This Course Is Driving Me Nuts

So, here it is, quarter to eleven,
I’m so tired I can hardly see, I have to go turn up the heat at 7 tomorrow, and I’m playing around with this stuff-my blog, my MySpace page, my profile,…..grrrrrr.

We’re doing a school vacation week program-STORY-PUPPET-PLAY. It’s a three-day workshop, starting with the story WHY DO MOSQUITOES BUZZ IN PEOPLES EARS. Jody has pulled this whole thing together, in the last two weeks, after all the professionals we tried to hire fell through. It is SO good. Yesterday this collection of kids showed up on time, after one of those snowstorms. Needless to say, Jody and I just barely got there before they did. We both had grand plans.

They are so intent, so focused. I’m Jody’s GOFUR but I fall down on the job a lot, because I’m taking pictures. Pictures of everything, making puppets from scratch, starting the scenery with blank cardboard and a white sheet, backstage at the puppet theatre, the incredible jungle scene, the tickets they create to hand out tomorrow, these beautiful puppets…..

So, besides making a little slideshow for the kids to watch tomorrow, I realize that I need to make a presentation on that MySpace page and give the address to all the parents tomorrow.

I grew up the daughter of a photofinisher and started taking pictures very early-I never had to pay to have them developed. But digital cameras will be my downfall. I took 124 pictures yesterday, and about 180 today.
And I can’t throw many away, because there’s always a great little vignette lurking there. Then, of course, I have to edit them. How did that go about pixels and loading time?????? So, I’ve found about 10 that I’d like to share through MySpace. Coming soon.
Computer about to run out of juice. Must get sleep. To be continued……….

Tangled Up

I now have so many accounts and pages that I’m getting all tangled up trying to remember what goes where, what each is named and how to find it again. Thank goodness I did figure out the tabs in Firefox: I can have my MySpace page on one tab, and the 23 things on another tab so I can figure out what I need to do next.

One of the PUBYAC posts was about a MySpace page for a library, which I wanted to see, and had to join to see. So, at last, I did it. I’m still trying to figure out how to join the MySpace Vermont’s 23 Things group. Right now I’m trying to resist emailing Mara to give me a hint, but if this is here, I’m obviously not resisting very well.

Don’t tell me yet, Mara.

Looking at MySpace pages was not inspiring me, until I recalled that I want to have a way to upload photos, and FLICKR wasn’t quite right. So, I’ve been thinking about how to do it, and will link to it when it’s complete. (Because I’ve found out that I can edit my posts.)

Right now, I’m fighting with MySpace to edit my profile. I don’t like my birthday in there. Instead of easier, things get MORE tangled. And, more intriguing.

So, what patron is going to ask me for help on his MySpace page? Or maybe… when do I suggest that that patron make a MySpace page?

What’s Going On?

I don’t get it. I was reading through everyone’s blogs until I got to Marcia’s Blog.

There were the photos I uploaded to Flickr on February 7th and never found again. I had limited their view to the president of our trustees. She never got the message. How did it show up on Marcia’s blog? What button did I push??

Oh, technology. Thy name is confusion.

Marcia, I apologize for putting my photos on your blog. But, I don’t know how I did it.

You Want Me To WHAT ??????????

My response to thing 10: This is a whole new world to me. I’m not ready to comment much, yet. I think I’m a step behind. On the other hand, if this is what kids are really doing, and I want to reach kids, than I have a responsibility to learn a bit. A lot.
Maybe I can get some 8th graders to help me. Or other Middle Schoolers. Maybe I can find a patient 6th grader.

And then I read the title for thing 11. You want me to set a facebook page? Really? Are you nuts? Am I nuts? I have to think about this for a while. Well, really, it’s not much different from what we’ve done already. I have to think of a good approach.

Today, I was doing class visits about vacation week. I bombed in the 7th & 8th grade. When I moved on to grades 4 & 5, I was getting into my stride, but still not there. At grades 2, and 3, I had kids begging for the story. And then 6th. They were really paying attention…they cared. I had written them off as the kids who were too old for me - but
.wait. I just have to find the hook. Maybe a myspace page is the hook. Maybe that’s the way to reach kids today with the same old stuff, just newly packaged.

So, already I’m thinking, how can I connect my yet-to-be-created myspace page to our library webpage. Linking is not a problem. Having interesting stuff is.

It would be great to be ahead of the curve enough to be interesting to the people I want to reach. I just have to think differently. I have to stop thinking 63 and start thinking 14.

I’m too tired tonight.

Hey, I really like this course. Get’s me all shook up.

Getting Some Feeds

• This afternoon was time to start on Thing Number 9–find some useful library blogs. I’ve only begun, but I went through the first suggestion, library weblogs. I found that a lot are unfound or OLD posts, but I ended up subscribing to 7 more feeds, for a grand total of 15. This is ridiculous. I could spend my life reading other peoples’ lives…I’ve got better things to do. Like
• Spend time with the sheep.
• Just finished reading Robert Frost’s biography A Restless Spirit, the Vermont Humanities pick for Vermont Reads this year. I was in tears by the end, and couldn’t speak properly for a while. I remember him speaking at Kennedy’s Inauguration, and I didn’t know what a treasure that was. But I do remember.
• (I would like to know how I got into THIS way of writing things.)
• We’re probably not going to apply for a grant, although I was thinking we should have the book. Only to discover that it’s out of print. Maybe we will apply. But I can’t think of what we’d do. I’m out of ideas. Or overwhelmed. Or both.

I can hardly be overwhelmed. I’m going back to work tomorrow after a three-month leave of absence. My goal during this period of convalescence was to read the entire works of Alexandre Dumas. I got through 7 or 8, and I’m just about to finish La Dame de Monsoreau–have been for a week now. (Now I seem to be back to THIS way of writing things.) I enjoyed them in te past, but I just wasn’t in an inspired place this time.

Makes me think about my old lady plan. When I can’t walk any more, my plan is to write children’s historical fiction. Then, when I can’t even do that, my plan is to reread all my favorite authors. Jane Austen, Alexandre Dumas, Charles Dickens, dare I say Thomas Hardy. There’re so many more, Wilkie Collins is one I’ve always wanted to persue. Well, after this experience, I may be too busy. So, when do I get to reread?

I think that the roast may soon be ready.

RSS and All That Jazz

After reading about all the different readers, I found one that uses the same login name as this blog does. I thought that was a good idea, since logins and passwords are some of my biggest problems. How DO you remember them if you DON’T write them down?

Last night I wanted to add a new book to our bookblog, and it took forever to figure out how to find, then get in to that account. So, the same password on the same account sounds good. Good idea to have bookmarks in the future.

At the same time, I was trying to open the pubyac files to see a Seuss program someone had posted. I don’t exactly know how, but I found it. All this technology is confusing, and …exciting. When I tried to use the rss reader, I was going around in circles with pubyac and google and yahoo and yadayada.

I guess it must be time to get some real life, and go feed the sheep. Today is my first full day back feeding the sheep since November! They were really pushing me around, trying to get the hay. Especially Hazel.

So, I now have google reader, and signed up for the FUN package. Watched a few films, read a few quotes. Signed up for a few blogs. Looks like a lot to attach me to the computer. One thing I was thinking was that I could keep a journal on my Sheep Farm web page. It could somehow go with the Cycle of the Year page.

How would I use RSS feeds in the library world? I expect that I might eventually get to be good enough to show patrons how to do it, especially since they can’t put bookmarks or save things on our computers. I’ll have to think about this. And it’s time to go find other thing 8 comments. Right?

Mr and Mrs Prince

I’m just settling down to read Mr and Mrs Prince, new to our collection. About Abijah Prince and Lucy Terry Prince, who are Guilford personalities, and written by Gretchen Gerzina, who researched some of it while she lived in Guilford, many folks have asked to read it. So we have three copies. And if I can remember how, I’ll put it in the Guilford Bookblog.

Actually, that was the point but I forgot how to get to it. So, I guess I’m still working on thing 7. I did finally figure it out. A person can get really dizzy, whizzing around the web like this. Time to move on to rss. Started the reading, it seems like a handy thing- I guess.

INTRODUCING……..

What great fun. I spent the day fixing links and cleaning up the website. I played around with the idea I had had a while ago about doing book lists of new acquisitions, reviews and stuff, and trying to make it a part of our website.

So, after a VERY painful three hour or more meeting, I was too TOO to sleep, so I made a new blog and put it into our website. And it works. This has great possibilities. Let’s just see if I can keep it up.

I’m not doing very well with FLICKR, yet. I’ll keep trying.

a photo album

For the past few years I’ve wanted to put up, on our web site, a little photo album of things happening at the library
It’s a great idea, but the few times I’ve tried it, I really clogged up the site. It uses up too much space, making it difficult to update the site.

Of course, I could clean up my files, that would probably help. Last night I was thinking about doing it through FLICKR. This wouldn’t use space on the library’s site, and I could set up some kind of a password system for Guilford patrons. Do I need that? I think I’ll try that.

Back to Domino Toppling. Galen, who is 7, showed me what he considers the best site. There’s a lot of stuff out there. Got a great comment yesterday -”…How about an interlibrary domino toppling event? Could we use all our dontated/unwanted books?” I love the idea of using books. I think I’ll try it to see if it works.

But interlibrary. How could that work?????? This is technology week. Let’s get moving, little grey cells.

domino toppling

domino toppling

I hope this works.