Info Mania

It's weird for me when a major breakthrough occurs.  Very diverse ideas seem to come together suddenly and I quickly transition from what in retrospect seems like almost nothing, to the new owner of something far larger than me.  When ideas come together like this I am in the throws of what I think of as info mania.  This has been happening a lot lately. It's difficult to keep up.  

 

Road to Oz. Baum, Shanower, & Young.

Since we moved to this apartment complex, my patterns of information consumption have changed.  I no longer have Internet access in my home.  I cannot remember the time before this that I did not have open access to the Internet.  It must have been in the mid-1990s, though my mother probably had a Prodigy subscription she did not share with me. In high school we enjoyed 14 or 32k, and at St. Lawrence University the dorms enjoyed a nice, fast, T2 connection.  When I dropped out and moved in with my dear sweet, progressive Germer, we had Road Runner high speed.  She loved to look for recipes and email far away friends. In my first apartment I paid for my own Internet subscription with loan money as I worked on my BA from Empire State College.  After I finished my degree, I never had a living situation in which I did not find a way to include the Internet in my monthly bills.  That is until we moved here this past June.  

Sailor Twain

It really started at our last place when the iMac hard drive went for the second time.  As I had suddenly found myself without income, we decided to leave the computer broken.  I began using my Kindle to surf Facebook.  Often.  Like all day long I had it open.  And my kids started watching TV and DVDs too much as our rent also included cable.  If I could go back and change the way we spent time at home during this time I would certainly do it, though I also somehow feel that this choice was justifiable for a few reasons (mostly just the fix I get from info manic Internet breakthroughs via Facebook).  A lot happens on Facebook.

The Kindle was not well suited to the Internet, as it was designed as an eReader. I never much enjoyed reading books on it.  For me it best served as an emergency Facebook mobile app machine.  This is how I coped with the loss of my job.  I watched the activities of my colleagues from a far and pretended in my own mind that I was still a part of the professional circle.  I suppose I was to some extent, but rather in a disconnected, constantly connected, somewhat desperate sort of way.  It was pretty pathetic. 

Sailor Twain

Sometimes I thought I was losing my mind.  I saw seemingly generic posts or comments contain hidden symbolic messages that offered inside information as to what was happening in library land.  Library land became this magical place in my head where I was able to communicate with the colleagues I imagined were my real best-est friends through telepathy.  The book choices they shared offered secret details as to their loves, dreams, and future plans.  My husband never hesitated to tell me I was bat shit insane.  I felt insane.  So much effort, sacrifice, and money invested in what I was (and still am) certain to be my true calling in life tossed away at some petty whim of who?  Why?  What really happened?

I read everything.  I imagined what my mother might have said about it all.  I followed every path I could think of to get back to where I needed to be.  I caught the zombie virus, endlessly shuffling after brains through numerous libraries.  It took me at least six months to come to terms with what really happened and wrap my mind around the reasons given for my dreams to be smashed against the earth. The Girl Who Fell From The Sky became a favorite book.

I think I know now what happened, but it can be difficult to hold it all in my mind in the present. I know myself well enough to understand that meditation is essential.  After over a year of unemployment, I have peace with what happened.  I understand fully why my path was barred.  In my heart I have forgiven the responsible parties because of the ultimate lessons I learned about my own relationship with the Internet and also my children.  I have endured through challenging personal experiences in my life, and at this point I can't imagine a tighter belt.  Might I be told once again that my strengths are weaknesses and my weaknesses strengths? Only time will tell.

If you treat Facebook like a full time job,” my friend told me one poetry night, “you become very good at it.” 

I find memes interesting.  They offer a meaningful visual image combined with words succinct enough to be quickly digested while scrolling down.  What power these simple, small ideas contain.  They are like self subscribed subliminal messages added like freshly ground black pepper on the information salad of our Facebook feeds.  I subscribe to these as a way to frequently remind myself of who I would like to be.  They do help me feel real and grounded in an otherwise ethereal world.  So they are probably collecting data on me for the FBI.  Hopefully I am not labeled as a terrorist.  I wonder if the FBI has specific agents that investigate the Facebook activities of Homeschoolers, Buddhists, Socialists, librarians, vegans, awake people, etc.? They probably don't follow Cop Humor or Shut Up I'm Still Talking.  They ought to follow Food WithFaces and Duncan the Tonkinese.  So I subscribe to a ton of these and they somehow make my life more complete. The perfect memes appear in my feed like magic when I need them most.

Food WithFaces

In my favorite libraries, the perfect books call out to me like magic in much the same way.  I much prefer the book version of this sort magic.  Books allow me to hold on to a single idea for longer.  I relish the depth with which my mind processes an idea fleshed out over one to three hundred pages.  Memes simply touch the surface, like water walking insects.  They let me see the skin created by surface tension on the water.  They have their own language.  Spending too much time scrolling through messages like this makes life feel different.  Spending the same amount of time with a book that delves into the depths of a longer story, more fleshed out theme, or a string of concepts that come together in a coherent larger idea feels far more satisfying to me.  My mind feels solid.  My presence in the world feels genuine.  My interactions with other people contain more depth when I feed my mind with structurally sound arguments, or creatively presented, profound stories. Technologically presented information all too often feels shallow. I simply process printed paper better. Is this a strength or a weakness? I'm not sure.

On Facebook I am subscribed to a group of pages that publish memes about reading books.  I really love these.  There are those about books and reading in general, and there are pages I have liked that offer memes about specific genres I enjoy.  The weird breakthrough that I experienced was that I think I know some of the people who are creating these memes and publishing them.  Link. I always thought of them as strangers. Rather they are book characters. Strangers. Book characters I have fallen in love with.  I have seen them respond to my posts before, but I am fairly certain there is an open line of communication that occurs through these posts, and I am very much interested in some of the work that is happening here. 

My time that I have invested in Facebook has taught me many things.  It is a powerful psychological tool, akin to television commercials but perhaps even more powerful.  The underlying assumptions in the posts one elects to subscribe to offers specific information about the types of information with which one prefers to feed one's mind.  Television commercials are passive, yet they have much power in our buying habits.  We have a bit more control over Facebook.  If we find a post unpleasant, we can just click block, or remove from my feed.  

We can unfriend or unlike people that often post things we find unpleasant.  We create our own alternate or virtual reality on Facebook.  We enjoy the illusion of infinitely many friends constantly available to help us feel complete.

 What will become of my children....

Cooling weather

September 16th, 2013

Sigh.  This is a late night return to my blog.  I have practically dragged myself, kicking and screaming here.  It isn't that I don't have thoughts I wish to share.  The reason I stayed away for so long was rather that I suppose I was too worried about how I bring my ideas to the surface.  I return as I am, this midnight.

The first thing I feel compelled to share is a story.  My position at Rochester Public Library as a sub was ended about thirteen months ago.  I was given a few chances, and I suppose I gave out under various pressure gauges I had yet to learn to read.  I transformed myself into a whistle blower pointing the opposite direction that I ought to have pointed myself, and accidentally blew a gigantic hole in my foot that I may never recover from.  It aches to the point where I simply cannot function when the weather changes.

Yet, when the weather remains stable I feel comfortable exploring my world.  Lately I have dug my toes into 371 and 398.2.  I like it here.  I don't mind weather changes, but rhythm to times make life simpler in a good way.

Back when I felt that I might still have a chance, I had one last meeting with the man and woman who I believed might be able to perform the right sort of surgery on my foot.  I walked into the meeting with a coffee in my hand, and less than ten minutes later I walked out suddenly.  I suppose that it wasn't my place to explain my understanding of foot anatomy when it did not match theirs.  Their diagram was shaped differently than mine. The conversation didn't go well. 

Yet I did not return home immediately to put my bloody aching stomped toes in my mouth.  Nooo rather I went for a second opinion.  Turns out I discovered that while I suspected I was initially speaking with some of the best podiatrists in the area, my second opinion podiatrist was the authority overseeing  the podiatry portion of the local teaching hospital.  A super star in medicine, basically her word is the authority.  Her advice: sit down, shut up, and watch carefully to see how things run. 

Her belief was that my foot was damaged so severely that it will be very difficult for me to learn to walk.  However, if I do manage to get myself together and put weight on it that I will be able to ride horses again or run marathons if I so choose without excessive barriers to my success.  I did not realize that I was walking into the authority's office, though it felt counter intuitive to me to give up my voice in such a fashion.  I felt like the little mermaid, Disney version, bargaining with the Ursula.  After we recently moved to a new apartment without an Internet connection, I could see my voice travel out of my throat like a blue light and become captured in a nautilus shell.  I was bound to excessive barriers to my usual form of communication.  Furthermore, it became too much for us to manage my monthly cell phone bill.  I gave up most electronic communicating and focused on the people I see face to face.  And I dove deeper into my books.

This was a summer of excessive reading for me.  The kids and I did get outside most days, but we spent far more time reading than any other activity.  Beatrice and Vinny have developed distinct tastes picture books different from my own.  I am okay with that, though occasionally I do use Mama veto power when I believe that something is clearly for a more mature audience.  We enjoy sharing plenty of activities and discussions based on what we read.

There is a quality to communication I stumbled upon, as we learned to more deeply undersand our literature.  Some stories fit perfectly into our lives as if by magic, others create a more foreign world that takes more work to feel the internal logic in it.  I can read my children better now, and sometimes even strangers, as I can more clearly read moods based on the reaction to information consumed.  I imagine this will improve as I gain experience.  I can also feel my own center of balance more clearly since I have spent so much time reading.  When things begin to move too fast as they do in this modern age, the time I have spent meditating has taught me to bring myself back to center.  If it takes more than fifteen minutes to get back to myself, something is wrong that requires specific action on my part.

Some days I believe that my foot is healed, and that it is only a matter of time before I am swept off my feet into the land of happy ever after.  Other days I just keep inching forward, praying that I haven't unintentionally offended anyone by just being myself learning and growing in my own way.  I try to teach my children to love all living things, and to hurt nothing.  My son still wants to pretend to play with guns and kill.  My daughter's favorite toy is a stuffed cobra.  I am doing my best to let them be, but set the best example I can and encourage good choices. Is it wrong to kill for food?  Yes, we think so, but we still enjoy eating meat.  We talk about theses things, even if it hurts because we are only imperfect humans, just like everyone else. We try our best.

Maybe at this point in my blog you are wondering about my foot?  It was my own ignorance that caused the injury.  I might have avoided it if I had given the people what they wanted to hear.  Sometimes I just get it in my head that I am going to do the right thing, whatever that means, and I dig my heals into the earth, stubborn as a mule, refusing to offer my services where they are needed most.  I suppose I felt that I was being called upon to do too much in such a way that it wasn't turned around and reciprocated.  My family needed stability.  I believe everyone deserves stability and also a certain trust that they will perform their work without big brother watching and taking notes on break room gossip.  I found this absurd.  Yet, mules aren't supposed to think, and my thoughts were damaging my position.  They are just supposed to perform their ugly duties that no human would want to do on their own without some kind of super human motivation.  It might have been less of a problem if the old mule was just granted a sugar cube under her lip while drudging along, yet none was given and one hot day she just dug in her heals and stopped square in the field. 

This mule was taken to the podiatrist because it was believed she has some sort of stone bruise or an invisible injury, however the podiatrist only suggested that the mule be allowed to sit back and watch for a time.  She was given a narrow paddock along the highway, where she might observe traffic moving along.  Mule had a habit of braying at friendly looking travelers, and somehow this was interpreted as proof that her foot had not yet healed for surely she complains and perhaps even conspires to cause problems.  She was just being a mule in the way that she knew how to be a mule given the constraints of her situation. 

I have been giving much thought to the concept of education and libraries.  I have half a dozen draft essays that I am slowly working on when I have the time and energy to put into them.  I would like to put them up here on my blog when I believe they are ready.  I have also been worrying about the concept of privacy, and strategies used by the government and financial interests to control the masses of people.  I think about society, because if I can understand how society is manipulated by those truly in control, perhaps I might understand how to package and present information to people in such a way that it will be most useful and beneficial to the greater good.

I prefer to selflessly serve the greater good.  However, I cannot spend my life working for free.  When I spend time writing essays, it is typically late at night and it takes away from the time that I really ought to spend sleeping.  Like right now. I am tired.  Yet, I plan to take this outside and post it on my blog right now so that I may sleep easy and rest my aching foot.  The weather is cooling.

Review of The Hungarian Cookbook, and a recipe for non-vegetarian lentil soup

I have been feeling nostalgic lately for when I was just 20 years old and lucky enough to spend four months in Europe.  I wish I could travel far and wide again, though it would be pretty difficult with two young children.  Luckily, I have my old journal, and kept very good notes on my time in Europe.  I can revisit those old times in my imagination....  One way to bring these old memories back is to remember through cuisine.

I remember the food and the wine in Hungary to be very special.  The prices were affordable, and it was so delicious.  I recently bought a Hungarian cookbook for myself. It is The Hungarian Cookbook, by Susan Derecskey, and I do like it quite a bit.  After much searching, I found some Hungarian paprika at Target of all places. (Archer Farms was the brand, and it comes in a nice square glass jar, though I didn't notice much of a taste difference from the Simply Organic paprika that also sits on my spice rack in a very similar clear square glass jar.)

I thought I would share one recipe from this cookbook here on my blog. It will give you a feel for the style in which it presents instructions.  (But first I will torture you with my own librariany thoughts on the cookbook its self, if you can stand it.  Otherwise, just skip the next paragraph.)  

I found the book to be a bit quirky because it basically assumes that the reader knows how to cook, and it feels a lot like reading my grandmother's handwritten recipe notes.  Some aspects to the instructions are perfectly detailed, and others are more vague.  For example, at one point it assumed I would have no hesitation throwing a nearly whole onion into a soup pot.  This was a false assumption because I like my onions chopped finely.  However if I did not read and think through the entire recipe, I would have experienced some extra frustration trying to fish out all those nice small pieces of onion that I spent time and tears chopping nice and small.  That said, my grandmother's handwritten cooking notes are a real treasure to me, and I very much enjoyed the adventure of digging into each recipe as though it were a puzzle with many possible correct answers.  I do like this cookbook, other than I wish the index were more detailed.  To be fair, I nearly always want to complain about the indexes of cookbooks.  Okay, enough torture, here's the recipe for lentil soup that I promised Megan a while ago. I added a few of my own notes in italics.

Lentil Soup
LENCSE LEVES
     (len-che le-vesh)

1 1/2 cups (about 3/4 pound) dried lentils
1 tablespoon salt - I discovered this was too much salt for my tastes
2 leafy celery stalks 
2 carrots
1 leek or medium onion
2 cloves garlic, peeled and stuck on toothpicks
3 peeled tomatoes, preferably canned
1/2 medium green pepper, cut in 1/2 inch strips
2-ounce piece of smoked bacon - Resist the urge to add extra bacon.  I made this mistake... and it really does taste better with only a little bit.
3 frankfurters, sliced.  I added half a package of polish kielbasa based on a suggestion in the first section of the cookbook.


Wash the lentils in cold water and pick them over, discarding any shriveled or black ones.  Place them in a large, heavy-bottomed soup pot, and add 6 cups of cold water and the salt.  Simmer, covered, for 45 minutes.  If desired, puree all or some of the lentils at this point, or leave them whole.  Add the cleaned vegetables to the pot as well as the smoked bacon.  Bring back to the simmer and continue cooking for about 45 minutes or until the lentils are tender.  Remove the celery, onion, garlic, and bacon from the soup and discard them; remove the carrots and leek, slice them in 1/2 inch pieces, and put them back in the soup.  The tomatoes should have dissolved; if not, mash them with a fork.  About 15 minutes before serving, bring the soup back to the simmer and add the frankfurter slices.  Cook at least 10 minutes, and serve the soup.

If you try the recipe, do let me know what you thought! 

MLK's dream included Indians

This website has many resources to promote an accurate understanding of Indians when working with children: http://www.racismagainstindians.org/

Have you been following the Idle No More movement?  Protests are fascinating, and I have been learning a lot by following this one.  Here is a link describing the origins of the movement if you are unfamiliar with it. 

http://idlenomore.ca/index.php/about-us/press-releases/item/58-press-release-idle-no-more


For one, I have discovered that I am a huge fan of Northwest Coast art.  I especially like Andy Everson.  His images are clean, modern, with just enough traditional feel to make me know what I see - the spirit of the thing.  Here are links to his Facebook page and website. 

https://www.facebook.com/Andy.Everson.NWC.Artist
http://www.andyeverson.com/

He made this image:

Also, this rapper has some sweet pieces about the Idle no More movement: https://www.youtube.com/user/IamDrezus?feature=watch

My kids are part Yakima, I guess.  I have been told that they are decended from a chief that signed a treaty.  I saw a copy of the geneology around the time I was married.  I only know what I read online about it all, because my mother-in-law was raised white.  She was not even supposed to know that she was part Indian.  I can only imagine the whole story behind all this!  The only other thing I know is that the last name Hoffer was adopted spontaneously to cover up the lineage.

Environmentalism interests me, especially in the sense that my kids and future generations better learn from the mistakes of past generations or the human race will end up this video:

I read this book from the library called Through Indian Eyes: the Native Experience in Books for Children, and I realized that there was plenty of offensive content in my early education that did not make my understanding Native Americans correct.  I knew there were still Indians around, but I did not understand what racism against Indians looked like.  Now I think I have a better understanding of this, and it is important to me that my children know they are part Indian and also that this ok, just as their handedness, gender, sexuality, and the choices they make are ok. 

So today I saw on Facebook that the Sandy Hook Massacre was being touted as the largest shooting in American history... A meme reminded me that Wounded Knee was far worse...  My heart broke imagining the estimated 300 men, women and children that were massacred for fear of the ghost dance.  History came alive for me this morning.  I found this somewhat awkward flash website for the Wounded Knee Museum as a source to learn more about it. http://www.woundedkneemuseum.org

Resources for Librarians:

American Indian Youth Literature Award

http://ailanet.org/activities/american-indian-youth-literature-award/

Publisher out of Canada:

http://www.nativebooks.com/

Non-fiction for students and teachers:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/registry/wishlist/2292DJTE0JA68/ref=cm_wl_rlist_go 

Love the visual impact of these:

http://www.nativenorthwest.com/ED.Resource.html#bbooks

Comics!

http://www.racismagainstindians.org/Comics.htm

DVDs

http://www.diversitystore.com/ds/index.cfm?fuseaction=category.display&category_ID=136

The biggest source of racism that I have encountered in library materials has been in kids craft books.  I am appalled that there are so many projects for children that mock Native American culture.  Please be very careful when planning activities for children. Do not invite them to do craft projects that would come across as offensive to children with Indian heritage! 

• Implying all Indians wear feathered costumes? no! 
• Crafts mimicing Indian handiwork? no!
• Talking about traditions without citing a specific tribe? no! 

Christmas 2012: some thoughts and photos

With all the guests randomly stopping over, and the dinner party at my house, I was so afraid that the top scene of this cartoon was going to be my house between guests on Christmas. I will admit, keeping my house in a state of semi-perfection can be a challenge for me and the kids, even on a regular day.

Pipe cleaner collection

I like the toys that inspire imagination for my kids.  Imagination doesn't tend to stack well on shelves or fit in neat rows. Imagination doesn't always clean up after itself. Part of imagination is having a tolerance for not knowing what is coming next and spontaneously combining ideas from things that were supposedly separate. It's not a tidy philosophy, but I do like to let play time take over for a while.  There is inevitably the point in this process when enough is enough, play time is over. We must clean up.  For Christmas I let the reins go more than usual in this regard for the kids and I made the conscious decision to focus myself on making the food amazing and minimizing mess control in between food prep and talking to my lovely guests. The kids and adults appeared to very truly enjoy sharing the spirit of Christmas together and my apartment felt like a comfortably populated warm home with an eye level window view of the first snow of the season.  Sigh.  The presents I gave them this year included an incredible collection of pipe cleaners and a special box filled with brightly colored feathers.

The kids managed to sleep until 8, which I thought was totally fair. We all woke up and together we all checked out the living room. Bea and Vinny were in their new pajamas so that they would look nice in pictures. This is a Colbert tradition I've adopted thanks to Christmas eve with Arlene and Mary Ann. Bea's Christmas jammies this year made her look just like a leopard.  Thanks Mary Ann! How cute. Funny that I bought some kitty ears totally separately that just happened to match perfectly. Santa must be psychic! At least he was when I was a kid. Now that I'm grown I have to figure out how to be the mind reader. Oh wait, no I have to find a way to conjure up money.

Kitty Bea waking up slow next to a family of sledding penguins.

I took the kids to visit Santa sitting on a throne in a fake plastic version of the North Pole at Eastview mall. Vinny wanted to touch the fake snow just as bad I remember wanting to touch it. It's that seemingly built in human yearning for the thing just beyond our reach.  Put the gifts on a charge, buy a brand new mini mansion in a cookie cutter configuration on a road named after something humans are destroying on this planet, live life on the edge. I bet Eastview uses the exact same rolls of quilt stuffing and white cellophane sparkle snowflakes they used at that mall when the carpet was green and I was a kid in a stroller.  I remember Mom used to like parking at Woolworths or Fay's Drugs.  I remember sitting in the car outside Sears watching it snow while Dad loaded our brand new long needle fake Christmas tree into the car.  I remember my parents talking about keeping it forever.  I remember my Grandmother talking about downtown, and I think of Midtown.  It's a hole in the ground. I wish I could ask her about her visits there.

I feel old and worn as a Mommy of two approaching Christmas. I don't want to teach them to over-do as I think I was taught.  I want to teach them to center themselves and live life awake.  Bea asked Santa for a pink whistle with a bird on it.  Vinny wanted trombone.  Santa looked at me inquisitively and told the kids he was stumped.  I just said, "I guess that's what they want." He told them that he wasn't sure if he could do that or not, but that he would try.  A pink whistle with a bird on it is pretty specific, and a trombone is likely very expensive.  He managed to find a pink recorder and put a bird sticker on it for Bea. Vinny somehow got his hands on a slide whistle, but I'm not sure where that came from. Wishes were fulfilled, though I didn't spend $20 on the pictures.

Vinny thinks his new saw is amazing!

We let the kids open the presents very slow. They seemed to want to take a good look at everything before moving on to the next thing. I fought my childhood inclination to open all the presents fast and then play with them when no one is around.  Santa brought Vinny an amazing work bench constructed of wood including wooden screws, nails, bolts, pre-drilled lumber, and cubes to help fasten the lumber together in various configurations.  Mat started putting that together as I began brewing an extra yummy pot of coffee.  This toy is amazing and Vinny hasn't stopped playing with it yet. I found it for $60 less 15% at a great big store that at least pretends to care about human rights and the environment.  Bea's best present was a digital camera.  She has been taking tons of pictures of the most random things.  She's admittedly jealous of Vinny's yoyo.  Vinny is very jealous of Bea's Monster scaring flashlight. I'm proud to report that they have been playing together nicely, especially when they decide to share new toys.

We celebrated Christmas eve with the Colberts where we helped decorate the tree.

My best attempt at photographing overtired Vinny decorating the tree at Grama and Grampa's house.

Vinny made an interesting attempt at wearing a stocking.

 The day of Christmas I did not leave my home.  Here are a few photographic highlights.

Centerpiece for the dinner table!

Close up of my pink Christmas tree.

 

Bea is just cute.

Dad carving the perfectly cooked, perfectly timed prime rib.

I made a feast for eight people this year.  The prime rib roast came out perfectly medium rare and delicious.

The tiniest cutest ladybug!

Bea opening a present carefully selected by Mama and Auntie. Finger print art!

Decorating the tree with Mom and Dad Colbert

 

Bea flipped when she opened this.

Something about me.

I really started learning stuff back in the autumn of the year 2000 at St. Lawrence University.  One of five courses I took my first semester of college was intro to environmental science.  I still have my two and a half inch thick text book, even though I could have sold it back for good money.  It was painful to learn all this from a teacher who basically started out by telling us that there is no real solution.  That same semester, my first year class also studied environmental issues and international politics.  It was enough to immerse me deeply in the problems of this planet, that's for sure.  After reading Ishmael by Daniel Quinn and also The Man Who Grew Young by the same author, I became passionate about making a difference in the world.

My second semester I decided to steer away from such a deep focus on the environment. I knew it was very bad, and that was enough.  My second semester first year course was "Toxic Avenger's Theatre." That course really stretched me far beyond my comfort zone and pushed my creativity to the limit.  The following semester I took international politics and then, early in the semester on an off day, September 11th happened.  I decided to focus my learning on international politics and math. I was doing well in most of my courses.... but I had become so deeply depressed by the shock of learning about the impossible ills of the world I was not sure I could carry on.  I spent a semester in Europe and then dropped out of college.

I felt it was time for me to switch from a science and math focus to a creative focus.  I took courses at a few different community colleges and then designed my own degree program at Empire State College.  I carefully planned out a highly balanced, extremely well rounded education topped by a study in the use of literature in education.  I did not study how to teach but rather the broader concept of education in general.  After finishing my highly coveted degree, I spent two years earning minimum wage in urban poverty until I realized that a career in librarianship was perfect for me. I wrote a compelling application essay and (surprise!) conceived my daughter the same week. I learned of the pregnancy two weeks after I was accepted at the University at Buffalo's library science program.  This same month, my grandmother died.  I underwent several serious lifestyle changes to adapt to the pregnancy, while at the same time I awkwardly began a degree I wanted second only to my baby. We moved to Batavia and got married.  We moved back to Rochester. As soon as my prepregnancy figure returned, (surprise again!) I became pregnant a second time.  I finished my MLS and then gave birth to my boy child three weeks later.   Perhaps this might be the right answer to "tell me something about yourself"  for someone looking to hire the best of the best? I don't know. What makes one best better than another best of a different variety?

Honestly, I am the sort of person who is interested in so many things. I must concentrate to narrow my focus and execute detail oriented work.  Seeing the big picture is something that comes naturally to me.  I like to bird walk ideas, as one started project gets set aside unfinished as I become excited about a new concept that then in turn feeds to another.  I will return to my old projects.  I do intend on finishing them one day.  Deadlines help me.

My current focus is learning about how humanity must change the way we interact with our environment if we are to stop living as parasites on the planet and begin to shift our way of thinking toward sustainability.  My daughter's preschool teacher says I should just talk about going green.  That's something palatable that people can learn about somewhat comfortably.  Learning about sustainability and permaculture can be overwhelming and depressing.  I think that now I am ready for it.  As a pretend librarian, I imagine that I am in a position where maybe somehow I can make a difference by providing my imaginary patrons with just the right amount of information so that they want to learn more and continue to live an increasingly green lifestyle.

I fantasize about being able to build a collection of very useful reference books in these subjects.  I am lying.  I see titles and reviews of books like these and I ignore them all the time.  I have zero budget.  I have kids to look after and there are so few jobs out there paying a wage that will both meet our physical and financial needs.  The only thing I want more that a part time library job, is a nice home comfortably within my budget where I can raise my family. 

I interviewed for a position nearly two weeks ago....

I just discovered my nice rejection email.  They will keep my resume on file in case of new openings and all that.  I know that I should not feel bad as they interviewed quite a few of my well qualified colleagues, but rejection is intensified by how few and far between open positions have become.  Will I even get another chance within a year?  The more time that passes, the more shiny new graduates are also waiting with their freshly sharpened skills and advice from their professors on how to get that job.  I owe money for this education. I care about this work. I have children to think of. I have goals for myself that I have been holding on to for a long time.  How am I supposed to accept things the way they are? I can't.