Over. Done. Finished. Kaput. (for today)

I can't believe that I made it! I made it! After Kates was born and I came back to work in September, I was really quite unsure that I would be able to do all of this. Blogging? What was that? I was sleep deprived and already feeling over-challenged what with trying to be a new mommy and all; I sure as anything didn't need this Web 2.0 in my life. Plus, I was already trying to play catch-up for being out for over a month--I had far too much to do to start something new.

And yet . . . I'm a sucker for learning something new (throw in a lagniappe of a MP3 player, which I had really wanting to own ever since my honey got himself one) and I was sunk. I had to at least try; besides, I'm really good at finishing things last minute!

Some of the exercises made me so frustrated at my own ignorance (or the ignorance of the website's designers!), and then getting to fool around with image generators or games or something else would get me out of my slump and like the shallow person that I am doing something fun kept me going.

All in all, I am sick of hearing people whine about how they didn't have enough time to finish this. I finished and I started almost 2 months after the rest of y'all began. Stop being so whiny! Especially since you were encouraged to learn and play and experience something new and were promised a most excellent reward when you finished . . . and all in all, PAID to do this! I would fully do something like this again in the future if it were offered to me.

I like this blogging, this sending my thoughts out to the collective unknown; a co-worker asked if I would keep on doing this and yes, I think that I will. But I might take a bit of a rest before making this a new and improved blog that features the star of our family, Kates.

Thanks PLCMC for making me stress & learn and for the whole blogging experience!

I'll Stick with the Real Thing, Thanks

I've read science fiction stories where books don't exist anymore and all that is left is what is on a computer or what is plugged into people's brains or some holographic projection thingy. Verrry scary. I wouldn't want to imagine a world without the sound of turning pages.

Half the pleasure for me is the physical aspect--the curling up in a good chair, looking at the pictures, feeling the weight of the book in my hands, marking my favorite spots . . . .

I love trees, but I love my books even more!

I like listening to books being read to me, while I'm driving or doing chores or some other activity where it is impossible to safely read. But if ever, God forbid, I should need to know how to do books the computer way in case of some horrible book disaster I decided to try the audiobooks online.

Dreadful! Maybe in the glittering future every title will be available online and readily accessible within a matter of seconds, but not only couldn't I get any Winnie the Pooh (I made do with a sad substitute of The Wind in the Willows) it also took more time than anyone rightfully should have to download it.

Online/ebooks? Thank you, no.

Revelations

I missed hearing Weird Al on the Bob and Sheri show last week--much bitterness--but now thanks to podcasts I didn't miss anything! Yay Bob!

I Didn't Watch TV All Day Long But . . .

Thank you YouTube for giving me a chance to trip out again to The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Today's Special, The Snorks, 3 2 1 Contact, Jem, The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Pinwheel, The Get Along Gang, The ShirtTales, and all those cartoons and shows that totally ROCKED when I was a little kid in the '80s.

I pity my poor daughter who won't know all these great shows and will be stuck with all the junk that is out there now--unless maybe the magic of dvds will come through for me? They've brought back the Muppet Show and Fraggle Rock so maybe just maybe Kates will know what her mummy is talking about when I say that the Thundercats was the only game to play at recess.

Just one more flashback for your nostalgic pleasure brought to you by Sesame Street, YouTube and the Number 6.

Got Game?

I have to admit that the games on Web 2.0 awards list sucked me in right away . . . then they spit me right back out! (Not only did some of the games not work on some of the computers here, but I also am not very good at games and have to try several times before I can get my character sorted out and running/jumping/kicking in the right directions.)

I tried Blox Forever, Adventure Elf and The Pharoah's Tomb, a really dreadful pyramid game where I die far too often to even encourage me to play anymore . . . and yet I kept on trying for 5 minutes or so. Apart from the being absolutely horrible at playing, my only real grief is that when I finally did beat a level and they offered me the "top secret code" to unlock truly fabulous playing, the screen where I was to get the code always turned out to be an error message. What's up with that? Stupid stupid rat creatures! I think that I need to go and eat some quiche to calm down . . . or maybe I should try my luck just one more time. Maybe I'll be able to get past level one then.

Nice Work if You Can Get it & You Can Get it . . .

Ooh-la-la! A site that lets you write what you need and save it there. What will they think of next? You mean I don't have to remember my disk? Don't have to figure out if each version of Office is compatible or not? Don't even have to freak out if I happen to use . . . (gasp!) a Mac? How swell is that?!

I will definitely have to tell people about zohowriter! If only, if only, all the other sites we had to look at/use for these assignments had exceeded or even lived up to their promise. . . .

Oh happy happy joy joy! Something really good for a change.

Sssweet Sssibilant Sssplintercatsss!

I went playing in the wacky world of wiki's sandbox today and discovered how much others love "Lost" and "Dancing With the Stars." (I blame my mom for that show; I would never have watched it if she hadn't sucked me into it!)

Lang Van and the Melting Pot are two of my favorite places to eat--though Melting Pot might be such a strong favorite because of its caché , for I surely cannot afford to eat there as often as I would like. Warning: grossness to follow! Melting Pot is also where my husband took me on one of our first real dates so it will always be super special because of that.

All in all, I like the same music, books, shows, and movies as so many people here at the library. Just when I thought I stood alone, I found that I am surrounded . . . at least until the last of the really great whangdoodles--sweet-tooth, bedroom slippers, antlers and all--came to my rescue! You'll have to put on your scrappy caps to top that for your favorite animal!

Wacky Wiki

Power to the people! And knowledge is power . . . so therefore, knowledge to the people? Wikis make that possible, but heaven help you if you are less than educated or believe everything you see because there is a lot of nonsense out there.

I guess it's rather like the little girl who had a little curl right in the middle of her forehead--when wikis are good, they're "very very good" but when they are bad, they're horrid.

Very Good Things

Not much to say right now--I love this picture and just wanted to share some happiness.

Today I get off at 5.

Yesterday we went to Sears and had our first formal family pictures taken; they turned out so GREAT! Kates was an angel baby and amazed the photographer.

I had my hairs cut last night, and yes, I love this hairstyle for yea verily, I look good.

This week, the fam. is going out to eat at Lang Van; hooray for French coffee and Thai food!

In less than a month, I will get to go home and spend almost a week being loved in only a way that my Mummy and Daddy and best sister can love me. And my sister will finally finally finally get to meet Kates.

Now those are some very good things.


thank you Art.com for "Twilight" by Maxfield Parrish

Come Together

I think that America & libraries are facing a similar situation right now: how do we be everything to everone? America used to be known as a melting pot, where people from various cultures, backgrounds, and people groups came together and were one; libraries used to be known as quiet spaces of learning, where people were safe to come and read.

Welcome today to America, the mixing pot: the good news is that you don't have to give up who you are, in fact, you can move to a neighborhood that looks exactly like the place you just left! You can listen to salsa music, eat Indian, speak whatever language you want (don't worry about learning English), and copycat the latest fads from Japan.

Welcome to our library, where we embrace Library 2.0 and the promise of the future: you can check your email, post in your blog, look at your rss feeds, pick up a dvd or 10 to watch this weekend, see pictures of the latest scandals in People magazine, find some cds to listen to, be entertained during a storytime program, watch some anime . . . and oh yeah, there are those things called books, if you want to read.

Not all change is bad; some changes are good and enliven what could be an otherwise dull existence (I can't imagine what my life would be like if everyone sounded the same, looked the same, ate the same things, and held the same beliefs . . . pretty boring and creepy, right?) But where does change dictated by a person's needs & rights begin & end?

Should everyone at my branch speak Spanish because we serve a large Latino population? Should we allow patrons to check-out materials and keep them out as long as they wish or never even return them? Should we allow anyone no matter who they are, access to the internet--and then allow them to look at anything on the 'net in the name of personal expression & freedom?

Many of the patrons who come to our library, wish that we would stay open 24/7. They also expect us to let them stay on the internet as long as they want--no matter how long or how many other people may be waiting. A large group of our patrons want to eat, sleep, smoke, drink, pirate music/movies, look at porn, do drugs, hook up, and talk on their cell phones at the tops of their voices. (I'll let you pick the worst vice out of that list.)

Many of our users are the ones who could most benefit the most from the promise of 2.0: blue-collar, over-worked, under-educated, too busy to come to programs or even bring their kids in, too ignorant to the importance of what using a libary can mean--they are the people who need to be reached, to be connected, to be taught before the cycle continues. (Of course that would mean having someone to do all that, but we are already short-staffed and I haven't heard anyone, at any of our branches, complain that they are under-worked.)

If you asked our patrons, our users--as Library 2.0 says to do--what facilities our library should have or what services we should offer, I'm guessing that the importance of reading would be down at the bottom of the list. I can see where Library 2.0 would be a great thing in a perfect world or a better community than this one or even maybe just a few years into the future, but right now, it just seems like a rose-colored bubble that would burst in the reality of our library mixing pot.

Unhappily Ever After

Once upon a time I was very excited about Technorati.

Very humbly put, it took me a bit to grasp what this site was all about (though the true importance of tags in the grand scheme of the universe still eludes me). But once I got past that, I was really excited--Technorati would be the magic apple that would lead to every parenting advice dream come true. I could find blogs written by other new moms! This would be so easy, what with those super-duper tags helping me every step of the way.

I typed in my key word/tags with feverish impatience; I would find out the secrets for getting my recalcitrant baby to sleep through the night! With all the wisdom from others, she would be crawling at four months, talking by six months, and walking on water by a year. I would be a baby whisperer . . . a SUPER mom!

And then reality struck . . . nothing relevant appeared, just endless listings for blogs that used the word "baby" in every way but the way I was searching for. I narrowed my search, entered new words, and still got a big fat list of nothingness. Numbly scrolling down the pages, the entries growing more and more irrelevant with the occasional foul-beyond-belief one slapping out at me, I began to grow angry. What good is this technology? My magic apple had turned out to be techno-rotten.

Not quite as bad as beets . . .

But certainly not all that! Not del.icio.us at all! Were the designers really proud of themselves when they came up with this one?

Just add this site to a list of highly over-rated things: Paris Hilton, designer purses, celebrity's opinions and 3rd world adoptions, being thin (but perpetually starving), and cynical expressions.

Oy, do I need to get more sleep! I'm turning into a grouch. Maybe if I could float away on a tag cloud and leave all mundane cares far below, life would actually turn out to be del.icio.us.

Roll, Roll, Rollyo, Gently Down Net Stream

Deep thought for today:

I need Rollyo like a polar bear needs a rowboat!

I Will Survive

18 is not supposed to be an age when you find out you have breast cancer. 24 isn't either for that matter. In fact, there is no age, no time, no life where a woman should have to find out that her body is holding death as close as a heartbeat.

I'm a survivor. That sounds good to say--"survivor" is such a strong word, but really inside, I'm not a strong person. It's been 11 years since my first breast cancer and 6 years since my second. When my husband asked me how many years he should say when he entered the registration information for Race for the Cure, I had to stop and think and wonder: do I say since the first cancer or the second? Should I add the years together since I'm a double survivor? (I hadn't realized any math would be involved when I asked him to sign us up.)

Tomorrow I will walk and cry and celebrate and remember--the sting of the chemotherapy drugs as they entered my body through the i.v.; the way my father cried when he said "breast cancer" for the first time; the nurse who sang to me "His Eye is On the Sparrow;" the young intern who blushed and left the room when he came in to observe me during one of my countless sessions of radiation; the way my hair wisped over my head when it grew back in again all baby fine; the choking feeling of holding back anger when I found out one of the surgeons had made a mistake--I am overwhelmed and at a loss.

I think of my daughter and wonder at this world; will she be safe? Will she see the wonderful amidst the horror and hurt? I see her face and pray so many impossible things for her.

I will see other women tomorrow--bald women, women surrounded by love and women who look all alone--young old white black latino skinny fat beautiful plain women. Women who are, just like me, racing for their lives and those that they hold dear. Racing so that they can stay in the human race. Racing for a cure. Racing to survive.

Bibliophile

I'm a book hussy. My favorite activity? (Besides trying to get some sleep now that Kates has come . . . .) Reading! Love, love, love my books. Love to get books; love to give books. Even like to share my books--until they don't come back.

Yes, I'm still bitter about my 2 Harry Potter special edition books and my pre-pub copy of One for the Money that are gone. Losing those left a mark, right here, that has made me more cautious.

To top that off, I have sooo many books that sometimes I can't remember exactly what I do have. My honey has been after me for ages to catalog my collection--the spirit is willing, but the flesh is full of procrastination--but now through Library Thing I will . . . maybe soon, if I could just put down this book.