Mean librarian salaries up 2% in 2008
Analysis of data from more than 1,010 public and academic libraries showed that the mean salary for librarians with ALA-accredited master’s degrees increased 2% from 2007, up $1,151 to $57,809. The median ALA MLS salary was $53,251, and salaries ranged from $22,000 to $331,200. Results are reported in the 2008 edition of the ALA-APA Salary Survey: Librarian—Public and Academic, published by the ALA–Allied Professional Association….

Travis and I were just talking about this when I was visiting him over this past weekend.  One of the nice things about this summer internship was the fact that I had work, without all the trappings of work.  I could show up to work smelling like fish cause I’d just helped to pick gillnets, and that was cool with everyone cause they smelled like fish too.  There was certainly no expectation of looking nice, or having showered, or any of that.  Commuting consisted of walking across the street from the chicken coop to the office, although sometimes I did have to walk across the street in the rain.  I could work extra hours on four days to scamper off early for the weekend on Friday.

So even though I’m excited to start work at Berkeley, I’m mentally rebelling against the need to dress (and smell) nice again, to commute again, to adhere to a schedule again.  I’m particularly unexcited about the commute - I’ll be taking BART, which is nice cause I’ll be able to read on the train, but it’s going to be around an hour in each direction, all told.  That bumps my workweek from 40 hrs to 50 hrs, right there.

So all this is making me feel particularly determined to find a close-to-ideal situation when I’m done with school next May.  I doubt I’ll be able to find a job that allows me to show up smelling like fish (and I guess I can live with that).  But I want to be picky about where the job is located (Victor and I want to move back east to be close to our families), and where we live in relation to the job, and the character of the town that we live in, whether it holds opportunities for Victor as well as myself, whether it’s a place where we’ll want to spend some time.  Hopefully there will be enough opportunities when I graduate that I’ll be able to exercise some amount of pickiness - maybe my resolutions will melt away in the light of the reality of the situation.  Victor and I have both made a few sacrifices for the sake of library school and my fledgling career (thank you, Victor); nothing major, but we’ve still made some decisions that have steered our lives away from how we’d ideally like to live.  I’m hoping that with my first professional job, we’ll be able to re-adjust our priorities back to be more in line with our ideals.

We ended up grillin’ out at the boatyard (steaks, pot-tate-toes, corn on the cob) and then going out on someone else’s motorboat to watch the fireworks off the North Kingstown town beach. Which was also nice, ‘cept for the part where I had too much wine, and felt poorly the next day.

Previous weekend, I went to see my friends Jessica and Jeff, who live in Our Fair City, Cambridge, MA. Jessica is currently pregnant, which I was able to capture on film but which photos I am not allowed to share with the general populace, which is a shame, cause she’s a good-lookin’ pregnant woman. We made french toast, then went canoeing on the Charles (upstream of Boston a ways), then went to this guy’s 60th birthday party, then the next day went to Dim Sum. Everyone always raves about Dim Sum, which is somewhat baffling to me as all we were able to get out of the experience were a bunch of mysteriously dense dumpling like items stuffed with equally mysterious fillings. There was this thing that was kinda like bread wrapped in noodles, which I quite liked, but other than that, not much goin’ on. Jessica and I did concede that perhaps it would have helped to go with someone who knew what they were doing.

Weekend before that, I went to see Ken and Kim down on the Maryland Shore. They live near Chincoteague and Assoteague, which are those island with the wild ponies. Here’s one now:

Apparently their bellies become bloated and round because they ingest so much salt as they graze. I imagine they must be used to it, but it sounds uncomfortable. Ken and Kim and I also went bird banding, and had ice cream, and seafood (my belly became bloated and round, and uncomfortable), and went to the zoo, where I took around a gazillion pictures of a peacock. Oh, all right, here’s a couple of them:

That about catches you up with my weekend doings, for now. On the horizon, I have a trip to Philly and some visitors from Arlington, MA, which is good, cause it seems that not much goes on around here of a weekend.

Party on Boone Lake, once they get it in the water.

There are a bunch of nestboxes here on fences and phone poles.  I don’t think anyone’s doing anything with them now but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were part of a research project in the past- maybe David Winkler’s work on tree swallows, since he’s a Cornell guy (I took ornithology from him!) and since the boxes are primarily occupied by tree swallows.  One of the boxes close to the chicken coop is occupied by a pair of eastern bluebirds:  here’s a couple of pictures of the male:

And, here’s some of those tree swallows:

This is the chicken coop,where I and most of the other interns live. It’s divided up into five units, which are studios with small kitchens, bathrooms, and living areas: I have the leftmost unit. The central part is a common area, where we sometimes play cards.

Gazebo overlooking the lake. This is basically the front lawn of the grad students’ house, which follows:

(I don’t know why I have so much trouble holding the camera straight).

This is our little harbor with a couple of the research vessels.

And this,which used to be a barn, is now our office and lab space- it’s directly across from the chicken coop.

Sometime I’ll take some pictures that actually have people in them - that will be nice.

I live in what used to be the chicken coop, along with 6 other interns. Before I came I was told that I’d be living with the grad students, who get to inhabit the ol’ massa’s house, with lake views and the whole bit, but it hasn’t turned out that way- no room. But, I’m glad - the other interns are a fun bunch, despite the (sometimes shocking, to me) disparity in our ages. The one bad thing about them is that many of them live around here, or down in Ithaca, which means that a bunch took off for the weekend, leaving the place feeling rather deserted this evening. The chicken coop consists of two Quonset huts joined in the middle by a more permanentish structure which serves as a common area. The Q-huts are divided into 5 apartments, one of which is unoccupied. Three are occupied by a pair of interns each, and the last is my domain- I get to live alone because of my general elderliness and venerability.

Each apartment is kind of a little studio, with a kitchenette stocked with random utensils of varying degrees of functionality, a bathroom outfitted with small plants that grow out of the drain, and a sitting/bedroom area well-equipped with live spiders and dead flies. If you let your imagination roam just a little bit you can still catch a whiff of chicken droppings. Fortunately I don’t anticipate ever having to shut the windows.

Our first few days mostly involved orientations of one kind or another. We had an overall orientation, then a lab safety orientation (which I had to take because I’m going to be working in a building that has labs in it), then a boat-safety orientation (which I had to take because I will sometimes, if not often, go out on a boat). The orientations were typical of their ilk in that the ultimate goal was not to convey information or keep us safe, but to obtain our signature on as many pieces of paper as possible as magical talismans against future litigation.

We’ve had a couple of social events - a pizza meet-n-greet on the first day and a potluck on Wednesday (this will be a weekly occurrence). For the potluck, I made an appetizer by slicing up some granny smith apples, smeared them with cream cheese, and topped them with smoked salmon- this caused quite a stir. One of the staff objected that they didn’t usually have this sort of thing, and that the traditional appetizer for potlucks was beer. Turned out he was ok with having both, so all was well in the end. A subset of potluckers hung out around the bbq pit for a few hours after dinner, which was a good time.

So at this point you may be wondering about, you know, that job thing that’s the whole reason for me being here.  But, the laptop’s running low on juice so I’m going to save that for another post.  Also forthcoming:  pictures.

In the past I’ve been persuaded to allow a semi-permanent color that lasts four to six weeks to be applied to my hair, with the stipulation that it look just like my regular hair color, only covering up the encroaching white.  I had been happy with the results.

This time was a little different.  She asked if I wanted the usual color, the secret formula of which she had carefully recorded on an index card and squirreled away.  I said yes, and she retreated to the back to mix her witch’s brew.

As she applied the color to my hair, she informed me that she had added some extra red “to make it warmer”.  “Huh,” I thought, “that’s not what I asked you to do.”  But since she was already applying the color it seemed that there wasn’ t much I could do, and even if there had been I was inclined to trust the hairdresser, who is very nice and personable and is getting married at the end of the summer.  Who was I to make a scene?

When I emerged from the procedure, it was clear things had gone horribly awry.  The first indication was when the hairdresser noted, “Hmm.  Your hair took the color really well.”  I asked,  “Is that a good thing?”  “Well, it’s kind of bright…”.  She dried my hair a bit to see what it would look like, and it was, frankly, shocking.  Others in the salon compared me to Ronald McDonald, and not in a good way.

Sometimes, when a hairdresser screws up, they don’t really see it, and they think it’s great, and you think it’s horrible, and awkwardness ensues.  One good thing about this situation was that everyone in the salon was in agreement- my hair was now a hideous disfigurement.  So, the hairdresser, taking responsibility for her actions, set about fixing it by throwing some brown on top of the bright red.  Although it did add an additional hellish hour to the salon appointment, it did improve things considerably- I no longer look freakish (at least, I don’t think I do.  If your opinion differs, feel free to not disabuse me of the notion).  But now I look different, which isn’t really what I was going for.  It has now become clear to me that one good way to not look different is to not allow people to apply random chemicals to my hair.  Lesson learned.

I kind of wish I had gotten a picture of the Ronald McDonald look, but I think I was too shocked to whip out the cell phone, and since the hairdresser was clearly alarmed and chagrined I had no wish to add to her distress.  I do have a picture of what I look like now and will presumably be looking like for the next four to six weeks.  In some lights, it looks kinda purple.  I guess the upside is that the hairdresser didn’t charge for it…

It’s possible to look down upon the baby birds through the cracks between the boards. Here’s what it looks like:

There’s at least two nestlings.  My mom was going to powerwash the patio furniture on the deck, but has changed her plans so as not to drown the wee bairns.