I've been burning the candle at two ends the last few days, and it's caught up with me royally, having lived on about four hours' sleep a night for over a week. I just finished a small glass of water and it's the first actual H2O I can remember drinking for a long time...not good. Because of an emergency that popped up this morning, I haven't had a shower since yesterday and feel really ooky, but the fact is, I've been too tired to do anything about it. I went to bed at about 4:30 this afternoon and surfaced briefly just now. I'm on my way back in a few minutes.
You probably think I do nothing but sleep. No, I just talk about getting sleep. Without realising how much was sneaking up on me, I've been on a must-get-this-done jag on various projects this week. With last minute stuff before the holidays at work, shopping for Secret Santa stuff, anxiety-ridden Christmas parties, the prospect of three other (smaller, more intimate) celebrations before the end of the year, preparations to take classes next semester, general full-moon madness around me, etc., etc.--well, you get the picture. Of course, this has left me little time to actually tell you anything about some of the more odd things that happened this week. I'll try to catch up on those this weekend. Just as well, really--I haven't been my most coherent today. Dwana--who has finally updated her blog, yipee!--caught me this afternoon a couple minutes before quitting time at work taking a marker and pen and colouring a wooden ice cream spoon that had been on my windowsill like a little fish with scales, etc. She patted me on my head and just said, 'okay' and left the room. That's about as coherent as I got, and since I hadn't washed my hair I felt all greasy and icky. I was actually still in the shirt I'd slept in that night. Just so you know...this is NOT how I normally come to work. In fact, lately I've been dressing up and doing the makeup thing. But if I had taken the time to go back home to get cleaned up, I would have missed a good bit of my scheduled shift, and this way I at least wasn't technically absent (having worked at least half of it). I'd let them know I might not be in until later and even though I'd been gone for hours, it overlapped my shift by only a little over an hour. With it being Thursday, which tends to be relatively quiet, there weren't any crises whilst I was gone. Fortunately there were a lot of books to reshelve, and that's a task I could do in my sleep. (I say that now, but if I go in tomorrow and they're all in some bizarre order, you'll know why). I stayed a little later, too--now that I'm just there four hours a day it's a little more flexible--so long as I don't go over the 20 hours of the week, although I make a point of keeping a stable schedule since it's even more important for them to know when they can come to me for help.
One good thing today--a visitor who had called awhile back for pointers on where to find more for a college project on a rare condition came in today originally to read the newspaper and realised I was the one who had helped and was very glowing in her thanks. Apparently it made a real difference in how well the project went. That was nice. I usually just think of it as doing my normal job, but it's rewarding to know that I've helped someone. After all, even seemingly minor requests are important to the people who make them. I wish she'd caught me on a day I looked halfway presentable, rather than 'ridden hard and put up wet', but still.. :) That's one thing about librarianship--you don't always see the end product, but especially in health care, you know that the information you're helping someone find isn't usually just theoretical but is being used for patient care, or to help a patient or family understand a personal health issue better and therefore make informed decisions. But it's nice when you can just work librarian magic and they go...ooh...ah. I forget sometimes that it seems like hocus pocus to the unintiated. And when you can show them how to find things for themselves...it's like you've initiated them into great mysteries.
Well, I'm going to go on back to bed. Hopefully with rest tomorrow will be better. Besides, it'll be Friday (and even though it'll be here soon, I don't think I can even stay awake long enough to see if the Friday Five comes back tonight. It'll have to wait for when I'm awake tomorrow.
Looking over this post it seems a little rambly. Hope you forgive that, but hey, you were forewarned. 'Night.
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