On the move

Ok, I am going to stop being indecisive and move to WordPress. I feel disloyal [to a blog! - Help, I really do have an over-developed sense of responsibility], but I can't have two blogs on the go at the same time, and WordPress won, despite some trouble with images, which I hope will sort itself out.

So, from now on I'll be posting under the guise of Bookmouse. Please come and visit me in my new home!

If you have a link to me, don't worry about changing it (unless you'd rather). Hopefully people can find their way from here to the new blog ok.

My latest post

Which concerns photos and dogs, can be viewed somewhere else. Sorry for flitting, I just happened to be there testing things out, so I thought I'd write something there.

Recipe: Pink Curry

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast per person
• 1 red pepper
• Curry powder
• Chili and garlic sauce
• Garlic (fresh or sauce)
• Sliced courgette
• 1 small carton of coconut milk
• 75g of rice per person
• Cooking oil

Method

1. Measure out rice and put in saucepan
2. Boil enough water in a kettle to cover the rice. When boiled add to the rice in the saucepan.
3. Set the rice on the hob at the lowest heat and leave to cook. Keep checking it so that it doesn't stick to the pan - make sure there is plenty of water in the pan.
4. Heat oil in pan. Chop chicken into pieces and fry in oil.
5. Slice and add courgettes and pepper. Fry with chicken in pan.
6. Add curry powder to taste and stir in to chicken mix.
7. Add garlic sauce and chili sauce to taste. Stir, and simmer for a few minutes.
8. Add the carton of coconut milk and leave to cook on a low heat for about 10-15 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked through.
9. Check rice to see if it is cooked.
10. When chicken and rice are ready, drain rice and serve with the curry.
11. Eat!

Meanwhile, in other electronic and unimportant lands

Meanwhile, in TV-land, Ruth has left Spooks. I was quite disappointed by this, in a not very important, it's only TV kind of way. She was my favourite spook, for several reasons - she's wasn't blond, she wasn't pretty (although she was beautiful), and she was a bit crazy. Harry made a good choice.

Meanwhile, in blog-land, I'm thinking of moving to WordPress. Many blogging acquaintances use this, so I thought I would investigate. I've set up a little test blog there and it seems more user-friendly than Blogger. Stuff that's only in beta here is standard there, plus it has stuff that isn't even in beta Blogger. Oops I hope Blogger don't wipe my blog now I've said bad things about it. I do still like you! Anyway, I'm staying here for now, as I can't transfer stuff from here to there until the beta becomes alpha, or whatever the techie term is. I guess I could just start a continuation blog...I might do that, but I don't like change. It's a bit like getting my hair cut. I like the thought of it, but I never quite get around to doing it, and I might just be going through a phase. I'll try it (WordPress, not hair cutting) out a bit more first and see...

Taking criticism

Taking inspiration from the Singing Librarian's post on taking a compliment, I have decided to write one about taking criticism. Like him I am also not particularly adept at taking compliments, but my ineptitude in this area pales into insignificance when compared to my complete inability to take criticism well.

I have several stock reactions to criticism:

1. Blame someone or something other than myself
2. Defensiveness
3. Self-pity (usually a bit later, when the critic has gone)
4. Over-reaction (I did this wrong, therefore I must do everything wrong)
5. More over-reaction (why is it always me who gets it wrong)
6. Comparison of self to others (why are they always right/perfect etc)

It's not a particularly life-enhancing list, is it?

An additional problem is that often, the person I see as being critical and thinking badly of me probably isn't doing so at all. In reality they were probably just giving me some advice, or reminding me of something. Even if they are telling me I've done something wrong, nine times out of ten they'll be nice about it, but I can still react badly.

Like the Singing Librarian and his reaction to compliments, my reaction to critcism can worsen the situation, especially if I am defensive and snappy towards the person who I see as criticising me. Then I will feel even worse, because I've added a nice little emotion called guilt into the equation, as well as potentially being offensive/hurtful towards another person.

So, what is my problem? Most people don't like being criticised, but some deal with it better than others. Some people can think, 'oh, ok, so I did that wrong, but that's ok, now I'll try to rectify the situation and it's good that I know what I did wrong, I am happy and at peace with the world and myself' (or something like that). I have been pondering (for a few years) on why I don't like criticism and can never seem to react very positively to it. The reason is quite similar to the reason I find it difficult to take compliments, and is the root of many of my social problems - the dreaded low self esteem/insecurity/lack of confidence thing.

Or maybe I'm just grumpy.

Blogging for history

I thought you (anyone who's reading this) might be interested in the 1 Day in History day on October 17th. The History Matters campaign want as many people as possible to record their experiences of the day, which was chosen as it's not a 'special' day, for a mass blog to be archived at the British Library. You can read the Daily Telegraph article about it if you like, or visit the History Matters website for more information.

Comments

I'm feeling a bit braver today, so I've enabled comments again.

A very bad poem about stock management, with apologies to real poets

Oh books, in cardboard boxes,
What hopes must you have had?
What dreams may you have dreamed
That now will never come to pass?

Of influencing minds of men
And changing history
Of scholarship and pleasure
That never now shall be

Your lonely lives have run their course
And no more will you live
No one will learn the secret things
That you were born to give

But, yet, yet, hope may shine for you
In the gloom of library land
For if you catch librarians’ eyes
You may yet withstand

The onslaught that is policy
Stock management for you and me
And books, which in their hundreds lay
Untouched on shelves until today,

Are now to be destroyed, alas
Are now to be destroyed.

The other side of The X-Factor

This might be a post, that, like the one about Elizabethtown, had more of a point when it was in my head that when it made it to the computer. Anyway...

I watched The X-Factor last night. It was round two, I believe, known as "Boot Camp" and people were getting thrown out quite regularly until each group was down to the final eight acts. This purging of contestants made me think a bit more about those who didn't make it to the next round. Unlike most of the contestants on "Maria", the people who enter The X-Factor competition aren't middle class graduates. A lot of the contestants, particularly those in the 25 (years old) and over category seemed to be people who had already had a hard time in life and wanted to win The X-Factor to make a better lives for themselves and their families.

One contestant particularly stood out for me. She wasn't the best singer, but it was what she said rather than how she sang that really made me think. She said that if she didn't get through [to the next round] she would become "just another statistic". She was in the competition with the aim of providing a better life for her children. She talked about the house they always looked at and dreamt about buying one day. Unfortunately, she didn't get through. It made me sad to think that she only saw herself as a statistic, and didn't seem to recognise her worth as a person, and an intelligent and articulate person at that. I hope that she can find some other way out of her situation, and that she will one day have a better life for herself and her children.

Other people in the 25 and over category included a Scottish lady who saw The X-Factor as her last chance to get out of the factory job she has been working in for about 20 years. She was quite emotional because she said that she didn't feel that she deserved to have got so far thought the competition. Happily, she got through to the final eight, and her reaction was great! I hope she has the confidence in herself to perform well enough to go on through the next rounds.

I do realise that the footage is edited, and that the producers can make people appear any way they want them to, if they want to draw people into watching the show. Even so, it made me think a bit more deeply than I expected to, which can only be a good thing, in my opinion (even if on 'paper' my thoughts haven't come out quite as clearly as I would have liked).

Elizabethtown

The story is quite simple: guy who thinks he's made a mess of his life finds some hope and love and learns to love life and realise what's important.

It didn't do very well when it was released and may not even have reached your local cinema. Many people said it wasn't very good, but I really like it. I can see why people might not have embraced it wholeheartedly - it's quite slow and a bit cheesey at times, and Kirsten Dunst can be a bit annoying. You might not like it if you are of a particularly cynical disposition. Having said that, I have been accused of cynicism many times, and it may be one of my favourite films. For me it achieves what I think is it's goal - it's a life affirming film that leaves you feeling better at the end of the film than you did when you sat down to watch it. Great soundtrack as well.

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility if you watch the film after reading this post and hate it!

The students return

A colleague said to me yesterday, "You've been looking more and more stressed all week", which wasn't very reassuring, but didn't really surprise me. Nothing particuarly stressful happened this week, I think it was just a lot busier than previous weeks. It was one of those weeks where I had a list of things to do, and did some of them, but the last few things never got done because either something beyond my control stopped me from completing the task or something (or many things) cropped up and I never got round to finishing the thing I started doing. [Whoops that was a bit of a long sentence!] I realise this doesn't say much for my time management skills, which are something I should work on.

We were without a printer in our office for half the week, due to me thinking we had a spare cartridge ready and waiting, but this turned out to be an old cartridge wrapped up in a box. Oops. Totally my fault and very annoying, because we then had to walk halfway round the library (well, nearly) to collect our printing. Still, at least we could print to somewhere.

I had some appraiser training yesterday, which was helpful, but domintated by an academic member of staff who kept bringing round the discussion to suit his agenda. On the one hand, this was an interesting insight into the working practices and attitudes of academics, but on the other it was a waste of time when we were already trying to fit in six hours of training into a two hour session, and I was really anxious to learn what to do, as I've never appraised anyone before.

I have my own appraisal sometime next week (?), with our line manager who doesn't like doing appraisals and apparantly doesn't follow the proper procedure - despite being quite pedantic about following proper procedure to the point of annoyance at most other times. So, I'm not sure how much use my appraisal will be, but I'll fill the forms in and take them to him anyway, whether or not he wants to use them.

On a more enjoyable note, the office was alive with the sound of music this week - even more so than usual, I thought. We also had some ad hoc 'entertainment' from the garden outside, when a few students were gathered for an impromptu guitar/singing session. This varied in terms of levels of annoyance depending on what type of music was being played. I was quite irritated at first, but then mellowed when he changed from rock to folk and stopped yelling so much. My librarian tendencies were urging me to go outside and tell him to shut up, but I resisted.

Writing of unwelcome musical accompaniment (the student, not my colleagues), the most maddening thing about travelling on the train at the moment (even more so than the overcrowding, which is increasingly bad and getting to dangerous levels) is people who play their mp3 players/mobile phone out loud, so that we are all subjected to their taste in (mostly awful) 'music'. I don't know how can people be so inconsiderate. I have asked some lads to turn their music off before, and they asked, "Why?". Maybe that says it all.

I do feel like dancing (maybe): What's playing today at Lilian's house

I'm totally addicted to the Scissor Sisters' single "I don't feel like dancing". It's the catchiest thing I've heard in a long time and I've been playing it on repeat all afternoon, much to Mr C's annoyance, I suspect. One of my favourite things about it is that it has the words "old Joanna" (as in piano, I assume) in it. That doesn't happen very often in a pop song. It also has little laser beam shooty synthesiser sounds in it, which are quite endearing. If someone played it at a party I might even consider getting up and dancing, which, if you know me, should indicate to you how catchy and dance-making it is. Anyway, you've probably heard it for yourselves, so I'll stop wittering on. [I know the picture isn't of the right album, but I like this artwork better].

Alas, my music player has gone kaputt, and is going to be replaced, so I have been music-less on the train for the past few days. I have no idea what happened to it, but it just suddenly stopped working for no reason that I could fathom, and none of the suggested trouble shooting methods worked. Actually it's so kaputt that it wouldn't even restore the settings. I suspect it is built in obsolesence, which is rather annoying, because I've had it less than a year. At least they are going to replace it, but the point is that it shouldn't need to be replaced yet! Never mind.

Also playing chez Lilian this afternoon is Seth Lakeman, who, in total contrast to the Scissor Sisters, is a folk man from Devon. I don't know much about him, apart from the fact that he was in the same class as at school as someone I know, and he sings folk/folk rock/acoustic rock (is this an oxymoron?) songs. I like folk, and he seems like a decent sort of chap, so I bought his album. I'm quite glad I did, as it's an enjoyable delve into English folk music. It's not too 'folky' though, so it would be a good introduction to folk music for someone who isn't sure whether folk is quite their thing.

I always find folk music strangely comforting. I think it's because of the traditional nature of the songs and the fact that some of them have been sung for hundreds of years without much change. I'm quite glad about the folk music revival of recent years, because I think it's really important that we in the UK don't lose touch with our musical roots. English people in particular have a hard time finding something firm to cling on to traditions/language/music/roots-wise (in my opinion, maybe I'm wrong), but there is a whole load of traditional music out there for the listening. I know it's not to everyone's taste, but it is interesting, and I think it's important that people realise what a rich heritage we have, music wise.

Here endeth the lesson.

Next up we have hits from Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra, which are from Swing! The Ultimate Big Band Album, which is one of those compilations where you get about 40 tracks for £5.00. Big band music is the reason I learnt to play the bass guitar. In reality, I never made it to playing in a big band, but I did manage a concert orchestra, where we did occasionally play big band numbers (as well as endless film soundtrack music), so all was not lost, and it made me seem less geeky. Ok, maybe I just hoped it did. Anyway, I had some fun times with my bass, (as well as some not so fun ones involving lugging a large bass amplifier up and down stairs)despite possibly being the world's worst bass player. Anyway, Tommy Dorsey was a trombone player and band leader, and did a lot of collaborations with Frank Sinatra, that's about all I know about him, apart from the fact that he had a brother called Jimmy, who was also a band leader. The Tommy Dorsey Orchestra still exists to this day, but is now conducted by Buddy Morrow.

I'm not quite sure what the point of this post was, but it took me rather a long time to write, for some reason, so I'll keep it for your reading pleasure.

How do you solve a problem like Maria?

Well, it was finally the final of How do you solve a problem like Maria? last night. In case you didn't know, Connie won, and deservedly so, I think. As she said herself, she was consistent all the way through the competition. She really drew me in to her performances, and made me feel the most emotional, especially last night, when she sang As long as he needs me, a song she doesn't like, apparently! She seems to have the stamina and professionalism to play the role. Also, I think she wanted it the most out of all the would-be Marias. She had been auditioning for West End shows for a long time, and always coming second, so it was nice to think that she will now achieve her dream and not have to go back to tele-sales!

I thought Helena was great as well, though. Her performance of Do-Re-Mi was brilliant. Siobhan has a lovely sweet voice and she is very beautiful, but I think the panel were right in saying that maybe she wasn't yet ready for such a big role.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching all the 'episodes' that I watched, although I did take issue with some of the things they made the girls do. They seemed to have to sing a lot of non-musical theatre songs, which seemed a bit silly given that they were in competition for a role in a musical theatre production and not auditioning for Pop Idol. They also had to do an assault course one week, which I thought was particularly stupid. It was ostensibly to test their stamina, but completing an assault course in the fastest time doesn't mean that you're going to be able to perform in a musical eight times a week, as that involves a different kind of stamina. I was also a bit worried that the public wouldn't make the right choice. I think ALW took a massive risk when he decided to find 'Maria' using this method, but he certainly got his show a lot of publicity, and I think and hope that Connie will be able to pull off the role.

For those who may be interested

Thank you to those of you who have posted or emailed supportive, helpful and friendly things following the posting of the horrible comment. I thought some of you might like to know what happened next in the saga of going to the doctor, so here is a summary:

I went to the doctor's again and showed her the letter I'd written. She said she didn't know what to advise because I have so many abnormalities, which wasn't very encouraging! I'm going to contact my cardiologist and also follow some leads of my own to try and find out more information. At the moment though, Mr C and I are erring on the side of caution and thinking that the best plan might be to take the safest and most sensible option and not try to have children naturally. If we did decide we wanted to start a family later we would adopt, assuming we would be considered suitable adoptive parents.

Why are [some] people so horrible?

Following a particularly unpleasant comment posted on here last night/earlier today I have decided not to allow any more comments on this blog. I apologise to the nice people who have left comments in the past, but I don't want anything remotely resembling a repeat of what was posted here last night. I did consider deleting the blog, but have decided to continue for the time being, although I don't really feel like writing anything (except this short explanation) at the moment.

I may be being oversensitive, but these things get to me.

Recipe: Pork (or Chicken) with marmalade and stuff

This is one of Mr C's recipes. Again, I'm not sure how healthy this one is, but it tastes nice.

Ingredients:

• 1 pork steak or one chicken breast per person (fresh or frozen)
• 1 large onion
• Some marmalade
• Enough cheese to put on top of the pork/chicken
• Vegetable oil

Method:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees
2. Put a small amount of vegetable oil in the bottom of a baking dish, so that the bottom of the dish is covered
3. Place the chicken/pork in the dish
4. Chop the onion and scatter over the pork/chicken
5. Put about half a tablespoon full of marmalade on each piece of meat
6. Put a thin slice of cheese on each piece of meat
7. Bake in the oven according to the instructions for cooking found on the meat packets
8. Check meat is cooked before serving
9. Serve with potatoes and/or fresh vegetable

Recipe: Fish Finger Korma

This is a recipe I made up in my student days. It has since become famous, appearing in the Choir Cookbook, and other people have even cooked it!

Ingredients:

• As much rice as you want per person
• 2 fish fingers per person
• 1 carton of coconut milk*
• Korma powder*
• 1 medium onion*
• 1 green pepper*
• Other veg of your choice*
• A bit of margarine or cooking oil

* All of these ingredients can be replaced by a jar of korma sauce, if you're feeling lazy.

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (or whatever it says on the fish fingers packet)
2. When oven is ready put in fish fingers, as per instructions
3. Boil water for rice in kettle
4. Put rice in saucepan and add boiling water
5. When rice has boiled turn right down to the lowest heat and leave to cook
6. When fish fingers are ready take them out of oven and turn oven off
7. Fry onion in oil/marge until transparent
8. Chop the fish fingers into four pieces and add to pan. Stir
9. Add vegetables to pan and stir
10. Add korma powder to taste. Stir
11. Add coconut milk and stir
12. Leave to simmer until rice is cooked or for a minumum of 10 minutes, stirring occassionally
13. When sauce and rice are cooked serve and eat

Steps 7-11 can be replaced with the adding of the jar of korma sauce.

The fish fingers can be replaced with tinned tuna, which should be drained of liquid before it is added.

Recipe: Pretend Pizza(s)

I just invented this recipe this afternoon, and I thought I would share it with you.

Ingredients:

• As many rounds/slices (depending on what you call them) of bread as you feel hungry enough to eat
• Tomato or brown sauce
• Cooked chicken or ham (if you are a carnivore)
• Vegetables of your choice (excluding carrots, which don't work well oven baked)
• Fruit of your choice
• 1 spring onion, or one quarter of one medium onion
• Cheese
• Garlic (if you like it)
• Worcestershire sauce (if you happen to have any)

Method:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees (sorry I don't know the equivalent gas mark)
2. Spread bread with tomato/brown sauce as thick as you like
3. If you are eating meat, tear up the chicken or ham and place on the bread
4. Chop onion, garlic (if you're using this) and veg and place on the bread
5. Slice cheese and place slices on top of the bread
6. Add a dash of Worcestershire sauce, if you have it
7. Place pretend pizzas in oven for 10 minutes, or until you smell burning
8. Take pretend pizzas out of oven
9. Turn off oven
10. Eat pretend pizzas

It's a nice easy thing to make if you're not in a cooking/making much effort mood. I'm not sure how healthy it is, but if you use plenty of veg and brown bread it might not be too bad.

A post that, despite its length, doesn't say much

Today, I was supposed to go into the city in which I work, and do several things, such as return library books, get my bag mended and take some unwanted books to the Oxfam (or similar) shop. However, I have not gone. There are a few reasons for this, shown here in no particular order:

• It's raining
• I go there every day to work
• It's a 45 minute train journey
• I am too lazy
• I know that if I go I'll do what I have to do and then mooch about aimlessly and possibly buy an item of clothing that I'll never wear

I will do the things I have to do in my lunch hour one day this week. Actually, in reality, I probably won't. The bag that needs to be mended has been loitering in the office for weeks, waiting for me to take it to the repair place. The books (or at least one of them) have been languishing in my desk drawer, also at work, waiting to be returned to the library.

I have just finished, and hence want to return to the library, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. It took a while to get into, and I wasn't sure I was going to make it to the end of its 900 or so pages, but it was worth the effort, and I enjoyed it.

Mr C has gone to London to see a friend and go to a wargames shop, which might be detrimental to his bank account.

I keep dreaming about the Library of Doom: even in my sleep I cannot escape. I wasn't feeling too bad about work this week, mainly because I wasn't there very much, had more important things to think about, plus Enemy Number One was away this week. Actually her absence wasn't entirely a good thing, as something has gone wrong with the Inter-Library Loan reports and, due to the distribution of power (or lack of it) in the Library of Doom, she is the only person who can potentially sort this out. I felt very sorry for the Singing Librarian this week, as, due to the ILL problem, he spent two days re-doing work he had already done.

Anyway, as I said, I wasn't feeling too bad about work, that was until Friday night, on the train home would you believe, when I was talking to two colleagues, and of course, we 'had' to talk about work, and the dreaded permissions came up in the conversation. I am having an ongoing 'guilt' phase regarding my part in the reduction of permissions on the issue desk computers. I won't go into the whys and wherefores of why the permissions have been reduced because they're boring. In fact, this whole paragraph is boring, but I will plough on until I get to the point...

Which is that this issue is a good example of me being weak and also not thinking things through. Both of these failings are common in my life, in fact they probably occur on a daily basis. Every [working] day I do something that makes me think that I'm rubbish at my job. It doesn't have to be anything very big or very wrong, just something.

Then I think, 'why do I worry so much about my job?'. It's not life and death, I work in a library, for goodness' sake! But it's my job, and I want to do it well, and I especially don't want my failings to make everyone else's lives difficult. It does make me a bit cross, though, that it makes me feel bad. This morning I woke up thinking about work, and, as I said, I even dreamt about it last night. This is not on! I don't want to waste my time away from work thinking and worrying about it. Surely my brain could find something better to do?

I have been thinking recently about my future career, and about what I really want to do. Starting the chartership process has helped me a bit with this, as I'm supposed to be setting goals and then planning how I'm going to achieve them. Of course, the problem is that I'm not really sure what I want. I'm not particularly enjoying work at the moment, and term hasn't even started yet! But I think this is due to too much worrying. I don't know whether I want to work as a Reader Services person forever - the complaining students/staff get very irritating/depressing after a [short] while. I said to Mr C last night that if I didn't like the people I work with so much I would probably not want to do my current job. Hopefully I will feel better soon.

So, maybe I could be an academic librarian/faculty liason librarian. This was my original plan after my trainee year, and it's still something I would still like to try. It does involve budgets, which involve numbers, but hopefully I could get some training in this. Well, I will see. Sometimes I think I might like to be something other than I librarian, but I'm not sure what that is, apart from bestelling author, academic, jazz singing sensation, teacher, prime minister, ballerina, doctor, or songwriter. Only one (maybe two) of these is actually achievable within the realms of reality, however.

Reality = I will stay where I am until it becomes financially unviable/I get sacked/Michael Buble (sorry I can't do the accent on the e) asks me to be his singing partner.

I just visited the Lipstick Librarian (I was searching for other blogging librarians) and it seems I cannot be a Lipstick Librarian, as I am currently wearing an item of clothing with a duck on it. Two ducks, in fact. Perhaps I wouldn't want to be one anyway.

I apologise for the length and whingy nature of this post.

M.O.T.

Today I went for what is affectionately known as my MOT, otherwise known as my annual visit to the heart outpatients clinic. I don't think that's the real name of the clinic but never mind. It is held at Harefield Hospital, in Middlesex, and I've been going there for more years than I can remember (literally).

Getting there is a bit of an epic journey, involving a train into London, going all the way across London and out the other side to the far end of the Metropolitan line on the Underground, and then a bus from Uxbridge station to the hospital. One of my favourite parts of the day is the lovely view from the bus on the way to the hospital, across some lovely green fields and a very nice looking lake/reservoir.

For once, we got there really early, so we had some food in the canteen bit, and saw the same ladies we see every year serving the food. The canteen at Harefield was built in 1974, and I have visited every year since about 1980. It's remained the same all that time. I think even the ladies are the same ones. They are what I call 'WI' ladies, and are very lovely and make excellent sandwiches and tea. Bizarre fact: you can buy a postcard of the canteen from the canteen. I have done this.

I had my ECG (electrocardiogram) and Echo (ultrasound). For anyone who wants to know and doesn't (if there is anyone), the ECG is the one where they stick lots of wires to your chest, ankles and wrists using sticky pads and then get a reading of your heart rate, beats per minute, 'pattern' and other things I'm not quite sure of. If you know please tell me - I meant to ask but forgot. This is the thing, after 20+ years of having these same tests I still don't know exactly what they do!

The Echo is basically an ultrasound similar to the ones you might have seen pregnant ladies having. The technician can see 'inside' the heart - the way the valves are moving and the blood is flowing through the heart. When you're having it done you can see your heart on screen, which is quite interesting, although obviously I wasn't sure which bit was which, but the opening and closing of the valves is quite easy to make out. I had a trainee technician for this at first, but as I'm an awkward customer and my heart isn't easy to see, she had to call in another lady, who is another person I've seen for years and knows what a problem patient I am. She recognised me, which was nice. It's quite comforting to see familiar faces each time I go.

Today was my first meeting with my new doctor, after having the same one for 25 years. Happily my new doctor seems very good, and friendly and approachable as well, which is always a bonus. She was more thorough than my old doctor, maybe partly because it was my first appointment with her and she needed to find out the status quo. She tried to take my pulse, but couldn't find it (noone else can either), and measured my oxygen levels by putting one of those things on my finger. I was interested to find out that this is what those things are for (sorry if you have no idea what I mean - they have them in Holby City (yes, apologies, I do watch this)). Apparently I have oxygen levels of 98%, which is good. She asked me quite a lot of questions about how I was feeling (ok), whether I was feeling more tired now than previously (a bit) and what exercise I do (not much). She also asked if I had any questions, which I appreciated, as not all doctors take the trouble to do this.

I asked her about timescales of having the valve replaced/repaired if we decide not to/can't have children. Basically it depends on whether I feel like I'm 'deteriorating', health wise - whether I'm becoming increasingly tired or unable to do as much as I used to, etc. This is something I'll have to monitor and let her know, even if it's only a slight change. It's quite hard to measure this though. Recently I've noticed that I feel tired/out of breath more easily, but I don't know whether this is (a) because I'm older and more aware of things (b) because I'm older (!) (c) because I'm just more unfit generally than I used to be or (d) an effect of the leaky valve.

The main factor though is still the 'children issue'. If we can physically have children we would then need to decide when (or if) we want to have them*, and then the valve would have to be repaired, and then we would start trying to have them. As you can tell, the timescale for all this could be rather long, and, cliche though it may be, I'm not getting any younger.

*You could argue that we should have discussed and know this already. However, we've found this difficult to do because we don't know whether we can have any. I hope that makes sense.

I also asked the doctor about the wire(s) (see a previous post). She said that they could remove them but obviously this would involve surgery, which it's better to avoid if possible. Although they're quite uncomfortable at times I don't really fancy any more surgery than is absolutely necessary, so I suppose I'll just have to put up with them.

I apologise if some bits of this post contain too much information! I know I find my medical history interesting, but I do appreciate that not everyone else will feel the same.

Watching people

Today, I was a bit strange. Ok, hold the comments! I was walking from work to the station, and I heard a sort of shouty whining very nearby. It turned out to be a teenage girl arguing with her mother. I then had a choice of whether to walk one way or the other, and I chose to follow the arguing people because I wanted to see what happened. The daughter refused to walk any further, walked away from her mum and plonked herself down on a bench. Mother kept on walking. I was a bit disturbed by my choice, as it does suggest that I am (a) nosey and (b) just a bit weird. Or maybe I'm just interested in people and the way they behave. I think, though, that this is just an excuse for me being nosey. Oh well.

I did worry about the girl and how she was going to get home, and how far away from home she might be, and whether the mother was worried or whether she was so angry she wasn't thinking and how far was she going to get before she stopped or turned to go back to her daughter. I did follow the mother for a bit, but then I was too early for the train (I'd left early to get the earlier train but by the time I actually got out of work I'd lost some time, then I was rushing, then I was tired, so I ended up mooching around Next and Boots to kill some time. I dread to think how many hours of my life I've wasted killing time while 'waiting' for trains) so I branched off and went on a very slightly longer route to the station.

I do like watching people. I use to get told off for staring a lot when I was younger. I probably still do it now. I must perfect my librarian stare, though.

On the way to the station

Today, I got the 5.15pm train. I never usually get this train, because it involves walking quite fast from work to the station, and I don't like walking quite fast because it can have a bad effect on the old ticker. I was persuaded to go for the earlier train by two of my colleagues, and I was glad I did really because I got home at 6pm, instead of 6.40pm (if I get the earlier train on any day other than Friday) or 7.05pm if I get my usual, later train. However, we did walk quite fast, and although one of my colleagues said "that wasn't a brisk walk" it was brisk enough to make me feel nauseous due to being out of breath. I felt the need to tell them I felt ill (not sure why, maybe to warn them I might have to stop), then I had to explain to one colleague about my dodgy heart, and so colleague one wanted to know why having a dodgy heart should lead to feeling sick. I realised I did not know the answer, but I thought it was due to lack of oxygen. I will now attempt to find out.

Mr C says it's some sort of defence mechanism: to prevent you from harming yourself by further exertion your body forces you to stop. Not knowing whether Mr C was right or not, I had a look on the web, and the only site I could find with an explanation was one about mountain biking! It was quite helpful. Apparently (according to the writer of the site) the nausea is the body's reaction to severe physiologic stress. It's the same type of nausea that you may feel if you injure yourself. That makes sense to me. I suppose Mr C was partly right - your body isn't liking what's happening to it, so it reacts, and does force you to stop, if the physiological stress gets so bad you have to stop and throw up. Sorry, this isn't a particularly pleasant thing to blog about!

I have my annual MOT next week. I dreamt about it the other night, which was unusual for me. I do dream a lot, but not usually about medical things. It was a classic anxiety dream - I was at my appointment with my consultant, but it wasn't my usual consultant, and she was foreign and I couldn't understand what she was saying. Then I was getting lost in hospital corridors and realising that Mr C wasn't there when he'd said he would come with me, and I was emerging from a tunnel out onto a corridor and thinking 'this is where Professor Yacoub met Princess Diana' and then I woke up. The strange wanderings of a (n assistant) Librarian's mind.

I think I'm more concerned about it this time because I have to ask the consultant about having the valve repaired, and timescales relating to this. Also I have had some trouble with wires which were left in my chest after my heart surgery - I think they were used to join the sternum back together. They lay low for 26 years, but last year I felt something pricking the inside of my chest (sorry, it's a bit hard to explain). It's more uncomfortable in certain positions, and doesn't do it all the time (which is just as well). It's quite a weird feeling, and can be quite painful. I mentioned it to the consultant last year, not knowing what it was (although I suspected), and she said she knew exactly what it was. She said that there was no need to do anything about them, as they weren't making a particular nuisance of themselves, but since last year there have been times when they have been painful and at the moment I can't lie in certain positions because they poke me, and it's not very nice. I don't know whether anything can be done, and I suspect that anything that could be done would involve surgery, and I don't think I want that. I expect I'll just have to put up with them/it. It's quite strange that it only happens some of the time - normally for a few days to a few weeks at a time. I've tried to work out what could cause them to poke sometimes and not others, but I haven't discovered anything yet. If anyone else out there has experienced this I'd be interested to hear about it.

Well, that's enough medical stuff for one night. Mr C is waiting to watch some more LOTR documentaries, so I'll go and join him.

Houses

Ahh well, the long weekend begins tonight. I'm not sure what we're going to do, but it might involve me trapsing round banks and building societies making appointments with mortgage advisors, which, I'm sure you'll agree, doesn't sound entirely thrilling. We're going to speak to mortgage people to see what we can borrow, but all the signs are that we could only get about half a terraced house in the dodgy part of town, due to our low salaries. The theory is that at least if we're told this by an expert we will know where we stand, rather than relying on my dubious calculations on various banks' websites.

People keep telling us we're wasting our money renting, but I think it's unrealistic to think we can afford to get a mortgage on our salaries. Most of our friends have finally realised that this is the case since I have been doing the test things on websites, but they think we should go to speak to some advisors, just so we do know what the situation is. People have suggested things like shared ownership and part-buy, part-rent (?), which might be better, but it depends how these things work. I have absolutely no idea what all the different types of mortgage mean, which is another reason we should go and speak to a mortgage advisor, I suppose.

We live in a very expensive part of the country, which doesn't help. If we lived in the North we would be able to buy something I think, but down here in the Saath it is not so realistic a plan.

At the moment, I'm not too bothered about buying something, although it would be nice to be able to do our own thing in the house decoration-wise, and have pets, children (if appropriate) and be able to plant stuff in the garden. The house we have is nice, and in a nice-ish area near to the railway station. I don't think we would be able to get anything near as nice or convenient for the amount we could afford to borrow.

I do worry slightly about what will happen if we never earn much more than we earn now, but need to have our own house, e.g. if we have children. (This isn't even on the horizon yet, but I'm good at worrying about non-existent things!) Even if we reach the top of our pay brackets I'm not sure we would be able to afford anything nice in the area we live in.

I suppose the answer is either to move to another area or move jobs. The difficulty is that Mr C's job is his ideal job, which is very specialised, and I wouldn't want him to have to leave it. Although I like my job I can see that one day I will have to leave in order to earn enough to continue living the extravagant lifestyle to which I have become accustomed. There is more scope for me to find a new job, because there are libraries everywhere, but the thought of applying doesn't fill me with pleasure. I almost always get an interview, and almost always fail it. Anyway, that can be left for later 'discussion' in another post, perhaps.

However, there is urgent need for us to buy a house and/or move jobs at the moment, I'm just thinking out...loud? (What is the writing equivalent of that?). I think a lot of this is triggered by other people's expectations of what we should be doing. Just because they've been fortunate enough to be able to afford to buy their houses they think we should be doing the same, and don't see that it's not actually a realistic option for us. I think they find it hard to believe how little we earn! This does make me quite cross.

I hope all this doesn't sound like all I think about it money, but I do take issue with the low salaries that people in the library profession are paid. As far as I know, I earn more than the rest of the people in my team, and I do wonder how they manage if I am struggling to save. Six years after graduating I'm still earning below the average graduate starting salary, which I believe is £18,000 (?). My job asks for a professional qualification, by the way. I know, I know, I shouldn't apply for jobs if they don't pay enough, but I'm in it for the love [and the fact that this was the only job I got offered in 18 months of trying escape my last, horrible, job*], not the money (although the pay is better than my last job!).

*I, as I have said before, do like my job (most of the time), which is an added bonus. I'm not sure whether I should have shared that part about it being the only job I was offered. Oh well, too late now. There was also the fact that it was in vaguely the right location to be able to carry on my relationship with Mr C and everyone I met at the interview was very friendly. I wouldn't have taken it had I thought I wasn't going to enjoy it and like the people I would be working with.

Generally, if you're going to be a librarian, don't expect to get paid enough. Well, I suppose I do get paid enough, just not as much as I would like. But I can live comfortably enough with what I earn so really I shouldn't be complaining. Having said that, library professionals are badly paid compared to other professions, and I think it is something that has to change, especially if we want to encourage new people into the profession. Maybe this is another discussion I should leave for another post...

Filming Tolkien

For the past few weeks we've been watching the extended DVD editions of the Lord of the Rings films. I really loved the films when I first saw them at the cinema, although I know some people weren't too happy about changes that were made to the storyline and other things when compared to the books. I'd read the books before I saw the films, but I couldn't remember them in great detail, so I wasn't too bothered by any changes. Avid Tolkien fans like my mum and Mr C were more upset by the changes. My mum was particularly peturbed by the fact that they didn't put 'The Scouring of the Shire' in, because she thinks that this part of the book makes an important point - that evil can happen in your own 'back yard'.

Mum has been a Tolkien fan since she first read The Hobbit as a teenager. She even thought about going on Mastermind and having Tolkien as her special subject! This isn't really relevant to the post, but we have a book at home called Father Christmas Letters, which is a book of letters from Father Christmas, written by Tolkien to his son. I really loved this book as a child. I must have a look at it again when I next visit my parents.

Anyway, we've watched all the extended films now, but I'm still working my way through the extra features about the making of the films. Sometimes watching the 'makings of...' things can take some of the enjoyment away from watching the films, because then you know that the special effects are just that. However, with these films seeing how they shot and made everything has added to my enjoyment of the films as films, because of the amazing detail that was gone into, and the skills that were employed in creating everything. I felt a bit bad when I first saw how much detail was put into the weapons, for example, because I hadn't noticed it when I watched the films, and someone had gone to so much trouble to create it. Next time I watch the films I'll make extra effort to look for all the details.

The documentaries do explain a bit about why they changed certain scenes, dialogue etc, and also tell you a bit about Tolkien and his worldview, which is quite interesting. I'm not sure whether he would have liked everything about the films- he seems like he was quite a 'stickler' and might not have liked some of the changes that were made. Hopefully he would be impressed that someone actually managed to 'film the books', though, as he is (apparently) on record as saying he thought they were un-filmable. I'm not sure if that is the word he used or if it is indeed a word at all!

Procrastination

Well, here I am again. It's Monday lunchtime. I'm half on lunch and half being a desk back-up person and I'm in the office. During my lunch hour I've done the following:

• Eaten my sandwiches and a chocolate bar.
• Booked my driving test. (After trying several times online and being forced to give up due to the computer not being able to cope with the fact that I've changed my name.)
• At a colleague's request, looked at a cheque without a cheque guarantee card number on the back, and then put it back in the till anyway.
• Sorted the post.

I'm trying to avoid (re)writing my Personal Development Plan for my chartership programme. I have already written it once, but Mrs Mentor says it's too detailed and full of irrelevant things. Even though I know she's right I just can't face writing the wretched thing for a second time. I went a bit too much to town on the last one, and put in everything I could possibly think of to do to develop myself professionally, and it was 11 pages long, so I do see Mrs Mentor's point. It's just fiddly and annoying to have to go through it all again and pick out what to leave in, what to change, add etc, especially as I'm having a sort of 'not bothered' period regarding chartership at the moment. Very Bad Librarian, I know.

Lacking in motivation.

Perhaps I'll just sit down tonight and do it in one fell swoop.

It just thundered very loudly.

Three days later...I have now re-written it.

Six months

Today it is six months since Mr C and I got married. Therefore, it seems an appropriate time to reflect on marriage and relationships, with reference to my own experiences. I know six months isn't very long, but it has been an important six months in terms of new experiences and emotions, and in terms of learning how to live with another person without driving them mad (although I'm not sure I have actually achieved this yet!).

I had never been an attachment of any sort before I started going out with (yucky term) Mr C, and I remember being quite scared of being in a committed relationship. I do sympathise with men who get scared about this sort of thing (but only to a certain extent). I suppose some of the fear came from selfishness, because, if I was going to do it properly and be a good other half, I was going to have to think about another person all the time. Not in the sense of being daydreamy about them, but in the practical sense of planning how I would spend my time etc. After being single for 24 years this takes some adjusting to. The other part of the fear came from the little voice in my head that was saying 'what if it all goes wrong? What if we fall out and we can't be friends anymore? What if I don't like being in a relationship?' and probably other things that I can't remember anymore.

As neither of us had been out with anyone before, we weren't actually sure what we were supposed to do! Going out with someone is a bit of a strange concept anyway, in my opinion. You could argue (as some people, especially Christians, do) that there's no point in going out with someone unless you intend to marry them. I'm not sure about this, mainly because I don't think it's realistic to expect people to know whether they want to marry someone without having been in a deeper relationship with them than as 'just' friends. I know you can have deep relationships with friends, but there is a line, and once you cross it you're not really 'just' friends. This is sort of what happened with me and Mr C. We crossed the line of feelings, and once we realised this (it took a while!) we weren't 'just' friends anymore. We were now...going out...

I felt too old be a girlfriend, but I hate the term 'partner'. Girlfriend just makes me think of being at school and annoying couples in the playground. Our relationship was much the same as our friendship really - we are still friends first, before any of the more complicated emotional stuff, and that's the way I like it. I hope Mr C likes it this way as well. Being shy and retiring types, we didn't tell lots of people about our change in 'status' but most of our friends who were around at the time had guessed anyway!

It took a long time for us to cross the line to 'going out', and it, understandably, it took longer to cross the line to 'engagement'. Being Christians, and with many of our friends already married, we faced a lot of pressure to get engaged quite soon after people found out we were a couple (of what?). I went through stages of being happy and sure we would get married, and then thinking that being in a relationship was too hard and wanting to escape. Having been used to my own company and way of doing things, and being a control freak in a relationship with someone who is nearly the complete opposite of me in many ways, this feeling of wanting to escape occured quite a lot, right up until we got married.*

In his own words: "Mr C had a fear of marriage and commitment. In fact he still does, but it's too late for him to back out now. He is mine. Actually he seems to be perversely enjoying it. Perhaps I have miscalculated [he says]. Marriage is great because you can indulge in silliness in front of each other and the other person can't get rid of you."

Seriously, though, we both found the concept of marriage extremely scary. Even though we knew it was the right thing to do, and, after much discussion and thought decided to get engaged, the idea of spending the rest of our lives together was still rather disturbing. I realise that this probably sounds like we didn't love each other enough or something, but this was not the case. It was more that we were, and are, both aware of our own weaknesses and recognise that those weaknesses could be detrimental to a marriage. I think it's more natural to be slightly afraid of being with one person for the rest of your life. It's the same with any sort of commitment - you are bound to worry whether you are making the right decision or not. I don't think that marriage is magically immune from this kind of worry, despite what fairy-tales and Hollywood would have us believe.

Actually, that was part of the problem for us, or for Mr C, at least, when we were considering each stage in our relationship. Being an optimist, he expected that when he fell in love and got married all would be Hollywood-style perfect, and if it wasn't there was something wrong and maybe we shouldn't go to the next stage. I've always been more of a pessimist!

I've always found being in a relationship quite difficult. This is not due to any fault on the part of my husband, I just don't think I'm a person who naturally shares their emotions, and I have all my weird ways and moods that he has to contend with. We are quite different in personality and don't share many of the same interests, but somehow (often to my surprise!) it works. It's probably just as well that we're so different - I don't think I could put up with another me! I am almost constantly amazed at Mr C's tolerance and patience, as I've mentioned on this blog before.

*Actually, if I'm having a bad day it still does occur occasionally. It's not really that I want to escape now, but sometimes I just don't feel able to be in a relationship and worry that my bad personality traits are going to mess everything up.

In summary: relationships aren't easy, but can lead to much happiness.

Sorry it was such a long post. Congratulations if you got to the end!

Beta Blogger

Sounds like beta blockers...

Anyway, since I found the cunning way to do categories, Beta Blogger has arrived, which gives one the ability to make categories with ease! Hooray! There are quite a few nice features, such as the ability to make posts private or for selected readers and to change the colours and font on your blog without having to do the html, and you can change the layout of your blog by dragging and dropping items. I think some (if not all) of these things have been available on other blog providers for a while, so I'm glad that Blogger has now caught up a bit.

The only thing is that I won't be practising html quite so much now. Still, I have my web authoring training to look forward to...

Singing

As I've said before, I love singing. I've done a lot of it over the years, in various choirs and things, but I'm not actually sure whether or not I'm any good at it.

I can pick up a tune easily enough, and I don't have much trouble learning parts and harmonies. I just don't know if the quality of my voice is any good, and I suspect it isn't. Being able to pick up harmonies and learn stuff isn't the same as being a good singer (although it helps).

I've heard myself on record before and I didn't really like what I heard, so I don't like listening to any recordings of me singing (there are a couple!). Somehow I always sound better in my head compared to the way I sound to other people. A colleague, who is a good singer, sings a lot in the office, which is a delight. I, despite my love of singing, do not normally sing in the office in case I make a horrible noise.

I think confidence is one of my main weaknesses (in general life as well as singing), as is my reduced breathing capacity. Weirdly, I can breathe perfectly well enough to play the flute, but not to sing. I suppose it's a different type of breathing. I know I don't sing very loudly, possibly due to my rubbish breathing technique, and I'm not very good at projecting my voice, unlike the aforementioned colleague, who is an excellent person to have around if you need someone to shout at the students to be quiet.

Because I love singing so much I dread that one day someone will turn round to me and say, 'you can't actually sing, you know' (or whatever) and then I'll be very sad. I suppose I live under this illusion of my own talent, so I'd rather not be disillusioned. I don't think I'm very good at many things, although I can do a lot of things passably well, but singing is one thing I've always thought I'm good at. I suppose I'm like those poor people on Pop Idol or similar who go in to the audition thinking they're the next Eva Cassidy*, and then Simon Cowell laughs in their face and says 'I don't mean to be rude but,...'

*I should just clarify, I don't think I'm that good. I just think I can hold a tune and do you a decent harmony should you require one. If I do my fake opera voice though... Kiri you should look out... ( =

I suppose if I love singing anyway I shouldn't really mind whether other people think I'm any good or not. But I do, I really badly want to be really good at something I love doing, and I want other to people to think I'm good at it, too. I guess I just have an ego that wants to be stroked, but I can't be a shy and retiring librarian all the time, can I?

Noise

Today I was doing some training for new Issue Desk staff and my colleagues in the adjoining office were so noisy that I had to shut the door. I'm not sure what they were doing, but they were louder than usual - or maybe I just noticed it more because I was trying to explain things to someone.

Now I'm on my lunch break and being annoyed by children outside my window making lots of noise. Gosh, I am beginning to sound like a cantankerous, miserable old librarian. Oh, hang on... Scrap the old, though (for now).

I am having an annoyed day for some reason. I think it may be because I had a meeting with the Sharks this morning. Such meetings, I feel, are always predestined to be irritating due to (a) the subject matter, and (b) who attends them. Having said that, today's meeting wasn't too bad, and we did (potentially) get a new shelver out of it, so I can't really complain. I just approach the meetings with a feeling of dread because most of the time I don't win, and I end up having to go back to other library staff and tell them that this or that permission has been taken away, or they're going to have more work to do, or something else that's not very good.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with a senior member of staff. I waited for five minutes, and then ten minutes, and then I went back to my office. At 35 minutes past the hour I telephoned her. I think she had forgotten, but she did say we could meet then (wow, such generosity) and we did sort out the issue in question.

I feel like there are not enough hours in the day, and not enough days in this week to fit everything into. But I'm sure it will be ok in the end.

Whenever I sing Can't help lovin' that man in my head, I always get the words the wrong way round and end up with swimming birds and flying fish.

Education, education, education: A rant

This weekend my one of my friends came to stay. We stayed up until 3am (at least that's when I went to bed, friend and Mr C stayed up for another hour) talking about many things including, politics, religion, forgiveness, people's rules for life, Islam, Jewishness, racist policies in Malaysia, overseas students in England, the university admissions system and many other things, but mainly about education.

Friend is a teacher. She works in a middle-of-the-road school. It's not a fantastically good school, but it's not a failing or particularly 'challenged' school either. In a way, the fact that her school isn't classed as failing is one of the most worrying things about what she says. I won't go into details, but the behaviour of students is appalling at all levels, the behaviour of staff isn't much better and the whole place is a big mess where very little actual education takes place. There is no respect for teachers from students, parents, other members of staff, management or the general public. There is no sense that the students are there to make some effort to learn, they are just there to be told things and spoon fed facts and theories until they can regurgitate them onto an exam paper. Most of a lesson consists of 'crowd control' and very little actual teaching. Even given that friend is prone to whinging about things, it sounds awful.

Whenever I have these conversations with friend I do try not to get upset, but inevitably the seeming hopelessness of the situation gets to me. I wouldn't be so concerned if I thought hers was an isolated case, but I know it's not. I see large numbers of school children on the train every day and I have never had the misfortune to be surrounded by so many selfish, ill-mannered, rude, and ignorant individuals. They just don't care - they don't care that they're ignorant, they don't care that they're rude and they don't care about other people.

The education system is failing thousands of children every year. As a nation, our literacy and numeracy levels are low - employers say they can't find people to employ because school leavers don't have the necessary skills for the working world. The liberal attitudes which started to influence education (and society in general) in the late 1960s and 1970s have created a society where the boundaries of acceptable behaviour are so wide that they're hardly recognised and even when they are people don't seem to care. Teachers can't discipline students for fear of retribution from parents, the government or the students themselves. The entertainment media portrays countless examples of nasty, selfish, rude and slobblish behaviour, but you can count the examples of honour, kindness and compassion on your fingers. Moral behaviour is seen as a weakness, and any kind of authority is reacted to with a mixture of suspicion and mockery.

Government policies have hampered teachers for years. The increase in beauracracy and emphasis on results and league tables hasn't improved anything for teachers or students.

I'm not claiming to know much about this, I just wanted to have a rant and air my views, but here are my (completely unworkable and impractical) solutions to the situation:

1. All subjects taught in schools should be setted according to ability.
2. No one under 16 should have a mobile phone.
3. All schools should have a strict uniform.
4. No swearing should be allowed on TV or radio. It is actually possible to write comedy without it.
5. No more Big Brother.
6. No one under 16 should be allowed to have a computer or a TV in their room.
7. Students should only be examined at 16 and 18.
8. League tables should be abolished.

I did warn you this was a rant. Please don't write in and have a go at me. I'm a shy and retiring librarian and I might not be able to take it.

P.S. I do realise that not all children and young people are horrible.

New things

At the moment, inspired by The Singing Librarian, I'm trying out new things on my blog. To this end, I have set up a test blog, so that if something goes horribly wrong I won't make a big mess where it matters. I think Blogger is slightly limited in the things you can do, e.g. you can't put posts into categories [or tag them], unless you use a 'hack' thought up by someone else. So this is what I intend to do, and I'm currently testing one way of doing it on the test blog. It's not working so far, but I live in hope! It sounds very cunning and I can see how it should work in theory, but we will see...

Later...

Well, it works on this blog, although not on the test one, which I think is to do with the age of posts. There are drawbacks in that, because it works using Blogger search, if you click on a category you get every post that even mentions the category title. This can be solved though, by putting a distinctive 'tag' on a post, e.g., changing music to -music- (or something) when it's specifically there as a tag (and also changing the category title to -music-) I will do this at some point. Anyway thanks to danchong for his clever idea.

Even later...

Well, I tried my cunning plan (see above) and it hasn't worked. I still get every post mentioning music. I will try other things when I've not been sitting at the computer for such a long time. Meanwhile, if you click on a category don't expect your results to be completely accurate. Sorry!
Having said that, it works ok for some things, e.g. 'GUCH', because it's quite specific. 'Books', however, doesn't necessarily turn up results about books, but it might turn up a post about shelving where books are mentioned.

The dilemmas of a blogger

I'm not sure whether I'm an anomaly amongst bloggers, but I feel a bit uncomfortable about people I know reading my blog. It's just disturbing to think that e.g. my colleagues could read all my inane ramblings and then I have to see them the next day at work after they have read about my fears of lying horizontally, for example.

Being read by fellow bloggers is not so disturbing, in a way, because fair's fair, I read their stuff and I think that, rightly, they should be subjected to my musings in return. [This is not entirely serious, I hasten to add - I enjoy reading other people's blogs very much]. Seriously though, somehow it is less worrying, maybe because...

[I must break off to tell you that there's a really odd version of 'Somewhere' from West Side Story on the radio at the moment. Very odd arrangement. Sounds like Barbara Streisand]

....I don't reallyknow why, but I think it is to do with them writing as well, and therefore, I assume, perhaps not being so judgmental about what other people write, knowing how it is to feel vulnerable about having their....

[It wasn't Barbara Streisand, it was Barbara Walsh, and it was supposed to be funny, apparently]

...work read and potentially judged by other people.

I suppose you could argue that I shouldn't write things I don't want people I know to read, but there are few people I know who read blogs. Also, having said all of the above this is going to sound weird, but the better I know someone the less worried I am that they'll judge me. So, for example, Mr C can read to his heart's content and I don't mind, but work colleagues I don't know very well* are more of a worry**. The exceptions to this 'rule' are parents and other relatives, whose judgement I still worry about, and who, it could be argued may not know me as well as they think.

As for people I don't know at all, I really don't mind what they think of me, so they can read as much as they like and (a), I probably won't know about it, and (b) I won't care.

If only I could draw a diagram I'm sure it would all become clearer.

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*Work colleagues I arguably don't know very well but who blog are less of a worry, because, rightly or wrongly, I feel like I know them better from reading their blogs, and they also come under the category of fellow bloggers (see above).

**No offence is intended by this statement.

A particularly funny Unshelved comic strip

I loved this one (although I'm not quite sure why!) so I thought I would share it with you...

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Unshelved by Bill Barnes and Gene Ambaum

Unshelved is a daily comic strip about a library. At http://www.overduemedia.com you can read the complete archive, buy stuff, sign up for free email delivery, or subscribe to an RSS feed.

Untitled

I realised after I wrote my post about the cathedral that I didn't mention God at all. I don't really know why. I think big, grand things can hide God as much as they (or at least the people who build them) would like to be a show-piece for him. Sometimes it's easier to 'see' God in the smaller things of life. Maybe the way I felt on Saturday was God-related, but I don't know, and I don't want to suggest that God is only found in cathedrals and such places.

Vertical and horizontal

In Come Dance With Me, by Russell Hoban (again), one of the characters, a doctor, makes an interesting observation about the doctor-patient relationship, imparted to him by his predecessor at the hospital:

'It's a matter of the vertical vis-a-vis the horizontal' [...]
'The doctor is vertical; the patient is horizontal, even when they're walking
around. The doctor wears a suit, the patient is in pyjamas, even when they're
fully dressed.

This quotation illustrates how a lot of 'patients' feel, I think. When I go to the doctors, or for a test or a scan or whatever, I often feel (metaphorically) horizontal even though I'm not. I feel like I'm the one in the wrong and that the doctor is in the right. I feel powerless and vulnerable and at the mercy of the medical professional who's performing the test. A horizontal person in pyjamas (or worse, a hospital gown) is not supposed to ask questions. They're supposed to submit to what happens to them, and they can't run away because they don't have their clothes. I don't like it.

I don't like the indignity of having to take my clothes off in front of strangers so that they can examine me. I don't want to submit to the intrusions. As soon as I'm no longer in my own clothes and in one of those hospital gowns I'm no longer myself - I am a Patient who is there to have things done to her. Not only have I lost the protection of my clothing but my identity has been taken away.

At the dentist's the fear really kicks when I get to a certain angle in the chair. I don't like tipping my head back to have my hair washed in the sink at the hairdresser's because I worry that I won't be able to get up again. Until a couple of years ago I always had nightmares when I slept on my back. It's too vulnerable a position.

Sometimes I feel more vertical than others, depending on what's happening to me/who I'm talking to. I suppose the more intrusive the procedure the more metaphorically horizontal I feel.

I don't want to sound ungrateful, I just want to put across my point of view. I'm not sure about the layout of the quotation. Weird.

The cathedral, the book, and me

Having recently finished reading Riddley Walker, I decided that I would go and have a look for the painting of the Legend of St Eustace in Canterbury Cathedral, and so, on Saturday morning, I did. I had to ask an elderly lady cathedral guide where it was, and almost looked at the modern copy without realising there was a great big painting on the wall behind me, but I did find it. The hart of the wood was indeed there. Poor St Eustace, he didn't have a particularly nice life after he converted to Christianity. Good painting though. [Is this the least informative review of a significant painting ever written?]

I love cathedrals, it must be the Anglican in me. Actually, I don't think it is. I don't know whether it's just the sheer scale of them, the architecture or what, but the sense of history and spirituality in a cathedral is awesome. Whenever I visit one I get drawn into it, and I feel, in a strange way, really safe and at peace. I wander around and soon it's just me and the cathedral, the outside world is gone, the other people in the cathedral are gone, that's it. Me and the stone and the something of people and times gone by. I think that maybe what makes me feel safe is the sense of continuation despite great change, the sense of beauty and the feeling of escape from the world outside. I want this world of peace and quiet and pattern and music and beauty.

On Saturday, after I had looked at the painting of the Legend of St Eustace, I went outside and sat in the cathedral grounds on a bench, reading a book. I thought about things, while I was reading the book - it was that kind of book (actually, it still is). It's a love story, but a little on the odd side. I think it would be describe in TV guides as 'off-beat', which is not a phrase I like even though I've just used it. I was still feeling safe within the bounds of the cathedral and I could think clearly about the things I was thinking about. Sometime I can do this, but then at other times (like now) my thoughts are rather muddy.

There was a wedding in the crypt of the cathedral, and the bridesmaids, and then the bride and her father, arrived in horse-drawn carriages. Lovely dappled/white horses, with plumes on their heads. They were very beautiful. I like horses, but only from a safe distance. Near to me, on the next bench, a man was drawing the cathedral and the lady next to him started talking to him about where the best views of the cathedral are. I overheard their conversation. He said he was an art teacher, and he liked imparting the secrets of art to his students. Apparantly one of the secrets of art is that you should always start your picture from the top down, just in case you needed to know.

I was having a morning where everything meant something for some reason, I think it was the effect of the cathedral, and possibly the book as well. The world wasn't just passing me by, I was a part of it. On Saturday morning I, the cathedral, the book, the artist and his picture, the street cleaner (I know I haven't mentioned him before) and the horses, felt significant. I don't know if you've ever loved someone and everything you see or experience connects you to that person in even the most intangible way. On Saturday morning I felt like that, but it was more like being in love with life or at least the potentials of life, what good could be achieved, even through the smallest things.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in a book and I start thinking like the characters, I wonder whether I should be worried about this.

Story

I've finished my 'story' about my life with a congenital heart defect (thrilling stuff), and I need to send it in by the 31st of July. I am deliberating over whether to send it in or not. I'm not sure whether it's very good, or even whether I want people to read about my feelings about heart-related matters. I'm a bit worried that my parents might be upset if they read it because I've never really expressed my feelings about all my medical 'issues' before. I don't know. Maybe I should ask my mum to read it first? But then she might not like it and/or say it's not very good. I suppose now it's written I should do something with it. Well, I have four days to decide, so I will have a think.

Teach First, acquire manners later?

Today, I went shelving several times, which is good for me as I think I've probably only done about 6 hours shelving in the year and a bit since I've been working at the Library of Doom (apologies colleagues). My first attempt was fairly successful, i.e. I could see desk space where there had only been books before, but I did have a minor incident involving me bleeding over some books, myself and the shelving trolley due to a particularly vicious social work book. Two more attempts followed and more table space appeared (hooray!), but then more books arrived...

Anyway, I must get to the point of this entry...

I was getting rid of some 700s, trying to squeeze them into L-space, when some young men came by, talking loudly, so I asked them to please be quiet and they did reduce the volume, but also thought it was amusing and worthy of a mocking "shhhh". This is quite normal student behaviour, but it was made worse by the fact that the young men in question are Teach First students, and thus are supposed to be 'the cream' of British graduates and 'academic' - so you would think that they would appreciate and respect their library staff. I should have known better I suppose. I may be being over sensitive (as I often am), but it worries me that people who are supposed to make excellent teachers and set an example to children and young people have such a lack of respect for library staff. Their motto (yes, they have a motto) is "learning to lead". I'm not sure whether this is the kind of person I would want my children (if I had any) to follow.

I suspect my ranting might sound like an over-reaction, but I think you can tell a lot about a person, student or otherwise, by the way they treat library staff. But then I would say that.

Men

Since I wrote that little bit in a previous post about men having backbone and some women's problem with men who are too nice, I have been thinking some potential difficulties of being a man in the contemporary western world. Please note, what follows will contain generalisations. Also, I must point out that, in case you didn't know, I'm not a man, and therefore I accept that what I say may not be fact, or even the experience of men today. However, I will continue.

Unreasonable and irrational women

Women can be very unreasonable. They don't want a nasty man, obviously, but how does a man acheive the correct degree of niceness without becoming too nice? I'm not too sure, and I'm a woman, so how are men supposed to know? Some women can also be very irrational. As I am one of these women, I sympathise with any husbands, partners or other men who might come into contact with women like me. I have to say though, that I don't mean to be irrational and am at my most irrational during the dreaded PMT. I honestly don't know how Mr C copes. If he behaved the way I do sometimes I would probably leave him. (I'm also not very tolerant). I can see that if you are a rational person (man or woman) it must be very difficult to empathise with someone who is being irrational. However, also bear in mind that they might not necessarily be being irrational, they might just be doing something differently to the way you would do it.

Nagging

I am a champion nagger, but I still feel sorry for men who get nagged. We know it doesn't really work, and yet we still do it. It's like a compulsion. Please believe me when I say we really do only do it for your own good.

Portrayal of men in the media

I've noticed that nowadays men are often portrayed by the media, particularly on television, and particularly in adverts, as being rather stupid and inferior to women. The feminist in me thinks 'revenge at last', but actually it's quite worrying. Apart from anything else portraying men as being stupid and inferior is just as bad as portraying women in the same way. I'm not sure how offensive men find this kind of portrayal of themselves, but if I was them I would feel a blow to my self-esteem. I suppose it depends how seriously people take these images, but I'm the kind of person who takes things seriously I'm afraid. I don't like hypocrisy (even though I'm sure I'm guilty of it myself sometimes). You can't on the one hand say that adverts portraying women as objects are bad, whilst on the other hand portraying men as being totally ignorant. There are obviously still too many adverts using women's bodies to sell products, but making adverts where men are made to look stupid doesn't make us feel any better.

I also worry that this kind of portrayal of men is actually damaging to women. Women can't afford for men to have any more reasons to dislike or despise them. I know I'm sounding like a feminist now, but there are men out there who would love an extra reason to feel hurt by women so that they can justify their sexist opinions.

Oops, I didn't want to man-rant. At least most of this post was nice to men, I hope. Mr C read it and he seemed to find it amusing, which may or may not be a good thing, but he did say 'oh dear' when he got to the end bit!

Changing rooms

I have just looked at my profile and it says that I enjoy learning Hebrew, playing the flute and singing. I think I should change this as I haven't done any proper Hebrew learning for about a year, which is pretty bad really. It's not that I don't have the time, I'm just lazy. Playing the flute and singing are also mentioned, and, whilst it is true that I enjoy these activities I only play my flute about once a month for family service at church, and singing is restricted to Sundays at that same venue. I will change the profile, but I'm not sure what to put in instead.

That wasn't what this post was supposed to be about. It was just going to say that we performed the Great Office Move yesterday. I didn't think it went too badly, considering what could have gone wrong, although the conditions were not ideal - very hot, with a distinct lack of fans.

In other, but still work-related, news, we talked about shelving and stock management, and the potential hazards thereof. Or rather the hazards of not having enough staff or time to do either of these things sufficiently quickly or well. It's worrying, but we will have to do the best we can and see what happens, and then if it all goes awry maybe the Sharks will finally do something to help us. I realise that this may not be the best way forward but we weren't sure what else to do in the circumstances.

Yesterday, on my way in to work I had just entered the campus when I was accosted by a student who wanted to know whether I'd contacted someone about the periodical he wants the library to subscribe to. I hadn't even got to the library yet, and it was before 9.00am! Agghhhhhhh.

Comment annoyance

Aggh someone, or several someones, is leaving comments on my blog so that they can advertise their product(s). Lots of them! 53 today! I can't be bothered to go through and find and delete them all, but if you happen upon any such comments while reading this blog please don't follow the link!

Lyrics, love, niceness and being kind

I'm listening to Keane again. One of my favourite lines, which appears in the song Is it any wonder is "sometimes I get the feeling that I'm stranded in the wrong time where love is just a lyric in a children's rhyme". One good line is a whole song, maybe even album, full of good lyrics.

I think it's a good line because, as do a lot of Keane's lyrics, it expresses how I feel sometimes. I don't mean in the sense that I personally don't feel loved, but when I look at the world, or even just my local communities I think more love would be good. Real love is sometimes difficult in practice, but sometimes it only seems difficult. I'm not very good at it, but I know some people who are, and I admire them for it. You need to be quite brave to give this kind of love, because sometimes people don't want it and you might get rejected (actually this may be true of any kind of love), and sometimes the people you try to love might be scary and even dangerous. This is where my cowardly side would rear its head, and I would run away, but some people don't.

It really amazes me, the way some people love. How do they do it? I am pretty selfish really. Sometimes, when I'm in particularly bad moods I can't see beyond myself at all and I don't even care if I hurt other people with what I say or do. Mr C is probably the only person who has seen this part of me, and I wouldn't want to inflict it on anyone else. I don't want to inflict it on him either, when I'm feeling 'normal' but when I'm in a mood I actually don't care. Even in 'normal' mode I'm often lazy or cowardly and I don't show love to people as I should do.

I was thinking about kindness the other day on my way home. I was thinking about how kindness is different to niceness. Niceness is a bit wishy-washy and could mean anything. When people describe someone as 'nice' what does that mean? Apparently men can be too nice (according to some women). That sounds like a weird concept, but I sort of know what they mean. [Basically, men should also have a backbone - figuratively as well as literally]. Having said that, niceness is a perfectly acceptable quality in a human being. However, kindness is better (in general, not just in relation to men!). Kindness is also rarer, I think. I am priviliged to know many kind people, more than my fair share. Kindness is part of real love. Sometimes you have to sacrifice something to be kind, and kindness makes a real difference to people who experience it.

Aggh I am waffling and I've lost my thread. I must go.

How did I get here from Keane lyrics?

P.S. I looked up 'kind' and 'nice' in the dictionary, and the descriptions were similar, but the words that stood out for me in the various meanings given for 'kind' were 'compassionate' (the first meaning) and 'loving' as in "full of love". The latter is given as the archaic meaning, but I think this describes kindness (as I see it) in the best way.

There's a Hebrew word, hesed, which means lovingkindness. I love that word (although I had forgotten the Hebrew so I had to look it up!). It appears a lot in the Hebrew Bible (or Old Testament, depending on your persuasion) when the author is describing qualities of God, but sometimes the translation misses the full meaning of the word, which is a shame.

Rabbi Malka Drucker talks about it like this:

In Hebrew the word is hesed, which is also translated as mercy and grace. It is unconditional, causeless love, the love we have not just for those nearest and dearest, because that's easy. It means behaving as if we love to strangers and even those we don't like [...] [L]oving kindness [is] the behavior we offer when we may feel exactly the opposite of love. And how do we know that this is what God wants us to give each other? Because we are btzelem elohim, in God's image, and hesed is God's chief attribute upon which we most depend. Loving kindness is what God gives us, no matter what. The love that never stops, never gives up, no matter how unworthy we may feel. God knows better than we who we are and who we may be.

Ok, now I really must go.

Meanwhile, in the Library of Doom...

We are moving offices imminently, i.e. tomorrow, so there has been quite an "aggghhhhh!" sort of feel in the air this week. Especially as previously we were told that we wouldn't be moving until the end of the month, for which we had a Plan (A), and now we're moving tomorrow and have a Plan (B), which was only thought of yesterday.

We thought our Plan (A) was perfectly acceptable - we had even discussed it, and I'd gone to the extremes of doing a statistical analysis thingy in order to be able to justify our decision. But, alas, Plan A was not to be. I had a meeting with the Sharks yesterday and told them Plan A, and lo, the Sharks were not happy with said Plan. Yea, they did beseech me to change yon Plan, and therefore did I become most unhappy, and didst say unto them: Wherefore ist this plan not good? And they did say unto me: didst thee think it through most carefully, and I did say: yea, I didst. Aber jezt was das Plan nicht recht, und so sagte ich, "Was mochten sie? Warum konnen sie nicht es zu mir sagen?" Und sie sagten: "Es ist nicht was wir wunschen, aber was besten fur das Bibliothek ist. And so, she wondered what to do. She wandered into the library, and went to visit the office of one of the Sharks. She pondered hard but was none the wiser, so she thought, I will try to accomodate the wishes of the Sharks. She thought on this and discussed with several people. And so Plan B came into being. And she wasn't sure that it was good.

Not sure what happened there. The German is schlecht (terrible) by the way. My apologies to anyone reading this who knows, or (double apologies) is, German.

Anyway, after persuasion I did try and get Plan A back, but to no avail. I'm sure reading Riddley Walker is doing bad things to my spelling. It's slow going but very interesting and intriguing and inciting me to read more things by Russell Hoban. I only put that last one in because I wanted to use another word beginning with 'in', and I couldn't think of anything else. It is true though. RW definitely reminds me of a couple of sections of Cloud Atlas "Sloosha's crossin' and evr'ythin' after", especially the sort of language used, as well as some of the ideas. Maybe David Mitchell read it at some point, and used it as inspiration for that part of his book.

I wonder if it is dangerous to write about the Library of Doom? It might come and bite me (not literally).

Mr Coates

Since my article appeared in the CILIP Gazette I have had some contact with Tim Coates, author of the Good Library Guide blog and the infamous/controversial report of the state of the public library service in the UK, Who's in charge? Responsibility for the Public Library Service, which you can (if you happen to be interested) download here. Someone sent him a copy of that issue of the Gazette and he read my article and posted a response on his blog. If you're interested in this you can read it by going to the Good Library Guide blog and scrolling down quite a long way. However, you will only be able to do this if you know my name, and it also won't make much sense if you haven't read my orginal article! Don't worry, it's not that interesting. He does call my article a letter though, which is a bit off. I know it was short, but even so! I left a comment on his post, and he emailed me today. I am slightly scared of him - he can be quite cutting about the people he takes issue with, but so far we are allies in the fight for better promotion of libraries and their services. Not that I'm doing a lot about it, apart from writing miniature articles, but it's the thought that counts, right? Maybe not in all cases.

Aghh I just forgot how to spell miniature. It must be the heat. I'm using this as an excuse for a lot of things at the moment.

The joys of Anglicanism

I had my driving lesson on Tuesday, and Mrs Driving says I should be able to put in for my test in a couple of weeks. There is a waiting list of about 6 weeks, so I still have some practice time. I am quite keen to get it over with. It's very expensive to keep having lessons, apart from anything else. The news of impending freedom from train timetables and having to walk home in the dark has spurred me into looking for a choir to join once I've passed my test. (I'm not assuming I'll pass first time, but I'm trying to be optimistic!). I've looked on the interweb for choirs in my area. There doesn't seem to be a great variety. So far I've found an operatic society (I don't dance or act and don't have enough voice projection for this kind of thing), a choral society and something called a Cantabile, the website for which did not exist.

I've been in a choral society before, and I'll probably join this if there is no other option, as long as they don't have auditions. They look very posh on their photos though, and very middle-aged and middle-class, as choral societies tend to be. The Cantabile thing sounds intriguing, but I can't seem to find any more information about it, other than its name, and I'm not sure it it still exists. I will keep looking.

I could find a church choir to join, but this would involve me either moving churches or not being able to be a regular member of the choir, and I wouldn't really want to do either of these things. I would love to be in a church choir again though. I know church choral music isn't everyone's cup of tea, and there are some odd pieces out there - but I suppose this is true of every musical genre. I miss the order and routine of Anglican church life - all the different seasons and the music that goes with them. It's a bit of a joke that we used to sing (and still do when I'm at my parents') the same pieces every year, but we sing them because they're our favourites and there's something comforting about them. We did/do try new pieces, some of which also become favourites (or sometimes just the choirmaster's favourites), and it was always exciting (and often amusing) to try a new piece of music for the first time.

Some of my fondest memories are of when we used to go to Diocesan choral festivals. We used to go to Leicester (for this was my home diocese. [Apologies, by the way, if you have no idea what a diocese is. It's basically a geographical area, a bit like the equivalent of a county. All the Anglican churches within the area belong to the diocese. If you do know, apologies if you think this is patronising and please let me know if you have a better definition!] Choirs from all the churches in the diocese gathered together and learned new music (and probably some old stuff as well) and then sang at a special festival service in the evening. Sometimes new music would be premiered at the festival, which, in hindsight, was a really exciting thing, but as a child I would probably have been more likely to be thinking about lunch (actually nothing much has changed!).

The choir I was in at home have become a bit like my extended family because we've known each other for so long - about 20 years in some cases. It was lovely to have the choir singing at our wedding, it just wouldn't have been the same without them.

Basket weaving under water in Malaysia

I wasn't sure whether to hyphenate basket-weaving and under-water, so if you are a hyphenate/or I apologise.

The title of the post is a direct qute from our line manager, who was talking about the sorts of mad courses academics dream up when they've eaten too much cheese before bedtime. He was making a good point about people deciding they are going to run courses without actually knowing whether anyone will want to enrole on them. The library has to buy stock for the course, which can turn out to be a huge waste of time and money if no one turns up. Even more bizarrely, some Universities start running courses at locations that don't yet exist. The poor students then have to take their classes etc somewhere else, and then move to their 'proper' location when it is available. Very odd.

In print

The latest issue of the CILIP Gazette was on my doormat when I arrived home this evening. My (quite short) article has been printed. I didn't dare read it at first, once I had seen it was in there, but I've just read it now. The whole issue has quite a few articles on the same sort of theme - the need to promote libraries in light of the current climate (i.e. closure of public libraries etc). Some of the questions I asked in my piece are answered in other articles - hopefully I don't come across as being too ignorant. I mentioned that CILIP didn't seem to be talking about the closures or responding to them in the press but then in another article someone else made a good point about the importance of not dwelling on the closures and trying to talk about more positive things to do with libraries, so maybe this was CILIP's tactic. In the lead article Tim Buckley Owen says that people trying to promote libraries have been met with people from the press saying that they only want to write about closures! I guess good news stories about libraries just don't sell newspapers - or at least people in the press assume they won't.

Andrew Cockburn, Secretary of the Library Campaign (also quoted in the lead article) does agree with what I wrote about the library profession, and CILIP in particular, not appearing to be doing a lot about the closures, and compares the work done (or not done) here, with that in the US. [Sorry, that was a bit of a long sentence!] Someone from CILIP's Publicity and Public Relations Group talks about the need for training library and information professionals in marketing skills, a point I also made. It's quite nice to have people agree with you in print, although it's also quite scary to see your own opinions published for anyone to respond to. More scary [should that be scarier?] than writing a blog somehow - probably because it's actually there in hard copy and in a professional publication...and librarians can be really frightening if they want to have a disagreement with you. Eep.