shaking off the dust

Whew! Basically what just happened is that I finally hung some prints in my living room (I've only had them framed and sitting on my floor since October), decided I needed a new table to go under them, felt dissatisfied about life, changed up the blog a bit, felt much better!

I also got an email back from a librarian about doing an internship in the Fall. I was feeling like I had waited too long to do this, but she doesn't seem to have an intern lined up yet. Classes don't start until the end of September, so I'm not that S.O.L.

Now I just need to buy that table!

membership has its benefits

My number one favorite benefit to being a member of the American Library Association is American Libraries Direct, their e-newsletter. Normally I hate e-newsletters because they are incredibly boring. ALA, however, has the world's best e-newsletter. This is based on the scientific fact that I actually read it. It's not just me either: my library school friends have confirmed that they read it as well. Here is something that I learned from today's: Iraq National Library Director Resists Military Intrusions. How would you like to have that job? I also learned that a man in a Fort Worth prison was just sentenced for smuggling meth inside. His girlfriend placed it into the spines of books the prison received via inter-library loan from public libraries. Lastly, I learned about a book written by an archivist, based on a document from 1830 that he discovered in the Burlington, VT town archives. It was an inquest into the "untimely death" of an unmarried 23-year-old woman, caused by a botched abortion. The most interesting part was the attitude of the townspeople, who were apparently mostly just disturbed that this "private" matter was being made public. Thank you American Libraries Direct!

In other library membership news, I just signed up for my first library conference. I will be attending the California Library Association conference in Long Beach. I am so excited--I am really hoping for some advance reader copies, some tote bags, some pens and pins, and hopefully some librarian cocktail hours. Woo hoo!

books

I just added a little "books i am reading" list to the side of my blog. Now you can see how unintellectual I really am! At the moment, some of the books are for my reader's advisory class (we're doing horror right now), some are for the fact that I feel like there are certain books I need to have read to be a public librarian (ie, Harry Potter), some are just for me! You can probably tell which is which on that list right now.

Well, I haven't posted for a little while, but that's ok, you haven't missed anything. The lovely newlywed Gibbs-Beadle family has moved back down to my neck of the woods, so that was exciting. I have gotten to spend some time at Crate and Barrel and other such places. I'm pretty sure Beadle hates me, because I convinced Lauren to buy an expensive vacuum cleaner and also did not unconvince her to buy a really cute antique cabinet. Oh well, he has to pretend to like me at least.

My biggest news is that I was awakened at 1:00am last night by an earthquake. Yes, my worst fear re: living in Los Angeles has come true. Not that I haven't experienced a few earthquakes in my day, but this was an LA earthquake. It was a 4.5! I actually convinced myself that I just dreamed it, so I did not get out of bed to stand under a door frame, which is what a sensible person would do. I just lay there in bed. Good thing there was no horrific aftershock. I obviously did not convince my subconscious, however, because I had a dream right after that Lauren and I were in some giant apartment building and were caught in a big earthquake.

And that's about all the news that is fit to print around here. School, work, juvey, reading lots of books, pretty much just a day in the life of me. And now it's off to bed, since I'm an old lady and tire easily.

nice people live in la too

Sometimes I get grumpy about speeding cars that almost mow down children walking in a crosswalk, or loud-voiced television people bragging about their careers while on a peaceful hike, or, you know, the fact that the sky isn't really blue. But yesterday I did experience a brief moment of niceness at the grocery store. This was not my usual grocery store and I did not, therefore, have the little membership card that allowed me myriad discounts. I said as such to the check-out lady because usually they have a little card up there that they'll swipe for you. This one seemed to be a stickler for rules, because she nervously informed me that they didn't like for the cashiers to do that. Oh well, I thought. But! Then the nice lady behind me put her phone number into my little machine, thus entitling me to my whole $4.00 worth of grocery store discounts. I attribute most of this niceness to the fact that I was not in my own neighborhood, where the person behind me would have impatiently sighed and tapped her foot during this encounter.

wedding time!

being silly, as per usual
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants

This weekend was the Big Event of my summer, aka Lauren's wedding. We arrived on Thursday night and had a yummy dinner in Berkeley. Friday was cupcake baking day. With a few trusty assistants, I made cupcakes for the reception. I made approximately 150 chocolate cupcakes and frosting--yes, from scratch. They turned out just fine, despite the fact that I was concerned afterwards that I had forgotten to add sugar to a few batches. No one complained, so hopefully I didn't actually do that.

The wedding itself was on Saturday. In the morning my family and I headed over to the Oakland Museum of California where we saw some California art and history. Then we headed off to San Leandro for the wedding! The ceremony was perfect. Touching but not cheesy readings, poignant sermon, funny and sweet officiant--what more can you ask for? Some of the UCLA people and I were laughing afterwards because their dates were Catholic and were shocked when the ceremony was over in under an hour--and they didn't even have to go up for Communion! Meanwhile, we were thinking it was longer than the 20 minutes of most non-religious weddings we were used to. Reception was wonderful too with fabulously yummy Filipino food, a tasty cake, and, of course, cupcakes! Beadle broke it down for us on the dance floor and a good time was had by all.

Sunday, the Wellesley peeps and I went to her family's house for a brunch and present-opening. I got to be the official gift recorder, a job that I am not really that good at, because I have bad handwriting. I think Lauren is up to the job of reading it, though. After the happy couple departed, we headed off for some brief San Francisco tourism and then to the airport!

Now I am back to the real world, suffering from a cold I acquired from Lynne, and trying to get back into the swing of things. Oh yes, and wishing I could be on a Hawaiian vacation like Lauren and Beadle!

saturday morning in la

That title has nothing to do with anything, other than the fact that it is a Saturday morning in LA. I am running a bunch of errands this morning and decided it would be a good idea to get to the mall right when it opens. I am pretty sure I inherited this tendency from my mother. Anyway, here is an article about how librarians are cool. It is the number one most emailed article from the NY Times right now. At first I was like, wow, how exciting, people really care that librarians are cool. And then I realized it was just that all the librarians in the country were emailing it to each other.

here i am!

According to my loyal fans (ie, my sister), I have not been updating enough recently. I'll start with an important news story. In case you don't want to follow that link, a UCLA professor received a "suspicious envelope" causing the bomb squad to shut down part of Sunset Blvd. this afternoon. Let's turn to how this affected me, since that's obviously the most important thing. I had decided to be lazy and drive to school to investigate the Dictionary of American History for my Advanced Reference class (yay librarians). This road shut-down totally ruined my laziness and it probably took me longer to get there and back than if I had walked. But oh well, at least I didn't have to use my legs. Also, I pretty much thought that Paris Hilton had crashed her car again before I read the news, and was kind of disappointed it was just animal rights activists causing trouble.

I have been a world traveler in the past few weeks. Two weeks ago Mom and I visited Lynne in NYC. We saw Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends at the New York Public Library, walked through Central Park, watched a ballerina fall at the New York City Ballet, and became fans of flamenco in the East Village. We also helped Lynne get a new air conditioner, which is considerably more difficult in New York than in a normal place where you can drive your giant car into the giant parking lot of a giant big box store and just get a new AC. Instead our trek involved lots of carrying and a taxi. Geez! I don't know how people survive out there.

Last weekend I went up to Lauren's spa day/lunch in San Francisco. I got to stay with Kate in her new and beautiful apartment and the weather was delightful! Spa-ing was great, lunch was delish and Kate and I visited Green Apple Books, so I was a happy camper. I may or may not have acquired a new book, which is just what I need since I already have a nightstand pile of at least six.

This weekend I'm sticking around home base and then next weekend is Lauren's wedding! Other than my travels, I am working at my library job and taking two classes. Don't want to get bored, you know!

Oh also, last week (I think?) I got my hair highlighted in Beverly Hills. I am fancy. I read good reviews of this place online, all of which mentioned their "coffeehouse" music. Indeed, they played a satellite radio station called "Coffeehouse." A Tracy Chapman song came on and my hair lady commented on the fact that everyone likes Tracy Chapman, but no one you know actually has one of her CDs. I informed her that I, in fact, own a Tracy Chapman CD. Of course.

not the best week, so far

eagerly awaiting cheese toast
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants

I did have a fabulous weekend at Lauren's sister's home, where I attended her wedding shower. I got to meet her lovely niece, Beadle's family, and catch up with my college friend Kate.

Unfortunately her baby niece had a little stomach bug that I managed to catch. I haven't been as sick as I was yesterday in many years and I hope to not be that sick again in a long time! I'm feeling a bit better today--well enough to blog, at least!

In addition to the unpleasant tummy situation, my parents put our dearly beloved Piper to sleep yesterday morning. He was over fourteen years old, had increasingly weakening back legs and a case of doggy dementia that caused him to spend a large amount of time barking for no reason. He wasn't getting any better and it was just time. I did get to see him over Memorial Day weekend, so that was good. He is the one looking intently at the microwave in that picture--it was his fourteenth birthday and he was eagerly awaiting his birthday treat of toast and cheese. We hope he is getting to eat lots of cheese toast in doggy heaven.

Today I am resting up and working on a take home final--thought I would be able to get started on it yesterday, but that obviously did not happen. Hopefully the week will get better!

wellesley, wellesley, only to be there!

I'm feeling a bit nostalgic currently, as it was one year ago this week (June 1, 2006!) that I graduated from old WC. I think I have started to annoy my library school friends because I keep bringing up Wellesley, and I don't want to turn into one of those, "Well at MY college..." people. Oh well.

Anyway, I've been thinking about it for that reason and also because of this Management class I'm taking--it's an MLIS core class, don't worry, I haven't decided to get my MBA or anything. We have talked a bit about mission statements and I always want to mention Wellesley's (I don't, because, again, I don't want to be one of those annoying people) which is "Wellesley College provides an excellent liberal arts education for women who will make a difference in the world." That's it! Succinct and to the point. We've also been talking about the symbolic management style, which has a lot to do with the culture of an organization. Again, I was thinking about how the mission statement and the motto (Non ministrari, sed ministrare--not to be served, but to serve) affects the culture so much.

Since I'm being all nostalgic and rose-colored-glasses about it, I think that the culture really centers around creating people who do want to go out and do something good in the world. Numerous recent grads have "I'm not being a good Wellesley woman because I'm not doing anything great in the world" crises. Might not be such a great thing to inspire guilt in your alumnae, but at least it's guilt that pushes you to try to create positive change! Anyway, here are some words from our departing president in her charge to the class--it's very Wellesley:

"I hope that life of learning for you – so that you will be doing your part to transform the world from the inside out, seeing your first and most sacred task as the work of transforming yourselves — not once and for all, but over and over, greeting with an open mind and a courageous heart the hard questions that life will continue asking of you."

with my hand held out

I've been remiss in not posting this earlier, but life has been a bit busy recently. Our volunteer group, along with UCLA's Graduate Student Association, are doing a book drive for juvenile detention facility where I volunteer and if any of my devoted fans would like to donate a book or two, the kids and I would be ever so grateful. Tonight we had a taker on the Malcolm X autobiography, a Stephen King, a Walter Mosley and oh so many more. One kid booktalked this book, which I was a little surprised about. We often have a difficult time getting kids to read fiction that purports to tell a story about a kid with a hard life, but our reader enjoyed this one. I noticed that the Amazon review thinks that the book's hard luck story is implausible, but our reader mentioned no such thing--sadly, it probably seems completely plausible to him. Anyway, here is the little book drive spiel--sorry that it is kind of long. Thank you in advance!

BEYOND 4 WALLS BOOK DRIVE

Greetings, UCLA Community,

Reading changes lives. We ask you to partner with us to impact and improve
the lives of incarcerated children and teenagers, by purchasing books for
the BEYOND 4 WALLS BOOK DRIVE.

The Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Facility in Sylmar houses 600+
children and teens. The members of the Nidorf Collective, a group of
students from the UCLA Information Studies graduate program, have been
volunteering at the facility for the past year, bringing books to this
underserved population. The Beyond 4 Walls Book Drive, sponsored by the
GSA Community Service Commission, will further the work to give the gift
of reading to these kids.

How can you contribute? Here are several ways:

1) The best and simplest way is to use this link to select books for the
kids from the “Beyond 4 Walls Wish List” on Amazon.com:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/3GB06L568M0Y3

The books on this list have been requested by the teens at Nidorf and/or
recommended by the library students in the UCLA MLIS program, who have
seen what a difference books and reading make to this population. After
you use the link, please forward this email to others who might also like
to make a fundamental difference in this ongoing literacy program. The
email campaign will run from Friday, May 18th to Friday, June 8th. (Please
note and make use of all the tools Amazon gives you to view the books by
highest priority, by price, in detail, or in summary.)

2) Bring new or used books to our BOOK DRIVE PARTY on Wednesday, June 6th
from 5-9 p.m. at Kerckhoff Art Gallery (Kerckhoff 214). We will serve
food, beer and wine, and celebrate the success of the Beyond 4 Walls Book
Drive. (Paperbacks are preferred.)

3) Finally, if you cannot attend the event but want to make a book
donation, please deliver your new or used books to the GSA office in
Kerckhoff 316.

The GSA Community Service Commission, the members of the Nidorf
Collective, and the kids at Nidorf thank you for giving your time and
energy to community service. Your donation makes a big difference.


========================================
The Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Detention Facility in Sylmar (north San
Fernando Valley) houses children and teens ages 12 to 17, who are awaiting
adjudication. About 70 percent of the kids rotate in and out quickly
(within 28 days)—either sent home or placed in other facilities—but the
rest are at Nidorf long-term, a more stationary population of about 200
minors who may remain at the facility for up to several years.

The only library at Nidorf is in the on-premises LACOE school. The library
is only accessible to the kids during school hours, and then only if their
teachers bring them in for a class visit. They are not allowed to check
the books out and take them back to their rooms, with the result that they
have nothing to read during the hours they need it the most.

For that reason, the UCLA students of the Nidorf Collective have made it
their priority to collect books from wherever they can—mostly libraries
and schools who donate their discards—and deliver boxes of books to the
living units. Additionally, they have started five bi-weekly book
groups—one each in the Boys’ and Girls’ Special Handling Units (SHUs), two
in the lockdown units, and one in the girls’ school—for which they
constantly need more books, since they take books in, book-talk them and
give them away, also taking requests from the kids for specific titles and
then trying to track those down and acquire them cheap or free.

One restriction is that only paperback books are allowed in the living
units. Hardcover books can go into the school library for more limited use
there. The Nidorf Collective’s hope is to eventually provide a stocked
rolling book cart to each of the 15 living units, and a part- or full-time
librarian to visit all the units and also continue the book groups. But
for now, book drives such as Beyond 4 Walls are their best hope of
bringing books to eager readers in this marginalized population. We hope
you will help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/3GB06L568M0Y3
======================================

of course i have to post this

Even though I don't think it's the best librarian joke out there.


toothpastefordinner.com

sometimes i don't think about libraries and books

Here is a list of fifteen million jobs you can get with an MLIS, just in case you thought all we did was shush people in the public library (in which case I probably couldn't be your friend).

Today was the LA Times Festival of Books, which takes place at UCLA. It is a gigantic event with a ton of author panels, events on stage (sadly, I missed Julie Andrews), and a huge number of exhibit booths. I went to an author panel on young adult literature where I saw some of the big names and got a book signed (An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. When I went to get it signed he said he always feels nervous signing for Katherines, because apparently they don't come across very well in the book. I told him I hadn't read it yet, which is why I wasn't grumpy at that moment. He chuckled.) (Sidenote: John Green is very cute, writes award-winning YA lit, is only 27, used to be on NPR, is funny. Is also married--all my librarian peeps and I were understandably disappointed). I checked out a bunch of exhibitor booths, got a free copy of The Nation and an LA youth-written newspaper, bought a book about woman fighters in the Mexican Revolution and saw the dad from Providence. And I'm going back tomorrow to see Nancy Pearl, famous librarian (who has an action figure and everything) and maybe another panel on "Writing for Teens and Tweens." Fun fun!

don't make me laugh

Normally I refrain from commenting on censorship attempts in libraries. They happen somewhat regularly and I try not to get my panties in a twist because I basically just stick to a fairly strict pro-intellectual freedom stance. This little story caught my eye, however, because of its purely humorous nature. And I quote:

"Two teens, 14- and 16-year-old Kyle Adams and Ryan Adams, went to the Bentonville PL, AR, in February so the younger brother could look up material on military academies. However, they wound up looking at The Whole Lesbian Sex Book, by Felice Newman, a book their father said left his sons "greatly disturbed… and this matter has caused many sleepless nights in our house." Earl Adams, according to The Morning News, has asked the city to pay $10,000 in damages per child, which is the maximum under the state obscenity law."

From Library Journal.

P.S. I wonder how they just accidentally found that book while searching for military academies. It was probably misshelved, right? And don't get me started on the sleepless nights.

juvey update

One of my fellow volunteers wrote a "This I Believe" essay about our volunteer experience. For the non-NPR listeners (do I know any non-NPR listeners?), people write essays about what they believe (not necessarily religious) and then some people are selected to be recorded reading their essays. They play them during Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Anyway, hers wasn't picked to be recorded, but it's on the website. It gives you a little peek into what we do, plus if enough people read it, it will apparently be placed in the "top 25" essays on the site.

I'm a little late with this, but hey, I've been busy this past week.

I've never actually read any of Kurt Vonnegut's books, but this is enough to make me love him:

"And on the subject of burning books: I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength or their powerful political connections or their great wealth, who, all over this country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and have refused to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.

So the America I loved still exists, if not in the White House or the Supreme Court or the Senate or the House of Representatives or the media. The America I love still exists at the front desks of our public libraries."

It's from here.

a few updates

1. Seems as if those years of French finally paid off. I applied for a job at the reference desk at the UCLA library where I work, had my little interview, etc. Then someone else in the same department saw my application and decided that I should apply for his open position in collection development in support of African Studies. I thought it was all sewn up when I went to my interview, since he was the one who approached me, and then he finished the interview by telling me about the four other people he was interviewing. But happy ending, I did in fact get the job, which I think mostly consists of checking databases to see what titles we already have. So anyway, African Studies is about the only area in which my French skills come in handy.

2. I have been having an issue getting into a section of a required class. The other section, which was open, conflicted with an elective class that I really wanted/needed to take (Young Adult Literature). I held out on the waitlist for a long time and then talked to the professor about my reasons for wanting to take both of the courses. Lo and behold, she took pity on me and raised the enrollment of the class so I got in! I was trying to be all calm about not getting into the class, but I am very relieved. Moral of that story is that it never hurts to ask!

3. In case you hadn't heard, Hillary went to Wellesley.

isn't that sweet

From an article about a Vancouver, WA real estate developer who recently passed away (Royce Pollard is the mayor of Vancouver): "Pollard said he got to know Al Angelo Sr. about five years ago, when he (Pollard) joined a group of longtime Vancouver businessmen who meet on Wednesdays, calling themselves 'The Good Old Boys.' Angelo was a key member, known among the group as 'the Mayor,' Pollard said."

Um, what year is this? Oh yes, 2007. And how many people live in Vancouver? Over 150,000. And where is it located? Right across from Portland. So why is it still run by a bunch of good old boys?

This is one of the reasons I don't care that much about Vancouver. That and the fact that I used to spend most of my waking hours in Portland.

thanks for the reminder, really

as if i didn't already worry about practically everything
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

It did occur to me, just before I moved down here, that I was entering "major quake" territory. After some wide eyed terror, I decided not to think about the fact that I could be buried under a pile of rubble at any moment. Once I moved here, I decided not to be a complete idiot and followed Lauren's suggestions to create an earthquake kit. I have extra water at home and in the car, and some extra food in both places too. I should do more, but whatever. Also, I didn't hang anything above my bed. Every time I have to do one of these earthquake things, I kind of have a heart attack. I mean, we had earthquake drills at OES and I remember a few earthquakes occurring at home (one this past summer at 1 in the morning). We have them every once in a while, but it's not like we have an official earthquake month (April in CA, now you know). This is just all to say that when I received this in the mail from UCLA today, I was not very happy.

yes, we know you had to go to school in 8 feet of snow

Some of you (Katie, in particular) probably recall my Dar Williams phase. This was back in the day when we could see a lot of other people's iTunes on the Wellesley network, so I didn't even have to actually own any Dar music to listen to it. And believe me, plenty of other Wellesley students had Dar on their iTunes. I liked Dar so much that one of only two concerts I ever paid to attend while in college was hers (the other, revealing the extend of my hippiness, was Girlyman, who opened for DW at her concert and who describe themselves as "delicious acoustic harmony-driven gender pop").

Anyway, I just rediscovered some of my Dar music on iTunes and was particularly amused to remember the song "Southern California Wants To Be Western New York." If there is anything I do not want to be, it is anywhere that could remotely be considered upstate New York. This is primarily because most people that I have met from upstate New York are annoying about it. Lauren has a theory that it is due to an inferiority complex about not being from NYC. Really, they constantly bring up the fact that they are from upstate New York, in upstate New York this is how they do xyz, you think this weather is bad, it's so much worse in upstate New York, blah blah. You think I am exaggerating, but I really am not. It just gets a little old after a while.

Next up: making vast generalizations about people from other Mid-Atlantic states! You'd better watch out Pennsylvania.

from the new yorker

"The in-house counsel was a Wellesley graduate, she wasn't Jewish, she wasn't from New York and Harley figured that if she saw him in his natural environment he would be, he said to his partner, in just a shit pile of trouble."

This article by Larissa MacFarquahar is not online, but it is an interesting profile of a lawyer who goes after counterfeiters. Hey, you can always go read it at the library!

better watch your back

When you're at the plant nursery, that is. Today Lauren and I took a study break to a nearby nursery because we wanted to buy some house plants. While making our purchases we witnessed a large and loud argument ensue when one woman thought another woman had cut her in line. The offended party loudly accused her of said crime, and the other woman denied that she had done so, leading to some yelling on both sides. The accused cutter asked the offended line stander if she wanted to go in front of her, but she refused, saying that she just wanted the cutter to KNOW that she was being a jerk. After some more back and forth, the offended party yelled out, "Actually, I WILL go in front of you!!!!!!" and proceeded to push her plant cart up to the poor cashier.

Only in L.A.

March 1 was a good day

First of all, it was the 20th birthday of my baby sister, so happy birthday to her! Secondly, Katie became the Nelson-Atkins Museum's newest employee! Yay Katie! Thirdly? Um, Lauren and I watched a depressing movie. Ryan Gosling was a pretty cute teacher in Half Nelson. If only he hadn't had that little coke addiction he would have been perfect. Obviously he has never watched Maria Full of Grace and seen how non-fair trade the cocaine industry is. Geez, Ryan.

in which i realize that los angeles is big

Sometimes I really cannot believe how gigantic Los Angeles is. I had assumed that Sylmar, where the juvenile hall I visit is located, was its own city. Why might I assume this? Oh, only because it's 22 miles north of me. I realized that it was, in fact, just a NEIGHBORHOOD of Los Angeles when I saw that they have a Los Angeles Public Library branch, the city library. It makes me feel slightly better to find out (via Wikipedia) that it is Los Angeles's northernmost neighborhood. But still! 22 miles north! And I only live in the middle of the western side of Los Angeles!

those were the days

This comic is mostly just funny to me because the "culture jamming" reference takes me back to my mildly torturous days in my "Information in Society" class last quarter. I'm just warning those with fragile constitutions that there is a non-scientifically correct term for a part of male anatomy in that cartoon, unlike the word used in Susan Patron's book.

it's kind of all libraries all the time around here

I just read the number one most e-mailed article on nytimes.com, which is about how the history department at Middlebury is banning the citation of Wikipedia, both in papers and tests. My librarian brain reacts to this by thinking, hello, information literacy! The department is missing a huge opportunity to teach kids about authority, reliability, etc., etc.--all the good things a reference librarian could come in and talk about.

I went to a talk yesterday by one of the candidates for the ALA presidency, the university librarian at the University of Richmond. He said that someone had described Wikipedia as "good when it's good and bad when it's bad." He noted that the page for hurricanes was something any other encyclopedia would be glad to have, but the page for the author Ian McEwan was shamefully tabloidesque. I personally use Wikipedia if I just want to get an idea about a topic; then I move on to other sources that I know have gone through a reasonably stringent review process to get information that I personally consider more reliable. I also love Wikipedia for finding general information when I just want a quick summary for my own edification. I know that there is a lot of good info on Wikipedia, but I am not comfortable enough with it to see it as a really reliable source of information.

I think a lot of people really do not know what Wikipedia even is. I can recall hearing people who were surprised to find out it was user-contributed information--they thought it was a traditional encyclopedia. As for students who are using it as a source in their papers and tests, I think a lot of that is just not knowing about other online resources that their libraries probably subscribe to and that they can access right in their very rooms. The rest of them are just being lazy, frankly. We are used to quickly finding information online, but a lot of people are missing the information literacy to determine if the information they are using is really what they want to be citing. Librarians to the rescue!

proof!

sp's card
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

Susan Patron came and spoke to my class today and here's my proof! I got her card because I told her about the site that listed the other books with the word scrotum in them and she wanted me to email her the link. She seemed pretty tired of all the negative media attention and more than a little heartsick that her wonderful book was only being noticed for one word contained in it.

Now that I know more about the book's plot I am even more unhappy at the negativity surrounding it. Apparently the scrotum story is integral to the growing up of the little girl and the development of her relationship with her guardian. It sounds very appropriate to the story to me.

The other part of the debacle that was so upsetting to my professor was the fact that it wasn't parents or children or teachers or anyone else who was making a stink about the books--it was librarians, who are supposed to be intellectual freedom defenders.

We discussed the actual critical question: what do children think about the book? No one actually seemed to have any first hand experience with children and the book, but there was some anecdotal evidence that they didn't care one bit about the word scrotum as long as the teacher/librarian/parent acted like it was no big deal.

I just ordered it from Powells after deciding I didn't want to sit on the holds list at LAPL for five hundred years. I can't wait to read it!

amusing sidenote

Bookslut just clued me into this list of other kid's books with the word "scrotum" in them.

since you asked

Lori brought up this kerfuffle, which is over the recent Newbery award winner. The Newbery is the top award for children's literature (the Caldecott is the other top award, but it goes to illustrations, not text). Books like The Giver, Number the Stars, Dear Mr. Henshaw, and A Wrinkle in Time have all won Newbery awards. Anyway, the winner this year apparently contains the word "scrotum" in relation to a snake biting a dog. Some school librarians thought that this word was too offensive to their communities and decided they wouldn't buy the book for their collections.

School librarians operate on a bit of a different track than public librarians because they can't take the "we have books for all kinds of people" defense. Their schools or school boards can very easily force them to remove books from their collections. One of their main jobs is really to support teachers and curriculum, so they don't even necessarily have to buy a book just because it's a Newbery (which pretty much all public librarians would do, at least with recent Newbery winners).

I do, however, think it's pretty ridiculous to self-censor (that would be when you decide to not buy it in the first place, as opposed to removing it from a collection) just because a book contains a word that is just part of male anatomy (and a dog's at that!). I've read some comments from elementary school librarians saying that they thought the book was a little "old" for most of their kids (ie, most of the kids just wouldn't want to read it because it's a little advanced in terms of reading level), which is slightly more justifiable, but I wonder about the kids who do want to read it. They could always get it from the public library, but considering the fact that they spend most of their time in school and may be more likely to go to their school library, I think it's pretty wrong for the school librarians to not buy it for their collections. A whole big group of librarians (the Newbery committee) concluded that this work was the best of the year and that counts for something.

My least favorite part of the whole thing is the defense of some of the school librarians that basically goes, "I don't want to have to explain to a child what a scrotum is." Aren't we supposed to be librarians? If we really didn't want to embarrass ourselves so much as to explain such a thing, couldn't we say, "Let's go look it up in the dictionary."? Isn't it our job to help people (even children, who some apparently think of as not-people) get information?

Lastly I would just like to point out that I'm sure a good portion of most kids in elementary school know what a scrotum is, and if the target audience for the book (probably 4th grade and up) doesn't already know, I think there needs to be some discussion at school/home.

Susan Patron, the author of the offending book, just happens to be speaking to my children's services class today on the topic of collection development. She's a good friend of my professor's, and a librarian at LAPL, and was on the docket long before she even won the Newbery. It will be interesting to hear her talk about the very subject of choosing books for a collection!

break from my usual blather about libraries

I was just rewarding myself for being about halfway done with my midterm paper (due on Friday) by doing some important internet searching (what else?) and I remembered that my extremely talented neighbor Sally has a beautiful website. She started out making quilts and now she classifies her work as "textiles" because it doesn't always fit into the quilt category. Anyway, I don't really know why I'm posting about this except to tell you that I love going through the pictures of her work and trying to decide which my favorite one is. I'm currently leaning towards "When We Think About Spring" in the "House" section, with second favorite going to "I'm Not Sorry" or "Approximating Pi." I'm also just kind of partial to her and her family in general--they're pretty cool people.

ha HA

That's a little extra emphasis on the last ha. From librarian.net: what librarians wish they could (and, apparently, do) say to some library users.

being lazy, posting a video from youtube

In case you a) usually get bored with YouTube and don't really spend much time watching anything on it, like me, or b) somehow managed to miss this even though you do spend copious amounts of time on YouTube, AND were c) lying awake at night wondering what kinds of things we talk about in library school, besides the best kind of fabric to use for flannel story board stories, here is a video for you:



About the last part ("we have to rethink xyz") my professor sarcastically exclaimed, wow, someone should tell the Information Studies people about this! He also thought that the whole idea that the Internet was connecting people was not exactly a new one. But anyway, some of the things in there are things that they try to get us to read/think about.

public radio in la

It's pledge drive time at my favorite public radio station, KCRW, and they just announced a few people who gave them money this morning: among them, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard, renewing from NYC.

i'm back!

I know you were all missing me greatly. Well, since I last posted, my sister visited me for eleven days, my mean graduate program made me do work, and I got my computer back.

Lynne and I had a fun time together. Since I was so danged busy the entire week, we mainly spent our time together sitting around in my living room watching tv and chatting. We did manage to make it out to the Getty one day, went to two movies, took a little trip to the grocery store (woo hoo!), and toured around UCLA for an hour. Then she left me and I no longer had anyone around to wash my dishes. Wahhh.

I've been busy busy with school and work since the quarter started up. Last semester I was in all these classes where we did somewhat minimal (or no) reading, and occasionally had a little writing to do. This quarter they actually expect me to do work and write things! Geez. In one of my classes (Intro to Information Technology) we do 700-800 word write-ups pretty much every week. Each of them is a small part of our major paper, so it will be nice at the end of the quarter not to be frantically researching and writing everything up at the last minute. But still. I'm also taking a class that is basically about classification and cataloging and such; we are also expected to read and do work in that class. Do these people think I'm in school or something?

My children's class is a little more laid back so far, although we do have a major paper for that one. The best part of that class is our mini-storytime we have to present to the class. We have to read a story, do a finger play (the Itsy Bitsy Spider is an example of a finger play, get your minds out of the gutter), and do a flannel board story (remember? the things where the librarian/teacher sticks felt cut-outs on a board and tells a story with them?). Anyway, I'm thinking of going with a bird theme. I already have a story and a finger play, which could end up turning into a flannel board story. I just need to find a new finger play then. So exciting! In addition, I'm thinking of doing my major paper on using the library to increase children's awareness of multiculturalism/social justice/diversity/people who aren't just like them. I'm looking to move beyond the usual "festivals around the world" or "here's a folktale from India!" things. You can bet Beautiful Blackbird will be included. I admit I might have been inspired to do this anyway, but I'm particularly fired up thanks to Lauren and her social justice teaching program.

Last, but not least, I got my computer back. The Apple people fixed it all up and I went in and picked it up on Wednesday morning. It has been very exhilarating to just turn on the computer and check my email. I don't have to beg Lauren for the use of her computer, or walk twenty minutes to school or anything. Now you can look forward to many more of my brilliant insights, lucky you!

sad story

My dear sweet PowerBook has been doing this little quirky thing since, oh, last summer, where it likes to randomly go to sleep. Sometimes I can only wake it up by completely powering it down (ie, unplugging it and taking the battery out). Kind of not good. I finally took it into the good old Apple store today and found out that it has been overheating and going into emergency sleep mode. They're sending it somewhere to get fixed, so I will be sans computer probably until next Monday. Luckily my lovely sister is visiting me with her PowerBook, so I can still get all my work done without having to trudge over to school. This is all just to say that if you are someone who relies on me signing into AIM every day, don't worry, I haven't died but my computer has (sort of).

This all makes me a little annoyed because I never actually had any real problems with my big old Dell laptop. All the bad talk about PCs and my PC was more reliable than my Mac. But the Mac is cuter, so that's pretty much the most important thing, right?

ick

Apparently the Yorkie is now the second most popular pure-bred dog in the United States. The deserving Labrador is still first, by a fairly large margin, but really, the Yorkie? I have honestly never met a Yorkshire terrier that didn't bark piercingly and interminably. It's basically one of my very least favorite dogs. I'm disgusted!

adventures!

front of the horse barn
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

Lauren and I decided to get out and do something other than the normal this weekend, so yesterday we got ourselves up to Santa Barbara. It was quite beautiful and had an actual clear blue sky. We saw the mission ("Queen of the Missions" apparently), ate Julia Child-approved Mexican food, froze our butts off, had coffee and Kahlua on the wharf, got ignored in fancy stores, and had a yummy seafood dinner. It was delightful!

Today I decided to head to Will Rogers State Historic Park. Will Rogers was an actor, writer, and general huge celebrity of the 20s and 30s. He was born on a cattle ranch and saw himself as somewhat of a cowboy. His home is off Sunset and at one time he had 500 acres of land that went down to and included the beach. 168 acres of it is now a state park and you can visit it and his home. My little connection to Will Rogers is that my great-grandparents knew him--my great-grandfather played polo with him and they lived near him. Anyway, it was fun to be up there and hear a little about California history.

Tomorrow is my day of work--no classes or work at the library, so it's time to buckle down and do some homework!

5 things people don't know about me

Lauren blog tagged me on this one a long long time ago. Here goes, although some people probably already DO know these things.

1. I won a class wide spelling bee in the 6th grade and then proceeded to sort of misspell a word on purpose at the county-wide bee (this was all written, not an out loud onstage type of thing). The word was "jodphur" and I was not entirely sure if it had the h or not, but I sure as heck did not want to move on from the county-wide bee and have to spell out loud on a stage at the Oregon State Fair, so I went without an h, which I was somewhat more sure was wrong. Jordan has never quite forgiven me for this.

2. There is one board in the hardwood floor in our living room that I won't walk on. It's a little darker than the other boards and when I was little I got into an OCD thing where I wouldn't step on it. I'm pretty sure that makes me a racist.

3. In addition to the OCD thing with the floor, I also used to be unable to enter or exit my bed at home from the right side. This sort of had to do with the fact that the left side was the natural side to get on or off, as it faced the door and the right side bumped up next to my desk. It soon devolved from a natural behavior, however, into an ABSOLUTE NECESSITY. I've kind of gotten over this, but I have to admit to still being a little disturbed if I get on or off on the right.

4. Continuing on the odd string of behaviors, I have a mental block about the addition of 7+5 and 8+5. You would think that this would not be hard: obviously 7+5=12 and 8+5=13. But I seriously have to think about it every time I need to add those in my head. I had to think about it just then when I wrote it out.

5. Last but not least, I cannot keep my right and left straight. I know several other people who have this problem, so I know I am not alone. Giving directions is not my favorite thing because I always have to make a conscious effort to say the correct direction. Luckily I am somewhat saved by the fact that if you hold your left hand in front of you and hold out your index finger and thumb, it makes an "L," thus reminding me that that is my left side. Nevertheless, I tend to prefer pointing in the correct direction rather than saying it out loud.

And now ends the string of odd and neurotic behaviors that you may not have known about before! Ignorance may be bliss, but don't you feel better now that you really got to know me?

the triumphant return

Here I am, back in Los Angeles and ready to blog! Well let's see, I went home for three weeks for winter break. I'm going to be very sorry when I enter the non-academic world and no longer receive nice things such as three week long winter breaks. I was rather looking forward to a nice relaxing vacation, but it didn't quite work out that way. The first Monday that I was home we found out that my 90-year-old grandmother had pneumonia and wasn't going to be around for very long. I went and visited her that Monday and she passed away on Thursday night. Needless to say, it was neither a nice nor relaxing week. While she was 90, she was not in ill health at all--she had survived three hip surgeries, two of them back to back, in the last year. She had no heart problems, no other illnesses of any sort (good genes, thank you Grandma!). It was, therefore, a rather sudden turn of events.

Despite this, we did manage to do all of our normal Christmas activities--presents, food, etc. It wasn't even that depressing of a Christmas, although not quite as cheery as usual. We then went to the beach for New Year's and did have a nice relaxing time, sitting in front of a cozy fire and reading our books (or hiding in our room and watching DVDs if you're my sweet sister). After that was a whirlwind of a few days of catching up on some things at home, getting in a brief visit with the newly-engaged Lori (yay!), and having a pseudo-anniversary for my parents on Friday night (their anniversary was this Monday).

My parents had a very simple wedding. They took a Friday afternoon off work, my mom wore her best black suit, and they got married in the Multnomah County Courthouse with two friends as witnesses. They had a nice dinner out with those friends afterwards. I used to be shocked over this wedding, but am beginning to realize its advantages as I get older and wiser. One disadvantage, however, is that they have almost no pictures of it. In fact, they have exactly one photo, taken afterwards in front of their fireplace. My dad looks supremely pleased and my mom is looking down at their dog, petting his ear. Typical--the dog is the most important thing! This is a little 3 1/2 x 5 photo, so I got it blown up and put it in a frame for their 25th anniversary. This went over quite well, as you may imagine.

I got back here at 2:00am on Monday morning and had work that afternoon. Today was my first day of classes--I have one on Information Technology, which is more about the big picture rather than the nitty gritty of how to make a website (should be useful and not too bad), and one on Library Services to Children, which will be fun of course. I actually look forward to all my assignments in that class, so I know it's the right career for me. My professor for the IT class did inform us that we should be very concerned about actually having jobs in 5 years due to the changing nature of the field due to IT. Thanks a lot! I'm not too concerned, though, because something tells me that in 5 years 3-year-olds will still be coming into the library for storytime as opposed to conducting internet searches.

i'm glad natalie dee agrees with me

Title: "books weigh in on the TV vs Internet debate"


nataliedee.com

oes news

For my few OES readers, I thought you would all be interested to know that they announced the selection of their new head today, Matthew Hanly. He is leaving his head position at an independent school in Michigan and was apparently beloved by all at that school. Interestingly to me, he is involved in the Council for Spiritual and Ethical Education, the organization for which David Streight is the Executive Director. He sounds like a good pick!

must be winter

I was just sitting here and I thought, hm, it kind of sounds like rain outside, someone must be washing something. Then I began to get more suspicious so I peeked out my window and lo and behold, it's actually raining. Woo hoo, my kind of weather! This basically completes my weekend which began on Thursday evening when I went to a concert at UCLA by the Roches, a folk music group. Then this morning I went to cute independent bookstore in Brentwood. Now it's raining. It's just like being in the Northwest!

appropriate, given my new job

I hope whoever left about a million books sitting on random shelves in the Chaucer section in my library finds themselves in the same predicament.

i'm not a true blue football fan, but i'm pretty good

the beginning of a great game!
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

So Lauren and I went to the Big Game on Saturday, the one where unranked UCLA beat No. 2 USC, their rival team, the team they haven't beaten in seven years. Of course I didn't actually see the part where they won because by that time we were speeding away in Lauren's car. You see, I have had a rather unpleasant cold since Thursday night and I didn't much feel like sticking around with a bunch of crazed fans for three hours (especially crazed since we were sitting in the student section).

But we stayed until well into the third quarter, when the score was 10-9 and then we listened to the rest of the game on the radio. The real highlight of the whole experience was getting out of the parking area. They make you park on a golf course outside of the Rose Bowl and the way they had us in there, we couldn't get out unless one car on the end moved. Amazingly, that car left about twenty minutes into us sitting around in Lauren's car, wondering how long we were going to be there. Then the only thing that stood between us and freedom was a very small space between a truck and an SUV. Thanks to Lauren's driving skills and my navigating skills, she manueuvered through that with about four inches on each side of the car. We were so excited we almost drove into a canal. No really, we almost died. But luckily we did not.

all the news that's fit to print

I started my new job last week at one of our libraries. I'm just your basic shelver/discharger, but I like it. Last Tuesday we had an exciting event, which was that pipes in the ceiling decided to start spraying water over several shelves of books. We cleared them out, fanned them out on tables and put paper towels in between the pages of the really wet ones. You would think the whole book drying process would be all high tech, but no. In the I am my mother's daughter department, someone told me, rather bitterly, that things had been a lot cheerier since I started working. I just can't help my sunny disposition!

In other news, I got the "Annual Report of Donors" from Wellesley today. Someone in 2005 is already a "President's Circle Partner" which means she gave at least $50,000. In case you were curious, Hillary is only a President's Circle Benefactor, which means she gave at least $25,000. Oh Wellesley.

yikes

I'm pretty sure that this never happens at Wellesley. My favorite part is that the students who witnessed it were sure to get the information on the police officers who were tasering the student. Good for them!

children's book disillusionment

One of the things that library school is teaching me is that several books that I enjoyed as a child are actually terrible. The best example is I Love You Forever. Okay, when I think about it, that book is kind of weird. It starts with a mother rocking her baby, eventually moves on to her rocking her grown son, and then finally he sneaks into her house when she's old and rocks her. Plus the repeated message is "I love you forever, I love you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be." A little fatalistic? Maybe. But nevertheless, I liked this book a lot when I was little and remember both my mother reading it to us and reading it to myself. But children's librarians HATE this book. Don't even bring it up to them.

Another one that I sort of liked when I was little, but didn't actually own, is The Giving Tree. Now I did I realize before I got to library school that this book has somewhat of an overly self-sacrificing message, but now it's been reinforced. Children's librarians hate this one too. I agree, but it's still disillusioning. This book makes me feel like how I felt watching the documentary about Disney movies--oh yeah! Beauty and the Beast does teach girls that they can turn their abusers into princes if they are nice enough to them!

Some librarians don't even like The Runaway Bunny. They think it's too smothering. I absolutely loved this book when I was little and I heartily disagree with its detractors. They will not ruin Runaway Bunny for me!

Feel free to let me know your beloved childhood books--I'll be happy to ruin all your childhood happy book memories with more boo hiss librarian opinions!

for serious

Last week in my children's lit class this was one of our assigned readings. It's partly a "pourquoi" story about how birds all have some black on them. But that's not really the point of the story. All of the colorful birds want to be like blackbird; at one point they do a dance and sing "Beak to beak, peck, peck peck,/ Spread your wings, stretch your neck./ Black is beautiful, uh-huh!/ Black is beautiful, uh-huh!"

Some reasons why I like this book: attractive cut paper illustrations, fun sing-song text, and, number one, message. Last week when we talked about the book, most of my classmates liked it too. Some people were uncomfortable with the message, however, feeling like it left out non-black people. At the time none of us really stood up for the message, including me, even though I felt rightetously indignant about their reactions. Apparently someone emailed my professor to say that he or she was unhappy with the way the discussion had gone, that no one had stood up for the black is beautiful message.

So we talked about it again today. Several of us pointed out the fact that many children's books have a "white is beautiful, black is bad" message. Snow White is one of the most obvious examples; my professor also mentioned a 1966 Caldecott honor book, Tom Tit Tot, a Rumplestiltskin retelling that refers to the evil presence in the book as the "black thing." How many books are read to African American children that tell them, in essence, that they are bad and evil? Here is one very rare example of a book that does the opposite. I really don't think that white children, whose skin color privileges them in so many aspects of life, will be hurt by hearing the message that black is beautiful.

As my professor says, our goal should be for every child to recognize a positive image of him or herself in a book, as well as for children to learn about others who are different from them. One of the things that reading does is to teach us about ourselves and those around us. Do we want those images to be stereotypical or self-esteem building? The idea is not to insulate children from racism, but to do our best to avoid instilling prejudice or low self-esteem through the books we share with them. Unless adults are willing to have honest discussions with the children in their lives, they might want to avoid reading them books that compare African American girls to dogs.

what a day

I was so wrapped up in my anxiety about my day that I missed the big Britney Spears divorce news. Good thing I have my friends to keep me abreast of all celebrity gossip! In other news, I am very excited about the way the elections are shaping up today. I was a disenfranchised voter this time. I didn't change my mailing address on my ballot so it was sent home. My mom sent it to me but it never made it for some reason. I did feel bad about not voting for the first time since I registered to vote, but I wasn't too worried that Washington state was going to turn Republican without my ballot!

100 things

I know this is so so cheesy, but didn't we already know that I am cheesy? Yes.
1. I was born in Portland, Oregon.
2. I lived there for two weeks until my parents moved all the way over the river to Vancouver because my dad worked there.
3. My sister and I have a complex about our hometown.
4. I love Portland even though it was recently named the whitest city in the United States.
5. I was a history major.
6. And I usually leave out that I was an economics minor.
7. I think it conjures up an image of a person that I am not.
8. I'm going to school to become a librarian.
9. I can't fall asleep until I've read something.
10. Don't ask me what my favorite book is.
11. I am a psuedo-morning person. I don't like to wake up early, but I'm not grumpy if I have to.
12. On the other hand, I am definitely not a night owl.
13. I like to bake.
14. My signature recipe is probably banana bread, but I can make a good pie crust.
15. Cooking kind of scares me.
16. I'm not really bad at it; it just worries me more.
17. My family has a second home on the Oregon coast.
18. I prefer stormy weather when I am there.
19. I am a dog person.
20. I always say that I don't like cats, but I've liked most cats I've encountered.
21. I don't like to exercise.
22. The most humiliating experiences of my childhood happened every day in P.E.
23. The only thing I was good at in P.E. was the flexibility test.
24. I ran cross country in high school.
25. I love my neighborhood.
26. Some of my best friends are my neighbors.
27. I went to a private school in Portland from second through twelfth grade.
28. I am in touch with more friends from high school than college. I think.
29. I rode overnight on a bus to go to the March for Women’s Lives in Washington DC in 2004.
30. I haven’t really done anything to support pro-choice causes since.
31. Not on purpose. And I feel guilty.
32. I feel guilty about a lot of things.
33. I apologize a lot.
34. If you tease me about something I’ve done wrong it will just make me feel guiltier.
35. I often have dreams that take place at my high school and that somehow feature my English teacher.
36. I almost never have dreams that take place at my college.
37. When I was little I claimed that I only had bad dreams. I’m not sure if it’s true, but I remember feeling like it was.
38. When I am anxious about something, I often dream about something bad happening in an airplane or airport.
39. I don’t really like to fly, but I still do it.
40. I try not to make a big deal out of it.
41. I am not afraid of bugs.
42. I am not really afraid of snakes either; they’re just startling.
43. I like to think that I can remain calm in a crisis.
44. My grandparents have all passed away.
45. I have five cousins, two of whom are named Sara(h).
46. My family has one male yellow lab.
47. We have had two other male yellow labs, a female black lab, two guinea pigs, and an assortment of fish.
48. I am pretty sure we were neglectful guinea pig owners.
49. But they lived a really long time for guinea pigs.
50. The ashes of our first dog currently sit in an urn on my parent’s mantel. Our second dog is in my parent's bedroom. The third is in the den.
51. I love my family.
52. My current favorite television show is The Office.
53. I was on an anti-tv kick for a while because I didn’t like feeling obsessed with watching every week.
54. I think it’s pretty good that I’m only obsessed with one.
55. My parents got cable after I left for college.
56. If I’m watching The Office, I’m probably watching some sort of home show or a trashy teen series.
57. I would love to own a house one day.
58. I want a yard for a dog and a place to have a garden.
59. I always kind of assume that I’ll just buy it on my own.
60. I think it’s sad that I envision my future as living by myself with a dog.
61. But at least it’s not living by myself with a cat.
62. That’s too librarian stereotypical and besides, I already told you I don’t like cats.
63. I would like to have a family, but at the rate I’m going I think the dog plan is more realistic.
64. I’m counting on you, Lynne!
65. I usually feel like I don’t deserve things.
66. I don’t think that this makes me very different from a lot of people.
67. I used to be really shy. Then my parents forced me to be more outgoing.
68. I’m glad they did because it makes life easier.
69. But I’m still really shy at heart.
70. It’s been hard to make friends here in Los Angeles. But I did it eventually!
71. I feel felt like I had reverted to my younger self.
72. This makes made me sad, so I’m moving moved on to another topic.
73. Weather! I don’t like cold weather.
74. This is one of the main reasons that I wanted to come to UCLA.
75. I didn’t know that I didn’t like cold weather until I spent four winters in Boston.
76. It’s just so…cold. And the snow gets all grey and disgusting. And it’s cold.
77. I like to knit.
78. I really want to knit a sweater, but I can never get past the sleeves.
79. But it’s still one of my goals.
80. Another goal is to become a children’s and/or young adult librarian at a public library.
81. And make a positive difference in at least one life.
82. I know that I am idealistic and I always feel kind of silly about it.
83. I’m kind of secretly addicted to the internet. I can sit on it for way too long.
84. But I’m perfectly happy being disconnected from it when I’m on vacation.
85. I really hate it when “c” words are spelled with a “k.”
86. I once prevented Lauren from going into a store because it was called the “Kandy Korner.”
87. I don’t know if she’s forgiven me for that one yet!
88. On that same trip I also insisted on going into a coffee shop that turned out to be owned by a cult.
89. I think I should let her pick our destinations from now on.
90. I always used to feel more comfortable talking to adults than people my own age.
91. Sometimes I still do, even though I guess I’m an adult now.
92. I really don’t making phone calls to people I don’t know personally.
93. For some reason I always think they’re going to be mean to me.
94. I’m pleasantly surprised when they aren’t. Which is most of the time.
95. My favorite candy is Red Vines.
96. I could eat a whole box of them in one sitting. Before the movie even starts.
97. But I almost never buy them.
98. I have a problem getting rid of holey clothes. Particularly socks.
99. I have the manuals for every appliance I own. I even have one for my garage door opener.
100. I can’t believe I could think of 100 things.

Alleluia!

The fridge appears to have made a dramatic comeback! I will keep you all updated on the state of my refrigerator, as I know you are on the edge of your seats at this point.

why oh why?

On top of the fact that I have two rather unpleasant activities to undertake tomorrow, I'm pretty sure my refrigerator just died. I heard a very loud noise coming from my kitchen and upon further investigation, I think it was the fridge's fault. My fridge is now making rather pathetic sighing noises and when I opened it up to see if it would turn on, it just made more sighing noises, plus some creaky noises. I think the plan is going to be to not open it again and then call my manager in the morning. He just came by yesterday to fix the pilot light on my heater which blew out, thus causing the scent of natural gas to fill my apartment when I woke up yesterday. Fun!

why am i having a panic attack about this?

I have a midterm and a presentation tomorrow in one of my classes (the one that I posted a rant about earlier). For some reason this has sent me into a state of absolute terror. I even had one of those bad dreams where I took the test and there was a question on it about a topic I had forgotten to study. I never have those dreams! Usually I am a very calm person about such matters.

I think it has to do with a couple of factors. First of all, the fact that I also signed up to give a presentation tomorrow is scary. I basically got over worrying about presentations at Wellesley, but that is because I always felt like I had a friendly audience. My professor is nice, but he likes to ask probing questions that potentially reveal your utter stupidity and lack of deep thought.

Second of all, I had to buy my own blue books (I was so dismayed). Please note that Wellesley College never made us do such a thing and thoughtfully provided us with as many blue books as we needed during the course of a test. So I'm kind of worried because I've never taken a test at UCLA--I don't really know what to expect.

Third of all, I don't know if this is a universal grad school thing or just my department, but I have to maintain a 3.0 GPA or they can kick me out. If I think about it logically, this is not a big deal. I'm not really expecting to do that badly in any of my classes. They also have an incentive to keep me in school, I guess, so basically that requirement just means that our grades are kind of inflated (well, that's what some other people have said). And it's not like I'm taking super advanced math classes here or something--it's just library school! But illogically, this requirement really scares me. It makes me feel like I am in a precarious position and any moment I might be sent away, never to become a librarian.

I think it's that last one that is making me so worried. At Wellesley I knew that I could do badly on a few and oh well. But I don't have that comfortable little feeling to fall back on here, so I'm having nightmares about Freud (yep, I distinctly remember that the question I couldn't answer in my dream had to do with Freud). The only good thing I have to say is at least it will all be over tomorrow at 5pm!

thank you internet!

I found this info on stirring natural peanut butter from notmartha. Let me tell you, it is so enlightening. No really. I'm so excited about my new-found peanut butter knowledge. It had never occurred to me before to just put my cold jar of peanut butter in the microwave to make it more spreadable. I just wanted to share this with you in case you were encountering the same problems. And in case you were wondering what the point of natural peanut butter was, most of the non-natural kinds have egregious levels of trans fat in them and we can't have that!

ewwwwwwww

I just had a cockroach crawl across my floor. Yes, a cockroach. I dispatched it and hopefully that will send a message to its little friends that this is not a friendly home for them. I am going to be implementing a new cleaning regimen that involves a lot more cleaning. Not that it's that dirty around here--my theory is that it migrated here from one of those dirty undergraduate apartments. Dirty undergraduates! Ewwwwwwww.

a difficult matter

I have come upon a difficulty here in library school. This touches something deep in my heart and I find myself very resistant to the change that it requires. This something, friends, is the fact that I am now required to use the APA citation method, after using Chicago for so many years that it is inscribed upon my soul. Last name, First name. Title. (Publication city: Publisher, Year Published), Page Number. Well, for a footnote at least. Now it's all about putting the year in parentheses right after the author's name, the name that I don't even get to fully spell out. I have to use initials! I am very resentful.

a little rant

Sometimes I read things like this and I just have to rant. And since no one is around to rant to, my dear readers will bear the brunt of the rant. In case you aren't an NYT "member," the gist is that a reduced calorie diet (eating 30% less than the usual amount of daily calories) will prolong our lives considerably and reduce the occurrence of some old-age diseases.

My rant is this: what exactly is the point of living 140 years (as one scientist projects) if I have to eat 30% fewer calories than I currently am? I honestly don't think that I really consume that many calories as it is. Probably if I actually added it all up I would be getting less than 2000 a day. Fewer? Please. And it's not like this is the fountain of youth where no one will ever die. We'll still die. And we'll have eaten way more lettuce and way less cheese . And what is the point of that? I wish we could focus more on making the end of our lives more pleasant rather than trying to prolong the inevitable. How about more people become geriatric specialists (most medical students don't want to be geriatric specialists because it doesn't pay very well and isn't glamorous) and fewer people feed monkeys very small amounts of food for 27 years? I honestly think that would make a bigger difference in people's lives.

not everyone named lynne is my friend

I was reading this article about Lynne Cheney's old and not very well-written sounding novel Sisters. I distinctly remember reading about this before, I guess probably in 2004. Apparently the book is selling for astronomical sums and, of course, this led me to wonder if one could find it for free in the library. Well, I did a little search on WorldCat and found out that only 11 libraries in the entire world even own the book. Clearly it is neither popular, nor a masterpiece. Of those 11, 7 were searchable through WorldCat (and thus would share their treasure with the rest of us). Not surprisingly, 4 of these libraries were in Wyoming, home territory of the Cheneys. So if any of you are desperate to read a copy of this fine novel, I suggest a little interlibrary loan request. There is a least one copy available from the Laramie County Library System right now, so get it while the getting's good!

for your enjoyment

le futon
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

I have finally uploaded new pictures of my apartment onto flickr. It still needs some wall decoration, but it's pretty cozy at this point. Yay!

juvenile hall

Nidorf Juvenile Hall, what can I say? My suspicion about different issues between Clark County and Los Angeles County juvenile offenders was right. Almost all of the kids in Clark County Juvenile Detention were white, and it was my impression that they were mostly there due to drug or drug related offenses (I think a lot had to do with meth). Nidorf Juvenile Hall primarily has Latino and African American kids who I think were mostly in there for gang related things. They make them all walk around with their hands behind their backs and one of the volunteers said she had heard it was so they couldn't flash gang signs to each other. On my volunteer forms it also recommends that you do not wear red or blue to any of the juvenile detention centers or camps (although I don't think my fellow volunteers were following this, but we probably aren't seen as rival gang members anyway).

Nidorf actually has a library, as opposed to the classroom libraries that Clark County had. This is probably due to the fact that Clark County only had three classrooms of kids (that I saw), whereas Nidorf has a huge number. Clark County Juvenile Detention is all in one building in downtown Vancouver, a fairly new and well maintained building. Nidorf is like a run down college campus. In the middle of the complex, surrounded by a huge cyclone fence, is the housing for the "unfits." These are the kids who are going to be tried as adults. The rest of the kids are either in regular units or in the "Special Handling Unit." The "SHU" is for kids who are either getting harrassed in the regular units or who have special needs for some reason or another.

In Clark County, I just sort of sauntered in with the librarian. At Nidorf you have to have your bag x-rayed, go through a metal detector, surrender your id, and wear a visitor's badge. We also didn't have much contact with the kids, at least today. We sorted through a bunch of donated books (sidenote: apparently people think that crappy self-published books or incredibly old and damaged books are perfectly good fare for kids in juvenile detention--they are not), and took them to the various units. I think in Clark County the kids could take books into their rooms--they would borrow them from the classroom library and then (maybe) bring them back. At Nidorf they are not allowed to hold onto books from the library. I'm not quite sure how it works out with the books that we brought to the actual living units. Something tells me that they don't do the summer reading program and hand out Barnes and Noble gift cards in Nidorf either.

Most of the differences have to do with size, I think. There just aren't that many kids in Clark County Juvenile Detention. I think they also have to do with the fact that Nidorf deals with a lot of serious gang violence within the detention center. I got the impression that kids got into trouble on a more individual basis in Clark County Juvenile Detention.

Overall it seemed pretty familiar. Some of the same books that were popular in Clark County are popular here (the Dave Pelzer "A Child Called It" series). It has the same highly sad and depressing feeling. You have the same mix of people who really want to help the kids out versus the people who just make it a bureaucratic nightmare. Oh yes! that is the other thing I wanted to mention. The place is so bureaucratic and decentralized, people who worked right next to each other had no idea what the other did or who they even were. People in the school had never even been to certain areas of Nidorf and didn't know where they were.

So yes, sad and depressing, but you also have the little bit of hope when you see how excited they are to read. That is another similarity between the two facilities--when you have nothing else to do, reading becomes cool and exciting. I think that is the saddest part to me; you see that the kids are excited to read, ask for new books, discuss books with you, and yet here they are, in juvenile detention. I think that we, as library volunteers, have to keep trying to make a difference and hope that we affect their lives in a positive way.

i hate this class

Yes, hate is a very strong word, so perhaps I should say that I strongly dislike one of my classes. Sometimes it's sort of all right, but usually...well, let me give you a taste of the title of one of my readings for tomorrow: "Messy Assemblages, Emergent Protocols, and Emergent Knowledges: Complex Adaptive Systems and the Possibilities of Sustaining Multiple Ontologies and the Cultural Commons in New Ways of Assembling and Creating Knowledge.
(Alternative Titles: Emergent Mapping: Assemblage and Movement, Multiplicity and Connection: Complex Adaptive Systems as Models for Emergent Databasing.
Strategies of Connection, Emergent Knowledges and Complex Adaptive Systems: Processes, Performances, Protocols and Narratives, in Working with Multiple Ontologies and Incommensurability.)" Just to be a good librarian and student, I will inform you that this is a conference paper from the 4S Conference, Pasadena, October, 2005 and was written by David Turnbull.

This paper, and my other readings for my class tomorrow, are so full of academic jargon (ontology being the most benign) and references to Derrida and Foucault and, yes, even Freud, that I kind of want to throw up. The whole point of all of these articles is that we shouldn't use an overarching standardized system of classification for knowledge, particularly knowledge from indigenous people. They don't actually offer any solution but are interested in Wikipedia, tags, blogs, Flickr, etc. I guess we all just needed to prove that we were smarty pantses who knew who Derrida was, instead of just coming out and saying what we meant. This is why I am becoming a children's librarian.

off to juvey

Yep, the law finally caught up with me. Har har. I'm off to one of Los Angeles's three (3!) juvenile detention facilities tomorrow morning to check out the program UCLA's student YALSA (Young Adult Library Services Association) does there. I have to admit, I'm a little nervous. First of all, there's the whole driving to a new and unfamiliar place nervousness. I'm still not totally sure about the various bad times to drive, although the woman I've been emailing assures me I'm driving at a fairly low traffic time. I do have class to get back to in the afternoon, and I don't want to miss it since I barely understand what we're talking about as it is.

Then there's the going to juvenile detention nervousness. I accompanied the YA coordinator of my libary district to Clark County Juvenile Detention when I was interning there, but it has recently occurred to me that juvenile delinquents in Clark County and juvenile delinquents in Los Angeles County might have different issues. I don't know, maybe that's just a stereotype. I will be interested to see how and if it's different. I did have a brief moment of panic that I was going to the same place that Mark Salzman writes about in one of my all time favorite books, True Notebooks, but apparently he was at Central Juvenile Hall where they put the kids who commit the worst crimes.

I also feel like a bad person for being nervous about it at all and I did volunteer, so it's not like anyone is forcing me to do it. I think it should be really good once I get over the initial worries. I will let you all know how it goes!

beyond google

I think we all know how much I love Googling something to find the answer, but I was supposed to ask a reference librarian a question for one of my classes. Of course in my busy weekend, I completely forgot to do it until tonight. Luckily the Los Angeles Public Library has a 24/7 online reference service. I don't know if you have to be a card holder to use the service, but they never had me type in my number so I don't think so. The librarian was quite helpful in answering my rather silly question (I asked about the phenomenon of the "harvest moon"). Yes, it really was an actual person answering my question. I highly recommend the service if you want a reliable answer to a question! Okay, maybe I could have found the harvest moon thing on Google, but that's what librarians are for too!

internet!!

I finally have le internet chez moi (it's really amazing how much French I remember, isn't it?). I'm recovering from a wild weekend back at Wellesley, as you all know. It was weird to be back, but I ended up having a really good time with my fellow officers. I have been waiting since Saturday to be able to inform you of an incident which we are looking upon as a bonding experience. Amita received an email asking us if we could do a reading during the Multifaith Service on Saturday. We all agreed, only to find out it was a reading that had been chosen by none other than Michelle Lepore. For those of you who don't know our Assistant Dean of Students, let me just say: big denim shirts, poufy hair, clothes that very likely came from Chico's. She had done this responsive reading at Flower Sunday and no doubt had absolutely no problem getting through it. We, on the other hand? Well, just imagine trying to read lines like "The Stars got poured into the sky/ Out of a magician's hat last night" or "Our spirits leap like dancing suns and moons" or "playful gangs of young angels mounted on emerald spears" or, our personal favorite, "Forest animals hear me laughing/And surrender their deepest instincts and fears/they come charging into meadons/To lick my hands and face." Let me repeat: To lick my hands and face. We had to speak those words in the chapel. We barely made it through it without fully collapsing into laughter.

back at ye olde wellesley

I am too old to be in college. I just graduated in June but it feels like a totally different place. Who are all these people? And why did they not have sandwiches in the campus center last year?

Yes indeed, I am at Wellesley for "Alumnae Leadership Council" where they will train me in the ways of the class treasurer. I'm spending tonight with my sister in Munger (which she prefers to pronounce with a French accent, as in Moon-jay) and then tomorrow and Saturday night I will be Kate's roommate in the Marriott Newton. Woo!

As I left my apartment this morning at 4:45am I thought, it looks so cozy, I don't want to leave. And now I'm back here and it doesn't feel like home at all. It just makes me kind of sad and nostalgic. I probably feel how people must feel when they drive past their old houses; someone else lives here now and it's not mine. But it is fun to see my little sissy and look! she has the internet right in her room!

ta da!

Here I am in Westwood! I am currently waiting for my dresser to be delivered so that I can stop employing the "clothes in suitcases on the floor" method of organization. But what I really want to talk about is the West Hollywood Target. I think it's pretty much why one does and does not like Los Angeles. First the bad part: it has underground parking and people will actually pass you in the parking garage if you're not going fast enough (Lauren has witnessed this first hand). It is also rather hard to push a huge shopping cart or two to your car in a parking garage.

On the other hand, given the fact that it is in West Hollywood, there is a great cross section of humanity. Of course we have the gays.* West Hollywood has rainbow flags up on poles next to the American flag in the little green spaces in the middle of the road. The Target is also near Fairfax, thus we also have the Orthodox Jews, the women with covered heads and long skirts and such, the men with their traditional clothing. Then we have your usual mix of other people that are in every Target. So basically it's kind of a pain in the ass, but once you're actually in the Target it's kind of cool.

A few other things that have been going on: I witnessed an a cappella performance yesterday, along with a student protest (yay college!), I went to IKEA for the first time, and I went to class (I guess that's the real reason I'm here). I don't officially have internet in my apartment yet but I seem to sporadically get my neighbor's (thanks neighbors!). Once I'm more up and running I will do some apartment photography and flickr posting.

*Please note my ironic "I went to Wellesley" use of this word.

i hope it's still open in two years

In the spirit of starting my MLIS program, I thought I would give you an idea of one of the job opportunities available to me upon completion of my degree.

quick little update

I'm off to Los Angeles tomorrow. Mom and I are driving down, with an overnight stop in Redding. Monday and Tuesday we will be busy acquiring various furniture items, Wednesday I have an orientation, Thursday is more furniture acquistion, Friday is a lab orientation and then it's off to do wedding stuff. We have family friends whose daughter is getting married in Pasadena on Sunday, so the weekend is devoted to various wedding related activities. It should be fun--her fiance is Cuban and their reception is in a Cuban restaurant in Pasadena. Then my classes will start for real on Monday (Monday-Wednesday) and then I will collapse in a heap of exhaustion on Thursday! The two weekends after are dedicated to Lauren's sister's baby shower and then going back to Wellesley. In between all my activity I will hopefully have time to post some new apartment pictures and such. And maybe give you a behind the scenes look at library school--it will undoubtedly be thrilling!

finally!

view into my kitchen from the dining room
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants.

I finally have apartment pictures up on flickr. Just ignore the fact that the manager was using it to store things, plus the fact that it was in the process of getting painted. This is my kitchen with cute yellow and blue tiles. You can also view pictures from my various expeditions to the land of cheese, trees, and ocean breeze (Tillamook County).

I am all done with my summer work in the corporate world. I actually cried in the car when we were driving out of the parking garage-- I am too sappy. My dad has offered to hire me on as his personal librarian, but something tells me that might not be the best job offer I may receive.

We are now in manic "finish things up before I leave" mode. Today Mom and I did a very important task--making pickles. We made one dozen back in August when Lynne was here and we made another dozen today. I have to have enough for me to bring down to Los Angeles--heaven forbid I eat store bought pickles. I also cooked my mother's mac and cheese recipe today for the first time in preparation for life on my own. When I say recipe, I mean it arises completely out of her memory. This is why I had to practice under her supervision before being allowed to do it on my own. I will now be making it every other day, as it is one of my very favorite things.

i feel old

I still haven't added pictures, but I promise I will soon. It's just so much work to go downstairs and get my camera out of my purse, you see. In apartment news, they told us how much we are actually going to have to pay them for me to move in, so I guess I really have an apartment. I need to call the manager (who is nice, as opposed to all the not very nice people at the management company) and find out about actually signing the rental agreement.

My big event for the day was talking on a panel at the OES junior College Decision "trip." Every class at OES starts the year with a trip and back in the good old days they dragged us up to Camp Wherever so we could talk about how to choose the right college for you. Now they have the trip at the school because so much of it is computer based. Woo hoo, doesn't that sound like fun? So anyway, my old college counselor (side note: I cannot refuse the woman because not only did she go to Wellesley but she is also a new alumnae class treasurer, just like me) cajoled me into coming to talk on the panel about my college decision. I could barely remember the reasons that I had originally even put Wellesley on my list, and my parents had to refresh my memory.

The whole thing went just fine. In fact, I told my parents that I kind of feel like our attention-hog doggy Otis when I go back to OES because all of the teachers get so excited to see alumni. Of course the kids are all too cool to express any interest in an "all girls school" so they either crowded around the kid who goes to Princeton (if they were sort of the dorkier sort) or the girl who goes to Santa Clara (if they were more the blonde variety). I also felt really old because I made a reference to Felicity and I'm pretty sure none of them have ever watched Felicity in their lives.

quick update

Just a little update before we run off to the beach. After a stressful whirlwind tour of Westwood, I did indeed find a 1 bedroom apartment. The roommate thing didn't work out because of logistical issues. The apartment is very cute (well, it will be once it gets all fixed up before my arrival), has gated parking (a hot commodity), a courtyard, laundry in the building, wood (sort of) floors in the dining area and living room, and a cute pink tiled bathroom that reminds me of home. The leasing agent gave us a bad time because we are out of state, but Dad negotiated with them and now we're just waiting for the rental agreement to arrive! Yippee! I'll post pictures of it and such when I get back. Have a good Labor Day weekend!