THE NEIGHBORS SAY I CHANT TOO LOUD(LY)
I hate feeling inept at my job(s). The English Department was actually pretty busy today, and I did a lot of stuff without faltering. But I've made so many stupid little mistakes at the library today that I feel like a total dumbass. (But! A dumbass who'll be going on vacation very shortly.) Maybe I can write it off on general fatigue; goodness knows that would be about right. But really, I don't think I got a very in-depth training on how things work around here: when this cart of books moves over there, whose responsibility it is to move them, what you have to fill out in order to do this or that. Accordingly, I spend what feels like an awful lot of time bumbling around for the right thing to do, which I usually pick up best by watching others. So, maybe I'm not a model library employee. I don't know if I can handle that, though. It just isn't in my blood to accept mediocrity. (Okay, I'm going to amend that because it makes me sound like a walking nerd terror. I feel really weird when I'm not "striving" is more or less what I mean, even though I think it's tremendously healthy to view mundane work as entirely non-crucial to my mental well-being. At least that's the line.)

Of course, I'm hoping you'll ignore the fact that I wrote this post while I was actually at work . . . .

BLIND AS A BABY
So, a vacation is imminent. How do you like that? A vacation wherein I don't work for five days straight. Well, shoot. Don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

Since the fourth of July always feels like the midpoint of summer to me, I guess it's time for a little summer round-up (which, incidentally, rips off its conceptual punch from Tyson's and Adam's earlier posts of a similar nature). So.

1. Rent is a fact of life.
2. Other people have more money than you, get paid more than you.
3. Talking about money sucks . . .
4. . . . but having total financial control of your life is a surprisingly wonderful thing.
5. Dating people more than five years older than you is probably a bad idea, just conceptually.
6. Liquid eyeliner is magical and its powers should never be underestimated.
7. Ditto for red lipstick.
8. No matter how much you grouse about not having enough free time during the school year, you either miss it terribly during the summer or add too many responsibilities to your plate regardless.
9. There are so few inoffensive pickup lines that they mathematically fail to exist.
10. Nobody comes back to school in the summer as an entirely different person.
11. Coffee is never a bad idea.
12. One ought not to cultivate some masochistic attitude towards sleep deprivation.
13. Air conditioning is really nice sometimes.
14. If you don't wipe off the countertop you get ants.
15. Just because you have free laundry in the basement does NOT necessarily mean that you'll do your laundry more frequently.
16. People like it when you're happy.
17. Libraries are amazing places to work, sometimes.
18. People will probably still think that you're being big-headed or standoffish or snobbish when you use "big" words.
19. Don't be late.