Today we had the discussion about me not having watched various classic films, which is now a standard office conversation. I don't know how I did it, but I managed to grow up without watching ET, any of the original Star Wars trilogy all the way through, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, any of the Jaws films, etc. Maybe I just missed all the Spielberg ones! No, that's not true because I have seen all three Indiana Jones films, Schindler's List and...hmm that's about it. (Not for all the films I've seen, just for the Spielberg ones.)
Anyway, S says I have to go and watch them round her house one day. This discussion stemmed from one I started about which film was people's least favourite, and then which was people's favourite. S's least favourite was Journey to Shiloh, an early Harrison Ford movie about the American Civil War, which also starred James Caan apparently. E went for Pearl Harbor [sic], which is probably on a lot of people's list of least favourite/worst films. Needless to say, I haven't seen either!
Today I spent some time (not work time of course) looking at the Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy pages on the BBC website. This particular site, known as h2g2, is a guide created by members of the public. You can log in as a 'researcher' and write your own guide entry. There are loads of entries about anything and everything. I'm planning to write some on various obscure/not so obscure medical conditions, but a lot of the entries are much more light-hearted. For example, there is one about "The Mystery of the Sweet Potato".
Hmm it is late, time for bed.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Small things
Hmm guess the font was no different!
I was saying in the staff room yesterday that you can tell a lot about people by small things they do, or don't do. For example, people who don't return their cups and saucers to the canteen or, similarly, don't return their books to the shelves say a lot about themselves. To me, such behaviour indicates several character traits:
1. Laziness
2. Lack of consideration for others
3. Selfishness
4. Lack of thought
Of course, people who 'dump and run' on an occasional basis might just be busy or desperate for the loo or something.
I am trying to write an article for the CILIP Gazette. It has to be done by 5th April. I am just not sure what to write about. The piece is supposed to be my opinion on any issue affecting libraries/information professionals - either in terms of the wider profession or more specific to my sphere. I can find plenty to say when I'm chatting to people or whatever, but when it comes to actually writing a piece 'to order' I seem to be stumped. Will have to do some brainstorming. That's how I usually write essays etc, just put everything in my head down on paper and then try to get some sort of structure to it. I think once I've actually decided what to write about it'll be better, but at the moment I am feeling particularly vague.
I'm also looking for mentor to guide me through my chartership, but I'm rapidly running out of time until the deadline for the amount of time allowed between registering for chartership and finding a mentor is upon me. Maybe I should go and email a potential mentor.
Just realised I have forgotten to post a wedding invitation reply. Must do that tomorrow.
I was saying in the staff room yesterday that you can tell a lot about people by small things they do, or don't do. For example, people who don't return their cups and saucers to the canteen or, similarly, don't return their books to the shelves say a lot about themselves. To me, such behaviour indicates several character traits:
1. Laziness
2. Lack of consideration for others
3. Selfishness
4. Lack of thought
Of course, people who 'dump and run' on an occasional basis might just be busy or desperate for the loo or something.
I am trying to write an article for the CILIP Gazette. It has to be done by 5th April. I am just not sure what to write about. The piece is supposed to be my opinion on any issue affecting libraries/information professionals - either in terms of the wider profession or more specific to my sphere. I can find plenty to say when I'm chatting to people or whatever, but when it comes to actually writing a piece 'to order' I seem to be stumped. Will have to do some brainstorming. That's how I usually write essays etc, just put everything in my head down on paper and then try to get some sort of structure to it. I think once I've actually decided what to write about it'll be better, but at the moment I am feeling particularly vague.
I'm also looking for mentor to guide me through my chartership, but I'm rapidly running out of time until the deadline for the amount of time allowed between registering for chartership and finding a mentor is upon me. Maybe I should go and email a potential mentor.
Just realised I have forgotten to post a wedding invitation reply. Must do that tomorrow.
Monday, March 27, 2006
Little Miss Fickle
Testing a new font...
ER's on. I like it. I've always liked it. I started watching it when I was at uni, and have watched it on and off since. 9 minutes til the end of this week's episode. Pratt has just told Neela he wants to go back to Iraq. She's not happy. Poor Neela.
I've tried a new template again. I am so fickle when it comes to these things...or maybe just indecisive. Someone once bought me a Little Miss Fickle book, from the Mr Men and Little Miss series. Should I have been insulted? I think I'm indecisive rather than fickle, but that's not very good either.
ER is back on. Neela and Pratt are having a conversation about him wanting to go back to Iraq. It's very sad. Now it's finished.
I'm on early tomorrow. Someone was covering for me, but she's striking. It's a Unison (public services union) strike to do with the government wanting to remove the 85 year rule. For more information see this Guardian article from today's edition.
ER's on. I like it. I've always liked it. I started watching it when I was at uni, and have watched it on and off since. 9 minutes til the end of this week's episode. Pratt has just told Neela he wants to go back to Iraq. She's not happy. Poor Neela.
I've tried a new template again. I am so fickle when it comes to these things...or maybe just indecisive. Someone once bought me a Little Miss Fickle book, from the Mr Men and Little Miss series. Should I have been insulted? I think I'm indecisive rather than fickle, but that's not very good either. ER is back on. Neela and Pratt are having a conversation about him wanting to go back to Iraq. It's very sad. Now it's finished.
I'm on early tomorrow. Someone was covering for me, but she's striking. It's a Unison (public services union) strike to do with the government wanting to remove the 85 year rule. For more information see this Guardian article from today's edition.
Sunday, March 26, 2006
Greatness
I think I may have used the word great a bit too often in that last post. I need to get a thesaurus.
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Eyes
shutting...
Soooo sleepy. Must be the wine. Went out last night to see one of the library assistants in 'Me and My Girl', which was great. Very professional, D was great as the Honourable Gerald Bolingbroke. Very funny and great singing. It's the last night tonight. I guess by now they've finished. Went with some other people from work.
Have now successfully (I hope) installed Office 2003 on my computer, but still no FrontPage. Thought the version I had bought had it on, but obviously not. Still good discounted rate for CILIP members. Have also downloaded some more music from my own collection. The latest offering is Jack Johnson: In Between Dreams, bought
today. I know, my music taste is soooo MOR, but I can't help it. Guess I am just a MOR kind of person.
Stayed over in the city last night, because of going to the show. Before that realised I had made an error with the rota - the lady who was down to come in was actually also going to the show, so obviously wasn't going to be coming in. So, I ended up staying at work then going to the theatre without going for the meal with the others. Luckily I had not eaten all my sandwiches at lunch time, plus we had had doughnuts, so could have been worse. Anyway, it was my own fault for not checking the rota.
H and husband came round today, which was really nice. They made us a photo album, with the photos printed in, for our wedding present. V nice. Went for Chinese lunch somewhere we hadn't been before, which was very good. Lots of food (3 courses) for under £6.00 each. Yum.
Guy on the train today was enthusing about his job to his new girlfriend and, guess what? He was a librarian!
Soooo sleepy. Must be the wine. Went out last night to see one of the library assistants in 'Me and My Girl', which was great. Very professional, D was great as the Honourable Gerald Bolingbroke. Very funny and great singing. It's the last night tonight. I guess by now they've finished. Went with some other people from work.
Have now successfully (I hope) installed Office 2003 on my computer, but still no FrontPage. Thought the version I had bought had it on, but obviously not. Still good discounted rate for CILIP members. Have also downloaded some more music from my own collection. The latest offering is Jack Johnson: In Between Dreams, bought
today. I know, my music taste is soooo MOR, but I can't help it. Guess I am just a MOR kind of person.Stayed over in the city last night, because of going to the show. Before that realised I had made an error with the rota - the lady who was down to come in was actually also going to the show, so obviously wasn't going to be coming in. So, I ended up staying at work then going to the theatre without going for the meal with the others. Luckily I had not eaten all my sandwiches at lunch time, plus we had had doughnuts, so could have been worse. Anyway, it was my own fault for not checking the rota.
H and husband came round today, which was really nice. They made us a photo album, with the photos printed in, for our wedding present. V nice. Went for Chinese lunch somewhere we hadn't been before, which was very good. Lots of food (3 courses) for under £6.00 each. Yum.
Guy on the train today was enthusing about his job to his new girlfriend and, guess what? He was a librarian!
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Bee
Things have been really busy here recently....just general business - lots to do but nothing really exciting. Just things like cleaning, doing the garden, writing thank you letters, going to work etc. I have done quite a few late nights recently, as I had to swap some when I went away. Work has been quite stressful this week, as we have been short staffed and very busy at the same time - never a good combiation. Oh dear, my compy is crying for its battery...Fear not, it is ok now. Anyway, yes short staffed we were, due to illness and also people being in amateur operatics productions! I'm going to see one of them tomorrow night. As well as these, shelvers have been off and the shelving had got out of hand and was looking rather horrendous. However, everyone has mucked in to shelve and things are now looking better. Had to negotiate with D for people from his team to help on desk. He said no but said he would ask them to shelve, which did help. Politics. Hmm. Things are also a bit stressful because of uncertainty (still) about The Integration, aka ISS. Still no job descriptions and apparantly They want people to make a decision by Easter.
Enough about work, but what else is there to write about? What did I do at the weekend? Cleaned house, bought CD rack, which A put together. Put CDs into CD rack. Ohh I know, we watched all three episodes of the original Star Wars, which I had never seen in their entirity before, much to the horror of my husband and colleagues. Amusing thing of the week last week: E at work doing his impersonation of Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!" Hmm, ok this doesn't work so well in print. Enjoyed SW, especially the aforementioned AA, who of course I looked forward to throughout the whole series, and Yoda and the 'man' himself Darth Vadar. Poor DV.
Why do I abbreviate so much? Because I am lazy.
So now I have officially joined the cultured ones I can talk about SW with my colleagues instead of thinking about what to say to Ms Bloggs who doesn't want to pay her fines why should she she should of [sic] been sent a notice she relies on them why should she take responsibility for her own books/degree/life when there are librarians to do it for her? Oops did I mention work again? I am obsessed, I apologise. In fact, I am so obsessed that I checked my work email from Changi airport in Singapore while on honeymoon. The shame.
Maybe I just worry too much.
H is visiting this weekend and the house is not clean. Hate house not being clean when we have visitors but not sure when I am going to clean unless I do it Saturday morning before she and T get here. However, on Sat. a.m. I also have to get back from work and get a day's parking permit, in order to avoid H getting a potential £60 parking fine. Have bought bird feeder for garden. We cut down the budleia (not sure how to spell this, sorry) the other Sunday, and now have about 1o black sacks full of branches to get rid off. N offered to take them to the tip for us, before we asked (although I would have done if he hadn't offered, such is my keenness to get rid of the bags). We tried putting the bags out for the bin men, but they didn't take them because they weren't in the requisite brown sacks. I was not amused, although we should have known better than to try to gain their sympathy with a note explaining our lack of brown sacks.
Watched The Office the other night. The best bits of that are the shots of the office and the sounds of the noises people make when they are pretending to work, even though everyone knows they're not working and are doing an equal amount of non-work themselves. Been there, done that. Genius.
Better slope off, sloth-like, to bed.
Enough about work, but what else is there to write about? What did I do at the weekend? Cleaned house, bought CD rack, which A put together. Put CDs into CD rack. Ohh I know, we watched all three episodes of the original Star Wars, which I had never seen in their entirity before, much to the horror of my husband and colleagues. Amusing thing of the week last week: E at work doing his impersonation of Admiral Ackbar: "It's a trap!" Hmm, ok this doesn't work so well in print. Enjoyed SW, especially the aforementioned AA, who of course I looked forward to throughout the whole series, and Yoda and the 'man' himself Darth Vadar. Poor DV.
Why do I abbreviate so much? Because I am lazy.
So now I have officially joined the cultured ones I can talk about SW with my colleagues instead of thinking about what to say to Ms Bloggs who doesn't want to pay her fines why should she she should of [sic] been sent a notice she relies on them why should she take responsibility for her own books/degree/life when there are librarians to do it for her? Oops did I mention work again? I am obsessed, I apologise. In fact, I am so obsessed that I checked my work email from Changi airport in Singapore while on honeymoon. The shame.
Maybe I just worry too much.
H is visiting this weekend and the house is not clean. Hate house not being clean when we have visitors but not sure when I am going to clean unless I do it Saturday morning before she and T get here. However, on Sat. a.m. I also have to get back from work and get a day's parking permit, in order to avoid H getting a potential £60 parking fine. Have bought bird feeder for garden. We cut down the budleia (not sure how to spell this, sorry) the other Sunday, and now have about 1o black sacks full of branches to get rid off. N offered to take them to the tip for us, before we asked (although I would have done if he hadn't offered, such is my keenness to get rid of the bags). We tried putting the bags out for the bin men, but they didn't take them because they weren't in the requisite brown sacks. I was not amused, although we should have known better than to try to gain their sympathy with a note explaining our lack of brown sacks.
Watched The Office the other night. The best bits of that are the shots of the office and the sounds of the noises people make when they are pretending to work, even though everyone knows they're not working and are doing an equal amount of non-work themselves. Been there, done that. Genius.
Better slope off, sloth-like, to bed.
Thursday, March 09, 2006
Wedding and work
So, the wedding has now taken place! Here is a summary of events:
It was a lovely day, weatherwise and everything else. We were very blessed with the weather, as the days either side of our wedding day were quite grey and damp. Was I nervous? Well, I had a 'slight' panicky phase at about 2.30 am on the morning of the wedding, but I put on some music and got back to sleep after a while. I was fine thereafter until I walked into the church and saw everyone in the congregation, and then I felt really overwhelmed and quite emotional. I didn't cry really, but tears escaped and my nose ran (and continued to do so for most of the service, quite amusingly - I had to surreptitiously get a tissue from Helen and pass it to my dad to keep in his pocket!). I think the overriding feeling of the day for me was that I felt really loved. People came a long way for the wedding - my aunt from Australia, A's parents from Malaysia and friends and family from all over the UK.
The service went well, despite some small amusing incidents like me having to force the ring onto A's finger, A's grandad (who was doubling as the vicar) dropping his prayers and also going to the wrong way for the signing of the register! But we said our vows ok, signed in the right places and enjoyed it. We had lots of photographs taken outside the church, and a few inside. The flowers were lovely. We had dark pink (almost red) and cream roses, and thistles (blue). Helen was a great bridesmaid and looked really good in her blue dress. The flower guild ladies did a great job in the church - we had a pedestal and pew-ends. Our next-door neighbour also did some arrangements for the top table at the reception, which were really nice.
It was good to see everyone at the reception - we tried to speak to everyone by going round all the tables. The catering was excellent - we had chicken and mango salad, beef bourginoine (sp?), and vegetable canalloni and various accompanying salads. For pudding we had pavlova, banoffee pie and fruit crumble. We had cordials and elderflower champagne for drinks. Dad, Adrian (the best man) and A were all quite nervous about doing their speeches, but they were all good. A got off quite lightly in the best man's speech! We had lots of balloons in pink, gold and blue. Dave's son Luka's toy cat got tied onto some and floated about balanced with jelly beans so he didn't float up to the ceiling. Phew.
We had lots of chats with lots of people - shame we didn't have more time with each person/group. The time seemed to go by really quickly. We've had some good photos already, from A's mum and dad and Elle.
Since I went back to work on Monday it seems like a long time ago - even the honeymoon seems like it happened in another world. I guesss that's what going back to work does - back to reality! Still it hasn't been too bad going back. It was nice to see everyone again. Nothing much had happened while I was away. At least that's what I was told...but then I found out that our team has a new line manager! It turns out the people who said nothing much had happened hadn't been listening in one of the meetings they had while I was away! It's good really - we have been line-manager-less for a while, which hasn't been ideal.
And also...we had doughuts.
It was a lovely day, weatherwise and everything else. We were very blessed with the weather, as the days either side of our wedding day were quite grey and damp. Was I nervous? Well, I had a 'slight' panicky phase at about 2.30 am on the morning of the wedding, but I put on some music and got back to sleep after a while. I was fine thereafter until I walked into the church and saw everyone in the congregation, and then I felt really overwhelmed and quite emotional. I didn't cry really, but tears escaped and my nose ran (and continued to do so for most of the service, quite amusingly - I had to surreptitiously get a tissue from Helen and pass it to my dad to keep in his pocket!). I think the overriding feeling of the day for me was that I felt really loved. People came a long way for the wedding - my aunt from Australia, A's parents from Malaysia and friends and family from all over the UK.
The service went well, despite some small amusing incidents like me having to force the ring onto A's finger, A's grandad (who was doubling as the vicar) dropping his prayers and also going to the wrong way for the signing of the register! But we said our vows ok, signed in the right places and enjoyed it. We had lots of photographs taken outside the church, and a few inside. The flowers were lovely. We had dark pink (almost red) and cream roses, and thistles (blue). Helen was a great bridesmaid and looked really good in her blue dress. The flower guild ladies did a great job in the church - we had a pedestal and pew-ends. Our next-door neighbour also did some arrangements for the top table at the reception, which were really nice.
It was good to see everyone at the reception - we tried to speak to everyone by going round all the tables. The catering was excellent - we had chicken and mango salad, beef bourginoine (sp?), and vegetable canalloni and various accompanying salads. For pudding we had pavlova, banoffee pie and fruit crumble. We had cordials and elderflower champagne for drinks. Dad, Adrian (the best man) and A were all quite nervous about doing their speeches, but they were all good. A got off quite lightly in the best man's speech! We had lots of balloons in pink, gold and blue. Dave's son Luka's toy cat got tied onto some and floated about balanced with jelly beans so he didn't float up to the ceiling. Phew.
We had lots of chats with lots of people - shame we didn't have more time with each person/group. The time seemed to go by really quickly. We've had some good photos already, from A's mum and dad and Elle.
Since I went back to work on Monday it seems like a long time ago - even the honeymoon seems like it happened in another world. I guesss that's what going back to work does - back to reality! Still it hasn't been too bad going back. It was nice to see everyone again. Nothing much had happened while I was away. At least that's what I was told...but then I found out that our team has a new line manager! It turns out the people who said nothing much had happened hadn't been listening in one of the meetings they had while I was away! It's good really - we have been line-manager-less for a while, which hasn't been ideal.
And also...we had doughuts.
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