Keep calm and carry on …

So I had two phone interviews with Holland America Lines to be a librarian on one of their cruise ships, but I didn’t make the cut. Maybe I’m overqualified, maybe I didn’t come over as cut out for life on a cruise ship, they didn’t say. I’ll still keep an eye out to see if it opens up again with them, or if another cruise line desides they need a librarian. At the very least, I’ll have a current passport if I do manage to land a similarly cool opportunity. I originally got a passport so I could go to England with my parents 11 years ago, and I waited until this week to renew it after in expired last year.

Dreams of being a shipboard librarian aside, I’m also looking at jobs in the publishing industry. I’ve been a bibliophile my whole life, and I’d really like to be part of the industry that creates one of my major addictions. I took a publishing class during my last semester in grad school, and I loved it. It was taught by Anita Silvey, author of 100 Best Books for Teens, I’ll Pass For Your Companion, Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, and others. The main project for the class was to take a book that was at least 20 years old (counting from original publication date) and treat it as if we were getting it ready to be published in today’s market. My classmates’ choices included Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, The Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and Philip K. Dick’s Solar Lottery. I started out considering somthing by Terry Pratchett, but I ended up using James A. Michener’s Alaska. I’ve been reading Michener at least since I was in high school, though I may well have started when I was in middle school. Ms. Silvey thought it was a great choice, especially considering that I took this class right after the 2008 Presidential election during which Sarah Palin rose to the national spotlight. I’ll post my paper from the class and my final PowerPoint presentation if anybody’s interested.

Please hold while your search loads …

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.