. Stacey fussed because there was already milk in the work fridge that I could use, so I should take mine home again. But it turned out the choices were milk that was already several days past its 'best before' date (she made me sniff it and agree it still smelled ok); or her skim milk, when I prefer full cream milk, and it was right on it's 'best before' date anyway; or a frozen solid bottle defrosting on the sink that was mine from two weeks ago that someone put in the freezer - but I had no way of knowing if it had been frozen straight away or after it got old. So I wanted to keep my fresh new milk. She kept fussing and fussing about it, I should take it home so it wasn't wasted. I had plenty of milk at home, and this was a couple of dollars worth, and I didn't want any of the other three choices! My polite rebuttles were not heard.

The first day I conveniently 'forgot' to take it home with me. The next morning she started in again. Really? And she checked with me as I was leaving that I hadn't forgotten again. So I had a brainwave. I took the frozen/thawed milk of doubtful freshness home with me, and left the new one at work. And tipped the old one down the sink when I got home. And tipped the really old one down the sink at work. So we're down to two bottles at work, my fresh one and her out of date skim milk. She hasn't mentioned it again (yet).

The second incident was I had ordered a book I wanted to read from another library a couple of weeks ago, then I had a week off work. Stacey mentioned that it had come in while I was away. So she sent it back. What? She didn't keep it for me for a week, or (maybe not knowing when I was coming back) contact me to let me know it had arrived so I could come in and pick it up? She just … sent it back.

And finally, a very trivial incident on its own, she asked if I wanted some herbal tea she had just made. I said no thanks. So she gave me some. I guess I have to start being a lot more assertive.

But the milk thing was pretty funny.

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."

Hello new library

Saturday:

I started a post about two weeks ago but didn't get very far!

I've been in my new libraries for three weeks now. I've slotted in easily and I'm glad to be there. I'm working at two libraries, most of the staff rotate between the two, both are very close to my home so the short commute is great. The staff are lovely, which I knew from my work experience last year. Usually 2 people staffing the smaller library, 3 at the slightly larger. I've had two new sets of procedures to learn/remember. It's the same computer system as I'm used to, but just finding where things are kept (twice!) is a challenge. And some things are different in each place - like my old library stored some info on a Excel spreadsheet plus a card file, one of the new libraries has printouts in a folder, and one doesn't keep records of that particular information at all. My two current libraries have the same manager so why are they different? Arg! Anyway.

It already looks like I'll be getting more work than was originally offered, so that is great. Although I was kind of looking forward to some time off!

The work itself is fine, but I'm having a hard time nonetheless. My menopause symptoms continue (I haven't seen my gyno yet, don't know if she will be able to help) and I'm exhausted all the time. Tired and cold = hungry and my weight has leapt up to 77kg. Which I think has brought my sleep apnoea back. Which makes me more exhausted. Round and round we go. Most of my work clothes don't fit, or look horrible. So as of today I am back on Duromine. I just can't function like this, I am barely getting through the days. I know Duromine can disrupt sleep, as it did mine last time I tried it (before that it seemed to actually help me sleep) but we'll see. I know I'll lose weight and have more alertness and energy during the day. I'm walking every lunchtime and just started a Tai Chi DVD at home.

Sunday:

I was a bit wakeful during the night, but no night sweats! So that is a start. And the bathroom scales are showing a downward movement already.

Goodbye old library

Saturday:

So I turned 49 the other day, one year until 50. This year I am determined to focus on my health. Sleep. Exercise. More fruit and vegetables. Water. I have made a start on some of these things.

I had my last day at my old workplace yesterday. We shared a lunch and everyone seemed sad to see me go. It wasn't a bad job, and I liked the other staff. I have a week off now (it's school holidays, Tim stayed home with the kids the first week) then I start at my new workplace. Same job, different location. It's an improvement in every way - closer, higher pay, less busy etc - except that it has less job security.

I've been having a hard time the last few weeks. I've been in peri-menopause for years (it seems like I've been saying "at least five years" for a long time) and my main symptom is night sweats. At the moment it's nearly every night. I wake up all sweaty - and then get very cold because it's the middle of winter and being in damp pyjamas is no joke - and then I rarely get back to sleep. So I am utterly exhausted. Dragging myself through the days, going to bed before the kids at night. I'll be seeing my gyno but I couldn't get an appointment for another six weeks. I plan to take a lot of naps while I've got this time off, and also try some vitamin/herbal medicine.

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!

Hello again

Wednesday:

Hello again. I keep forgetting to post. Very busy with work plus all the other stuff that used to fill my days. Work at the library is going well. I have more experience so I don’t have to ask for help much, and I enjoy most of it - and the bits I don’t enjoy so much I still feel are contributing to the betterment of the world. Today I was sitting in the office (not at the circulation desk where we help people) and a student came to the door and handed me a little container of home made food and thanked me for taking lots of time to help her the other day. Wasn’t that lovely! It made me feel happy for the rest of the day, every time I thought of it. I’d already had lunch so I put it in the fridge to try tomorrow. I’m not sure what it is, something Middle Eastern. Kofta maybe.

I opened the library by myself today, coming in early and turning on all the systems and lights etc. Not difficult, but it’s a responsibility. I’d done it once before when Rita was sick, and I arrived 15 mins after we were supposed to open to find everything dark and patrons waiting at the door. I felt very flustered that day! This morning was much more relaxed. Another new responsibility is giving Library Orientation talks to class groups. That is stressful! I go through a PowerPoint of important info (how many books they can borrow, library fines etc) then show them around. I don’t know why they are only having Orientation now, at the very end of the term! I find public speaking nerve-racking, but I do ok.

I’ve been keeping an eye out for other jobs, just in case something really good came up. And I’ve been in contact with my boss from the library I did my work placement in, and she let me know of a job opportunity coming up there. Closer to home and better paid than this one. And they know and like me (and me them) so I feel like I have a good chance even though I don’t have a lot of experience yet. I was worried about telling my current boss (I had to ask her if she be a referee) considering she hired me only about six weeks ago, but she was lovely about it and even said if I got a short-term position they might be able to take me back afterwards. So I’m feeling very appreciated at the moment.

My weight has been stable, 71.8kg this week. I keep going on and off the Duromine (phentermine) because it is really disrupting my sleep this time around. But it does suppress my appetite, so after a few days off I try again.

Library Technician

Sunday:

I started my new job on Friday, my first paid position as a Library Technician. (Short history: I did a BA, then was a public servant for ten years, married and had two children and stayed home with them, did post-grad cert as an editor and did freelance work from home for a few years, then did Diploma in Library stuff which I finished last year.) Library Technicians do most things a Librarian does except the management and admin stuff. This job is essentially the same as I did for work experience last year, so I know the computer system and most of the procedures although of course every library is slightly different. There are four other staff in my office, and another new person is starting next week. They have been understaffed for ages waiting for this hiring freeze to end.

Everyone seemed nice and welcoming. I spent a lot of the day with my boss Angela who went through induction stuff (Work Health and Safety, computer systems etc) and got shown around bits of the campus at different times by all the others. It's the Library for a TAFE - tertiary education in things like child care studies, animal care, hairdressing, English for migrants, and High School equivalency. My job will be mainly helping students borrow and return books, use the computers and photocopiers, find stuff for research for assignments etc. Hopefully I'll get to catalogue new books. Apparently I'll be in charge of inter-library loans once I'm up to speed. Putting books back on the shelf. Creating book displays and helping plan and run library events.

 We have a tiny dingy tea room that we share with student services, not even on our floor of the building, useful fridge and microwave but not a pleasant place to eat so at lunchtime I went and sat in the shade in one of the courtyards. This is looking back at my building. There is a nicer bigger staff tea room in another building but you need a key and it wastes part of your break getting there and back.

I worked in the same suburb for my very first job many years ago, it is largely migrant from primarily Lebanese and Vietnamese origins - or it was back then. A lot of the female students I saw on Friday were wearing headscarves (Muslim?), and the three I helped find books about their home country for an assignment were from Lebanon, Yemen, and China. Quite culturally diverse, which is always interesting. Also the staff - of the five of us, my boss and I are of Anglo background (I am of English and Russian heritage), the others Russian, Polynesian and Chinese (I'm guessing by name, appearance and accent, I haven't had much time to get to know them yet.) No diversity in gender though! All women including the new Librarian starting next week.

I was so exhausted after my first day. My first full time work since I had kids. I'm glad I had the weekend to recover before heading into a full week.

High School

Thursday:

My baby started High School yesterday! I can't believe he is in Yr 7 already.

The rest of the school didn't go back until today (sports uniform on Thursdays).

Yesterday was Jasmine's birthday. There wasn't any movie we wanted to see so we decided to stay home. We watched some Glee (we're up to Season 4, we watched on TV when it was originally on but now we're enjoying it again) and did a craft project she gave me for Christmas, matching tote bags.

I avoided most treat food temptations - so many this week! - but did have one slice of French toast for breakfast and another small piece of ice cream cake in the afternoon. The Duromine is still working really well at the lowest dose to suppress appetite and cravings. I know I have had a few bits and pieces but honestly I've been surrounded by tempting unhealthy food and I've resisted most of it. I've lost all the recent extra weight and I'm back to the weight I was for my long plateau, I only got lower than this very briefly early last year. It's so good to be losing again, and I'm feeling mentally strong. It is Chinese New Year this weekend (my sister-in-law is Chinese) and I know there will be my favourite roast duck... very fatty but at least it's low carb! 

I spent part of the morning yesterday filling in forms. I may be getting some casual library tech work at a TAFE (tertiary education). While I was doing my work placement at a local TAFE library I met the boss of another cluster of libraries briefly. Turns out she needs a pool of temps to draw from, my supervisor recommended me, so she sent me the employment forms. It really is who you know. This group of TAFEs are about an hour's easy drive away on the highway, not through city traffic, and since Aiden is now leaving for school an hour earlier than he was I can be there from when the library opens until early afternoon and still be home for the kids. So hopefully some work does eventuate. 

Medieval faire

Tuesday:

On Sunday we went to a medieval faire; the whole extended family (Tim's side, obviously, my side of the family are into tennis and.... other sports maybe? Tim's side are into the whole fantasy thing.) We'd never been to one before, but it turned out to be a really big event. The parking stretched far enough away that they had a free shuttle bus to the gate.

I had the green renaissance dress I'd bought recently and a couple of others in the family dressed up, maybe a quarter of the people at the faire were in costume. Tim wasn't dressed up but he tried on chain mail armour there. Very heavy!

There were lots of stalls selling costumes, plastic swords and bows, real swords and bows, art and pottery; demonstrations of blacksmithing and other medieval crafts; and the main arena with knights in armour fighting with swords and pikes, people carrying eagles, madrigal singing, stuff like that.

I wish I could show you but out internet has been incredibly bad for about a week, don't know why, so I can't upload pictures. Or play games. Or just about anything else that takes much space. Need to investigate what is going on. [edit: managed to add photos]

My big regret is that we didn't see the jousting. It was kind of why I went in the first place! But we got there a little too late to see the morning session, and my family wanted to leave before the late afternoon session. Sad face. I didn't put up much resistance, we would have had to wait around more than an hour and we'd seen everything else already, the kids were getting bored and Jas and I had had a bit too much sun, but I wish I had. We would have stayed if they knew how much I wanted to.

My weight had been a bit down all week but on Monday was back up to 72.7kg, reflecting the big weekend.

I did my last volunteering session at Aiden's school library, unless this job falls through (don't know what is going on at the moment) I'll be starting there next term. And Aiden goes to High School next year.

Lots of books

Monday:

My weight wandered back up to 71.5 kg this morning. By the time I start at this job it will be the middle of spring, and I'm excited about buying more new work clothes, but I would love to lose a bit more weight before then. I really really need to get exercise consistently into my life - and keep it there even when I start work!

My tiredness of last week morphed into illness on the weekend. Headache and dizzy and backache and jelly legs. Sometimes I was nauseous and didn't eat much, other times I was bored with sitting around and ate too much. I'm feeling so much better today though. I made some lovely chicken soup for my lunch.

I'm back volunteering at my son's school library on Mondays. Last week the teacher librarian was there but as usual was teaching a couple of classes so we don't really get time to talk much. There was a lot to do and I was there most of the morning, when I tried to leave she asked me to help a little longer (which was fine). Today she wasn't there, another teacher who I don't know (maybe a sub) was running the class and only said hi and left me to it, but there wasn't much to do at all and I left after less than an hour (it's only supposed to be half an hour anyway). I realised when I got to the shops that I'd left my handbag stashed under the desk at the library (my car keys were in my pocket, and I often don't carry a bag, just essentials in pockets, so I didn't notice) and I had to go back for it. Luckily not too far.

Tuesday:

I went into the city today to buy some books. Doing the cataloguing revealed some gaps in our collection; sometimes we hadn’t finished buying a series but quite a few gaps were where people had borrowed books and not returned them. I asked around last week but none turned up so I decided to replace some favourites. I went to my two favourite bookshops; Galaxy which specialises in sci-fi and fantasy (12 books) and Dymocks which is more general, and has a three-story store in the city (5 books). Very heavy! When I got home, 2 more had arrived that I had ordered online secondhand! Now I don’t know what to read first - and I was already in the middle of three before I bought these new ones.

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.

Training

Friday:

I haven't been nearly so exhausted this week, I guess I'm used to working (part time). I manage to get some study done now when I get home instead of just needing a nap. My eating has been pretty terrible though. Because I only work until 2pm, I don't get a lunch break. I try to shovel some food in during my short tea break but it's tricky because I'm being trained by several people and my time isn't really my own. I have to remind whoever I'm with that I need a break and then if I don't hide, someone will say "Oh Natalie, I wanted to show you..." I often go outside but this week they've been burning off in the Blue Mountains (bushfire hazard reduction, controlled fires) and the smoke made my eyes burn so I had to go back in. I'm lucky if I manage to eat half an apple and make a cup of tea to carry around with me. So when I leave at 2pm I am ravenous and make bad choices. Like the KFC that is more-or-less on the way home.

These first two weeks of work the head librarian, my official supervisor, has been away on holidays. She's back on Monday. I've been working with the two other librarians. I have to impress someone new all over again!

Six weeks of study (and work placement) to go to finish my degree. I have six subjects and managed to finish the final assignment for one of them this afternoon. Five to go!

The weather has turned really cold. Fair enough, it's only about three weeks until winter.

Waist

Monday:

This morning I weighed 70.6 kg. A loss of 0.5 kg this week, my first loss in a while! I'm actually still up 0.2 from four weeks ago, BUT my waist is down to 91 cm which is a loss of 3 cm over that month. I knew I was skinnier!

I continued my work placement today. I really like everyone there. Monday is the quietest day so there was time to train me in some more things. I spent most of the weekend doing assignments, trying to keep on top of it all. Only seven weeks to go.

This coming weekend is very busy with my Poppa's 100th birthday, our 16th wedding anniversary, Mother's Day, and our annual Eurovision party! I had been hoping to get some more use out of my lovely newish summer dresses, but since cold weather has suddenly hit I'm going to need to go out shopping again for winter stuff. I need a pretty dress (at least one) for all these parties!

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!

Consultation

Wednesday:

My second day of work placement yesterday was similar to the first. Being trained in various library things with frequent interruptions from clients. BTW, as a library user how do you prefer to be labelled? Client, customer, patron, user, member? The internet wasn’t working on a random assortment library’s computers so we had a lot of queries about that, and the printer and photocopiers also had issues. I only experienced one student asking for help finding a book!

At home in the evening I checked my email. I got mildly annoyed at my uncle who wrote that I hadn’t responded to Poppa’s 100th birthday invitation (my records say I did, a month ago), and then got very annoyed at the TAFE staff member who is teaching most of my online courses - she pointed out that I hadn’t yet enrolled in the online unit for my work placement. Um... what online unit? I thought it was covered by the customer service, IT and team management units, which all include things I have to complete during placement. Apparently there is also a seperate unit. The things you miss when you are studying online instead of attending face to face classes. I totally blame this on her, I’m quite sure I was never told about it in my limited contacts with her. So I enrolled, read the content, found I was supposed to keeping an online journal (luckily I’d been keeping my own records) and had this big document to work through and get assessed by my TAFE supervisor (who comes out for a visit) and a checklist for my work supervisor, and there was even a list of things I was supposed to do before placement. I had a big rant to my husband about it all, but after venting I found it wasn’t too bad, I’m still in the first week of placement so not too far behind in the work. Hmm, my workload just got a bit heavier.

Today I had the first of two consultations with my teacher for a different class about my major research assignment - the only times I will go into TAFE this term. This teacher, Julie, is also the person who will come out to check on my placement (not the negligent one who does the online part) so I could talk to her about that as well. She was happy with how my research assignment is going and gave a few useful suggestions.

The librarian at work had suggested I do a children’s storytime session for my practical assessment for placement, but I wasn’t really that keen on it. While I’m sure I could do it successfully, interacting with a large group of young children isn’t why I want to be a Library Technician. It was kind of hard for me to speak up, I’m not really very assertive, so I was a bit waffly, but I did say I was more keen on cataloguing. The librarian was open to me doing that, so after discussing it with Julie today I’ve decided to do cataloguing as my assessable task. I may end up still having to do the storytime anyway, just not as my special assessment! One of the joys of library work is that there is a wide variety of tasks.

Work placement

Monday:

Today was my first day of work placement - 8 weeks of (part time) unpaid work in a library. I get work experience and also see a variety of incidents I need for my client service, IT, and team management parts of my course. I’m in a TAFE library for adult students of subjects including childcare, massage therapy and cookery. The cooking school is just opposite the library doors - it smelled great!

I really enjoyed my first day. It was interesting to meet some new people. There were two librarians, Lyn and Sue, both very nice middle-aged-ish ladies; and because other staff were on holidays or working elsewhere for unexplained reasons, there were two other people starting today. New to this library but not to libraries in general. Annie, very quiet girl, has been working in a public library for eight years and is helping out here for three weeks. Matthew, 27, the only one of the group much above 5 ft tall, usually works at a different TAFE library so knows the computer system and general practices.

I have my own desk (actually someone called Maya’s, but she’s away) but I didn’t really spend any time there today. Lyn showed the three newbies around the library, then Matthew showed Annie and I the computer system (how to check out and and return books, create new records etc) which he was very very thorough with. It was similar to the one we used in class, and the other one they have at Aiden’s school. They all have much the same functions, of course. Finally Librarian Sue showed me how to send out overdue notices, and the categories for children’s books (the adult childcare students use them) which lead to a discussion about where to shelve a jigsaw puzzle based on the book “The very hungry caterpillar” but that didn’t picture the metamorphosis which had led the original book to be shelved in”science”. For the record, I thought the puzzle should stay with the book even though it was actually teaching children to count.

None of this learning went on uninterrupted. The campus was very quiet first day back after the holidays with many classes not resumed yet, but there were still some students and a few teachers coming in for various things, often needing assistance. And the printer was broken. And the big screen that was supposed to display a loop of information pages just had an error message. And Sue got a call that her elderly mother had collapsed and she didn’t know whether to rush to hospital or not and she’d just missed a train. Always something going on.

I was excited to learn that they do a bit of basic cataloguing there, but also that most cataloguing for all the TAFE libraries is done centrally only about half an hour from my house. I had been despairing that the only cataloguing jobs I knew of were all the way over the other side of the city, nearly two hours travel away and therefore impossible. Learning that was the high point of my day. The worst bit was sitting so long perched on the high stool at the front desk, learning the computer system, with my legs dangling. Feet and bottom going numb. So uncomfortable to have legs hanging unsupported for so long. But otherwise it was a good day.

My weight this morning was 71.1 kg, same as last week.