Job Hunting

Looking for a new job is pretty awful and I am currently doing so because the environment at my current library kind of bites. The problem with job-hunting is that there are so few openings and so many people looking. I get disheartened pretty easily and I hate writing cover letters, but I am determined to have another job as soon as possible.

This weekend's work activities have not particularly helped my dislike for my current job - after so many hours at the library (20+ in two days) and so much chaos, I realized that I would rather work in an academic library where people know why they are using the building and the collection. My library is a 'special' library where sadly, visitors have to go through two floors of exhibits to get to the Reference Room on the THIRD floor where I work and where the prefered comment is then, "Oh, so this is where the books are!" A library indeed.

My leisure activities this weekend, though they felt fewer and farther away, were lovely. I enjoyed watching grown men run through a small fountain and then play on a jungle gym. Bryan, and his friend Kervin from NY, hit dingers in the park and then grilled an excellent dinner of dogs and asparagus (oddly matched but so tasty). I also thoroughly enjoyed watching Game 6 of the NHL playoffs though I was saddened at the end when Tampa Bay (hockey in Florida?) beat the Calgary Flames. Hopefully Canada will claim a championship in the only sport they actually have that's worth watching on tv tonight in Game 7.

I am drawing this out as long as possible so I don't have to write the final 3 cover letters that await. In book news, I am reading a strange autobiographical/fiction book titled Waiting for Luciano that my mom recommended. It is the story of a Japanese woman whose mother is obsessed with things European, particularly opera. The mother loves Luciano Pavarotti and she gets the chance to meet him and then believes that he is coming to her house to visit her so she begins to renovate her delapidated home. Not a prize winner, but since it came so highly recommended by someone I respect a lot, I will reserve opinion and finish it. Course, I should mention that my mom has a weird thing for Pavarotti herself, so that may have influenced her rave review.

I did read Kate Ross's The Devil in Music while sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my ridiculously long layover. I really enjoyed the book and the writing, and was actually surprised by the ending. Ross is a bit romantic and some of her description was overly drawn, but on the whole, it was an engaging mystery and her main character, Julian Kestrel, was likable and intelligent. This is her 4th book with this character and, while I will probably not go back and read the first three, I would definitely pick up future books and continue getting to know Kestrel and trying to figure out whodunnit.

That's all for now. I'm off to immerse myself in the job hunt.