"A little reflection will show us that every belief, even the simplest and most fundamental...

by tosca on Tuesday, October 8, 2013

...goes beyond experience when regarded as a guide to our actions."
~ William Kingdon Clifford

A long time ago, I used to post here. I used to have opinions and ideas about books, libraries, publishing, technology and fandoms. Then my head crowded out reflection, and I stopped. In August 2013, I handed in my resignation, and now I'm finding bits and pieces of what I used to be (i.e. a kind of Angry Girl With Blog (caps necessary)). She's still here, I'm glad to see. She just won't be blogging about libraries so much these days. So this is fair warning that I'm firing this baby up, again. I have no clue what that will look like, or what it will mean. I'm  job hunting, although officially I don't finish work until 20 December 2013 (I finish just before the holidays, probably so they don't have to pay me stat days), so I imagine some of that will probably inform the next few posts to come. My dream job: Working for ArmageddonExpo and/or a professional goldfish feeder and fanfic reader. Hey, dreams are for free.

I thought, briefly, about what I would look back on this year, and I think maybe it's these:

  • I made friends out of colleagues. I also quit my job. The two might be related. (Just not in the way you think)
  • broke all of my 'sort of' resolutions: no more early starts, no more late finishes, no more working in the evenings, working less in the weekends, take actual breaks away from my desk. Failed at them all. Badly. I'm not okay about that. Lesson learned? Don't make resolutions
  • I lacked purpose, vision, clarity and sanity - maybe I'll try and find them in 2014
  • next time around I'd like a job rather than a career (just until my brain is empty of library-related thoughts)
  • the date that will stay uppermost in my mind this year is the day I handed in my resignation. I cried great, big, ugly tears in making the decision because stepping outside of comfort zones is always hard. What's that saying? "Life begins outside of your comfort zone." But the feeling of freedom and lightness after was...indescribable. I'm sad beyond belief that I won't be a part of Auckland Libraries' future journeys or, indeed, a wider part of shaping the future of NZ public libraries fullstop. I am both excited and terrified that the next stage from here is unknown
  • the biggest achievement of this year will be leaving my job for the right reasons
  • the biggest failure of this year is that I stopped reading for pleasure (which, really, should have been a heads up as to my state of mind)
  • this year I learned that life is too short to give headspace to people who neither inform you, inspire you, or make you laugh - none of us get out alive in this game called "Life," so a sense of the ridiculous is very much needed.
So...bring it, bitches.

A thing I never do: New Year resolutions

by tosca on Monday, January 7, 2013

I used to make them - Booze Less (dead in the water before I started), Take up Jogging (I haven't jogged since puberty because it suddenly became, almost overnight, distinctly uncomfortable), Be A Nicer Person (who the hell was I kidding with this one?), etc. Disillusioned about resolutions in general, I made a resolution to not make resolutions. (Yes, I'm fully aware of how dumb this sounds). This year, though, I've made fandom and book related goals. Now I'm making one more set that are less about achieving great and wonderful things (thereby making me a more awesomer person), and being more about cutting back (thereby becoming a less awesomer person but, realistically, how much awesomeness can one person contain?). I've gotten into bad work habits that eat into my personal time - all self-imposed, I might add - and I've decided that I'm not doing them anymore:

  • No more 7:30am starts (everyone else starts at 8:30am - although there's nothing wrong with starting at 7:30 if I would finish at 4:00pm but I don't)
  • No more 6:00pm (or later) finishing
  • No more working on things in the evenings (sometimes it feels like there aren't enough hours in my work day)
  • Work less in the weekend (note I don't write 'stop altogether')
  • Take lunchbreaks and teabreaks away from my desk (I always have 'working lunches' and work straight through while eating sandwiches or whatever)

    • Confession: I was working on an eNewsletter a few minutes ago. This post was written just now so what happened before this moment does not count, therefore you cannot hold that against me. Or, more to the point, I cannot hold that against myself. And so it begins.

    End note: In 5 five weeks I'll have been with the one organisation for 10 years. I'm not quite rational/sane about the permanency of that. Wednesday will probably find me writing a post in which I talk about dreaming of running away to become a magician, or throwing a pin in a map and just packing it all in, or buying a one way ticket to Anywhere. It's how I deal. I'm apologising in advance for the craziness it will probably be.