Aug 15, 2007 20:18
Everywhere I turn, I freaking hear that song. It's on the radio, it's on TV (not only did they play Rihanna's version on The Hills the other night, they played a cover of it at the end of the episode!!!), and now Mandy Moore is covering it!
Anyway, according to LiveJournal, it's been 13 weeks since my last update. I've been enthusiastically reading everyone else's LJ updates, but I've been sorely neglecting my own. Maybe because I have to blog at work about books and technology.
For those of you who don't know, I am now a resident of Towson, MD. That is just outside Baltimore and about 1 hour from DC. East Coast living is even harder for me to deal with than Ohio for several reasons:
(1) 265 homicides in Baltimore City last year. Fortunately, Towson (which is part of Baltimore County...yeah, the city is not part of the county) had ZERO homicides last year, so I feel safe. However, it sucks to live so close to a major city that has nothing going for it but a drug and homicide problem.
(2) Insects. I have never seen so many freaking bugs in my entire life. And they're sneaky too! Somehow, they manage to find their way into our apartment. So far, I've seen 4 different types of spiders, a carpenter bee, and about 100 crickets that look suspiciously like spiders except with long antennae.
(3) Weather. The winter wasn't so bad. I can deal with cold and snow. In fact, I rather enjoy it. Especially since I only saw snow twice for the first 21 years of my life. However, the summers are unbearable. These past few weeks have been in the low 90s everyday (except for the 3 days where temperatures reached over 100 degrees) and humidity is at least 30% everyday. I have trouble breathing sometimes because the humidity is so thick.
(4) No Mexican food. I would kill for a La Posta California burrito. Mmm....carne asada, guac, fries, and their homemade hot sauce! Unfortunately, "Mexican" food here is either Chipotle or a strange hybrid between Mexican, Equadorian, and Salvadorian. Ugh. So I have to survive off of Chipotle burritos until those new San Diego theatres open up and Stephen takes one of them.
But Baltimore isn't ALL bad. One of Stephen's friends from San Diego & his wife moved to DC, so we see them a couple times a month. And Stephen's old boss in Columbus lives in Virginia, so we see him and his girlfriend a few times a month as well. Right now, Rudy (Stephen's friend) has his kids for the summer and they are AWESOME! It reminds me of how much I miss being their age (9 & 12). I've been bonding with them over Harry Potter and other books. It's great to know that kids still read nowadays. Also, I just found out that Elizabeth Komatsu and a few other people from high school live in the DC area...I'm still trying to work out my and Elizabeth's schedules so we can get together! It'll happen soon, I swear!
Last but certainly not least, I have a fantastic new job. I work for the Baltimore County Public Library! I work in the Collection Development department, which is in charge of selecting all materials that are circulated in the branches. I don't actually select the materials, but I do have some input as to what is ordered. I've given a few suggestions and it looks like some of the books I've chosen will be ordered for the branches! This job has really brought out my love of reading and it really is thrilling to see all the books that are being published and to track the trends of the publishing world.
And the best part of the job...FREE BOOKS! Advanced copies, to be exact. Several publishers and book vendors send out advance reading copies of books they want to promote. We get hundreds of books every few months and it's a great way to see what's coming out and to get a feel for what is going to be the 'it" book of the summer. For us, it was A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Yiddish Policeman's Union (which I got an advance copy of 2 months before it hit the bestseller lists). And because I am in charge of processing these reading copies, I get first dibs on everything. My book collection has almost doubled in the 3 months I've been working for BCPL.
My boss is awesome, too! She's always encouraging us to go for training sessions and conferences that will teach us so much about the industry but are fun at the same time. A few months back, we went to the American Library Association convention in DC, where we scored all kinds of free swag (including an awesome Harry Potter tote from Scholastic) and met soooo many authors. I can't believe I met Judy freaking Blume!
So basically, my job is to read books, go online and read about books, flip through magazines and read about books, take home free books, and talk to my coworkers about what we watched on TV last.night. AWESOME! I only hope that if and when we move back to San Diego, I will be able to get a similar position with the San Diego Public Library system.
WHEW! That ended up being a lot longer than I expected. But that's what happens when you love your job, I suppose. I miss all of you so much. Those of you who are reading this on Facebook, you can see my phone number and address in my profile if we're friends. If not, e-mail me and we can swap info. For those of you on LJ, my e-mail address is gracie6894@yahoo.com. E-mail me. MySpace readers, send me a message. I would love to catch up with all of you. This will be my new fiscal year resolution (our fiscal year started in July)! =)
Love you all!
baltimore,
work,
library