Slow beginning

The beginning of the new year has been fairly slow with rather few activities. The weekend was spent at home. It was too cold to go out. I vacuumed, baked a chocolate cake, made some more ornaments for the tree, watched TV, started sorting the documents on the floor (again) and spent a few hours trying to solve one of the brick-wall genealogy cases (no luck).

I worked Monday and Tuesday, and there were quite a lot of requests. The librarians at the desk said that the students already got their reading lists (semester starts at the end of January). Today is Twelfth Day, a holiday in Sweden, so we are off from work. It's a little strange to have a day off in the middle of the week. This year there will be very few extra days off. Our national holiday is on a Sunday, Labor Day is on a Saturday, All Saint's Day is on a Saturday and then Christmas Eve is on a Friday. We do not get any compensation for this. One positive thing though is the fact that I will get more vacation days this year. It will be a total of 35 days now. It's very generous, but they have to give us something else in return for the lousy salary. This is the way it is in state/governmental jobs, though I have to admit that I can't complain about my salary. It seems like I don't have the huge expenses many other people have either. I don't have a car, for instance. My hobbies don't cost much. The only cell phone I have is the one they gave me at work. And then I like to shop in second hand-stores.

One very annoying thing happened last night - my TV quit working! This is one of those occasions when I wished I had a car. I can't just go to the store and buy a new TV, it's a little too heavy to carry on the train.....