Remember the King!

Merry Christmas to all who swing that way. So far, we have created a very low-key Christmas season, not getting carried away by the commercialism (not having a lot of extra money helps in this regard).

It will be nice to have some time off to spend with family, to enjoy some of the immaterial goodness of the season.... Will be back in 2005.

The Home Stretch

On the home stretch of hitting all of the marks (gymnastics/vault analogy--am not sticking any landings, a little wobbly here, a small step there, but no major catastrophes). One out of two training sessions on the new version of our ILS is out of the way. Key is to remain poised, inject humor whenever possible, and keep the pace going to fit in the one hour slot despite the numerous and very relevant questions of folks in the audience (my peers and two above me on the food chain). So no faking my way out of questions, best to say "I don't know. I'll have to check that out."

The adult festivities on Friday were very worth it, and exactly what the spirit if not the body needed--good food, good friends and worth all the fuzz on Saturday.

The end of the year brings a reflective/projective frame of mind--assessing the past and planning tweaks for the future. This happening in many life-areas.

Edit: adding a decent external site: UCLA's Medicinal Spices online exhibit. Great photographs, nicely done.

Hitting the Marks--just in time

A somewhat relaxing end to a crazy couple of weeks, if for no other reason that I have hit a critical mass of "marks"--performing and/or delivering on deadline with no major disasters. Don't look behind the curtain though (that is, on my desk), which is a benchmark example of paper vomitorium. In the last hour of this week, maybe some desk organization so that Monday might go more smoothly.

Tonight: adult festivities with one of the grandparents watching the wee one overnight. What this means: freedom to swear, have uninterrupted adult conversations without being pulled away to play with trains, and overimbibe without feeling like I'm being irresponsible. I guess I'll know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing tomorrow.

Dervishing--when's my holiday?

I really didn't mean to skip half of December until the next post. Projects are swirling and require attention: testing and training of the next version of our integrated library system (translated to frantic systems check and re-check, frantic preparation of some semblance of a training session for various constituencies); monitoring of service issues for our main domestic book vendor, who is recovering from a major systems overhaul themselves--things seem to be getting back to normal; our clerical union in deadlock with university administration over the granting of bonus leave for Dec 28 and 29, and, since our unit in the library will be closed, basically forcing folks to take vacation leave; and, oh yes, of course, making all of the arrangements for non-holiday-specific winter festivities, accommodating the entire range of social proclivities of staff.

The first half of the month found me at a business officer institute for our university system, where I got thoroughly acculturated and briefed on all sorts of exciting topics like risk management, internal controls and audit, tax issues, governmental improprieties (fraud), etc. I also learned that I am a red/green, which basically means that I have touchy-feely-ness (which can be introverted or extroverted) and detail-oriented planning-ness. Sorry, I couldn't find any free assessments of the Herrmann whole brain concept like you can find other assessments like Myers-Briggs, enneagram, etc.

Basically, I can't wait for our holidays. Balancing the work demands with the social calendar has me exhausted, and I'd love to put the both aside for a while.