i am a master!

True to form, I am doing my monthly post here. My big news is that I graduated yesterday--woo! My parents came down and stayed with our friends in Orange County, so I went down and sat around on the beach on Friday. Life is hard. I did get a sunburn, actually, so I was punished for my lay-about-ness. On Saturday we went down to beautiful Crystal Cove State Park, where we walked on the beach and had breakfast. Then it was back up to UCLA to graduate! The ceremony was relatively short and sweet, considering it was for everyone in education and information studies. It was a little hot, but have I ever been at a graduation that wasn't? I have some pictures on Flickr, although I never take as many as I should.

I still feel like a student and cannot believe that my long academic career seems to have come to an end. Maybe not, though, because my dad keeps saying "for now." Will another degree be in my future? We shall see. But for now, I would just like to get a job!

stuff 'n' things

That is the name of a store in a little Oregon beach town near us. Very descriptive huh?

Tomorrow is my birthday, which has me thinking about how I am so old. I mean, I joined Facebook in 2004 for goodness sake! That is old.

Also, I am going to be graduating from my program pretty soon, which means I have to get a real grown-up job. This is fine with me, except that no one seems to want to hire librarians at the moment. Something about the housing market? Bad economy? You may have heard about this on NPR. Anyway, I don't really know what I will be doing with myself, so hopefully someone will eventually see fit to give me a job.

I didn't tell you all this, because I was traumatized, but I got into a car accident about a month ago. I rear ended someone who was stopped at a green light; according to my insurance company it was at least 51% my fault. I pretty much lost all confidence in myself as a person for a while, but I have somewhat recovered. I just got my car back yesterday and it actually looks better than before I got in the accident. There was a big scratch on the front bumper, but since they had to replace the bumper it is all gone! And they also replaced the hood, and the radiator...sob. Also, they washed my car and vacuumed out the inside. What service, huh? The best part of the whole thing is that I am now much more comfortable with the LA public transportation system.

Finally, I do not know if you have seen this new Dairy Queen commercial where the little girl gets sent a free sundae by a little boy. You know, since she's the hottest ten-year-old in the room. "Like fish in a barrel," she says. This commercial is so disturbing to me. Do I even need to say why?

best intel science talent search project ever

Blah blah, effect of pyrethroids, blah blah, combinatorial geometry, blah, scanning electron microscopy, blah, public library funding, blah blah...wait! Public library funding? You mean during all those years of science project torture I could have been studying public libraries?

Check out the seventh place winner in the Intel Science Talent Search.

bloggable moment!

Just after I wrote that post I headed out to good old Whole Foods for a little shopping expedition. I got to drive right past the stupidest bike lane in America, woo! Anyway, just as I drove into the very small parking lot, a tow truck was backing up towards one of the cars in the lot. They are extremely strict about this parking lot only being for Whole Foods customers and I've definitely seen someone being towed out of there before. But perhaps 3:45 in the afternoon was not the right time to block the entire parking lot so that no cars could come or go? Yes, I think not.

Annoyed as I was with having to sit around so that some parking violator's car could be towed, I just put the car in park and turned up the radio. Not so one of the people who was trying to leave her parking spot. She proceeded to get out of the car, scream (and I mean scream) at the tow truck driver and the parking lot security guy, and then go in, find the manager, and scream at him. Okay, it was a little ridiculous that they were blocking the entire parking lot just to tow one person out, but really. Everyone else just put their patient pants on (well, sort of, there were a few honkers) until they figured out a way for us to move, but this lady had to throw a conniption fit. You might think this was some bleached blonde in a Mercedes, but no, it was an older woman in a Taurus.

So the moral of the story is that I should have walked.

oh dear

Oops, looks like it's been awhile since I last posted on here. I know I still have at least one reader though, right Katie? Anyway, since my last update I've finished up the quarter and gone home for Spring Break (where it managed to snow, thanks Mother Nature).

Now I'm in my last quarter ever (or so I think). I'm just taking two classes (Descriptive Cataloging and Young Adult Services) and getting my portfolio finished up so that I can actually graduate!

I've also been Facebooking more than ever. Now that everyone and their brother is on Facebook (including my professors), I find myself using it a lot more. I was about the last person to join in the Scrabulous craze, but I've been entertaining myself with the quite a bit recently.

Wow, what an exciting life! I did stay up the latest I have in years a few weekends ago when I went out with some library school peeps, so I'm not that boring. We hung out with the hipsters in Silver Lake and Echo Park and then went out to eat afterwards, so I did not arrive home until 4am. That was very late for this old lady. So, see? I'm not THAT boring.

Lastly, I would like to leave you with the stupidest bike lane in America. Shockingly enough, it is in my very own neighborhood. Why am I not surprised?

okay, okay

It has been brought to my attention that I've been a negligent updater. I can only plead busy-ness. Tonight I had to run out to the store and when I got back I realized that, although I thought I had locked my back door on the way out, I had actually unlocked it. Burglars, welcome! One good thing about the run to the store is that I saw the eclipse. Sort of. Part of the moon was starting to show again and I think the light pollution cut down on the cool orange/red glow. But oh well, I saw it!

Had some fun weekends--visit from an old Wellesley friend, trip to the new Broad Contemporary Art Museum at LACMA with another Wellesley friend, dinner and movie avec Gibbeadles, various other things.

Internship has been lots of fun--I'm getting a lot of interaction with kids, which I what I was hoping for. I'm also enjoying Storytelling. I don't think I'm a natural storyteller, unlike some people in my class, but it's still fun.

This weekend Mom and Dad are visiting me. We're going to a UCLA basketball game on Saturday--they're playing Oregon, but I think we'll still be cheering on the Bruins. It's my Dad's 60th birthday on Monday, so this is a little birthday celebration trip.

And that's about it for me!

back to the grind

After a very relaxing three and a half week break, I'm back in Los Angeles. I had a nice family Christmas where I received, among other things, books and sweaters. I love nothing more than to receive books and sweaters for Christmas, so I was happy. I also received a teapot, tea cozy, and tea, making myself an official old lady. It snowed a little bit on Christmas (our typical Northwest wet and non-sticking snow), which was very exciting.

After Christmas was my much anticipated five year high school reunion. I had been sweating the details of this thing for much too long, considering we ended up just getting together for drinks at a pub. About a dozen people showed up and it was really fun to see people I had not seen for five years. Despite the fact that Facebook keeps me up on the basic details of many lives, there was still much to find out. Evidently we've all grown older in five years.

New Year's was the usual family affair at the beach. We had great stormy weather, a couple of bald eagle sightings, and much fun with friends.

Now that I'm back, I'm taking two classes--subject cataloging (classification of documents by subject, however that happens!) and storytelling. I'm also taking a small group independent study to fulfill my research methods requirement, taught by my children's librarianship professor. Plus I will be doing another internship in the Youth Services department of a different public library, still doing my job and volunteering at juvey, and helping with a couple of committees! I actually had to break down and buy a desk calendar to help me keep track of everything. I don't have a totally regular schedule, so I could just feel the commitments slipping through my fingers.

Also, I got an iTunes gift card for Christmas so I'm now listening to my guilty pleasure music--Bruce Springsteen. Yay Bruce. Happy New Year all!

pondering life

Today as I was driving to visit Lauren, I happened upon a rather disturbing scene. Just after crossing Santa Monica Blvd., I stopped abruptly behind a line of cars that were stopped for a man who was walking right across the middle of the street. As he walked by, I noticed that his entire right side was covered in blood. From the top of his arm, down to the bottom of his leg. It looked like some people were watching him across the street and just as I was contemplating calling 911, the firetruck and ambulance pulled up. The good Samaritans across the street directed them to the man, who was wandering up an alley behind Cost Plus.

Not only was it troubling to see someone covered in blood, it was also disturbing that he was just wandering around. He was obviously somewhat of a lost soul. I've been thinking a lot about homeless people, especially since 1) Los Angeles has more homeless people than anywhere else in the US (and not because the weather's nice, it's because they are particularly poorly taken care of here) and 2)because homeless people often end up in public libraries, one of the few indoor places open to them during the day.

A couple of times this week I've seen a man in the library where I'm doing my internship. I'm not an expert, but I'm pretty sure he has schizophrenia because he paces around the library, talking to unseen people. At first this was a little scary to me, especially because he sounded angry (referring to the voices as "you son of a bitch" or "you bitch"). But yesterday I spent quite a bit of time near him and I listened a little longer. I just ended up feeling sad. He kept plaintively declaring that he couldn't take it anymore and asking the unseen people, "why won't you leave with me?"

I don't really know what to say, except that I'm glad that there are some kind souls living in LA and that the public library is a place where people who have nowhere else to go find comfort.

stormy weather

Not here, where it is quite sunny (well, it was during the day), but in the Northwest. Poor little Tillamook County, home of our beach house, has been particularly inundated with the intense rain and wind of the last few days. In fact, the Oregonian reported "Tillamook County was so cut off that the National Weather Service in Portland had trouble reaching emergency officials there to find out how badly the area had been damaged by floodwaters." Not only is the power out in most, if not all, of the county, but the phone lines are also down. In addition, all of the roads that lead into the county are blocked by floods, landslides, and/or fallen trees (actually, I just read that they reopened one of the roads at 6:30pm). I am worried for all our friends who live full-time at the beach, but know that they are prepared for bad coastal weather and its consequences. Hopefully we will be able to contact them soon and find out how they are doing!

On a more humorous note, apparently OES had some flooding issues of their own from Fanno Creek (which makes sense since the next-door golf course runs the creek through concrete on their property, making it even more flood prone than usual). Their picture on the homepage is priceless: good thing all those people have their SUVs to get them through the flood.

just jumping right back in

How many of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2007 have I read? One. The Reluctant Fundamentalist . And that one only highly fortuitously. An advanced reader's copy was just sitting on a bookshelf in the common room of my program, waiting to be claimed. I read it in about a day and put it back on the bookshelf. It tells the story of a Pakistani man who comes to the US for his education, begins work at a Wall Street firm that values companies (so they can be bought by other companies), starts to doubt his work and life in general after Sept. 11, and realizes that the country he thought he escaped from has more value than he knew. His whole story is recounted by him to a mysterious Western man he meets at a cafe in Pakistan. As the story moves on, you begin to get an understanding of who this other man is too. Anyway, it is quite short and I would definitely recommend it.

How many of the New York Times Notable Children's Books of 2007 have I read? One again, but the list only has six, so I'm doing better. That would be the Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which won the National Book Award. I also highly recommend that book, which is a fictionalized account of Sherman Alexie's own growing up on the Spokane Reservation. The main character has loving but poor, unreliable, and alcoholic parents and a sister who lives in the basement and never leaves. He decides that he wants to lead a different life and that the way to do that is to attend school off the reservation, in a white farming town 30 miles away. He never quite fits in either place, but does come to some resolution with his own community at the end.

I guess I just don't get around to reading books in the year they are published. Just this year I finally read the Poisonwood Bible, several other Barbara Kingsolver novels, and the first three Harry Potters. Silly me.

the celebs and me

You know how it is when you're in library school. You're always getting invited to celeb parties. Last night, thanks to the generosity of Beadle, I got to go to the launch party for Ubisoft's new game, Assassin's Creed. When we were standing around waiting to get in to the club (Opera, in case you're up on the hot LA clubs, I know I am), we saw Bai Ling, famous to me from GoFugYourself. She was pretty easy to spot because she was wearing a typically insane outfit. Other celebs we saw and/or brushed up against include Kristen Bell (she "hosted" the party and is actually involved with the game--we watched her playing it at the party), Chuck from "Chuck", Daniel from Ugly Betty, Lloyd from Entourage (I got excited about that one), Hiro from Heroes, Lex Luthor from Smallville, and Patrick Fugit from Almost Famous (and Wristcutters).

Patrick Fugit is actually a big gamer. He spent a good portion of the evening playing Assassin's Creed and looked like he'd rather be doing that than hanging out with the pretty people. Beadle introduced him to us and we shook hands. He was officially my favorite famous person at the party. Evidently Lauren and Audrina from The Hills were there, but we missed them. B. Spears was rumored to be circling the party, and all her dancers were supposedly inside, but I don't know if she showed. As my friend pointed out, she should be home with her children anyway.

It was pretty crazy to see all those people, including the tall tan blonde skinny women whose job in life is to just go to these things. It's obviously not the life for me, as you could guess. It all just seems like such a big pointless waste of time and money. Considering I haven't even bought a People magazine in years, not to mention US Weekly and its ilk, that world is not really that important to me. But it was fun to observe all those people to whom it is!

Edit: My friend pointed out that my head is in this picture. I'm right above the top of the G and Lauren is under the G and E. I'm obviously on my way to becoming a celebrity librarian.

Another edit: We may not have seen Lauren or Audrina, but we did see this guy with Audrina. He was sporting a little ponytail, which we made sure to mock.

alert, alert, christmas is only seven weeks away!

Today I saw that ABC Family, or one of those strange cable channels that I watch, was starting a "countdown to the 25 days of Christmas" movie marathon in a few weeks. So basically, a countdown to a countdown. I know everyone complains about this, but I really do not like being harassed about Christmas five seconds after Halloween.

Even Beverly Hills is harassing me to come to their Christmas events (which start in two weeks). They sent out all these little cards, I guess to people who live in and near the city. Apparently my zipcode is fancy enough to be included. It kind of reminds me of the time when we were all invited to take dance lessons in middle school and by "all" I mean people who went to my independent school, our rival independent school, and the one middle school on the west side of Portland. Needless to say, my sister and I boycotted ballroom dancing.

In other news, I almost died driving home from juvey yesterday. I made a right turn onto a street and the car I turned in front of was going about 75 miles an hour on a surface street. It was dark, so I couldn't really tell how fast he was going before I turned. I'm just assuming it was a him because of the reaction I got, which was some intense honking and tailgating. And I'm not talking "beep beep" more of a sustained I'm going to kill you honk. I'm a wuss, so I just turned on my blinker and pulled over to let him go by, wherein he proceeded to slow down and honk some more at me, before pulling away. I think my no eye contact rule basically saved me from getting shot by this SUV driving jerkface. Of course it was an SUV.

But I love Los Angeles! I mean, I could get burned up in a wildfire, crushed to death in an earthquake or killed on a surface street in the Valley. But! there is a fruit stand in Sylmar (home of juvey) in front of a gas station where we partook of pineapple with chili powder, lime and salt. So at least you can be well-fed.

Another great thing about Sylmar is that people just randomly ride horses around on the city streets. One of my fellow volunteers told me this, and I didn't quite believe her until last night. Yep, there came a man with a cowboy hat on, riding his horse down the street in the dark. Sylmar also backs up against the San Gabriel mountains and is very picturesque. So the moral of story is, if you can stand daily near death experiences, there are some nice things in LA.

down here in the raging inferno

Maybe you haven't heard because you live in a cave, but there are some major conflagrations going on down here in my neck of the woods. Also, it is about a million degrees. I'm not myself affected by the fires except for the haze in the air, off to the south, but I am affected by the high temperature. Today I practiced avoidance by driving (ha, that will help the climate become not so off-kilter and dry, right?) to the mall (yes) and admiring the wool coats and sweaters at Nordstrom. I actually went there to get some pants hemmed, but then got caught up in a Fall reverie.

Even though Fall actually lasted for about two weeks during my four year residence on the East Coast (sandwiched in between the September humidity and the late October snow), it was really really great. Those leaves that you see in pictures? It really looks like that. The pumpkins are really in a patch, you can wear your cozy wool sweater, the sun shines.

Of course, then it starts to snow for four or five months. Oh, selective memory.

remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return

Yesterday, after visiting the Farmer's Market, my new favorite place, I went to my local branch library to return a DVD. Outside my library I saw one of my classmates, an intern there, waiting for teens to show up for a Halloween program, a cemetery tour at this cemetery, which is right behind the library. I've always seen it back there (it's visible from inside the library but not the street) and knew it was relatively famous, but had never visited it. But, as no one was showing up for the tour, I volunteered to go along. Well, wasn't it interesting!

Not only did I see the final resting place of Marilyn Monroe (the most famous resident), Truman Capote, Jack Lemmon, Rodney Dangerfield, Natalie Wood, and others, but, and most interesting to me, learned quite a few things about the cemetery world. This is a very small and, for Los Angeles, old cemetery and it's right in the middle of the city, surrounded by office buildings. It was started in 1905 for Civil War veterans and now contains a wide variety of burial and cremation situations among some nice old trees and lawn. Given that it is now a site for celeb burials, the few "in ground" plots left run in the $100,000 range. If you want to go with the more cost effective option, they have a way for your ashes to be "co-mingled" with other people's in a "vault" and your name placed on a rock (a "pillow rock").

I learned that some people prefer to be interred above ground and some below. I learned that you should choose your tombstone granite carefully, because some types make it hard to read your name and other information. I learned that, if you choose to share your tombstone with another person, it is easy to engrave the second decedent's information on granite, but if it's in bronze, they must add a plate, because they can't recast it. Huh. Also, they only allow two potted plants per tombstone and no glass vases.

I have never really been one to be scared of cemeteries. I mean, we all die. No, really. I hadn't gone back there before because it seemed a little disrespectful to just wander around. But it was good to go on the tour with the woman who manages it (who was a very nice woman, wearing a black skirt suit with black tights and black Crocs--must be the tour shoes). I felt like I was seeing the real side of the cemetery, not the kitschy celebrity side.

It was also interesting to get a little window into the cemetery industry and see how people choose to be remembered. Even in death, money and fame are the most important things to some who wish to be buried there. Hugh Hefner has bragged that he has the space next to Marilyn Monroe in one of the mausoleums. Please, just burn me up and scatter me in a nice place, thank you very much.

boo columbus

I'm not sure who celebrates Columbus Day (my postman?), but I don't recall ever getting the day off or even doing anything "Columbus-y." Despite this, it is a federal holiday, providing a good opportunity to talk about why Columbus wasn't really that great. Here are a few findings in honor of Columbus day.

Remember all those scary Indians in Little House on the Prairie? You can find better stuff at American Indians in Children's Literature.

From her blog, I also found Oyate, a non-profit that does various things to promote respectful portrayals of Native Americans in literature and curriculum.

The American Indian Library Association (an ALA affiliate) has the American Indian Youth Services Literature Award. Speaking of ALA, the current president is a Native American woman. Go ALA.

Non-literature related: some of the Nez Perce originally lived in Oregon's Wallowa area (hence the name of the town, Joseph, after Chief Joseph) and they are engaged in an effort to return to their land and build an interpretive center. Info here.

And last but not least, information on the effort to replace Columbus Day with Indigenous Peoples Day.

tata jesus is bangala!

For those not in the know, that is a line from Poisonwood Bible. The father/missionary character shouts it repeatedly to his skeptical congregation in the (former) Belgian Congo, and it either means that Jesus is precious (which is what he thinks it means), or Jesus is the poisonwood tree (not a good thing to be). I have been thinking of this line approximately once every minute in the current incarnation of my job. I am going through some donated materials, most of which come from Nigeria, and most of which were published by mid-20th century missionaries. You want the whole Bible in an indigenous African language? Got it! Just want the Gospel of Mark? Got that too. Or maybe you want a concordance of the New Testament. You're in luck! It's pretty amazing to me that these people went to the trouble of learning all of these languages just so they could publish a Bible. And I don't mean amazing in a good way.

Moving on from that, not only am I depressed about proselytizing in Africa, I am also depressed about the state of the environment. I am reading yet another Barbara Kingsolver book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and it is making me feel like I would never want to bring children into our terrible world. I don't think it is supposed to make me feel this depressed. I think it's supposed to make me want to do more gardening and more shopping at the farmer's market. And I really do like it and agree with it, but I just feel despair. This is why I can't bring myself to watch An Inconvenient Truth. I know I would just want to throw myself in front of a car (in an ironic twist).

And for even more depressing news, undergrads are back at UCLA. I was very much enjoying the peace and quiet of the summer. Now I have someone moving into an apartment across the street with a moving truck. Seriously, is your mom's Explorer in the shop?

it's raining, it's pouring...

If you don't know the rest of the words to that song, you must not have grown up in the NW. The promised "storm" has arrived this evening and it is raining beautiful rain outside. I opened the window just so I could listen to the sound. Which reminds me that I wanted to promote a business that we found when we were in Joseph. It is a very cute little bath and body products store...and, get this, the founder/owner/man who was behind the counter making soap is actually from Joseph (pop. 1095). If you have ever visited any rural small town, you can imagine our astonishment that the (male) owner of a cutesy bath and body shop would actually be a native. Anyway, it's called beecrowbee and I am currently enjoying their lavender/geranium soap and their spearmint/fern (whatever "fern" smells like) candle (which does not smell minty, because I would hate that).

back in the saddle again

mountains reflecting in the lake
Originally uploaded by kitty.pants

I am pretty sure I only update when either Katie or my sister bug me about it, so good thing I have them. Last time I graced you all with my presence, it was five million degrees outside. Now, we are apparently facing a storm of unprecedented force (for September in LA). That means...rain! I just read the weather alert and it said it will be "more like January than September," which I think means it will be 55 degrees and drizzling.

I had a lovely little time while I was at home en vacances. Spent some time at the beach, witnessed Dad catching a chinook salmon while I read Gourmet. I had to cringe and look away at the whole part where the fish gets sent to a better place. Not to be too graphic, but there was definitely some fish blood in the boat. My main thought was that this never happened at the goofy trout farm my parents used to take us to when we were little. I'm pretty sure the fish just expired the minute you reeled them up out of the water.

Mom and I also took a trip out to Joseph, OR, which is in the northeast part of the state. Practically Idaho! There are some beautiful mountains, a lake, and lots of varying scenery. We overheard one woman say "this is just like Lake Tahoe," which is true in that there were trees and a lake and not true in that there is not one casino. Sadly, we just had to settle for taking walks, reading, driving to scenic locations, putting our feet in the river, watching trout swim upriver to spawn, learning about the Nez Perce's effort to return to their land, and checking out the very small public library.

For the final portion of my vacation, Dad took us to his new favorite Portland taco truck, Mom and I went to a plant show, and we all went out to a yummy dinner.

Back in the real world, the world of impending stormy doom, I'm on a kick of making dinner. My mother has successfully nagged me enough to get me to do this. I mean, I always ate dinner but it was not necessarily anything I slaved over for very long. So far this week I've made rosemary chicken drumsticks and a broccoli mushroom casserole with wild rice on the side. Anyone want to come help me eat all this food?

baby, it's hot outside

That's a cute little Christmas song joke there. Since I last posted, I have read at least five books, I think. I also had my last day of summer school and had an interview for an internship that I will be doing next quarter at a nearby public library. It's a small city system, so I'll get to involve myself with lots of the workings of the library.

Lauren, Beadle, and I went to a "white party" on Saturday night. I discovered I basically didn't own anything white. It was amusing to be with lots of LA film industry people--the people who did Wordplay were there!

Given the fact that it has been incredibly hot around here, I had the good luck to be invited to hang out at the beach this weekend. I lay around on the sand in Newport Beach all day Sunday and today. Life is hard. Actually it is, because when I got back to my apartment today, my thermostat said it was 90+ degrees in here. Now we are at 86, so that is more bearable. Apparently it's supposed to cool off later this week, but I will be home where it will probably be raining or something!

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!