Sunday, August 21, 2005

California part deux

The wedding was great! It was so much fun. They had it on the beach at the ocean, and there were dolphins and starfish and lots of sand. At one point after the wedding a vente mint mocha chip frappuccino sized group (mmm... coffee, with lots of calories! eek!) went out to the beach and one of them (not from our party) was baptized.
It was fun and casual, two of my favorite things! One of the friends of the bride, who on a normal day is an airline pilot, instantly became an ordained minister online so that he could marry Robin and Aaron. I don't know which online church he became a minister of, but it seems you can do this through many websites. As a practicing Presbryterian, I SHOULD probably be offended by how easy people make it to become a minister, but I thought it was really sweet.
Disneyland and California Adventure isn't nearly as nice as Disneyworld, but we still had fun. Disneyland is smaller, older and not as capable of the large crowds that Disneyworld can handle.
I also went through the bride's (Robin) bookshelves and found out that she might like Charles de Lint even more than I do. (and I love him!) Once a librarian, always a librarian I guess!

Thursday, August 18, 2005

California

I'm in California! Yippy! Today my husband and I are going to Disneyland, tomorrow California Adventure, Saturday we're going to a wedding, Sunday we're going to hang out with my husband's famous cousin and late Sunday night we're leaving to go back to Rochester.
I miss my little guy so much, but I'm having fun, although Jeff can't pass up any excuse to argue with people and its only 9:25 AM California time and he's already started an arguement with the guy that we're staying with (and going to his wedding on Saturday).

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Evil evil week

I can't even remember what happened this passed week... lots of programs and running around and being tired. Very, very tired. Oh and Friday after everything was done, I finally had time to realize that I've been having weird dizzy spells, so I get to go to the doctor tomorrow morning. I was talking to my friend Molly tonight, and I told her that I don't know how people can be Youth Services Librarians... (which is both children's and young adult) and she told me its because there aren't any other librarians in Monroe County that do both children's and young adult services. Oh. Well there you go then. So thats why I haven't posted any messages. As soon as I get my senses back, I will be back as good as new.

Monday, August 08, 2005

Is it terrible when...

Is it terrible when you have a summer reading program for teenagers and the only books that they can come up with to read is Mary Kate and Ashley books Calvin and Hobbs books and Saddle Club books? I'd like to throttle these guys, but then it occurs to me that at least they're coming into the library and handing in a review.
Also, I called all the teens that participated and told them that they had a prize they had won and could pick up any time. Do you think that they would be happy, excited or grateful? If you said yes, you were sadly mistaken. They spoke to me the same way you would speak to a dentist after being told that you were going to be having some teeth pulled. I guess all I can do is keep trying.
Our library competed against three other library's teens to see who could read the most. Parma read about 500 hours and two of the other libraries read almost 2000 hours each. I haven't heard from the last library, but I'm thinking that she's just as embarrassed as I am (because the two of us are much smaller communities than the other libraries) and doesn't want to let us know what her total is.

Okay, I decided to look this up: (according to 2000 census)

Ogden population: 18,492
Parma population: 14,822
Hamlin population: 9,355
Brockport population: 8,103

Well, I guess that didn't help me at all. Ogden won this year, but Brockport won last year. Oh well, I've only been working with the teens at my library for two years, and they've had a lot more time as well as, established TABs. All I have is occasionally five or six teens show up and want something to do.

Sunday, August 07, 2005

I almost cried :( An unappreciated librarian story

So, if you don't already know, I do children's and young adult services for my library. That means that I have to do all the ordering, all the programming, all the reference, and anything else that comes up and is related to children or young adults. Needless to say summer is WAY busy for me. I do one children's program, one young adult program, one movie day and the summer reading bits every week during the summer. Plus I do random story times or whatever as neccesary. I do this because I love it. I love working with kids and teens because they are fun, laid back and you don't need to put on an act for them. Not to toot my own horn, but I think that the kids like me. Some of the teenagers got Jack a baby gift and one of the moms told me that sometimes when her son says his nightly prayers, he prays for me. This is not why I wanted to cry at work. This story need a little more background before I tell you why I almost cried.
The previous librarian was a lot different from me. She was the only librarian (as well as the director) and she did all the programming for the kids, she didn't have any programming for teens and she was known to be mean to the kids/teens and sometimes even make them cry. Her idea of arts and crafts was using toilet paper rolls to create something that the parents would throw away as soon as it got home. During the summer she paid a performer either once a week or once every other week and she had a summer reading club for kids in 3 - 6 grade, which was a scaled down summer reading program, except she never used any of the NYS summer reading manual... you know now that I think of it, the club wasn't much of anything except making "crafts" each Wednesday that the pages were forced to come up with. There may have been one story time thrown in there too, but I can't remember. The rest of the year she did story time and some programs (mostly paid performers) during breaks.
I have story times, and some groups that usually meet all year round: 3 - 6 grade book club, anime group and teen book club. During the summer, I usually do a mixture of paid performers and programs that I have come up with. This summer I had a 80s costume competition (which was cancelled since no one showed up) a DDR competition, a music appreciation program and a bunch of craft programs. Needless to say, I keep myself busy! We're getting closer to the crying bit now.
The craft kits come from Oriental Trading. They are each individually wrapped and I have a limited amount of space, since I only buy one or two sets. I make one as a sample and then the kids sign up. I have been having trouble with kids signing up, but not showing up, so I called everyone up a few days before hand. Then at 1:15 pm, when only three people showed up (and one was from the waiting list and the other just showed up and started doing it before I could tell him that you needed to sign up) I had the page re-call the kids. I had forgotten about H. Her step-brother had come in a week ago and told me that H was going to be at Soccer Camp and had already signed up, could he take the craft home to her. I told him "No, I had only made the exception LAST TIME because she said she was sick." He said, okay and left. I HAD FORGOTTEN TO TAKE HER NAME OFF THE LIST. You can guess what happens next. The page calls H, her mother answers and the page says that she'll try and set one aside for her. Other kids show up (some showing up ONE HOUR LATE!) and I do the craft with all of them. I even (STUPID ME) gave the craft to one of the kids who wanted to give it to some German kids who were living next door to them. I even gave the craft to them. But then a kid asked if we had extra craft kits from a program I had done with the teens two weeks ago. I did, but I told her that I couldn't give that out. I got a little upset that I had put the time, energy and money into these craft kits and people just wanted to take them home. I told all the clerks that I wasn't going to be handing out any more craft kits.
Friday, H's mother shows up for her craft kit. I told her that we didn't have anymore and that the page had made a mistake. She got furious and asked me why the girl on the phone would say that we would set one aside if we weren't going to give one to her. She got all self-righteous and angry and stormed off to the children's area. She then came back, told us that she was never coming back, and that the new librarians were not nearly as nice as the previous librarian. She was friendlier and .... you get the picture.
So then I got upset, tight and unhappy. I try my damndest to make everyone happy with the library and me and I take it way too personally when people tell me I'm not as nice as the librarian who threatened to throw the shoes of one of the Story time kids into the middle of the street and made another kid cry during ST show and tell because she didn't want to see the Pokemon doll because she hated Pokemon.
To top it all off, one of the clerks went on break at the same time as one of the pages and the clerk kept telling the page that I should have just given her one.
Luckily, Sally, the director, told me that the craft programs are meant to entice people to come into the library and are to be done here. Since they really have nothing to do with summer, the library or reading, that I didn't have to do them any more. I like Sally.

Luckily, my husband gave me a link to this website. It cheered me up immensely, and now I know that I was meant to worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Mmmm.... Spaghetti.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

They like me, they really like me!

I just googled myself to see if anyone linked to me, and so far two couragous people have done it:
Rabid Librarian & Loopy Librarian
The Loopy Librarian might not even be so loopy because she mentions me, and she likes me! Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, I found out that she/he wrote this over a year and a half ago, and they don't really care for children's/young adult public librarian work. Oh well, we can't be perfect :(

But here it is anyway. If you can't be bothered to click a link...

Must garden in the blog because I haven't pu the link to Cathy the Librarian up on the roll yet. This is a crime because she's a refreshing read about a secor I never want to go near and she digs some cool music. I notice the change of template too, another template messer. Cool.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

There's a new secret society in town...

Anorexia Bracelets Reveal Secret Society

Pro-Ana Links

I just heard about this at work today. There are special bracelets you can wear to let other anorexic people know who you are. I mean wouldn't people know by looking that you're anorexic? I mean skinny is one thing, but starvation is quite another. Upon searching deeper, there is a whole pro-anorexia internet society out there. They don't feel that they have a mental issue that needs treatment, and are quite happy the way they are. After reading site after site, I just felt sad for them.

I would like to have more control over my life. Right now I feel so completely overwhelmed with baby, summer reading, baby and my completely unorganized house. I deal with this by making lists. Hundreds and hundreds of lists. Unfortunately it doesn't work at all. Fortunately there are others like me (including one lady st work).

Faster than Kudzu

On a slightly different note... watch out for the sex bracelets! Different colors mean different sexual favors. Yippie!

Sex Bracelets

In conclusion, Jack has been sucking on my hand this whole time and its completely numb and soggy.

Thank you.