Latest and Last

Well, this will be my last official entry. I've received most of the surveys back, though some of them printed out funny. *mutters* Stupid two-way copy machine! Anyway, I have a paper due in my other class next week, so I'll need to devote the rest of my time to doing that. I really just want to talk a bit about how much fun I've had, despite having to get up so early. Not enough fun to make me switch from public libraries, but still fun.

What's also cool is that I seem to have unintentionally started a new "craze", so-to-speak. My mom was running out of bookmarks to give the kids after checking out and she didn't have any money in the budget to buy more. So, I made the suggestion that we should buy some $1 Store stickers and stick a couple each on thin pieces of colored paper. WOW! The kids went crazy over them! Even I was surprised by their popularity. :-) Plus, they're fun to make! I find making them to be very stress-relieving. LOL! The hardest part was trying to find a fairly even amount of "boy" and "girl" stickers. I really hate to stereotype, but it was the boys themselves who told me I needed more. *chuckles*

Overall, this has been a really good experience for me, even if I don't wind up using a lot of this information in my actual project. Interacting with the kids and getting to know them was a lot of fun and makes me yearn even more for a position in youth services as opposed to circulation. But I suppose beggars can't be choosers and besides, I'm just happy to be working in a library at all right now.

Confusion Deja Vu

Well, the more readings I'm given about what I'm supposed to be doing for this project the more confused I seem to get. I thought I knew exactly how I was going to go about presenting my data, but now I feel like I'm back at square one. In the project description we were given all these wonderfully creative ideas for presenting our research but the more I read and view the examples given, the less any of those options seem possible w/o a whole lot of extra work which isn't something I'm sure I have time for right now. Anyway, at the moment I'm not sure my observations at West Hurst are doing me any good what-so-ever, but I'm going to keep at it on the slight chance that I'll actually be able to use this information somehow. So, on with my day - Why is it I never seem to sleep well on nights when I need to be up early the next day? I went to bed intent on getting a good 5 1/2 hours of sleep and then tossed and turned ALL night. I think I may be stressing over this project WAY too much! My alarm went off at 6:50. . . I slept until 7:05. Fortunately, there was still time for breakfast. At school the kids were remarkably subdued considering they'd just come back from Spring Break. Mother's Monday schedule is heavy in the morning and light in the afternoon and she was teaching them how to access the (rather boring) HEB website. Then, from there, showing them how to find various information relating to the school such as lunch menus, etc. They also learned how to access the websites of individual teachers. It really is amazing considering that when I was in 4th grade we owned a Tandy 1000 and all I knew how to do was some VERY basic word processing and play games.

I think the highlight of my day was when one of the 6th graders found out I read Harry Potter. Her response was, "But, you're, like, an adult!" LOL! I told her my dad was in his 60's and read them, too, but I'm not sure she believed me. :-)

I also got my survey finished today. YAY! There was a slight moment of panic when I thought one of them wouldn't open to print , but I'm just not used to the crawling pace of a networked computer. So, I got the original printed only to discover the school's copier was busted. How ill-timed is that? My mom said she'd try it again tomorrow, but I feel like I'm running out of time.

I've been thinking I might give the survey online as well so that I can reach a different age group. I've asked permission, but haven't gone to check to see if there's a response yet. I may also need to compose a message about all the confusion I'm feeling, but I should probably wait until after I've read through the sample projects. In fact, I think I'll go do that right now. Until Wednesday!