upswing

yes. give me plans, and then things pull back together rapidly.

Masters - enrolled in, paper work done, ready to post

Paperwork to get funding for ALIA2010 - submitted to work

Projects i was doing - Finished and ready to go to a different area on monday

Amazing conference - planning stages, time to submit two proposals

teen lesbian novels - collecting the missing ones


offfff and running. yes. intellectual stimulation fires something in my brain and makes me feel human again. i can dig my teeth into STUFF again. i have something there, in my mouth, to taste and hold. it is sweet.

the sea

now, it is Iris Murdoch time. 'the sea, the sea'. there have been very few booker prize winner's works i've enjoyed, to be honest. so i am very curious to see how i feel about this. it's started well. so far. there's something i'm not sure of... a roughness, a speed to it, the pace, that i'm still getting used to - it is jittery in a way i don't know if i like.

also got a copy of an awesome anthology 'revolting librarians' - have also ordered copy of 'revolting librarians redux.' i've developed something of an obsession with subject headings.... there's a paper in that's around the corner.

i'm working through two main work related areas of interest - LC subject headings, and cataloging in general, and the 'aftermath' for people working with deeply disturbing material. mulling them over a lot, and i think something will grow out of both of these.

see, i don't catalogue. i'm in reference, or special collections, or... i've been in a few areas, really. work wise, my skills are broader, but i do have good attention to detail... but my better skill is in project work - i excel there. it's definitely my strength; strategy, application of strategy... my 'professional' networking needs some work - my 'professional persona' in general is still unpolished - i am too immature, too reckless, have taken personal risks reflecting back into my professional life that i deeply regret. i get distracted easily, bored easily. but i am stubborn. if i decide i want to do a good job on something, i'll not rest until i have.

but subject headings. that's less of a professional interest, and more of a research issue i hold. and i know, it's huge. the revision and application of 'proper' subject headings to a collection of over three million, Three Million titles, is not feasible. but. but. hm. ponder.

i have, i think anyway, sunstroke. i got severely burnt on my back, while sitting in the shade. it hurts. a lot. it didn't at first, i didn't notice until i turned and saw a shoulder, glowing red, and then my back, an even deeper shade... on arriving home, i found myself woozy, and slow. and hot. and then... the pain. it's painful, digging, bloody. not nice.

hot day, tired animals

today has been too hot. i've slept most of the last 24 hours. woke up at six for dinner - it's closing in on 10.30, and i am exhausted.

the house is quiet, filled with sleeping critters. both bunnies are sprawled lazily in their houses, warm and cranky. the rats oscillate between picking fights with each other, and sulkily curling up around their condo. the skinks snooze in their house, and wandered around outside, in the apartment, lackluster and belligerent as skinks often are. Kali the dragon sleeps on N's lap, little arms relaxed and a tired frustrated expression crossing his face.

the heat does no one well here.

every so often, a piece of newspaper shifts in someone's house. (that's my preference to cage. all the beasties, after small runs around, attempt to get back to their houses, because it is their territory, and they like it there.) the rats shift around, bunny moves a leg, and the skinks dig deeper into their newspaper. a rat sneezes. the shingleback sneezes too. we are suspecting that he might have a slightly abused past and it worries us - he needs a vet trip.

my mind is hazy, like the feeling after rain on a hot humid brisbane day. it is lazy and cannot hold ideas together very well. sleep suits me today, because it keeps me safe. it is groggy and lazy and smells like sweat, like sleeping all day and folding over and over.

i am starting on the introduction to my complete works of Sappho. i find it interesting that the work that is read, and loved, and respected, on the basis of what has been left behind. it's a similar thing to what interests me, working with manuscripts. it is an art of piecing together the fragments. it differs so much from oral histories, which are offered and are open verbal interactions. manuscripts are collected fragments of what is left of someone's life, the slipped through the cracks, the physical spaces and creations and movements, all added on top of each other. when i've worked with people's reciepts, or old old diaries, or gently, passionatly complied scrap books of photographs of planes, i wonder what they'd think of someone like me reading through them, moved by their attention and their passions, their sheer will to communicate and how this stays behind.

it's what i like about libraries.