I'm still awake and I'm less than two hours away from finishing class. Right now I'm learning about standards, objectives, and goals for lesson planning. We'll be making a tutorial. Good times!

I'm still awake!
Thank goodness for diet MTN DEW

Today I'm going to attempt eight hours of class while only having slept two hours total over the course of the night. I was Event Staffing at Shakespeare overnight. But today we will be having a talk about realistic fiction. It looks to be exciting.

Summer reading is in full swing. Even I have gotten back into the reading groove. I haven't done that since I was a sophomore in college. Go me!
The only downside is that I check out books like I check out movies at the video store, a lot all at once and I never have time for any. But that's to be expected I suppose. Thankfully, all of the things at the library are free. That means more for me.

If you are a parent, take your kids to the library this summer. If you babysit, take your kids to the library this summer. If you have no kids, steal some and take them to the library this summer. Go Go GO!

New book that isn't homework

Hello!

At class on Saturday, there was a presentation over new books for YA in Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Graphic novel. One of the books is called Hero, about a up-and-coming superhero who had to deal with the fact that he's a gay. I bought the book on Monday, started reading it last night, and can not wait for naptime so that I can keep reading. It's such a good book. There is good character development so far, the voice could not be any funnier, and if I were a struggling gay teen, I would LOVE this book. It's much better than some of the stuff I've read in my time [I'm talking to you, Geography Club].

Here are the details:

Moore, Perry. Hero. Hyperion books; New York, NY. c 2007

I just finished reading a book called Feed. The book is basically about runaway marketing and technology in the new future. You could call it a run of the mill dystopian future America, but it was a little more than that. There were parts of it that made me want to yell "right on" when the characters were talking about the strange things their friends were doing. For example, in the book, people are hooked into a "feed" of constant information. Imagine Facebook, Google, Amazon, Twitter, and email/IM always available in your brain. When you sleep, advertisements come to your dreams. The people of this future have begun to grow lesions. Some say because of the feed, others for some other reason all together, but once a popular "feedcast" (TV show in your head) starts to glamorize the lesions, it isn't long before everyone else is getting them cosmetically added to their own bodies in order to be cool. Now imagine that the lesions are a new pair of shoes or a music group. The same thing happens now as it is described in the "future" but at the same time, much more out of control.

That was a terrible, long, terrible paragraph. I wish I could have put my words together a little better for you all, but it's just not how it happened. I do recommend you all take a look at the book. It's cataloged as YA so it wouldn't be too much for you to read. I got it done in a few days. You could probably do it faster.

I'm now moving on to a book called Impossible. It's about a girl who will go crazy the moment she gives birth because of a family curse. She must complete three impossible tasks in order to stay the coming curse, but will she be able to do it in time?

Youth Services

This is just a quick post because I have to go to Hein's class now.

Let me say this: I am looking forward to this class more than any other in all of the classes I've taken. I hope the discussion is as good as I see it being.

I'm one week away from the start of my new set of classes for grad school. These should be pretty fun though. One class has me reading YA books for the whole summer. I can't say I'm upset about that. I love love LOVE young adult books. they are like cotton candy. You can pick it up, start it and finish it in the course of a weekend. Light reading.

Go see the Star Trek Movie. I know that this isnt' the forum for it, but I think it needs to be stated once because it was that good.

My other class is all about library use instruction. I'm learning how to teach others to use the library. This shouldn't be too hard because I do that all the time at Midland. I'm usually showing someone how to send themselves a file on the copier or access a journal or something "complicated." But hopefully this will give me some really helpful stuff for the library job i've got locked down.

Speaking of that job. I had said in a previous post that the job was a little boring. I should probably have rethought that. I'm liking the job a lot. I was just not used to the quiet of the library . I know that sounds dumb, but the actual back room of the library is rather quiet. I adjusted. Now I have some pretty awesome responsibilities. I'm weeding books (which is so much fun, and a little sad) and I'm planning parties to fulfill the grant specifications. I also get to spend $5,000 on new books. Yeah, I'm going to have a fun time this summer. And all the way until the end of the year.

I passed! and I did it with flying colors. That means that I'm amazing!....or i'm really good at faking it! We'll see.

I also started my new library job this week. It has been an amazing [easy/awkward] first few days. I think what I'm going to be doing will really get me introduced to the work of a public librarian. So far it's been great! The public library has a lot more hoops to jump through as far as patrons go. I mean, there's a code book that narrows down addresses to the street number for whether you can get a card or not. That's pretty hard core. I mean seriously, HARDCORE!

The other thing that I'm finding interesting about the public library dynamic is the amount of collaboration and subordination that is involved. There are numerous people that I might have to go through in order to get something done. and from what I have learned, buying stuff takes an act of congress if not God himself.

There will be more about this, but truthfully I think it might be that way at all libraries. God forbid though. I might have to go into cataloging just to get away from the chain of command. Or just go straight to the top of the food chain.