Kate’s Reading Habits
Great little meme from Organising Chaos (who found it via Digitalist)
Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack?
I do snack/eat meals while I read, but it’s hard to say if I have a “favorite” reading snack. If I had to make a choice – popcorn.
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of writing in books horrify you?
I do highlight notes in books for school
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open?
Bookmark. I have a nice collection of bookmarks.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both?
Both – but I tend to read fiction faster.
Hard copy or audiobooks?
Hard copy, but I also have a small collection of e-books (I own a Kindle).
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you able to put a book down at any point?
I can put a book down at any point, though if what I am reading is for school I try to finish the chapter or section, just so I don’t lose context.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away?
Only if I can’t figure it out from the context of the passage.
What are you currently reading?
Mostly school readings, but I am starting “The Hunger Games.” And eventually I would like to finish “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
What is the last book you bought?
“The Hunger Games” by Suzanne Collins
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can you read more than one at a time?
More than one, but that is a bad habit I need to break as I tend to start things and not finish them.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read?
I like to read on my commute (1 hour each way) since that’s my quiet time, my “Kate Time” and I can concentrate. I tried reading in bed, but I tend to doze off within 5 minutes!
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books?
I have no preference.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over?
I’m a big fan of Michael Chabon (American author), and while I have not had much time to read everything he has written, I love The Mysteries of Pittsburgh. I read that after visiting Pittsburgh for the first time and the book just “came to life” for me. When considering classics, I always recommend The Great Gatsby and On the Road. For music lovers, I always recommend Marooned: The Next Generation of Desert Island Discs, a collection of essays by music writers/critics answering the question, “If you could taken only one CD to a deserted island, what would it be?” (Full disclosure: My friend Ned contributed an essay to this collection.)
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?)
I have some genre organization – my knitting books and patterns are all kept on one shelf, and my museum guides/catalogs are also all kept together. I do like to keep books in a series together, and I am trying to organize all my other art books.
It’s Been a While. I Know.
Pratt Orientation 2009, start of fall semester, classwork, real work (meaning law firm work), internship/job interviews, first plane ride in 13 years, Seattle, new part time job as research assistant – and now you understand why this blog fell by the wayside.
Truthfully I considered discontinuing it (does anyone read blogs anymore? are we in an era of pure information overload?) but I don’t find any sort of true writing outlet on Facebook or Twitter. I should learn to manage my time better so I can devote time to making this one fabulous librarian/knitter/NJ girl blog.
(By the way, yes I still knit. The project steam has calmed down somewhat thanks to school and everything else but I want to finish a few hibernating projects before the end of the year. I’m not doing holiday knitting like I did last year so this should be a manageable goal.)
Meanwhile, here are some pictures from my long weekend in Seattle.
Kate Takes Seattle – 9-10-09 to 9-14-09
I had a glorious time in this city. I was blessed with good weather, so I have been told by several natives and others who have visited that I need to “experience” the rainy season. (My counterargument is I already did – Summer 2009 in New Jersey.) Sun or rain, I truly enjoyed this city and the West Coast – cosmopolitan and laid back, progressive, intelligent, charming, and fun.
Never thought I would fall in love with in a city that wasn’t the New York I adored since I left college.
But I did. And the plans are in place to make it my home in a year’s time.
Finally, I leave you with this thought from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Twitter Feed: “A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive.”
Dream Interpretation
Anyone out there have any thoughts on dream interpretation? This was a recent dream I had this week that I am doing my best to make heads or tails of…
I walk out of my current bedroom, open the door and am in the hallway of my old house – the one I grew up in and left two years ago. (Note that I don’t realize I was in my old house until after I wake up from the dream.) I walk down the hall into the bathroom, and it is flooded with water from the bathtub – cloudy water, like someone had just taken a bath. I reach over and drain the water from the tub, and like clockwork, the surrounding flooded water also drains at the same speed. I thought that this flooded water was a figment of my imagination, until I feel the carpet – it is soaked.
I make my way back down the hall to my bedroom and go back to sleep. The next voice I hear is my father shouting over and over – “Who flooded the bathroom? Who flooded the bathroom?”
I feel a cool breeze on me and then wake up.
A few other points to make…
– I remember every detail in the hallway I walk into – the wood paneling, the placement of the stairs, the light above the stairs.
– There are details in the bathroom that suggest I am walking into my old house as I remember it from my elementary to middle school years. This is evident by the carpeting in the bathroom (we had pink carpeting in there until I was about 12 or 13 I think) and the wrought iron railing I see on the side.
– The presence of the cool breeze is odd because (a) my windows were closed as we had air conditioning on, and (b) the air conditioning and ceiling fan were not doing too much to cool the room, and I had been uncomfortably warm all evening.
– This was a short dream, no more than 15 or 20 minutes (if that), something I figured out based on when I fell asleep after restless attempts that night.
Dream dictionaries have been a bit inconclusive. And I am not sure if this is something meant to be interpreted or just an overactive imagination fueled by a body getting over a cold and a nasty stomachache. Anyone have any thoughts?
I am also going to try and start journaling my more vivid dreams – this is one I had on Saturday morning (in which I slept till noon, which is not something I do very often). It’s not as vivid or action packed as the other one, but I still remember some details…
I am at the beach, somewhere in New York City, watching the waves. The beach is fairly crowded and not far from a train or subway, because I remember walking to and from the beach from the train.
Again, anyone have any ideas?
For the LIS Crowd – SLA Needs Your Help!
(This post is mainly for my various lib sci friends, so those of you not in the profession, feel free to move along…)
Last night, I attended SLA-NY’s “Meet the Candidates” happy hour, our opportunity to meet and ask questions of SLA’s two 2010 presidential candidates. By virtue of luck, I found myself attending dinner with most of SLA-NY and the two candidates, leading to a very open discussion with one candidate, Cindy Romaine. That dialogue continued through to Twitter today (and a very nice phone call this morning), in which we discussed ways to increase student (and by extension, new member) involvement.
So, my question to all of you (mainly the students, but others in the profession are free to comment) – what do you want from SLA in the next year? Cindy is very interested in opening dialogue with students and newer members, firmly believing each generation can learn from the other.
Feel free to drop me an email (kateycp2k at gmail dot com), comment here on on Facebook, or reach out to me via Twitter. I’d like to put together a list to send her in the next few weeks.
Summer of Doing Things 2009: Comedy Girl
Normally the 10-day(ish) stretches of blogging come during the school year when I get buried under papers and the normal scholastic madness. The lazy crazy days of summer often bring forth the blogging mojo.
Not this one.
Shortly after returning from SLA and various other excursions, I decided to embark on a project I am calling the “Summer of Doing Things.” It’s a desire to live, to try, to say “yes” to everything. While I love lounging by the pool and the television, and playing around on Facebook, etc. it’s an empty life. And I live near one of America’s great playgrounds, New York City. There’s always something to do each weekend.
Thus, I made a mid-year resolution to get out and “do things” on weekends and evenings. It wouldn’t be difficult. There’s always museums, concerts, theater, parks to be had in our fair city. I am documenting as much as I can in pictures and hope to post everything to the blog, Facebook, Flickr page, etc. very soon.
One of my favorite activities was yesterday – my first ever improv comedy class.
A dear friend had been gently encouraging me to try improv (he’s done it for several years, just for fun, and he is tres talented!) and after another gentle push from another darling pal, I decided to bite the bullet. I found a free Sunday morning class at the Magnet Theater, and signed up.
The class was yesterday.
And I never had so much fun in two hours as I did in my entire life.
Of course, it’s a little intimidating at first, and you feel kind of dorky. (The fact that it was on a Sunday morning did much to provoke a sudden chase of shyness.) Once you get past that hurdle, and get on stage to actually speak (in our case, rant), learn to give and take with your improv team, and build characters and scenes, it’s a world of fun.
After the warmups, we practiced stage presence and the concept of “what is real is what is funny” with an exercise in ranting. My classmates came up with some interesting rants – parking tickets in New York City, skanky men that hit on you, subway delays, bad internet service, late people, nasty suburbanites on the train (that was mine!), tourists – all funny, because they were all real.
A mock cocktail party taught us “give and take” on stage and working in a group to ensure everyone is heard. Our topic – adoption. I ended the scene when asked who I would want to be adopted by – “Barack Obama.” 
The final exercise (and my favorite) was a chance to build characters and scenes using the concept of “yes…and.” This is most like what you see on “Whose Line Is It Anyway” – boss and employee, couple breaking up, two people competing for the same toy. My partner and I performed in a sketch in which we were two people waiting at the entrance to the bar. In our case, it turned into blind dates that turned out not to be who we expected. In fact, when given the scene, I had an idea forming in my mind (two women meeting the same guy for a date, either not knowing about the other) and it turned into something different (two dates who weren’t probably there for romantic intentions). That is the beauty – and the fun – of improv.
Now mind you, this is not a career change – it’s just for fun, and is great for improving public speaking skills and stage presence. If time and (more importantly) finances permit, I will take the full 8 week class in the fall.
I really didn’t have the chance in high school and college to act much on stage – both theater troupes were full of people worlds more talented than I – and in college, some of the theater people were very cliquey. (Note I said some, not all. There were some very wonderful people in the Players, and I am glad they were there to balance out the less than wonderful ones.) But improv comedy – where you can create, nourish and grow character and scene in real time, and even bring more of yourself into it than in traditional acting, might just be my bread and butter.
To my two friends who encouraged me to do this (you know who you are), I cannot thank you enough. You helped bring out the actress, commedienne and charmer that had been lingering for too many years in the dark, waiting for her turn.
Update on the Podcast and iPhone Mania
As you can see, it hasn’t happened yet. I had a very busy weekend with going to Broadway (Rock of Ages is wonderful, go see it – and if you know me in channels outside of this blog you know I had my picture taken with show star Constantine Maroulis), my niece’s 1st birthday party, and subsequent exhaustion and illness that left me home from work. So no podcast. I might just put it off until after the summer class I assist ends (which is August 6th).
Of course, I made a promise to myself that I would go out more this summer, free time, no classes and all that. So we’ll see how this podcast fits into that grander scheme of things.
Meanwhile, a Twitter discussion on the iPhone led me to dig up this old clip from David Pogue, the tech editor for the New York Times and tech contributor for CNBC. It’s dated as it was from the original launch of the iPhone (when the iPhone was $500.00), but still funny.
More on the Podcast
After hemming, hawing, and getting busy with everything else going on my life, I am finally going to put some of what I learned at SLA 2009 into practice and launch my podcast at the end of this weekend or next week.
Topics? Still struggling to come up with some regular segments, but I know I will talk about knitting (as a means to keep me from hibernating all my fabulous projects), library science stuff, life in the New York City area, art…who knows what else?
I figure since all of you lovely people are going to be (hopefully) listening, what do you want to hear about – besides the insanity of a knitting library science student?
Drop me a line or a comment and tell me. I appreciate any help I can get.
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As a “to kate from kate” birthday present, I’m going to see Rock of Ages tomorrow on Broadway:
80’s hair bands and a chance to see my second celebrity husband, Constantine Maroulis? (The other being Zach Braff.) Can’t beat that.
Why Didn’t I Think of This?
I have spent so much money trying to find the perfect project bag for my knitting (not that I have done a lot of late – SLA, work, Pratt and numerous other diversions have drawn me away, but I am going to get back into it this weekend) – I should have just made my own!
Simple Yarn Project Travel Case (from CRAFT Magazine blog)
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In other news, my attempts at podcasting are scheduled to launch sometime early next week. All I ask is that you please be kind.
Miscellanea
A very interesting review of the Hjorrnig (Denmark) public library, courtesy of my friend Gilana and Walking Paper:
http://www.walkingpaper.org/2090
We both wonder if this is the future of the library, especially as the bookstacks are called the “so called old-fashioned part of the library.”
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Consider this piece from the Washington Post on Facebook activism and what we are really saying when we become fans of certain causes, turn our Twitter avatars green to support democracy in Iran, etc.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/01/AR2009070103936.html
Now, I used Facebook to mobilize library lovers to “Save NYC Libraries” when the proposed city budget, if passed, would have left the three library systems in shambles. The group has 2,100 or so members (even I was flabbergasted by its ascent) and I did my best to inspire the activism with information. Granted, we were successful and the doomsday budget was rescinded, but that was not due solely to Facebook – there were letter writing campaigns, phone campaigns, librarians storming the City Council meetings – a simple social networking site could not have done it all alone.
Which leaves me asking myself – should I do more? Should I back up my Facebook fandom-ness with real action? I’m a fan of “democracy in Iran” but how am I putting that in action in Utter Suburbia, NJ? What am I doing outside of belonging to a group or being a fan? Am I taking action?
I don’t regret using Facebook to spur cultural and social change, but this piece opens my eyes and encourages me to use social networking sites as a means to promote reform very judiciously.
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And finally, a note on the one celebrity death of the past two weeks that left me rather sad, the passing of Are You Being Served’s Mollie Sugden. The sharp-tongued, Crayola-colored haired Mrs. Slocombe (and yes, her infamous pussycat) is no longer with us. This is made even more poignant with the loss of Wendy Richard earlier this year.
Finally, the Grace Brothers Ladies’ Department is reunited in heaven.
(Still) Mentally Unpacking
I took so many wonderful lessons from SLA, many of which I am still processing two weeks after the fact…
The first was that I need to live somewhere else for a while. Sure, New Jersey will always be home, but I view it more detached, with less romanticism and joy. It’s not my permanent home and never will be. It’s boring, it’s cliched, it’s Utter Suburbia – it sucks. It was home for a time and that time is coming to an end. I have New York and Philadelphia in my backyard, but they can only fill so much of my wanderlust needs.
I notice I am always happiest while traveling, and I need to do more of that – and look for the new place to hang my hat. A wise person once said to me, “you have to love where you live.” And right now, I’m not loving New Jersey life – in fact, I haven’t been for a while but tried to ignore it. Spending time with people all over the country opened my eyes to other places I would want to live, vibrant communities with creative, engaging, passionate people. In my naievete, I only thought I would find that in New York, or on a broader scale, the Northeast. Was I wrong!
The time to make such decisions is fast approaching- this time next year, I will be a Pratt graduate. I must consider career and post-MLS education options. While I have ideas in mind (which I am keeping close to the vest for now, for nothing is certain) sometimes I think I might be better served hanging a map of North America on a wall and getting out the darts. Sheer randomness might be more beneficial than making plans.
I don’t know where I’ll end up this time next year, but I do know this: I have to go.
The other lesson was, to borrow slightly from a Leonard Cohen song, don’t wait for the miracles.** This is in line with the idea of “banishing the ellipsis” I mentioned in my last post. I’m a thinker, and this bites me in the ass more often than it should – in fact, I tend to overthink, in all aspects of my life. What I have to do is embrace my free-spirited nature and not worry and think so much.
I need to be more creative and express myself more in craft, photography, art and writing. I attended a zine festival over the weekend in New York City and my creative juices got flowing. It was liberating. While I was at SLA I learned how to podcast, and I need to use that outlet of communication to the fullest.
I need to speak my mind more – share my opinions and feelings on anything that strikes my mind, for my opinion is in fact, valuable.
I need to make more time for the people I truly connect with (while respecting their need for personal space, of course), and distance myself from those that I no longer feel close to or want in my life – and not feel guilt over either of these choices.
I need to stop freaking out about my age (31 this coming Sunday), especially after so many people tell me that I don’t look 30.
I need to take more chances – professionally and socially. Moreover, I need to not waste time figuring out what will happen when I take those chances and just be - let things fall out as they may. Cliched but true – it all happens for a reason. Most times, good things do come – but the “good thing” might be failure.
Above all, I need to not wait for the miracles. I need to make my own.
** I discovered Leonard Cohen when my NPR Live Concerts from All Songs Considered podcast feed picked up a live show. Sadly, it was only able for a limited time and is no longer on the ASC site.
