Now Here’s Something Interesting

According to this New York Times Interactive whatever-it-is, white, women, aged 24-44, college educated have an unemployment rate of 3.6% compared to 8.6% for all people. I wonder how accurate these numbers are as my library goes into yet another round of cuts, 30% to be exact, rather than the previously identified 7.5%.

Hands Off in the Library

Today on the desk, DW caught a masterbator. Sort of. The kid on the PC next to the monkey spanker actually noticed first. The kid convinced a friend to go get one of us (DW was the lucky one and I am so jealous). He didn’t say anything, didn’t even look up. Just said he needed help and pointed to a Word document where he had typed, “That guy is jacking off.” DW was confused. Everything was spelled right. Maybe the kid had stepped away from his PC without locking it and one of his friends typed up an inappropriate message. Finally the kid typed an arrow next to the sentence and said, “Now do you see the problem?” Finally DW caught the drift and called the guards. The chicken choker CLAIMED he was itching his leg. I love this job.

Vampire Reading Room

There’s a funny sign floating around in library circles that says something like, “Welcome to the vampire reading room, formerly the teen area.” It seems like every third patron (teen or otherwise) comes in looking for Twilight (funny review of the series, just so you don’t have to read any of those peices of crap). But every fourth patron, behind the second wanting manga and the first wanting books from a reading list, asks for fantasy.

Heard (and Seen) at Work

Been a while since I posted funny/disgusting things said and done by the teens at my library. Here are two little nuggets.

• “What would Jesus do?” Uttered by a boy playing Super Smash Brothers.
• Nose picking and consuming by a girl of about 16 with a name that means desire in French. Bit of a misnomer, that.

Another Step Toward Higher Education

I have received email confirmation that my application to the SIRLS program at UofA (check me out, using acronyms already!) was received and more information is needed. For instance, I completely and utterly forgot that I attended the Community College of Allegheny County when I lived in Pittsburgh the first time. This was about 1987 so I may be forgiven. But the UofA caught onto this immediately. The transcripts should be coming forthwith. I will also need to update my application since four months have elapsed between the University’s application and the receipt of the program application. It took me that long just to scare up both my recommendation letters. They were totally stellar and worth the wait. I got a little misty and aw-shucks when I was provided a preview.

Water Sprite in the Fountain

Last week at work was a weird one. Not for me personally; that was pretty well business as usual. I mean for the library as a whole. A bunch of bizarre things happened, the guards were kept hopping and it wasn’t even a full moon. First, there were a few separate drunken patron incidents. That’s not the unusual part, happens all the time.* The first real shenangin was the water sprite. That’s what I call him. One of our homeless patrons got duded up on all his duds (minus underpants) for his trip to the library. All that clothing got heavy and started to droop, way down. Instead of asking at the reference desk how to fashion a belt, he began to frolic in the reflecting pool on the first floor. Let me just say, that water is loaded with chemicals. We’re all surprised his skin didn’t melt off. But it didn’t and he refused to leave the pool. The only reason he got out voluntarily is he heard one of our security gates go off and thought we were electrifying the pool. At this point in the story, everyone says, “Yeah, I wish.” Anyhoo, he did get out and was escorted out by the police. Our head guard would later report, “He was half naked and not the good half.” The next unusual happenstance was the corpse of a (former) patron found in the park behind the library. He was last seen tottering out after having refused medical attention.
* It must be a proud moment in your life to get booted from the public library for being trashed.

Library Epiphany

Had a library epiphany today, thanks to Jenn and Marlene. The reason I’m meant to work with teens (and maybe someday, adults) rather than children is, if they crap their pants it’s not my responsibility. I can politely ask them to take care of it. And their mothers don’t sniff their butts.

So Very Butch

Diana and the Teen Council decorated all the headphones to cut down on theft. Although why anyone would steal these things in the first place is a major mystery. They are huge and don’t have great sound. But the plan seems to be working. We are getting them all back these days. I wish you all could see how our kids look with giant, land-the-space-shuttle black headphones festooned with ribbon, lace and glitter. So very butch.

Book Lust – Anita Blake Graphic Novels

Today at the library Jenn requested that our library purchase the Anita Blake graphic novel series. I’m so excited. I am in book lust for these graphic novels. Since I have her complete written oevre I may have to purchase these for myself. But I know these will circulate so it’s not totally self-serving.

The GRE Proves It

I’m not retarded! My scores were 540 verbal and 410 quantitative. Those are not great scores from what I can tell from Google. The quantitative score was low, surprising no one. I guessed on most of the questions. We’ll see what the results are for the written. I hope those bring my score up.

Taking the actual test was a bit surreal. I had to lock up all my stuff in a locker, including my lip balm and the tissue I brought from home. Tissues, I was told sternly, would be provided. I was invited to leave my lip balm outside the door. I only wish I was bright enough to concoct a device that would project all possible answers on to the cubicle walls in the test area with a simple twist of the tube.

My test started with the writing portion. I was even able to work Africa into my first essay. The second was easier. I felt a bit like Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” when he turns in his theme. I was imagining the glee with which the readers of my essays would discuss my brilliantly cogent arguments over coffee. And hoping they wouldn’t instead mark the entire thing up with red pencil and give me a solid C+.

The verbal section was next and nothing like I was expecting. First of all, it was a mixed bag. I did not get a sets of analogies, antonyms and paragraphs to read and comprehend. My worst verbal skill is analogies so of course it was almost entirely analogies interrupted by terrifically boring passages about mollusks and some sort of Great-Lakes-killing clam and how the earth’s waist (aka the Equator) is shrinking. The killer clam (couldn’t help the B-52’s song, “Rock Lobster” careening through my brain after that snore-worthy passage) story sucked up almost 10 of my 30 minutes. I started to get tense at that point.

Next was the quantitative portion which was pretty much what I expected: incomprhensible. I’m surprised I got any correct.

Last was the exprimental portion which wasn’t scored. That’s a bummer because that was almost entirely filled with two things I’m good at: phrases to fill in and antonyms.

Everyone tells me the GREs will not be a factor to me getting in to library school. But I still wanted to do well. My scores are a bit disapponting but I’m still giddy it’s over.