Heartening

I have never really dared to say too much, as I have always, until now, felt that I should not reveal too much about my job (or at least my previous job). I guess it is now quite safe to do so. After all, I am not saying bad stuff about it.

I just wanted to say that it is heartening to myself that I am still able to use the knowledge that I have accumulated as a librarian to help people, specifically my classmates in my present course.

We were, until tonight, doing something that was close to my heart and had a very close relationship to storytelling. We had to borrow books from the library and there were so many questions directed to me as they needed to look for books and to know what stories to tell.

It was our last lesson tonight and my lecturer told me that "I will always remember you as the librarian". That was when I felt a strong bond to my previous job and felt that I should really still conduct myself well even though I have left the organisation. The name "librarian" still carried some weight. In some ways.

After class, one of my classmate was telling me how she was quite surprised that the people working in the library did not seem to know their work. Woah! Felt so 'malu' ("embarrassed" in Malay) even though I am no longer working there. I quickly told her to look for those in black jackets and she said she did and that librarian was not able to answer many of her questions. Hmmm... .

She was particularly puzzled with the short forms such as WRL, SBCL and such and while explaining to her all those and more, I suddenly felt that I was wearing a black jacket and the MRT station had transformed into the library once more. My classmate was happy that I helped answer some of her queries and we parted ways.

This is not the first time that a lecturer has promoted literacy and the library in one breath. The lecturer for the previous unit had even gone so far as to promote the kamishibai that the library was selling, which my ex-colleagues and supervisors helped to create.

Even back then, I ever so gladly offered information about where they could get it and which were the regional libraries and so on. I guess these are the sorts of promotions that we do not see. It's the sort of intangible thing that you could not measure with concrete numbers and results.

As I was writing this, I just remembered another heartening thing that happened this afternoon. There was a new girl that had come under our care and she was feeling very out of place, wanting to go home. The only person who could seem to talk to her was me as I was the one who received her at the door.

She was moping a little and I told her o bring out her notebook so that we could talk about the pictures she had drawn inside (I had seen the book earlier). There were lots of drawings and scribblings but among all that imaginary 'mess' I saw "eresources.nlb.gov.sg".

I asked her whether she just went to the library and she told me that she did not and it was her teacher who told them to jot this down for it would come in useful for them.

Heartening, very heartening.