Getting something for nothing.

Why is it that everyone in the world these days expects to get something for nothing?

It's the beginning of the semester, and we have an endless stream of students coming in to the library, asking if we carry a certain book that they need for their class. I know books can be expensive--especially at the graduate level--but that's part of going to school. Hell, I certainly checked out a few books here and there throughout my grad school days that were needed only for a week or two.

BUT.

There's a difference between asking just to see if we have it, and getting visibly upset that we don't have it. "Well, I don't want to pay for the book." Okay, then don't go to school. Tonight, I had a girl come in and ask why all of the electronic books available to students were not the most recent version of the books. Her class is apparently using some book that is available as an online book (there's a database that scans books and makes them available to students online). However, the most recent version of this book is not available online. She wanted to know how to MAKE the database put the most recent version of the book online. I told her that I could take down the info and put in an inquiry to one of the librarians, but that my guess was that the publisher wasn't about to give up the most recent version of a book for free use. After all, why publish a book if you don't want to make any money from it? I imagine the older version is free simply because there is a newer version.

She was getting more and more upset as the conversation went on. "Well, why doesn't the school demand it? They're paying for the database!" Yes. Good job. But it's completely out of the school's control what the database has available to put online. "Well, request it." Request WHAT? That the publisher change their mind, decide to distribute a new book for free and lose all sales? She said, "Well, then everyone in the class wouldn't have to go out and buy it." Yes, good job. Gold star for you. Unfortunately, she didn't realize that she answered her own question.

But come on, people. It doesn't hurt to see if you can get something for a lower price or for free, but to expect things for free is an entirely different story. It's like the people who go into stores looking for damaged merchandise, then demanding a discount. In my retail days, I would always smile sweetly, go to the merchandise section, choose a shiny new item, and say, "Oh HERE you go! It's in PERFECT condition! YAY! Full price, plz."

I could probably turn this into a "deep thought," but I'd really rather not. I just wonder where this sense of entitlement comes from and when it became okay to express this entitlement angrily at the people who won't bestow it.

From nothing to something!

Whew, it's been a crazy week since I last updated! I guess all it took was to complain that there was nothing to blog about and I got stuff! Ha!

Anyway, last Saturday... I did the library thing, then enjoyed a night out with someone I never get to see. Fantastic evening all around! Sunday, I played the part of my old Sully job and worked the Civil War event. It was kind of fun being there--even if it's not often, it keeps my toe in the history door. The rest of the week was spent getting my apartment in order. My parents and sister got here on Wednesday night. They moved her into Mason on Thursday morning, then dad came over with the furniture and we (by "we" I mean pretty much dad and Alex) got the furniture into my apartment. There was a period of about 5 minutes in which we were almost 100% certain that the couch wasn't going to fit through the door. It wouldn't fit right side up, but (for whatever reason) it fit upside down. Who knows. But now grandma's couch is in front of my TV until I figure out how to arrange the living room. I'd kind of like to keep both couches, but I'm not totally sure how that will work. I think I'd feel better if I got a slipcover for my old couch.

Anyway! I had yesterday off and really just bummed around with mom and dad. Went to breakfast, took them out to Manassas Battlefield so they could see all of the deforestation I caused (it's kind of cool to know that I'm responsible for a whole field of downed trees), and then went for lunch. I took the afternoon to hang out at home, put some clothes away, and read a book, then I went back out with mom and dad for dinner and coffee, watched some Olympics, and went to bed.

I'm librarying from 9-5 today, then going to dinner and shopping with the family. I won't see mom and dad again before they leave to go back to Ohio, since I'm funeraling from 9-5 tomorrow. I'm glad for that in a way, because then I don't have to see dad get all teary over leaving Hayley here! And THEN life kind of gets back to normal next week.

Unfortunately, next week means "normal" library hours in which my schedule turns to 11-7 or 2-10 during the week. Boo. It looks like I have Fridays off, at least for a couple weeks. That may switch to Mondays, but who knows? And, of course, I will be overworking myself by doing one day a week in which I funeral from 8-1 and library from 2-10. But that means more money, so I can't complain toooooo much (even though I will).

Ahhh, anyway. That's enough for now. I hopefully have an exciting month coming up with lots of "Dear Diary" moments. ;)

How do you blog about nothing?

If I knew the answer to this question, I would have been blogging every day for the last week! It's really been a fairly uneventful stretch of time. Last week, one of my co-workers was off and the library was REALLY quiet, so work was near coma-inducing every day. Not much went on after work, so there wasn't anything to write about then, either!

I was on call 2 nights, but didn't get a call (just lost sleep, as usual). Sunday at the funeral home did bring some interesting stories. I think 5 people died in the 7 hours I was manning the phone--that would have been $400 for me if they'd all gone 12 hours earlier! Ha! Then these two completely insane women came into the funeral home crying and wanting to look at urns and questioning the craftsmanship of the marble and wanting to know where they could get one that "hadn't been touched by all these, you know, people," and it was obnoxious to the point of amusement.

Other than that, I suppose no news is good news. I've got some SERIOUS work to do around my apartment, trying to get things in order for new ("new") furniture. Mid-August is suddenly here and I am wondering where JULY went. I'll be volunteering my time out at Sully on Sunday for Civil War weekend... seems my replacement decided it would be a good weekend to take a vacation, so I offered to give a helping hand out of the goodness of my heart. This should be considerably less stressful than WWII weekend--more visitors, but even fewer things are even remotely my responsibility, and it's just for one day. We'll see! Right now, I think I'm just looking forward to September. :)

Dreams and politics.

Dreams are so weird. Besides the fact that they very rarely make sense, they give you a unique experience that (no matter how many times you tell anyone about it), only YOU have ever experienced. Occasionally, they also provide insight into the future, but those are few and far between and generally not worth stressing out about too much. (That's a whole other blog anyway!)

Back to my point. I will occasionally have a dream about someone that I don't see very often (or haven't seen in a long time). While they can be fun, they usually drive me crazy! I feel like I spent a fun day (or two) with someone, I have all the memories of the experiences and conversations that we had... except that they didn't happen! So, the next time I see or talk to the person that was in my dream, it's almost awkward because I have these amazing memories... but they have no recollection of any of it! How sad for me.

So that was the first thing I dealt with this morning. After I finished writing an e-mail about that experience, I opened up the next e-mail. It's a WHOLE OTHER KIND OF WEIRD.

This should give us something to ponder.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmC3IevZiik

Dear Friends,

As I was listening to a news program last night, I watched in horror as Barack Obama made the statement with pride. . .'we are no longer a Christian nation; we are now a nation of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, . . . As with so many other statements I've heard him (and his wife) make, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd hear something like that from a presidential candidate in this nation. To think our forefathers fought and died for the right for our nation to be a Christian nation--and to have this man say with pride that we are no longer that. How far this nation has come from what our founding fathers intended it to be.

I hope that each of you will do what I'm doing now--send your concerns, written simply and sincerely, to the Christians on your email list. With God's help, and He is still in control of this nation and all else, we can show this man and the world in November that we are, indeed, still a Christian nation!

Please pray for our nation!

Um, yeah. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? The person who sent this to me quite clearly does not know me, even the tiniest little bit. It was all I could do NOT to write back and say, "Listen here, you right-wing, psychotic bitch, the fact that you clearly have no real knowledge about the history of our country or what the founding fathers were hoping for is enough to make me lose all respect for you, but the fact that you twist a speech that is supposed to bring our country together and give it your super special Conservative Christian Sunshine makes me want to never have contact with you again!"

Ahh, but I didn't. No, instead I crafted a very calm (for me) response and said:

If I could kindly ask you to take me off the mailing list when you send out this kind of thing, that would be great. Otherwise, you'll start getting responses listing all of the blatant historical inaccuracies in the e-mail, as well as my own political views, which are drastically different than this e-mail! :) Thanks!

Ugh. The person who sent it to me is one of my aunts on my dad's side that I haven't seen in, oh... 22 years? That whole side of the family will occasionally send out "YAY FOR PRAYING" e-mails or "PRAY FOR OUR BRAVE SOLDIERS SRSLY" e-mails, but those are easy enough to ignore.

Seriously, people. I know we all have our political views and preferences, but what if I slapped up a McCain Youtube link and said, "OH MY GOD, McCain is going to put all women into concentration camps and make them drill for oil during hurricanes in Texas!!!!" That might come close to the ridiculous untruths being circulated in that Obama e-mail.

After that, my day got moderately better... so I'm hoping this evening is great! I've been 11-8 at the library today, allll by myself. This is nice in a way, but it's pretty lonely. Add to that the fact that it's the end of summer session and nobody's really in class anymore, and we have a very. quiet. day. It's too bad I'm not writing a (real) novel; I could get some serious work done on it on a day like today! :)

Okay, seriously.

Perhaps this is simply an extension of my inefficiency rant, but I honestly do not understand people.

(1) If you are going to place a phone call, be ready to listen to what the other person says. Do not call me, let me say, "Resource Center, this is Kelly, how can I help you," and then pause and say, "Hello? What is this? Is this the library? Who is this?" For the love of GOD. SERIOUSLY. Having to repeat myself is obnoxious.

(2) If you are going to call someone to ask a question, do the groundwork. Don't call someone and expect them to both do the groundwork AND find the answer for you. If you have a question about a book, please know the title of the book. THX. SRSLY.

(3) If you are going to own a laptop computer and use it for something even remotely resembling work or academic purposes, please familiarize yourself with how your computer works. Do not bring me your laptop and say, "How do I use a flash drive?" Um, hi. Welcome to grad school. SERIOUSLY.

(4) If you have waited until the last possible day to complete your research, do not get snippy with the people trying to help you complete the research. It is not their fault that you have procrastinated. These people are procrastinators themselves, but they know better than to blame other people for their lack of ability to get something done early. So be nice to them if they are trying to help you. THX. SRSLY.

Ugh. It's just been one of those days. Usually I have these days on Saturdays (which seems like the day of the week that all of the crazies come to the library), but I guess it's Monday this week.

Speaking of UGH, I really wish my mother would learn that she can either try to run things AND HELP them try to run, or if she doesn't want any part in doing any of the work, she therefore gives up the right to try to run it. KTHXBAI. Wow, will I be glad when September is here. Anyone want to help move an antique bedroom set and a couch in a couple weeks? Yeah, didn't think so.

All that aside, I've really gotten into the show Mad Men on AMC. It doesn't seem like something that would normally appeal to me, but I just love it. I've gone through 9 episodes in 2 days and need to finish the next 6 episodes before Saturday (when they disappear from On Demand). I don't necessarily think it's the storyline that appeals to me (a bunch of people who work in advertising), but just the early 1960's setting. No, it's not just their mentions of the Kennedy campaign (though that's certainly a perk), but they really did a pretty good job at capturing that whole era. At any rate, I'm now completely absorbed and would like to go home and watch more, please.

So, that about sums up my weekend. The funeral home was slowwwwww on Sunday. I was so bored that I started cleaning chair railing. Funny story there, though--I was cleaning part of a visitation room, and I left the door open and light on while I went to the back to get more paper towels. When I got back to the visitation room, the door was closed and the lights were out. I opened the door, turned on the light, and there was a man in his casket. This man was not there when I left the room 5 minutes earlier. This was startling, but funny, and I said hello to him and continued cleaning. Unfortunately, he was blocking a section of railing that had yet to be cleaned, but I suppose he can be forgiven. It wasn't his fault--I'm sure if he'd had a say in it, he'd have let me clean that wall before taking up the space.

Ahh, my life.

Off-call, on-center?

Ahhh, so I must admit that as much as I do love the money that comes with getting those 3am calls, I also LOVE the knowledge that I won't get one of those 3am calls! I was on call Thursday night--I didn't get a call, but I also couldn't fall asleep. I finally fell asleep around 1:30, only to be woken up at 7 by the power (half) going out. It's very bizarre--many times, when the power goes out at my apartment, half of my apartment (the bathroom side) has power, while the other half has half-power (super dim lights, etc.). That's what happened Friday morning. So I got up, turned off/unplugged all of the stuff on that side of the apartment, set my cell phone alarm, got back into bed, and then got up at 8 for work. Ack. The good news is that I actually went to bed around 10 last night, so I got tons of sleep for today.

I get to go home tonight and... I don't know. Not do anything, but that can be good, I guess. I have a stack of video games calling my name, as well as some movies, books, and Target gift cards. I suppose I should take advantage of the tax free weekend and see what I can find at Target! We'll see how I feel when I get to that side of town in an hour. What I really want is Red Robin, but I think everyone's busy. Boo.

I was able to score some floor seats for the So You Think You Can Dance tour this fall! YAY! This is a good thing. The other good thing is that I had a Ticketmaster gift card that covered the whole thing. Even better! But the bad thing is that it's in BALTIMORE. Ugh. I hate that city. Seriously. I wanted to go to the Norfolk show (not that I love Norfolk, but I love Newport News and VA Beach), but that was the ONLY show not available on Ticketmaster. Sux0rz. Oh, well. I'll deal! The only sadness is that Chris isn't in the top 10, but I'll survive somehow. It's a miracle that I got good seats to this--my first shot was floor about 40 rows back, then it moved into the stands, then the upper level. I about panicked, until I searched ONE more time, and floor seats had opened back up. Whew! I still think we're about 30 rows back, but they're better seats than 10 rows up in the 2nd level. It's also a miracle that I got these tickets because I didn't get tickets to see the Idol tour (Ohhhhhhhhh David Cook, how can we get MARRIED IF I CAN'T GO TO YOUR CONCERT) and didn't get NKOTB tickets, either. My marriage dreams are crumbling by the minute, seriously. *Sigh* Maybe I'll get lucky and win Idol tickets before my husb... before Cookie gets into town on the 14th.

Ah, well. Such is my life. It's getting time to start closing up the library and stuff. Maybe I'll make a Target run and veg out for the evening. I do have to go funeraling tomorrow, although I don't think there are any services--so it will really just be answering phones, cleaning, and waiting for it to be 5pm. But hey, work is work, and I'd rather be a little bored than really stressed--at least at the funeral home, anyhow!