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.