Well, once again it's been a long time since I last posted. I'm still busy, obviously, at home and at work. My supervisor has been out sick for three weeks, so in the interim I am pretty much the acting department head. Which wouldn't be so hard, except that my supervisor has been pretty resistant to the idea of actually training me, his assistant supervisor, in any of the things he actually does. So, I've spent the time shepherding the lab through an equipment upgrade, writing evaluations, and frantically trying to figure out exactly how the Reference Department statistics that get reported to the State Library are calculated. Whew! I hear that once the guy actually gets back he's decided to let go of the need to do everything himself and start training and delegating. If he stays away much longer he won't need to because I'll have figured it out by trial and (much) error first!

In bellydance news, I found myself very glad that I had come across the costume I mentioned below last weekend, because I was offered an opportunity to do a gig at a restaurant on Saturday night! My teacher knows a local restaurant owner who used to take classes with her. The woman decided that she would like to give other students the chance to get some performing experience by inviting them to do shows at her restaurant. Needless to say I did not really feel like I was ready for this, but Myriam assured me that she was not expecting professional-quality dancing from us and that everything would be fine, so I went. I was pretty nervous the day before, but when we got there the place had slowed down for the evening and there were only 2 or 3 tables full besides Michael so I could kind of relax and try to enjoy myself. I did three sets of ten minutes each--which doesn't really sound so long until you get up there and try to do it and feel like you've run out of moves halfway!--with 2 costume changes. It probably wasn't the best dancing ever seen, but I had fun, the owner was happy, Michael said it was good, and apparently the customers said they enjoyed it too. I even ended up with a $5 tip in my gift basket. Neat!

Hopefully this will make the performance party solo tomorrow easier...though I'm still having visions of slipping up with the cane and accidentally throwing it at someone's head!

I have a rough cut of the instrumentals for the next song that my group is working on, but nothing finished as of yet.

So things are pretty good here. Which is good, because I'm happier, but not so good, because I'm busy enough to be distracted from the job hunting. It seems hard to find and maintain that equilibrium where you are at once actively seeking out things to make your life better where you are but still not losing focus on the eventual goal of leaving. And of course it seems like every time possibilities start popping up on the boards, opportunities/extra work/other distractions pop up here, too. I'm almost starting to wonder if there is not a message there, but I don't know for sure. And of course if I stayed here long enough the question would be moot, anyway, since sooner or later BCIS will decide my "temporary" status is not and kick me out.