Had a big problem with motivation this work-week. Truly, without motivation, drive, and progress, work can feel meaningless and unbearably hard. Thanks to first-thing-in-the-morning (meaning first thing in my morning– I don’t start work till later than most people usually do) meetings and just projects that I agreed to help with whose tasks didn’t require much brainpower to complete, I did get work done and was here working for a respectable, acceptable amount of time every day. My heart wasn’t in it as much as it should’ve been, though.
One of the hurdles I’ve come up against is that huge, ever-looming one that gives all of us in academia trouble: BUREAUCRACY. Red tape. Permission and approval required for anything and everything. I’m from a public library background, and it’s not like we never dealt with that there, but I’m used to being able to immediately act after I get an idea in my head for a small-scale project, so long as my supervisor is aware. Here, I can get the whole department, including my supervisor, the department head, the assistant dean, and maybe even the dean himself to give me a thumbs-up and I’d still have to wait for the right people to be consulted first before I can get started. I’m not used to it, so it’s maddening. And this is with the majority of my colleagues and bosses being incredibly open-minded and supportive and actively working to help me get what I want. I don’t know how people at other university libraries without that kind of support get anything done. Thank you, gods and heavens above, for making my life a little easier!
I’ve got lots of ideas, fam, but as always, I’m struggling to follow through on them. People are busy and it’s hard to “gain an audience” with directors and important people from other departments and offices so that we can discuss ideas, programming, projects, instruction, etc., etc. I don’t have concrete plans laid out, either, so I have nothing to present the busier people who prefer more structure with. Serendipitously (again with that word!), I stumbled upon a site that collects projects and blog posts from other libraries’ outreach/collaboration/engagement attempts and organizes them so the rest of us can easily browse by library type, budget, so on, so forth. I WANT TO BE ONE OF THE SUCCESS STORIES ON THIS SITE. ME! ME AND MY LIBRARY AND MY UNIVERSITY! HOW DO I MAKE THIS HAPPEN, BUDDHA? BLESS MEEEEE!!!!!
I believe I am going a bit crazy from self-imposed isolation in my cubicle all day (me, my headphones, two monitors with a ton of articles, case studies, webinars, blog posts, etc., Kyary Pamyu Pamyu, and email communications) in order to “figure this shit out”. I’ve actually talked to several different colleagues randomly in the hallways, at the door of my cubicle (I was craving chocolate chip cookies and, out of pure coincidence, my coworker bought me a big chocolate chip cookie as thanks for covering a shift for her, so we chatted for a bit), in the bathroom, but overall, I have been alone with Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and my thoughts. Oh, and Haikyu!!. I did take breaks to read a few chapters. I’ve been eating chips and frozen corn and guzzling beer for dinner ’cause I’m too distracted to heat up anything more complicated than that and I just want to watch Haikyu!! or read the manga. Or read fanfiction for it (teeheehee). I also haven’t been consistently exercising and am paying for it. I woke up this morning and accidentally wrapped my forearm and hand around my generous, squishy belly and freaked out ’cause I was NOT expecting that. What the fuck? I’m getting fat, but only in my belly area! EEEEEEP…
Insanely Predictable 