Almost There, Hotel Africa
I feel like much of my time at the elementary school has been building up to this week. Two nights of this week (Tuesday and tonight) were the Accelerated Reader special events. K-2nd on Tuesday - had a magician and some ice cream floats. Tonight was 3rd-5th and was a fully catered dinner. So many special events in a row are so tiring because I don't get to go home after school ends. I have been waking up at 5 a.m., starting school at 7:00 a.m., and not arriving back home again until 9 p.m.
You don't realize that when you become a librarian that you are also going to become an event planner (among many other things).
Still, the special event nights went off perfectly and I can let out a big sigh of relief that it's all over!
Tomorrow is a 5th grade graduation award (in-school) and I have to present a Media award at that...
Monday is the last full day of school (with Tues/Wed/Thurs being half days) but I actually have a job interview on that morning so tomorrow will be my last real full day. I don't know if the job interview will pan out into something great but I am always happy to get more interview experience -- and I am so much more confident in my own abilities having stepped in these past few months and taken over a program so abruptly.
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Last night I read Hotel Africa, volume 1, by Hee Jung Park. Hotel Africa is a manhwa (Korean) and really probably one of the best manhwa's I've read. Actually, the first volume was fantastic for a story told in any medium...
IGN's review comments that it is a piece of literature and I would agree. The tone of the manhwa is very much like a film. The review notes that it is episodic, like Fried Green Tomatoes, and that is correct.
Within the story we see the main character of Hotel Africa (a man named Elvis) as a young adult as he flashes back to his childhood growing up in the deserts of Utah living in a small bed and breakfast that attracted a host of unusual visitors. The story itself seems to take place between the 1960s and 1970s, and perhaps early 80s.
Elvis is a fascinating character because he has such a charming childhood and his family situation has depth and feeling (Elvis is biracial and he lives with his White mother and grandmother in nowhere-ville Utah in the 1960s/70s -- but I love how the author also doesn't create ridiculous traumatic drama around the issue).
I have no idea how it happened, but this Korean author I think has captured entirely the feeling of a small desert Utah town. I loved reading this book.
Also read lately:
Volumes 6 and 7 of After School Nightmare (It continues to be a great series by one of my favorite manga creators, Setona Mizushiro, but I hope the next volume picks up a faster pace).
Volume 3 of Demon Flowers. Mizuki Hakase creates such awesomely odd manga. I can't think of another artist who has a style that even resembles Hakase's art. I happily read her(?) tales of extreme gore, violence, and deviance set in strange worlds involving demons who eat flesh of children of gods and goddesses.
Volumes 1 and 2 of Cy-Believers. This is by the author (Shioko Mizuki) of Crossroad. Cy-Believers is a school club story about weirdos. Our main character is a mysterious new transfer student (female) to a private academy that gives students almost free range to develop personally and academically. All the school clubs are therefore very serious and all students are heavily involved as it is the only way to make friends.
Cy-Believers is our main character's newly formed club of, well, technology nerds. They like to build robots and fix computers and make random webpages about nothing. I don't think the main character even knows anything about computers but her main goal is to escape her psychotic (but probably misunderstood as these stories go) possible fiance who heads the school's Safety Commission, the most powerful organization short of the Student Council.
I think Cy-Believers has some real potential in concept, after all, it isn't common to see a story about technology club, but the execution is weak. I think the story is all over the map and instead of being character-focused (as most manga are) it begins in a very story-focused manner and only by the end of the 2nd volume are we getting into trying to glimpse at what is going on personally in the minds/histories of the characters.
Ah, I also bought Stephenie Meyer's The Host, and I'll read that once school is out!
You don't realize that when you become a librarian that you are also going to become an event planner (among many other things).
Still, the special event nights went off perfectly and I can let out a big sigh of relief that it's all over!
Tomorrow is a 5th grade graduation award (in-school) and I have to present a Media award at that...
Monday is the last full day of school (with Tues/Wed/Thurs being half days) but I actually have a job interview on that morning so tomorrow will be my last real full day. I don't know if the job interview will pan out into something great but I am always happy to get more interview experience -- and I am so much more confident in my own abilities having stepped in these past few months and taken over a program so abruptly.
------------
Last night I read Hotel Africa, volume 1, by Hee Jung Park. Hotel Africa is a manhwa (Korean) and really probably one of the best manhwa's I've read. Actually, the first volume was fantastic for a story told in any medium...
IGN's review comments that it is a piece of literature and I would agree. The tone of the manhwa is very much like a film. The review notes that it is episodic, like Fried Green Tomatoes, and that is correct.
Within the story we see the main character of Hotel Africa (a man named Elvis) as a young adult as he flashes back to his childhood growing up in the deserts of Utah living in a small bed and breakfast that attracted a host of unusual visitors. The story itself seems to take place between the 1960s and 1970s, and perhaps early 80s.
Elvis is a fascinating character because he has such a charming childhood and his family situation has depth and feeling (Elvis is biracial and he lives with his White mother and grandmother in nowhere-ville Utah in the 1960s/70s -- but I love how the author also doesn't create ridiculous traumatic drama around the issue).
I have no idea how it happened, but this Korean author I think has captured entirely the feeling of a small desert Utah town. I loved reading this book.
Also read lately:
Volumes 6 and 7 of After School Nightmare (It continues to be a great series by one of my favorite manga creators, Setona Mizushiro, but I hope the next volume picks up a faster pace).
Volume 3 of Demon Flowers. Mizuki Hakase creates such awesomely odd manga. I can't think of another artist who has a style that even resembles Hakase's art. I happily read her(?) tales of extreme gore, violence, and deviance set in strange worlds involving demons who eat flesh of children of gods and goddesses.
Volumes 1 and 2 of Cy-Believers. This is by the author (Shioko Mizuki) of Crossroad. Cy-Believers is a school club story about weirdos. Our main character is a mysterious new transfer student (female) to a private academy that gives students almost free range to develop personally and academically. All the school clubs are therefore very serious and all students are heavily involved as it is the only way to make friends.
Cy-Believers is our main character's newly formed club of, well, technology nerds. They like to build robots and fix computers and make random webpages about nothing. I don't think the main character even knows anything about computers but her main goal is to escape her psychotic (but probably misunderstood as these stories go) possible fiance who heads the school's Safety Commission, the most powerful organization short of the Student Council.
I think Cy-Believers has some real potential in concept, after all, it isn't common to see a story about technology club, but the execution is weak. I think the story is all over the map and instead of being character-focused (as most manga are) it begins in a very story-focused manner and only by the end of the 2nd volume are we getting into trying to glimpse at what is going on personally in the minds/histories of the characters.
Ah, I also bought Stephenie Meyer's The Host, and I'll read that once school is out!