an extended meditation on presence (we also have chickens)
Present Me is notorious for committing Future Me to things that Future Me cannot deliver. Present Me is also notorious for not realizing this until Present Me becomes Future Me, at which point Present Me curses the name of Past Me for getting Present Me into this mess.
Such is the situation at the start of this school year. The first two months of school are always very hectic for me. I have back to school stuff. I have marching band stuff. I have every nibling's birthday within the same six-week period. It's a lot.
So when I realized Past Me ALSO committed me to writing not one but TWO academic book chapters due in that two-month back-to-school period, I said some curses. And then I read the proposals that I sent last spring, back when school was winding down, I was bored, and I didn't have to buy a single birthday gift for at least six months.
Reader, Past Me did not mess this one up, actually.
Yes, I owe various people several thousand thoughtful, well-researched words on various topics in librarianship, and I owe them on exactly the same time frame I owe this community an entire marching band show and I owe several niblings some awesome gifts from their Aunticorn (she's like a regular aunt, but more magical). But Past Me had the extraordinary good sense not to commit me to writing anything that's not both easy and enjoyable for me to write.
One of the pieces is a deconstruction of deprofessionalized job postings - postings for positions that really should be full-fledged MLIS-holding state-certified teacher-librarians, but the district either cannot afford one and/or doesn't understand what they do, so instead they hire someone straight out of high school at $15 an hour to run an entire library single-handedly.
This I can handle. I love deconstruction. I also love to complain. Complaining in the form of deconstruction? Catnip. Thanks, Past Me. You really nailed my academic persona here.
The other is basically the same thing, but with an emphasis on the particular damage this sort of decision does in high-needs, high-poverty districts. Complaining in the form of deconstruction AND it's about capitalism? It's like dessert on top of dessert, yo.
Add the fact that I got to walk into an actual library at the start of this year instead of building one from scratch (LITERALLY I EVEN HAD TO INSTALL MY OWN SHELVES I AM NOT JOKING THIS ROOM WAS CAPITAL E EMPTY), and I'm feeling pretty good about this school year. So far.
("Why did you not write these over the summer?" you may be asking. First, congratulations on never becoming an academic. Second, I didn't get approval for them until about two weeks ago. Third, all librarians are insane and think one can write a chapter in three months-ish, which is not the norm in academia. I am used to getting a solid year before something is due and also to writing it the night before and/or on the plane on the way to the conference. This is how we do.)
(Aunticorn is cheating this year: each nibling is getting savings bonds. The ones my grandmother bought me in the 1990s finally matured, and I netted a sweet $700+ as a result. That's about $525 in interest, just for keeping some pieces of paper in my parents' fire safe for 30 years. Not bad. And the electronic accounts even let you dispense with the fire safe.)
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