I'm Reading a Book!

So, I haven't updated the blog in a long time! Sorry! And, today isn't that day, but I'll post this little video in the meantime!

Gotta Keep Reading - Ocoee Middle School

Check out this video- based off the flashmob Oprah/Black Eyed Peas show!!!!

APHC: Ruth Harrison, Reference Librarian

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kEq7ADBGW-8

Summer Programs at the Library

Besides the summer reading program, my department has been busy with 3 days of storytime. I've been doing the 2-3 yr old storytime each day and it's been fun. We have some regulars and they are starting to recognize me. It's so fun hearing their little voices say my name and are excited to see me! My personal favorites are the twins, Kate and Brennan. They are half Japanese and adorable! Their mom says that whenever they drive by the library they ask if Ms Elizabeth is there. So cute!
The children's department has also been busy with special storytime programs. I haven't done any programs myself, but I've been on hand to help out. I will be heading up another costume-character program next month. Yeah...
One of my co-workers, Debbie, won a grant for our library and we received some new books. That was really cool. In the grant she wrote up ways she would use these books for special library programs, if she won. So, now she's caring out these programs. One of the books was "Our White House: looking in, looking out" and it's a collection of facts and short stories about the White House. What's she did for one of her programs was talk about the pets that the President's have had - they they painted a simple picture of the White House and the green lawn in front - then the kids could paint what animals they would have as pets if they were President. It was a big success.
Next week Donna and Debbie are doing a program to commemorate the 40 years since NASA first landed on the moon. That will be really fun.

Movie Mania - literally!

We've had a weekly movie showing each Thursday. Donna found the newest kid's movies that just came to DVD (Hotel for Dogs, Paul Blart Mall Cop, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Race to Witch Mountain, High School Musical 3 and Space Buddies - if you wanted to know) and we show them each week - with a free bag of popcorn. (We have a big popcorn popper). The first week we have more than one hundred people show up and our meeting room has a fire code restriction of 100 people. Also, the volunteers had only popped 50 bags of popcorn and people were pestering the volunteers to make more popcorn.
Well, to prevent this happening again the next time we figured out a ticket system - just like in the movie theaters. We are only setting up 75 chairs, popping 75 bags of popcorn and giving out 75 bags of popcorn. Once the tickets are gone, that's it! It went a lot better the next week and the weeks following - much more in control!
We've also had teen volunteers helping out this summer. Since we are short-staffed we've been having them help with re-shelving (a never-ending job) and other special projects as necessary. They've been a big help.

Be Creative - Summer Reading Program 2009

I'm keeping busy with work, and this summer has been going good, for the most part! We've been busy with the Summer Reading Program and getting kids and teens to sign up. If the kids read 10 hours, marking off their game-board, then they get a prize! The half-way prize is a Smencil - a gourmet smelling pencil. Those are really popular. The end prize is a new book. Well, some are newly bought and the rest are nice looking donation books. That was a bit frustrating to me, to re-gift books that were donated to us - but they are in good condition and hopefully the kids will never know! This is a change from last year, they used to give out little prizes from the Oriental Trading company and the kids loved those. Since the city of Chesapeake is trying to save money, and be "green", they chose to give a book as the final prize. That's great - but I had hoped we would have a slew of new books that were new off the market - not donated copies of The Babysitter's Club. Oh well, whatever is left over won't be wasted.

Summer in D.C.

Pictures from my weekends in D.C.!

The National Mall

In June I was invited to a wedding, at the D.C. Temple, of a friend from my mission, Nica Conde. I was excited that I could actually go! Her wedding was on Friday and I decided to make a weekend of the trip and do some sight-seeing in D.C. on Saturday. Her wedding was so nice and I even got to see some old friends from my mission - that was really neat.
The reception was in Arlington, Virginia - so before the reception I went to the Arlington National Cemetery. The rows of white headstones were humbling - as was seeing the tomb of the unknown soldier. I also walked over to see the Kennedy's headstones. Saturday I went to the National Mall. I parked my car and took the Metro subway downtown. I hoped to see the national sites, and maybe some of the Smithsonian museums. Too bad they are all so far apart from each other! I sure did do a lot of walking! I actually had shin-splints for a few days afterwards.
Anyway, I saw the Washington Monument, then walked over the Lincoln Memorial - stopping at the Vietnam and WWII memorials on the way. I really liked the Lincoln Memorial - and it was also surreal looking at the statue that I've seen in so many pictures and movies. Martin Luther King stood there with his rally and spoke that famous speech. I wanted to spend more time contemplating all these things - but there were so many people there that it was too crowded to linger. I started walking back towards the capitol and almost made it - but my legs just gave out! I didn't think my legs would be able to get me back when I finally got there. So, I turned back and decided to quickly look through a couple of the museums.
I went to the Air & Space Museum and saw the Wright Brother's airplane, and one of the Apollo capsules that went to the moon. I next went over the Natural History museum and saw the Hope diamond! It's actually smaller than I expected - but it was sure beautiful! By this time I was exhausted, so I got back on the Metro back to my car. That was a great weekend - and I look forward to more opportunities to visit our nation's capital!

Frank & George

I've had a few opportunities to do some traveling this month and it's been fun. I had the chance to go to a Frank Lloyd Wright designed house, the Pope-Leighey House. That was really neat - it's just wood and concrete and lots of unique windows. I guess he really liked the natural light in the home - and natural elements. The wooden walls weren't painted, just stained to show the grain of the wood. He even designed the furniture - it was pretty neat. I was impressed.

In the same town is Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. That was really amazing and surreal. The house was very grand, with some original pieces of furniture. A few of the rooms were painted green because Washington believed, as others in his time, that this showed prosperity. While waiting to go to different rooms there were tour guides sharing facts and stories about the Washington's. When George Washington died, his wife closed up their master room and moved her belongings to another room. She couldn't sleep in that room anymore. The grounds of Mount Vernon were quite extensive and unfortunately I didn't have the time to see them all, but that just means I'll have to go back! There was this neat museum by the front gate and it had some neat exhibits about Washington - including some wax figures of Washington at different ages of his life. It was cool.

YSA Memorial BBQ Pool Party

We had a good time! Very fun!

Ericka

Sydney

Me and Heidi

Meredith, Ericka, Sydney and Heidi

Peter and the Wolf

I just watched this short film and it was amazing. The music is classic - but this stop-motion animation is incredible. I loved Peter's character, and his big blue eyes. Watch it sometime - you won't regret it!

Daisy Duck and Tagging

I helped with my first costume-character program this week. The library system rented a Daisy Duck costume (not Disney's Daisy Duck - but a duckling character from a book - very cute) and all the libraries had to plan a program to use the costume. My co-worker, Debbie, volunteered to be in the costume - and I didn't envy her. It looked so hot inside and she was so sweaty afterwards. So, I planned a family program with some stories, songs and a craft. We have a big screen and projection equipment that lets me plug in our laptop and run a PowerPoint presentation. I scanned in the pictures from the books - then showed them on the big screen. I blurred out the words on the pages and read those myself. We sang some duck songs and Debbie came out in the costume, and the kids went crazy. She went outside and we read another story then we did an easy craft - then Debbie came out again and the parents came up and took pictures of their kids with the the Duck costume. It was a success, though a little crazy on the kid's part. Debbie told me that was to be expected - the kids love the costume characters. Yeah! My first successful program! Jean was planning on coming, but then had a meeting to go to and I was grateful again for the tender mercies of the Lord. I needed to do this program without someone watching over my shoulder. I feel more comfortable about these story programs now and will be okay if Jean wants to attend in the future.

Work is going better. We're all keeping busy with a big system-wide project. We are in the process of putting Radio Frequency (RFID) tags on all the library materials and that will let the patrons do "self-checkout" and also help from theft. So, we are all working on "tagging" the books - meaning we need to place a tag in each book and scan the barcode to match it up, etc etc. We have a deadline of June and we're all scrambling to get this completed. With this process, Jean wanted us the library to be heavily "weeded" so we weren't wasting money by placing tags in old and dirty books. So, we've all been working on that - and it's been keeping me busy. I'm getting faster in doing it, but we are currently tagging the section that I'm still weeding. Yikes! I hope to get my part done my next week, then I can help with the tagging and what not. We also have to shelve our own books - just because we only have one person to do shelving in the whole library and she's only part-time. The library is short-staffed and we have a hiring freeze. I know, nothing new right now. It's just keeping us on our toes!

Raleigh Temple Trip

Decided to drive down to Raleigh, North Carolina to attend a session at the temple. This temple is about the same distance as the D.C. temple - but I hear the traffic is much less. It took me 3 hours to drive down there. I had to call ahead to reserve my seat for the 12pm session. It's a small temple and the rooms were so cute! I think they only have 2 ordinance rooms and a small celestial room in the middle. Still very beautiful. It was just what I needed.

I wanted to see more since I was in North Carolina, but the only thing that I ended up was seeing a little memorial park for Martin Luther King. There was a statue and a fountain - that was it.

I was a little disappointed. Next time, I'll have a better game plan.

Supervisor Training...

I participated in my first Supervisory Training Course. I'm required to get Supervisory Certification and need to take classes, etc. This was a week-long one called "Effective Supervisory Training". The class was held at the City Hall building and it was with other city employees. (Sheriff, Mosquito Control, etc.) It was enlightening - but long. I hated being out of the library for a whole week and I started making lists of things I needed to get done when I got back. I don't know how I could of avoided it. I'm required to complete this Certification program in the next year - and these classes are only offered at specific times. I'm glad it's finished and it looks like the other required courses are only a few hours long each. I can do that.
So, all week long one of the things I was worried about was this family program that I was in charge of. It was related to the Chesapeake "One book, one community" event. The book they chose was about a boy and his interaction with the first all-black Coast Guard. I helped arrange a program about shipwrecks and coast guard rescues off of Virginia Beach. This lady came and shared a presentation. Ok, that wasn't what I was stressing about - it was the attendance. We require registration for our programs, so we know how many to plan for, etc. Hardly anyone signed up for this program - and not for a lack of trying. I posted posters and handed out bookmarks - but it wasn't enough. I should have been contacting patrons, who came a similar program in the past, a month in advance and also got a press release into the local paper. I'm not in the habit of doing those things and it blew up in my face, unfortunately. I did have 7 people show up for the program, which is better than nothing, but I still feel bad that the library sponsored this low-attended activity. Well, this definitely was a learning experience! I know now what needs to be done to have more attendance for a program.
Monday, I'm still feeling bad about this Coast Guard program the previous Sat. and was dreading talking to my manager, Jean, about it. She pulled me aside and we talked. She was candid with me and told me that she was worried about my performance and how I was doing. She said they had a different impression of me at my phone interview and hoped that I would of had more experience. She did say that she was glad I was a nice person and not cocky - but she wanted me to step up. I felt so ashamed and even started crying a bit (talk about embarrassing). She quickly wrapped things up, asking me to "get in the fast lane", and she let me leave. I had a hard time concentrating the rest of the afternoon (with my blood-shot eyes) and as soon as I got home I broke down. I talked with Mom and Dad, and even my Branch President about what to do next and I got lots of good advice and even a priesthood blessing. I did a lot of thinking and list-making and eventually was able to get to sleep that night.
I fasted that next day and went in a little early to work to start getting in control of the my job. Jean was out of town and I was so grateful for the tender mercy. I needed the alone time to think and plan. I studied our department calendar, I started delegated some of my duties, and started feeling more in control. I held a staff meeting the next week and we talked about my place in the department and how we all can work together as a team. I haven't had another talk with Jean, but I did tell her in passing, at the end of that week, that I felt better about what was going on in the Children's Department and felt more in control. She didn't say much, but just reminded me to "stay in the fast lane". I think things are going better and I feel more confidence when I see Jean walk into the room. Keep me in your prayers that I can have the skills and confidence to achieve in this job! There are no other options - I have to succeed!

Trip to D.C. Temple

The YSA Branch took a trip to the Washington D.C. Temple. It was amazing. We left at 11am and got there about 3:30pm. No, it doesn't usually take that long to get to D.C. - we hit Spring Break traffic. Good thing we made later appointments! The temple is so tall - and white. It's very beautiful. Inside, the celestial room had tall ceilings. My friend, Heidi, told me that they had designed it so you look up. I thought that was really neat. In the lobby of the temple is big floor-to-ceiling painting of Jesus and the right hand/left hand judgement. I can't remember the name. While waiting for others to finish with baptisms, I went over to the visitor's center. It has a Christus in the lobby - and if you turned around to look at the temple through the large windows you could see the reflection of Christ on the temple. Very neat. After a quick bit to eat, we got back on the road and didn't get home until at least midnight. It was good day!

American Born Chinese

As alienated kids go, Jin Wang is fairly run-of-the-mill: he eats lunch by himself in a corner of the schoolyard, gets picked on by bullies and jocks and develops a sweat-inducing crush on a pretty classmate. And, oh, yes, his parents are from Taiwan. This much-anticipated, affecting story about growing up different is more than just the story of a Chinese-American childhood; it's a fable for every kid born into a body and a life they wished they could escape. The fable is filtered through some very specific cultural icons: the much-beloved Monkey King, a figure familiar to Chinese kids the world over, and a buck-toothed amalgamation of racist stereotypes named Chin-Kee.
This was an really interesting story. It's about a "American-born Chinese" boy who is trying to fit in with his peers - but also learn to appreciate his Chinese heritage. It is told in three different stories, that end up being connected and thought-provoking. I enjoyed it!

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday was nice, and Easter Sunday dinner was even better! (hehe) The Tuft's made the traditional ham and yummy potatoes, Ashley made deviled eggs and I helped by making some sparkling raspberry lemonade. (Thanks for the idea Kade!) It was all so yummy! Later, Dianna pulled out some plastic eggs with items in them to represent the Savior's atonement experience. This is a tradition in their family and I've seen this before in YW. One egg will have a nail, or soap, or a small piece of cloth, one had 3 dimes (30 pieces of silver), and the last one was empty. They all had a little paper with a New Testament scripture describing how the object was significant. It was good and afterwards we watched The Lamb of God, perfect to end the day with that, and actually I started my morning by watching the Testaments so I had some good bookends to my day! It was interesting, as I was driving to work the Friday before Easter I passed by a couple churches that had made, on their front lawn, a replication of the tomb, with the stone open. I don't know if they were going to use them for a presentation, or if they were just for show. It's great being back in the Bible Belt!

Speaking of the Bible Belt, it's really interesting see how open the people are here about their Christianity. My co-workers talk about going to church, teaching Sunday School, etc. A guy gave me a business card and there was a scripture on the back with that fish symbol. A co-worker, at another library, always wears this pin of the cross with a little piece of fabric and a small crown of thorns draped over it. Another co-worker, who is very religious in her catholic faith, was talking to me about her husband's new job prospects and she said to me: "I can tell you this because I know you're also God-driven". I was really flattered by that. This is a great experience!

Virginia Residency

I'm finally a resident of Virginia. I got my car titled and registered, received new license plates, and also got my new driver's license. The picture is decent, but I'm stuck with it for 8 years! (hehe) I'm still not used to seeing VA plates on my car, but I imagine I'll get used to it in time.

To top it off, I just got a price-saving key-card from the local grocery store, Food Lion. My residency is complete.

Wicked Lovely

I love an enticing book cover, and title, and this one sure did entice me. It's a more "realistic" story about fairies and their interactions with the human world. The main human character, Aislinn, has the ability to see the "fey", invisible fairy world, and ends up having more involvement with them than she would like. She has to help the Summer King fairy save his world, and maybe even become his queen. I won't say more, but I liked the story and will probably read the sequel.

Graveyard Book

This was a really interesting, and enjoyable book. It's a sort of Jungle Book idea, in which the baby is raised by ghosts in a graveyard. He is given "Freedom of the Graveyard" and that lets him enter crypts, learn ghost abilities, see in the dark, etc. He has some quirky adventures. The story was weird at times, but kept my interest peaked to keep reading. This is the newest 2009 Newbery award winner and I agree that it deserves it!