Acronyms and Spinning the System

Finally got caught up on sleep today. It should have been yesterday, but I went to WASHYARG (Washington Young Adult Readers Advisory Group) in the wee hours yesterday morning. I was a little disappointed at the pickings this time. Many of the reviews were on books that hit our library shelves 6 months ago and the new book options were unknowns. Where was Wintergirls, or Highway to Hell or any other new ones. The only good books I saw were ones I read months ago; Kisses and Lies and Wild Magic (both of which I enjoyed immensely). I am reading the ARC (advanced reader's copy) of Wintergirls by LH Anderson now. It is disturbing--I will say why later on my goodreads).

Tonight I am representing the library at Sound Off at the EMP. I am tabling (another piece of library jargon that means standing behind a table, talking to people and showing off flyers for our programs and services) and am going to totally enjoy the teen bands playing. I am really glad I am not tired going into this. I am taking my camera and will hopefully get some good shots, and also will take notes to create a blog post for Push To Talk. I tried to dress casually cool for this, but I think I got a FAIL on that. I always wait too long to get dressed and end up having to live with what I throw on. Teens don't like it when you try to be like them; that makes you a poser, to use an 80's term. Hopefully it will be dark.

comixtravaganza

comixtravaganza
Originally uploaded by Srcsmgrl

The event was great! All of the artists showed up and were wonderful about interacting with the patrons. I had 28 people show up between the ages of 5 and 60. The illustratists talked and showed off their original work, then people drew for an hour and we gave out prizes for the best ones. I will be taking pictures of the art work as soon as I remember to bring in my camera again.

Here is a link to the rest of the flickr set.

Comixtravaganza!

This is likely to be my coolest event yet. Tomorrow. Aaaauugghhhhh!

:)

:)

Thanks to everyone for their well wishes and congratulations. I am ecstatic about my new/old job. Right now, though, I am dizzy. I was feeling better this morning and planning on going to volunteer after an excursion to REI, but it seems that a little outdoorsy shopping has taken its toll and I don't think that driving any more today is a good idea.

I did get The Boy's board waxed and bought myself some new poles, thanks to a gift certificate from my step-dad! That rocked. Now I have boots and poles and am going to borrow some skis from a friend that I may end up buying if they work well. I am almost back to being a real, bona fide skier. Maybe I will finally get up to the pass more than once a year.

I still have a lot of prep to do for the Comixtravaganza on Friday. I have to order the pizzas and see if I can get some drinks donated. I also need to make sure I have some emergency paper, pencils and pens on hand for the entrants. Everything else is in place though. I might cover the tables in butcher paper to make sure we don't get marker on them... Did I mention that I am dizzy?

... /wanders off staring at the pretty lights/

and nope, no medication today.

Step Out to Fight Diabetes!

There are walks to support research for a cure for diabetes all over the US coming up. Check here to see if there will be one near you. The Boy and I will be walking in the Seattle one.

Jourdan Keith and a New Events Calendar

Jourdan Keith came to the middle school in my area today. She was very engaging and a wonderful storyteller. She got the students to participate in her event very nicely. A couple of them even got up and read what they wrote for everyone to hear, which is more self projection than I have seen for a long time from a middle school student.

She started off with a story, asking the kids a lot of questions and allowing them to answer. By the end, when she asked for ideas of animals that they thought were weird, kids were holding up their hands up to answer several times. She told another story, this one a "how and why," and tied it into poetry--using haiku as an introduction or an ending for a story. She had the students use any of the animal suggestions and write a how and why story, then asked for volunteers to read to the class. Two children got up and read their ideas out loud. Everyone was polite and listened and they clapped after they were done. It was very supportive and creative.

After the poetry event, I went to my TSL meeting at GLK. I missed the first half, and the whole next hour was a sort of break. When everyone came back to order, we heard from the IT department about our new calendar. It is going to be very exciting. The old calendar, which is still up, is clunky and abreviated, not very interesting and not user friendly. The new calendar will be much more user friendly, providing the option of rss feeds and email notification for both individual events and event groupings (by age group, branch, etc). It will be much prettier and cleaner, with pictures representing the events and color coding for event types. The calendar will also allow a uniformity throughout the website, so that when an event goes on the calendar, the same description will be used on the branch page and anywhere else the event is featured. When the description is updated all of the others will be as well (can we say xml?). Yay to a new calendar day! (coming soon to a library webpage near you...)

Happenings

So many events coming up! Queen Anne will be seriously overwhelmed with literary happenings. We have Jourdan Keith, Poet Populist, coming to McClure Middle school in the next few weeks to give a workshop to half of the 6th grade class. That should be awsome. A month after that, we are having Teens, Poetry and Pizza. This is the culmination of my teen poetry contest that happened in December. The winners will be presenting their works and there will be a performance by Youth Speaks Seattle. Oh, and Pizza. Definitely pizza.

In July and August we will be doing our Summer Reading Program. Some of the events I am tying in with this are Gaming nights with the Wii and DDR, along with board games to fill in the waiting times, and Anime nights where we will show some of the more popular anime movies. I am hoping that The Boy will be around for some of those. Since the library will not be reopened at that point, all of these events (except the Poet Populist) will be held at the community center. They have been very accomodating and they have their own Teen room, which is great because it is comfortable and has everything we need.

My book group has been a little disappointing so far. The first one was yesterday--it was supposed to be the day before that, but they had to move it, so I couldn't be there like I planned. I haven't heard yet how many students showed up, but I am sure it went fine. They read Ulgies by Scott Westerfeld. The next one has a choice between two books, Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie by David Lubar and Mr. Monday by Garth Nix. The first book group also got put off by about 2 months. Next year I am looking forward to having my own library and doing my own book group rather than pairing with a school. It has been a good experience, though.

Presidents!

I went to see the Presidents of the United States of America at the Showbox on Sunday. Their energy really blew me away, but I guess I will start by talking about the opening acts. The Trucks played first. They are from Bellingham, WA and first started performing in 2003. They are definitely a girl band that screams, jams and lights up the stage. Their theme is feminism and the lead was wearing a white dress decorated with tampons--found art anyone?

No-fi Soul Rebellion is also from Bellingham. This is a husband and wife team, and more of a comedy act than a music group. Mark sort of raps to different songs from a cd player while his wife Andrea pretends to play the guitar and otherwise just poses like a rock star. It was a pretty funny schtick, but my lil' sis had seen it before and said it was the exact same show, which I could see getting a little old. Might be time for some new material there, No-fi.

When the Presidents came out, it was "Love Everybody Tonight" from beginning to end. What I mean to say is that they played all the favorites (and there are a lot of them.) They started out with "Kitty" and I would say they played at least 15 songs including "Lump," "Dune Buggy," "Naked and Famous," " Back Porch," "Peaches" and many more. The energy level was amazing with some of the first dancing I have seen in Seattle in years at a club. People were also crowd surfing, the band pulled fans up on stage to help and there was a huge gorilla that lounged around throwing bananas into the crowd. After they finished, the fans hooted, hollard and waited impatiently for them to return, which they did. Another 5 or 6 songs were played with the same great feeling of positive energy as the first set.

People really love this band. There were tons of different groups represented. I saw frat boys, little kids, hippie parents (and other kinds of parents), teens of all types and I think I even saw some hipsters hiding in the corners (because of course it wouldn't be cool for them to be caught at a Presidents show--they used the excuse of seeing the trucks and then stayed on for their secret love ;) It was amazing.

New Inspiration

On Tuesday I met with a fellow librarian to go over book talking. It is a bit strange, but the only book talk I have ever done was at my interview. I have tried to interest the teachers and librarians at my schools to have me come in and do one, but I have had no takers so far. It was a good afternoon with tea, scones and kitties, gross facts and fun titles. She also sent me home with Black Holes, a nifty graphic novel placed in Seattle in the 70's. It is dark and it is weird and just what I like in a graphic novel. I am still reading Maus and enjoying it very much.

Oh wait, I am transgressing. We had a nice couple of hours, discussing book talking and library politics. It got me excited for my first book talk and I have been looking up good titles in non-fiction to include in my reprotoir. I also worked at COL yesterday and got to interact with the ya librarian there. She is just always so upbeat and innovative. I like conversing with her and she always gives me new ideas without even meaning to. I should really carry a tape recorder.

I have finally received some responses from my librarians and schedulers, so I know when I am doing my lunch table and I am having a meeting with the book group organizers. I am making plans for my poetry party in May. Yay!