On the brink of true exhaustion

Well, the job has begun, and I feel like I could sleep pretty much all hours that I am not at work. Whew! There are a lot of responsibility areas that will fall under my new role (which is new...the previous person did student activities/clubs and I will be doing that plus res life, judicial affairs, greek life, orientation, etc) which is really exciting because I truly get to become a jack-of-all-trades. I've always had pretty specialized positions at larger institutions, so having the chance to be at a small (yet still public) institution allows me to throw on lots of hats and learn a lot of new skills.

That's the scary part. Although I have a lot of generalist experience a lot of the areas, I am not an "expert" in any of them...ok maybe I am pretty good with residence life. But, I think the thing about it that I do recognize is that I am a good generalist, and I do enjoy learning, and I am someone who can easily weave together various strings of ideas into making a fabric that works for a direction the university wants to head in (thinks of previous job and how I always ended up being the "theme" person). I am SUPER excited about the vision, direction, leadership part....I am a little wary about my complete lack of knowledge about all things audio/visual for things like bands and such. Hmm. Learning curve is looking about as steep as the hill I have to climb every morning walking to work...

Anyway, things have been going really well so far. I'm doing a lot of cleaning, clearing, organizing in my office...which is great because I get my hands on everything in the office, get to read it all, and so I am organizing at the same time learning. And I LOVE to learn new things. The only issue is that I am learning SO MUCH that I am so totally exhausted....physically and mentally. I just have crashed both days after work so far this week, and tonight appears to be another one. Perhaps one week (and weekend) in I will have a better idea of how I can breathe through all of this.

One of the great things that happened this week was that I got a basket of local food items baked at Parlin's bakery here in town. A loaf of fresh bred, locally made mustard and jams, cookies, etc. And one lovely Maine item, the class whoopie pie. I had never heard of such a thing, but got one in my package, so I partook and had some. Its basically like cake...in the form of a cookie. Legend/history has it that the Penn. Amish used to make them and place them in their husbands lunch pails, and when the men would open them they would be so excited that they would shout "whoopee!". I personally like Sue's idea: You eat one before or after you make whoopee. HA.

In other news, my friend Sue came up to Machias for a meeting for her work on Monday, so we were able to pick up my weekly vegetable share from my CSA (which she had been to visit earlier in the day) as well as go out to dinner at Helen's Restaurant in town. I convinced Sue to have her first true boiled Lobster dinner ($13 I might add).
This is possibly one of the funniest pictures I have ever taken.

Of course, it wouldn't be a dinner with Mickey and sea creatures unless I played with the food.

Also in my life this week was my attending a canning workshop put on by the University of Maine Extension in a town next door to Machias, which is Whitneyville. It was right after work last night, in one of the annex buildings to a beautiful old church. It was such a great night! It was me and about a dozen other people (one guy)...and I was by far the youngest. But, my banker from in town was there too so that was cool. But it was fun to be around a bunch of older ladies who talked about canning in the old days, and how they need to learn how to can again with the newer, safer methods. So, we all sat around and learned a bunch about hot water bath canning and pressure canning. And we made dilly beans. I had never heard of dilly beans before (again, something very popular in New Enngland and not the midwest) but we got to all work on the cutting and prepping together, and we each got a jar to take home with us that should be ready in 2-3 weeks. Very cool! I was also able to pick up Ball jar company's book (the newest version) for $8! So, I am going to read and try to learn a lot...and hopefully this hugely delayed growing season here in Maine will produce sometime soon and I can can somethings for the wintertime (and freeze things!). It was a good time, and one of the women who was running it is married to one of the faculty members I met yesterday and worked with today, and she invited me to stop over to their house, which is on my running route! Neat!

So, it's been a full week so far and its on Wednesday. Whew.