Working From “Anywhere”—One Month Later

by Vicky Lim | Jul 22, 2022 | How I Work | 0 comments

Well—it has been a month since I last posted. I remember missing one week, then giving up for three more, smh. Here are a few photos of my laptop setup when I managed to work neither at home nor the office. I’ve been experimenting with shifting my hours so that I can wrap up my day a couple hours earlier to go to the beach, turning off Slack’s automated status based upon my desktop activity, and in general, I’ve been a little bit happier with my work weeks. More next week.

At the Galvin Library at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus. My first time there. Very quiet. I was able to connect to the eduroam network, find a spot facing the Willis Tower. Didn’t get to walk around too much, though.

At the Richard J. Daley library branch in Bridgeport. Newly renovated. Not too many seating options there. Just a few curved tables facing the entrance, which felt off to me. The highlight is finding the section of books in Chinese, including for children. I checked one out for my Mandarin language learning and the circulation person thought it was for my kid. What kid??

At the Little Italy library branch (also new) after I commuted to UIC to purchase a plush friend of Sparky the Dragon mascot that I have kinda been wanting lol. This branch also had books in Chinese. Didn’t know!

Working From “Anywhere” in Summer 2022

by Vicky Lim | Jun 20, 2022 | How I Work | 0 comments

Woohoo summer hours started last week, which means we can all wrap up our Fridays early at 2p 😎. It occurred to me that I should take advantage of Meetingless Mondays and Summer Fridays somehow, maybe by WFX (Working From Anywhere) vs. WFH (Working From Home). The pandemic has turned me into a homebody, wary of travel, so I prefer to remain local.

So far my plan is to work from university libraries that are accessible by public transit. Hopefully they accept visitors and are on the eduroam wifi network. I’m most looking forward to checking out the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) campus after I read its wiki page a long while ago and learned about its history with architecture, design, etc. I would also like to return to University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) to see how much the library has changed since I graduated in 2009 and left in 2011. I remember never studying there because I was too busy commuting back home.

Thinking about maybe trying to visit all 79 branches of the Chicago Public Library. Thinking, also, about getting out and around the Midwest more.