Ready or not...

Sometimes I really miss the games I used to play when I was a kid. I grew up in a house with a huge front yard, complete with a perfectly manicured lawn lined by a rock wall, and a good sized patch of forest surrounding the house on three sides. I was lucky enough to live close by a couple families with kids roughly the same ages as me and my siblings, and since dial-up and DOS games just didn't cut it for entertainment most afternoons after school or during summer break, the neighbor kids would come over and we'd play outside.

As a kid I was shrimpy but fast, so I was definitely a fan of any game where speed over brawn was necessary to win. Tag, freeze tag, TV tag, toilet tag (don't judge...it was way fun), Fire in the Jungle...any game I could use to lord my superior running abilities over the rest of the people playing, I was in. Games of stealth and trickery were no different: hide 'n seek, sardines, kick the can, capture the flag, or even just a good squirt gun fight all topped my list too.

P.E. in elementary school and junior high was just as fun. Even though I couldn't throw a red rubber ball to save my life, I soon proved to be nearly impossible to hit, and I vividly remember games of Elimination where I'd be sprinting laps around the gym while balls and muffled curses thudded into the walls right behind me. At my elementary school, once a year, they'd set the gym up like an obstacle course, stick empty pop cans on all the obstacles, turn the lights off, and have you crawl around the course trying not to make any noise lest they nail you with the start-over spotlight. And don't even get me started on Field Day. Best damn day of the entire school year.

Why did we ever stop playing those games? All the games we grew into as adults are governed by so many rules. As kids, breaking the rules of the game or adapting them on the fly usually wound up being the fun part, but as adults, breaking the rules destroys the fun and starts the shouting matches. No one ever gets together just to play a game of freeze tag anymore, and the people that do see it as a novelty, not a normality.

Right now, I'm sitting at my desk finishing out my day at work before heading to a pub for some catch-up time with a friend followed by listening to some lectures for grad school and probably going to bed early. But sometimes, especially on days full of adult-ness like this one, I kinda wish I could be playing hide and seek instead.

A not-post

I was sitting in the Suzzallo reading room a few days ago working on some school stuff, and I thought hey! Why not start taking notes on stuff I could put in a blog post later? I haven't written anything in a while, but I'm feeling too lazy to write much at the moment, so maybe...a list! Yeah! I like lists! Lists are easy, and ADD-friendly! So without further ado (because I seriously need to put in some time on my 560 User Needs Assessment that's due, oh, TOMORROW *panicky flailing*), a collection of random thoughts. I might eventually run with some of them and turn them into a real post, buuuuut I might not. Who knows.

My original blog post opener:

In my Instructional and Training Strategies class right now, we've been asked to read a couple articles that have quietly started the wheels turning in my head regarding why exactly I want to do what I want to do with my life.

While listening to the first story in the This American Life episode "Image Makers" (Ep 294):

"Who does her own librarian version of 'Hello Escanaba, are you ready to rock?'" --> "Hello kids! So what are you here to see today? *pauses* A rock concert! That's right!" *facepalm*

Volunteering during the kids rock concert at SPL killed me - patrons were upset, expecting the library to be a quiet place, and yeah, for 364 days out of the year, it usually is. So what if for one afternoon, they want to be loud?

Why the hell can't libraries be fun, exciting places where people meet, collaborate, and engage with each other?

Libraries are for the young. The learners. The innovators. It's time we took that back.

"Did it make you think differently about the library?"
"Yes it did! It made me think about...hey, if librarians can do this, make a library not very much a library with making it loud, basically anyone could do anything!"

While watching 'The Hollywood Librarian':

"I long to throw my arms around every librarian I meet on behalf of all the souls they never knew they saved." -Barbara Kingsolver

Keepers of a civilizing flame.

Weight of the library world is on our shoulders.

Schmuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp. (I have no idea why I wrote this.)

Defense of libraries focuses a lot on children's librarianship, providing services for the homeless or disadvantaged, and helping students. What can libraries do for the average person?

Book clubs or group or discussions give people a safe outlet to discuss things beyond the superficial and connect with each other in a deep way.

The Hollywood Librarian = a nostalgic love letter to libraries past.

Mitchell and Webb! Aaahahhhaaaaaaaaaaahahahahaha!!! I kinda want to post the librarian one on fb, but it might make people who don't possess senses of humor mad.

Libraries should be at the technological forefront of information storage, retrieval, and management.

Apparently, space heaters + crappy apartment wiring = blown circuits every five minutes. Hello blankets!

In 520, my discussion group has spent a week talking about censorship, questioning the moral/ethical side of librarianship, and examining the rather revolutionary (for the time) reference techniques put forth in an article published in 1876 while simultaneously ripping apart the supercilious and irritatingly condescending tone of its author. My small group for the class also picked student filmmakers as our target group for our Top Ten Reference Sources project later in the quarter.

In 560, we've talked about everything from what makes certain professors effective in the classroom, using the ARCS model as our baseline, to exactly why Alton Brown is such a bamf in the kitchen. (Yes, I did just use the term "bamf". Deal with it.) I also decided to use the same student filmmaker target group for my future library skills instruction project.

Based solely on this first week of class, I am so so so excited for how the rest of this quarter is going to go. This shit's awesome, and a big part of why I went back to school. :)

Found out half of my apartment is on one circuit. This particular circuit likes to blow once every couple days totally randomly. It is annoying.

I remember when I was a kid, going back to school after a break was probably the greatest torture adults could ever devise for someone my age. My mom always knew to make my favorite breakfast and steer clear of me on that first day back, since I'd usually be a massive grouch the entire day. Ohhhhh how things change when you get older and start liking what you study infinitely more than what you do for a living.

Classes started back up on Monday, and just like first quarter, after the first couple of days getting acclimated to the new content and class structure (and touching base with my new groups), I'm realizing I'm in for one hell of a semester. The thing that excites me, though, is that I feel like we've gotten past the appetizer that was first quarter and are finally getting down to the meat and potatoes of the degree. I have really missed working in reference at Linfield over the past two years, and now I'm going to be learning the structure and methods behind what I did as a student worker! At times during my brief ref worker tenure, I felt like I was doing something (and doing it relatively well) without the proper understanding of how and why it worked. I'm really hoping these two classes will help fill in those gaps and give me a good foundation for where I'd like to start out before heading towards administration: reference librarianship in a medical or science library.

So in other news, I realized after having coffee with a friend last night that I'm slightly behind on the whole Huck Finn censorship drama that's playing out at the moment. From what I understand, a publishing house in Alabama is combining forces with a Twain scholar to publish an edition of the many-times-banned The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that removes the "n word" and replaces it with "slave". People are outraged. Here's my take:

We live in a free country. If one publishing house wants to print one edition of a novel that is censored in some way, they are entirely free to do so. In my opinion, it isn't even that much of a censoring - replacing a derogatory racial slur with a socially acceptable word that still encapsulates one of the most shameful periods of our history admirably is fine by me. It isn't like NewSouth is trying to replace "n****r" with "African American" or some other politically correct term. And quite honestly, if the n-word is the sole reason this book isn't getting into the hands of more junior high and high school students, then by all means put out a slightly altered version that won't piss off close-minded, uptight parents and school boards. They are editing out one word. In one edition. They are not editing the content or controversial subject matter of the novel, nor are they launching a campaign to stamp out the n-word from all copies of Huck Finn ever printed. If a kid wants to get his/her hands on an unaltered copy, all they'd have to do is wander down to their local library or bookstore and pick up one of the HUNDREDS of unaltered versions.

Censorship of any kind is a definite sore spot for me - the second I was old enough to comprehend the idea of a Banned Books list, I immediately went to the library to try and track down as many of them as I could. So don't get me wrong - I am 100% against the idea that anyone in a position of authority can deny the rights of others to read or watch or listen to any controversial material. But that isn't what's happening here. What's happening here is an interesting kind of reverse censorship that I find both fascinating and entirely blown out of proportion. Let NewSouth print their version of Huck Finn. Let whoever would like to read it do so. In the meantime, please just stop talking about how this one edition of Huck Finn is going to be a giant leap backwards in the fight against censorship and banning books, because that argument is total crap. But that's just my opinion. I'd be curious to hear what you all think about it!

Whew. Okay. Mini censorship rant over. Think I'll play a little Machinarium before heading to bed. Lots of good beer and good company to look forward to this weekend. ^_^