Library Web Chic

It really doesn’t seem like I’ve been at my new job for a little over six months now. The time has gone by very fast and I have a hard time recognizing that I’ve been here that long. It still feels like I’m brand new, but my 6 month evaluation is due so I guess I’m not. I’ve been trying write my self-evaluation, to critical assess the last six months and what I’ve accomplished. Time has gone by so quickly that its hard to remember. I know my department has gotten lots of things done, its just difficult to remember them all.

However, trying to recall this stuff, my mind drifts and I find myself thinking about the fact that if I’d stayed a Cortland I’d be celebrating my 5 year anniversary now. A part of me is still connected to that place. So much so that the other day in a meeting I said “Cortland red” instead of “UH red” (its kind of ironic that both places use the same red #CC0000). I also still find myself referring to Cortland as we rather than they. Why is this? Probably because there is a warm, comfortable, safe feeling I get when I think about Cortland.

Thinking about the last six months here, I find that I’m asking myself the question of “was everything the department accomplished enough”, “could we have done more”, “did we choose to do the right stuff”? Self-doubt is a very powerful emotion when you’ve stepped away from everything you’ve known. Its a terribly paralyzing force that can destroy everything. Its ironic that when I think about self-doubt and fear I remember a scene from the first episode of LOST when Kate says to Jack “You don’t seem afraid at all. I don’t understand that.” Jack proceeds to recount a story for Kate about dealing with fear. He says that “So I just made a choice. I’d let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing. But only for five seconds. That’s all I was gonna give it.” I think people often perceive me as fearless, but really I’m not. I feel fear as much as anyone else, but I deal with it and I don’t let it stop me from taking risks. Coming to UH is, likely, one of the three biggest risks I’ve taken in my life. Six months in, I’m as unsure about how it will all turn out as I was when I started. (At least from a work perspective, from a home-life perspective things are the best they’ve ever been.) I can tell that I’m conflicted about the decision to come here by reading my blog entries where I talk about accomplishments, pitsfall, learning knew things, and yearning for familiarity of the past.However, I can’t get hung up on the self-doubt and fear. Otherwise I know how the story ends, with failure, because I was too paralyzed to act. As long as I keep trying, moving, I don’t know how the story ends. Although that makes me uneasy, it also makes me hopeful about how things will turn out in the end.