I set myself three goals at the start of the year:

1. Finish my Master of Information Management degree
2. Pass my probation at work
3. A personal health-related goal, which I’m not posting here

I didn’t want to get too ambitious. The last two years have been draining, and I wanted to keep my goals for this year achievable.

Which was probably a good idea. I caught COVID in March, and four months later I still have some post-viral fatigue and trouble concentrating.

This has been – to put it mildly – inconvenient.

Writing assignments has been a struggle. Focusing on work has been a struggle. I lose track of what I’m doing. I forget things straight after I read them. I’m tired most of the time.

So I was a bit startled to find out this last fortnight that not only have I passed my probation at work, I scored a High Distinction for my final Masters subject.

Huh.

Finishing my Masters meant I had to choose whether I would graduate in absentia or in person. 

The last two years of lockdowns have not been great for celebrating milestones. I didn’t do anything to mark my 50th birthday. And my farewell when I left OCLC was just a Teams meeting. So it was tempting to graduate in person.

Two things put me off. First: the graduation ceremony isn’t until December. And secondly: COVID hasn’t gone away. I’ve been risking concerts and some art events, but I still wear a mask inside public buildings, and I still don’t really feel comfortable in a crowd.

So I decided to graduate in absentia. 5 years of work and growth and learning end with an email saying my testamur is being mailed to me. I tried to log onto my Uni email account this morning and found that they’d disabled it.

Oh well. Most of the lecturers I wanted to say thanks to have already left – RMIT is shutting down their Master of Information Management program.

Meanwhile, my work at La Trobe University Library has been great. 

I ended last year fretting about whether to apply for the Discovery Specialist position there, as it would mean a pay cut. That problem resolved itself within a month or so when I was promoted to Coordinator, Library Discovery Platforms on a salary slightly higher than what I was earning at OCLC.

My love of working at La Trobe is only slightly tempered by my frustration that this post-COVID brain fogginess has meant I haven’t gotten my head around their systems yet as much as I would like to. But even with my limitations, they seem very happy with my work, and my final probation review was mostly a formality.

So: that’s two out of three goals for the year achieved.

The health goal is still a work-in-progress. COVID has rather messed that one up. I’ll see how I go.

I’m not setting myself any extra goals for the rest of the year, other than building my knowledge of Alma and Primo and all the other systems we use in the Library.

There are some things I would like to do: make another zine, run some roleplaying, make a dent in my pile of unread books, maybe even start work on another novel.

But those are nice-to-haves. I’m going to be gentle on myself if they don’t happen.

Meanwhile: I have my LIS degree, and a job in an academic library.

I guess this means I’m a librarian now. 🙂