Welcome to Tessa's blog

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Not so sick anymore

I did go to work on Monday morning. I really shouldn't have, but I knew that two of my most experienced colleagues were also sick. If all three of us would be absent, it would be chaos in the stacks. Just getting the requests sorted correctly takes years of training. I worked for four hours and there were tough priorities to be made everywhere. I decided not to sort incoming books, which threw the whole schedule off for the afternoon shift people that were supposed to shelve the books. We got help retrieving material from very inexperienced staff and that proved not to be so good. It can take a while to discover the mistakes, and there were a few discoveries made today unfortunately. I made a pretty interesting one when I sent a colleague off to a remote storage to look for a volume of Donald Duck comic strip album from 1967. That volume had already been retrieved and was at the main library. I had picked it up myself.

I'm glad to know that you are so sympathetic in my time of trouble. Even my father, who called last night, was expressing his deep sympathy. He had injured his knee at work and was also complaining about his situation. It is not a pleasant thing to be so sick. My brain wasn't working properly and it was painful just to move around. I am much better now and worked until just after the afternoon coffee. The employer treated us to Lenten buns and I didn't want to miss that.

The news from the world outside my own small one say that HRH Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden finally, after years of dating him, is formally engaged to Daniel. The wedding is planned for next year. The tabloid press is ecstatic.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Miserably sick

I am so sick..... It started Friday morning with a sore throat. I worked like normal anyway, but was pretty tired in the evening. It must be some sort of flu because my whole body aches, my ears hurt, I have a marvelous headache, a fever and problems breathing. It was a long time ago I was this sick. It has been a miserable weekend. I have been sitting curled up in front of the TV watching meaningless programs most of the time. There are unbelievable amounts of sports to watch on weekend TV apparently. A Swede won a world cup event in show jumping, which was a surprise. There were lots of ski races also; biathlon, cross country and down hill. It was a challenge to get the three loads of laundry done today. It took forever to walk up and down three flights of stairs (four times). I hope you all feel very sorry for me for having such a miserable weekend.....

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Back problems

Monday afternoon there was another social club meeting. We are thinking of having a party for Easter. It will be the annual meeting for all members (very few usually show up) followed by some sort of book talk and Easter style food. We are hoping that the food will attract members. The basic law is that free food and free booze make people come to the arrangements.

Tuesday I got treatment at the chiropractor's. The cracking sounds from my spine indicate that maybe I should go more often. I get treatment about four times a year normally. The problems I had with my back last week went away after a few days, so it wasn't that bad.

Today the desk duty is rather boring. The first two hours there were no visitors at all. (Except for a guy that came in and asked for a stapler). Now there are two, and they manage without assistance from me.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Tulips

The weekend has been spent mostly house-cleaning. I dusted and vacuumed yesterday and today I went to the recycling station with paper, plastic and metal. I also did some experimental cooking today. I decided to make seafood pie to have for lunches at work. There was no good recipe, so I made some combinations myself. I made one large and two small pies, two with shrimp, crayfish, broccoli, dill and cheese, and the smallest one with cheese and bacon (I ran out of seafood). It was edible.

The only one who recognized Valentine's Day was my mother, who called me on the phone. She didn't have much to tell really, everything was alright in Borås.

It's getting lighter out now. This weekend has been very sunny (but cold). It's nice to know that there is an end to darkness and winter. I bought a bouquet of yellow tulips to make it even brighter here.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Hair cut

The trains have actually been running more or less like normal. It didn't turn out to be that bad weather, even though it's pretty cold. This morning I managed to slip and fall on an icy spot on the way to the train. It was dark and because of the wind I had the hood on my coat down low, almost covering my eyes, so I didn't see the ice. Annoying, but no damage done.

This afternoon I had desk duty in the manuscript reading room again (I get most Thursdays). I spent it looking for mistakes in the database and correcting them. So incredibly boring.

This evening I got a much needed hair cut at a salon in Kävlinge. It's over three months ago that I had the last one (in the US)!

If anyone still haven't received an invitation to view my online photo album with photos from my trip to the US, let me know.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Lenten buns

It's the season for Lenten buns here. We have to do something to keep the good mood during the dark months. A Lenten bun is a wheat bun cut in half with almond paste and whipped cream, and powdered sugar on top. Very tasty. You can buy them in the grocery stores and bakeries, but I have made my own (meaning I bought the individual ingredients and put it together).

Speaking of dark, it really is. February is a difficult month to get through. The weather is miserable, with high winds and snowflakes that feels like spikes. I went home early today because of the storm warnings. We'll see how it is tomorrow. If the trains don't run, I might stay at home. The alternative is to call my boss, so that she can pick me up. My back hasn't been that well lately. Monday morning I woke up with a too familiar pain in the area of my right hip. It's the usual problem. I have made an appointment at the chiropractor's.

The article for the Historical society publication is finished and handed in to the editor. An entire week before deadline! Yes, it's amazing.

Sunday, February 8, 2009

Dinner

It has been a busy week like usual. I have tried to go home earlier from work, but it's not easy. Thursday evening the board of the social club at work decided to go out to dinner together. We were eight people, and we went to an Austrian restaurant in Lund that I had never heard of. It was very good food of the steak and potato kind and generous portions. Pancakes with chocolate and nuts for dessert. We had a really good time, discussing the future activities for our colleagues.

Apart from work I have been busy at home too. I'm in the process of entering pictures on a website, for my relatives to view. The problem is that they are unlisted, so each and every one who wants to see these photo albums have to be invited by e-mail. I will start sending out invitations soon. I thought I would write captions for the pictures first. I have also entered the real photos from my trip to the US into real photo albums. I lag behind with lots of administrative chores like that. Earlier this year I was asked to write an article about the Swedish Leroy Anderson Centennial celebrations for the Local historical society publication. It is almost finished and it turned out to be four pages. I never thought that when I started on it.

Sunday, February 1, 2009

Exhibit

There was a new exhibit opened at the library this Friday. The topic was SAOB, the dictionary that describes the Swedish language since 1521. A gigantic undertaking that started already in 1787. It is published by the Swedish Academy, the institution that decides who will get the Nobel Prize in Literature. The staff working with the dictionary uses the library very much, they even get access to the stacks so that they can pick the books themselves. It's only the books in remote storages and extra-security rooms they need help finding. The exhibit was created by that staff and opened by the Academy's permanent secretary Horace Engdahl. It was interesting to see the development of the dictionary. They have now reached the letter T and plan on publishing the last volume in 2017. There will be much work also afterwards, there have been many new words added to the language since 1787.

When the month of January ended I had 40 hours overtime, indicating that we have too much to do at work. There isn't enough staff, basically. This week I had to fill in for another and retrieved books at two storages. Since I'm not used to doing that, it took much longer time to find the books than it normally would. We have also had several meetings this week, most of them boring and not leading to any improvements for my department.