February 2011
29 posts
2 tags
3 tags
January 2011
44 posts
2 tags
“I want to be a gorgeous librarian when I go back to Korea.”
– my Korean classmate, who I am cruelly making fun of on my blog. But seriously, who among us does not want to be a gorgeous librarian?
3 tags
3 tags
scooby doo
So, I’ve lived in the Five Colleges area for over a year. I work at one, go to school at another, and am supported financially by a third, where J works and goes to school. But it wasn’t until yesterday in my reference class that I heard about the Five Colleges / Scooby Doo myth, which about half my class already knew. According to wikipedia:
A popular urban legend among Five College...
3 tags
I'm not a big phone fan, but
phone calls from my sister and brother-in-law to check on me while J’s out in the wilds sure are nice.
5 tags
#4: Green Housekeeping, Ellen Sandbeck
I renewed this one twice. My library copy is festooned with little shreds of Post-It Note, a byproduct of my excitement and painful frugality. As a result of reading this book, I better organized my delicates drawer, learned a more efficient way of washing dishes, and justified my childhood love of hydrogen peroxide. I added to my Amazon wish list peppermint extract (a rodent repellent), a fire...
3 tags
5 tags
#3: A Jane Austen Education, William Deresiewicz
Sadly, my favorite thing about this one was the cover. Another of my fabled ARC haul, the further I got into it, the more Deresiewicz annoyed me. I know Janeites are prone to appropriate their beloved author and then dismissing fellow fans for getting it wrong, but seriously, this guy. The first six chapters follow a formula of laying out his original beef with one of Austen’s novels, and...
4 tags
3 tags
“The practice of international librarianship involves a mixture of good...”
– “Going International,” Library Journal
2 tags
“Nor do I think we should respond to the fatuous idea that libraries can stay...”
– Philip Pullman, “Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.”
2 tags
4 tags
Just Because They Can Doesn't Mean They Should:... →
teachingliteracy:
From the Choice Literacy Archives, Shari Frost considers the issue of young children who are able to read far above grade level in Just Because They Can Doesn’t Mean They Should: http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/148.cfm
“Those children were strong readers. They were capable of reading a book that is usually read in middle school with accuracy and prosody. However,...
4 tags
#2: One Amazing Thing, Chitra Divakaruni
Confession: When I get a cold, I want easy, compelling fiction. Most of the time, that translates to a re-read of something from childhood, but this time, burnt out from the aforementioned Grey’s Anatomy overdose, I plundered my stack of new ARCs. I abandoned the so-so memoir of a Jane Austen devotee and the unending Little Dorrit to check out the new haul. I scored them last week for a...
2 tags
2 tags
4 tags
2 tags
Maybe the worst thing about a cold* is how I let the quality of my life slide. Kleenex and tea mugs and frozen pizza crusts start proliferating around our tiny apartment, and it really messes with my emotional balance. I’m not an insanely tidy person, but as a cold rags me under, I can feel wholesomeness slipping away. Suddenly, J and I are eating trash and letting dishes stack up, and...
3 tags
mouth breathing and wishing january away
3 tags
1 tag
what's your myers-briggs type?
I’m ISFJ, and J is ENTP. Do you give the personality types much weight?
1 tag
“I breathe in the crisp freshness of growing things, the warmth of the sunlight,...”
– a regular Annie Dillard, a genuine Dickon Sowerby, our own Sarah, writing loveliness
6 tags
tab roundup
[because it’s really time to restart my computer and run updates]
Library closes shelves in protest at closure threat (Guardian) [A pretty bold approach to demonstrating the library’s relevance, shared by a classmate]
No McMansions for the Millennials (WSJ) [I consistently find explorations of generational difference illuminating, and often relieving. Just when I think I’m a...
6 tags
3 tags
training buses should not be allowed to run their...
It’s heartbreaking to stand, stomping your feet for warmth, and realize the approaching bus is running a sign that reads NO PASSENGERS.
2 tags
five tips for living without a dryer →
1 tag
2 tags
2 tags
3 tags
1 tag
Poor Bonnie will never win a pets on furniture contest because her owners have only a hand-me-down couch, which, as of Sunday, she has been prevented from snuggling on in the attempt to prevent guests from having severe allergic reactions.
She may, however, get both of her people home with her and certainly plenty of snow to bounce in with the predicted 12-16 inches we’re expecting between...
2 tags
5 tags
sticky toffee pudding, oh my →
For the first time in about a month the four of us were all finally here for our Monday night dinner. I was short of time and had recently acquired a packet of dried apricots from a coworker.
As we ate the pudding tonight, we felt cultured and worldly — at least until we got down to cleaning out the toffee pot with our fingers. Anyway, here’s to good friends.
4 tags
“All of them wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women; were made up of...”
– Charles Dickens, Little Dorrit
[describing, with considerable prescience, the Hampshire College hipster]
2 tags
3 tags
#1: Children of Men, P.D. James
[image via the terribly talented Erin McGuine, more here]
I started 2011 out dystopian as I did 2010, but this one was much, much better. For Advent I had watched the film adaptation and loved it, and afterward I read the book it was based on was quite different.
Now, I have to admit, I didn’t love the book as much as the movie. There’s a loyalty to whatever you experience first, I...
4 tags
cheddar beer soup: on my must-make list →
4 tags
“He who strips the clothed is to be called a thief. How should we name him, who...”
– St. Basil
[thinking about this in the new year]
3 tags
“One of the main roles of a canine in a human dwelling is floor cleaner. If you’d rather not bend over to clean up kitchen spills, consider hiring a dog.”
— Green Housekeeping, Ellen Sandbeck
3 tags
6 tags
literary geographies
Reading P.D. James’s Children of Men right now and I really enjoy being able to picture the streets and places she describes in Oxford and London, having spent some time in both places, especially the former. Do other people do this? I have no real knowledge of New York or D.C. or L.A., and only a couple hipster corners of Seattle. I got the same kick out of the descriptions of Amherst in...
3 tags
3 tags
