Cassandraic

everyone: I guess we should have been more specific

everyone: well, anyway

"The hat is customizable," he said, struggling with the velcro patch on the front. "If I need it, I have an ICE one too. I pick based off the business i walk into."

"Customizable is an important hat descriptor," I said. "what can I get you?"

"You wouldn't believe how offended people get these days," he said. "And I'm supposed to do something about it if you're offended? You chose to be offended!"

"We all have hundreds of thousands of decisions everyday," I said. I thickened my accent. "That's what my stepdad always said. But I can make one easier - we have a delicious Ethiopian roast available."

"Like if I told you you have a bull ring," he said, "because bulls have rings in their noses. Is that offensive?"

I laughed. "I've heard that before."

"It's a joke, but people get offended. Maybe you're offended."

I looked at him. I smiled. "You aren't trying to offend me though, right?"

Of course he was. I was being friendly and the friendlier I was, the faster he switched topics. He was saying anything inflammatory he could think of to see if I'd take the bait. After about 20 minutes of my redirecting and deescalating, he settled into a more normal interaction. He took up too much of my time showing me a product I'd feigned mild interest in to get him to stop talking about getting accused of inappropriate behavior at work. When we finally disengaged, he spent 10 minutes trying to catch my eye again. When he failed, he left.

There's this new breed of customer who insists on trying to incite political conversation through their clothing and, when that doesnt work, their snide little comments. If I owned my own business, maybe I would have given the guy the fight he wanted. But I work for a corporation and I love paying my bills so I deescalated.

You know when you see a problem coming and you say to someone else, step back and I’ll handle this one. And then you handle it.

One of the things that extra pisses me off about pervert/creep glasses is that I know some dipshit is going to start using them for those spurious "First Amendment checks" in public libraries.

How many can you get?

Accidentally fallen in a natural body of water

Visited the second-largest city on your country

Taken ibuprofen on an empty stomach

Gotten a tattoo in only purple ink

Tried to dye your hair only to find the dye wouldn't take

Drank a spider

Broken your left femur in exactly two places simultaneously

Nearly ran out of petrol on the highway but not quite

Had an allergic reaction during an exam, because of the exam materials

Been prescribed antihistamines

Blocked someone on tumblr

Submitted a CV with a typo in the first line

Drank coffee without sugar

Been in an airplane only for the flight to be cancelled before takeoff

Abandoned a hobby exactly three days after you picked it up

Gotten the wrong prescription glasses because you were too shy to tell the student optometrist they were blocking your view of the eye chart so you just made up some answers at random

Been told "jokes about [trauma you had] are never funny" right after you made a joke about said trauma

Gotten lost at a new school

Been to a birthday party

Told someone you don't speak a certain language, in that language (give yourself a bonus point if you were lying to avoid a having a conversation (give yourself another bonus point if it was your native language (give yourself another bonus point if you clearly doing something - eg reading a book or watching a movie - that indicated that you did in fact speak said language)))

Left kudos on AO3

Read a book longer than 300 pages

Accidentally declined a call you wanted to take

Found a coin on the footpath that was the largest denomination minted in the country you were in at the time

Watched a TV series in an order determined by a random number generator

Gone out of your way to spit on someone's grave

Rolled a 12 on a pair of D6s

Received a scholarship that did not pay nearly enough to cover the course fees

Visited Geraldine, Aotearoa

Been mistaken for a sibling of a different gender

Accidentally shoplifted

Coloured your nails with a highlighter

Thanked your aunt for the lovely handkerchiefs

Been adopted by a calico cat with six toes on each paw

Looked someone up in an actual old-fashioned phonebook

Been given a nickname you initially hated but grew to like

Cut your own hair without looking in a mirror

Lived somewhere everyone says is haunted but you've never noticed anything abnormal

Driven a car older than yourself

this is not life-threatening, but also who wants weeks of diarrhea and a fucking parasite in them lol. if you suspect you've already had this and it's passed, i would see a doctor. you might need an antiparasitic anyway. if you're actively sick, see a doctor and they might be able to prescribe medication to help you get over it faster.

try to avoid eating raw vegetables, scrub fruit with a produce brush and rinse thoroughly with water. again, don't bother with premade greens or bagged salads. if you buy lettuce, remove the outer 2-3 layers of leaves.

Only high temperatures will kill cyclospora. It resides in what is like a shell, which is highly resistant to water and most cleaning chemicals. The substance it uses to cling to food is so strong we don't even fully know what its limits are. It may be best to avoid fruits and veggies you can't cook. Scrubbing only works if done hard enough and on foods with no hiding places (Like cucumbers and grapes). Peeling the skin off is your best bet at avoiding it however, scrubbing is not guaranteed.

I have been thinking about this for a few days and the thing is, it depends. I can't in good conscience say yes absolutely. But I also can't say absolutely not. It comes down to personal circumstances, desire, and all that.

There are a lot of great things about working in libraries/archives/special collections (working with cool collections, other people in the field tend to be super rad, awesome if you are a super curious person, allows for creativity, etc). There is also a lot that are not awesome (job hunting, temp labor and job insecurity, salary, vocational awe, secondary trauma, etc).

So here are a few things that might help you make that decision for yourself:

Conduct a job hunt, you don't need to apply, for jobs in the area you live or are realistically willing to relocate to. Take a look at things like salary ranges and if the job is term/temp (extremely common for archives, less so for librarianship) etc. Remember you won't be starting in a director level. I recommend doing this over time as often hiring comes in waves. What is the general trend and is this something you can work with? This also gives you a rough idea of skills and requirements for jobs which can be helpful if you decide to go to grad school

If you can, volunteer within the area of librarianship/archives you are interested in. This will give you a hint of what the work is like (the fun parts, because you won't have to go to meetings and deal with the not fun parts) and if this is something you want to do more of or is it not what you thought it was

Talk with people in the field about the job, especially people in your area. This is really helpful at getting information about your local area joys and challenges, the job in general, as well as a larger view of the field. Information people love sharing information. Bonus, you are building a network.

If you reach this point and go, "I am in! Grad school time!" Awesome! Welcome. Please do your research on grad schools and especially cost. I chose to do mine as an online program through Kent State because it was way cheaper than doing it in person at the university 2 miles from my apartment at the time. Like. SO much cheaper. I have friends that decided in person was the way to go but also did a different focus within MLIS. You don't need to be completely decided on a focus, but you should have a pretty good idea of where your focus is (say archives vs public librarianship vs technical) before you enroll and use that to research different programs and the cost/benefits of them.

If you do this research and decide it is not worth it or it will not work for you, I totally get it.

I want to add one little note here that is based off random conversations I have had over the years with people, so this is more of a general point and not off your ask specifically.

Over the years I have had a lot of potential archives and special collections people tell me they want to go to grad school and become an *insert phd levels of highly specialized incredibly specific collections person ever* here. And that is a goal that is beautiful but is a road to frustration, debt, and heartbreak. One person told me they wanted the degree just to an archivist for collections involving one specific cultural mythology and that was the only type of collection materials they were interested in. If that is the only thing you are interested in working on, I hope you are independently wealthy and also a nepo hire because it was so specific that that was probably the only way that job was happening.

Also, definitely go in with an open mind about what you want to do. I was archives-track and wanted to ultimately work with incunabula. I'm now doing metadata for active-use datasets.

I endorse all of the above observations, and I will emphasize that you should read job ads before you decide to apply. READ JOB ADS. READ MORE JOB ADS. Read aaaaaaaaaaaaall the job ads. This is for several reasons, under a cut for length:

Marrying the feckless schlemiel I married. (Secondary regret: not divorcing him a lot sooner than I did.)

Funny how nobody asked me whether I'd regret that marriage. Isn't it odd how "regret" only comes up in the context of socially-disapproved choices.

By contrast, I don't regret getting a tubal ligation (elective sterilization) one bit, despite the large number of times I was asked whether I'd regret it. Best choice I ever made for myself.

Now, I can't tell you that you should, for example, leave a comment about your concern for the way Grok has been promoting white nationalist beliefs, but public comments in the regulatory process are a key step and they shape what comes next. If the regulatory agency doesn't fully consider the comments and form a reasonable response to the ones it disagrees with, that can form the basis for overturning a regulation in court.

People of tumblr, I believe in you. I trust you to make the right choice. I truly believe we can make this a reality. We have the power. We can achieve anything we put our minds to.