Archive for the ‘work’ Category
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
I’m back to work as of Monday, and well, it’s not clear how I ever spent my whole day away from home. How did I leave the house at 7 with the child and not return until evening? The mind boggles.
I’m working on a project related to C’s work, in fact, it’s for his boss. There’s no denying that it’s a spouse job, but it’s not all coat-tails. A librarian was needed and that is what I do (or did, and will do again). The project is pretty interesting and has sent me both physically and virtually into the French agricultural archives. I can explain in more detail for those who need more, but for the moment, I need to tell you about my first day at the BNF (Bibliothèque National de France).
I’m sure it’s a huge hassle to get to the goods in the Library of Congress so I can’t really compare my entry process well, but it was incredibly French in ways that have become very familiar. First, I had an interview with some sort of access-preventer. I presented my attestation stating that I indeed have a purpose, my contract stating that I am employed, and French-ily, my lease and a copy of my habitation insurance. I showed off my identity card and the man helpfully pointed out the upcoming expiration date. In the end, it was all rather fast and painless, and about 99% in French. He completely misunderstood the nature of my project, but I think that was less about my French than about his sense of the topic.
Donc. I get my card, I go pay for it, I exchange my stylish bag for a clear plastic box, I swipe my card, walk through a mysterious door and descend. One escalator. Two escalators. All the way down to the garden. I left my snacks behind but I shouldn’t have worried. It being France, there are cafes scattered throughout the place. People are sipping vending machine espresso and looking scholarly. I decide that I will make friends in the cafe. Eventually. Since I need to be back in our neighborhood soon to get T, I proceed straight to my assigned seat in the reading room.
It turns out that the materials I ordered would take an hour to come out, at essentially the moment I needed to leave, but now I know that I can pre-order next time. While I wait, I look around, I search the catalogue, I browse what’s browse-able on the shelves, and I feel really psyched about this new endeavor. Eventually, my first materials arrive. I open the cover and smile when I see the excellent 70s graphics:
Library, I missed you.
Posted in books, librarianing, work | 2 Comments »
Sunday, May 24th, 2009
It has been a month. Between life and the three multiple day weekends we’ve had here this month, May has gotten away. Today marks the end of the third weekend and what I suspect will be the beginning of the end of this whole sewing-for-euros venture. I’ve been planning for my table at this particular sale for some months. I think I prepared well and my table looked good, but the sale doubles as a flea market for used kids’ stuff and it seems that most people were on the lookout for bargain-ware, not full-priced, handcrafted works of wonder. Still cards were dispersed, contacts made…yet overall I feel pretty done.
I’m glad I did this, but I’m itching to get back to a normal job (as long as it comes with frequent long weekends).
Hope you all are enjoying your three day weekend.
Posted in craft and art, mercantile, work | No Comments »
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Somehow I thought we’d chosen our fork in the road last year, but still it feels like we’re stuck in an endless series of roundabouts giving us too many opportunities to rethink past moves and to over-think current and future choices. I’ve been making some attempts to rejoin the workforce of late, but it’s not easy. Today I was asked to describe my dream job and as I stumbled along with my answer, I had to summon great force to squash the “can a job be a dream?” thought bubble. The response I offered was a legitimate and intellectually stimulating way of contributing to my profession and society at large, but a dream…no.
On the way home, some more shimmery, iridescent thought bubbles floated above. “You are already living the dream…the dream…the dream,” they chanted. Sometimes that dream puts me face to face with an angry toddler (not my own) who screams “C’est interdit!” as she belts me in the playground, but more often, the dream streams across an endless series of afternoons spent sewing as I please and engaged in interviews of a different sort, filled with questions from my favorite three foot tall interrogator, this afternoon’s including: why does the rhinoceros have a horn, why does the crocodile have big teeth, and, mama, why are you here? The first two, for defense and for eating, were easy, and as I started to get all philosophical on the last one, she interjected, “no why are you standing over there, not next to me?”
And to top it off, in a few weeks I’m told I’ll be almost 4. Dreamy times, these.
Posted in child, family, parent, paris, work | No Comments »
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
Like a scene out of the Handmaid’s Tale or some such futuristic tale of reproduction and childrearing, all of the lactating mothers were spending their lunch hour at the daycare feeding their unconcerned babies. T. wasn’t the only new baby at daycare today and although the babies were almost universally unphased, the mothers had extremely long faces. We all shot each other understanding looks that said “doesn’t this suck in so many more ways than you expected?”
The drop-off this morning was okay. Terrible, but still okay. T. was fine. I cried. The first pump-at-work was also okay. But, lunch, that was hard. Finding her at daycare a little fussy but pretty much content, no recognition on her face, just a little growl to say how hungry she was. I should be relieved to hear that she took a bottle without a problem, that she took her naps, but is it so wrong to wish that she had cried some, that she had pulled out her emergency quarter to call me and demand I pick her up, or is that the whole crux of the working mother dilemma? So I fed her, handed her off quickly before I could get too sad and bicycled back up to my office where I’m eating my lunch at my desk and not even attempting to do any work.
And so it goes.
Posted in child, work | 1 Comment »
