a hundred visions and revisions

You might have noticed that I haven't updated my blog in a couple of weeks, mostly because life has gotten substantially busier and more interesting for me of late. Last week, I started my new job in the young adult department at the Allen County Public Library, and I can tell it's going to be a good fit for me. Of course, I already had experience there from my internship this summer, but this time I'm working as a REAL librarian, for which I'm being paid REAL money - definitely an improvement! I even get my own email account and phone extension - wow! My coworkers in the department are all great and have been very welcoming and willing to answer any dumb questions I have as I start to settle in. The teens there are pretty much made of awesome, and it's been fun to catch up with a lot of the regulars I remembered from this summer. They seem happy to see me back, too - one kid told me the other day that I'm a "pretty okay librarian", which I think was a huge compliment coming from him (By the way, if you want to get a taste of what our teens are like, check out the YA department's blog - it usually features some, ah, interesting discussions in the comments).

There are only a couple of downsides to the new job - one, of course, is the long drive back and forth between Bloomington and Fort Wayne every week, but that's only going to last for the next couple of months until I finish up grad school for good. The other is that it's only a 15-hour a week position, and there's no guarantee that there are ever going to be any more hours available. I'm keeping an eye out for other positions within the ACPL system, because I really like the library and it'd be nice to live close to my parents, but I also need to be making a lot more money than I'd make if my hours stay the same as they are. So I'm hoping that something will come up that will enable me to stick around - even if it means going back to Mitchell Books or taking another part-time retail type job - definitely less than ideal, but we'll just have to see.