Just get me through the summer...

I am counting down the days until July 14th. That, my friends, is the date when I reclaim my life, and I am able to just BE. I will be officially finished with school, and I can focus on the Summer Reading Program and perhaps the plumbing in my bathroom, too! I hope to actually get Library Thing up and running as well because I've been reading more and more about its usefulness.

On a side note, I had an interesting weekend. My friend, who is an urban planner, talked about her community's fight for funding. The city hall, library, and other city buildings are in need of renovation. But the library got its act together first, and put together a millage that would save it. Unfortunately, according to some, this is taking place at the expense of the other city buildings... The millage passed, but only 500 people voted on it. Under these circumstances, and in a small community, I wonder why they didn't use something like the San Jose Public Library's Almaden Branch's system of a combined community center and library as a design model. On the other hand, nothing is perfect, and I applaud the library for being so proactive about raising the tax dollars for this project. I am not an expert on this subject, nor a member of the community, but as funding becomes more scarce, integration and collaboration will be key to maintaining support for all community interests.

On another note, for my Young Adult literature class, I am rereading The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Well, not exactly reading it--I'm attempting to listen to it on CD instead. I am struggling with this medium. I know, I know, I am YEARS behind in trying this, but I don't drive (hence no CD player in car), and I really don't listen to much music at home. Anyway, for some reason, I expected that this would be a perfect way to multi-task while I lazily seeped up the storyline. Yet, this isn't the case for me at all! I'm finding that if I don't actively concentrate on ALL of the narration, then I lose most of what is going on in the plot. It's taking my twice as long to read and understand this book than it would have if I had read it. In fact, my brain misses the text. Perhaps I should just try not to multi-task as much...

On another note, I'm also reading the Gossip Girls, and Yell-oh Girls




-- which are both very DIFFERENT girls!





--Juliette