Banned Books Week

Next week is Banned Books Week and the student chapter of the ALA is sponsoring a read-out on Wednesday to read from books that have been banned from libraries for some reason or other. We'll each read aloud for ~10 minutes from a book that's been banned so I've been looking over the list of books on the ALA site, trying to choose the one I want.  Check out the top 100 for the last decade (2000-2009). It's practically a who's who of all the great authors. Sure, there are some I thought would be there: Harry Potter with its controversial magic themes and the young adult books with concepts that are just a bit too realistic. Those are the ones I was expecting for the recent lists. But mingled in are some of the true classics - authors like Steinbeck & Harper Lee.  And does Judy Blume's Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret really warrant a banning?

OK, so I get it when people don't think the material fits the age group. Like Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book. One of my favorite authors and an excellent book but I can imagine it is too scary for some kids to handle, especially young kids. I don't believe banning the books is the answer but at least I get why people do it.

But to ban books because people are afraid of the ideas they contain - that I don't get at all. How can we grow unless we're exposed to new ideas and forced to stretch?

One more reason I'm glad I chose to follow my dream of being a librarian! It looks like the real difficulty is going to be narrowing it down to just one book.

ok, that was bizarre

I was walking the dogs this morning and had just reached the entrance to the Upper Tampa Bay Trail when I noticed a body lying up ahead on the trail. There was a bike lying on the ground nearby so my first thought was that someone had had an accident. As I got closer, I realized that it was 2 bodies, neither of them moving, so by then I was really getting freaked out thinking that they'd been murdered and really dreading what I might see. Luckily about then one of them moved and I finally got close enough to see that it was a couple who had apparently decided that the middle of the bike path was a great place to stop for a nap. They seemed fine...and not at all inclined to get up so I just said "Good Morning" and went on.

People are definitely strange...and I'm glad I didn't have to report a murder this morning!

full-time student: a progress report

One of the biggest things I have been looking forward to with the new, simpler, stress-free me is having more time. Once I no longer had to commit 10-12 hours of my day getting ready, driving to work, working, rushing through the grocery store, etc., I would have so much time, i wouldn't know what to do with myself. Yes, I would simultaneously be taking a full load of classes but that shouldn't be a problem. I would just substitute working on that during the times when I would normally be in school.

So far, I'm still waiting for that shangri-la to come to fruition! Don't get me wrong - I absolutely love being able to get up when I'm ready (the time has fluctuated between 6am - 9am, depending on how late I was up the night before) and having time to take the dogs for walks and to the park. I am also still playing catch-up to a certain extent for the first few weeks when the beginning of school coincided with my extended family all coming to my place for a reunion that lasted a full 2 weeks for some members. So maybe I am speaking too soon but I've noticed this trend before.

No matter how much time you have, stuff comes along and fills it up.

Eventually (once that "catch up" all happens) maybe I will have everything done by 5 each night and be able to take the dogs to the dog park without the uneasy feeling that there is more work that should really be done today....or maybe I'm devoting too much time to my studies. I'm sure most people are not doing all the reading + taking notes + creating blog entries for each. (From what I can tell, some of them haven't even cracked a book yet!) But one of the main reasons I wanted to do it this way - quit the full-time job, etc - is so that I could really immerse myself fully, sucking every drop of learning I could get out of the experience.

In that respect, the experiment thus far has been a resounding success. I feel like I understand the material fully and it has been absolute heaven to be able to go to the park to do some reading or type a paper while sitting outside at the picnic table.  So maybe I'll never be the type of person who can turn off the "should've" script in my head, life is pretty darn good right now.

New Butterfly!

This Gulf Fritillary held still...but the picture is still blurry!

The insect population in my yard was buzzing this morning with the news that the jasmine bushes are all in bloom, which was a nice surprise since yesterday they were mostly just buds. So I just took some time to enjoy the heavenly smell and observe all the activity going on. It's amazing just how many creatures that I can see with the naked eye are partaking of just one bush. Just while I stood there I saw a lizard, 2 Gulf Fritillary, 1 Giant Swallowtail, 2 new butterflies and 1 very fat bumblebee. And that's just the ones I could actually see! I wish I had the kind of camera that would capture them. Their size and speed, unfortunately, just result in blurry pictures - even when they sit still for me. (The picture at left was taken very early in the am when the butterfly was still sleeping/warming up for the day.)

Online image of a Long-tailed Skipper Butterfly

For a while I kept a journal of the butterflies I saw in my yard but after a bit, I was only ever writing down one name: Gulf Fritillary (I can find them in the yard, it seems, anytime I go out.) I've seen the Eastern Tiger, Zebra and Giant (which I mistook at first for a bird it's so large) and the Florida Sulpher at various times but after identifying those, I kept seeing the same types. So I was excited this morning to spot a new type: a Long-tailed Skipper. I would have thought it was a moth due to the monochromatic wings but after observing it more closely, I realized the body was not fuzzy like a moth and that no self-respecting moth would be so active with the sun blazing down on it. I narrowed it down to one of the skippers based on the shape of it's wings (plus its erratic, "bouncy" flight) and finally identified it after looking at actual pictures online. (The drawings in my guide can be somewhat misleading on wing patterns & actual coloring.)

I still have not been able to lure a White Peacock here and my attempts to attract Monarchs with milkweed plantings have all ended in failure (e.g., plant is destroyed by the caterpillars but the butterflies don't stick around afterwards). Speaking of plant destruction, something is making a go at eating my bouganvillea that I can't find other than the evidence of the huge holes in the leaves. I suspect grasshoppers or maybe snails.  On the plus side, the orchid and passion flower both seem to have recovered from their recent bouts of serving as dinner for someone. The orchid is actually blooming again already. Hopefully the bougainvillea is as lucky.

countdown to full-time student: 10 days

I spent the day yesterday over at USF for orientation (yes, an entire day - from 9 in the morning until 5:30 - let me tell you that that is a *very* long day of a lot of repeated information.) The afternoon session was for the Lib Sci program and it was good to meet the professors and get a better feel for the people I've been emailing & talking to via phone. The student organizations seem to be very active which is also good since I've been worried about too much alone time with so much of the program online. Brown bag lunches every Wednesday and all kinds of things to do scheduled from sporting events to canoeing trips to museums.

As a result of all I learned, I came home and completely reorganized my classes for fall, switching to get another core class under my belt and signing up for one that looks like it will be challenging but very rewarding: Human Rights Librarianship. I just looked through the syllabus and the class requires participating in one of the local human rights groups and submitting a paper to one of the major publications as a large part of the grade. Which is very cool since the work will be done for something real and not just another paper that lives only on my hard drive but also makes me feel a bit intimidated.

It's certainly going to make the first few weeks challenging as there is a lot of reading and interaction required even in the first two weeks and my house will be filled up with 8-9 people (!) but hopefully I can work ahead a bit since she has everything online already.

Only a few more days of work now to go! I can't believe how much I'm looking forward to the start of a new school year ;)