An idle mind*

Recently I’ve had a lot of time to catch up on my (mostly chick-lit) reading. This also means I’m putting all my library memberships to good use (all 4 of them) -
• The library for the city where we now live
• The library for the city where I now work
• The library system for the general area we used to live and work in
• The library system for the general area we now live in

(During one of my recent crazy “putting books on my hold list” sprees, I also signed up for a card at the library in the city where I volunteer a few hours a week. Luckily I later found the same book while browsing one of my “regular” libraries, so I didn’t bother picking up my library card from the other place.)

For a while I kept track of all my books and videos the usual way. They would stay in the backseat of my car till the library emailed me a courtesy notification a few days before they were due. And then, there would be a mad scramble to either read, renew or return whatever I could. Till one day, inspiration (or boredom) struck. Now I have my own tracking system in excel.

The Summary
This is where I get an overall picture of what I have checked out and when they’re due.
From here, I can also link to the library website to check my account. I can also click anywhere in the table showing the breakdown to get more details on those specific items.

The Details
This is a list of all the items I have checked out and when they’re due. The light blue shading is for books I’m done reading and the light yellow is for the ones I’m currently reading.
The purple shading in the “Due Date” column marks due dates that are in the next 3 days.
The pink in the last column tells me I need to read / renew / return those items – it’s a combination of items with a due date in the next 7 days and status of “Not yet started” or “Work in Progress”.
Needless to say, I'm very pleased with myself. I have also realized I might be spending more time "refining" my tracking sheet than I spend actually reading all those books I borrowed!


* is, in my case, apparently an excel workshop!

The timing is not quite right

I was on my way back home at around 5 PM when I saw this sign on the freeway -



Looks like Caltrain has to try harder to convince people to take the train instead of driving.

Is the weekend here yet?

SO much happened already this week and I still have Friday to get through:

1) We went from broken garage door opener on Monday to swanky new garage door opener - including a fancy keyless entry system - on Tuesday. I LOVE my husband's choice in gadgets.

2) I spent 3 days in training and found out:

• I’m a geek
• I still have my obsession with taking notes the “right way” using the “right writing instrument” (1 blue pen, 1 black pen, 1 pencil, 2 highlighters)
• I DID pay some attention in Business School
• I wish I'd paid more attention in Business School
• Now all of a sudden I'm looking for more classes I can take (Note to self: Take a deep
  breath till such feelings pass)
• I wasn't really missed at work
• I really missed being at work

3) I found out I may just be working for the coolest company ever.

4) When you know someone is scheduled to power-wash your windows, you shower that much faster.

5) Someone told me I speak a certain language well and made my day (and caused me to make at least 3 phone calls to gloat).

6) Sometimes Murphy listens when you ask him (and his law) to take a hike – and things go right. Like when I woke up late on Wednesday and still made it to work before class started (the icing - it turned out to be a great-hair-day).

Don't mess with me in Math Class...

...or any social situation that involves numbers and a problem to solve.

I was in project management training today where we learnt about estimating schedules. Everything was fine - all of us were nodding seriously to everything the instructor said, highlighting every third word and so on.

Suddenly he said something about an exercise. That involved looking at a diagram of different activities that made up a project, the dependencies between them and the time needed for each activity. We had to calculate what the shortest time to finish the project was.

I picked up my pencil and it was like I was possessed. I could feel the adrenaline rush. For the next couple of minutes my hand moved frantically across the page till I was done. I put down my pencil and looked up. I saw a room full of people still poring over their notebooks with a look of confusion.

And I smiled. The smile of the geek who loved her high school math textbook almost as much as she loved her copy of "Heidi" and "The Secret Garden".