Taking stock

Well, all things have their ups and downs. Right now…we’re fine. My shitajiki (pencil board) came in the mail today (seriously, where am I supposed to find these outside of Japantown — in a specific size, no less), and I found my old Bullet Journal. Training for my new job starts on Monday. I haven’t decided which backpack or bag to take with me, yet…though I did try on six pairs of slacks, and found all of them fit. That’s good.

Actually, it’s really good that a lot of things, fit. My biggest problem at the moment is shirts (I have two dress shirts I love which are a little small now), but that isn’t a huge issue. I will also likely need “business casual” shoes, though at the moment I can’t tell how long I’ll be on my feet — so I don’t quite know what to do, there. The Internet says that modest sneakers can be business casual. I have a set that I had been wearing around the house because of an injury, but that’s basically healed now, so maybe I can work with those?

This is kind of…well, I guess one could say it’s a little stressful. If I didn’t have as much time to think and anticipate as I do, it might not be as tense. It also wouldn’t be as tense if they hadn’t told me the dress code only half a week before the start of training.

Well, and starting out full-time and going for a number of weeks in that manner…I don’t think I’ve ever worked a complete eight-hour day (seven hours; maybe), so it will be an experience; and I might well not be able to do much other than eat, sleep, do laundry, and take care of hygiene, outside of that. But I’ll see what happens. Maybe it won’t be so bad.

I also got help with applying for a non-Library position (in Archives & Records) at my last vocational meeting — they want Library experience, which this new job will supply better than my last one. So, even if I find out that being a Library Assistant or Librarian isn’t where I’ll be happiest, there are options outside of these positions. I know now to look for skills and job functions rather than titles, as well.

Here, at home, we’ve been cleaning up. What that means for me is that I’ve been going through my clothes, and through my scattered things like books and beads, vacuuming and dusting. I’m trying to get things into some kind of order before next week hits. I will have weekends off, though: I guess I’ve got to remember that.

Aside from these things…I’ve remembered how much I’ve enjoyed reading, from having made it through Best-Maugard’s A Method of Creative Design. Even though it is a translated work, and thus…likely simplified in its language, I have found that I really appreciate these cross-cultural works. It’s something I’ve liked in Essentials of Buddhism: Basic Terminology and Concepts of Buddhist Philosophy and Practice, and in Articulations of Difference: Gender Studies and Writing in French. I’m not entirely certain what that tells me, except maybe I have metropolitan taste?

Yeah, that doesn’t sound right…maybe the answer is more that I really love Comparative Literature as a field? (Or, I love the people who love Comparative Literature enough to major in it?) Although I didn’t really do Comparative Literature in Undergrad — so I’m not sure. I do recall enjoying one or another Russian Classics author in my English Literature program, but I can’t remember if that was Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, or someone else. I think my sibling mentioned that maybe I liked translated works because they were quality enough that someone chose to translate them, which makes sense.

Anyhow…once I get trained, if I devote myself fully to this position and career path, it can’t help but assist me if I take the time to read things that I’ve wanted to read and haven’t had the chance to (like The Sixth Extinction). I mean, for about the past three years my time has been cut down by having had to study: first for the Master’s program, and then for my Cataloging and coding courses. Understandably, I think, I didn’t want to fill the rest of my time with additional study towards becoming a Librarian, especially when I wasn’t certain that it was what I really wanted to do with my life.

But wait, you say: I thought you got the Master’s because this is what you really want to do with your life?

What I can say to that is that I had an opportunity to do this and took it, knowing that if I waited too long, the chance might not come again. It doesn’t mean I’m all about libraries at this point…although I’m probably more about libraries than most people. :) The biggest issue that stands between myself and Librarianship is whether and how much I enjoy working with people, which seems to be the majority of at least a Public Librarian’s job (or at least for those who work in User Services).

And that… I can’t tell that until I’ve tried.

And I’m about to try.

It’s kind of freaking me out a bit, but it should show me whether I do really want to go into Technical Services (this includes Cataloging, Classification, Metadata, Web Development, and Collection Development) or into a non-Library position helping classify and organize (and likely, help retrieve and provide access to) materials.

There’s also the chance that this will give me a needed push into an area I’m not as confident in, and that the challenge itself will energize me. It’s possible. I say that because I’ve seen it happen in me before.

My last day at work, the first open day of the library after a two-day shutdown for Labor Day, saw me running around trying to get as much done at Circulation as I could, because I knew we were behind and I knew this would be the last chance I would get to help, as a Shelver. When there’s too much work, I kind of switch into game mode and try and see how much I can do, how well, and how quickly; according to a standard set of priorities, and keeping track of my stamina and how much time I have left in the day. There’s no chance to give up: I just have to keep plugging away at it, because I know that anything I can get done, will help.

There’s also a book I was guided to a while ago called Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which I never really finished. Maybe it would calm me, to get back to that. I’m not sure if it can happen, but I’ve been told that it seems I’m coming out of my shell. Can shy people turn into extroverts? I know someone who says it is possible, because it happened to him (although he’s the second person I’ll know who says they are [or were] really shy, who doesn’t seem that way, to me).

Not to mention that I should likely be gradually taking a tour of the Library website.

Tomorrow (technically, later today), I’ll be getting some larger shirts. Also…we need to get some little doodads so that my dresser drawers don’t fly open during earthquakes.

Yeah, I should…I should get some sleep, shouldn’t I?

Difficulties in creative process (expected and not)

Last night, I had the opportunity to think out loud about what’s stopping me from moving forward with creating. I was aware that I am very good at divergent thinking — that is, developing and imagining many options that I could do, and preparing to do them. When it comes to narrowing down those many options to focus on an end product, I’m not as great.

This is probably the biggest main challenge I have to deal with where it comes to making, and it has to do with process. It’s easy for me to envision an initial end point (or multiple possible end points); where it comes to favoring one and then also being willing to relinquish it by actually starting and moving through the different stages of construction (which rarely ever reach that same end point), I have some issues.

I know that if I start, that is, I’ll have to give up the “perfect” idea that I had at the beginning, in favor of something I haven’t yet imagined. I find it likely not different from a young bird launching itself into flight; on a branch, there’s something to grasp, or hold onto — this being the dream, or the original idea. When you’re in the air, you have to keep beating your wings to keep flying, you’re not anchored, and you’re constantly having to respond to new challenges arising. You may reach the place you originally intended to go, or you may decide that there’s a better place to stop, on the way.

Part of trying to deal with anxiety around this is lowering the stakes, such as by opting first to try mounting a stone with fiber instead of with precious metal. Today I started trying to work a macrame mounting for my Amazonite cabochon (I will try and get some images in before long). There are a number of things that I learned while doing that.

First off, I’ll want to use my heavier weight C-Lon (0.5 mm diameter) in order to avoid tons of tiny and barely visible knots with the C-Lon Micro. Also, again, I find that I need to work on my tension. The people working the knots in the videos I saw were actually keeping their tension much looser than I was. They were also spacing the knots out, more…and, I find, I’m not putting the cross-bar of the lark’s head hitch into the same spot all the time. That means that some knots are way looser than others, and also that the knots are misaligned.

That may be helped by trying to soften the C-Lon up a bit before trying to knot with it. I’m thinking of running it along the side of an awl to try and break up the stiffness. I’m not sure it will work; I just don’t want to do it with the back of a scissors because I’m concerned about curling or damaging the fibers rather than just breaking up any bonding between the fibers. I know this stuff can get softer, because it’s really soft after I’ve picked a knot out of it. So it can be soft. If I can get it there, maybe it will flow better.

I also found that I’ll need to make the bezel wider than previously expected, though that may not be an issue. Too loose, and the stone may slip out (maybe), but too narrow and it’s an unusable ribbon. As well, as the knotting progresses, it’s extremely easy to unintentionally narrow the bezel, by using tension that’s just too tight. Once that’s done, it’s easy to unintentionally continue to use tension that’s just too tight.

To an extent, minor unevenness in tension (like among a couple of strands) may work itself out when tying on and tightening the bezel at the endpoint…but I haven’t gotten that far, yet. I can also tweak the tension and recover my width by pulling on my anchor cords, but that snugs all the knots together (which is not what I want, as it hides the stone).

The other major thing that I have to deal with which puts me back from starting, is my tendency to perfectionism (which you can see in the fact that I actually noticed the detail of the cross-bar of my lark’s head hitches not all being in line). I know that perfectionism can stop someone from beginning. I heard yesterday that the quickest path to perfection is not to aim for perfection. Because working is the only way of getting better: if you never begin to work, you never get better. Your skill level never increases, which is intangible; but matters as a benefit, in this case. It’s growth and production, versus stagnation and lack of production.

My issue, I think, is that perfection is not possible, so aiming for perfection is to aim for the impossible, and instead of attempting to attain the impossible and be met with inevitable failure, sometimes we just tend not to try. The latter is what I’m combating, though maybe I just need to lower my standards to something attainable.

There’s also the fact that I could just be unsure as to whether my flight feathers have grown in yet.

Perhaps, I could recognize that these will be my first two macrame bezels ever, so it’s unlikely that they’ll come out as though machined. On that point, it’s not even desirable to aim to have a final product that seems machined, so I’m questioning right now what exactly it is that I’m desiring.

On that point, I’m not even sure of the exact design of what is going to flow out of the pendant — and I won’t be able to tell until I can figure out what connection options I have. I can’t tell those, until I’ve constructed a preliminary bezel. Which is why I started trying to do so, tonight.

What’s happening right now, is research. I probably should be gentle with myself and not expect perfection. But at the same time, I should push myself to at least try to do something.