I got another full night of sleep last night and woke up on my own a
little after seven o'clock. I had several cool dreams last night but
I can't remember any of them. If I had a superpower I would like to
be able to recall any dream and to go back to it whenever I wanted.
I think that would be cool.
It was nice having a morning before work. Usually I wake up with
enough time to get ready and eat lunch on the days that I close. I
was able to do random things and I also played more Papers,
Please. It was good times.
When I got to work I spent my time on desk reading articles about
Papers, Please. I also helped the occasional patron but I was
mainly focused on learning more about the game and coming up with
possible things to talk about.
Without any desire on my part I became a little too close to a patron
today. When a patron needs to use a phone, we direct them to the one
next to the secondary computer at the reference desk. As they use
it, they are usually standing right on the other side of that
computer's monitor. So you're pretty much just sitting there, trying
to focus on your work and ignore the phone call happening right in
front of you. I can usually do that, or I at least quickly forget
the conversation. But today the woman was calling to find out if
there was a warrant out for her arrest. That is apparently a hard
thing to find out. I find that interesting. She called to police
departments, a courthouse, and a lawyer. She thought the court date
was tomorrow but it was actually yesterday. She has three kids, one
of whom is still nursing, and she was trying to figure out if there
was a warrant so she would know if she needed to find someone to take
her kids. And she was worried she would have to pump milk in a jail
cell. It turns out the court date had been canceled or something so
she wasn't in trouble.
When she got of the phone she was super happy and reached her hands
across the desk. She obviously wanted me to hold hands with her, so
I did. She acknowledged that I probably heard everything and I think
she wanted to express her happiness at finding out she wasn't in
trouble. She also apparently felt the need to over-share. It turns
out the court date wasn't for her, it was for her husband, who has
PTSD and is on trial for vehicular manslaughter. That took a turn
real quick.
After dinner I was on desk and continued to work on stuff for the
workshop tonight. I made a handout (that I don't think anyone took)
and a survey. On my walkthrough I stopped in children's because the
person on desk is going to the faire with us and I wanted everyone to
be familiar with how to make the bracelets. She wasn't busy so I
said I would go grab the wire and show her real quick because I had
time before I needed to set up for my workshop. Unfortunately when I
got back she was helping a patron and after waiting almost ten
minutes I had to abandon the effort.
I was going to immediately go to the auditorium when I got back
upstairs but the assistant asked me when she was supposed to take her
break if I was going to be busy the rest of the night. I hadn't even
thought about that because I don't take breaks, so it didn't cross my
mind. Also, the other assistant automatically takes one early on the
nights I have an event. But the new assistant is new. So instead of
going to setup I covered the desk while she took a break.
I was a little stressed, as I am with the unknown, so putting off the
setup until fifteen minutes before made me a little anxious. And
then there were some issues with the logistics, because all the
cables were attached to the podium. We ended up getting it figured
out, so all was well. Three out of the five people ended up coming,
and I think it went pretty well. I didn't check the surveys but they
seemed to have a good time and I think we had a good conversation
throughout.
Last time we played Never Alone and I threw out questions
throughout the session. This time the game involved a little more
focus so I tried to keep my thoughts and questions until the end.
But whenever something came up related to the themes of morality,
ethics, empathy, or whatever else I would try to engage it and get
them talking. I am happy with my choice of game. I think it would
have been a much different experience picking a game about border
control and immigration if we had a big turnout, but it was perfectly
manageable with such a small group.
By the time I got everything picked up I had about five minutes to
get downstairs to close. That ended up working out pretty well
because I was able to do a walkthrough, put a few books and DVDs on
display, and talk to some of the people in circulation about the
video game discussion.
When I got home I ate a snack, watched some YouTube videos, and now
I'm finishing this up. I'm really feeling the fact that I've been up
since seven o'clock. It's almost 10:45PM so I'm going to hopefully
record my audio journal quickly so I can get to bed as close to
eleven o'clock as possible. I don't go in until eleven o'clock
tomorrow but I want to try and keep this eleven o'clock bedtime
going. I'm liking it.
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