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I’ve applied to Holland America Lines, a cruise company whose American branch operates out of Seattle, Washington. They’ve been advertising for a shipboard librarian, and this is my third time applying to them if I’m counting correctly. I haven’t had any read response from them yet, but I’m hoping. I realize that I’d be required to live on the ship for at least part of the year, and they’d probably have me do lots of other jobs in addition to lending out the occasional board game or DVD, but I think it would be an interesting opportunity. Lots of people take cruises, so who knows who I might meet? Nothing else really interesting showed itself during the past week on the job front, but I’ll keep plugging.

I recently got a book called The Bibliophile’s Dictionary by Miles Westley, and it says it contains a selection of “masterful words and phrases.” I am going to attempt to share a different one or two each week. This week’s word is nefandous. It is an adjective defined as unmentionable, abominable or horrenous, and is credited to H. P. Lovecraft. Mr. Lovecraft, of course, was a horror author famous as the creator of Cthulhu.

Applications and interesting things in the news

The job hunt continues, as always. Highlights of the week include applying to MIT, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NERL) and NBC, and getting a rejection e-mail from an airline company that was looking for someone to manage their technical manuals. I’m not crying over not getting hired by the air company, but I’d like to hope I have a fair shot at two open positions I applied to with MIT (Digital Projects and Binding Assistant, and Interlibrary Loan Borrowing Assistant). They were just posted today with the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), and I found them as soon as I checked that lovely job board. One of my uncles attended MIT if I remember correctly, and a friend of mine from grad school is currently employed there in a research position. I’ll also be happy if I get a somewhat-positive response from NERL, but I’m not going to hold my breath.

As a dedicated bibliophile (for anyone unfamiliar with the term, it’s a fancy word for “book nerd”), I feel compelled to share two articles I read this morning: New details have been released on the upcoming double-feature that will be Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and Barnes & Noble may not be around much longer in its current state. I like B&N (I get the occasional gift card, and I like browsing their Bargain section), but I won’t cry very hard or long if they disappear – I’ve been mainly walking the path of used books lately, and there’s always the library if I want free reading material and Amazon.com for new stuff. As for Harry Potter, I can understand why they’re splitting the last book into two separate movies, but at the same time it chalks up as very inconsistent to me. They changed or omitted so many things in the first six movies, and now they’re deciding to go full-out to get all the details? I kind of feel bad for anyone who’s watched all the movies instead of reading the books, or who just haven’t gotten to the books yet – there’s probably going to be quite a bit of confusion due to lack of filmed back-story.

Split Between the Two Parts of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows’ Revealed
http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/movie-talk-harry-potter-deathly-hallows-split.html

Clearance Sale: Barnes & Noble Didn’t Evolve Enough
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703824304575435512550936090.html?KEYWORDS=barnes++noble

Still nothing new

I apologize for not posting yesterday. There’s still nothing new or exciting to report. I applied for some more jobs since last time and received a rejection or two, but I’m still waiting to get something even approaching a nibble. The closest thing I’ve got is the application I turned in to volunteer at the public library that’s across the street from my retail job. I don’t know if they’re taking volunteers at the moment, but hopefully my degree and experience (including my summer gig in the county consortium’s office two years ago) will work in my favor.

I may have mentioned this last week, but it bears repeating: Despicable Me is an awesome movie! It’s got a fun story, layered humor, a good cast, an army of minions who resemble a certain popular creme-filled snack, and they managed to stick a good Godfather joke in a kids’ movie! I don’t think I’ve talked to anyone who doesn’t like it. I’m hoping to see or hear about at least one Gru and/or minion(s) this Halloween, though I’m not sure if I’ll get my wish this far from good old Salem, MA.

Same again.

I’m still searching, and wading through the occasional rejection letter or email that comes along. I sent printed applications to the Nashua and Concord Public Libraries in New Hampshire last week because they’re both looking for a reference librarian. I’m hoping they’re willing to consider me enough to invite me for an interview, or at least try to do one over the phone. I’m also seriously considering applying for a couple open positions I saw with the Washington DC Public Library, but that might be a tad tough since they require electronic submission of hand-signed forms. The toughness comes from the fact that I don’t own a scanner, but I’ll see about remedying that soon.

I read a great piece of news last night, and again this morning: California’s Proposition 8 has been overturned! Finally, the the good Californians of the Rainbow community can exercise their constitutional right to be happily (or miserably, as the case may be) married with benefits as straight people!
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2010/0804/Proposition-8-federal-judge-overturns-California-gay-marriage-ban
 I know I shouldn’t have trouble believeing it, but the creators of the Proposition are already trying to appeal it, and the article says they wanted it to stay in place until they get to take the appeal to court! Sheesh. At least there are contributions like Proposition 8 The Musical to help people keep perspective.

In other news, I highly recommend Despicable Me. If you haven’t heard about it yet, it’s an animated movie starring Steve Carrell as a villain who wants to steal the moon and is (at least partially) foiled by the three girls he adopts as part of his evil plan.

I also feel the need to rant about a book I finished earlier this week: One Day on Mars by Travis S. Taylor. It’s a good story, but ooooooh the typos! I’m not kidding, there were mispunctuations galore. Not only that, there were misspellings, contradictions, run-on sentences that were not part of dialogue, and unneccessary (I thought) repetitions. It was rather painful for me to read as a dedicated bibliophile, but I did make myself finish it. I was a tad disappointed to see so many errors from a respected publisher like Baen and an author who’s also a quantum physicist. I e-mailed Baen to let them know, just in case nobody else had pointed it out. Presumptuous, maybe, but I felt it was my duty as a fan. I forget who said this, but “Redundancy is a sin, redunancy is a sin.” Maybe not in important situations like emergency backup systems and life support and such, but definitely in good reading material.