One thing I do at my current job is teaching. I don't have a whole class to teach, but instructors can ask me to visit their classes and evangelize about the library and the proper usage of databases. In the library world, we call these one-shots (because you have one shot to fill the students with love for research skills). Please note that I didn't invent this phrase.
The number of these that I do can vary from term to term, but I have one regular one-shot gig, which is visiting the information technology class that all students have to take in their first term on campus. In the fall term, where there is the biggest incoming class, there are several sessions of this class, all needing to hear the exact same basic spiel about what online services are available through the library website.
I genuinely look forward to these visits. I like meeting the new students, and I genuinely believe I have useful information for them. But even for a true believer, doing multiple sessions is rough. The first session is fine. It is early in the day. I have energy and jokes. I have a silly name (Ilse) and a back story for the sad looking blonde woman with a stack of books in my clip art image. I *sell* those databases.
By the second session, I start to notice that the room is warm. I still have jokes. I still tell the students about Ilse, but I don't give all the details of her back story. By the fourth time, I can't remember if I delivered the jokes yet, and frankly, I'm starting to think that they're not all that funny. Poor old Ilse and her back story go down the toilet.
I didn't have this problem when I was a children's librarian and would repeat programs. I could sell the same story over and over, and I never lost faith that thing I was delivering was awesome. This was partly because I was delivering songs and stories, which are kind of inherently awesome, and the people I was delivering them to were there because they (or, at least, their parents) thought library storytime sounded fun. But it was also because I had a basic confidence in my own abilities that I am still working on strengthening at my current job.
I mention all this for two reasons. One, because it is almost time for me to do the info tech one shot for the winter term students, so it is on my mind. And two, because sometimes I feel like blogging is a little like doing a one-shot. I get an idea and I flesh it out it in my head. I think about it and tweak it and plan out the jokes. But by the time I sit down to write the post, I've been living with the idea for long enough to doubt its need to exist. I write two paragraphs and decide the whole thing's stupid and close the Blogger tab in disgust.
In blogging and in teaching, I am working on building my confidence. When I am planning my Info Tech presentation, I know that it is good to have a name and a back story for Ilse. I think it's funny, and even if the students don't, it shows that I have a personality, albeit a dorky one. It is never the case that everyone in the room cares, but it is pretty much always the case that someone does. I don't know for sure that the same applies to the blog, but it seems likely that it would, at least some of the time.
So, if you are the one who cares today, thank you. If not, well, maybe the next post will connect. Either way, I'm going to keep doing it.
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