Wow… say it ain’t so. It’s February, which means I’m one month into my sabbatical. I missed posting last week though I believe my update would have looked similar to week 3: email, watching flights, updating my calendar, writing.

As week 5 starts, I’ve crossed a few items off my to-do list:

• replaced my old cell phone with an iPhone – now I have to learn how to use the thing!
• booked my flights for the trip
• booked an apartment in Edinburgh
• gave my conference info to Susan to register me
• agreed on accommodations in York (Angela will book)
• xmas tree packed away

I have meetings at the following libraries scheduled:

• Cranfield University
• University of Birmingham
• Manchester Metropolitan University
• University of Nottingham
• University of Glasgow
• University of Huddersfield

Still awaiting emails from 5 or 6 places; and need to pursue other contacts this week!

Writing (as of 1/28)

• original fic total – 25,081
• new fanfic posted since 1/21 – 3,376
  • let me explain because these number are going to drop dramatically soon – there’s been a challenge during the month of January in the one fandom I write for (not Star Wars), and somehow, somewhere, all these little plot bunnies reared their ugly heads (or soft, fuzzy heads); next week’s numbers will be even more impressive and then you may see lots of zeros…. except for fics I co-author with others

The to-do list continues to shrink.

• checked airfares a couple of times. No sign of them coming down yet.
• six confirmed meetings; spreadsheet, itinerary and calendar updated
• 6 emails still out – 2 from last week; 3 are initial contacts this week, 1 is awaiting meeting date/time confirmation
• chose Edinburgh week 1 accommodation; sent email re booking
• starting to look at Glasgow options & will email Tony next week for his suggestions

Writing update

• original fic – 25,041
• fanfic posted – 337

No post on Friday – I’m sure you missed me, right? I was basking in the afterglow of comments Thursday night from my writers group. I’d taken 5 pages of chapter 6 of my o-fic for them to critique. They are so inspirational and quite patient!

Friday was my free day other than checking email. With the 6 hour time difference it doesn’t make much sense to email contacts in the UK. They’d be ready to head home for the weekend when my mail arrived, so I’ll just catch them on Monday or Tuesday. However, I did:

• check flights to see if they’ve come down – nope
• continue to look at lodging options in Edinburgh
  • received a response from one that said ‘call me; we’ll talk’ – great – an international phone call – wonder if he uses Skype, hm… -  sent him another email on Saturday and he was kind enough to give me a quote. I still need to pass that along to BAM who will be rooming with me
• look at B&B options in Stratford for my last week and found several decently priced ones; of course, one I’d bookmarked months ago has no vacancies already, which leads me to believe that I may want to put a deposit down early
• email a tour operator about costs for a Cotswolds tour; trying to decide the best way to approach that – private hire (£20/pp) or train to Moreton-in-Marsh and bus around from there for a day

January 18 wasn’t a holiday in the UK so I posted a couple of emails, including one more confirmed date/time. Today & Wednesday I’ll be following up with one individual I contacted before the holidays and will get back to my list to identify a few more contacts.

Today was respond-to-emails day.  You may see that mentioned a lot in the coming weeks.

• Waiting to receive initial contact with four individuals that I emailed on Wednesday. To be honest, I was incredibly surprised the first group responded so quickly. . the UK weather – especially in the central part of the country where I’m setting up meetings – has been very bad – snow & ice; trains/buses not running
• Reviewing my potential vendor & publisher contact list – may wait to email them until after ALA MidWinter because I know of at least one who was sitting at Heathrow this morning waiting for her flight – facebook actually comes in handy now & then!
• 2 more definite dates/times confirmed – perhaps by the end of next week I’ll tell you where I’m headed!

Writers group tonight. Spent part of the afternoon preparing chapter 6 of my o-fic. Since I have writers group every Thursday – at least until mid-March, I’ll post my word count totals late Thursday or on Fridays.

Week 2 numbers:

• original – total 24,345
• new fanfic posted – 1,548

Four more emails sent to colleagues in the UK; spreadsheet updated with tentative dates and contact information. You might say ‘well that took all of 15 minutes’ but I actually spent at least 2 hours because it isn’t always easy to find the appropriate contact person on a library’s website – sometimes it’s nearly impossible to find the library’s website. (I won’t name names.) I’m also putting links to campus maps, travel time, trying to determine if the location of the university fits better into my first 3 weeks, middle 3 weeks, or last actual ‘work week’ while there. My last full week will be completely vacation, and if the period before and after Easter is off limits for visits, I may have plenty of free time to check out the sights.

Also today:

• had the monthly birthday lunch with K-State co-workers at Chili’s
• the exercise plan has begun – hopefully I’ll be able to move tomorrow
• scribbled out 3 pages of a new story – I think I’ll do a weekly word count post that will reflect my total count  on my original fiction and only the weekly posted word count on my fanfiction. Do not expect to see 3,000+ words of fanfic in a week ever again! That was a fluke.
• tried to break up ice that’s formed by the downspout that is directly on the path leading to my front door; very bad placement of a downspout. Hopefully these 45 degree temps will melt those slippery spots for good
• watched season 1, episode 1 of a BBC show called Being Human – gruesome sometimes but hilarious other times

Driver’s license day… you do not want to know.. but suffice it to say I was told something different on my second visit (this morning) than what I learned last week, which prompted me to go to the safe deposit box to get official documents. Bless the clerk who I ended up with on my 3rd visit (this afternoon) and didn’t make my life hell.  (And thank goodness I didn’t mentioned I’m no longer married or else who knows what documentation they’d need.) Geesh!

Two responses to queries sent yesterday to set up meetings! Four tentative, 1 confirmed now – just gotta pin down specific dates for the 4. Yes!

Submitted grant application. Yay!

>>>>>>>>>>>

And you’ll notice I lied about weekly updates. At least for the moment…

When I went for narrative style yesterday then added today’s update, I decided the post would get pretty long if I keep this up. If you’re like me, you like short and sweet posts, right? Should I go back to bullet style – a definite possibility at any give time, my friends – I may do a weekly post. Let me keep you guessing!

January 11

I found that the UKSG conference registration and lodging information was live so I reviewed costs and options today. I’ll need to submit my travel paperwork to the boss soon. Hoping that airline flights come down a bit more before I have to book. Last year I booked at the end of January when prices dipped by approximately $200 from those posted at the beginning of the month.

I have a spreadsheet that lists all my potential site visits. I am adding contact information, websites, distance from my ‘home base’. I wish all libraries were as friendly as K-State Libraries and listed staff emails. I had to send one generic email today via a web form – hope they’ll forward it to the appropriate person in tech services! Tracking down this contact information is going to take time.  I decided I better work on those I’d like to visit during my first 3 weeks to ensure everything will go as I need it to go!  Three emails sent out today. The first of many.

I booked tickets to see the The Little Dog Laughed in London.

January 4-

I am going to attempt to write a weekly “What I did on my sabbatical” post for the blog. It will most likely include life beyond my research project activities.  So to kick things off this week I:

• worked on a grant application for my sabbatical
  • verified that my references are good to go (2 of 3 done) wk 2
    

• created a list of both personal and professional things I need to accomplish before mid-March
  • get air & rail tickets for the UK – air booked wk 5
  • exchange USD for GBP
    • check into AAA’s travel money card
  • register for UKSG annual meeting (wk 5)
    
  • identify & book lodging in Edinburgh (wk 5)
    • figure out which Scottish Highlands tour to book!
  • email UK contacts and set up meetings – wk 1- ongoing
  • identify lodging for last 4 weeks dependent on meetings & sightseeing activities
  • provide reference for upcoming NASIG elections
  • provide feedback to CarolAnn B. on open access review
    
  • send update to Katy G. for NASIG conference calling solutions task force
    
  • get new driver’s license wk 2
  • fix the garage door
  • call an electrician
  • see Avatar
  • saw the doc (get to do it again next month)
  • exercise regularly (shoveled snow twice…not ‘regular’) ongoing!
    
  • take down the xmas tree (wk 5)
    
    • ornaments off & all decorations put away (wk 3)
  • send out snail mail xmas cards (okay, new years greetings)
    • one down (wk 3); 2 to go
  • get a new cell phone, one that will work in the UK (looked at 2 models this week) (wk 5)
    
  • file income taxes (wk 5)
  • complete FAFSA
  • visit Mom in Virginia (book tickets!)
  • update my will!  (exciting, eh?)
  • update retirement portfolio (wk 5)
• enjoyed my visit with son Jeff & his girlfriend
• updated my vita
• responded to a couple of queries from folks at the library
• write fiction
  • 3015 words in my fanfic adventures (plot bunnies just popped up out of the blue)
  • 400 words for my original fic – hm… need to concentrate on this a bit more!

I imagine this list will grow as I think of other things I need to do. And over time, there will be more notes specific to my sabbatical project. I had not intended to really kick into gear this week while I had visitors in town.

December 20, 2009

Wow. It’s nearly over! It certainly went by quickly! Some highlights of the year:

Joel and Jeff visited at the beginning of  January.

I traveled to England again at the end of March to attend the annual conference of the United Kingdom Serials Group (UKSG) in Torquay, Devonshire. I had 2 days ‘vacation’ in St. Ives, Cornwall on the front end of that trip, and 1 day (well actually about 14 hours) in Stratford Upon Avon where I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company performance of “A Winter’s Tale”.

Jeff & the cheer squad at Trinity Valley placed 2nd at the National Cheer Association Competition in April.

Jeff finished his cheer career there in May and moved to Houston to work for a year. He was accepted at Texas Tech University but decided to wait until fall 2010 to attend.

Jenny graduated from Kansas State University with a Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, minor in Spanish, and certificate in International Business.

My term as past president of NASIG ended in June at the end of the conference in Asheville, North Carolina. I served on NASIG’s executive board for 7 years!

NASIG still keeps me busy–I am a member of the Electronic Communications Committee, chair a task force on conference calling solutions, and serve as a member of another investigating open source options for publishing the conference proceedings.

In August, I caught up with my Star Wars friends in Indianapolis for fun & games, including the ‘catch Luke on the Falcon’ game from Empire Strikes Back (surely you remember that scene, right?)

I visited Mom, brother George & his wife Elaine in Virginia in February and September. Attended nephew Steve’s wedding to Andrea in Delaware in September, too.

Work was busy with library renovations and major reorganization discussions. I chaired search committees for 2 asst. dean positions in the fall. The next round of searches for department heads begins in January.

I visited friend Sarah in Omaha in early December and enjoyed the blizzard–10 inches of snow, -20 wind chills–neither of which kept us from getting to see the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra perform John Williams score in a multimedia show, Star Wars in Concert!

I’m anxiously awaiting publication of my brand new Star Wars short story “Shades of Gray”. It is supposed to online at starwars.com before the end of the year. [Dec. 22: This just in...it's live! http://www.starwars.com/fans/hyperspace/fiction/shadesofgray/index.html. (Members only can read the full story. Sorry.]

The year will end on a quiet note. Jenny & boyfriend Robert will have Christmas dinner with me. Jeff & girlfriend Megan will drive up from Houston on January 4. I’m hoping that Joel will visit me while I’m in the UK in April!

My sabbatical begins January 1. YAY!!!

So Merry Christmas to you. Peace to all for 2010.

No…not books about Christmas trees. No…not books under Christmas trees… but

Christmas trees made of books! Oh we librarians are a creative and fun bunch of people (in addition to being the masters of knowledge and the universe, of course)!

Many thanks to colleague Donna for routing that URL.