Wednesday, February 16, 2005

Back in the saddle(s), again.

Holy moly. Where has the time gone?
The elections came and went -- I'm not satisfied, but then I wasn't going to be satisfied with either candidate. We'll see what happens in 4 years. Maybe Howard Dean will manage to convince the Dems that they really need an all-around appealing candidate. Why the hell can't we get a woman in the White House?

Physical abuse: I managed to run and ride the summer and fall away. My last bike trip (astride the Schwinn CrissCross) went for around 85 miles. My riding buddy du jour, Peter Marshall, was a good sport in not leaving me too far behind before stopping to allow me to catch up. When we got back to the starting point, I swore I wouldn't ride like that again until I had a proper machine. I got it. Specialized Roubaix 27. Very light (color and weight), very sturdy (lots of carbon fiber stuff), very cool....too damned cold, in fact. When winter finally breaks for spring/summer/fall, I'll be back out on the backroads of Washtenaw County. This time, I think Peter's going to be doing a little more work keeping up with me! (Although, he says he's been spending time in the weights room, so maybe I'd better do likewise, eh!)

More physical abuse: My left hand started bugging me in October. Felt like a constant sprain in the wrist. Went to the doc and, after lots of therapy and stuff, they finally realize that there's something not quite right with the hamate-lunate articulation. Arthrosis. Wonderful. That'll pretty much end the piano tuning career at U of M. They restricted my ability to do any kind of meaningful piano work to the point where I can't even supplement my income with outside work. That really bites. Well, at least I'm still getting a paycheck every other week.

So, what do you do when you can't do the job you were hired to do? You do anything they throw your way and make yourself useful. Administrative assistant jobs suddenly appearing left and right. Move from one office to the next and try to maintain that polished, professional appearance that was never required while you were tuning pianos. Oh, and try convincing your colleagues that you really are competent at something other than turning tuning pins. Good luck!

I am a paralegal in training, after all. Why not dive right in and do some paralegal work--get started on upgrading/updating the Experience area on the old resume.

Copyright law is not very deep, they say. That is, until you have professors calling and emailing you with questions about copyright that the lawyers down on central campus haven't heard yet. I just hope I can come up with the right answers for the "suits" down there. It'll make reassigning me to a paralegal position all the more obvious. It's kinda cool having people call up and give me more legal work. (Of course, like a law-abiding citizen, I send everything to General Counsel for approval before passing along information to the seekers.)

Two other "jobs" to keep things interesting: piano technical services coordinator and another administrative assistant "job." The technical services thing is ho-hum. Not very exciting. The other administrative assistant job (Michigan Youth Ensembles) isn't too bad but since the folks working in that area seem disinclined to give me too much to do, it isn't all that fascinating. Busy work.

We'll see what the worker's comp people have to say on the 28th. Tally ho!