I work a 40-hour-a-week job at Target. Target is not a bad company. And my job is not a bad job. The hours suck (I wake up at 3:20am to get to work at 4) and it's physically demanding (lifting, bending, TONS of walking, reaching, carrying, pushing, etc), but the pay is quite good for retail and the people I work with are good friends. I like the fact that I can leave my job behind me at the end of the day. I like the fact that I can dye my hair purple on a whim and not get fired or penalized for it (Target celebrates diversity, and allows its employees to express themselves through odd hair color, piercings, tattoos, etc - as long as they aren't offensive or obscene). I like the fact that I can ask off, and as long as I give them two weeks' notice I'm pretty much guaranteed to get the time off. I like the fact that my bosses are willing to be flexible with me when it comes to doctor's appointments or scheduling around classes for school. I like not having to think what I'll wear to work (red and khaki - boring as all get out - but mindless, which is what I need at that time of the morning). These are all good things.
But I wish I had a different job.
Like I said before, getting up at 3am SUCKS. And worse, feeling at the end of the day like someone spent the last eight hours beating your body with iron rods isn't so grand either. I'm tired of being so tired all the time that my brain doesn't function at normal capacity. I'm tired of hobbling instead of walking, of aching muscles and throbbing feet. I wish I had a job at a desk, where I could do something on a computer, or call people on the phone, or file stuff, or make copies. I'd even make someone's coffee or pick up their lunch for them. Just something else, something different.
It was that thought that led me to perusing online for job postings. Craigslist was barren of any good news, as always. But when I went to my county's webpage and looked at postings for government jobs, one caught my eye: a posting for a library assistant, whose duties would include acting as kind of a floater, but would primarily focus on programming for the children's department.
I thought: This is it. This is my ticket out of Target. I filled out an application and crossed my fingers that I'd get the job.
Fast forward a few days, and I'm emailed by the library director to set up a time for an interview. I dress nice for the interview, though with my ankle still in a bulky brace I'm forced to wear a pair of flats rather than some dressier shoes I might have opted for. I go in, and things seem to be going well. I'm interviewed simultaneously by the branch manager (who would be my direct boss) and the children's department coordinator for the whole library system. The children's department coordinator (CDC) is probably a few years older than I am, but she looks about twelve years old in the business suit she's wearing - like a toddler wearing mom's high heels. The branch manager (BM) is a middle-aged woman with a harsh voice, a soccer mom haircut, and brightly-colored blazer with a pattern that looks like a fusion between a geometry lesson and a poorly-recreated piece of African art.
The interview goes amazingly well. I impress them with exercises in which they ask me to select books for certain age groups of kids. I whiz through computer tests. I gush about the Helping Haiti Heal fundraiser when they ask me about things I like to do in my spare time, and my enthusiasm is so infectious I swear the CDC plans on looking the whole thing up and possibly donating. Though I lack library experience, they seem to like the fact that my work with daycare and summer camp gives me experience with kids, while my time at Borders and the few classes I've taken in grad school show an understanding of what some of the basic functions of libraries are. This is going well. This is going really well. In fact, at one point in the interview I catch BM giving CDC a sideways glance and going, "I like her," in a stage whisper.
But what's that they say about things that seem too good to be true? Oh yeah. That they usually are.
One of my "tests" involves me going out into the actual library and organizing some books in order and reshelving them in the proper sections. When I come back into the room and sit down, BM suddenly launches into the following speech:
"We like you. We have to interview a few other people, but we really like you. But you're young, and you have to understand that people won't take you seriously. So I'm going to say this unofficially, but I think you should really bear it in mind: the dress policy for our library is business casual, but if we hire you I'm going to hold you to a much higher standard. I'm going to require you to wear more formal business attire, because parents need to have confidence that you know what you're doing, and because you're so young you really don't look like you do. I'm telling you this for your own good. You do understand that, don't you?"
I nod, but inside I'm thinking Whaaaaat!?
And she finishes by saying, "Oh, and your shoes are unacceptable. Totally, totally a horrible choice for an interview. You really shouldn't have worn them." When I lift my pant leg to show the bulky brace and say it wouldn't fit in any of my dressier shoes, she gives a gruff, "Well, you've got an excuse, at least." They shake my hand and I flash a fake smile, my stomach already turning sour as I walk toward the door to leave.
The next day after work I get a phone call telling me I have the job. But suddenly, I'm not so keen on it anymore...
So here's what it comes down to: The job I currently have? Wearying, not very rewarding, safe, unchallenging. But it's 40 hours a week, decent pay, nice people, friendly and flexible atmosphere. The job I thought I was dying to have? It's 15 hours a week at slightly higher pay (even so, I'd get nowhere near the same paycheck). Hours and days off are inflexible. And I'm guessing purple hair doesn't fall under "formal business attire."
Am I a fool to be upset by her closing remarks? I understand that what she's saying may be perfectly true, though I found that people at Borders who underestimated me in my jeans and T-shirt were quickly silenced by my knowledge of the books, authors, and subject areas they were interested in learning more about. The problem wasn't actually her remarks so much as the way she said it. It came out sounding very much like discrimination against me because I was young, and discrimination due to age - any age - is just wrong. Period.
When she called on Friday, I was flustered. Between sleep and work, I'd had literally two hours of wakeful life to even process what had happened at the interview. When she offered the job I just accepted out of shock. But they can't make anything official until I fill out paperwork on Monday. Instead of signing papers, I'm planning on calling them and telling them I decline.
I appreciate them taking a chance on an inexperienced young graduate student, but I don't like being discriminated against.
And besides, those shoes I wore? I really like them. So she can just take her opinion and shove it.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Story Ideas
Below are 8 ideas for stories I'm going to be working on in the coming year. The only problem? I don't know where to start. If you have time, read the following descriptions then @ reply me on twitter (@eruanna317) with the one you think i should start with. Thanks!
Fairy Godmother
The day after her “golden birthday,” a teen girl discovers she’s a Fairy Godmother. With the help of the mentor assigned to her, she comes to grips with the changes, duties, and challenges this brings. However, when the spike of magical activity in her small hometown attracts some unsavory immortals, our heroine must figure out how to save everyone else’s Happily Ever After while trying to find her own.
Orinda and the Dragon
In a kingdom where dragons were long thought to have been extinct, one suddenly appears, stealing cattle and razing villages. When a foolish friend gets it into her head that she can become royalty by getting herself captured by a dragon (and hopefully rescued by a prince), our heroine Orinda rushes off to save her. In the rescue process, Orinda kills the dragon – and wakes up the next morning the victim of the dragon’s curse: the one who slays the dragon shall become the dragon. While fending off pesky knights and trying to resist her newfound dragon nature, Orinda seeks to reverse the curse…and in doing so uncovers a nefarious plot to overthrow the kingdom.
Ghost
The story of an old woman who has recently lost her husband and has also recently lost her eyesight. She’s now quite blind. She moves in with her son and his wife, but has trouble sleeping at night because she can tell someone is in the room with her but is refusing to let on that they’re there. Her son and daughter think she’s crazy, but the woman becomes convinced that what she’s feeling is the ghost of her dead husband coming to visit her. She befriends a faux-gypsy quack who convinces the old woman that she can “reanimate” the ghost. When a local man dies in a fishing boat accident, they plot to steal his body and try to bring the woman’s husband’s spirit back into physical form. Is it a hoax? Will they get caught? And if it somehow works, there’s always this thought: what if the ghost they reanimate isn’t the old woman’s husband at all, but someone – or something—else entirely???
Fountain
An archaeological researcher and his team stumble across an underground chamber that appears to have been sealed for thousands of years. Within this chamber is a fountain, and at the bottom of the fountain is what appears to be the body of a woman, perfectly preserved in its salty waters. When they bring the woman’s body to the surface, suddenly she coughs and sputters – she’s alive. How could a live woman be inside this chamber whose only entrance has been sealed off for thousands of years? She claims she was enchanted by a powerful wizard to sleep ten thousand years in a fountain watered by the tears of men. The logical, sane part in his head tells him she’s lying, or more likely crazy, but the more he gets to know this sad, lovely girl, the more he begins to secretly wonder if her story could somehow be true…
Dying Fairy at the Lake House
(Not fully fleshed out yet.) A young couple goes to a remote lake house for one of their first trips alone together. When the plumbing goes out in the cabin, the boyfriend drives into town to report it, which leaves the girlfriend all alone and without any form of transportation when a strange creature, badly injured and probably dying, arrives on her doorstep and essentially takes her hostage. The events of the next hour are explosive, as our heroine grapples with her worst fears and is forced to rewrite her very understanding of the universe. Will they both survive to see the end of the tale?
Girl With a World In Her Hands
A boy at an exclusive boarding school meets the headmaster’s reclusive niece when in the process of sucking up to her uncle at a dinner soiree. He befriends the strange girl, who is very thin and pale and obviously suffering some sort of debilitating disease that no one wants to talk about. Unused to such attentions, especially from someone her own age, she confides in him more than she should and reveals the secret behind her illness. She cups her hands together, palms and fingertips each touching the other hand’s to form a ring, and when he looks through instead of the patch of gray wall that should show through on the other side, he finds himself looking through into a strange sort of garden, with unfamiliar flora and fauna. It seems this girl is a portal to another world! Anytime any part of her bare skin touches another part of her body and forms a ring, it opens a space between our world and this other place. But whenever someone tries to put something through into that world or take something from it, the exertion required to accomplish such a feat takes a staggering physical toll on her. The reason she is so sick is because her uncle has been performing experiments to try to ascertain the nature of this other world. And like her uncle, our hero soon finds himself obsessed with that place, and constantly wondering where it is and what it would be like to go there. Our hero must decide—does he love this girl enough as a person to want to rescue her from this life of physical torment, or will his obsession with this unexplored world lead him to an act that could bring about irreparable harm or even death?
Sarah Normal
A young girl moves into a house that is, essentially, alive. The house is old and unhappy, and it’s hiding something. The girl is young and full of life and teeming with curiosity. In her quest to discover the secrets of the house, she lets loose something quite terrible upon all who enter into it. She soon discovers that when you play with monsters, you may well stumble to your doom.
The Pictures on the Wall
When the car breaks down on a deserted country road near dusk, a mother and daughter start walking to (a) either find a spot with better cell phone coverage, or (b) spot a house that might let them use a phone to call a tow truck. They spot the house first, a cute two-story with its lights on at the top of a hill. But there are no cars in the driveway and when they knock, the door slides open of its own accord—no one is there to greet them. The first thing the daughter notices on looking around is the pristine white squares on the otherwise yellowed walls… someone has taken down all the pictures that had been hanging there, it seems. A sudden noise from upstairs alarms them, but it turns out to be a teenage boy who’s been squatting in the house for about a week. He was the one to take the pictures down. Why? “Because they kept—changing.” He takes them upstairs and pulls down a dusty, weathered black and white photo from where he’d hidden it on a closet shelf. He wipes clean the glass and shows them: it’s a picture of a woman and girl walking up a hill. He grabs another. The woman stepping into the house, the daughter close on her heels. Another: the woman and daughter catch sight of a teenage boy… “That’s us,” says the daughter. “Yes,” says the teenage boy. But what happens if the pictures catch up with reality?
Fairy Godmother
The day after her “golden birthday,” a teen girl discovers she’s a Fairy Godmother. With the help of the mentor assigned to her, she comes to grips with the changes, duties, and challenges this brings. However, when the spike of magical activity in her small hometown attracts some unsavory immortals, our heroine must figure out how to save everyone else’s Happily Ever After while trying to find her own.
Orinda and the Dragon
In a kingdom where dragons were long thought to have been extinct, one suddenly appears, stealing cattle and razing villages. When a foolish friend gets it into her head that she can become royalty by getting herself captured by a dragon (and hopefully rescued by a prince), our heroine Orinda rushes off to save her. In the rescue process, Orinda kills the dragon – and wakes up the next morning the victim of the dragon’s curse: the one who slays the dragon shall become the dragon. While fending off pesky knights and trying to resist her newfound dragon nature, Orinda seeks to reverse the curse…and in doing so uncovers a nefarious plot to overthrow the kingdom.
Ghost
The story of an old woman who has recently lost her husband and has also recently lost her eyesight. She’s now quite blind. She moves in with her son and his wife, but has trouble sleeping at night because she can tell someone is in the room with her but is refusing to let on that they’re there. Her son and daughter think she’s crazy, but the woman becomes convinced that what she’s feeling is the ghost of her dead husband coming to visit her. She befriends a faux-gypsy quack who convinces the old woman that she can “reanimate” the ghost. When a local man dies in a fishing boat accident, they plot to steal his body and try to bring the woman’s husband’s spirit back into physical form. Is it a hoax? Will they get caught? And if it somehow works, there’s always this thought: what if the ghost they reanimate isn’t the old woman’s husband at all, but someone – or something—else entirely???
Fountain
An archaeological researcher and his team stumble across an underground chamber that appears to have been sealed for thousands of years. Within this chamber is a fountain, and at the bottom of the fountain is what appears to be the body of a woman, perfectly preserved in its salty waters. When they bring the woman’s body to the surface, suddenly she coughs and sputters – she’s alive. How could a live woman be inside this chamber whose only entrance has been sealed off for thousands of years? She claims she was enchanted by a powerful wizard to sleep ten thousand years in a fountain watered by the tears of men. The logical, sane part in his head tells him she’s lying, or more likely crazy, but the more he gets to know this sad, lovely girl, the more he begins to secretly wonder if her story could somehow be true…
Dying Fairy at the Lake House
(Not fully fleshed out yet.) A young couple goes to a remote lake house for one of their first trips alone together. When the plumbing goes out in the cabin, the boyfriend drives into town to report it, which leaves the girlfriend all alone and without any form of transportation when a strange creature, badly injured and probably dying, arrives on her doorstep and essentially takes her hostage. The events of the next hour are explosive, as our heroine grapples with her worst fears and is forced to rewrite her very understanding of the universe. Will they both survive to see the end of the tale?
Girl With a World In Her Hands
A boy at an exclusive boarding school meets the headmaster’s reclusive niece when in the process of sucking up to her uncle at a dinner soiree. He befriends the strange girl, who is very thin and pale and obviously suffering some sort of debilitating disease that no one wants to talk about. Unused to such attentions, especially from someone her own age, she confides in him more than she should and reveals the secret behind her illness. She cups her hands together, palms and fingertips each touching the other hand’s to form a ring, and when he looks through instead of the patch of gray wall that should show through on the other side, he finds himself looking through into a strange sort of garden, with unfamiliar flora and fauna. It seems this girl is a portal to another world! Anytime any part of her bare skin touches another part of her body and forms a ring, it opens a space between our world and this other place. But whenever someone tries to put something through into that world or take something from it, the exertion required to accomplish such a feat takes a staggering physical toll on her. The reason she is so sick is because her uncle has been performing experiments to try to ascertain the nature of this other world. And like her uncle, our hero soon finds himself obsessed with that place, and constantly wondering where it is and what it would be like to go there. Our hero must decide—does he love this girl enough as a person to want to rescue her from this life of physical torment, or will his obsession with this unexplored world lead him to an act that could bring about irreparable harm or even death?
Sarah Normal
A young girl moves into a house that is, essentially, alive. The house is old and unhappy, and it’s hiding something. The girl is young and full of life and teeming with curiosity. In her quest to discover the secrets of the house, she lets loose something quite terrible upon all who enter into it. She soon discovers that when you play with monsters, you may well stumble to your doom.
The Pictures on the Wall
When the car breaks down on a deserted country road near dusk, a mother and daughter start walking to (a) either find a spot with better cell phone coverage, or (b) spot a house that might let them use a phone to call a tow truck. They spot the house first, a cute two-story with its lights on at the top of a hill. But there are no cars in the driveway and when they knock, the door slides open of its own accord—no one is there to greet them. The first thing the daughter notices on looking around is the pristine white squares on the otherwise yellowed walls… someone has taken down all the pictures that had been hanging there, it seems. A sudden noise from upstairs alarms them, but it turns out to be a teenage boy who’s been squatting in the house for about a week. He was the one to take the pictures down. Why? “Because they kept—changing.” He takes them upstairs and pulls down a dusty, weathered black and white photo from where he’d hidden it on a closet shelf. He wipes clean the glass and shows them: it’s a picture of a woman and girl walking up a hill. He grabs another. The woman stepping into the house, the daughter close on her heels. Another: the woman and daughter catch sight of a teenage boy… “That’s us,” says the daughter. “Yes,” says the teenage boy. But what happens if the pictures catch up with reality?
Thursday, December 31, 2009
100 Books in 2009
One of my New Year's resolutions for 2009 was to read at least 100 books. To prove that I made it (I'm currently halfway through my 101st book!), I'm listing them below...
Month Title Author
1. January The Tale of Despereaux Kate DiCamillo
2. January A Great and Terrible Beauty Libba Bray
3. January Inkheart Cornelia Funke
4. January A Separate Peace John Knowles
5. January An Abundance of Katherines John Green
6. January The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam Anne Marie Fleming
7. January Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. January Princess on the Brink Meg Cabot
9. January And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks J. Kerouac, W.S. Burroughs
10. February Sandman: Brief Lives Neil Gaiman
11. February Princess Mia Meg Cabot
12. February Princess Forever Meg Cabot
13. February The Thief Lord Cornelia Funke
14. February Pretty Monsters Kelly Link
15. February Looking for Alaska John Green
16. February Sandman: Worlds’ End Neil Gaiman
17. February The Diary of Anne Frank Anne Frank
18. March Jurassic Park Michael Crichton
19. March Eldest Christopher Paolini
20. March Goose Chase Patrice Kindl
21. March The House of the Scorpion Nancy Farmer
22. March The Subtle Knife Phillip Pullman
23. March Witch Baby Francesca Lia Block
24. April Haunted Chuck Palahniuk
25. April The Ramsay Scallop Frances Temple
26. April 13 Little Blue Envelopes Maureen Johnson
27. April Blueberry Girl Neil Gaiman
28. April This Place Has No Atmosphere Paula Danzinger
29. April Sorcery and Cecelia Pat Wrede & Caroline Stevermier
30. April The Last Lecture Randy Pausch
31. April Over Sea, Under Stone Susan Cooper
32. April The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
33. April The Forest of Hands and Teeth Carrie Ryan
34. May Suite Scarlett Maureen Johnson
35. May How to Ditch Your Fairy Justine Larbalestier
36. May The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Dorothy Gilman
37. May The Brimstone Journals Ron Koertge
38. May The Book of Three Lloyd Alexander
39. May The Plot That Thickened P.G. Wodehouse
40. May The Almost Moon Alice Sebold
41. May House of Many Ways Diana Wynn Jones
42. May Travels of Thelonious: Fog Mound Susan Schade & Jon Buller
43. May The Loud Silence of Francine Green Karen Cushman
44. June Enter Three Witches Caroline B. Cooney
45. June The Diana Chronicles Tina Brown
46. June Devil Bones Kathy Reichs
47. June Tithe Holly Black
48. June The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks E. Lockhart
49. June So Yesterday Scott Westerfeld
50. June Hit and Run Lawrence Block
51. June Sleeping Arrangements Madeleine Wickham
52. June Enchanted April Elizabeth Von Arnim
53. June The Far Side of Evil Sylvia Louise Engdahl
54. July Dealing with Dragons Patricia Wrede
55. July Rebel Angels Libba Bray
56. July The Last Olympian Rick Riordan
57. August The Higher Power of Lucky Susan Patron
58. August Ten Things I Hate About Me Randa Abdel-Fattah
59. August Saturday Ian McEwan
60. August The Coyote Road Editors Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
61. August The Boyfriend List E. Lockhart
62. August City of Bones Cassandra Clare
63. August Little (Grrl) Lost Charles De Lint
64. August The Sweet, Far Thing Libba Bray
65. August The Girl With No Shadow Joanne Harris
66. August Walking on Glass Alma Fullterton
67. August Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Dyan Sheldon
68. August Slam Nick Hornby
69. September City of Ashes Cassandra Clare
70. September Don’t Look Down Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
71. September Catching Fire Suzanne Collins
72. September The Legend of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznick
73. September City of Glass Cassandra Clare
74. September Spindle’s End Robin McKinley
75. October Princess Academy Shannon Hale
76. October Gregor the Overlander Suzanne Collins
77. October Going Bovine Libba Bray
78. October Live From New York Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller
79. October Anansi Boys Neil Gaiman
80. October Each Little Bird That Sings Deborah Wiles
81. October The Shakespeare Stealer Gary Blackwood
82. October Shakespeare’s Secret Elise Broach
83. October Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane Suzanne Collins
84. November Bat 6 Virginia Euwer Wolff
85. November Virtual War Gloria Skurzynski
86. November Geektastic Editors Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci
87. December Girl At Sea Maureen Johnson
88. December Snow, Glass, Apples Neil Gaiman
89. December Special Topics in Calamity Physics Marisha Pessl
90. December The Wish Gail Carson Levine
91. December Odd and the Frost Giants Neil Gaiman
92. December The Pirates in an Adventure With Scientists Gideon Defoe
93. December The Pirates in an Adventure With Ahab Gideon Defoe
94. December The Waters and the Wild Francesca Lia Block
95. December Fire and Wings Editor Marianne Carus
96. December My Fair Godmother Janette Rallison
97. December Midnight Girl Will Shetterly
98. December Everlost Neal Shusterman
99. December Let It Snow John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle
100. December Rise and Shine Anna Quindlen
My rules were fairly simple: I counted books I read myself and audiobooks. I did not count textbooks or articles that I read for school. No abridged titles allowed! I did not add a book to the list until I finished it, which means some books I started in June ended up on the list in September. The eagle-eyed viewer might notice that #27, Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman, is a picture book. It is the only picture book on the list, and I added it (a) because I was excited about the book, and (b) because it symbolizes the 42 picture books (no exaggeration there!) that I read over the course of my Children's Literature class this fall.
So there you have it... my reading in 2009. My resolution for next year will have more to do with quality than quantity. This year's list is heavily populated by titles in the Young Adult, Children's Books, Science Fiction, and Fantasy genres. While I love all these books and will continue reading them, this year I'm going to challenge myself to read more in the Classics, Non-Fiction, and Literary Fiction genres.
Here's to 2010! Happy reading!
Month Title Author
1. January The Tale of Despereaux Kate DiCamillo
2. January A Great and Terrible Beauty Libba Bray
3. January Inkheart Cornelia Funke
4. January A Separate Peace John Knowles
5. January An Abundance of Katherines John Green
6. January The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam Anne Marie Fleming
7. January Team of Rivals Doris Kearns Goodwin
8. January Princess on the Brink Meg Cabot
9. January And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks J. Kerouac, W.S. Burroughs
10. February Sandman: Brief Lives Neil Gaiman
11. February Princess Mia Meg Cabot
12. February Princess Forever Meg Cabot
13. February The Thief Lord Cornelia Funke
14. February Pretty Monsters Kelly Link
15. February Looking for Alaska John Green
16. February Sandman: Worlds’ End Neil Gaiman
17. February The Diary of Anne Frank Anne Frank
18. March Jurassic Park Michael Crichton
19. March Eldest Christopher Paolini
20. March Goose Chase Patrice Kindl
21. March The House of the Scorpion Nancy Farmer
22. March The Subtle Knife Phillip Pullman
23. March Witch Baby Francesca Lia Block
24. April Haunted Chuck Palahniuk
25. April The Ramsay Scallop Frances Temple
26. April 13 Little Blue Envelopes Maureen Johnson
27. April Blueberry Girl Neil Gaiman
28. April This Place Has No Atmosphere Paula Danzinger
29. April Sorcery and Cecelia Pat Wrede & Caroline Stevermier
30. April The Last Lecture Randy Pausch
31. April Over Sea, Under Stone Susan Cooper
32. April The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
33. April The Forest of Hands and Teeth Carrie Ryan
34. May Suite Scarlett Maureen Johnson
35. May How to Ditch Your Fairy Justine Larbalestier
36. May The Unexpected Mrs. Pollifax Dorothy Gilman
37. May The Brimstone Journals Ron Koertge
38. May The Book of Three Lloyd Alexander
39. May The Plot That Thickened P.G. Wodehouse
40. May The Almost Moon Alice Sebold
41. May House of Many Ways Diana Wynn Jones
42. May Travels of Thelonious: Fog Mound Susan Schade & Jon Buller
43. May The Loud Silence of Francine Green Karen Cushman
44. June Enter Three Witches Caroline B. Cooney
45. June The Diana Chronicles Tina Brown
46. June Devil Bones Kathy Reichs
47. June Tithe Holly Black
48. June The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks E. Lockhart
49. June So Yesterday Scott Westerfeld
50. June Hit and Run Lawrence Block
51. June Sleeping Arrangements Madeleine Wickham
52. June Enchanted April Elizabeth Von Arnim
53. June The Far Side of Evil Sylvia Louise Engdahl
54. July Dealing with Dragons Patricia Wrede
55. July Rebel Angels Libba Bray
56. July The Last Olympian Rick Riordan
57. August The Higher Power of Lucky Susan Patron
58. August Ten Things I Hate About Me Randa Abdel-Fattah
59. August Saturday Ian McEwan
60. August The Coyote Road Editors Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling
61. August The Boyfriend List E. Lockhart
62. August City of Bones Cassandra Clare
63. August Little (Grrl) Lost Charles De Lint
64. August The Sweet, Far Thing Libba Bray
65. August The Girl With No Shadow Joanne Harris
66. August Walking on Glass Alma Fullterton
67. August Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen Dyan Sheldon
68. August Slam Nick Hornby
69. September City of Ashes Cassandra Clare
70. September Don’t Look Down Jennifer Crusie & Bob Mayer
71. September Catching Fire Suzanne Collins
72. September The Legend of Hugo Cabret Brian Selznick
73. September City of Glass Cassandra Clare
74. September Spindle’s End Robin McKinley
75. October Princess Academy Shannon Hale
76. October Gregor the Overlander Suzanne Collins
77. October Going Bovine Libba Bray
78. October Live From New York Tom Shales & James Andrew Miller
79. October Anansi Boys Neil Gaiman
80. October Each Little Bird That Sings Deborah Wiles
81. October The Shakespeare Stealer Gary Blackwood
82. October Shakespeare’s Secret Elise Broach
83. October Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane Suzanne Collins
84. November Bat 6 Virginia Euwer Wolff
85. November Virtual War Gloria Skurzynski
86. November Geektastic Editors Holly Black & Cecil Castellucci
87. December Girl At Sea Maureen Johnson
88. December Snow, Glass, Apples Neil Gaiman
89. December Special Topics in Calamity Physics Marisha Pessl
90. December The Wish Gail Carson Levine
91. December Odd and the Frost Giants Neil Gaiman
92. December The Pirates in an Adventure With Scientists Gideon Defoe
93. December The Pirates in an Adventure With Ahab Gideon Defoe
94. December The Waters and the Wild Francesca Lia Block
95. December Fire and Wings Editor Marianne Carus
96. December My Fair Godmother Janette Rallison
97. December Midnight Girl Will Shetterly
98. December Everlost Neal Shusterman
99. December Let It Snow John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myracle
100. December Rise and Shine Anna Quindlen
My rules were fairly simple: I counted books I read myself and audiobooks. I did not count textbooks or articles that I read for school. No abridged titles allowed! I did not add a book to the list until I finished it, which means some books I started in June ended up on the list in September. The eagle-eyed viewer might notice that #27, Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman, is a picture book. It is the only picture book on the list, and I added it (a) because I was excited about the book, and (b) because it symbolizes the 42 picture books (no exaggeration there!) that I read over the course of my Children's Literature class this fall.
So there you have it... my reading in 2009. My resolution for next year will have more to do with quality than quantity. This year's list is heavily populated by titles in the Young Adult, Children's Books, Science Fiction, and Fantasy genres. While I love all these books and will continue reading them, this year I'm going to challenge myself to read more in the Classics, Non-Fiction, and Literary Fiction genres.
Here's to 2010! Happy reading!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Sprain
I sprained my ankle Saturday morning, the bad kind of sprain that might as well be a break even though "no bones were harmed in the making of this injury." It's okay. I'm icing it, taking medicine. Things are going well. But when I went to the doctor's office this morning to get X-rays taken, I was reminded of something. A man raced to hold the door open for me. Another person in the parking lot stayed to make sure I got into my car okay and even held one of my crutches as I fumbled in my purse for the car key. These small kindnesses and encouraging actions really made my day.
At the beginning of the movie "Love Actually," Hugh Grant's character has a monologue about love which plays over images from the arrivals gate at an airport. You see people hugging, grabbing each others' bags, kissing, laughing, glad to see each other, uniting, glad to be here... The point is that "love is actually all around," and that sometimes we just get blinders on and forget to look for it. We hear a lot about how the world is a dangerous place these days, and about all the bad things people do to each other, but the reminder is there: look for the good that's out there too. Because you'll find it.
I forget this sometimes, which may be why I've been blessed with weak ankles - consider them a reminder, my very own "Love Actually" monologue if you will.
My first bad sprains were about seven years ago. In high school soccer I sprained my left ankle, which healed up in time for me to return halfway through the season, but then sprained my right ankle on the first game back. It was frustrating and saddening, but people were so nice about it. Suddenly everyone would hold doors open for me. Classmates helped me carry my bags. Cars that would normally honk at me to get out of the way waited for me to crutch my way across the street.
My next major ordeal with sprained ankles happened in 2006. I was studying abroad in Europe, and accidentally stepped in a hole made by a missing paving stone when dashing across a busy street in Florence. CRACK. My foot turned, and I stumbled the rest of the way across the street, using my purse as a makeshift crutch and biting my lip to hold back cursing and tears. That was only a couple days into our week-long spring break trip to Italy, so I hobbled around Florence, Rome, Naples, and Capri with a foot the size of a softball and the color of a decaying blueberry. But time heals, right? And soon we were back in London and my foot, though a little weak, was pretty much healed.
A couple months passed, and suddenly it was two days before we were due to fly home to the States. My friends and I were planning to go out for the evening, so I dashed upstairs to grab some shoes so we could leave. My foot, that same caught-in-a-pothole-in-Florence ankle, came down wrong on the top landing, and instead of a cracking noise, this time it sounded more like a shattering crunch. Instantly a huge, hard lump of something that felt distinctly like bone jutted out from my foot at a very unsettling angle.
I was rushed to the emergency room, and let me just say as an aside here - experiencing socialized medicine firsthand when you are in desperate pain in a somewhat-foreign place is a comfort and a joy. It was wonderful having someone care more about my pain and physical condition than my insurance provider and method of payment. My flatmates were waiting out in the waiting area (including the girl who paid the taxi fare to get me to the hospital knowing at that point I couldn't afford to buy groceries, let alone pay her back for it), and I got to talking to a fellow patient - a seventy-year-old woman who'd taken a spill on the sidewalk on her way to a dinner party and had hit her head. All of these people helped comfort me and keep me calm.
People at the airport made jokes to cheer me up as I sped past the lines at security in a wheelchair. A week later I was exiting a subway car in New York (the first and only time I've been to the city was on crutches from that ankle injury), and one of the subway car monitors (I don't know what you call them... Not the drivers, the ones that sit in the cars near the middle), poked his head out and said to me, "You can do it! Don't get discouraged."
My parents have been to New York only once, in the 70s, and had always told me horror stories about how the people there are so rude. But as I crutched around the city, I discovered quite the opposite to be true. I encountered a security guard who chased me down to tell me an easier way to get into the Museum of Natural History, a woman in Little Italy who helped me duck into a doorway when an unexpected downpour could have easily soaked me to the bone, a street musician who improvised a song to cheer me up, and a kind of sketchy-looking guy in Chinatown who tried to illegally sell us designer purses and who grunted sympathetically when he saw my foot and said, “I been cut once, on my leg. It’s shit.”
So I guess that's my point: People really do care. People do nice things. People don't like seeing other people in pain or need. People go out of their way to help others. People do these things every day all over the world, consciously choosing to make the heroic gesture or to offer the encouraging word.
I bet you're one of these people, so thank you.
Seriously, thank you.
Happy Holidays, everyone. And thanks for everything you do that contributes to the peace, love, and kindness that make the season bright.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Damsel
I have a problem with the word “damsel.” It really isn’t fair of me to take it out on the word itself, but the connotation it has derived is horrendous. I can’t hear the word without finishing the phrase with those two additional words: “in distress.”
The word “damsel” implies helplessness. It implies a passive object, not an active person. I much prefer “maiden” or “princess” or even “my lady.” A lady or a princess or a maiden can at least fight back. But to be a tie-me-to-the-railroad-tracks-or-feed-me-to-the-dragons damsel? That would be a most boring and terrible fate.
No thank you!
The word “damsel” implies helplessness. It implies a passive object, not an active person. I much prefer “maiden” or “princess” or even “my lady.” A lady or a princess or a maiden can at least fight back. But to be a tie-me-to-the-railroad-tracks-or-feed-me-to-the-dragons damsel? That would be a most boring and terrible fate.
No thank you!
Sunday, December 6, 2009
My Irrepressible Shadow
I wrote a song tonight in honor of a fictional character. Well, that's not exactly true. Or at least, that's not the full of it. People do that all the time. Search YouTube for just a second and you know what I mean.
I wrote a song for a girl named Anastasia. You won't know Anastasia, at least not this particular girl named Anastasia, because she hasn't escaped from my head yet. She's been trying. She first slipped onto a piece of paper (technically, a computer document) almost precisely 12 years ago. She's been haunting me ever since.
The words are simple, and they're repeated often.
Verse:
She is there,
at the back of everything I think or do or say
She is there,
my irrepressible shadow
(repeat)
Chorus
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
Anastasia, my love, my only
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
You were a part of me,
the deepest part of me.
Bridge
But now you're gone...
You've gone away
And I'm a shell of the thing
that you were
that I was
standing here today
Reprised Verse
She was there
Do you know what it was that she was to me?
She was my
sense of adventure.
She was there
Do you know what it was that she was to me?
She was my love of life,
my sense of mystery and wonder
Reprised Chorus
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
Anastasia, my love, my only.
Why have you gone away, so it seems, never to return?
You were a part of me
The deepest part of me
Now you're gone...
Yeah... so that was the song. Didn't mean to lapse into it there, but it just sort of happened. The sad thing is, that doesn't do it justice. The melody is what makes it.
I was a little perturbed at first. I mean, look at the lyrics. There's this girl named Anastasia in my head, in my thoughts, she's basically been stalking me for 12 years. She's fictional, too, so there's the whole why-are-you-treating-this-figment-of-your-imagination-like-a-real-person thing.
Here's the answer: because she is a real person.
She is pretty much the person that I was when I was eleven years old: full of wonder, full of hope, full of the idea that the world actually had some mysterious potential. That line about "she was my sense of adventure." It's true! That first draft of Wishbook, the story and the world she belongs to... anybody reading it now wouldn't see what I see in it. I think it'd be like anybody looking at Niggle's painting of the tree (from Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle"). When Niggle looks at the painting, it's this imperfect thing that will never truly capture the beautiful, perfect thing that's in his head. And I feel like anything I try to write to let Anastasia become a real person in a story of her own is going to be a bunch of painted leaves on a canvas, nothing more.
It's still sketchy, I guess, writing a song to a fictional character. Especially when I call her "my love, my only." But that's not a lie either. I loved those days when I saw adventure in the unlikeliest of places. I love the person I once was. And that person is my "only," the only thing I want to get back to.
So I wrote it like a love-lost song, but maybe it's a love-found song. Because the fact that she's resurrecting herself after so much time... she's been in hibernation these last few years, barely poking her head up, and when she did, it was never to impose herself and insist on being heard... she usually just let me squash her back into the boring, predictable shape my life takes now.
Anastasia, come back. I mean it. Insist on your story being heard, and maybe I'll finally get the guts to tell it.
I wrote a song for a girl named Anastasia. You won't know Anastasia, at least not this particular girl named Anastasia, because she hasn't escaped from my head yet. She's been trying. She first slipped onto a piece of paper (technically, a computer document) almost precisely 12 years ago. She's been haunting me ever since.
The words are simple, and they're repeated often.
Verse:
She is there,
at the back of everything I think or do or say
She is there,
my irrepressible shadow
(repeat)
Chorus
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
Anastasia, my love, my only
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
You were a part of me,
the deepest part of me.
Bridge
But now you're gone...
You've gone away
And I'm a shell of the thing
that you were
that I was
standing here today
Reprised Verse
She was there
Do you know what it was that she was to me?
She was my
sense of adventure.
She was there
Do you know what it was that she was to me?
She was my love of life,
my sense of mystery and wonder
Reprised Chorus
Why do you do this to me,
my lovely golden girl?
Anastasia, my love, my only.
Why have you gone away, so it seems, never to return?
You were a part of me
The deepest part of me
Now you're gone...
Yeah... so that was the song. Didn't mean to lapse into it there, but it just sort of happened. The sad thing is, that doesn't do it justice. The melody is what makes it.
I was a little perturbed at first. I mean, look at the lyrics. There's this girl named Anastasia in my head, in my thoughts, she's basically been stalking me for 12 years. She's fictional, too, so there's the whole why-are-you-treating-this-figment-of-your-imagination-like-a-real-person thing.
Here's the answer: because she is a real person.
She is pretty much the person that I was when I was eleven years old: full of wonder, full of hope, full of the idea that the world actually had some mysterious potential. That line about "she was my sense of adventure." It's true! That first draft of Wishbook, the story and the world she belongs to... anybody reading it now wouldn't see what I see in it. I think it'd be like anybody looking at Niggle's painting of the tree (from Tolkien's short story "Leaf by Niggle"). When Niggle looks at the painting, it's this imperfect thing that will never truly capture the beautiful, perfect thing that's in his head. And I feel like anything I try to write to let Anastasia become a real person in a story of her own is going to be a bunch of painted leaves on a canvas, nothing more.
It's still sketchy, I guess, writing a song to a fictional character. Especially when I call her "my love, my only." But that's not a lie either. I loved those days when I saw adventure in the unlikeliest of places. I love the person I once was. And that person is my "only," the only thing I want to get back to.
So I wrote it like a love-lost song, but maybe it's a love-found song. Because the fact that she's resurrecting herself after so much time... she's been in hibernation these last few years, barely poking her head up, and when she did, it was never to impose herself and insist on being heard... she usually just let me squash her back into the boring, predictable shape my life takes now.
Anastasia, come back. I mean it. Insist on your story being heard, and maybe I'll finally get the guts to tell it.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Yet Another Poem
If shame had a name,
or evil a form,
it would sound like my syllable
and move like my shape.
And if hope had a tune
or goodness a gait
I’d be tone-deaf
and limping from place to place.
If the grave were a pillow
I’d rest my head,
and seek a better world
among the dead.
But I live and I ache
and I err and I take
and I make pointless blunder and wretched mistake
time and again, feeling hollow and fake,
till I wish either my heart or the whole world would break—
There is a void that stretches like a promise
where no one knows my shadow or my name.
or evil a form,
it would sound like my syllable
and move like my shape.
And if hope had a tune
or goodness a gait
I’d be tone-deaf
and limping from place to place.
If the grave were a pillow
I’d rest my head,
and seek a better world
among the dead.
But I live and I ache
and I err and I take
and I make pointless blunder and wretched mistake
time and again, feeling hollow and fake,
till I wish either my heart or the whole world would break—
There is a void that stretches like a promise
where no one knows my shadow or my name.
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