after much deliberation, i think i've finally decided that i like christmas. i hate the crowds, the stupid music (it's especially grating when you have to listen to the same ten songs on repeat for five plus hours every day five days a week), the greed and materialism, the commercialism of the holiday...

i do like the christmas carols, the christmas movies (charlie brown!), the holiday spirit that seems to permeate most people, the emphasis on family... and of course i love gifts. i love finding just the right thing for that certain person, and watching them unwrap my surprise.

before all this deliberation, i had a very cynical attitude about christmas. i was annoyed at the materialism, the commercialism, the stupid music, the crowds... i especially hated the way people tried to steer away from the real reason for christmas with their dumb 'happy holidays' instead of merry christmas.

and don't get me wrong; those things still do bother me. a lot. but i've learned to focus on the real meaning of christmas. i suppose (and this is ironic) those stupid christmas songs i've been forced to listen to for hours on end have actually made me stop and think about what it's all about.

you know all those great lines: "come and behold him, born the king of angels" and "hark, the herald angels sing! glory to the new born king..." well, they just got to me and made me think, that's what it's all about. and i could just sit back and relax in that newly acquired knowledge.

it's okay that christmas has become what it is, because it's still about Christ coming to earth for the express purpose of dying for our sins. the world can try and cover it up, but i think we all know what it's about. it's too great and wonderful a truth to be covered up so easily.

so, kids, MERRY CHRISTMAS!

wow.

so i go to pick up my sister's holds, and what does she have? COUNTRY CDS?!!!?!?!? tim mcgraw and shania twain. who in the world authorized her to listen to country, much less like it?! i'm still reeling. the thought actually crossed my mind not to check them out for her, but then i thought that would be mean. and besides, she never bothers me with them. if she wants to rot her brain, that's fine with me (well, no it's not. i'd like to protect her from that particular plauge, but it seems there's no help for it).

speaking of holds, this self pick-up of holds is a pretty neat idea. one less responsibility the LAs have to worry about. well, sort of it. i guess they have to process the holds and shelve them. but oh well. it's nicer.

it finally dawned on me why people seem to be obsessed with the weather: they can't control it. no duh, you say, and yes, i know. it is a no duh thing. but i'm a bit slow on the uptake. so anyway, these past couple of days were a perfect example of it, and what helped me answer my riddle. weather has such a powerful influence on people's lives, even when they're stuck in an office (or anywhere else indoors) for eight hours. i guess it's easier to be happy when it's sunny outside than when it's rainy, even if you're warm and dry (or cool and dry) regardless.

what else is new... i've been 'surfing' the blog roll, randomly picking a blog and reading it, and it's incredible how many people have already posted for week nine. every time i go to do it i'm here at the library, which makes listening to audio a little bit more difficult than it would be in the comfort of my own home. i just can't ever remember to do it at home. >sighs<

oh! somebody gave me the amazing idea of using library thing to make a list of books you want read. how genius is that? (in the shadow of their brilliancy, i felt very stupid for not thinking outside the box. i guess i need to reevaluate my abilities and work on that.) so then i thought i'd do that today. but of course i left my lists of books i want to read someday at home. (i still have to dig one out from behind the hot water heater. heh heh) so that's why you got this silly post. if you've taken the time to read it, thank you. if you read it and comment on it, double thanks.

this a favorite, signing off till next time.

so far ahead of myself i'm behind

i could swear i entered my posts into the tracking log, but then i thought about it and realized maybe i hadn't. so checked, and sure enough, i couldn't find me anywhere on the roster. besides thinking, dangit!I, i thought for sure i'd done it before. i sure hope it doesn't show up twice in there. i guess it's better than not showing up at all. so anyway, i guess i'm all caught up and waiting for more.

there's nothing new under the sun

what's with people and 'communities'? there are sites and groups for everything! i was under the impression that everybody wanted to be unique, but that's impossible. "you're unique, just like everyone else." the fact that so many of these groups and communities exist seems to back that up.

i guess the uniqueness shines through in the way people present these ideas. sometimes somebody innovates and we get something completely new. well, a new spin on an old idea.

does that depress anybody else? the fact that you are restricted to the same ideas that everyone else has, everyone before you had, and everyone after you will have?

sit back and think about that. makes you feel small, huh? and insignificant. "what is man that you should be mindful of him?" no kidding, huh?

so maybe, what it really comes down to is people wanting to feel small and insignificant with other people. or maybe it's the opposite; maybe being part of a group gives them identity and makes them feel big because they're part of something else.

thanks for listening. tune in next time for more opinions and questions of the ages.

it's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...

why does no one say that when it's rainy and grey outside? for the most part i like grey days just as much as sunny days (although i must admit they're definitely more acceptable in november rather than july). so i don't understand why people are always griping about the weather. as a matter of fact, i don't understand why people talk bout the weather at all! what is it about the weather? i mean, i literally can't go a day at work without hearing at least one comment about the day's weather. people get depressed (around here) during the winter cuz the sun goes away forever. when most of us work indoors and don't have time to venture out much, why do we get so caught up on the weather?

what will they think of next?

so i made a librarything account just now, added some books. i think it's going to take me a little while to figure out a) where i really like this or not and b) what exactly is the point of this? it doesn't seem very useful to me right now. but i'm sure as i learn more about, become comfortable using it, and actually use it, i'll come to love it. sort of like i did with del.icio.us. ;D

paradoxical irony

i've been thinking, and i find that the very technology we are to embrace (hence this training) is also somewhat of an enemy. perhaps that's too strong a word. a... nuisance, let's say.

what led me to this conclusion? well, obviously i work at the library (or i woudn't be doing this training) and it has become my habit to listen and observe while i work. i like to label the days: is it a quiet day, or a loud day?

yesterday was a quiet day, and i thought, this is what libraries should sound like. all you could hear was the sound of typing, the occasional murmurs as people talked with each other, or the cheerful voices of the LAs as they greeted customers. today was downright rowdy; storytime, lots of voices, lots of typing, cell phones ringing...

i'm not voting we get rid of storytime or discourage customers (that's what we're here for, after all!), just deploring that the technology sort of gets in the way. i guess this is where i tell you i absolutely hate, loathe, abominate, and DESPISE cell phones. i think they're the plague and it drives me absolutely insane that people can't seem to go anywhere - anywhere!!!!! - without them. can't they at least have the decency to turn the stinkin' things off when they're in the sacred atmosphere of the library?!

libraries, at least to me, should be sacred places that are different than anywhere else you can go in public. in my oc days, walking into the library was like going to a different dimension. as soon as you pass those doors, it's cell phones off, whispers on, tread carefully, and don't make noise. it was amazing. even though there might be fifty or more students in that building, you wouldn't know it because everyone observed the cardinal rule of the library: quiet. is it wrong to ask the public to abide by the same rules? what's changed? are we afraid of infringing on people's freedom? will they keel over dead if they have to turn their cell phones off for half an hour? am i being unreasonable?

i guess i see the library as the last frontier, so to speak, and it's rapidly disappearing. well, maybe i should amend that to the library's atmosphere being the last frontier. where else can you go for that blissful silence filled with knowledge waiting to be discovered? barnes and noble has more of that now than the library does! how sad is that?

maybe what i really should be deploring is people's sense of that atmosphere. why do they observe it more carefully in a book store like barnes and noble but not in a library where it all started?

ideally, it would be great to separate the computers from everything else (an element of the oc library that i really appreciate), and turn the cell phones off at the door.

aaaahhhh! (aka about flickr)

i went to flickr and typed in 'korea' and looked at the pictures. then i narrowed my search to 'busan, korea' and looked at those pictures. it drove me crazy cuz i want to go back to korea so stinkin' bad!!!! it was weird how some pictures looked familiar. i though, have i seen that before? and then of course i had to wonder if i was just making it up cuz i wanted to have seen it before. i'm sure i had seen some of those places before; i just couldn't remember what they were called. korean is such a complicated language to hear and then connect with the written word. i mean, they say something and you see it on paper and you're like, 'huh?!' but anyway, that was cool. you could see pictures of korea through the lenses of people all over the world. and it seemed to me that you could tell which lense you were seeing through. the americans/europeans see korea differently than koreans and other asians. but anyway, i guess that's all for now.

now what?

so, i've gone as far as i can. now what? there are no tabs for weeks five, six, seven, etc. am i doomed to 'play/catch up' early? doesn't anyone have any sympathy for the over-achievers?! c'mon, you're holding me back!

really sweet subscriptions

k, that's a lame title for this blog, but who cares. anyway, i like RSS. i think it's a brilliant idea, and will help me keep up on stuff that i wouldn't usually a) make time for or b) remember to check up on. i think i'll like it even more once i get the chance to really play with it, add stuff i actually want on there. ;D so anyway, i think RSS is cool. i'm glad i get the chance to learn about all this cool stuff. etc. etc. and so forth.

keyword: social

i think the world revolves around social. social networking. social bookmarking. social communication. society. my fiance is going to college to be a sociologist. !!!??

but anyway. what do i think of social bookmarking. hm. i'm not really sure. i guess for now i would say it's kind of cool. gets all your junk in once place, and it's really nice that it can be accessed from anywhere. that way, if i had some spare time somewhere i could find all my stuff on a library computer or a school computer or somewhere with an internet connection. that's definitely points in its favor.

i think the library could greatly benefit from using social bookmarking in a lot of ways. that homework helper they have? you could post all sorts of cool links about anything academic to a general del.icio.us site just for that purpose, and kids could go to it and get the information they need. you could do the same thing with book clubs, hot topics, book lists and reviews... the list is endless. i mean, the library is a conduit of information, right? so they could post anything about anything and someone would find it useful. or just interesting, and that counts.

i posted links i bookmarked, like dictionary.com, the local classical radio station's internet streaming, krl2pt0 link, my blogger sign in page, and my gmail account page. it's nice to have all this stuff accessible from anywhere. cuz with the exception of dictionary.com, which is an easy address to remember, it's not so easy to just go straight to krl2pt0 or my blogger sign in page. i don't know about you, but i've got more important things on my mind than the dots and dashes and dot coms that go in which address. >grins< so yeah, it's nice.

it was really interesting to see how many other people used those sites in their del.icio.us accounts. there were quite a few people using dictionary.com, and even more using yahoo!. so it was kind of neat to see those statistics.

blogs??!!!

k, so is anyone else frustrated with the lack of variety for blog templates? is there some way we could just make our own?

so. i'm supposed to blog about stuff i read from our assignment sheet. i liked what that australian lady had to say about why we should spend time learning this stuff. a first i was just in it for the mp3 player, but now i see it'll be worth it for the learning's sake alone.

after this training, i'll be able to better understand my friend next time he tells me about facebook vs. myspace and how facebook is so much better. i'll know what he's talking about and be able to make the comparison and come to my own conclusions based on research.

about the 43 things, well, that just sounded way cool. i'm definitely one of those list makers, and i certainly love to scratch things off my list. i'm addicted to that feeling of accomplishment. ;D and aren't we encouraged to play while learning?