February 28, 2017

 I forgot to mention a funny story from yesterday. An old man came by the desk and he had a big bruise across half of his face. The cataloger was at the desk talking to us about a book and the old man knew her so he stopped. She commented on his face and wanted to know if he was okay. He said he was, that he was just auditioning for Phantom of the Opera. It was pretty funny. He then said that he had been walking down the street, watching a cop give someone a ticket, when he tripped over a root and fell down, hitting his head. He said it much of been karma for minding someone else's businees. Another good line.

Today at work I did things. This morning I started making a list of non-fiction books for my green books display. Sadly there were only a few Ireland books that had a green cover. But there are plenty of books in our collection with green covers, so I should be good even if the display does well. Later on in the day I was able to pull books and it made me so happy be walk around with stacks of green books. My cart looks so good right now, stuffed with green books. And I'm really looking forward to seeing the card catalog when I get my display set up.

I struggled to renew my membership to KLA today. Their website is awful. It took me forever to get my email and password combination. I ended up figuring it out by trying multiple times to reset my password. This involved them emailing me but they only send the email to the primary email on the account. Turns out I have at least two, possibly three secondary emails on the account, because it kept telling me the email address I had typed in was associated with an account but not the primary address on the account. I eventually figured out that I had used my old school district email to register last time. Who knows what I was thinking. Once I had the email address logging in was easy enough. But I couldn't change my email address because I couldn't figure out how to get to my profile. It felt like no matter what I clicked on I ended up in the middle of nowhere on their website. It was frustrating.

I then registered for the conference that I'm presenting at with my former practicum supervisor, which is the whole reason I fell down the rabbit hole of trying to renew my KLA membership. I ended up paying about fifteen dollars less for registration because of my KLA membership. Hooray. It only cost me sixty dollars to save fifteen dollars.

I made a tentative layout for how I want my tutorial to look. I made the image using Canva and then managed to turn it into a ten second video using VLC and uploaded it to YouTube. I was then able to play with annotations and I think they will allow me to do what I want with the table of contents and directional arrows. I also briefly looked into creating a subtitle file to upload with my video. I think there is potential there.

I updated the webpage for the class today. I got rid of the registration button, added in the survey button, and added in the resources for the class. I don't know how often the pages get used but I'm glad they are an option.

When I was on desk this afternoon I typed up a list of books for my display. This morning I just wrote the books down on several small scraps of paper but I wanted a more permanent document. And something that was easier to read than my handwriting. I was also able to update the attendance and feedback information for the class when it was over. They had eleven people show up, which is not bad considering the cap for the class was fourteen.

And we'll say that was my day because it is all that I wrote down throughout the day, and all that is coming to mind at the moment.

When I got home I roasted vegetables and made rice. It's been too long. It's easily my favorite meal that I have made, and it turned out really good tonight. I'm looking forward to eating the leftovers.

I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos and clicking around the internet. I am really tired and I kind of feel like crap. My throat hurts and I have the faintest hint of chills. My throat started hurting yesterday and I hope I wake up tomorrow feeling better, not worse. I can't really afford to get sick at the moment. Especially because I need to record my tutorial. Fingers crossed for a miraculous recovery tomorrow morning.

It is just after ten o'clock right now and I'm going to record my audio journal so hopefully I can get to bed by eleven. I would have liked to go to bed even earlier but I've been moving a bit slower. Which is saying something.

February 27, 2017

 I didn't take notes today. I thought about it once but nothing came of it. Luckily, it wasn't a very exciting day.

I watched and took notes on the first lecture for the week. The main goal for this week is to actually make the tutorial because next week we are going to do the peer review thing. Good grief. I came up with a lot of ideas for what I want to do but I don't really have it all put together yet. The ideas are a bit scattered. I'm thinking I can make a table of contents for the tutorial and skipping between “chapters” by using annotations in a YouTube video. I also think I can make a quiz because I've taken quizzes in YouTube videos before. I need to play around with how accurately I can make the annotation outlines on videos, because I've never messed around with them before, and I need to see if I can create “buttons” on my video that are then surrounded by the annotation link so that people can click the button. There are lots of possibilities and I don't have a lot of time. I think it will help having the experience of making a tutorial in one of my last grad school classes, but that was a pain in the butt and I've tried to forget it. I imagine the hardest and most time-consuming part will be the subtitles, because that was the hardest and most time-consuming part of my last tutorial. Those will be saved for last and if I can't get to them I'll just say they are forthcoming. The instructors said a rough draft or work-in-progress is okay, so I might take them up on that.

I was reminded that this is a short month and that displays switch over on Wednesday, so I made a sign for my display. A month or two ago one of the other librarians did a display that only had books with blue covers. We decided it would be a cool idea to do the same thing for March with green books, and because I like green, I was elected to make the display. It took a little while to figure out my background image but then I found a really good picture of clovers and it was perfect. The green is just right and it makes sense with the month. And I think I've got my title: “Feeling Lucky?” And a subtitle: “Well Do You?” I'm afraid people might take the title literally and expect the display to be more about luck or something. But I am hoping they will catch on to all of the books having green covers. Although it would also be a fitting title for a display filled with books wrapped in paper so you couldn't see what they were about. I may bend the rules a little bit to include books about Ireland and Saint Patrick, even if they don't have primarily green covers.

I was on desk for two hours this afternoon and did all the reference things. I helped patrons in person, over the phone, in chat, and through email. And when I wasn't helping people I caught up on chat stats for the month. I hadn't updated my table since the eighth, which left a lot of chats not added to the table. I'm glad I got assigned all the stats stuff mostly for the chat stat thing because it is interesting and informative to look through all of the chats that we have. Most of them I only skim but frequently there are ones that are pretty good, either because it is something I wouldn't know for sure how to answer or because it's just an interesting exchange. I almost think it should be required reading for everyone in the department.

One of the IT guys stopped by when I was on desk to tell me he had read through my email and that the other IT person was incorporating it into the training she was making, which she was almost finished with. This was news to me but I didn't point that out. It was my understanding that I was going to be doing the training because the other IT person has been saying for years that it wasn't part of her job every time someone asked her about it. We'll see what my boss has to say about it when she's back at work tomorrow. If the idea of me training people on IT-related things was enough to spur a little motivation in the IT staff to do what should be their job, and it saves me that extra work, I'm cool with it. I am a little annoyed by the lack of communication on their part. My first thought is that they were avoiding it so they could get the training started and almost finished so they could keep me out of it. Office politics are an interesting thing. I have not really had to deal with it since the movie theater when the occasional manager would go on a power trip. There really needs to be a required interpersonal class for IT people in general. That field seems to attract people who are lacking interpersonal skills, but so often that type of work involves interacting with people, and so often they fall short. My social skills are definitely not great but I can usually fake it when it comes to the workplace.

My shock mount for my microphone came today. It was missing the screw adapter but thankfully I was able to take one out of the microphone clip that came with the arm I got recently. Unfortunately, the shock mount makes absolutely no difference in the sound being transferred to the microphone when I hit the table or use my keyboard. I can't say I'm surprised for the price I paid for it but I'm still a little disappointed. Life goes on.

I spent my night watching YouTube videos and researching possible art prints that I want to buy. I found two that I want to get but I've been spending too much money recently so I'm going to hold off. It also didn't help that my gas bill was almost $100 this month. That was almost twice my bill from last month. I'm wondering if it is my increased use of the stove for cooking. We'll have to see if I stay consistent with the cooking next month and if the bill stays high.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I'm not doing great about getting to bed at a decent time. I need to work on that.

February 26, 2017

 This morning I woke up two minutes before my alarm went off but I was convinced I had set it for 9:00PM, not 9:00AM. And then my alarm went off, so it turns out I did set it for 9:00AM.

Shockingly, I managed to finish all of my class stuff this morning. I don't think I included everything in my script that I originally intended to, but I can adjust it later. Everything else should be good.

For lunch I made pancakes and eggs. I tried buttermilk pancakes for the first time and they turned out well. I ate way too many, though. I cut the recipe in half but that still left two servings, which turned out to be too much. But they were tasty. As were the eggs, which were delicious as always. I was originally going to try the Betty Crocker scone recipe but it required more butter than I currently have. I meant to buy butter when I went to Target yesterday, but I did not. Oh well.

This afternoon I cleaned my desk and watched movies. I was apparently in the mood for not-great movies because I watched Year One and Your Highness. Year One was worse than I remembered but I still enjoyed both movies. I'm not really a harsh critic and I appreciate decent writing and stupid humor. Tonight I watched Knowing with Nicolas Cage. Along the same lines as what I have just said, I'm a Nicolas Cage fan. The movie seems to have gotten horrible reviews but I didn't mind it. It turned out to be very religious, which I wasn't expecting, and the ending was happy/depressing. I would like more of a postscript.

While I watched Knowing I played GTA5. I created a female character because I was curious about how second characters worked and I wanted to see the different clothing options for female characters. The options seem a lot cooler but that could just be because they were all new to me. I liked finding out that I got to start at the current level as my first character and I got an apartment and ten-car garage without having to pay for it. Not bad.

When the movie was over I started New Girl from the beginning. I stopped watching the show at some point, and then started watching it again, and then stopped again. Lots of starts and stops. Which is a shame because it's a really funny show.

And now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed.

February 25, 2017

 This morning I slept in and around 12:30PM made it over to my Mom's house to do laundry. After I ate lunch the plan was to work on class stuff. In particular, my script. But then I started watching Planet Earth 2 and didn't accomplish much. I didn't watch any of Planet Earth because I didn't want to see a bunch of animals dying, and I was avoiding the new one for the same reason. I got sucked in today, though, and was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't really anything overly graphic. The worst part was a baby elephant dying. I'm considering picking up Planet Earth and getting Planet Earth 2 when it comes out in March. It would look incredible projected up on my wall.

As for class stuff, I did play around a little bit with a program that creates visual audio bars, if that makes any sense. The idea is to put that in my tutorial so that as I speak the bars fluctuate. There is probably a word for that. Maybe a visual representation of the sound waveforms? I don't know. Anyway, I don't know if I'll actually end up doing it because it would involve a little bit of work to get it to match up to the audio. It's not a real-time thing, so I would need to finish the tutorial, export just the audio (if that is possible), import it into this program, render out the waveform file, and then import it into my video editor.

When my laundry was done I ran to Target to get some things. One of those things was an avocado and when I got home I made the avocado pistachio dip again. I forgot about the jalapeno and I used less salt, so overall the flavor was a little less intense, but still good.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos and Twitch streams. I also kind of did some class things. I have to turn stuff in tomorrow and realized I forgot to email my PowerPoint storyboard to myself. Whoops. So I spent some time figuring out how I could host my Twinery storyboard and send that link instead. I also edited some screenshots to use in my tutorial. That just leaves my script to finish, which I will do tomorrow and get everything submitted.

Now I'm going to play some Minecraft and record my audio journal. I discovered another small island and then a really tiny one right next to it. I kind of want to build a tower on the tiny island. We'll see.

February 24, 2017

 Well, today happened, and no notes were take, so who knows what I'll forget.

When I first got to work I went down for my meeting with the one-on-one tech lady to talk about spreadsheets. That lasted about a half an hour and I think we got everything sorted out. She seemed happy with what I had come up with and we worked on setting up another Excel file for less numeric information. And she's going to come to me if she has any other questions but for the moment we should be good.

Most of the rest of my day was spent kind of working on class stuff. I managed to evaluate the tutorial tool I picked. It took me longer than it probably should because I was definitely over-thinking it, but I got it done. I also kind of started playing with it more as a possible option for my tutorial. I'm not actually going to use it but I'll keep it in mind for the future.

My script was also a thing today. And I nearly finished it. I really buckled down in the last half hour or so of work and made a lot of progress. I remembered to email it to myself before calling it a day so now I can finish it up and get it submitted before Sunday night. The script and the two visuals are the only things I have left to finish. I'm just going to use the PowerPoint “storyboard” so I don't have to worry about that anymore, even though it's really not my idea of a storyboard.

A lot of the day was spent being slightly distracted from work by my coworkers. I don't feel bad though because we had some interesting/funny conversations. The vast majority of which were at least somewhat work-related. One of my coworkers, the one who was hired the same day as me, is actually moving to Japan in the near future, which sucks. Not only is she a lot of fun to work with, she is also really good at her job. There are going to be some big shoes to fill.

When I got off work at six o'clock I went over to the auditorium to meet my mom and sister for the book sale. It didn't start until 5:30PM but the line started shortly before five o'clock and was slowly beginning to wrap itself around toward are desk. By the time I went upstairs it hadn't reached the non-fiction section yet but one of my coworkers said last year it made it all the way to our desk. Impressive.

I quickly found my mom and sister and spent the next hour or so wandering around looking at books. I only ended up getting a few cooking books and a few other things. I think part of me was just tired because it had been a long day and I didn't get enough sleep last night. But we might go back on Sunday and then I can redeem myself. Maybe try some more adventurous books. I was tempted to get some of the authors that I take homebound patrons or see on the shelves when I do walkthrough. The ones who are super prolific but I've never read. We'll see if we go back.

After the book sale we went to the Chinese buffet for dinner. It was really crowded and we ended up sitting in the room behind the entrance area. It was an interesting change sitting at a table because I didn't have to get up every time my mom wanted to get up. We also ended up sitting by an incredibly obnoxious table of people. It seemed like the rest of the place had cleared out but the annoying people right next to us was making a night of it.

We eventually left and then went back to my Mom's house to separate our books. It's always fun to pull them all out of the bags and talk about why we got what we got, which then generally leads to other random conversations.

When I got home I watched YouTube videos and spent way too long not writing this. I also found out that I will be presenting at a conference in April about the scavenger hunt I helped make for my practicum. My practicum supervisor submitted a proposal and it was accepted, so that's cool. I'm not really into the idea of presenting, just due to my introverted nature, but it will be a new experience and something I can put on my resume.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal because it is nearly midnight and I'm freaking tired. I'm going to sleep in tomorrow morning and then go do laundry. My plan while the laundry is laundering is to finish up my class stuff for the week. There are only two weeks left so I imagine sometime very soon I'm going to have to actually start making the tutorial. Along with working on all my other work stuff. Like coming up with the content of my workshop on the Sphero, which is coming up in a couple weeks.

February 23, 2017

 Today was kind of an odd day at work, but it has been an odd week of work so it's to be expected.

Throughout the day I tried to work on class things. It was real hard. There were a lot of distractions and a lot of avoidance. Despite that, I managed to finish watching the videos for this week and taking notes. Now I just need to finish all of the assignments for the week. I seriously doubt I get everything done tomorrow but we'll see.

I may not have made much progress on my class stuff but I did accomplish some work things. I helped a bunch of patrons throughout the day, ones in the library, on the phone, through email, and in chat. Occasionally I was even juggling things and helping multiple people in various formats. I helped most of the people during my two and a half hours on the desk. I was only supposed to be on desk for two hours but it got extended because other people were doing things.

I also helped my coworkers with things. One of my fellow librarians is going to make a display next month that involves chili peppers of different colors but she was having trouble finding good enough pictures. She found one that she liked and tried changing the color in Word but it looked like crap. I ended up finding a big one and used a web-based editor to change the color and saturation to get the three different colors she wanted. The only tricky part was keeping the stem green. I ended up achieving this by duplicating the layers and then erasing the stem on the top layer so that I could change the color on that layer and the bottom layer stayed green. I originally planned on doing something way more complicated so I'm glad I thought of the layer thing.

I also set up a spreadsheet for the lady who does one-on-one tech training. She needs to keep track several different things for her reviews, like the number of appointments she has each month and the number of new patrons she gets, among other things. She has been keeping track of this on paper and asked me about using a spreadsheet. While avoiding class work I threw together an example with several different charts so when we meet tomorrow morning we can hit the ground running.

There was a little drama today with the IT department and my boss. An author was going to call the library tonight from Mexico to talk about the book we were having a book discussion about. It has been a possibility for a little while now because the author's agent actually contacted us when she learned that the book discussion was happening. It was only recently confirmed and this morning my boss was trying to figure out the logistics of making the call and getting it set up so people could hear the author and the author could hear the people. The second she brought it up with two of the IT people they immediately said it couldn't be done. It was impossible.

I was told about this later from another librarian and I immediately had several ideas of how it could be done. And the librarian telling the story said everyone else who our boss talked to immediately had ideas, instead of just saying it couldn't be done. Our IT people, who are supposed to be forward-thinking problem-solvers are a bunch of negative nancies who naysay every idea that isn't theirs. Or rather, two of them do, the head IT guy is really good at his job an open to new ideas. The problem is he can only do so much, and he is probably overworked because he's having to pick up the slack from the other two.

Anyway, my boss ended up talking to the library system people in the basement and they said they would be more than willing to help set everything up. At some point along the way the director of the library got involved and kind of kicked the IT people gear. It seems like admin are frequently having to get involved when various departments try to interact with the IT department. I can't imagine this lasts too much longer before something changes. At least I hope so. It's getting a little ridiculous.

In the end, everything worked out, despite the arguments form the IT people. The IT guy actually stayed late to set everything up and run it. It would be nice if the people under him could learn from his example. The discussion was posted online and I watch half of it, and it's pretty cool. It might be because I'm a librarian but I'm a pretty big fan of authors.

Tonight I just watched YouTube videos and played GTA5. I've been going with the 'V' recently but I need to go back to the '5' because the 'V' just looks like a letter, not a Roman Numeral. Anyway, it took me awhile but I found a new minivan. I accidentally got rid of mine when I ran out of room in one of my garages and then I was afraid they had taken it out of the game because all I was seeing were these minivan-SUV crossover things. The spawning is weird in the game. Once I saw one they were all over the place. And now I've got one again and it's great. I think they may have tweaked them since my original one because I remember it being incredibly so. The new one isn't a speed demon by any means but it can actually hold its own on the road a little better. I like it. I also found a four-wheeler, which I didn't realize was a vehicle I could steal. I'm still always on the lookout for a hearse. It seems the only way to get one is for someone else with a hearse to drive by the church to trigger them to spawn. A natural spawn is apparently exceedingly rare. On the plus side, I have one in singleplayer, and it's incredibly slow and not very fun to drive, so I'm not really missing anything.

And now that it is midnight I am going to stop writing and record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow I hope to get some class stuff done. And then after work I get to go to the book sale. Can't wait.

February 22, 2017

There really isn't much to write about today.

I slept in, which was great, and then I made scrambled eggs for breakfast. I also had a couple of the biscuits I made the other day. Not a bad breakfast.

I didn't really do much with the rest of my day. I watched YouTube videos and played a lot of GTAV. That was about it. I thought about cleaning my desk but that did not happen. I need to organized all the bills I have paid and various other pieces of mail that I currently have stacked on my desk. There's also a bunch of random paper, skeins of yarn, and other random things.

Tonight it took a few labs before I was able to find a spot at Chipotle. The real annoying part was that not a lot of people were in Chipotle. That means a lot of the cars taking up spots in the parking lot were not customers. Not cool. The food itself was just normal. I'm considering making my own food for Chipotle night. I think I could make something that tastes a lot better.

After dinner I showed some videos and then we talked for awhile before parting ways. I am now once again watching YouTube videos while writing this, which is the reason it has taken me way too long to write this.

I could really use another day off but I'm only going back to work for two days and then I'll have the weekend off. The book sale is happening this weekend. I get off at six o'clock on Friday and my mom and sister are going to meet me at the library so we can go the first night. It has also been tradition to go back on Sunday when you can get a whole bag for a certain price. I love cheap books.

Now I'm going to play some Minecraft and record my audio journal.   

February 21, 2017

 This morning I got to sleep in and it was fantastic. Then I went to work.

I would say most of my day was spent working on class things. I spent way too much time working on the storyboard. Way too much time. I updated the one I made in PowerPoint and I made one using Twinery and one using a free online tool. I'm putting too much thought into something that is supposed to be a very basic outline of what the tutorial will be. It's a little frustrating but it is also my go-to when it comes to schoolwork when I'm trying to avoid other things.

We had our second tech drop-in today and we had three people show up. I'm saying that was a good turnout because there is always the fear that no one will show up. The first lady showed up almost a half hour early I was still finishing some stuff but by I started helping her about fifteen minutes early, and talked with her for maybe forty-five minutes. She was interested in buying a computer and learning basic computer skills. I told her about Chromebooks and the Surface Pro, and showed her a few places online where she could learn the basics if she was waiting on an appointment with our one-on-one tech trainer. She was an interesting lady. She was a talker so I learned all about her life and her daughter.

I helped the next patron for nearly the full two hours with her table and getting her set up with our digital library resources. We made it through three resources and we both acknowledged it was a lot to process so she was going to write down any questions that came to her when she got home and come back next time. The other patron who came was the same one I talked to for quite awhile a few weeks ago about a whole bunch of random things, including our diets and my kidney stone, while I was helping her with other things. One of the other librarians and our volunteer helped her with email stuff across her different devices.

After the first lady left and the other two hadn't shown up yet we sat around trying to come up with ways to market the drop-in better. We ended up writing on a rolling whiteboard that it was happening upstairs and I put that down in the atrium. It didn't attract anyone but I think it's a start.

Tonight I added pictures to my Twinery storyboard and started working on the script. And that was about it. It was a very slow, quiet evening.

The most interesting conversation I overheard at the desk today was a patron who came up and was interested in books or information about the history of anarchy. His goal was to prove to his roommate that actual anarchy was different than the show Sons of Anarchy. At some point his girlfriend came up and asked what he was doing. He started to explain to her what he was trying to do and she apparently gave him a look because he said “Hey, I don't ask what you do.” It was pretty funny.

Tonight I've just been watching YouTube videos, paying bills, and clicking around the internet. In a pleasant turn of events, GTAV started properly when I tried it this evening. Maybe something on their end was screwed up last night, because even after I reinstalled it the game still couldn't get past loading screen for the Social Club. I didn't actually play tonight but I did see if I had lost my singleplayer progress. I may have lost a little bit but it didn't knock me back to the beginning which I feared it might.

I have tomorrow off so I am going to sleep in and then maybe make some eggs for breakfast. I haven't had scrambled eggs for a little while.

February 20, 2017

 Today went by quickly but it was also a really long day. Sometimes time is weird like that.

I got to work a little before eight o'clock and at 8:30AM we all walked over to the auditorium. The first activity in our staff development day wasn't until 9:00AM so we just sat around and mingled.

We started the day with a video conference presentation from a librarian who transformed her small library and made it the center of her community, going viral and getting the attention of the ALA in the process. She was really funny and inspiring. She said said many quotable things but I only wrote down two. The first was “a fish rots from the head down.” This was an analogy for the strength/integrity/reputation/whatever of an organization starting at the top with the leadership. If you've got a bad leader it is going to trickle down and affect everyone. The second quote was “I'm a strong flavor and I'm not everyone's flavor.” I thought that was amusing. She also referred to herself as a promiscuous collaborator because whenever people were doing something she wanted to be in on the magic.

The rest of the training sessions we had throughout the day were done by two marriage and family counselors. I thought that was interesting. The first was about conflict styles. We took a brief quiz, added up points, and found out what type of animal we were. Mine was not very clear. My top selection was tied between a turtle and a koala. And the runner-up was only one point off and also a tie, this time between a fox and an owl. We had to break into groups based on our top answer and there were a bunch of koalas so I went with the turtles. We had to talk amongst our group about how we do or do not deal with conflicts and then we talked about it as a group. It was interesting. It kind of felt a bit like astrology, and it would have meant more if I hadn't been so close to four different styles.

They bumped our lunch up to an hour so I went to my Mom's house like usual. I wanted a break from all the group stuff but it also gave me a chance to get the 1/4” connector so I could plug my headphones into my mixer.

The first session after lunch was about being excellent employees. It was also interesting. Pretty much all of us in Adult Services were sitting next to each other so as we answered each question presented to us individually, we were able to talk about it in the context of our department, which I think made it more useful.

The last session of the day was about different generations of people working in the same workplace. We had the full range (Silencer, Baby Boomer, Generation X, and and Generation Y / Millennial). We broke into groups based on those generations and then talked about positives, negatives, stereotypes, and how we want other generations to see us. As I have said numerous times today, it was an interesting session. I'm not a big fan of generalizations and lumping diverse people into the same group, but it led to some good conversations, not only within the groups but also between them.

Following that activity, another Adult Services librarian and I finally got to give our presentation on canvassing, peddling, and soliciting. The one I think we were supposed to give back in November maybe. I think it went well. I started off getting a decent laugh with the audio clip of the Mitch Hedberg joke about flyers. I got an even bigger laugh when I showed the satellite view of the library and turned it into watermelon by marking the public sidewalks in green, the library property in red, and then marked random spots where people aren't allowed to stand on library property using watermelon seeds to complete the effect. There was a brief pause while it set in but then everyone cracked up. Always feels good.

The day ended with an overview of library stats from last year presented by our director. Once again, interesting. Following that we stacked up all the chairs to clear the way for the library book sale. We finished at 4:30PM and we had to be there until 5:00PM to get our full day in so I headed upstairs to work on class stuff. I managed to come up with the storyboard for my tutorial. The first few “free” online storyboard services I tried were disappointing so I threw it together real quick using PowerPoint slides just so I could get my idea down. I need to finalize it before I can submit it but I've got the meat of it figured out.

When I got home I made Red Lobster biscuits. I got a box mix for Christmas and tonight was the night. They turned out perfect. I was incredibly surprised. And they tasted really good. I was worried they would be too salty but I had control over the butter and herb garlic topping put on at the end so I think that helped quite a bit. I also “fixed” my avocado pasta by mixing in some salsa. The creaminess of the avocado was much nicer when there was actually flavor.

I wanted to play GTAV tonight but it wouldn't load for me. I tried several different things but nothing worked so I said screw it and deleted it. And now I am reinstalling it. It looks like I've got about an hour left. I obviously won't be playing it tonight but I am hoping it will miraculously work once it is reinstalled. Fingers crossed. I also hope my save file was saved to the cloud. I have lost progress in games before when I reformatted or changed hard drives but I am really hoping for a cloud save because I didn't really dig too deeply for a local save file before I deleted the game. I don't think I was that close to beating the the campaign but I was certainly several hours into it. It's been a long time since I actually started it, so when I started playing it again recently I was kind of lost, so it might be good to start over, but I don't know that I have that kind of motivation.

With my GTAV disappointment, I watched John Wick 2 instead. It really made me want to watch the first one again because that one was so good. Nothing against the second one, though, I enjoyed it as well. There was so much action. Choreographing all of the fight scenes must have taken forever. I find it intriguing how even though John Wick is this feared badass who has killed countless people, there are still people who think they can kill him. It also seems like it would be far too exhausting to be wrapped up in the world of the killer. Especially when there is a contract out on you. The paranoia alone would be too much, let alone people actually trying to kill you.

It is now creeping up on midnight and I still need to record my audio journal. Thankfully I close tomorrow, but I've been tired since 8:30PM so I need to get this show on the road.

February 19, 2017

 This morning I slept in a tiny bit and then got up, watched some YouTube videos for awhile, took a shower, ate lunch, and headed to work.

The vast majority of my day was spent watching instructional videos for my class and taking notes. I took a lot of notes. I also learned some things, which is always a plus.

On my first walkthrough of the day I had to deal with two patrons in a somewhat passive way. The first was a very small child. Her mother was working at a computer and she had set her small child at the computer next to her and was completely ignoring her. And I don't know how she was doing this because the baby was banging the crap out of the computer's keyboard with the mouse. I walked over, moved the keyboard and mouse out of reach of the small child, and as I walked away she started crying because I had taken her entertainment away. It at least forced the mom to acknowledge the kid for a little bit. I'm not really passing judgment on the mother, though, because I don't know what she's going through in her life. I imagine she is also fairly desensitized to the annoyingness of her kid because she's around her all the time. I got that way with grade school kids after several years of working in a grade school. My threshold for annoying is much higher now when it comes to that age group. It's probably the same thing when you are a parent.

My second patron interaction happened when I got downstairs. While I was refilling displays a patron came up and having a conversation with one of the Circulation clerks and he was quickly becoming agitated. It started when he asked how she was doing and she said “okay”. He did not like that response. In the clerk's defense, she's not really much of a talker, especially with strangers. In the patron's defense, he definitely had some mental health issues. He went on to say he was getting frustrated that she wouldn't engage in small talk with him, even bringing up a previous instance when he tried talking to her. At this point I was behind the circulation desk getting a book and as I walked by them I told him we were just a building full of introverts. This seemed to sidetrack him enough that his agitation stopped rising and he stopped grilling her about not being social. He left shortly after but I stayed around the DVDs a short distance away until he left to make sure everything was good.

I really don't like confrontation, and I was already a little bit worked up about intervening with the kid upstairs, so I'm glad things didn't escalate with the patron downstairs.

The rest of the day was quiet until about thirty minutes before we closed. That's when the fire alarm went off. I assumed I needed to make an announcement to get all of the patrons out of the building and I looked up the procedure for a fire alarm, I was proven correct. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the number to make the call across the PA system. It wasn't on the page with the instructions and I couldn't remember where it was posted. I kept looking but there weren't many patrons in the building and when I looked up they had all been told to exit already so my announcement would have been pointless. Tomorrow I need to get the number and make a note of it on that page of the notebook.

The fire department arrived pretty quickly because they're only a few blocks away but we ended up being outside for about twenty minutes. The library is a pretty big building, so there was a lot of checking to do, but they also couldn't figure out why the alarm went off. It was some sort of malfunction so the alarm company needed to be called. They aren't locally based so it was going to be at least forty-five minutes for them to show up. Thankfully I did not have to wait for that to happen. The head of the maintenance department and the assistant director had that pleasure.

While we were outside the director had called because she had received a call from the alarm company saying the alarm had gone off. When she couldn't get through to us she called the assistant director because he lives nearby and he came over. After we were let back inside I called the director back to let her know what was going on. So technically I did not call the director on her day off, I called her back. I think that is an important distinction.

The closing announcements weren't working but it wasn't a big issue because pretty much everyone left after the fire alarm. I ended up having to stay a bit later because I walked in on some issue with a patron and printing downstairs. I guess she had printed something but didn't get it because of the fire alarm so someone in Circulation credited her account for the prints. But then she talked to the guy in the tech center and he unlocked the door and let her in to get her prints. I had already sent everyone else home, and didn't really know the full situation, so I took her money and gave her change out of the register, which had already been locked up in the back. That can all be sorted out later.

When I left the alarms and lights were off inside the building but there was still an alarm going off outside. My first thought when we first went outside was how annoying it would be to live in the neighborhood. My Dad saw on Facebook later that someone in the neighborhood had posted that the alarm had been going off for an hour. Yeah, glad I don't live near the library.

On my way home I stopped by my Mom's house to pick up my mixer, which had arrived this morning. Then I came home and made dinner. I made the avocado sauce pasta. I was impressed with the creaminess of it but underwhelmed by the taste. It was incredibly bland. I think I'm a little spoiled after the avocado pistachio dip because that was packed with flavor, but even without that comparison, the avocado sauce tonight was just flavorless. That is disappointing because I've got a whole lot of pasta left.

After dinner I set up my mixer. At first I thought my microphone wasn't working with it because the light on the microphone to indicate that it is on, was not coming on when I plugged it into the mixer. I did a bunch of searching online to find a solution but that ended up being a waste of time. I eventually had the genius idea to turn up the gain knob and a couple of the level knobs on the mixer and voila, I got sound. To be fair, they're not labeled “volume” and I have no experience with mixers. But it works now. I guess the power light on the microphone just doesn't work when it is plugged in using the XLR cable instead of the USB cable. I played with the EQ knobs a little bit but was mainly focused on getting the gain and levels knobs in the right spot. I'll have to make tweaks later. Hopefully when I can monitor the sound in real time, rather than having to record something, listen to it, make a change, and then start the cycle over again.

While recording my audio journal tonight I used Firewatch as my video backdrop. My last save is at the end of the game when the fire is close and the world is just orange and smokey. I thought it was appropriate with the fire alarm today.

Now I'm going to go to bed because it is 11:45PM and I have to be up at six o'clock. I can't wait for an exciting day filled with staff training.

February 18, 2017

 This morning I woke up about fifteen minutes before my alarm went off because I had to go to the bathroom. I went back to bed but I don't know that I ever fully got back to sleep. About thirty minutes after my alarm went off I got out of bed, got ready, at breakfast, and went to work.

Today went on forever. Most of my day was spent working on class stuff. I finished the lectures for this week, and taking notes on those lectures. Thankfully they all have subtitles because I wasn't able to actually listen to the videos, I just clicked through the time line, reading the subtitles, and taking notes based on those and what was written on the slides. I also finished my discussion posts for the week and turned in all of the assignments.

This afternoon I got a start on stuff for next week. I watched the first lecture and took notes. In week two we have to pick a tool from a list that can be used to create a tutorial and evaluate, so I signed up for one. I was the first person to sign up and I ended up picking the first thing in the list because it looks cool. It's a free website that lets you create animated presentations. I only got to briefly look at it, so I'm not sure how much customization and freedom there is, but it looks like it has some potential.

Week two also involves coming up with a storyboard and a script for our tutorial. There's a lot going on this week. I don't think I have too much going on at work this week other than tech drop-in, but I'm also losing two days because we have all-day staff training on Monday and I'm off Wednesday because I am working this weekend. And I don't work next weekend so really I only have three days where I can work on the class stuff at work, which is what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel like there might be some work done outside of the library this week.

Anyway, that was pretty much my day at work. I helped several different patrons throughout the day. There were a lot of people at the library today. Our rooms were reserved back-to-back almost all day long, and there were people at almost every table, but it was a very quiet day at the library. I'm cool with that because it allowed me to work on class stuff, but it also means there really isn't much to write about.

On my way home I stopped by my Mom's house. She texted me last night to tell me I had forgotten to take my shirts yesterday when I did laundry. I thought to myself that I needed to grab them after I put my clothes basket in my car but one minute later the thought had left me. So I grabbed those tonight and talked to my mom for a little while before heading home.

For dinner I steamed broccoli, made a package of Alfredo pasta, and had a black bean burger with the avocado pistachio dip spread on it. The burger and broccoli were good but I was unimpressed with the pasta. I was also reminded of how quickly milk can boil over. That may have affected my judgment of the pasta, but even without the boiling over the pasta failed to meet the low bar I set for it. And after dinner I had to scrub my stove. I mixed some baking soda and water and that got most of it off. Then I did it again but let the baking soda and water sit there for an hour or two. I think I'm pretty much good now. We'll see how I feel about it in the morning.

I spent the rest of my night watching YouTube videos and clicking around the internet. An exciting evening. Now I think I'm going to play a little GTAV before going to bed. I vaguely remember the distant memory of a cool dream I had last night and I think it may have been related to GTAV. I wish I could record my dreams and play them back when I was awake and could appreciate them.

February 17, 2017

 Good grief, it's late and tomorrow is going to suck due to lack of sleep, so let's get to it.

This morning I slept in, ate breakfast, got ready, loaded up my car, and headed to my Mom's to do laundry. While my laundry was going I watched TV, including episodes of Star Trek: Next Generation and the original Star Trek. There was an episode in the original series were two planets had been at war with each other for five-hundred years. They realized at some point along the way that they couldn't maintain a war that long because of it's damage to infrastructure and just regular horrors of war. Instead they switched to fighting each other via a computer simulation. The twist, however, was that each time the computer calculated the death toll for a given simulated attack, those people in the affected area would have to go into the disintegration machine and actually be killed. I think they said it was over a million people each year were lost to the war. It is interesting given our current world where cyber attacks and terrorism are a real thing.

When my laundry was done I loaded up and went to the grocery store. I need to start going when I get off work after closing because I am not a fan of all the people. There were a lot of people there today, especially in the produce section. Not a fan. Also, when I went to checkout I picked a good lane, and then someone who works there said a register several lanes away was open. I didn't really want to move because I liked my spot but I am apparently too nice to say no. And, as expected, as soon as I left my lane, the other one filled up with several people, and the lane I was in filled up with several people, robbing me of my spot. Brilliant move teenage employee. And me for listening to a teenage employee.

I survived the grocery store and when I got home I washed my food processor. Then I got to use it for the first time. I made an avocado pistachio dip that I found on Pinterest. It was a little rich, and I think I should have used less salt, but it was still pretty tasty. Like what I imagine guacamole is supposed to taste like. Also, fresh cilantro smells amazing.

I spent the rest of the night watching YouTube videos, playing GTAV, and I started watching Riverdale. I never read the comic but the idea of the live-action series intrigued me. And the show has sucked me in. I'm usually not a fan of drama but I'm kind of hooked.

And now I need to stop writing so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. It's going to be a long day with less than six hours of sleep.

February 16, 2017

 Today was an interesting day. Waking up kind of sucked but it usually does, so that was no surprise. Then I got ready, made lunch, ate breakfast, and went to work at 10:30AM.

I was on the desk for two hours starting at 11:00AM. That gave me time to finish my homebound stuff, update class stuff, help patrons, and probably some other things I can't remember. During this time my boss discovered that I had actually worked forty-one hours last week instead of forty, which I think meant I needed to lose an hour and a half this week, because it is time and a half. It needed to be done today because I'm off tomorrow. We threw around a couple different ideas but ended up settling on skipping lunch and getting off at 3:30PM. So I already went in an hour and a half late because I'm working the weekend, and then I left two and a half hours early. It was strange.

I also managed to send my email to the IT people regarding my meeting with the Children's department. I didn't hear anything back from them but my fingers are crossed for next week. It's kind of ridiculous that we could have cleared everything up in less than an hour but this has been drawn out for several weeks at this point.

When I got off the desk I spent the rest of my day, in between walkthroughs, upstairs working on class stuff. I watched one video, took notes, and wrote the discussion post for that video. I also started watching and taking notes on a second video. I came very close to finishing it so it was kind of annoying that I had to leave. I am hoping that it is not an exciting weekend at the library because I still need to do quite a bit for the first week.

When I got home I did nothing with the rest of my day. I watched YouTube videos, eventually ate dinner, and played video games. I started playing The Witness and found it both frustrating and addictive. After opening the door to get out of the first area I kind of wandered off and got into things that were way over my head, and probably spent most of my time trying to figure out how to get back to the beginning. I feel like I am missing the logic behind a lot of the puzzles and I end up solving them accidentally with no real idea of why the solution works. And often times even when I think I understand what is going on, I'm pretty sure I don't. I think I would enjoy myself more if I had a better understanding for some of the puzzle mechanics. I will say that the game's visuals live up to my expectations. It kind of reminds me of a more fantastical Firewatch. When I was lost it was still fun just wandering around and looking at things.

It is now after midnight and I am going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow I am going to do laundry because my next day off isn't until Wednesday. I could have survived until Monday but not Wednesday. I also kind of want to make a grocery list of recipes for the food processor and break that thing in. We'll see.

February 15, 2017

 This morning sucked very much. I had maybe five hours of sleep, which was not enough. And then time escaped from me a little bit. I got out of bed about fifteen minutes later than usual and I got super lucky that I made my lunch yesterday and ended up not needing it because I was able to skip that step in my morning routine.

When I got to work I did all the usual opening things, including sharpening pencils until the sharpener died. Once we opened I went upstairs to call my homebound patrons. It took a turn real quick when I learned that one of my patrons had passed away. It was the sleeper, so it wasn't terribly surprising. I never got a full word out of her and I probably never saw her awake for more than a few seconds at a time. Still sucks though. I learned that it happened yesterday and I heard sirens yesterday. It is a worry now every time I hear sirens. Oddly, one of the patrons I called after that asked me for a list of books about people who had died, gone to Heaven, and come back. Turns out there are several of those.

In between walkthroughs I filled out my timesheet for the month and then before lunch I had a meeting with the teen librarian. We are planning a series for next Fall and Spring about how to be an adult. We're gearing it toward fifteen to thirty year olds who are interested in learning more about life, like the practical things you don't learn about in school. Budgets, how to change a tire, mental health, etc. Today we came up with all the basic ideas and made an outline for what classes we want to do in the Fall, with a decent idea for what to do in the Spring. We both acknowledged how strange it was starting to plan something a year in advance. It's going to be a pretty big endeavor coordinating and promoting everything but if it pays off it is going to be pretty cool. Definitely a big step for the library.

After lunch we went out to deliver books. I drove this month and always had the keys with me so I never got locked out of the van, which was a nice change from last month. I also brought a book with me so while I waited for the other librarian to deliver her books and talk to her patrons, I had something to occupy my attention. My deliveries went well. I even had a prolonged conversation with my last patron, who is also my newest patron. I learned more about her reading habits and her life. I also made her laugh because she was telling me about her eye condition which is making her eye sight bad. She said she still plays Bridge but doesn't win as often and I replied that maybe she was but the other people weren't telling her. She enjoyed that.

When we got back to the library we unloaded all of our books and I checked to make sure I had gotten all of the books from the patron who had passed away. I was a little worried because I forgot to bring a list with me but thankfully I got everything. Really it's just one less thing for the family to worry about, which was my concern.

I spent my last hour at work on desk. I helped the tech trainer figure out some questions she got at her class today, helped a patron find a book, and got a start adding in the comments from the homebound bookmarks into the spreadsheets. I'll have to finish that tomorrow.

Also, I talked with one of the IT guys today. He came up to me after we got back from delivering books to apologize about not being able to meet this morning. I told him not to worry about it and that I was planning on just sending all of them an email with my notes and questions so that they could answer at their convenience. I had actually already started to write an email before I left for lunch but hadn't had time to finish it. So that's on my agenda for tomorrow.

After work I got Chipotle and headed to my Mom's house. The food wasn't bad tonight. We'll see what round two is like. The videos also went over well tonight. My mom laughed on several occasions. When we were done eating we did the Valentine's Day thing. I didn't have anything to give my Mom or sister because I had flowers delivered to them yesterday, but they both really liked them and sent me texts. Tonight, my sister gave me the soft peanut butter cookies she makes that are half-dipped in chocolate. They are really freaking good. I might have to take some to work though because I've been getting better at eating healthier and these cookies do not fit the bill. But I'm still going to eat a bunch of them. My mom got me granola bars and The New Guys DVD, which is fantastic because I was actually thinking about getting it because I thought it was so funny. She also got me a freaking green food processor. She had previously gotten my sister an air frier and she likes to keep things even. I'm pretty excited about it. I can make so many things now. And I'm going to make so many things.

I left my Mom's a little after nine o'clock and when I got home I made several trips back and forth to unload everything from my car. I then watched the final two episodes of Santa Clarita Diet. It sucks that it is over, which is how I feel about everything I binge on Netflix. It kind of ended on a cliffhanger but not an agonizing one. It better get another season, though, because the writing is so funny. I think my favorite part of the whole first season was when Drew's character said she didn't like when Timothy's character started a sentence by saying “Fact” and then spouting off a fact. And his replay was to spout off several “facts” in a row but preceding each one with a different phrase, insinuating that each one was a fact. The actual transcript would be funnier but I'm not that dedicated to chronicling the scene.

Now I need to record my audio journal because it is already 11:30PM and I would like to get more than five hours of sleep tonight. I don't have to go to work until 10:30AM tomorrow so I'll get to sleep in a little bit, but it won't mean much if I don't get to sleep at a decent time. And I need to make my lunch tomorrow morning so I can't lollygag.

February 14, 2017

 I didn't take notes today but not a lot happened, and it's late and I have to wake up early tomorrow so I'm hoping I don't have a lot to write about.

This morning at work I had a couple walkthroughs but spent the rest of my morning upstairs in the cubicle working on the ecourse. I watched some videos and completed the first discussion post. I also took copious notes and downloaded all of the course videos. The library paid good money for this course so I figure it's smart to archive all the information so we can look back at it in the future.

I can't remember if I mentioned this before but we have to create a tutorial for the class and I think I'm going to do mine on how to create a podcast. After the workshop on Friday we have been talking about starting a reader's advisory podcast. I figure if I make a tutorial on how to make a podcast, it will be an extra incentive to follow through and make a podcast.

For lunch I met my grandma, aunt, and sister at a nearby restaurant. It was pretty much the perfect place because I got there in like two minutes and had plenty of time to eat. I ended up getting scrambled eggs and a big pancake. The pancake was good but now that I have some experience making eggs I know that they use water instead of milk, and they use too much water, I assume to make the eggs go a little further. My eggs are way better. And much cheaper. Other than the food, we had some good conversations. I also need to get down to visit them because my aunt has a bunch of books and bookcases she wants to give me. It also sounds like I might need to rent a truck.

This afternoon I worked on my class more, finished updating my homebound spreadsheets, updated attendee and feedback information for the class this afternoon, talked about interesting book things with one of my coworkers, and helped patrons. There was one really funny patron who was looking for books about relationships for a paper he was writing. He got in a conversation with two of the other librarians about Valentine's Day and relationships, and “living that couch life”. It was pretty entertaining to listen to while I was looking up books for him.

When I got home tonight I ate dinner, played video games, and got sucked into Santa Clarita Diet. I'm not really sure how I feel about it but it's addictive. Timothy Olyphant is the main draw because I think he's hilarious.

As for games, after updating drivers and reinstalling my computer a couple times I finally got Submerged working. I was thinking about it for a video game discussion but I don't think it's going to work out. It's much too slow and far too open. I also played GTAV for the first time in a really long time. I basically just drove around for awhile, stole a few cars, and kept one of the vans for my collection. I wanted to go back into singleplayer, which I haven't played in a much longer time, but I knew I would get sucked in and didn't have the time. As it is, it's already 11:30PM and I have to wake up at six o'clock in the morning. And I still need to record my audio journal. Good grief.

I'm going to record my audio journal. Tomorrow I may or may not have a meeting with the IT people in the morning, we're delivering books in the afternoon, and tomorrow night is Chipotle night. And I will be doing all of that while tired as hell.

February 13, 2017

 This morning I slept in and it was wonderful. And then I went to work. I took notes today because I definitely would have forgotten everything if I hadn't.

When I got to work I pulled most of my homebound books. I came up with the list last week and several of the books had been checked out so I had to spend some time finding new ones. I was able to get a brief start on processing the books before I had to go to dinner.

The passage of time tonight was odd. I felt like I was getting a lot done but when I looked at the clock very little time had passed, which seemed weird. And then out of nowhere it was time to close. But I did get a lot of things done.

I got all of my homebound books checked out, made the bookmarks, and got all of the bookmarks cut out. All I have left to do is put the bookmarks in their respective books.

I emailed all the people signed up for our class tomorrow because the librarian teaching the class ran out of time to send the message she had written. So I copied and pasted her email to me and sent it out. I also made the handouts for the class and updated the website for class. I believe everything is now good to go.

I was finally able to update the attendance and feedback information for the Minecraft program last Thursday. It feels good to get that out of the way because it felt like I was going to forget it because last Thursday seems like forever ago.

The patron who has a history of yelling at people in Circulation and recently got upset about us not having particular financial newsletters anymore (even though we got rid of them a year ago), came in tonight with some questions. One of the daily financial periodicals has switched to a weekly issue and mentions full articles and interviews available online and he was wondering if there was a special login for that. I told him I wasn't sure but said we could look up the address he had written down to see what happened. There appeared to be a premium version of the site but it didn't block out any of the interviews or articles. The one annoying thing was that the article online had a different title than the print article, which made it hard to search for. I ended up having to Google it, but thankfully that led me to the right spot. In the end the patron was pretty happy, at least for now.

The mayor left her purse at the library this afternoon and that turned into a bit of a thing tonight. One of the librarians found it and the mayor was contacted to let her know her purse had been found. Before I got back from dinner someone from her office called to inquire how the purse could be retrieved. She called back when I was on desk and a short time later another person called. He wanted to speak to the director but it was just after five o'clock so I wasn't holding out hope but I transferred him anyway. He didn't call back so I assumed he managed to catch her but then he showed up at the library.

The people in Circulation wouldn't give him the purse without verbal confirmation from the mayor that she wanted this person to pick up her purse. Apparently she would have come herself but she was in a meeting and then going directly from that meeting to another meeting out of town. So the guy showed up, and didn't quite like what Circulation told him so they came and got me and I went down and told him the same thing. He then proceeded to put his phone on speakerphone and called the mayor, got her voicemail, and left a loud voicemail message so everyone could hear him. That was kind of obnoxious. While we waited for a response I annoyed him a little more by asking for an ID to prove who he was. I stopped short of asking for a blood sample because I didn't want to press my luck. I also asked how his day was going, other than the current situation. He said he was having a good day, other than the current situation. I didn't press it any further because he didn't seem like he was in the mood to talk. Several minutes later one of the assistants called and the guy explained the situation and told her to just hand the mayor the phone so that I could talk to her. He accidentally hung up his phone but quickly called back and got the mayor, who then told me that she wanted this person to pick up her purse. I told Circulation he was allowed to take the purse and thanked him for his patience and told him to have a good night. All things considered, I would say he handled it very well because he was clearly very annoyed by the whole situation.

At the end of the night I had a little time to take a look at the stuff I need to do for the first week of my ecourse. I think I'll probably end up doing stuff at home and not telling my boss. The only thing I accomplished tonight was recreating and reformatting the schedule they gave us because it was confusing and hard to read. It's much better now.

My coworker was a few minutes late getting to work because his car wouldn't start. It is a regular problem he has to deal with and no one has been able to figure out what is wrong. After work it wouldn't start again but he carries a charger with him now because it happens so frequently. A few minutes later he was good to go and I headed home.

When I got home I made some popcorn and watched some YouTube videos to unwind a little bit before starting this. And now I am going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I get to sleep in a little bit because I have to make up an hour and fifteen minutes because of the workshop we went to on Friday. I opted go in late tomorrow morning, not only because I will get an extra hour in bed, but mostly so I can get the hour over with so I won't have to worry about squeezing it in somewhere else. At least it is easier than trying to figure out my schedule after the ALA conference.

February 12, 2017

During the middle of the night last night my feet got cold so I had to throw another blanket on my bed and turn my heater on. It was mildly inconvenient but I was nice and cozy after that.

I ended up sleeping in a little bit and then I made brunch. The recipe for scones did turn out to be pretty easy, just as advertised. They were buttermilk scones and ended up tasting pretty much like a sweet biscuit, thanks to the whipping cream and sugar I put on top. They turned out well but they weren’t as good as the ones my sister makes. Next time I want to try the Betty Crocker recipe. I also made eggs and I think I have decided that they are better when made with cold milk rather than cold water.

With the rest of my day I did other things. I watched YouTube videos, movies, clicked around the internet, and spent the majority of my day finishing Sphere by Michael Crichton. I’ve been whittling away at that book for quite awhile now and I finally finished it. It was interesting. I wouldn’t rank it among my favorite books but it was decent. I’m not quite sure how I feel about the ending. I’m about an hour into the movie right now. We’ll see if I like it better.

While I ate dinner I watched Blindness because I have wanted to watch it for years and it recently came back to my attention after the book came up in conversation at work. Another interesting movie. But after watching it I don’t know that I will be reading the book. It gets pretty dark. Like really dark. I would be interested to read the ending of the book, just to see if there is more detail about how things end. The movie ends in an interesting way but it also kind of ends in the middle of a sentence, in a way. I’m curious if the book provides any more information or if it also just kind of ends.

And that was pretty much my day. Uneventful but I liked it. A nice relaxing day.

I’m starting the week with a closing shift so I’ll get to sleep in a little bit tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to. Tomorrow is also the first day of my ecourse on online tutorials. I’m interested to learn new things but I’m not really looking forward to basically having schoolwork again. I assume I’m not supposed to work on it at home but I also don’t want to sacrifice my time at work. We’ll see how things turn out.

Now I’m going to record my audio journal and then finish watching Sphere.

February 11, 2017

 This morning I got up at 9:30AM, without an alarm, so that was pretty exciting.

I spent a decent chunk of my day waiting on laundry. I think it ended up being about five hours. That's a decent chunk of time. While my clothes got clean I looked up recipe ideas for dinner and watched Lost in Space. I wanted to watch Star Trek but it wasn't on TV, so I went with Lost in Space to keep with the space theme. I only vaguely remembered that the movie existed, nothing about the plot, but it lived up to expectations. It wasn't a great movie, possibly not even a good movie, but I liked it. It's a shame that it wasn't good though because they kind of leave it open for a sequel that never happened.

I also took a brief nap because I like laying in the dark, listening to music, and napping.

When my clothes were done I fed the dogs, loaded up my car, and headed to the grocery store. This was my second trip to the grocery store, my first solo trip. It went well but I did text my sister a couple times to ask where things were. It was fairly busy but I managed to get around without too much trouble. And I got all but one thing on my list. I found it interesting how easy it is to accidentally stalk someone at the grocery store. There was a lady that passed me while I was looking at cheese. I ran into her again at the orange juice because we both seemed equally confused by the sheer number of options, few of which were just plain orange juice, which made it hard. And then we both ended up at the milk. I guess there are only a few main routes through the store when buying the staples. Also, I learned the value of checking eggs before buying them because the first two cartons I opened had broken eggs.

I unloaded my groceries and laundry when I got home and then started working on dinner. I was in the mood for taco salad so I combined that idea with a recipe my sister sent me involving vegetables and black bean burgers. The vegetables were cooked in a stir fry fashion and then I added in a little water, salsa, chili powder, rice, and crumbled up spicy black bean burgers. When I got it in my bowl I also added some shredded cheese and sour cream. I decided to use the sour cream because I got it the last time I went shopping and hadn't gotten around to using it yet. I also made some tiny potatoes that my mom gave me. I fried them in a pan and we'll say it kind of worked. I covered them in a bit of flour first and then threw in some butter, garlic, and onions at the end and they were edible. I was kind of trying two different recipes at once. I'm just glad I didn't completely screw it up.

I spent the rest of my night catching up on YouTube videos, playing a bit of Minecraft, and listening to music. Highly Suspect performed on The Late Show last week I believe, and they hooked me. A lot of their stuff sounds straight out of the 90s and I love it. While I was cooking dinner I listened to EDM but while doing dishes and right now, I'm listening to Highly Suspect.

It is now 12:45AM and I need to record my audio journal so that I can go to bed. The plan tomorrow is to try and make scones. I found an easy buttermilk scone recipe online and I want to add the whipping cream topping they mention in my Betty Crocker cook book. We'll see how it goes.

February 10, 2017

 This morning I woke up at 5:30AM and I did not like it. It was dark outside and it was still dark when I left for the library at 6:40AM. I got to the library at 7:00AM and we left shortly after when all three of us were there. The first stop was a coffee shop so the other two librarians could get coffee and breakfast. And then we headed out of town.

After a bit of highway and interstate driving we picked up the teen librarian at her house and then continued on until we got to the public library where the event was being held. All-in-all it was a fun drive. We had a lot of fun/informative/interesting conversations. It was also funny and unexpected when the teen librarian finished her banana, said she was going to throw the peel out the window, rolled the window down, said “Bye, Felicia”, and dropped the peel onto the highway. The rest of us were a little surprised she wasn't joking and she said it was fine when it immediately disappeared under the semi truck behind us because it wasn't Mario Kart.

We were running slightly behind so when we got to the library we dropped off the two in the backseat so they could go in and register while the other librarian and I parked the car. There is a parking garage right next to the library and we parked at the top because that is where the free parking happens. We ended up walking in and getting the only two seats together left at the front table just as the speaker was transitioning from introductions into actual content.

The first bit was about readers advisory but the majority of the day was about book discussions. The room was filled with round tables and we ended up at the front of the front table so I spent the first part awkwardly sitting sideways in my chair. After the first break was able to turn my chair around, which was better for my back and neck, but the chairs were still hard and uncomfortable.

Lunch was provided and we had a half hour to eat and talk before other stuff started happening. We got to meet the people at our table, one of which works one town over from us so we actually share a lot of the same patrons.

The first thing we did after the lunch thing was a bit of RA by having each table write down one recommended book from each person. I was designated the writer because I brought a notebook. None of us knew we would need to have a book recommendation so everyone was on their phones looking books up. I ended up going with Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky because it was the first book to come to mind. I need to get better at reading books again so I can engage in more conversations about books.

Then we got to the book discussion. Because there were a hundred of us, we talked about it as tables and then one person was nominated to speak for the table. I think only one person at our table actually finished the book and we were all not that into it, which is part of the reason for not finishing it. It turned out that the majority of the people in the group didn't finish the book. And the speaker said that in her experience as a librarian and a leader of book clubs, librarians are the worst about finishing a book for a book discussion, so she wasn't surprised that people hadn't finished the book. After each table's representative spoke, the speaker started asking questions and individuals were able to speak up and the discussion started for real. I didn't feel out of place for not reading the book and the discussions were interesting to listen to. They kind of made me want to read the book but not really because it sounds pretty depressing.

Following the event we got to go on a tour of the library. We went through the first half with a couple of the librarians from the library but then separated from the pack to take some extra time. The teen librarian used to work at that library so she took us around the rest of library. She also got us behind the scenes thanks to knowing the security guard and some of the other librarians who let us in the staff only areas. It's always interesting to see how other libraries operate.

After we looked at everything, the other three librarians got coffee, and we headed out of town. We ended up taking a wrong turn and driving in the wrong direction for about fifteen minutes, which we didn't realize because we were talking about library things. But then we did realize it and got turned around. It's not a road trip if you don't take a wrong turn at least once. We dropped the teen librarian back off at her house and continued on our way home.

We got back around 6:20PM, cleaned out the car, and then parted ways. When I got home I heated up the last of my roasted veggies and rice for dinner and spent the rest of the night catching up on YouTube videos, and clicking internet things. It is now much too late because I keep getting distracted. I'm going to stop writing now so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. I think I will be getting a late start on my laundry tomorrow.

February 9, 2017

 Today happened. It was nice getting to sleep in a little bit. I like being able to wake up and not have to immediately get out of bed. I also got to read for a little while before having to get ready.

At work my goal was to finish my homebound list. I came so close to achieving that goal. I have about eight more audiobooks to pick out, which is the hardest thing so I saved it for last. I thought large print books were a pain but our audiobook selection is even smaller. And there don't seem to be any complete series, so I have to give up on going in series order for books.

I worked on the homebound thing throughout the day but I also spent a decent amount of time talking to my coworkers. For the most part it was work-related. We have a lot of interesting conversations regarding librarianship and I really like it. There were some digressions in there but for the most part it related to library stuff so I don't feel bad about it. Even if it did distract me from finishing my homebound stuff.

I helped several patrons throughout the day. There were several phone calls, maybe a chat or two, a few emails, and a handful in person. I helped a lady with her tablet, who came in last week or the week before and was still having an issue. She wanted to use one of our language services and in order to get to it she had to take a very convoluted way. I'm not sure why I didn't think about it the first time but the service has an app, so today we downloaded that and things went much easier. I think she'll actually be able to start learning Spanish now.

Tonight was my Minecraft event and I am thankful that my coworker talked her brother, husband, and one of her husband's coworkers into coming, because they were the only ones to show up. It would have been very sad if no one showed up. Their skill levels varied but they had all at least heard of Minecraft so we skipped the tutorial and just loaded a regular world. We locked it to daytime for the beginning just so everyone could get their bearings and explore without having to worry about instantly fighting mobs but I did unlock it later on so mobs became more of an issue. I also spent the first half hour to forty-five minutes just watching and giving them tips on how to craft things and what they needed to do to get certain things. I then spent the last forty-five minutes or so hopping on and playing. I didn't really accomplish much because it is hard to accomplish much in forty-five minutes of survival Minecraft, but it was still fun. And the other three guys had fun, so I'll say it was a success. I think maybe next time I might go with creative mode so people can focus on building cool things. In the last five minutes I gave everyone a bunch of TNT and fireworks so we could run around and just blow big holes in the world. They all enjoyed that as well.

It's now after 10:30PM and I need to wrap this up so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. I have to be at the library at 7:00AM tomorrow morning so we can head out of town. That's way too early. The first number on my alarm clock is going to be a five and I'm not too happy about that. The trip should be fun though.

Oh, and I got my new desk-mounted microphone stand today and I already like it much better than my old one. I can easily move it out of my way when I don't need it and position it exactly where I want it when I do need it. As long as is doesn't break I'll be very happy with my purchase.

February 8, 2017

 Last night I had the oddest experience with a dream. It was sometime in the middle of the night and I needed to go to the bathroom but didn't want to get out of bed so I kept ignoring it and going back to sleep. But then, in whatever dream I was having I kept making a point of going to the restroom. This happened multiple times until I finally gave up and went to the bathroom in real life. It was just so weird that after ignoring the physical signs, my mind took over my dream and made my dream-self make several trips to the bathroom until I finally got out of bed in real life. Interesting.

Today was a fairly uneventful day at work, which is good because I never got around to taking notes. The majority of my day, whether I was on desk or off, was spent working on my homebound lists. I nearly finished, which is good because time is running out.

I signed up for an e-course about creating online tutorials today. I guess the library is interested in creating tutorials, both for the patrons and for internal training, and it was suggested that I take the lead on that. So, yay. It does involve posting to discussion threads and creating a sample tutorial, but as far as I know there aren't any grades, and it only lasts four weeks. It already feels like it will be a little overwhelming but anyone can survive four weeks.

To sign up for the class I needed my ALA membership number to get a discount so I logged into my grad school email account to get that information. And that turned out to be a good thing because I haven't logged in for months, never really think about it actually. Other than needing to email my old practicum supervisor to see how everything turned out with the assessment project and the scavenger hunt. Well, she actually emailed me just yesterday to see if I would want to submit a presentation proposal with her to a conference for the scavenger hunt project. What are the odds? I almost logged in yesterday but wasn't able to get the department credit card until today to sign up for the class. It's just really good timing. I'm not really into the idea of presenting but it would be good for my resume. And the experience would be good. I'm going to roll with it and we'll see if the proposal is accepted.

I watched the thirty-eight minute video about driving the Prius because we will be taking that to the thing on Friday. I probably didn't need to watch the whole thing but I had the time. I also sped it up a little bit so it wasn't quite thirty-eight minutes long. It was both informative and boring. Not only was it about what is different when driving a Prius, it was also also about how to drive in general. Turns out the accelerator makes it go, the brake makes it stop, and when driving in the snow or ice, it might be slippery.

We had our department meeting this afternoon and it went well. We started by talking about the book we are slowly reading through about communicating better. Then we talked about random department and library things, like new policies and other things I can't remember. There was a lot of digression throughout which made it hard to keep track over everything we covered. The meeting ended with a presentation from the teen librarian about interacting with teens. It was perfect timing because she actually came to our meeting immediately following having to kick five teens out of the library for a week because they have consistently been a nuisance for the past year. The last straw today was playing with one of the wheelchairs. One of the kids was pushing another around who was pretending to be mentally disabled. Our future, everyone. Anyway, the presentation was good. Way more informative than the Prius video, and provided some interesting context for how to view teens and our interactions with them.

Following the meeting I briefly talked with two of the other librarians about relationships and random other things before I called it a day. After work I swung by Chipotle and then headed to my Mom's house. The food was nothing special but most of the videos I had went over pretty well. My mom actually had some solid laughs at some of them. Which included laughing at the Grace Helbig video I showed, which is rare.

After all that we talked for awhile, I picked out some of the magnets my sister made, and then I headed home a little after eight o'clock. I spent the rest of my night catching up on YouTube videos and clicking around the internet. I feel I'm very close to buying a new fountain pen. I want the slate gray version of the lime green one I currently use on a daily basis. And I want to get a burgundy ink for it. I have looked into it in the past and it came back again yesterday. In the past few days I have bought two new pairs of pants (which I really needed), a second green jacket (because I really like my green fleece jacket and by the time I need a new one they won't have it anymore), and a desk-mounted microphone stand (so I can move my microphone out of the way when I'm not using it). It has been awhile since I've purchased anything outside of food and gas, so I'm definitely in that splurge mode at the moment. We'll see if I can ride it out. I'm not too sure.

It is now almost 11:30PM and I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I don't work until noon tomorrow, so hopefully I can get to bed early enough to actually get a full night of sleep.