Three weeks

 Sighhhh. Summer vacation cannot come fast enough. June is the most surreal month of the school year. You slog through - that feeling starts in January - then suddenly it's June. The kids have reached the "Je ne care pas" phase in their mindsets. I guess the teachers have reached that phase too; only they are supposed to be too mature to indulge in stuff like that.

 I tried to make progress in a treatment of Plato's Republic. I could not finish it... there's making a text more accessible; then there's dumbing it down to the point of lobotomizing it. Yard sale at mi hermana's place. Getting into some serious labour there this weekend. It was a pretty good week after it finally cooled off. Heating up this weekend but it should cool off next week.

 I guess that's all. I hope ye my fantastic readers are doing well.

BYE.

Happy thoughts

 Death cults, horrific human experimentation, and the transorbital lobotomy. This is what I dwell o'er when I watch too much Joe Scott. Yeah, another doomy-doomy Youtuber. This dude's from Texas and he's great. Anyway, there are now 4ish weeks to go before the end of the school year.

 Scorching temps over here. I'm reading a prequel to the Godfather book. Pretty good thus far. Oh, and now I want to read about cults. I hope my viewers are doing well and keeping cool.

 BYE.

215 is just the tip of the iceberg

        The last residential school closed in 1996. How many more buried children will surface? 215 souls have found their way to the Creator and we are all left to mourn. Nothing less than eternal damnation beset the empty-headed racist scum who ran those schools and ruined generations of indigenous people. That is my statement for the day.

         Now for something cheerier.

        

        

       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

             

 

            We are remaining in remote learning status for the rest of the month. Sad but necessary. This is the second year that we are remote. I hope September improves for all of us.

BYE.

University Adventures

Messing with Sims 2. Here's a little something unfinished.

 
”Ooooooh,” Violet winced as she felt muscles she’d never encountered before protest violently within her. “I’m too old for this nonsense.” It took her several moments to realize that something was off.  The room was too orderly and sanitary to be her bedroom, and the furniture was decent – even stately. She took stock. Her eighteenth birthday and grad had fallen on the same day and she’d spent the night accordingly. Hearing plates clattering and voices downstairs, she got on a bathrobe from the regal-looking wardrobe and wandered for the stairs.

“I thought you’d sleep right through orientation day.” The stranger in the pink Mohawk said in a pleasant voice as Violet came into the kitchen. “Want a pastry?”

“Orientation day?” Violet echoed, trying to clear a stray cobweb from her mind. “The last thing I remember was seeing a rocket flying overhead.  Where am I?” she accepted a piping-hot cinnamon pastry. It tasted delicious.

“You said you didn’t want to wait for September for university to start so I called the Profs and there you go.”

9th graders give hugs?

Today, some brand-new 9th graders (previously 8th graders the staff said goodbye to at the close of June), paid me a visit at work and did the unthinkable. They hugged their librarian. It's funny, but I never thought I made as good an impression as all that on them. I'm assuming they'd hug their teachers but me? Needless to say, I drove home with a lightness in my being that was not there before. There are some students you never think are going to come away from a library period thinking 'hey, she's all right' and consistently think that enough that you become someone special to them. They had their first day of high school today and were probably looking forward to visiting their old middle school for some comforting thoughts. Their statement about high school was that it was 'SCARY'. Yes, I remember being uneasy about starting 9th grade myself. New teachers, new school, new experiences, and new acquaintances. And yet, for me, high school was my favourite part of the 13 years I was at school. I don't think I'm alone in thinking this.
Tomorrow is my last day with wrestling with the laminator for a few days. I've been consistently feeding things into that creaking contraption and on Friday I rest. Things are looking up at work, what with the file I've been impatiently waiting for finally on the verge of coming in. Maybe tomorrow I'll get some more visitors. Not holding my breath but it would be nice. On the literary level, I just finished reading Yeats' 'Mythologies'. A very good read about concepts I've never thought to consider as mythology but they probably can be considered as such. Stories telling of the Faery world, of certain esoteric orders, and other interesting concepts. If I ever read it again, I think I'll try and get a newer copy, as the one I had smelled of age, and you know what that smell does to me. Not a good thing.
My next adventure concerns 'The myth of Sisyphus' by Camus. Not new ground - I've read it before - but maybe I'll find something new the second time around. BYE.

What -- Me worry?

Definitely! I came face-to-face with a ton of worry-induced stress a few nights ago, and I don't know what my next steps should be regarding my frustrating psyche. I'm a definite worrywart, but if this worrying interferes with my life, I really need to make some changes. Hard to change ingrained thought patterns, however. I think there will be many more diary entries relating to this topic in the days and weeks to come. I've also come to the conclusion that learning the cause of all my worries isn't as important as figuring out how to deal with the effect. It could all be part of being 30. Maybe I need to make numerous changes in my life now that I've reached this ripe old age. This isn't a mid-life crisis deal, but it probably comes close. First off, I need to focus on all this stress and worry and change things there.
Elsewhere in the world, I'm reading the works of Umberto Eco. He's hilarious and thought-provoking. I recently finished his 'Misreadings' and am starting on 'Apocalypse postponed' this evening. O to meet this incredible man! I guess I'd have to go to Italy just for the chance, and let's be honest; I haven't the money or the time to make such a trip. And even if I did have both the dough or the time, Italy is chock-full of sights to see that I'd run out of time to meet with Mr. Eco. Still, it's a nice dream. After I've finished reading 'Apocalypse postponed' I'll be getting back into Shakepeare. I am so behind with the Shakespeare stuff.
It's Heritage Fair time at my school, and the Library is closed for the next couple of days. I spent my time adding to the list of books I plan to order for next year. In one of the preview boxes I received a few days ago, I came across a 'choose-your-own-adventure'-style series done a la graphic novel. The best of both worlds! Perfect for struggling readers! I loved the 'Choose-your-own-adventures' series when I was younger. Anyway, that's how life has been for me. Worries, readings, and orders. BYE.

More misc.

I could blame my absence on Sims 3, or on my ongoing feud with this ridiculous cold. Truth is, I think they're both to blame. That and the fact that I didn't really have anything new to say. Anyway, this is going to be a hodge-podge of stuff. It isn't that I haven't been doing much reading, which is where I get most of my post material from. I also get it from my diary, which has been serving as a rough draft for this blog. Lately my diary's been full of my being sick, and since I've already dedicated two posts to this damned quarrel, I'm not going to bore you with it any further. Meanwhile, some numbers. 12: the number of work days until the end of the school year. I work right up to June 30. I need as much time as possible to clean up my libraries and get as many books back as possible before we all go home for the holidays.
Work, despite my cold, continues to be amazing and wonderful. I'm wondering if I'm going to miss getting up at 6 and driving the 20-30 mins. to be at one or the other of the schools. I'm wondering if I'm going to miss the kids. Well, I'll miss most of them. Then they go up a grade in September. I'll meet a new group of Kindies and the Fifth Grade goes on to middle school. They'll get to see my predecessor at that middle school, so everybody'll be happy. I know I'll miss many of those Fifth Graders. Especially the ones who brought back their books or renewed their books without fail. I believe I've already discussed the kids who don't (or can't) bring their overdues back in a previous post, so that's all I'm going to say about that.
Actually, I thought about doing my post on obsolete projector lightbulbs. Total snore, you might say. Well, I came across a treasure trove of bulbs that probably still work, even though they haven't seen the light of day in a long while. Curiosity taking over, I did some research on projector lightbulbs and found a pretty informative site. For anyone with a similar social life as mine or they just really want to know, this is the place to find lightbulbs. Maybe next post I'll put some pictures up as evidence of this bulbs. There, I got in a note about projector lightbulbs.
I finished reading 'The book of Druidry', but I haven't seemed to get anything out of it apart from approving of the book. I have also started reading another Matthew Arnold compilation. Man, something must be wrong with me! Okay, I know this hasn't been very cohesive, but as I've said, I haven't done as much deep thinking into one particular topic. Well, there's the Sims, but I doubt anyone wants to hear about that. BYE.

As close to the action as I wanna be

My family wonders why I never became a teacher. Given my love for school from Kindergarten onward and my strong background in Language Arts, it might've seemed a given that I would become an English major or get an Ed. degree and become a teacher. I've said, for most of my adult life (and all through my adolescence) that I don't want kids. I've got about a decade left before having kids becomes difficult but I'm perfectly content to let others have the children. My sister knows I'm going to be the crazy aunt with the cats who scares the neighbourhood kids etc, etc.... I've been lucky to turn my love of reading into a job where I can share my love and knowledge with those who really could use it.
My experiences in the school library system are not numerous yet, but I've been around long enough to see the WHY (as in, why I never became a teacher) of this whole thing. I'm not knocking teachers and EA's -- they have difficult but (for the most part) rewarding jobs, and I applaud their mountains of patience. I just do not have the patience for it. I learned that when I was trying to help my sib with her homework eons ago. I was not a very patient person then. I don't lay these experiences at the foot of adolescence, either. I don't think I'd be very good with kids nowadays, either. My motto is 'As long as they aren't mine, I'm fine.'
A parent from the Parent Council came in with her year-old to do some work in the library at one of the schools. I tried to keep the little girl busy with the board books my predecessor kept for the Kindergarteners. The parent noticed and complimented me as being good with children. She asked the question I sometimes get when I do well with kids. 'Do you have any children?' My immediate (though unspoken) answer is 'God forbid!' I usually smile and shake my head. Makes one wonder why I got into the school library system, eh? It is a little frustrating when you have a half dozen kids asking for your attention, but I think I'm getting better at keeping myself in check. It isn't like I'm snapping at the yard-apes yet. Give me a few years...
Anyway, I had an experience today at one of the schools that brought everything into focus for me. A couple of EA's routinely bring in some of the Special Needs students to the library to work on Math or Reading. I know almost all these students on sight, which I consider to be a minor triumph in itself. Anyway, I was working at my computer and occasionally listening to this group's progress. One of the EA's had the patience of Job, as her student was just constantly getting stuck in quicksand and stumbling along. I know, if it had been me as the EA, I would've submitted my resignation without too much thought. Then again, what would I be doing as an EA?
Being a Library Tech. in the school library system brings me close enough to the action without going through the whole mess of teaching, and that's as close to the action as I want to be. Thank you.

Learning how was the easy part

I graduated from my Library tech. course almost a year ago. I work in a school library right now and I received my performance review the other day. What a thumping! I knew that there were things I need to work on, but I read my review feeling nothing but resentment and disillusionment.
Things I was not trained on and had no previous experience with; it was expected that I should know everything about these things. It seems there is no room for error there. I am not by nature an extrovert, and being out there is not in my makeup. Nevertheless, I was penalized for not taking the initative and establishing a rapport with the students. My immediate boss seems to expect perfection from me. Doing the best I can with what I have does not seem to be enough.
The tech. I replaced has been one for close to 20 years. It seems that my boss expects me to have the same skills and finesse as my predecessor does.
I could go into specifics, but I think I've said all that needs saying. Anyway, I have to book a meeting with the principal tomorrow to discuss my review and the comments I plan to write, and believe me, I do have some comments to write. It is not right for them to expect me to be a carbon copy of my predecessor. All I can do is, and if that does not suffice with them, then they will have to let me go so I can find a job with another school or in another library setting.
I had a feeling that the school system might not be the best place for me. Perhaps I was more right than I knew.