Happy New Year!

So the year ends, and there are still no promising job prospects on the horizon. I’m going to keep plugging like I always do, and hopefully something will come through early in the new year. I’ve heard the economy’s improving, but I don’t usually pay enough attention to know how big that improvement is. I wish everyone a happy and healthy New Year, and may all of us still looking for work get that wonderful job offer of our dreams or hit jackpot in the lotto so we don’t have to worry as much!

Meanwhile, I’ve been diving into military sci-fi and leaving some of my other reading interests by the wayside. I finally started reading the first book in David Weber’s Honor Harrington series last week, and it’s very interesting so far. I like the sound of the Honorverse’s treecats, and I look forward to reading more about the species farther on in the series. I’m also finally reading the fourth book in the David Weber/John Ringo Prince Roger series. I’m really enjoying this bit of epic, I think it’s called space opera. I’ll probably try to finish it tonight before midnight – assuming I can’t find anything good on TV, seeing how Roger and company get to where I think they’re going is going to be fun and doable by midnight.

Anyway, I hope everyone has fun tonight, and here’s hoping nobody has to deal with Bilious, the Oh-God of Hangovers tomorrow.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I’d like to start out by wishing a Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it, Happy Hannukah to the latke-lovers, Happy Solstice if that’s your thing, and Happy New Year to all.

There haven’t been any huge developments in the Great Job Hunt so far. I believe I’ve mentioned a job that I interviewd for in Peekskill, NY, a few weeks ago – I got a letter today saying they chose someone else to fill the position. I know I probably don’t have everything they were looking for in terms of that position, though I thought the interview went well at the time. My dad pointed out that with the current job market and state of the economy (not to mention the large-ish pool of applicants the Director mentioned), they probably found someone who had more experience working with teens and programming and stuff than I do. I’ll get there eventually – there has to be a library out there that wants to hire a nuttly li’l book nerd like me, I just need to keep plugging until I find them. Maybe the call I got about a Library Assistant job from a third-party career center will work out. The person I talked to said they’ll forward my information to a yet-to-be-revealed institution who will contact me if they think my qualifications match up for the position.

Now I think it’s time to talk about something I find more fun to discuss than the fact that the continuing job hunt is just that – continuing. Anyway, on to books!  I started reading books by David Weber a month or two ago. I’ve read and enjoyed the first three books in the Empire of Man/Prince Roger series that he co-authored with John Ringo, but Mutineer’s Moon was the first of Weber’s solo books that I read. Mutineer’s Moon plays a bit off of the theory that humans came (or were brought) to Earth from elsewhere, and I liked it enough to get the second and third books from the trilogy. I’ll get to them eventually, and I’ve also started exploring Weber’s Honor Harrington series. I’ve known of Ms. Harrington for a couple years now, but I only recently got a copy of the first book (On Basilisk Station). It’s my current walking-around book, which I’m reading on the bus and during breaks and such.

I’m also finally getting to Terry Pratchett’s book Nation. It’s historical fiction of a sort, set in our universe (a bit of a rarity from the creator of Discworld), and geared towards the YA crowd. My mom got a copy on my recommendation, read and enjoyed it, and passed it on to me. I’ve been trying to get her to read Pratchett for a while now, so finally success! I love sharing good books. I also lent my DVD copies of the live-action movies of Pratchett’s Hogfather and Color of Magic to a new friend who is also a fan of Discworld. She hadn’t heard about the movies, or that Pratchett had released Unseen Academicals, so it was a pleasant surprise for her. Ook!

Still searching.

I probably mentioned that I had an interview at the Field Library in Peekskill a couple weeks back. I’m still waiting to hear back from them, but that should be happeneing some time over the next week or two. I have continued applying for jobs, of course, and as many as can be found that I’m even remotely qualified for. One of the many problems with this is that as many jobs as there are that fit my skill set, there are waaaay more that I’m either over- or under-qualified for. There are also a lot of part-time jobs that I could do, but I don’t know that I’m willing to move across state lines for less than 30 hours/week or $30k/year. I’ve just got to keep plugging, and hopefully something will come through soon. I might have to start listening to O Fortuna while I fill out applications – one of my friends says she was doing that, and she got a job that started a couple weeks ago. I’ve got a classical version as well as the Trans-Siberian Orchestra cut from their recent album Night Castle. Classic music with electric guitars – perfect!

I’ve also been trying to get some good reading done. My current reading material includes Living Dead in Dallas from Charlaine Harris’s Sookie Stackhouse series (the basis of HBO’s True Blood show), Ariana Franklin’s The Mistress of the Art of Death (think the Bones show set in medieval England), and Sister Time by John Ringo and Julie Cochrane. The Ringo book lives up to his usual standard of great mil-sf (military sci-fi) and the rest of the Posleen series. I might be able to finish the Prince Roger series (co-authored by Ringo and David Weber) this year, but it will depend on how my other reading projects are going. OK … signing off with the tought that the Oh, John Ringo, N0! t-shirt seems to have disappeared from CafePress …

…searching…searching…searching…

The Great Job Hunt continues. I’ve been applying to as many jobs as I can find that I’m qualified for, or over-qualified if it looks like a good opportunity. I’ve gotten a lot of thanks-for-your-application emails along with a number of rejections and n0-responses. The only nibble I’ve gotten recently was that interview at the Field Library in Peekskill, NY. Hopefully something will come through soon so I don’t have to worry as much about health insurance and loan payments and such.

It’s tough for everybody right now, and I know that if I was taking all the rejection personally I’d probably be rocking in a padded room right now. Luckily, I know a trio of Schnauzers who help me stay presentably sane. I try to visit with them as much as I can, but if I can get to them once a week that’s a lot. They’re either Standard, Mini, or a mix of the two. The two older ones (Teddy and Scruffy) are gray, Buddy (I met him when he was still a puppy) is black, and they’re always very happy to see me unless it’s dinner time. They’re good boys. I’m also friends with a Pekingese (Mugsy) and a blue/gray/purple-point Siamese (Joeee with three “e”s) who live in my building. It’s usually a good day if I get to see any of my four-legged friends.

One of my goals for the future is to be able to adopt a pound puppy, but not until after I’m settled into a good job where I can support myself. My first (and so far only) dog was a Shih Tzu my family adopted from the Buddy Dog Humane Society shelter in Sudbury, MA, when I was 6. My friends knew her as “the Ewok dog” or “that little Ewok” because she looked like one of those Star Wars characters on four legs – light gray body, dark-gray-and-black face, and a little white beard. It’s my opinion that she was the best dog in the world. We had her for 12 years until she died of old age. Like I said, I’d love to be able to rescue another dog or two from a shelter, but I need to wait until I can take care of said critter(s) properly. I’d be giving the dog a loving home, and the dog would help keep my stress levels under control.

Anyhow, it’s time for me to sign off. Be kind to your fuzzy, feathered and scaled friends.

Another day, another application or few

So I am getting back into the swing of searching and applying for good jobs. Thanks to Dad for sending me some that he found – not all of them are appropriate for my current education and skill level, but I’ve been applying for the ones that are. I’ve also been doing some of my own searching and applying. Just this morning, I found two good-looking possibilities on USAJobs that I applied for. One of them was a listing for an office/filing monkey with the National Archives and Records Administration out in California – I’m a bit overqualified for it, but if they like me then there are worse places to start my career than NARA. I also applied to be an Official Computer Nerd/Library Tech for the Air Force. I’ve got the highest respect for this country’s Armed Forces, but I’d much rather support them as a civvie librarian than join up.

I did have a job interview this week, for the position of YA (teen) Services/Reference Librarian in a public library. I thought it went well, but I’m not holding my breath because I was one out of I-don’t-know-how-many applicants (any of the others could be way more qualified than me) and I don’t want to turn blue and fall over. If I do get that position, it’ll be a great experience for me – I’d be doing outreach in the schools, ordering books and stuff, planning and implementing programs, answering questions, stuff like that. And, if the teens are open to it, I could try getting them inerested in Shakespeare. I could have a lot of fun teaching them how to use that kind of language in everyday life. The Bard was a master of talking smack  flinging witty and memorable insults. But now I must away – I’ve got things to do today, including finding someone I know whose copy of Publishers Weekly arrived stuck to mine …