Electric Quaker II

The End of Week Two…

…I’m using a bit of flexitime to write this, but that’s fair enough – I’m not exactly short on flexitime (although I will be presently), so much as short on energy with which to do anything about having stray flexitime that I could do stuff with. Still, I hope I’ll get used to it.

Rather alarming is the extent to which I’ve got old over the last six years; back in the day, when I got the stinking 83 to Newport (via anywhere remotely indirect that Arriva could think of, including a huge doubling-back-on-itself loop to the Humbers, where approximately one lazy kid got on or off) I used to be up at 0630h, and back at 1750h, no problem. Now I keep falling asleep on the bus (although I reckon that the instance of that on Tuesday was because I’d got the Today program on the iriver, and Call-me-Dave was talking about, uh, something).

Getting a bit more settled in, now, not making quite as many mistakes as I was last week, which is a good sign, and probably less irritating all round, and I’m starting to learn my way round the stack a bit better (I did get totally lost in there the other day, whilst trying to find a floor that would let me exit to the main part of the building, but since the stack’s the sort of thing that’d give Umberto Eco a headache, I reckon I can be forgiven that. Anyway, I wasn’t lost as such, because I knew how to get out, just not how to get out where I wanted to do so.)

Getting the bus has settled into a proper routine again, after some disturbance the other last few days, following the village the bus goes through becoming a wee bit soggy after the huge rains we’ve been having. It’s sunny again, now, which is a shame, because it doesn’t annoy the tourists as much, but I guess we’ll have to cope.

In other news, I’ve been given a part in the Corn Exchange pantomime, an Archers-tastic ‘Snow White & the Seven Dwarves,’ playing the part of Slurp (who I always think is called Slurm, on account of that being, well, a name). Slurp is basically the character of the huntsman, but pantomimed into a comedy pillock, of the “stupid but a cretin” variety. One annoying voice and ‘Uriah Heep meets the village idiot’ level performace later, and I’ve got myself a part. Which is cool, because I’ve never really auditioned for owt before.

Went bellringing again, last night, and more or less enjoyed it; was on a heavier bell than previously, which made things a lot easier, but I do seem to have stretched the muscles in my chest a bit, on account of stretching up with the sally. Still, it’s a hobby, and could be losely counted as excercise, if you were being generous, so I reckon I’ll carry on with that.

And other than that – and the audition doesn’t really count, since it was two weeks ago on Sunday, and before I started work – I’ve not done much, mostly because it’s all far too tiring. Soon, however, I’m hoping I shall get the hang of this a bit better, and stop feeling quite so abysmal in the mornings, and then I can do something productive, and which doesn’t involve learning difficult things, like AACR2 and MARC, which I’m only slowly getting the hang of, and which I keep having dreams about.

No, really. The last two nights, I’ve dreamed about cataloguing books. This is slightly scary, especially since the dream this morning was me stuck at a party with a bunch of people telling me how they deliberately list things as bibliographies in the 008, even when they know they’re not, and me having to be polite about it, because I didn’t know the way home, and they were going to give me a lift.

Still, that’s probably a good sign, too, because it means my brain is quietly filing things away, rather than just forgetting them, so I reckon thing’s will get better. I feel marginally less confused and useless already, and I still intend to enjoy this once I’ve got the hang of it a bit better, so it’s all good, really, apart from the sleeping, and it’s nearly the weekend, which is proper lie-in city!

Excellent.