victory is mine!

After countless games and many months I have finally achieved one of the greatest accomplishments of my life.

I beat him at Scrabble.

I've also hit another milestone. As of August 13 I will have been working at the library in my current position for 5 years. That does not include the previous year I spent as a page checking items in. Though I'm slightly horrified at how stagnant I have become (this is someone who used to move every 9 months--aren't you glad I grew out of that one, Mom and Dad!) I am comforted by the knowledge that I have learned alot and have had pretty amazing opportunities given my low-level position of Aide: from shelver to member of the Stragetic Planning Committee to doing-my-boss'-job-of-weeding-the-fiction-collection to programming committee member to Smartest Card committee member...I'm proud of what I've done here at this library.
I have managed to gain the respect of my superiors and maintained polite relationships with my coworkers (mostly because they're afraid I'm going to turn them in for some sort of infraction!). But the time has come for me to move on. I'm bored. I'm tired of seeing how much better this place could be but not having the power to change it. I'm tired of mediocrity being the standard for everything from customer service to work ethics. I'm tired of not being challenged by anything more than wading through the minefield of office politics--knowing that what I'm proposing is best for the library, but coming up against massive resistance from the old school mentality of "well it's just the way it's always been."

I'm also tired of this town that I have lived in and complained about for almost 10 years off and on. Hearing about Dragon Boat Festivals and a packed Church Street and Universalist Unitarian Church services has once again reminded me how much I long for the East.

I just need to work out the plan to get me there.