Apologies for my recent absence--Fearless Fourteen almost scared me away.
I kid!
Not that the book wasn't relatively awful (thanks again for the warning, Liz), but I've been on vacation this past week, and since work is how I obtain my reading material, generally speaking, I haven't had anything new to read since this time last week.
My husband and I took the week off together, and spent a couple nights in Pittsburgh. I uploaded the pictures to Flickr, and they should be in the sidebar as soon as I get it working.
Once I head back to work (Monday, presumably; I don't have my schedule yet for this week.) I'll have more for you all!
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Monday, June 16, 2008
The thunder rolls...
It's been a stormy day in bookwench land. When I went out earlier to run errands it was sprinkling, and by the time I got to the store it was simply pouring. Of course, I left my umbrella at work a few weeks ago, and so I did the best I could and parked close to the door.
When I got back home, the sun was shining again, and I curled up on the couch with the windows open to finish Bar Flower, which is a memoir of a young American woman who pursued her dream to live and work in Japan in order to become fluent.
I took Japanese as my foreign language requirement in college, and that certainly originally sparked my interest in this book. Oddly enough, something else that grabbed my attention was the book's size. While hardcover, the size is more similar to a trade paperback. It's just about the perfect heft and size for my hands.
Beyond that, I think I was drawn to this book because I know that never in a million years will I go and live in Japan, despite my interest in the nation's culture both past and present. I am far too "different" to feel comfortable spending extended periods of time amongst people who tend to emphasize sameness and fitting in. As Lea reminds her readers, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. And I would certainly stick out like a sore thumb.
So, as in many things, I live vicariously through reading. It's certainly cheaper than travel, no?
Lea starts out teaching English to schoolchildren but loses her job after a particularly unsavory encounter with a psychologist who doesn't have to work under the same privacy limitations that she is used to. When all other options fail, she turns to the thriving bar scene and becomes a bar hostess: a strangely modern evolution of the Japanese geisha.
During my read of this book, I did often think about Arthur Golden's novelization, loosely based on the life of Mineko Iwasaki (whose book I also read and found to resonate perhaps more strongly than the fictional account) , but there were few intersections aside from some more obvious ones. Lea herself is preoccupied with geisha, so these connections are easy to make.
I was actually surprised by the rather abrupt end to Lea's narrative, but it certainly does align with her final exit from the stage of hostessing and addiction. I wish that this part would have been fleshed out a bit more. There were a lot of disorganized, chaotic parts (both in writing and in plot, possibly intentional and symbolic) that could have been more cohesive, and a lot of kind of random information that I wasn't sure where it was going. But this was a memoir and not a novel, and so I tend to be a bit more forgiving, I suppose.
Despite all that, I'm glad I read this one. It was engrossing and interesting and added a new facet to my knowledge of Japanese culture. And it reminded me that I haven't forgotten everything since college--which is always a good thing!
Thunderstorms are rolling through again tonight, so I'm going to wrap this up now and get it posted before the power drops. Tomorrow, Fearless Fourteen, which, thanks to Liz's comments in my previous post, I'll be reading with a grain of salt.
When I got back home, the sun was shining again, and I curled up on the couch with the windows open to finish Bar Flower, which is a memoir of a young American woman who pursued her dream to live and work in Japan in order to become fluent.
I took Japanese as my foreign language requirement in college, and that certainly originally sparked my interest in this book. Oddly enough, something else that grabbed my attention was the book's size. While hardcover, the size is more similar to a trade paperback. It's just about the perfect heft and size for my hands.
Beyond that, I think I was drawn to this book because I know that never in a million years will I go and live in Japan, despite my interest in the nation's culture both past and present. I am far too "different" to feel comfortable spending extended periods of time amongst people who tend to emphasize sameness and fitting in. As Lea reminds her readers, the nail that sticks up gets hammered down. And I would certainly stick out like a sore thumb.
So, as in many things, I live vicariously through reading. It's certainly cheaper than travel, no?
Lea starts out teaching English to schoolchildren but loses her job after a particularly unsavory encounter with a psychologist who doesn't have to work under the same privacy limitations that she is used to. When all other options fail, she turns to the thriving bar scene and becomes a bar hostess: a strangely modern evolution of the Japanese geisha.
During my read of this book, I did often think about Arthur Golden's novelization, loosely based on the life of Mineko Iwasaki (whose book I also read and found to resonate perhaps more strongly than the fictional account) , but there were few intersections aside from some more obvious ones. Lea herself is preoccupied with geisha, so these connections are easy to make.
I was actually surprised by the rather abrupt end to Lea's narrative, but it certainly does align with her final exit from the stage of hostessing and addiction. I wish that this part would have been fleshed out a bit more. There were a lot of disorganized, chaotic parts (both in writing and in plot, possibly intentional and symbolic) that could have been more cohesive, and a lot of kind of random information that I wasn't sure where it was going. But this was a memoir and not a novel, and so I tend to be a bit more forgiving, I suppose.
Despite all that, I'm glad I read this one. It was engrossing and interesting and added a new facet to my knowledge of Japanese culture. And it reminded me that I haven't forgotten everything since college--which is always a good thing!
Thunderstorms are rolling through again tonight, so I'm going to wrap this up now and get it posted before the power drops. Tomorrow, Fearless Fourteen, which, thanks to Liz's comments in my previous post, I'll be reading with a grain of salt.
Sunday, June 15, 2008
Hah.
And once again, your friendly neighborhood Bookwench was consumed by the grind of real life. I offer my apologies.
I don't know what it is about retail that somehow manages to entirely consume your soul from time to time. I've experienced this feeling often around the winter holidays, but the past couple of months have been almost as bad.
My reading list has grown considerably since the last time I wrote, though unfortunately there were truly only a few books of note.
The first that comes to mind, Barbara Walters' Audition, was an unlikely read for me. My store sold out of it almost immediately when it was first released, but after a couple of weeks on the bestseller lists we had a fairly solid standing stock. I would have probably ignored it altogether, however, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Walters made an appearance on the Daily Show one night when I just happened to be watching. There was something about her sense of humor, that she would even go on Stewart's show, and the way she handled herself once there, that nudged me into seeing what all the fuss was about.
I'm glad I did.
While the memoir is not, of course, a great work of literature in the traditional sense (sometimes it gets a bit wordy and, dare I say, sentimental), it truly does justice to the extraordinary life that this woman has lived, and is living. If any of you out there are familiar with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, you might have a similar experience to mine: as I was reading I kept identifying bits and pieces of the book and song that matched up, and I was amused.
Barbara Walters has pretty much lived the last 50+ years of notable American and world history. For someone like myself, who often struggled with history classes in the traditional academic setting, this is a much more accessible and interesting way to gain a greater understanding of "what really happened."
It does seem to me that I've been leaning rather strongly towards nonfiction of late. I go through phases when all I want to read is fiction, and then suddenly nothing in that particular realm interests me in the least; it's as though the oasis had dried up without warning, and all that was left to browse were stones and dry leaves and nothing very interesting at all.
At that point I'm left wandering my usual alternative-reading haunts: biography and science. For me, science is a subject that, in various ways, I clearly did well at in school but once things got to a certain technical level (chemistry, physics) I generally became daunted by the math involved and gave up. So occasionally I'll stumble through those shelves and find something that I can relate to.
This coming week, however, I will allow myself to indulge in what I might normally dismiss as fluff. Honestly, in my most humble, bookwench-y opinion, there's a lot of fluff out there. A great deal of it is not, as they say, relevant to my interests. But Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen, and as I got sucked into that series years ago by my best friend and fellow book-a-holic, I'll give this one a go as I do with each of Evanovich's yearly efforts.
Last year's title, Lean Mean Thirteen, actually made me wonder when the series was finally going to end, because if that was the best the author could do after all that time, surely it was time to call it quits. I know that, generally speaking, all the books have a similar scheme: Plum is desperate, Plum sludges through job, flirts with Ranger, hijinks with Lula and Grandma, gets into a situation more serious than she can handle, calls Joe, blows up a few cars, is rescued, spends a night with Morelli and his dog, eats dinner with parents and newlywed sister (and children), and eventually manages to save the day despite an unbelievable number of fumbles, and all with a spectacular amount of innuendo and humor. Usually these machinations are at least entertaining enough to be worth an hour of so of my time. Last time was the first time I can really say I felt disappointed by the end of the book.
However, I've had a sneak peek at the first few pages of Fourteen, and it seems to be much more promising. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm also working on another memoir, Bar Flower, that is quite engrossing and will likely merit a post of its own once I finish.
For now, however, it's just about that time where I scuttle off to live amongst the tomes for an hour or eight.
Ta!
I don't know what it is about retail that somehow manages to entirely consume your soul from time to time. I've experienced this feeling often around the winter holidays, but the past couple of months have been almost as bad.
My reading list has grown considerably since the last time I wrote, though unfortunately there were truly only a few books of note.
The first that comes to mind, Barbara Walters' Audition, was an unlikely read for me. My store sold out of it almost immediately when it was first released, but after a couple of weeks on the bestseller lists we had a fairly solid standing stock. I would have probably ignored it altogether, however, if it wasn't for the fact that Ms. Walters made an appearance on the Daily Show one night when I just happened to be watching. There was something about her sense of humor, that she would even go on Stewart's show, and the way she handled herself once there, that nudged me into seeing what all the fuss was about.
I'm glad I did.
While the memoir is not, of course, a great work of literature in the traditional sense (sometimes it gets a bit wordy and, dare I say, sentimental), it truly does justice to the extraordinary life that this woman has lived, and is living. If any of you out there are familiar with Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the Fire, you might have a similar experience to mine: as I was reading I kept identifying bits and pieces of the book and song that matched up, and I was amused.
Barbara Walters has pretty much lived the last 50+ years of notable American and world history. For someone like myself, who often struggled with history classes in the traditional academic setting, this is a much more accessible and interesting way to gain a greater understanding of "what really happened."
It does seem to me that I've been leaning rather strongly towards nonfiction of late. I go through phases when all I want to read is fiction, and then suddenly nothing in that particular realm interests me in the least; it's as though the oasis had dried up without warning, and all that was left to browse were stones and dry leaves and nothing very interesting at all.
At that point I'm left wandering my usual alternative-reading haunts: biography and science. For me, science is a subject that, in various ways, I clearly did well at in school but once things got to a certain technical level (chemistry, physics) I generally became daunted by the math involved and gave up. So occasionally I'll stumble through those shelves and find something that I can relate to.
This coming week, however, I will allow myself to indulge in what I might normally dismiss as fluff. Honestly, in my most humble, bookwench-y opinion, there's a lot of fluff out there. A great deal of it is not, as they say, relevant to my interests. But Janet Evanovich has a new Stephanie Plum book, Fearless Fourteen, and as I got sucked into that series years ago by my best friend and fellow book-a-holic, I'll give this one a go as I do with each of Evanovich's yearly efforts.
Last year's title, Lean Mean Thirteen, actually made me wonder when the series was finally going to end, because if that was the best the author could do after all that time, surely it was time to call it quits. I know that, generally speaking, all the books have a similar scheme: Plum is desperate, Plum sludges through job, flirts with Ranger, hijinks with Lula and Grandma, gets into a situation more serious than she can handle, calls Joe, blows up a few cars, is rescued, spends a night with Morelli and his dog, eats dinner with parents and newlywed sister (and children), and eventually manages to save the day despite an unbelievable number of fumbles, and all with a spectacular amount of innuendo and humor. Usually these machinations are at least entertaining enough to be worth an hour of so of my time. Last time was the first time I can really say I felt disappointed by the end of the book.
However, I've had a sneak peek at the first few pages of Fourteen, and it seems to be much more promising. So I'm looking forward to that.
I'm also working on another memoir, Bar Flower, that is quite engrossing and will likely merit a post of its own once I finish.
For now, however, it's just about that time where I scuttle off to live amongst the tomes for an hour or eight.
Ta!
Thursday, April 3, 2008
Hmm...
The bookwench returns!
For a moment I feared this project would fail before it even got off the ground, but then I recalled my determination to remain positive. And besides, it's really not all that difficult to hop on over and write when I'm already sitting here at the computer anyway.
In the past couple of days I've already digested a couple of new titles, unsurprisingly. In the book world, much as with most DVDs, CDs, software, and video games (though not movies in the theaters), new product hits the shelves on Tuesdays. Some things get shifted to more prominent dates (such as Harry Potter, which was conveniently on a Friday night/Saturday morning so that those lucky enough to have weekends off had plenty of time to dig right in without suffering much from their late-night adventures in Rowling's world) but the majority of new titles release on that one special day.
A quick bit of Googling (you'll find that Google is one of my best friends as I continue to seek out and absorb new and usually irrelevant information) seems to suggest that Monday is just too 'blah' for getting the interest of consumers, and by Friday (and through the weekend) people are more interested in going out and taking care of all they've put off during the week. This mindset, apparently, leaves people receptive on those three middle days, and Tuesday is just the earliest opportunity to get all the new and exciting things out there for buying and selling and, of course, tracking sales trends.
But I digress (hah).
Tuesday rolled around, and as I waited for the steady stream of regular coffee junkies to start streaming in for their morning hit, I browsed the cart of books that were set for release that day. One I was already aware of, Kate Mosse's Sepulchre; I'd actually started a stealth-read from the same new release cart a couple of days previous while taking a lunch break in the back room. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much given my lukewarm reception of her previous effort, Labyrinth. But I'm a sucker for those historical thrillers that parallel stories in the past and present, and there was an element of mysticism as well (a French Tarot deck features prominently in the plot) that appealed to me, so I figured I would give it a chance.
My plans for getting back to Sepulchre were immediately diverted, however, when I spotted a new Jim Butcher title on the other side of the cart. Could it be? A new Dresden Files book? It was! I generally try to keep on top of release dates for series that I've enjoyed, but I'd managed to miss this one completely. We'd only gotten five copies, as opposed to the rather formdiable quantity of Mosse's book, so I reasoned that I would get it out of the way first and then move on to the thicker book which was much less likely to sell out before I could get my hands on it. So I claimed a copy of Small Favor for myself, going so far as to sneak it over to the cafe, peeking inside and getting through the first couple of chapters rather furtively, between lattes.
There were a few other titles that caught my eye which I'll probably go searching after now that I've finished both of these other titles.
Yes, I've actually managed to get through both of them already; Sepulchre just this morning.
I can't say that either book was so compelling that I'll feel obliged to recommend it to friends or customers, but neither was a total disappointment, at that.
Both were, admittedly, fluff sort of reading. Nothing serious, just read for the sheer pleasure of reading, meeting new characters and spending time with old friendly ones.
Small Favor is going to be well-received by anyone who's a fan of the books already. My husband snagged it out of my bag while he was waiting for me to finish up a hair cut and he seemed interested even though he's never read any of the other books and has only seen a few minutes of the show, at most.
The plot might have been a bit crowded, as it seemed like a push to get all the story's threads woven together by the end of the book, but the universe that Butcher has created is a diverse and demanding one, and I didn't enjoy the book any less because of it. You wouldn't expect wizards, holy paladins, faerie minions, and vampires to adapt so well to modern-day Chicago, but as always, I'm entertained by the translation.
I did, however, finish it off in almost no time at all, and was ready to get going on Sepulchre by Wednesday morning.
The general opinion, after finishing, is a resounding 'meh.' Which...isn't at all unlike my reaction to Labyrinth. I think my own point of view is a bit less receptive, if only because I started out in the genre with Katherine Neville's The Eight, which, while not a perfect manuscript by any means, has always been my first true love. In fact, as I began reading Sepulchre, I couldn't help but to wonder if Mosse had spent some time reading Neville herself, as some of the settings and "gambits" of the story seemed to echo the earlier novel.
Some Googling (see, there it is again) turned up a lot of matches for people who were fans of both authors or had both on their reading lists, but that's to be expected when they inhabit the same story-space.
Anyway--the story is entertaining enough. Female protagonist seeking clues to a fogged past spends time in a new place, becomes entangled in multiple mysterious circumstances that eventually lead to the connection and clarification of all. Simultaneous backstory happens in same location but many years past, and runs forward to the culmination of events that lead to main character's foggy past. Mysterious artifacts (in this case, a deck of Tarot cards) and strange situations (demons, music, an old estate) are invoked, bad guys emerge, and eventually the characters find the artifacts, beat the bad guys, and unravel the heroine's history to find some sort of Happily Ever After.
I can't say that Katherine Neville didn't use the very same template, but she did do it more elegantly and with a greater complexity, and about twenty years ago, to boot.
(Katherine Neville's sequel to The Eight, The Fire, releases in October 2008. I'm looking forward to finding out if she's still got it after all these years.)
For a moment I feared this project would fail before it even got off the ground, but then I recalled my determination to remain positive. And besides, it's really not all that difficult to hop on over and write when I'm already sitting here at the computer anyway.
In the past couple of days I've already digested a couple of new titles, unsurprisingly. In the book world, much as with most DVDs, CDs, software, and video games (though not movies in the theaters), new product hits the shelves on Tuesdays. Some things get shifted to more prominent dates (such as Harry Potter, which was conveniently on a Friday night/Saturday morning so that those lucky enough to have weekends off had plenty of time to dig right in without suffering much from their late-night adventures in Rowling's world) but the majority of new titles release on that one special day.
A quick bit of Googling (you'll find that Google is one of my best friends as I continue to seek out and absorb new and usually irrelevant information) seems to suggest that Monday is just too 'blah' for getting the interest of consumers, and by Friday (and through the weekend) people are more interested in going out and taking care of all they've put off during the week. This mindset, apparently, leaves people receptive on those three middle days, and Tuesday is just the earliest opportunity to get all the new and exciting things out there for buying and selling and, of course, tracking sales trends.
But I digress (hah).
Tuesday rolled around, and as I waited for the steady stream of regular coffee junkies to start streaming in for their morning hit, I browsed the cart of books that were set for release that day. One I was already aware of, Kate Mosse's Sepulchre; I'd actually started a stealth-read from the same new release cart a couple of days previous while taking a lunch break in the back room. To be honest, I wasn't expecting much given my lukewarm reception of her previous effort, Labyrinth. But I'm a sucker for those historical thrillers that parallel stories in the past and present, and there was an element of mysticism as well (a French Tarot deck features prominently in the plot) that appealed to me, so I figured I would give it a chance.
My plans for getting back to Sepulchre were immediately diverted, however, when I spotted a new Jim Butcher title on the other side of the cart. Could it be? A new Dresden Files book? It was! I generally try to keep on top of release dates for series that I've enjoyed, but I'd managed to miss this one completely. We'd only gotten five copies, as opposed to the rather formdiable quantity of Mosse's book, so I reasoned that I would get it out of the way first and then move on to the thicker book which was much less likely to sell out before I could get my hands on it. So I claimed a copy of Small Favor for myself, going so far as to sneak it over to the cafe, peeking inside and getting through the first couple of chapters rather furtively, between lattes.
There were a few other titles that caught my eye which I'll probably go searching after now that I've finished both of these other titles.
Yes, I've actually managed to get through both of them already; Sepulchre just this morning.
I can't say that either book was so compelling that I'll feel obliged to recommend it to friends or customers, but neither was a total disappointment, at that.
Both were, admittedly, fluff sort of reading. Nothing serious, just read for the sheer pleasure of reading, meeting new characters and spending time with old friendly ones.
Small Favor is going to be well-received by anyone who's a fan of the books already. My husband snagged it out of my bag while he was waiting for me to finish up a hair cut and he seemed interested even though he's never read any of the other books and has only seen a few minutes of the show, at most.
The plot might have been a bit crowded, as it seemed like a push to get all the story's threads woven together by the end of the book, but the universe that Butcher has created is a diverse and demanding one, and I didn't enjoy the book any less because of it. You wouldn't expect wizards, holy paladins, faerie minions, and vampires to adapt so well to modern-day Chicago, but as always, I'm entertained by the translation.
I did, however, finish it off in almost no time at all, and was ready to get going on Sepulchre by Wednesday morning.
The general opinion, after finishing, is a resounding 'meh.' Which...isn't at all unlike my reaction to Labyrinth. I think my own point of view is a bit less receptive, if only because I started out in the genre with Katherine Neville's The Eight, which, while not a perfect manuscript by any means, has always been my first true love. In fact, as I began reading Sepulchre, I couldn't help but to wonder if Mosse had spent some time reading Neville herself, as some of the settings and "gambits" of the story seemed to echo the earlier novel.
Some Googling (see, there it is again) turned up a lot of matches for people who were fans of both authors or had both on their reading lists, but that's to be expected when they inhabit the same story-space.
Anyway--the story is entertaining enough. Female protagonist seeking clues to a fogged past spends time in a new place, becomes entangled in multiple mysterious circumstances that eventually lead to the connection and clarification of all. Simultaneous backstory happens in same location but many years past, and runs forward to the culmination of events that lead to main character's foggy past. Mysterious artifacts (in this case, a deck of Tarot cards) and strange situations (demons, music, an old estate) are invoked, bad guys emerge, and eventually the characters find the artifacts, beat the bad guys, and unravel the heroine's history to find some sort of Happily Ever After.
I can't say that Katherine Neville didn't use the very same template, but she did do it more elegantly and with a greater complexity, and about twenty years ago, to boot.
(Katherine Neville's sequel to The Eight, The Fire, releases in October 2008. I'm looking forward to finding out if she's still got it after all these years.)
Sunday, March 30, 2008
First post!
So, after a long absence from blog-land, here I am!
This is the first time I've blogged publicly under my own name; all of my previous attempts have been under various personas and identities I've assumed in my years on the internet (insert cane-shaking here), and it always seemed as though my content was targeted at those who knew me under whichever name I was wearing at the time. I guess I'm a little bit anxious about the disclosure this time around, but I have my reasons, and they're currently overriding any second or third thoughts that might pop into my head. Of course I'd love for people looking for me in The Future to be able to find out what a fascinating and wonderful person I am (wink wink), but then again I'll probably settle for being happy to find out that they've Googled me at all.
So. Who am I?
I am...
It sounds odd, but when I look at the job listings (I love my job but my feet and knees kind of...don't) in our paper, I know that there are a lot of opportunities out there that demand experience that I don't have. And yet, I know that given a smidgen of training and a bit of time to fiddle around with the system, whatever it might be, that I could make it work. Unfortunately these days a smiling face and a willingness to learn don't get you very far.
That's why I've finally decided to go back to school. This is complicated, of course. The degree--Master's in Library/Information Science--isn't available at the school where I got my B.A. in English. I'm not terribly bothered by the fact that I'm going to have to move, since we've been tossing around the idea for quite some time now. There are some hurdles, though. Both my family and my husband's primarily live in-state and get their feathers ruffled when we can't make various holiday visits thanks to our chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgiving work schedules.
My first inclination is to move across the country. I'm sure you see the problem.
Students and retail workers (the two things I currently have experience being) don't exactly have the earning potential or the freedom to travel cross-country at the drop of a hat, or even to get plane tickets all that often, if ever.
There is a school that offers the program nearer to here, but I really don't think I want to stay so close to home, because that feels hardly like leaving at all. Nonetheless, my husband and I have discussed moving to this closer city before, but I still have my misgivings.
Decisions, decisions.
One of the primary reasons I've started blogging again is because I need a place to think about these things, to plot and ponder and consider and look at my situation from all sides. Maybe I'll eventually pick up a few readers who care to offer insight and objective opinions. Or spam. I'll take some of the latter as long as I can have the former as well.
I tend to be a wordy wench, as you've probably noticed by now. I'm going to make an effort to keep things somewhat short and sweet, but please forgive me if I stray from time to time. I do like to talk, and sometimes it gets the better of me.
So here's to posting, and to figuring things out!
This is the first time I've blogged publicly under my own name; all of my previous attempts have been under various personas and identities I've assumed in my years on the internet (insert cane-shaking here), and it always seemed as though my content was targeted at those who knew me under whichever name I was wearing at the time. I guess I'm a little bit anxious about the disclosure this time around, but I have my reasons, and they're currently overriding any second or third thoughts that might pop into my head. Of course I'd love for people looking for me in The Future to be able to find out what a fascinating and wonderful person I am (wink wink), but then again I'll probably settle for being happy to find out that they've Googled me at all.
So. Who am I?
I am...
- 23 years old
- a barista and bookseller in a store that probably isn't the one you're thinking of
- a writer, when I feel like it
- a reader, voraciously, all of the time
- finally getting myself settled and thinking about getting back to school (I miss it!)
- married to a man I've known for almost seven years now
- companion to one crazy Siamese cat who disguises herself as a calico tabby
- more likely to recall pointless trivia than to remember to pay the bills
- capable of learning just about anything
- feeling stuck and trying to find a more productive life
It sounds odd, but when I look at the job listings (I love my job but my feet and knees kind of...don't) in our paper, I know that there are a lot of opportunities out there that demand experience that I don't have. And yet, I know that given a smidgen of training and a bit of time to fiddle around with the system, whatever it might be, that I could make it work. Unfortunately these days a smiling face and a willingness to learn don't get you very far.
That's why I've finally decided to go back to school. This is complicated, of course. The degree--Master's in Library/Information Science--isn't available at the school where I got my B.A. in English. I'm not terribly bothered by the fact that I'm going to have to move, since we've been tossing around the idea for quite some time now. There are some hurdles, though. Both my family and my husband's primarily live in-state and get their feathers ruffled when we can't make various holiday visits thanks to our chaotic, unpredictable, and unforgiving work schedules.
My first inclination is to move across the country. I'm sure you see the problem.
Students and retail workers (the two things I currently have experience being) don't exactly have the earning potential or the freedom to travel cross-country at the drop of a hat, or even to get plane tickets all that often, if ever.
There is a school that offers the program nearer to here, but I really don't think I want to stay so close to home, because that feels hardly like leaving at all. Nonetheless, my husband and I have discussed moving to this closer city before, but I still have my misgivings.
Decisions, decisions.
One of the primary reasons I've started blogging again is because I need a place to think about these things, to plot and ponder and consider and look at my situation from all sides. Maybe I'll eventually pick up a few readers who care to offer insight and objective opinions. Or spam. I'll take some of the latter as long as I can have the former as well.
I tend to be a wordy wench, as you've probably noticed by now. I'm going to make an effort to keep things somewhat short and sweet, but please forgive me if I stray from time to time. I do like to talk, and sometimes it gets the better of me.
So here's to posting, and to figuring things out!
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