Category: Me

I forgot about this yesterday, but that was my 3-year anniversary here at Carleton. By no coincidence whatsoever, it was also the 3-year anniversary of the day I started considering myself a librarian.

When I originally took this job, I secretly promised myself I could have another job after I’d stayed here for four years. I was terrified and lonely and felt under-qualified, but I knew I could stick almost anything out for four years. After all, college had been scary, but I’d made it through. Grad school had been scary, but four years later I’d finished a couple degrees. My secret plans have been foiled, though, because the people here are so great and the stuff I get to do here is so amazing that I’ve decided four years isn’t nearly enough. So if they’ll have me, I’d like to stay for a few more, please.

This week was pretty incredibly stressful, the kind of week that makes me set my sights on the weekend and promise myself that I’ll be able to spend most of one whole day just curled up on the couch Continuous Partial Attentioning myself through movies, a book, and my friend the internet.

In fact, nearly every Saturday I try to take the day to recharge my spent batteries. I don’t have to talk to anyone if I don’t want to, and I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to. It’s a Do Nothing day. If I’m to be a happy and productive member of society, I need these Do Nothing days, and I need them every single weekend.

But alas, just because I need them doesn’t make them possible. It was a sad day when I agreed to direct the campus handbell choir because they rehearse on Saturdays, but usually a 2-hour interruption of nothingness won’t kill the effects of the rest of the nothingness. And fairly frequently I’ll work on projects that I just can’t get done while I’m at work, but that don’t take a whole lot of brain power. But I try to think of these as minor interruptions of the Do Nothing day. The day still exists, it’s just spiced up a little.

Unfortunately for me, today I’ll be squeezing all the important weekend tasks into my Do Nothing day (handbell rehearsal, dishes, meal planning for next week, grocery shopping, laundry, paying bills, … you know the kinds of things) because tomorrow will be full of choir rehearsal and choir performance from 7am to 11, and Sunday reference from 1 to 10pm. I could almost cry.