work

Our offices are attached to Saint Basile's former fire station. The building is literally thirty seconds from my apartment. I walk out the front door, across a small field and I'm there. I leave at 7:59 and I arrive at 8 am. The HSJ employees are very precise about time. Begin work 8:15 sharp. Break 10 am. Lunch 12 pm. Break 3 pm. Drop everything and leave 4:30 pm.

Prior to being a fire station, the building was a a town hall (I notice quite a lot of this building recycling happening. There are plans in the works for our relocation to a building that used to be a police headquarters. This fact was actually front page news.) Because of the building's former designation, my office is up on this hardwood sort of stage in the main room. I have to say it's kind of snooty feeling and I don't know if I like it.

On Tuesday and Wednesday this past week I went with the HSJ regional director and another intern to escort a children's author around to libraries in our region. He was promoting his book "At Vimy Ridge" which was up for a Hackmatack Children's Choice award. We visited three libraries where the author gave very entertaining book talks. The kids were putty in his hands as he described in great detail the horrors of war, including vivid descriptions of the living conditions in trenches (rats and excrement) what happens to a soldiers lungs when he inhales mustard gas (they melt and come out his nose) and exactly how Hitler died (shot himself in the head, there's still a piece of his skull on display in Moscow.)

We stopped at Hartland, which boasts the world's largest covered bridge. Yes, we drove over it. It was .... long and... covered and... made of wood. We stopped in Florenceville, which was so clean and quaint it felt like I had become a porceline figurine, part of an eccentric lady's collection of miniatures. The McCain family reigns over the pristine potato fields and picturesque farms in Florenceville, and we even drove by a museum called "Potato World" but didn't have time to visit. We stopped in Woodstock, which has a beautiful old library with exquisite wood-work, it was most certainly haunted. We finally stopped, and spent the night, in Moncton. The Moncton branch has a new regional director and is undergoing big renovations, reorganization and weeding projects. I managed to snag an ALA promotional poster of Patrick Stewart wearing khakis and holding a Shakespeare book. They were seriously going to throw this gem away! It's now on my fridge.

I spend the rest of the week continuing my training in Saint Basile. I'm picking up the technical side of the job pretty easily, but I'm nervous about having to actually be a manager, and schedule *gulp* monthly meetings with my *sweat* staff and develop *shiver* strategic goals. I know, I know, just be confident. And I am. Every day I call Mr. Jamie and channel some of his business charm before I walk across the field with my coffee. So far so good. It's only you who will ever know how small my feet feel in these manager shoes.

But guess what! It's not all strategic goals and monthly meetings in Saint Basile. Oh no! Up next: what to do for fun in the middle of nowhere, and why the weekends are actually quite nice when there's not much going on. Stay tuned.