Belated BlogDay

I finally posted a very belated BlogDay celebration on my SLJ Blog. (Their software and my Mac just don’t seem to get along.) Anyway, forgive my cheat. The occasion gave me an excuse to promote some of the wonderful bloggers in the school library world instead of the recommended stretching beyond.

I am back in the mountains again, squeezing the very last juice out of a too-short summer and hoping that our association and our school board can come to an agreement in their talks today. I hope not to be sharing pictures from the line in my upcoming posts. The shirt is ugly and I miss our students.

Post script:  We have a tentative agreement!  Good-bye to summer. Back to the lovely old schedule.

Spontaneous yearbook day, a sweet Marine, and my own yearbook pic

Graduation week is over and what a week it was!

For me the highlight was a spontaneous yearbook day in the library. A variety of circumstances caused the books to be late. (They were supposed to be distributed at the senior barbecue. ) My assistant was in charge of distribution this year and for the first time we distributed yearbooks in the library.

Why didn’t we think of that before?

The entire school (well, more than half of it) visited the library to pick up their books. We thought they’d grab a book and run. But most of them stayed. They spread out at tables and shelves browsing and signing and laughing. Teachers stopped by and were grabbed into signing.

It was the most beautiful chaos, a spontaneous party. The library, in so many ways a home for these seniors. It was a perfect place to say goodbye to friends and faculty. And no barbecue sauce to stain the pages.

Earlier in the week, Bill visited. Now a Marine and a college grad, Bill made a point of sharing that he attributed much of his academic success to the research and writing skills he developed at Springfield. He admitted that he didn’t also let me know he was listening back then, but he was listening, very hard.

I got a chance to look at our copy of the yearbook and was pleased to discover that the library got very good coverage. In fact I had my own whole page. Of all the pics they took all year, the editors selected an oddly flattering shot of me. Should I be truly flattered or slightly embarrassed?

Post-defense (yippee!)

(I know that the universe won’t shift with this news. So, those of you who read this blog because a professor is forcing you to, please wait for the next post which I promise will come soon now that I am released and relaxed.)

Those of you who are friends and colleagues, please celebrate with me. I defended successfully this morning. In the pic below you see the balloons and banners my dear (and confident) assistants had ready to mark the event.

The defense was surprisingly painless and I now have to do some minor editing before I complete the process. Thank you, committee–Carol, Sam, Marjorie, and Brian–for all your support. Thank you cohort–I’ve been looking at our first group picture below and remembering the long (often sweet) road we’ve traveled together. Thank you family, for tolerating my doctoral mishegas. Friends, forgive me for not phoning for three years.

The students were so excited for me today. They peeked in the window as I defended and provided many supportive hugs after.  These kids know a bit about research!  I smiled all afternoon.
And then, after school, I got my toenails done. I’ll spare you that photo.

Serious library and technology stuff to come in the next post. Promise.

2-minute seder

While browsing around for a few new holiday ideas, I discovered a surprising number of online haggadahs. One of them brought me way back to those neverending meals at the crowded family table back in Brooklyn. So, if you are celebrating in a hurry, or if you have a bunch of tired children at your seder, try this:
Michael Rubiner’s “Two-Minute Haggadah: A Passover service for the impatient.” From Slate, April 11, 2006

A draft is born.

I have a draft. I have a defense date–May 7th. And after I do a little editing, I may have a life again. To those friends I have disappointed over the last nearly three years, I apologize. I will try to learn to be a friend again. And I hope after a few more days of editing, I may even blog more cogently. (Maybe not. )

Cryin’ (about those ripples)

I found myself crying in the flooring section of Home Depot this weekend.

Dennis and I were walking around looking for materials for a renovation project when I was stopped by a big, strapping guy in his thirties with two boys, around seven and ten.

“Joyce Valenza,” he said. “I’m Thomas O’Malley.” He turned to his sons, “Boys, this is Miss Joyce. When I was your age she was my librarian at the Lawncrest Branch. She was always so kind to me.”

The boys seemed unimpressed. Nevertheless, my eyes welled up. There were so many children I served in that small branch twenty years ago.  I did remember Tom, but I am shocked that he remembered me.  He was a regular visitor, but wasn’t one of my storyhour or Vacation Reading Club kids.  But then, you never know the kind of ripples you start.  And there are days discovering those ripples makes all the difference.

On Friday night I was trying on readers in Steinmart’s.  A woman, who did not herself need readers, stopped me.

“You were my librarian in 5th grade,” she said. “Remember?  For American history, we researched ‘We Didn’t Start the Fire.’  We made a timeline that stretched across the walls of our classroom.”

Her friend said, “Yeah, I remember you too.  You served my little sister green eggs and ham.  I was in your storytelling troupe.”

When the young women continued, “You haven’t changed a bit,” I started balling again.  I looked down at those readers in my hands.  I knew that I had, but maybe not so much.

D-Girl!

Emily created this new avatar to inspire me to write and finish my D!

What a super-daughter!

SL: Learning a little more about learning

My tour of Second Life yesterday was humbling. I lost my very generous tour guide. I lost the tour. I had trouble teleporting. And perhaps, the most frustrating part–I found some cool outfits, but I couldn’t figure out how to try them on!
After bumping around for far more hours than I am willing to admit, last night I lay in bed reflecting on what this all means.

I hit the wall–quite literally. I can only remember hitting that wall three times before in my learning life–in college calculus, in statistics, and in Python programming. You see, learning has always come easy to me, technology has always come easy to me, and damn it, shopping has always come easy to me.

This experience leads me to empathize with the frustrations some of my learners, and my colleagues, experience in worlds where they are strange–the world of careful documentation, for instance.
I truly feel like an immigrant in SL–I must learn the vocabulary, the culture, the currency, how to behave, how to dress, even how to walk. I sense I will now have more patience with others who are lost in worlds they consider foreign.

I know I need an alternate learning strategy for this world, for this learning task. I need differentiated instruction. Sitting at the kitchen table alone messing around for hours just isn’t working for me. Members of the SL library community have sent out emails of instructions and each has been helpful in unlocking a little of the puzzle. But the girl who prides herself on never reading manuals, on learning by messing around, wishes there were a physical Dummies book, not just one on a virtual shelf. I wish I could learn this particular new stuff face-to-face, watching how someone else walks and shops and changes.

Why don’t I give up? Why don’t I just abandon my boring-looking avatar never to return? This has something to do with learning too. I see purpose. I see the potential for this space as a landscape for learning and teaching and extending library services. Knowing this motivates me and prevents me from bagging it.

I will try to find SL librarians at either ALISE or ALA next week and ask to watch them play and work.

(Me beginning my tour)

Tagged: Five things you don’t know about me

I just discovered I was “tagged” by David Warlick and Alice Yucht. This cool meme reveals new sides of the bloggers I thought I had a bit of a handle on–Chris Lehmann, Terry Freedman, Andy Carvin, Kathy Schrock, Doug Johnson, and others. Judging by the pics and the nostalgic revelations, many (well some) of us would have gotten along famously in the 70s.

(Back in the day in my batik-filled room.)

Five things you don’t know about me:

1. I was the only one in Brooklyn to get 100% on the New York State Geometry Regents the year I took the test. That event marked both the pinnacle and the end of my math brilliance. I see isosceles triangles too, Alice. But for me, they are sweet, fleeting memories.

2. I lost each of my little brothers in terribly crowded places—once at a Grateful Dead concert, once at Shea Stadium. Fortunately I was able to mobilize both audiences to help me find them. Mom never found out.

3. In my first professional library job as the Readers’ Services Librarian at the Franklin Institute, I was incredibly helpful to every user. I was so helpful, in fact, I didn’t realize that I was helping the biggest metamphetamine ring in Philadelphia research how to enhance their manufacturing potential till agents from the State Department arrived with badges and weapons. And they knew me. They were holding a record I didn’t know existed listing my moratorium events from high school and college. Anyway, I was well trained in my pre-service program. I shakily resisted revealing personal borrowing records till the appropriate paperwork was produced.   I afraid I still often help too much.

4. I can’t name names, but I dated two folks who are now pretty famous alternative-type “captains” of industry.

5. I spent nearly 25 years hating my hair. These days, we co-exist in relative peace.

(with Mom and hair circa 1956)

Bonus: (If I don’t number it,  can I get away with six?)  I can imitate unicellular organisms.

So which five bloggers am I tagging?

Let’s try Michael Stephens, Sara Johns, Stephen Abram, Judy O’Connell, and Emily Valenza, who starts her new art position in Boston this week. Please read her new blog and join me in wishing her good luck!

Blogging break

I am struggling to process the tragedy our school experienced yesterday. What I do know is that I am proud of all of my colleagues. As our community struggles together to cope with its grief and understand its loss, my ramblings here seem unimportant.

I thank the many of you who wrote and sent kind thoughts.

I will be back in a bit.