Updates on updates

Well, no fruits on my labors at this time. I sent out a "thanks for the interview" email to the two libraries I interviewed with and quickly got an email back from Sacramento. They said I didn't qualify for the next round. That's ok.

Also, I haven't heard back from Wichita, but I'm guessing that I didn't "qualify for the next round" as well. That's ok as well.

I'm still looking and applying for any full-time Children's Librarian positions I see. I'm also taking the correct Praxis test in a few weeks - that will let me apply for teaching jobs (if there are any left).

Wish me luck - I know there is a full-time position for me on the horizon...somewhere!

Interview Updates

Three Interview in Two Weeks - Here's the facts:

Aug.11: North Logan Public Library.
I went up to Logan for this interview and the library was nice, but on the smaller size. I met with the Director and two members of the Library Board. This position was for an regular Librarian - as opposed to a Children's position and my answers seemed to revert to my love for children. I guess working with children is on my brain. Overall, I think the interview went pretty good - but didn't get great responses in body language from the interviewers. Oh well.

Aug. 15: Sacramento Public Library
This was my first phone interview and I was so nervous! Three women talked with me and I couldn't tell their voices apart during the interview - well I guess it didn't matter. This interview was for a Children's Librarian job - well actually 3 positions. I think it went pretty well - I had answers to their questions and example for their scenarios. I felt better about this interview and also not so afraid of phone interviews.

North Logan Update:
Received a letter later this week saying they hired another candidate, etc etc. That's ok - chalk it up to experience and add the letter to my collection.

August 20: Wichita Public Library
This interview was at 7am my time! Yikes! Hopefully they couldn't tell that I was still in my pajamas! (hehe) This interview didn't go as well as I could of liked. They were asking many questions about how I deal with multicultural patrons and would books I could recommend. They wanted titles in children's pictures books, children's fiction, children's non-fiction and young adult. Actual titles! At 7am! I was really scrambling for a smart choice and I actually couldn't think of any YA titles to recommend. Bummer. We'll see if they like me!

Bilingual Story-time

I got to participate in Bilingual story-time with Sylvia, who is from Argentina. Our theme was back to school and we found some fun stories about first day of school jitters, etc etc. I would read a page in English and Sylvia would read it in Spainish. It was great.

We even did one story in sign language as well. Well, words in ASL - not whole sentences. This was the dialog in the book - Page one: "Wow! School!" Page Two: "Wow! Teacher!" You get the idea! (hehe)

The books we used:

Wow! School!

by Robert Neubecker

First day jitters

by Julie Danneberg ; illustrated by Judy Love.

Splat the cat

by Rob Scotton

The New Mr. & Mrs. Beck

My downstairs neighbor, Rob, got married to his sweetheart Jen. They got married on Wednesday and had a great reception. I didn't have my own camera, but I snagged these pictures! Thanks Erin! What a good looking couple!

Bishop & Sister Miles and me!

Fishing at Preschool Storytime

Paul and I did preschool storytime this week and our theme was fishing. It was really fun and the kids had a great time. We shared some cute books:

Ten little fish

by Audrey Wood ; illustrated by Bruce Wood.

The little fish that got away

story by Bernadine Cook ; pictures by Crockett Johnson.

Five silly fishermen

by Roberta Edwards ; illustrated by Sylvie Wickstrom.

Then later we let the kids go fishing with little fishing poles with magnets in a blue butcher paper pond of fish. It was great and everyone had a good time!

Discovering a new world at the library

This is a neat pop-up book commercial for the Columbus Public Library...

Now it's your turn to drive the bus

All Things Considered, July 29, 2008 ·

Cartoonist, children's book illustrator and author Mo Willems is turning his hand to radio cartooning.

Yeah, he knows, he knows — people can't see the cartoons on the radio. Nontheless, he and Michele Norris are giving it a go on All Things Considered. Willems will describe the cartoon, and Norris will take a stab at the punch line...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93022743

Manti Temple Excursion

Our ward had our temple trip to Manti on Saturday. I'm really excited that we got that go ahead to go and it seems like people are excited.

To make it even more special, we went to the old City Hall and heard a little presentation about the history of Manti and the temple, etc. It's interesting how I got that worked out - I first called the temple and asked if they could give such a presentation but they couldn't for the unendowed members in our group. Also, we aren't allowed to meet on "Temple Hill" for any gatherings of that nature. So, they recommended the Manti Pageant people for me to call. I did that, and they recommended I call this Brother Vern Buchanan. I did and he was excited to help us out. He's working on restoring the old City Hall building (http://restoremanti.org/) and offered to let us come and hear about that project as well as some history and so forth. I hope this will be a positive experience for everyone - I sure enjoyed it!

I was excited to finally go inside the Manti Temple! I haven't since I've been endowed and I was excited to see another live version besides Salt Lake. It was an interesting experience and the murals were really interesting! The decorations were beautiful! Afterwards they showed us the freestanding staircases and they were amazing.

Branching Out

I didn't get that school librarian job at Riley, and I had to call to find that out. The school has yet to call or write my rejection. Oh well. So, that's the last of the school librarian positions available for this school year. I went back to the district office and put my application in for a regular teacher and it turns out that I need to take another Praxis test to be a highly-qualified candidate. I was pretty upset about that. The next available test isn't until Sept, so I won't be getting any calls for interviews from them anytime soon. So, I got brave (and desperate) and started sending out my application to Children Librarian jobs out of Utah. The closest one is in California and the rest are east including Michigan and New Jersey. I found the job openings on this certain website and I think I'm going to start checking on some closer states, searching specific states, etc. I already have 2 interviews next week: an interview in Logan on Monday and a phone interview for a job in Sacramento on Friday. I've never had a phone interview before! I'll let you know how that goes.

Eowyn with Faramir

I just finished watching the extended version of the Lord of the Rings. It was amazing.

This is one of my favorite extra scenes, with Eowyn and Faramir. It is so sweet! Check it out!

World of Fairies

I got to head up our Fairy Program. It was really fun. It was two hours and we did lots of fun crafts, including fairy houses, little fairies and flower crowns, etc. The girls loved it. We had more sign up than actually came, but we had fun with the group we had. I wish I got pictures - the girls were so cute with their flower crowns! We even served fairy treats: mini chocolate chips, heath bits, and Kissables and we had "fairy nectar" punch. We got many compliments from parents and from excited girls. It was an enjoyable experience all around.