Pre-Conference Stress

I am so stressed about the CLA conference coming up, I have four different groups to which I have made commitments.

I received the best advice from my colleague Julie Moore about conferences....reprinted with her permission.

"Try to pace yourself. Planning and doing a conference is rather like running a marathon ... and the last month is a sprint!!! There are always things that come up that you could not have planned on, so you have to stay flexible and roll with it all. Especially at the national level, I always feel like the people who are doing the planning and speaking are kind of like the thoroughbred racehorses at a race ... and right before the conference, it is just like right before a horserace ... with lots of nerves, stomping their feet, and a lot of snorting and whinneying going on! Then when they go to do their talks, everyone settles down and acts all professional. And afterwards, they are all prancing around!"

Thanks Julie!

I Finally met Francisco Jimenez!

I have been a long time fan of the author Francisco Jimenez and finally got to meet him at a lecture tonight. It was a small venue, so I was especially lucky that I got to ask him all my questions and stayed at the end like an author stalkeratsy and took pictures of him and his wife. I have no shame!

The event was at a public library and that made it great because it was a slice of the well-read and a slice of crazy (those who were just there for the public rest room) - but that just made it much more interesting. The top question of the night was about what the name and story was of the dog on the cover of his book pictured to the left. He said he didn't know the dog a few times, but I guess some people didn't hear that. One little kid asked him why his parrot died in the book.

I asked him how old his parents were when they came over from Mexico to do farm labor. His father was 37 and his mother was 28. It is amazing and admirable to me that being so young his parents would take on this huge responsibility to make a living. At 28, I don't know what I was doing, but I would not have been able to rotate between picking crops at three ranches a year and give birth to seven children.

Francisco was four at the time and could only go to school in the fall when there was enough work to support the family without him working. During those few months a year when he could get a little education, he was very happy to be in school. He admitted that he was scarred by the experience of not passing 1st grade and even though he didn't get any special help and could only understand very few words in English.

In later grades there were teachers who took extra time and effort to help him and show him and the other students what his strengths were. He gave the example of a teacher who displayed a map of California to the class and then called Francisco up to the front of the class and asked him to pronounce the cities because he knew he could do it the best. Another teacher in high school gave him a copy of The Grapes of Wrath and that one book changed everything for him. It gave him an understanding of his situation and also planted the seed for him wanting to write his own similar experience.

I mentioned the recent case where a pregnant 17-year-old female farm worker in Stockton was working in over 100 degree heat and was denied water and shade. She kept working until she passed out and died, I choked up a little bit when I said it, but it really angers me.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2004458818_apfarmscenefarmworkerdeath.html

I mentioned the death because in his book he mentions the exploitation of the camp store merchants' exploitation of immigrants by inflating prices. I asked him if things have changed or if he still feels that immigrants are being exploited.

He said that this is why he writes his memoirs because he does not want these people and their experiences to be invisible. He wants everyone to know that these immigrants are a part of the American fabric and how they live. He also said in his new book Breaking Out (part 3 of his memoirs) is coming out Aug 25th. In it he writes about his march with Cesar Chavez to Sacramento, and his experience of being the first in his family to go to college. I could have smacked this one lady that said -- don't tell us anymore we want to read it. What the H... I wanted to hear him talk about his stories with the Chavez and she shushed him...

Regardless, I was truly star struck by how this man opened up about his extreme poverty without bitterness then achieved a PhD and professorship at a top University. His story strikes close to my heart being a child of an immigrant myself. Actually I was not born in the U.S. so that makes me an immigrant myself, but one with a much easier path.

A short bio link on him:
http://www.volvoforlifeawards.com/cgi-bin/iowa/english/heros/hero/774.html

Don't throw out those crutches!

This picture is from a site that had home renovation nightmares and things that didn't pass inspection. I thought it was clever?!

Executive Summary of the RDA Meetings April 13-23, 2008

I am carefully watching RDA to see how this will manifest itself and change cataloging forever.

At one of the RDA updates at ALA they said that they will work to map RDA rules to ISBD punctuation rules first; second they will work to map RDA to US MARC; then they will work out the ILS/OPAC part. This was my understanding which made sense.

Here is a reputable link: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/jsc/0804exec.html

So it looks like 2009 will be the year that it comes out -- ready or not.

ida

Reasons to not stay at a $35 night hotel

1) The exhaust fumes from the truck stop in front of the hotel are nauseating.
2) The mass amount of electrical wiring over your room will not let your cell phone operate.
3) The noise from the freeway exit which is your neighbor will keep you awake.
4) The TV and phone will not work - really both.
5) Even though the you requested a non smoking - you will cough from the smoke smell when you enter your room.
6) A new cob web will appear in the bathroom from one visit to another.
7) The door does not seem to completely shut.
8) The dining option is only the truck stop 24 hour grocery store.
9) Two taxi drivers could not find the hotel and I had to call the hotel and pass the phone to the cabbies --- "Oh...behind that truck stop."
10)There is a pool, but it is being used by unsafe looking men with mullets and wife beater shirts drinking a keg of beer there all the time.
11) When people park in front of my door - the headlights wake me up.
12) One spends $30 per way in cab fare and 3 interstate exchanges to get to conference events.

If i didn't laugh I would cry.

10 Questions for the Dalai Lama

A man who was beaten, tortured and imprisoned for just being a monk, left prison with a lot of anger and resentment. After he left the prison where they tortured and hung many monks he told the Dalai Lama that he did not want to be a monk anymore - that it was time to fight.

The Dalai Lama spoke to him for two hours and told him, Violence is against our religion, Violence will make no change to our cause... Peace... smiling.. warmth.. and sharing...and explaining. This is more powerful...he said after the two hour talk he was able to smile again. This exampled showed hie strength. I wish I could have clipped the picture of the battered monk with a smiling face, but i couldn't.

Anyway, I need to remember this lesson.