Transition

Thanks for all the notes of congrats, everyone! The arrival today of a packet of goodies to take with me to County Employee Training next Wednesday made this new adventure feel more real and closer. I have been won over, foolishly, by the small details: a set of pre-printed labels with my name, address, etc. to use on all those tedious tax forms, and the card (sent separately) of welcome from the director of human resources ("I hope your career with us will be a long and satisfying one").

"Librarian I," of course, is a big-employer level designation kind of thing. I don't know what my business cards will say, but the position details from my interview is labeled "Librarian I - Adult/Young Adult." My responsibilities will include providing reference services and instruction, planning programs for adults and YAs, managing the book lease plan, scheduling staff for the Information Desk, preparing pathfinders and bibliographies, and some collection management. I will be going back to the world of working nights (2/week) and Saturdays (2/month). That's better odds than a rough quarter at the Girl Scout council, when I generally worked 3 or 4 nights per week and worked one or both days of 5 weekends out of 6.

My transition activities:
- telling the county school system I won't be subbing after Friday (woo-freakin-hoo)
- throwing out "in process" applications and filing now-extra copies of school transcripts that an academic library required
- packed a box of things for my new desk (including my action figure)
- deleting all job-seeking website bookmarks
- rearranging remaining school bookmarks and pertinent ones found since then into a folder called "professional"
- I started to throw out things in the ringbinder I started when I saw a career counselor, but then I thought that could wait. After I start work, I might see that some folks I met or contacted during that process will be worth talking to again for something or another. It'll feel great to dismantle it, but it can wait.
- collecting business cards and e-mail addresses of people I've met and worked with (especially some cool school librarians) these last two years, to be the seeds of a new rolodex

I thought I would feel giddier at high school today than I did. Perhaps it's the nature of doing work that demands one introduce oneself a dozen times a day. In a way, I am new every day. I have neither the sadness nor the glee of knowing I may never see these people again. I know if I had the swearing students, the "I ain't doing this"/"what we got do this for?" students, the feeling of relief would be more noticible. Another factor might be the fact that I got lost in a published collection of Batgirl comix I grabbed at the library this morning to read while the students watched the video.