archive: 17 June 2008: VA Tech, interview, solutions

My interview at Virginia Tech felt pretty good, but I am also hesitant to put too much hope into how good I felt after the interview and how well I got along with people, and how I perceived their impressions of me. I felt great after Mars Hill but that fell through. I don't want to hope too much and find I am wrong, again.

Anyway, I need to send out more applications. I haven't heard from but two of the ones I sent information out to in mid-May. I just saw an announcement for a position at LSU (Baton Rouge, LA) and although the deadline was June 13, it looks like they are still accepting applications. It is not New Orleans, but its fairly close (an hour and a half away). I just don't know if I want to go back to the Deep South just yet, though I miss New Orleans.

According to the search committee at VA Tech, they won't be able to offer the positions to anyone until the end of July, mid-July at the earliest.

My position at ACA is/was supposed to conclude at the end of June. That's two weeks away. I cannot talk to anyone about making other arrangements to work through the end of July because one of those individuals is on vacation until next Monday and the other does not start work as the new President until July 1st. Is it possible? Maybe, but its unclear right now and that makes me feel unbalanced and nervous to know what's going to happen.

I have been thinking about my living arrangement. Thinking positively that I will get the job and will move to Blacksburg, VA, at the end of July/first week of August, I "could" stay in my apartment through the end of July, but that's $450 rent and other bills, too. That's money I will need for moving to VA (or elsewhere).

If I move out at the end of June, I will have June's paycheck and (if I work for ACA in July) July's paycheck. That would be enough to put down a month's rent and deposit and move my possessions to VA.

So... where would I move at the end of this month? Who do I know who have houses/apartments that could use an apartment/house-mate for a month? There's a couple of people I can ask... Its complicated. I need to catch up with them and see what possibilities there might be. One person I think I would feel most comfortable with but when their original housemate comes back and (thinking negatively) I don't get the job at VA Tech, then I still have to move again, somewhere.... If I share with another friend, relatively new to the area woman who's going through a lot of stuff, I might have more lee-way in how long I can stay. Plus, she's got a garden and I could put in some time helping with that, maybe?

I don't know who else I could ask... Of course, I wouldn't want to share without giving SOME rent (or barter gardening, housework, cooking, etc), just not the entire $450 I would have had to give at the apartment complex.

*sigh*

Uncertainty pulls at my veins and arteries and makes me feel like a stretched out rubber band, ready to snap in half because I'm weak or ready to split the air as I throw myself into motion. How can it be that I am both?

I trust that everything will fall into place.
My need to have control over it has to lessen in order for it all to work out.
Patience to hear back from the VA Tech search committee.
Patience to find a space for transition.
Patience to find the right work environment.
Patience for moving on from this place I don't yet want to give up, and
patience for settling into a new place in which I am unfamiliar and alien.

I trust that everything will fall into place.

archive: 22 May 2008: interview!

I just got a call and voicemail from the folks at Virginia Tech! They want to set up an in-person interview in early June with me. He explained that the interview would last a day and a half, and that I would arrive the night before. I'd need to provide a presentation in front of faculty and there would be several interview meetings with various groups or individuals over the day and next morning. What a long process, but at the end of it, possibility!

Wow. Now when to schedule it? The ACA Annual Meeting is June 7-8, which is a Saturday and Sunday and those days will result in me feeling exhausted. I don't really want to try to schedule it the first week of June because (1) Annual meeting preparation, and (2) I need time to properly create a presentation. I have the one that I used at Mars Hill, but I probably should tailor this one more for VA Tech. Besides, tomorrow I will find out if there are any specific questions they want answered in the presentation. So middle of the week after the Annual Meeting, June 10-12th? Probably best option. Or maybe I am just scared and should bite the bullet and settle for that first week chance. I am just afraid of not being prepared!

AH!!!

Oh! And I saw these job postings today:
Archivist/Assistant Librarian (2 Positions)
The University of Arizona Libraries, Special Collections, Tucson, AZ
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-2.asp

Archivist - Pictorial Collections
Hagley Museum & Library, Wilmington, DE
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-3.asp

Assistant Archivist/ Library Associate II
Iowa State University Library, Ames, IA
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-4.asp

Coordinator/Archivist
Albert Gore, Sr., Research Center
Middle TN State University, Murfreesboro, TN
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-5.asp

Project Archivist
Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/052108-8.asp

American Heritage Center
University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY
http://www.archivists.org/employment/jobs/051308-2.asp

And... I had applied to the positions back in mid-April. Notes next to them.
1. Assistant Archivist at Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY - Received card that they received application but heard no word from them yet.
2. Assistant Archivist at Westchester County Archives and Records Center, Elmsford, NY - No word yet.
3. Project Archivist, Columbia University, NYC, NY - No word yet.
4. Assistant Archivist, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, ND - No word yet.
5. Assistant Curator for Special Collections, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ - No word yet.
6. Project Archivist for Special Collections, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
7. Public Services Archivist, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
8. Acquisitions and Processing Archivist, VA Tech, Blacksburg, VA - Interviewed by phone on May 20. In-Person interview in June!
9. And back in mid-March I sent an application to the National World War II Museum for an Archivist position, but I have not heard anything from them at all. I assume they already had an idea of a candidate when they received my application right on the deadline.

archive: 04 april 2008: sick

I hate being sick.
Sick sick sick
I’m going back to sleep. This is ridiculous. My voice is gone. I feel like my throat’s been ripped out of my body.
AGH!

archive: 04 april 2008: patience and creativity

Waiting... wait, wait. wait... Patience, dear.
I’m trying to distract myself with creating things, working on a new project, but I can’t seem to focus on it. I need some images anyway; no printer. I think I will paint/collage the cabinet doors (used ones I bought at a flea market; not the ones in the kitchen) with images/concepts about the Pleiades. I studied some about Alcyone last night and got some clear images and colors to use. I just need a good printout of a kingfisher to use. I can’t paint that kind of detail.... hrm. Wish I could, though.

I sent the poem, sent it on Thursday March 27 at 1:12am, after he and I had spent 3 or 4 hours talking and drinking a little bourbon... I haven’t heard anything, but I didn’t expect that I would either until sometime after he gets back. Waiting and patience. I understand, I can do this. I’m just afraid I untied the rope bridge and dropped it into the river. I won’t know if I did or not until Sunday, or Monday, or Tuesday... Patience. It’ll be ok.

Going to go distract myself with more Buffy the Vampire Slayer, magazine clippings, and then sleep....

archive: 23 march 2008: knot on the tree trunk

Oh, I thought I was going to be able to do my laundry today at the same time as hanging out with a friend, so I never went to the laundry mat thinking what I thought would happen was going to happen. But no. And everything I have right now worth wearing is dirty. Especially underwear. Damnit.

And, it really steams me up when someone mentions a concert taking place in two days but straight up only looks at the person next to you (and they know you like this person very much) and make no impression to include me in the "you wanna go with us?" invite, no looking to see if I am interested in the same musical event, etc. Catty. Just makes me feel invisible. And I see no point in trying to play games, because I don’t do that at all. I’m not that way.

Its Easter. People are off seeing family and friends. I wasn’t invited to anything and no one called or emailed me anything. I spoke to the grand total of two people today: one person at Circle K and one person (who I only partially know) who was walking up the railroad tracks. I wanted to be a part of something or be social with a friend or two, but none of that happened... It was a very long boring and lonely holiday for me. Empty.

And earlier I went to someone’s profile and saw that my last comment was deleted. For whatever reason, I don’t know. Maybe it was an accident, maybe it was on purpose. But it kinda hurt. It also makes me suspicious if something’s been told....

And this evening I watched the second DVD of a movie again. And when it was done, I laid down on the couch, and then started crying. At first I had no idea why. But then I figured out that I suddenly felt very alone, forgotten, unwanted. And that is why I was crying.

archive: 12 march 2008: train wind (revised)

I have worked and worked and worked on this one. I shared it with writing buddy Vicky. I can’t quite "let go of it" to show to someone else. I may do what she suggested and that is make a small chapbook with pictures for each of the poems. Might give that.

(deleted original entry and will not post poem here as I want to publish it at some point in the future. - LAH, 4/3/2011).

archive: 06 march 2008: wind of trains

I walked for a while Sunday evening and had a few experiences, a few moments of trains and wind and stars. I finally wrote it all down in snippets and pieces on Tuesday night, 12 pages from my little journal. Yesterday I worked on making it all something. I am not sure if I will let some people read this. It is personal and, for some, very clear.

(deleted original entry & will not post poem here - LAH, 4/3/2011)