Journal Entries
Wow!
Posted May 29, 2014
I didn't realize it had been so long since I've posted. I hope someone out there still remembers who I am. I also hope everyone is well and happy and looking forward to summer.
We have been super busy at the old WCPL. We turned 100 and have had a great time celebrating. We did a program a month that featured a different decade. We had historical displays and live music and dance from each of the decades since we opened. Most of the programs were standing room only.
We also changed our automation provider since I visited with you last. We joined a consortium of Missouri libraries that was brand new, so we are still working out some bugs. But overall, it was a good move for us and our patrons love it. Our ILL traffic has quadrupled. And it meant I didn't have to replace our data server, which was in extremis.
Another move was to finally start offering eBooks. Those are circulating like hot cakes. We, all libraries, are in a transition period, needing to keep providing traditional services as well as find a way to afford all the new stuff. It is a headache of major proportions trying to decide what to cut out of the budget in order to find money for the digital services. I know that we have to go digital in order to stay relevant, but it is all just so expensive.
We eliminated a lot of our regular events during our centennial, so it is time to start putting some of those together again. The only one positively scheduled is for December. We have this gorgeous building that is fairly begging to be decorated with Victorian-style Christmas decorations. We will add in Victorian Christmas cards, traditional music, wall boards explaining which customs began in that era, have an open house with traditional food and drink, and...ta da...I am going to attempt a Panto! Wish me luck with that!
Next year we want to do exhibits about Prehistoric Rock Art and Thomas Hart Benton, a local muralist. We are also thinking of reprising the M.C. Escher exhibit we did several years ago, the one we did during January when the boiler went out on us and the building was 40ºF for days on end. We're thinking summer is a good time for it. And we may do something with Legos. Not sure about that. And we definitely want to do a spring art exhibit/competition to coincide with a citywide event called "Springtime on Broadway" that is held every April.
All this should keep me busy and make the time go faster until I retire. I finally have an actual retirement date scheduled. Can I get a Hallelujah? I have informed the personnel committee and am side stepping their attempts to talk me out of it. I have agreed to stay for two years to break in a replacement. June 1, 2016 I will be a free woman. I like my job, but I really am looking forward to getting out from under the responsibility. I will have put in 21 years. That's long enough. I need some me time.
So, what's up with you guys?
Discuss this Journal entry [58]
Latest reply: May 29, 2014
Just for fun
Posted Sep 4, 2013
This has been around for a while but deserves another airing.
Homographs are words of like spelling but with more than one meaning.
A homograph that is also pronounced differently is a heteronym.
You think English is easy??
I think a retired English teacher was bored...THIS IS GREAT!
Read all the way to the end.................
This took a lot of work to put together!
1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture..
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert..
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?
If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?
How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.
English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all. That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.
PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick'?
You lovers of the English language might enjoy this.
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'
It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.
We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP,
for now my time is UP,
so.......it is time to shut UP!
Now it's UP to you what you do with this email
Discuss this Journal entry [17]
Latest reply: Sep 4, 2013
News from Little DooDah
Posted Sep 3, 2013
The library is in the midst of a financial problem which is making it necessary for me to close on Mondays for the foreseeable future. Our centennial celebration continues. This month we are up to the 60s. I am changing automation providers this month so am staying extremely busy. I am also changing our ISP. Lots of stuff happening at once.
I have been under the weather for the past several months. A combination of arthritis, herniated discs, and a fall left me hobbling and in a lot of pain. That is getting better. I would start feeling better then do too much and get down again. I've had to force myself to take it easy. Then last week I came down with a cold. Sweet. Anyway, I am behind with settling Mother's affairs. I think I have a buyer for her house, but still have to get some stuff over there cleaned out and a sale of the contents arranged. I just haven't been up to it. The six month minimum probate period ends this month.
My garden is pretty much a bust this year, too. Couldn't take care of it properly and couldn't afford to hire it all done.
The dogs, cats and boyfriend are all well. Can't think of anything more newsworthy right now.
Discuss this Journal entry [14]
Latest reply: Sep 3, 2013
Just wondering
Posted Sep 3, 2013
Do any of you ever wonder how on earth you ever became friends with certain people in the first place?
Because of my job I sometimes get drop-in visits from old classmates or long-lost relatives. And occasionally I renew an acquaintance with an old friend I've lost touch with over the years. Facebook is a great place to run into folks you haven't seen for 40 years. Almost invariable, we no longer have anything in common except old school ties and shared memories. Which is nice, but it isn't really enough to sustain a meaningful friendship, especially when the person in question is seemingly frozen in time.
Case in point is a woman I reconnected with a few months ago. We were actually good friends when we were in high school. She spent time at my house and I spent time at hers. Her opinions, beliefs and attitudes are exactly as I remember them. She apparently stopped growing. She is satisfied to believe and defend the same things she was told to believe as a child, to cling to the same prejudices, to give her loyalty to the same causes.
If I met her for the first time today, there is no way we would strike up a friendship. My constant skepticism disturbs her as much as her blind acceptance distresses me. But I truly don't understand people who take the attitude that whatever they are taught about religion, politics, social issues,prejudices as children is automatically valid, is enough to satisfy them, and there is no necessity to go beyond it. It's almost like they are imprisoned by their early conditioning and so content with it that they fail to see the bars on the windows and doors.
Pah. Brainwashing children is a form of child abuse, imho. Teach them to think critically, to listen to all sides of any controversial issue, and then let them decide for themselves what to believe and not to believe. Oh, and when they reach a conclusion for themselves, accept it and respect them for it, even if it disagrees with your own opinions and beliefs.
Which brings me to one of my favorite sayings attributed to Buddha. "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it. or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense."
Discuss this Journal entry [10]
Latest reply: Sep 3, 2013
More Morse
Posted May 19, 2013
My first season DVDs of Endeavour arrived. Yay!!! Loved the pilot, so ordered season one as soon as it was available. I like the way it is referencing some things in the original series, like the broken love affair with Susan, his relationship with his father, step-mother and step-sister, the injury leading to the limp, the classical music, crosswords and booze.
Discuss this Journal entry [18]
Latest reply: May 19, 2013
Hypatia
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