Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Updates - New Job, Recent Reading, and Other Stuff

New Job - Week 3
School started yesterday, and I had a good, busy day. Students spent the day with their advisory (homeroom) teacher, and each group came by the library for a brief introduction to me and the library. I am really looking forward to opening the library for business in a couple of weeks. I will be teaching lessons to the reading classes on a regular basis, but I won't have to grade their lessons, so I am looking forward to teaching them.

I am figuring out how to handle library business. I had hoped that I would have some kind of training on how the automation system works, but I am teaching myself. I am asking lots of questions and probably driving people crazy, but once I learn how to do things, I will feel much more confident. If my past is any indication, I will become one of the experts in the district. I may never know children's/young adult lit as well as some of those other librarians, but I will know the technical aspects of the job better than most of them. I'm not bragging. I know me, and I know this will happen. Well, maybe I am bragging just a bit. ;-)

So far, I like my new job and my new co-workers. In other words, no one has pissed me off yet. Today, for the first time, I heard someone griping about working there. It was really kind of strange last week when we spent a day listening to a presentation about inclusion (a hot button issue in education these days) and no one became hostile with pessimism. I don't know if the faculty was just on its best behavior, but when people asked questions, they seem to earnestly be trying to better understand or voice sincere but not fatalistic doubts. It was not a bad day at all. I, for one, was trying to be on my best behavior. I paid attention and even participated when required. Remember, I'm new here.

Recent Readings
Last week, or maybe it was the end of the week before, I finished reading The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood. I have to preface my review with this statement: Margaret Atwood is one of my two favorite authors, so I'm probably not an objective reviewer of her works. Still, I really enjoyed this retelling of the myth of Odysseus. This book is part of series of authors retelling myths. In this retelling, Penelope, Odysseus's wife, defends herself against blame for the killing of the suitors and especially twelve maids, who were slain by Odysseus and their son Telemachus after Odysseus returned from his twenty-year journey. Not only does Penelope tell the story but she tells it from hell. I found the story interesting and bitingly humorous as Atwood's always are. I really enjoyed Penelope's jealousy of Helen, and the portrayal of Helen is especially funny.

Before The Penelopiad, I also read Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson. This short autobiographical novel was really good, and I thought that I would post a blog specifically about it, but I just haven't done it yet. Maybe I will do it later, but I am not making any promises. For now, I will just say that I think this is great book. It is the second Winterson book that I have read, and I am officially a fan of hers now. I plan to read more of her works very soon. I even put myself on her mailing list so I can read her monthly columns posted on her website.

Now, I am reading Interpretation of Murder by Jeb Rubenfeld for my book club. It's a mystery which I usually enjoy, and it has Freud and Jung as characters, which so far is interesting. I am really enjoying the setting--1909 in New York City.

Other Stuff
Actually, I have run out of blogging steam and want to go to bed and read for a while. Maybe I will write about other stuff tomorrow. Later.

1 comment:

darkorpheus said...

Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit is one of my favourite Winterson. It's right up there next to The Passion and Written On the Body. Glad you are a fan -- and I like that Winterson quote at the sidebar.

Have you read "Weight" though? Also by Winterson, and in the same Canongate mythology series as The Penelopiad.