It is important to keep things in perspective.

Today I got to go on a tour of my university's book bindery (is that what it's called in English?) which made me realize that I might just try to get a job there instead of being a librarian or whatever.  I say "whatever" because it is basically impossible to get a job as a librarian here.  Anyways, it was SOOOOO completely awesome.  About 10 years ago I had a great short term job in the art department for Colorbok, making prototypes for the stationary and little bookies and funny little things there.  This type of work is like, the less silly and more official version of that, so I would love to work as I book binderer.  Bindist?
Next up, a really interesting lecture about the evolution of preserved writing/press/books, where we got to look at old ass books from the 1400s to the 1800s.  Including a Gustav Vasa Bible (above), which was the first version of the bible in Swedish.  Even my heathen and generally bible-hating heart can appreciate the word of god in this form (I mean, I do love books).  Apparently this thing cost about 7 horses when new!  We also got to look at several other books, including a little mini book about 5x3x0.5 inches in size, (or maybe smaller), about Cicero, from the 1700s - one of the first "pocket books" made in Sweden and another book worth about 200,000 dollars, made in pre-chapter and pre-paragraph indentation times... some time in the 1400s.  The man who donated it to the library bought it for about 50 dollars sometime in the 1940s, and it was by far in the best condition of all the books we looked at.  I got to feel the paper, and it was so sturdy and... fresh looking.  The print job and the paper combined looked like something bought from a really expensive paper shop nowadays.  It was fantastically made and preserved.

The lecture ended with the following piece of work - a job announcement from the University of Göttingen, 1748.  I'll try my best at translation.

Competency requirements under the hand-press era could be very high, which Matthias Gessner, a librarian at the University of Göttningen in 1748, gave expression for:
"He (the librarian) must have a noble and generous heart, which can overcome his avarice, and who is able to put the library's interest above his own.  He shall have a kind attitude towards library borrowers/patrons and the ability to give them good service.  He shall also have a feeling for beauty, accuracy and cleanliness.


He must have mastery of Latin, Greek, French, Italian, English, Spanish as well as the other biblical languages.  He must be able to understand the nordic languages and be able to work with documents in German dialects, middle-ages Latin and the Slavic languages.  Yet, most important are  abilities/understanding of the history of learning.  The librarian shall not merely know author's names and titles of representative work, and know which editions are best:  he shall also be able to show that he has knowledge within all branches of science.

Yelp

Okay, so today is the big day!  I'm going to stand up (with a group) and try to sound like I know what I am talking about in Swedish.  All other times don't really count compared to this one, cause it's a real presentation.

So, in the words of my favorite senior citizen ex-coworker:

"Buck up or Fuck up"

Beginnings!

Yesterday I packaged seeds from some heirloom tomatoes.  Tomato seeds have to be fermented first to get rid of the gel sack surrounding them. 

Likewise, my own gel sack of nervousness must be done away with because today is the first day of school!  I have already been to school though, 7 on-and-off years of it, much of which I made a royal mess of.  So now is my chance to do things right.  The end goal: to be a librarian or archivist, and to have been a damn good student during the process.  I’m 30 years old and finally ready to own my decisions.  No parent or other sort of bully has forced me into this education, I did it on my own.

(That sounded like more of a condemnation than it was.  Truth is, I’ve always been a bit of a pushover, letting the desires of others dictate my decisions.  I’ve swallowed their wills, tried to incorporate them as my own, and thus neither succeeded very well or formed much of a will of my own.  And… my history also comes with some very strong-willed characters.)

A parallel metamorphosis to grabbing life by the balls has also shown itself to be a 180 degree shift in time perspective.  I’ve focused so much on the past, almost only on the past, and now I find myself looking forward.  I’m interested in creating, as well as is possible (which maybe isn’t very well) life experiences that are to come.  

The timeframe for all this is a little unclear, but it sure is serendipitous, what with starting school over again, wanting to have kids etc.   Or wait, maybe that’s just part of growing up.  I’ve already noticed I am miraculously slow at that; I even look a lot younger than my age.  ANYWAYS, although the time frame is unclear, I know exactly when I was conscious of this change in perspective, and that was on August 30th, sometime in the morning, when I saw this lil ditty: 

In other news, last night me and my man were talking about the dent that some people have above their ass crack.  We discovered that it is called the coccyx, and when doing an image search (uhhh, yes, i wanted to see pictures of other people’s coccyxi.  Or cocci?) the only real picture of a coccyx was on a cadaver.  In fact, it was on the cadaver of an adult male with the knees pulled up so the body was closest to, let’s say: a diaper changing position.  

With all respect to the kind and rational man who decided to donate his body to science after death, I am really glad I am not a doctor.  I wonder if that donation also included a provision which allowed photos of his cadaver to be google-able?  I guess there probably is a wide world of cadaver pictures to be found from the comfort of one’s home, now that I think about it, but I don’t think I will ever EVER get that image out of my head.