Heading home.

I think that it took traveling to Canada for a conference for it to sink in. I am moving back to Canada in July, that’s a month or so away! I am starting my new position at the University of Calgary on July 7th. My position is social work and psychology liaison librarian and due to my work experience I will be coming in as an associate librarian. I am looking forward to learning more about my new subject responsibilities and meeting my faculty and students.

One of the reasons I chose this position is the implied promise to myself that I will start work towards a doctorate in education. At my relatively advanced age, I have gone back and forth about going back to school even part time and my dominant feeling around this is excitement. I realize that for many librarians, library school was not the life changing experience that it was for myself. Credit must be given to my professors and my program at the University of Alberta. I was not the best student in my class or even in the top quarter but I found my place in the world through my experiences there. I hope to experience this again.

So I am returning to my hometown and my mountains and I am embracing change and growth. Houston will always have a place in my heart but home is home.

Help needed

I am not a religious person and I am grateful for my parents giving the option of participating or not in organized religion.  However, not having a belief in a higher power is pretty painful right this minute.  My friend, Michelle Boule gave birth to her son, Gideon Ries Smith on Saturday.  Gideon is struggling to live in the NICU unit at Texas Children’s Hospital here in Houston.  He has had a rough start to his short life.  Michelle and her husband Ries are first time parents and do believe in a higher power.  If you have a diety, god, or faith that you believe in could you please say a few words on Gideon’s behalf.

If you know Michelle and would like to know what has happened since Gideon’s birth on Saturday, Ries has outlined it on their family blog Defying Genetics.  I realize that you can’t bargain, argue or demand anything from a higher power but if words have any power they will see that Gideon needs to heal and go home with his parents.

New beginnings need endings

My week started yesterday with my boss’s boss’s boss handing me a sheet of paper granting me continuing appointment from my institution. This is a significant point in my career as I have worked (too hard) towards this goal for 6+ years. However, its import is blunted due to the fact that I am leaving MPOW as of July 1st. I am returning to the Great White North of Canada for a position at an institution that will be named shortly.

So it is with a tinge of sadness that I say goodbye to my first job out of library school which I have to say rocked for the majority of my time here. I will miss colleagues, friends, students, faculty, and random Texans whom I have encountered in my time here. I will miss ALA conferences and all of my conference friends who I will see one last time in Anaheim.

This sadness is balanced by my excitement of facing new professional challenges and creating new goals at my new institution. I will also be able to begin working on some advanced degree work of my own which had been a deferred goal but one that I am equally excited about.

My family and Canadian friends are very excited about my returning to Canada but I leave behind a family here in Houston that I will never forget. Thank you.