Archive for the ‘Intellectual tidbits’ Category

Everyone loves Star Wars

Monday, January 7th, 2008

Its practically unAmerican not to like Star Wars. Then I came across this blog post. There is this neat thing on wordpress.com, where I have all my work blogs, that shows a smattering of interesting wordpress blogs whenever you log on. Which is how I came to read the article. I think its an interesting take on Star Wars, and so true.

In the original series the Rebels destroy the Death Star and are awarded medals for bravery. But what about all the regular people doing their jobs. Taking care of the park, cleaning toilets, doing laundry, or serving food in the cafeteria. Its no different than when Darth Vader blew up Alderaan… well except that Alderaan couldn’t blow up planets. Also, when Luke blew up the Death Star, shouldn’t he have felt all those people dieing? Isn’t that what happened when Alderaan blew up?

I think it makes a great comparison to what’s going on in society right now. There are tons of regular people living in Iraq, and yet often times I think people forget that. They also forget that not everyone is an extremest. They are just trying to survive…

Anyway, I loved the article, because it makes us think of Star Wars in a whole new light. Plus it had a link to a great Star Wars Lego’s video. Perfect!

There’s one thing I need to get off my chest. When I was looking up the spelling of Alderaan, I came to this great site called Wookiedpedia. One thing led to another, and I looked at the bio of Padmé and they claim that “a medical team tried to save Padmé; sadly, they discovered that she was dying, having apparently lost the will to live.” Oh, come on now! Sure her husband has turned into the ultimate form of evil, but she just gave birth to twins! — Although, I’m sure that my husband would think that it would cause him to lose the will to live. I’m sorry, but one look at my newborn children would give me a new lease on life. I don’t blame her though, Star Wars was written by a man who didn’t know any better and thinks that us women live and breath for our men. I DON’T THINK SO. Small babies that we have just spent months carrying and hours delivering outweigh any crazy lunatic husband that has gone to the darkside. I am not losing the will to live for no man… and I’m just a regular chick, not a QUEEN who has fought in wars and argued with powerful politicians. I DON’T THINK SO. Well, I guess you know how I feel about that. Couldn’t there have been an assassination at least? I think this is just a slap in the face for women all over the world.

Oh and I watched Snakes on a Plane last night. It may have been the worst movie ever made. I don’t know if it even deserves another sentence, but maybe later. All I need to say for now is RUN AWAY! More to follow.

Hiya everybody!

Thursday, November 9th, 2006

Wow. You turn around and half a month goes by! I can’t believe I haven’t posted since the middle of October!

Since then I have…

  • Found out that my sister WILL be doing a special school project at my library for 120 hours! Which I am very excited about, because I already have tons of stuff I want her to help me do. The three most important things I want her to help with are:
    1. Summer Reading (for teens) – she wants to be a teen librarian, so I figured that I wouldn’t even bother having her try to help plan summer reading for the kids
    2. Help write a grant with me. Yep. I’m going to try it again. I want to talk to Ogden, Brockport and Hamlin and work with the teen librarians at each library and create a homeschooling grant similar to the one that I’m doing with Webster, Chili and Greece. We’d make educational kits, have programs, and create displays. I’ll have to ask the other librarians if they actually want to do it before I start thinking about it too much.
    3. Marketing – Find ways to market to the teens and their parents. Sally and I have had LOTS of talks about how librarians are TERRIBLE about promoting themselves. We aren’t letting people know how important libraries are and how many services we provide. I’m hoping that my sister and I can come up with interesting and creative ways to promote our services.
  • I went to NYLA and went to quite a few programs. There didn’t seem to be too many librarians from Monroe County, but I did meet a lot of other very nice librarians. One of the librarians even asked me if I would be willing to relocate to Albany to be their teen librarian. But I knew that my mother wouldn’t let me do that, because she thought my commute would be too long. Of course I wouldn’t be able to MOVE to Albany because then she wouldn’t be able to see Jack anymore. I’ll talk about NYLA more in a separate post because there’s quite a bit to talk about.
  • I was asked to speak about comic books by the Wayne School district. They want me to speak for an hour on elementary graphic novels- (roughly K-5). They want me to bring examples to share, lists for people to take with them and sharing of basic information about graphic novels (how to read them, what makes a graphic novel a graphic novel, what to look out for, artwork etc.). The audience would primarily be school library media specialists from the region with some administrators mixed in. She also asked me if I charged any fees. I think that it would be pretty cool to get paid for speaking, especially since its an hour away and I would be speaking for an hour. However I have absolutely NO idea how much I would ask them for. I’m pretty sure that I could find a way to talk for a whole hour about comic books.
  • Tonight I had my weekly Yugioh group, which usually goes fine. The teens are usually so good that I haven’t always even been in the room. Tonight they were quite animated. Two of the teens were chasing each other around and hitting each other in the way teens beat each other up when they “like” each other. Then the youngest one in the group, a ten year-old boy, started getting involved and hitting the teen guy. I thought things had calmed down so that I felt the room for a couple of minutes. I heard things get loud again, and in the couple minutes I was gone, the kid hit/kicked the teens in the testicles and the teen lifted him up and pushed him aside. The kid fell on the floor and started crying. I got back in there, he was crying and then before I could talk to him, he ran out of the room and out of the library. I’m a little afraid that when I get to work tomorrow, I have an angry note on my desk from the kid’s mom and she wants me fired. I guess it would be nice to be a stay at home mom. I’d just have to get rid of my car and I wouldn’t be able to buy more bags or shoes.
  • Oh and Halloween. I got Jack orange pants and a black shirt with skeletons on it. We handed out candy to the three kids and fifteen teenagers that came to the door. We had about 8 guys that dressed up as ladies. Very interesting. Jack had fun answering the door and eating candy.

Technology Institute for the library

Wednesday, September 13th, 2006

I am involved in this program through my library system. We have to read this blog, which seems like homework to me. This is profoundly so for me, because

1) one of the top dogs wants to use some of my work blogs for demonstration purposes (or something of that sort), which means I will have to update a lot more regularly than I am finding possible recently, which ALSO means that I might be updating these blogs at home.

2) we have to read articles, which if you had read before still holds true for this. I will end up reading a lot of this at home.

There really is not enough time in the day! I do not know how people are able to keep everything straight. I have so much on my plate now, which is why I was stressing a couple of days ago, and continue to do so now. I know I will get everything done because I ♥love♥ my job, but until then I will be out of my mind. This comes with being alone in what you do and not having anyone you can really delegate jobs to. Poop.

Luckily many of the things that the Institute wants to encourage the libraries to do, we already have implemented in Parma, thanks to me(huzzah!): blogs, flickr, playstation programs, myspace… I was thinking of using Yahoo IM, but our library has it blocked. Of course, one needs time to keep up with all these things, and as a keeper of six? (graphic novels, visiting artists, teens, kids, professional, and this one) blogs, life can get a little out of hand.

Sleep is also very important, so good night!

Darn you Pluto!

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

So it turns out Pluto is a liar. Everyone thought it was a planet, but in reality, it was just a big (but not too big) rock. I think it was decided that Pluto is not a planet because:

1) Its too small

2) Its orbit goes around Neptune’s, which I guess is a no-no for planets. We don’t want any kissing planets. They must only orbit around the sun or its a no go for planethood.

This makes me mad. Why couldn’t the nice little scientists keep everything nice and orderly, just like it was before. Next thing you know, they’re going to tell us that there’s another planet past the ex-planet, Pluto… doh! They have discovered another planet past Pluto, and it looks like its bigger!

Now I’m going to have to go through all my space books and chuck out anything that mentions Pluto. That should be easy. Luckily, some of the librarians had a discussion about it, and in the words of one of the librarians, “unless it has a chewy caramel center”, he’s still counting it as a planet. I think that’s a lot more reasonable than tossing all our books on space. Fhew, that would have been a lot more work than I was ready for.

Your job is now to go to the library and read books about our ex-planet planet, Pluto! If it has a chewy caramel center, it should make mouths happy!

Darn you Pluto!

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

So it turns out Pluto is a liar. Everyone thought it was a planet, but in reality, it was just a big (but not too big) rock. I think it was decided that Pluto is not a planet because:

1) Its too small

2) Its orbit goes around Neptune’s, which I guess is a no-no for planets. We don’t want any kissing planets. They must only orbit around the sun or its a no go for planethood.

This makes me mad. Why couldn’t the nice little scientists keep everything nice and orderly, just like it was before. Next thing you know, they’re going to tell us that there’s another planet past the ex-planet, Pluto… doh! They have discovered another planet past Pluto, and it looks like its bigger!

Now I’m going to have to go through all my space books and chuck out anything that mentions Pluto. That should be easy. Luckily, some of the librarians had a discussion about it, and in the words of one of the librarians, “unless it has a chewy caramel center”, he’s still counting it as a planet. I think that’s a lot more reasonable than tossing all our books on space. Fhew, that would have been a lot more work than I was ready for.

Your job is now to go to the library and read books about our ex-planet planet, Pluto! If it has a chewy caramel center, it should make mouths happy!

Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

so much depends
upona red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams

Thursday, August 31st, 2006

so much depends
upona red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

Just a quick note of interest…

Wednesday, July 26th, 2006

I was googling my name and found an article from a local newspaper that quoted me. Neat!

It’s never too soon to start readingWestside News

Parma Public Library offers blog site for Young Adults Westside News

Japanese comic books are the topic of new book clubWestside News
Fascinating, isn’t it?

48 hour book challenge… Done!

Monday, June 19th, 2006

I FINISHED three books:

Runaways (2 & 3)
Little Long Nose

I read, but did not finish:

Abarat
The Summer Tree
A Dogs Life
The Ordinary Princess
Jennifer Government

I love the Runaways series, and you can read my review here.

I also loved Little Long Nose. The book itself was in a compact format perfect for a pocket. The illustrations were gorgeous although tiny. The plot was neat and made me glad that I still read children’s books.

The book is about a young boy who helps his mom at her vegetable stand. He will help people bring the vegetables to their houses and in turn will give him eggs, flowers or whatever they can manage.

An old woman comes by, checking out the herbs and vegetables and complaining loudly. The young boy yells at her for her opinions and also makes fun of her appearance. She tells him that he will regret his words, and makes him carry six huge cabbages to her house. He takes them in and she offers him some delicious soup, which he greedily eats. After that things get pretty crazy, and not in a good way.

I’m listening to Jennifer Government, and its the next book for my teen book discussion group. It’s VERY interesting. Its a futuristic book where large companies have taken over and people are basically “owned” by the company they work for. If you work for Nike, your name would become, Cathy Nike. Since I work for a government agency, my name would be, Cathy Government. The USA is the most powerful nation in the world, but the government is nearly powerless. In order to do anything, you need money. Lots and lots of money.

The Summer Tree and Abarat are both fantasy, which I must say, I’m quite partial to. I actually read The Summer Tree years ago, but its one of those books that you remember vaguely and want to read again.

The Summer Tree is a alternative universe kind of fantasy, in which some college students are transported to a magical world of kings and umm.. magic. They find themselves in a world in turmoil, and learn that they each have their own purpose to set the world right.

Abarat is about a teenager that is unhappy with her life in a hog farm dominated town. She’s tired of the desolate area, tired of the smell, and tired of being lonely. She goes off into the desert to find something interesting, and gets more than she bargained for. She helps a strange skinny man, and an ocean appears, taking her to unusual places.

A Dog’s Life is a book as seen from the perspective of a dog that grew up wild and travels in order to find a place that she can call home. The book is well-written and you truly feel like the dog is talking to you. I’ve had it for a while now, and I am amazed that I haven’t finished it yet, because I really do like it.

Unlike all the others, which I have almost finished, I have only read about one chapter of The Ordinary Princess, so I don’t think its really fair to you to even talk about it.

I really enjoyed the weekend, and even though I didn’t get to read as much as I hoped, my family knew that I was taking on this challenge, and they would call me and make sure that I was actually reading like I was supposed to. What a supportive family I have!

A dream…

Wednesday, May 31st, 2006

**Update** This post was started on May 29, 2006

I really want to write. I’ve always know this. I was going to get a creative writing degree in college, and was discouraged from doing so (by my parents of course) so I went into journalism, which I didn’t like and changed to English Lit, which was equally, if not more useless. Although the English professors at Geneseo are really neat, so far, I have not had a chance to make use of my knowledge in Elizabethian and Jacobean drama. If you care, here is a list of the English courses I took while at Geneseo:

18th Century British Literature
American Voices: African-American Migration Narrative
Drama: Elizabethan & Jacobean
Exploring the Renaissance
Major Author: Momaday & Silko
Modern American Literature
The Practice of Criticism
Senior Seminar: Sentiment & Scandal
Shakespeare I

I actually have a whole list of my undergrad courses here and my grad courses here.
So far the only really useful course was the Children’s Lit course I took at MCC. Of course it was fun taking weird courses like the Sentiment and Scandal course, in which we read books like Pride and Prejudice and one of the Marquis de Sade’s books. (I’ll have to look at my books to remember which one).

**Update #2** Around here written around May 30, 2006

What renewed my interest in writing were two things:
a BBC original movie about Shakespeare
and an interview in the School Library Journal with the author Lynne Rae Perkins.

I just think that its great to have such an intensity for something. I think I’m pretty intense about being a librarian, but sometimes I don’t get much personal satisfaction from it.

**Update #3** Here is what I actually wrote today, May 31, 2006. My god, is it almost June already?

Great Honk! It’s taken me three days to write this post (I bet you can’t guess why). I have absolutely no idea how I’d write a book.

Oh well, I better just finish this thing (finally) why Jack manages to entertain himself. Damn-it! Already into stuff he should’nt be.

Okay, really quickly. One of the blogs I read, by Patty Uttaro, the director of one of our local public libraries has put forth a challenge (or rather, another librarian blog she reads has)… to read as many books between June 16 – 18 that we can. After that we talk about each one on our own blog. She calls it the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I call it well-nigh a damn miracle if I could even read one book! But anyway, I accept the challenge, and even if I read nothing but children’s books, its still more than I’ve read recently. Plus I really need to get back to reading again.

In closing, I’d better go. Somehow Jack found a tampon and decided that he should give it to me as a gift. What a sweet boy… or something. (I do love him. I just need to find that patience that seems to be missing right now.)