Monday, October 29, 2007

It's nice to feel wanted

If word has escaped you, please consider this an official notice that I finally have found a GREAT job. I'll be starting at Stanford in January as an Engineering Librarian. Michelle and I are working right now on logistics and figuring out where we want to live and such.

It took me a year of interviews and applications, but in the end I did actually find a position I'm proud of. I was losing hope that something would work out and considered taking a tech job at Microsoft, but thankfully I didn't go through with it.

Yesterday I got a voicemail from one of the other colleges I applied to letting me know how disappointed they were I withdrew my application, and I couldn't help patting myself on the back. It sure feels nice to have choices....

More news soon!
Sarah

Friday, August 31, 2007

Blah, blah. blog...

Now from that title you might think I'm bored...but you would be wrong. I just started on Aug 30 working at Microsoft doing some indexing and search refinement work. It's quite interesting and I'm happy to be doing it, even if it is for Microsoft. I get free pop and a nice paycheck, no complaints here.

Even bigger news is that I heard early this week that I have been invited to interview for an Engineering librarian position at STANFORD!!! :) It's one I didn't have a lot of optimism about because I thought I'd get weeded out by the millions of other applicants (which is what happens in Seattle) but apparently, THEY LIKE ME!! So October 1st (it was originally Sept 17) I will be giving it my all down in Palo Alto.

So everyone think good thoughts for me.
~Sarah

Thursday, August 02, 2007

So long my fuzzy friend


Mid-way through graduate school I found myself in love with a furry orange ball I named Dewey. He was a terror, he ate my stuff, he bit, he scratched. Molly, our lab mix, adopted him as her baby and kept him clean. Despite his rotten behavior we grew attached to him and he picked up an array of nicknames: SOK - Satan's own kitten; douche; douche bag; and little f**ker, to name a few. We tried to keep him indoors but he became an expert escape artist, so we conceded.

Friday morning I found Dewey dead in the front yard as I was heading to a meeting. It seems that he must have been hit by a car and somehow found his way back to our yard. I don't want to know what happened and I want to believe he didn't suffer. His time with us was very short, but we miss him terribly nonetheless.

This has not been an easy year, I'm still looking for work and trying to keep our heads above water hasn't always gone smoothly. The loss of my friend and kitty has been a bit of a thorny addition to a difficult year. Here's hoping he finds lots of catnip and upholstered furniture in heaven.


Scritches to all the kitties out there,
Sarah

Sunday, July 22, 2007

Detail oriented...

I've been interviewing a lot. Trying to find the right job. I've been getting asked more often lately about my attention to detail. I think most folks who know me know that I'm totally anal retentive about all sorts of things. That said, I've been having some trouble coming up with more descriptive/job interview appropriate ways to describe this aspect of my personality. I've described myself as "detail oriented" as well as "very attentive to details"...I just can't decide if that fully captures it. And being the anal retentive girl that I am, I just can't stop thinking about it.

So, if anyone out there has some good alternatives, I'd love to hear them.

'Til later
Sarah

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Books and busing

I've got a temporary position right now which has been great for the finances. Still looking for that elusive permanant position, but I'm sure it's out there, somewhere. The temp job is pretty far from home and I've been being a good commuter and taking the bus. The result has been a feast of reading. I haven't devoured books so quickly in a long time and I've been able to finally get to some long awaited books I had to put off while I was in school.


So far here's the list:


  • What is the what, by Dave Eggers (everyone should read this book)

  • The Girls, by Lois Lansens (surprisingly good)

  • The Hitchhikers Guide (a classic)

  • Massachusetts, California, Timbuktu, by Stephanie Rosenfeld (an emotional roller coaster)

  • Possible Side Effects, by Augusten Burroughs (so funny, I laughed really loud on the bus)

  • March, by Geraldine Brooks (disturbing)



It seems like there's more but my memory is failing me, again.

More later,
Sarah

Thursday, March 01, 2007

March Madness

Okay just to clarify, this blog has nothing to do with Basketball....now that we have that clear...

It's March 1st. Just a few short months ago I finished my masters degree. I told myself back then that it would realistically take a couple of months to find a job. In the midst of the search I frequently lose sight of that reality and become obsessed with my state of employment. I DO have a job, two of them actually. The problem is neither is the job I want. I want a full-time job that pays a livable salary, and I want benefits.

I knew that the super-saturated Seattle library job market would be hard, but I guess I didn't quite realize how hard. So now, despite any previous statements otherwise, I've taken my search on the road and started accepting that my dream job may not be here. It's really scary to think about moving away, but if I find the right position, I'll go.

So what does this have to do with March madness? My couple of months of searching have passed without offering up the position of my dreams and it's starting to make me a little crazy. It's hard for me to get happy, it's hard for me to be optimistic. I just have to remind myself that it's out there; it just may not come in the time line I had hoped for. I also have to remember that I have a lot to be thankful for right now: a roof over my head, a warm bed at night, and the love of my life. Not really so bad in the long run.

Spring is coming, don't let the winter blues get you.
Sarah

Sunday, February 18, 2007

The sick pleasure of noise in the library...

Just as a sampling of one of the many reasons I love being in the library and around other librarians. The other day I was helping our head librarian shift some books in our reference stacks. There's some sick pleasure that can be found in the shuffling of books from one shelf to the next.

One of my co-workers aptly described it as being like, "defragging your hard-drive." And she's totally right, it's that kind of satisfaction...of course, you have to have the right personality to find pleasure in this sort of activity. So here's where it got funny, we're shifting books to condense the stacks, as we're doing this we're removing un-needed metal bookends. Since we're in the library (you know shush and all that crap), I begin quietly stacking them off to one side...my boss grabs them and flings them down on the floor at the end of the aisle (about 8 feet away)hitting the metal covering on the radiator. He does this over and over as we shuffle the stacks and we laugh and ponder the noise insulation value of all these books.

I love librarians.