Traditionally Unconventional

It's funny how living in lots of new places during the holidays makes you less loyal to maintaining traditions. I know people who have an annual obligation for every day of the week leading up to and the week following a holiday. It becomes overly ritualistic and though I have a handful of promises I keep to myself for events from year to year, lately I have really embraced the freedom of knowing that I really don't "have" to do anything the same this year as I did last. When I think about it, I have spent the last three Thanksgivings in unconventional ways:

2009 - Austin, TX  - Matt and I went to Fredericksburg and stayed at a B&B, ate at Rather Sweet bakery twice, watched movies, rode a tandem bike around (how hipster of us - I know) and then hiked Enchanted Rock.

2010 - Edinburgh, UK - Ran on the Chariot's of Fire beach, explored St Andrews and ate fish and chips with Matt and my mum, as it were.

2011 - Denver, CO - Did a crazy holiday workout with the Jeffco Aquatic Master's swim team in the am, enjoyed a heaping bowl of Pho at one of the many Vietnamese places in town, made and ate Maple Pecan Pie and watched The Outsiders.

The one aspect of this phenomenon that is proving to be a bit painful is that each year I am pining for past experiences. Perhaps this is how traditions start. A tradition is the closest, the next best, thing to making sure you get to relive all that was great and memorable from the year before. When every year offers something different, that means there is something to miss. There's the rub. Still, I imagine that future eras of my life will offer the same-ness, the tradition moreso than my life does now. In the meantime, I am going to collect a heap of limited time only experiences that add to all that I have to be grateful for the next year. I believe that would be under the umbrella of "grateful for such a fulfilling and opportunity filled life".

Big Library News!

I don't want to sound like a pessimist or anything but when I heard about how we were applying to for the IMLS computer learning grant I didn't let myself get super attached to the thought of us getting it. Maybe it was because I got an email before my first day of work saying that I would be on the project planning team if we were to get it. Not to be overly self-deprecating or anything, but I am not used to be associated with stuff as objectively cool and exciting as this. Tell me, do you have to be a public youth services librarian to think this is awesome?!

Let me also say that the types of places that have received this $100,000 tech grant have been library systems like:

Chicago Public
San Fransisco Public
Nashville Public
Free Library of Philadelphia Foundation
Da Vinci Discovery Center (a big name in the modern library world)
etc

Do you see the trend? In other words, these are all places that are more readily recognizably on the map than Adams County or Thorton Colorado. But the thing is, out of the 98 applicants for this grant, we were one of the 12 chosen to do something exciting with this money. And we have big plans for it - and I get to be a part of it! Not only will this mean paid training opportunities with all kinds of cool Apple film and music software but there are even rumors that the project team will need opportunities to "research" the ways this grant is used in places like Washington DC and Chicago. Three cheers for lifelong learning!



Want to learn more? Check out this article Anythink put up announcing their big library news...

Onion inspired writing

Though many may think that a 4 person turnout isn't much to be excited about in a program, I was thrilled last Wednesday to have that many show up for Huron Street's first writing club. They were all in middle school so it was easy to target the exercises for about the same age group. We open up with a game of "Death By" which basically is an association/word vomit game to help get things verbalized. It begins with everyone writing a noun on a scrap of paper (or maybe several nouns on separate slips of paper) and putting it in a bowl. Then each kid is responsible for saying the first thing that pops into their head. If they hesitate or falter then we draw a paper out of the bowl and say that they experienced "death by....." It is perfect for the tween crowd and I kept it a secret until someone actually experienced "death by" what the slips of paper were for. Then someone was appointed to describe how this death happened and as we were eating cookies through the game it turned out that the funniest inspiration was "Death By Cookie Monster". That ended up be a recurring theme in everyone's writing that day. Great fun. Below is what I typed up as fast as I could of their associations in the game.

Let’s go ride some ponies. Okay I love some ponies. I love tacos. I want to play some tacos. Wow.Awesome. I heart doors. Flying tacos. Cool. Awesome. Unicorns. Let’s go eat a car. Let’s go to mcdonalds. I’m loving it. Halloween crunch. Candy food. Hungrayu. Braces hearts. You’re mean. Awesome cool. I’m loving it. Think outside barn. Hearts. I love me. Cookies. Heartache. Chocolate. Crunch. Trash can. Banana. Fun? Bag. Tree. Omg pickle carroyt. Banaa. Picking my nose. Ew yummy. Hairthings. Anybody have chocolate. Sorry. Capri sun. I hate it. I love it. Trains fire drill. Duh I hate that orad. Suitcase. Trees. Traintrack. Life. Popcorn. Chair. White board. I do complete sentences everyday. Alexis is a weirdo. \I love roads. I hit my head with a door. I hurt my finger. Ow my ankle. My tooth is missing. Who hates braces. I do. I love cups. I love chocolate. I love eating. Braces. 

My favorite bit: I love eating. Braces. Sums up what I remember about middle school in 2 sentences:)


After the warm-up, we moved onto writing fake newspaper headlines and accompanying stories. Though a lot their ideas involved talking toilets (probably the biggest hit of the day) and other like-minded prompts, I have to say that I was utterly impressed with their tireless sense of inspiration. At one point I even tried to touch on the notion of "writer's block" and most of them let me know that they simply never get it. They always know what to write about. Impressive - right?

I participated in the exercise to be a good sport and although my article didn't get nearly as many laughs as the talking toilet one, I was glad I did it. Here's what I had time to put down in the 10 minutes we had:

Scientist realizes that he is a nerd.

After years of working at the top of his field, noble prize winning scientist John Malgrem realizes that he has nerdy tendencies. Suspicions arose after his interest in the Lord of the Rings trilogy grew into an obsession. “It all happened so quickly. One minute I was a fan of the books and the next minute I started critiquing how well Peter Jackson movie adaption was.” Things quickly started adding up after that. His bad haircut, thick glasses, high rise pants, and his love of jokes that usually included the periodic table as the punch line. 

So yeah. It was a good kick off for our monthly Huron Street Writer's Club. It warmed my library heart when, on the way out, one of the wee writers let me know, "This was great! I can't wait until next time. I always want to read things that I am writing for other people but my teachers never give me the chance to do it..." Of course he didn't at all realize it but he just validated the role of my profession in his community, in his life:)

Not everything needs to be made from scratch...

Thus begins the month of gratefuls and I have an overflowing list. Just below the gratefuls of health, Matt, jobs, gospel comes great friends. After several years of being transplanted to new places with foreign faces, I grew accustomed to starting from scratch in making new friends. In the last while I have become "fit" for moving to new places, much in the same way one would get in shape to make a routine out of running up a sturdy hill and getting the adrenaline rush that comes with it when they reach the top. It isn't an utterly comfortable process but there is something thrilling and exciting about it. In this way, going to a new place and making new friends is a great adventure to be sure and not one to miss out on. But it takes a good push of effort and energy when trying out your sense of humor on a new personality and the like. And like exercise, it always takes so much more time than you want, expect or would hope.

All that said, I was prepped, ready, open-minded and determined to set out and find me some new friends when we moved out here to Colorado. I kept reminding myself that they come in unlikely places, often when you least expect and who you would not necessarily have thought would have been someone you would "get on" with so well. In Austin it was fellow swimmers in lanes next to me at the Amherst pool, in Edinburgh it was a spunky Polish housekeeper I worked with and an ex-Sailor Welshman (about 75 years old) who greeted me every time I made it through the rain to the Dalry Public Baths. So I anxiously looked around me in my first months here to see who I would make my new friend out of.

True to previous experience, it was in a most unexpected way that I found a great friend. What struck me as most surprising about it though was that it was a dear friend I already had! What luck! What surprise! For all you Anne of Green Gables fans out there, my "bosom" friend of yore, Claire, just lives an hour north of me in Fort Collins. And, like all best friends, though it had been an age since we had chance to reconnect, we picked up right where we left off. And though a visit can make for a bit of a pilgrimage, I have to say that it is an easy thing when meeting up and having a laugh is utterly effortless. And once again, I am amazed at the mysterious ways that good friends come about in new places - and there is something really lovely about when they don't always have to be built from scratch.

A perfect example of this, is when Claire gave me a tour of her Chemistry lab on campus and showed me around all her PhD projects, I immediately knew what there was to appreciate about the moment when in her torn and faded Princeton running clothes she reached in the fridge and pulled out a vial of orange crystals. With a shameless smile and great pride she shared with me: "Hey Cate! Check out these crystals I made this morning! Chemistry can be artistic you know." Such an utterly Claire-moment. And I had to agree - there was something artistic about the crystals and the event of her showing them to me as well.

So a tour of the CSU Chem lab, a wintery walk in Fort Collins and dinner with a bunch of nerdy Chemist friends of a great friend this last weekend is a perfect start to a grateful month.