This is a reflective piece.  Blogging means having the privilege to be the author, editor, and publisher of your work. 🙂

Here we are, not yet at the middle of September, and I’m already looking back on the month as if it is already over.  Having started a new position in August, shifted offices between two libraries in the system before Labor Day, and then begun the school term complete with orientation week, weekly reference meetings, web editing, library tours, new faculty days, frantic students who can’t find rooms and frantic students who just need some one to talk to, and I’m a little run off my feet.

Blogging about the beginning of the term is a little odd for me. Regular readers will remember that it was only last Spring that I was a student at the same university that I now work, so I am experiencing a professional transition as much as I am dealing with what is ostensibly the busiest month in the academic calendar. I think the transition has worked out well thus far.  It seems to me that my colleagues respect me and are glad to have me on board.  It seems to me that I can give my opinion and not have to worry about hearing crickets break an uncomfortable silence afterward.  It seems to me that I have a ‘decent-enough’ sense of what I am supposed to do, what I can do, and what I should do. My plan (one of my plans) is to “get done” the stuff I’m tasked to do, but to also “get done” some great ideas that will make those tasks so much better.  I may be on board to create tutorials, but I can use this opportunity to help the library system reconsider what sort of tutorials it creates and why, how it measures the ‘success’ of the tutorials, and how to integrate them into its web platform, learning, and user-outreach strategy.  Oh I’ve got big ideas, and yes, I think I may be putting them into action bit-by-bit.

That’s not to say that life is a like a box of chocolates every day of the week.  There are definite moments that make me want to tear my hair out, and there are other moments that leave me stressed and wondering if I’m a fake or a fraud instead of a faculty member, as the “F” on my university ID is supposed to mean.  But for the most part, I think it’s so-far-so-good.

So if you find yourself in Halifax and anywhere near the Dal campus some time, feel free to look me up and we’ll go for a coffee.  So long as you visit after September comes to a close, I think I’ll be able to find the time.

-Michael