I am sitting in a room, watching teenagers make "robots," "cars," and other creative delights out of aluminium cans, trash, hardware bits and pieces and pure creativity. Oh, and we're listening to String Cheese Incident. They are loving it!

It's times like these that I love my job. :-)

Someone told me today that she thinks that it is more difficult to relate to middle school aged kids than it is to relate to older teens (high school aged). Relate to, and serve in a professional capacity. She is drawing on her library world, and child rearing experience ( Read more... )

Today I did my last visit to a middle school that I've been working with all year. They presented me with a photo album; the pictures were interspersed with notes from the students and the school's librarian. I just want to share a few of the special and funny ones ( Read more... )

Library question time!!!

For those of you who have been to an ALA conference, here's a few questions for you!

Are they fun/interesting/useful?
Is the networking really all that great?
What sort of job prospects have you seen at the conference in the past?
If I don't have a job by May 22nd (price change date for registration), would it make sense to go?
( Read more... )

I spent a good part of today putting together a pathfinder for the bubonic plague (specifically in the 14th century), the 1918 Spanish influenza outbreak, and 20th century HIV/AIDS.  I haven't had that much fun in a long time!  Seriously.  I guess that is yet another indication that I'm in the right profession.  Oh, and if you're curious, National ( Read more... )

You know how I'm all set to go back to the states, and I've been planning and scheming about it?  Not just that, but dreaming and fantasizing about it?  Well...A friend was digging through TIEOnline (int'l school job posting site) and let me know that there was a job opening in Guam!  Did I stop to think?  Did I brush it off and say, "Nah, that's ( Read more... )

They've decided to restart the Peace Corps Liberia program, and the first couple of groups will be focusing on education projects, including working with rebuilding libraries and training people to either train more people, or train people to run them.  (The article wasn't specific ( Read more... )

I brought home a dozen books this weekend.  Some were 'cause I wanted to read them and some were 'cause I didn't really remember what they were about and need to know so, again, I could know who to pass them along to (including age appropriateness).

It's been hit or miss, so far.  Of the five I've read, only two were pretty good, and the other three ( Read more... )

Heartbroken, crushed, sad, forlorn.  Remember that post, oh, yesterday, where I was over-the-top excited about my new books? Turns out my roommate had the wrong information.  My books weren't at school this morning, and won't be for 3-4 weeks.  Why?  'Cause the folks who ship stuff out of the states wouldn't ship to the southern cone (Uruguay, ( Read more... )

Did you ever watch the cartoon Duck Tales as a child?  (Or, last week, if you comb through the youtube archives?)  The opening sequence had Scrooge McDuck in a bathing suit, swimming in his gold vault.  Keep that image in your head, and add to it any generic image of a person (or duck) scooping up bills and throwing them over their head, or picking ( Read more... )