little miss adventures

1A


I took LIBR 200 Information and Society in my first semester of the SJSU SLIS program. During this class, we learned a great deal about the ethics, values and foundational principles of library and information professionals and their role in the promotion of intellectual freedom, both from class lectures and reading assignments. Our textbook and lectures gave a thorough historical perspective of the library profession, which gave me a strong basis of the foundational principles of the field. We talked in length about the ethics and values of the profession and the importance of upholding them. Since then, I have ingrained these ethics and values in my professional philosophy and applied them in my coursework and my day-to-day professional life.
Librarianship’s ethics, in combination with the foundational principles and values, are largely concerned with intellectual freedom: making sure information remains democratically available to all patrons, and protecting their interests from undue scrutiny. The American Library Association, of which I am an active member, very vocally protects the rights of library users and librarians. Their Office of Intellectual Freedom website houses a collection of statements and policies that outlines the stance that libraries that endorse the policies hold. When I developed a collection development policy for a fictional small public library for LIBR 266 Collection Development, I turned to the ALA website and included many of our primary professional association’s policies that delineate our professional stance on intellectual freedom.
Another issue of major importance to librarians related to intellectual freedom, especially those who wish to serve children and young adults like I do, is that of censorship. As librarians, it is our responsibility to protect our collections from censorship and to stand up against book challenges from those in the community who wish to restrict access to certain material based on their own personal agendas. For my research paper in 200, I wrote about the history of censorship in children’s and young adult books, particularly in regards to J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series, which tops the list of the most challenged books from 2000-2005.

fire! fire!

last night there was a huge fire across the street from my flat. it was so insanely terrifying to watch. my flatmate woke us up, pounding on our doors, yelling "fire! there's a fire!" and of course my first thought was that there was a fire in our house and she was waking us up so that we could narrowly escape death. the truth made me feel a little guilty: that we could breath a sigh of relief, because it wasn't ours, but our neighbor's lives that were being totally devastated that night.

i called 911, half asleep, hoping i wasnt the first person to think of it. there were already people in the street yelling "fire! fire!" and ringing doorbells. i was on hold for at least a minute, which was pretty crazy, but by the time the operator came on asking what my emergency was, i could hear the first of 8 firetrucks coming towards the house.

by that time, a family of four had run out, the parents and two almost teenagers. nobody ran out of the other flat, but two people were taken to the hospital in an ambulance-- where did they come from?? the street was full of neighbors, but we didn't go out because the 911 operator told us to stay inside. plus it was the middle of the night.

firefighters' jobs are insane, btw. i've never seen such a fire in my life and meanwhile it is these dudes' jobs to go in???? i seriously thought the roof was gonna cave in, or the floor. i guess it's old hat to those guys. even crazier was that one guy, before the sffd arrived, after the family ran out and the whole flat was engulfed in flames, ran in with a teeny tiny fire extinguisher. um, way too little, way too late?? get the crap out of the building!!!!!

it's weird: this huge fire (which started out small in the middle flat and we watched it spread to the top flat) is just not important enough to be a news item in the san francisco online media outlets. i'm curious to find out how it started, but there's no mention of the fire anywhere on the line.

i was kind of nervous about going to bed. i wanted to make sure that fire was out out out before going back to sleep. we must've watched for an hour and a half. then i had to make my bed, because in my hurry to run out of my room (when i thought we were all going to die), i threw all my covers on the floor. i read for about an hour, just to get my mind on other things, but still had weird dreams, like that i couldn't sleep or that my other flatmate was having nightmares about the fire.

this morning, i woke up early because my phone was ringing. it was my bosses, calling to check on me. they could see the flames from their house and wanted to make sure i was okay. then i looked out the window because there's all this construction noise happening. not even 7 hours after i finally went to bed and the street is crawling again with activity, this time fire and smoke damage trucks. by 930, the whole building had been boarded up. there's a big pile of burnt debris in front of the house.

i wonder what happened to my neighbors.

i'm back

i went on vacation. i'm back now, from tahoe, where i went with my best friend and met up with our two other best friends from high school. which was a looooooong time ago.

i ate too much the entire time. it was owie. you'd think i'd be able to stop eating, but there was all this food. i am friends with a bunch of food foisters. they foist the food upon me, without eating it themselves. i find this irritating, but lovable. maybe because i have a love/ hate relationship with food, too. hee.

i'm tired.

two day work week!

i think i have a problem saying no to bosses. consequently, i am often working a 50 hour week while trying to also go to grad school full time. i wish i was the kind of person who could call in "sick," or even call in actually sick, but no, i have to be told to stay home before i will stay home.

so to have a 16 hour work week, hee. i'm giddy! plus i'm going on almost a real vacation, as opposed to most of the rest of my life when vacations all mean "houston frickin texas."

indy 500

hee hee.

just the fact that i happened to see that it was on yesterday is a freak accident. i don't follow sports. i know when baseball season is, and football, and basketball kind of, because i live in the world. but wide world of sports stuff like race cars? not usually on my radar. the other day, i saw this thing on some tabloid news show about danica patrick and i was like, hmm, stuff magazine spread about some hot-ish race car driver. i wonder if she's any good or if she's like racing's version of anna kournikova and it's all savvy posturing to gain attention while she can. you know, emphasize the "hot" and maybe nobody would notice she ain't that good.

but then i was babysitting and i turned on the tv and she was in, i think, 6th place. i was like, wow, maybe she's good. anyway, she's the only one i cared about because i'd never even heard of anybody else except dario franchitti (only because he's married to ashley judd), and A.J Foyt the fourth. damn, they are milking that name. and the poor kid, he doesnt seem like that great a racer. from the 5 seconds i saw, where he sent that dude flying into that wall.

so then danica did that thing where she stalled her car in the pit and everyone said it was a rookie mistake and she was all of a sudden in like 16th place. and i thought, "damn. too bad for that kid. well, it was fun while it lasted." then like a hundred laps later, you know, and i'd left the room to give my small friend some lunch and stuff, kinda peeking in every now and then to see how she was doing, she'd crept up to like 8th place, and i thought that was a pretty good recovery.

then i swear to god, i left the room for like a minute and when i checked again, she was leading the whole f*ckin race! oh my g! i got so excited! like i'd bet on her. like i'd even knew who she was before the other day. my tiny friend, he's two, was eating in the next room (man, two year olds can eat and eat) and i kept running back and forth between him and the tv going, "there's no way! there's no way!!!" because what are the odds of seeing a news story on the one person, a rookie, a chick rookie, who ends up winning the whole shebang?

okay, so she didn't win. but she kicked ass in first place up till like two laps from the end. and then the press, the relentless press, everyone was freaking out, like "the first woman to ever lead a lap in the indy 500! This is a historical day for racing and danica is now immortal, blah blah blah! women women women!!!!" and meanwhile, dudes all over the place are crying, like the winning team dudes, and they finally interview danica, like, as she's getting out of her car and taking her helmet off, and throw all this "women/history!" stuff at her, and she totally kept it together, did not weep or even shake at all as she spoke, and never once talked about herself as a woman racer, and dodged all the stuff about women racing. she was just like, "i'm a racer, just like everybody else out there today. and i came in 4th, which is pretty good for a rookie."

danica patrick is my new idol.

even if she is 10 years younger than me.

i guess she's way better than britney, even if they are both into nascar.

my little monster

being a nanny is a weird weird weirdo weird gig. my job is to have the most intimately close relationship with a small child who will then, esentially, not remember me once my job is done. it's not that hard a pill to swallow, mainly because i'm used to the cycle, but also because kids take this turn at about age 4 where the become a pain in my ass. i'm sure that some people love 4 year olds, and yeah, i still prefer them over people my own age, but in general, they're sweeter when they're younger.

take, for example, my little monster: he was my old charge and now i take care of his tiny angel sister. i'm telling you: monster and i were best friends, man. it was very "theme song to the courtship of eddie's father," only i'm not a dude and he's not my son. my job was to shower him with all my love and attention, which i enjoyed and was paid well to do. after spending 50 hours a week together for 2 years, my little monster friend started "school" and i became his new sister's first best friend.

man, was my monster friend pissed off. he was mad at his parents for having another baby, and he was mad at me, his traitorous ex-best friend, and he was mad at his angel sister for existing and being so beloved. his big joke, which, btw, is not that funny, is to say, "my little sister is dead. she's dead!" he's also a big fan of, "you're stupid," and, "i don't like you."

and a lot of times, when i show up at his house in the morning now that i'm spending 50 hours a week with his sister (have i mentioned she is an absolute angel???), the monster is so mean to me ("i don't want her! i don't want her to be here!" etc. etc. etc.). but some days, he loves me so much and curls up in my lap like old times.

i have a job that overwhelms me sometimes with pure emotion. these kids, their energy is just 1000 percent. there's nothing fake about their feelings. the angel, man, all she has to do is crawl towards me from across the room with her little maniacal glee thing that she does, and i cry a bit, just happy to be a part of it. i love coming to work. i love love love my baby angel that i've gotten to watch grow from her mom's belly to the 15 month old she is today, and i love her insane 4 year old monster of a brother who wants nothing else to do with me 4 days a week.

it's just a job. technically. but the love makes it kind of intoxicating. hard to quit. i'm addicted.

summer is here

yep. the reasons i know this are threefold:

1. the spring semester ended. when spring ends, summer commences.
2. there is all of a sudden a dearth of activities for me to engage in with my tiny 15 month old boss (because remember i'm a nanny). every summer this happens, and every summer, it blows. you'd think there'd be more things going on for wee tots in the summer, but all the city rec centers are busy with programs for school aged kids.
3. i have to get a bathing suit. eeeeeeeeeeek!

dudes. what's more horrifying than having to go bathing suit shopping????? i don't even ever go regular clothes shopping. i think i've never been good at shopping, anyway. you know how you always have that one friend who actually finds really great stuff at the goodwill, but whenever you go to the goodwill, you're like, "how do people ever ever ever find good stuff at the goodwill?"

anyway, i guess i better hit it, since i know this experience is gonna take a billion jillion kerpillion years. i almost feel like it'll be a waste of time except that i need a new suit. even if i hate it, i still need one. maybe i should just keep the one i've been wearing for the past 10 years? literally, i have not gotten a new suit in 10 years. hee. and i live in california.

alright, summertime. you win.