First day of Children’s Literature and Media yesterday — amazing. As we introduced ourselves and went through the syllabus, I kept thinking to myself, “These are my people!”

It was an exultant feeling after feeling pretty ambivalent about calling and career the last couple of years, and it gave me a boost after increasing doom and gloom at the hands of Mr. Wendell Berry (the world is falling to consumerist crap, ours are lives of quiet desperation, etc.). I’m still reasonably sure that I don’t want to be defined by my career, or even to have a career in the source-of-fulfillment way a lot of soon-to-be college grads mean. I’m not talking linear, or even necessarily full time. But it looks like during parts of my life I’ll work outside the home, and I want it to be, if possible, meaningful work that I enjoy. It looks like children’s librarianship, as I had hoped, might be that. We’ll see.

(awesome binder illustration by the husbeast)