Updatey things, part ni
Oct. 3rd, 2018 09:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelPart ichi is here
So, okay. Where was i?
Ah right:
I have a new not-a-job (!!!!]
Every other month the library has a book sale, and back in June they had a notice up that they were looking for a volunteer with knowledge of gmail and google calendar. And I mean, I use both regularly, so I very cautiously asked what they needed the volunteer for.
It turns out that the library also owns a used bookstore downtown, that's basically like the book sales but open regularly. And they needed someone to help out with scheduling volunteers. There's a google calendar list who does what shifts (there's one volunteer cashier on duty for every four-hour shift), and there's an email account for dealing with volunteer scheduling, and they wanted someone to a) keep an eye on the email account; b) if someone emails saying they can't make their shift, find a substitute; c) keep the calendar up to date (i.e. marking where subs are needed and who's filling in); and d) every three months do the schedule for the next three months.
A is easy, because I'm at the computer a lot anyway, and I know how to be logged into multiple gmail accounts (so don't have to switch back and forth between the bookstore email account and my personal one). B is generally done by email -- there's a list of people willing to substitute, and they're really good about volunteering -- and at the worst, I send a text to the weekly manager, who either fills in themself or closes the store for that shift (the latter rarely happens though). Point being, I don't have to do the shift if someone doesn't show up. C is trivial ... for someone who knows google calendar, anyway. And D is 80% just people going "I want to keep my regular shift".
(...y'all, I love this; the cashiers are all volunteers, the store is open 7 days a week 361 days a year (closed New Years, Easter, thanksgiving, Christmas), 2 or 3 shifts a day, and there are enough people volunteering that most cashiers work one shift every week or every other week. Pretty much no one works two shifts in a week unless they're filling in. And when a substitute is needed, there are usually multiple offers.;
So, I have experience scheduling people (because caregivers) and finding substitutes (because caregivers), I know gmail and gcal, I can do the tasks from home, it's mostly email and occasional text messages and pretty much zero calling yo and talking on the phone, and it's a way to help the library. Oh, and a bunch of people are thrilled I'm doing this.
Plus, my "title" of Volunteer Manager has a double meaning, because I manage volunteers and also am a volunteer. And it's not as much like herding cats as one might expect, because we have so many awesome people.
Bonus the first: I count as staff and therefore can sneak in early to the book sales, which allows me to maneuver without people standing in the aisles or whatnot. (It's very crowded especially at opening.: Thia is mostly good because wheelchair, but does mean I get a good crack at what's there.
Bonus the second: with one exception, my brainweasels and/or Inner Critic are apparently oblivious to library related stuff, because they haven't said anything in relation to this. Nothing about how I will screw up, nothing about how I have screwed up. Zilch. Nada. When I was starting out and emailing or texting the person mentoring me with every single question? Nothing from brainweasels or Inner Critic about how "I should know better" or whatever. When I didn't see a sub request email until less than 24h before the shift? Nothing. (And I got the situation handled just fine.)
Hell, even last week, with shitty health stuff going on -- panic attack Monday night followed by feeling crappy Tuesday, then Thursday-Sunday I had weird exhaustion plus sore throat plus Feeling Sick (no other symptoms, it might even have been allergies rather than a virus), and my brainweasels were going to town on everything from deciding to quit choir to letting bread mold? Absolutely nothing about the library thing. I ahot my mentor an email Tuesday going "I'm sick, can you cover sub requests etc for me" and she said "sure whatever you need" and then I didn't have cope for dealing with library stuff but it didn't matter because she got it, and there was zero internal flack. Nothing about dumping my work on someone else, nothing about failing, nothing at all.
It's really fucking weird. And nice! And, like, a glimpse into what normal brains might be like?
It's not that I'm doing anything different to keep the brainweasels away. And it's not like they're gone, because I got plenty of mental shit about other stuff. (Plus they yelled st me once about a thing where a potential new volunteer was like "call me tonight or tomorrow before 4" and I didn't see it until after 5 and my IC went nuts, but just over that one incident, so it's kind of an exception that proves the rule in some sense.) It just ... there's this realm that they can't enter. I don't know how long it will last, but ... whoa.
My mom thinks I'm crazy for doing this -- she worries that it's Too Much -- and I can't explain to her either why it isn't (and she has no idea how vicious my brainweasels can get or how deep my self-loathing can go) or why it matters to me that I'm doing something. Luckily, she's not the boss of me, so I don't have to.
#
Language updates:
Tomorrow's Duolingo will make a 750-day streak.
I don't know how. O.o
I'm mostly doing low key Spanish stuff, figuring that a little each day will keep that part of my brain happy even though I'm not devoting Lots Of Learning to it.
I'm also still doing WaniKani for learning Japanese kanji (though since the characters are borrowed from Chinese, there's some overlap, and I was very amused to recognize 牛肉 as "cow meat" on a beef menu item at a Chinese restaurant). The kanji are getting tricksier and more complicated looking, though I do have to say that WK's method is pretty effective.
The only down side is it doesn't teach grammar, and I haven't found a really good thing for grammar. Duo sucks (it's better with languages that are similarer to English, really). Memrise is awesome but horrible at accessibility (I think I did a rant on this but teal deer; on iOS the kanji are tiny and there's no way to zoom; on the computer, all reviews are timed, in that you have 15 seconds to think of the answer and type it out; and they don't have a "kana but no kanji" course, just an everything version where I can't read the kanji, or a "no Japanese characters" version that hurts my brain, partly because I have to transliterate it into hiragana in my head anyway to match up with the rest of my knowledge, partly because they do things like "arigatō" where I'm used to "arigatou"; it's pronounced as a long closed o vowel, but written as ありがとう and とう is (to)(u).) There are textbooks, but I can't use physical textbooks.
I do have one app that does give basic grammar, so I'm doing that in parallel with learning the kanji. And hopefully some of it will stick, lol.
Meanwhile, my roommate is taking beginning Japanese this quarter and so we're doing super bad Japanese at each other. Like, she's started saying tadaimas' when she comes home, and I say okaeri back at her. Today she learned about telling time, which I can sort of do, in the sense of "..........uhhh, roku ji, uh, san... jyuu... go... fun. Uh, desu," (六時三十五分です = it's 6:35) Basically long pauses between each syllable, and I am of course better with translating written Japanese into English than trying to get English into Japanese.
#
Part three of updateyness will come ... sometime not right now.
So, okay. Where was i?
Ah right:
I have a new not-a-job (!!!!]
Every other month the library has a book sale, and back in June they had a notice up that they were looking for a volunteer with knowledge of gmail and google calendar. And I mean, I use both regularly, so I very cautiously asked what they needed the volunteer for.
It turns out that the library also owns a used bookstore downtown, that's basically like the book sales but open regularly. And they needed someone to help out with scheduling volunteers. There's a google calendar list who does what shifts (there's one volunteer cashier on duty for every four-hour shift), and there's an email account for dealing with volunteer scheduling, and they wanted someone to a) keep an eye on the email account; b) if someone emails saying they can't make their shift, find a substitute; c) keep the calendar up to date (i.e. marking where subs are needed and who's filling in); and d) every three months do the schedule for the next three months.
A is easy, because I'm at the computer a lot anyway, and I know how to be logged into multiple gmail accounts (so don't have to switch back and forth between the bookstore email account and my personal one). B is generally done by email -- there's a list of people willing to substitute, and they're really good about volunteering -- and at the worst, I send a text to the weekly manager, who either fills in themself or closes the store for that shift (the latter rarely happens though). Point being, I don't have to do the shift if someone doesn't show up. C is trivial ... for someone who knows google calendar, anyway. And D is 80% just people going "I want to keep my regular shift".
(...y'all, I love this; the cashiers are all volunteers, the store is open 7 days a week 361 days a year (closed New Years, Easter, thanksgiving, Christmas), 2 or 3 shifts a day, and there are enough people volunteering that most cashiers work one shift every week or every other week. Pretty much no one works two shifts in a week unless they're filling in. And when a substitute is needed, there are usually multiple offers.;
So, I have experience scheduling people (because caregivers) and finding substitutes (because caregivers), I know gmail and gcal, I can do the tasks from home, it's mostly email and occasional text messages and pretty much zero calling yo and talking on the phone, and it's a way to help the library. Oh, and a bunch of people are thrilled I'm doing this.
Plus, my "title" of Volunteer Manager has a double meaning, because I manage volunteers and also am a volunteer. And it's not as much like herding cats as one might expect, because we have so many awesome people.
Bonus the first: I count as staff and therefore can sneak in early to the book sales, which allows me to maneuver without people standing in the aisles or whatnot. (It's very crowded especially at opening.: Thia is mostly good because wheelchair, but does mean I get a good crack at what's there.
Bonus the second: with one exception, my brainweasels and/or Inner Critic are apparently oblivious to library related stuff, because they haven't said anything in relation to this. Nothing about how I will screw up, nothing about how I have screwed up. Zilch. Nada. When I was starting out and emailing or texting the person mentoring me with every single question? Nothing from brainweasels or Inner Critic about how "I should know better" or whatever. When I didn't see a sub request email until less than 24h before the shift? Nothing. (And I got the situation handled just fine.)
Hell, even last week, with shitty health stuff going on -- panic attack Monday night followed by feeling crappy Tuesday, then Thursday-Sunday I had weird exhaustion plus sore throat plus Feeling Sick (no other symptoms, it might even have been allergies rather than a virus), and my brainweasels were going to town on everything from deciding to quit choir to letting bread mold? Absolutely nothing about the library thing. I ahot my mentor an email Tuesday going "I'm sick, can you cover sub requests etc for me" and she said "sure whatever you need" and then I didn't have cope for dealing with library stuff but it didn't matter because she got it, and there was zero internal flack. Nothing about dumping my work on someone else, nothing about failing, nothing at all.
It's really fucking weird. And nice! And, like, a glimpse into what normal brains might be like?
It's not that I'm doing anything different to keep the brainweasels away. And it's not like they're gone, because I got plenty of mental shit about other stuff. (Plus they yelled st me once about a thing where a potential new volunteer was like "call me tonight or tomorrow before 4" and I didn't see it until after 5 and my IC went nuts, but just over that one incident, so it's kind of an exception that proves the rule in some sense.) It just ... there's this realm that they can't enter. I don't know how long it will last, but ... whoa.
My mom thinks I'm crazy for doing this -- she worries that it's Too Much -- and I can't explain to her either why it isn't (and she has no idea how vicious my brainweasels can get or how deep my self-loathing can go) or why it matters to me that I'm doing something. Luckily, she's not the boss of me, so I don't have to.
#
Language updates:
Tomorrow's Duolingo will make a 750-day streak.
I don't know how. O.o
I'm mostly doing low key Spanish stuff, figuring that a little each day will keep that part of my brain happy even though I'm not devoting Lots Of Learning to it.
I'm also still doing WaniKani for learning Japanese kanji (though since the characters are borrowed from Chinese, there's some overlap, and I was very amused to recognize 牛肉 as "cow meat" on a beef menu item at a Chinese restaurant). The kanji are getting tricksier and more complicated looking, though I do have to say that WK's method is pretty effective.
The only down side is it doesn't teach grammar, and I haven't found a really good thing for grammar. Duo sucks (it's better with languages that are similarer to English, really). Memrise is awesome but horrible at accessibility (I think I did a rant on this but teal deer; on iOS the kanji are tiny and there's no way to zoom; on the computer, all reviews are timed, in that you have 15 seconds to think of the answer and type it out; and they don't have a "kana but no kanji" course, just an everything version where I can't read the kanji, or a "no Japanese characters" version that hurts my brain, partly because I have to transliterate it into hiragana in my head anyway to match up with the rest of my knowledge, partly because they do things like "arigatō" where I'm used to "arigatou"; it's pronounced as a long closed o vowel, but written as ありがとう and とう is (to)(u).) There are textbooks, but I can't use physical textbooks.
I do have one app that does give basic grammar, so I'm doing that in parallel with learning the kanji. And hopefully some of it will stick, lol.
Meanwhile, my roommate is taking beginning Japanese this quarter and so we're doing super bad Japanese at each other. Like, she's started saying tadaimas' when she comes home, and I say okaeri back at her. Today she learned about telling time, which I can sort of do, in the sense of "..........uhhh, roku ji, uh, san... jyuu... go... fun. Uh, desu," (六時三十五分です = it's 6:35) Basically long pauses between each syllable, and I am of course better with translating written Japanese into English than trying to get English into Japanese.
#
Part three of updateyness will come ... sometime not right now.
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Date: 2018-10-04 04:30 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-10-07 05:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-10-08 11:32 pm (UTC)*take that you effing brainweasels.*