Profile Update!

I think it's time to update the Profile. So I did. Things change fast at sixteen.

~Emily

Algebra, Fotoflexer, Why Beading (Like Shelving) Is Therapy, and Potential Pancake Wreckage

I had a dream that I posted a new blog entry. A sign? I can't remember what it said. Sorry.

I don't have anything much to say but feel I simply must post. Hmm. It's raining. I have a new bracelet on my wrist, one that I made - plus a ring (which was once a bracelet - but I didn't have enough wire to re-bracelet it, so I turned it into a pretty little ring). I am having enormous fun with my new jewelry hobby. It's therapeutic. It is actually a lot like shelving - a lot of concentration, but not much brainpower. So calming, so entrancing, so satisfying.

Oh, I have also been having more - much, much more - fun than I ought to with photograph-enhancement sites like FotoFlexer.

It's an avenue in Providence - some of the trees were a bit on the green side for October:

I've been reading "Impossible" by Nancy Werlin. It is wonderful and weird at the same time - and it gave me horrid nightmares; I'm not sure how I feel about this book - it's been taking some rather disappointing turns. On the other hand, there is still something morbidly beautiful about it.

I'll try and see if I can learn how to upload other photos from my overly-fun time on Fotoflexer and Picnik - for some reason they couldn't download onto my computer files, so I had to save them on Facebook instead. And then I couldn't upload the Facebook photos onto the blog, so, er, if anyone wants to teach me to do this, I would be happy to accept some instructions.

On a final note, I made William's pancake this morning and did not leave the insides sticky with batter or the outsides black and crumbling. Normally I'm like a teen sitcom character - the kind of cook that runs out of the kitchen in an apron and chef's hat screeching, "It's gonna blow!"

This has never happened to me. It will. I will post when it finally does. I will even try and take pictures.

Off to do some algebra. And then read. I need book time after algebra. (I had taken a long break algebra and I quite hoped that my brain might have improved while I was away from it, but of course it didn't.)

~Emily

Shelving is Therapy - and Why You Should Click to Give

I feel like a teen just sitting here at this little laptop in this little library. Sometimes I feel older than other kids I know, and right now it just feels good to be, like, your typical high-schooler pitter-pattering away on the laptop.

Although my mind is programmed as, "I should not be sitting here having fun on the computer. I need to work: shelve, check in, answer the phone." But Wednesday is not a storytime day - I am free to hang out. I'm so used to being here on Monday and Friday to help out.

Library work, I think, is therapeutic - checking books in has kind of a rhythm to it; and shelving, especially, requires a lot of concentration but very little brainpower. Perfectly soothing and steadying.

I think I'm starting miss it a bit. I definitely feel a prick of jealousy for the volunteer who is shelving now. I think she sort of has to do it, as, you know, a signed-up volunteer, rather than a walk-in one such as myself (Mondays and Fridays are not really walk-in days - I've been working at story hour for five years and am not about to stop this wonderful three hours a week!).

So anyway, Happy Earth Day. I'll repeat what I said on St. Patrick's Day - my blog is terribly green, is it not?

Please, please, please, please, in honor of Earth, will you Click to Give at The Rainforest Site? - http://therainforestsite.com. The more Clicks, the more money goes to conserving our pretty chattery creepy wet green forests. There are all sorts of organizations on the site - child health, literacy, animal rescue, breast cancer, and hunger - as well as the rainforest.

I make an effort to do it every day and woul be enormously grateful if you did, too. You can pick one, or do all of them. Or just a few. It's up to you.

~Emily

Parrotfish Vs. Luna

After I read "Parrotfish" by Ellen Wittlinger, I wondered why on earth people kept comparing it - often putting it down in the process - with another novel about transgendered teens, "Luna" by Julie Ann Peters. So I read "Luna" (though the first Julie Ann Peters book I read was "Between Mom and Jo" which pretty much rocked) and finished it yesterday.

And here are ...

Reasons to like "Parrotfish":

1. It's a riot.

2. It will stay with you because it's hilarious AND touching AND infuriating.

3. The main character's first-person narration is pretty much priceless. Grady. Rocks.

4. It gave Benjamin the idea to get me a bottle of organic peppermint shampoo for Christmas.

Reasons to like "Luna":

1. It's intense and fascinating.

2. It's really multifaceted.

3. It rips at your heart really hard. You know ... in a good way.

I can't help it. I think I like "Parrotfish" just a little bit more. But "Luna" will never leave my heart.

~Emily

P.S. I just started another Julie Ann Peters novel. It's called "Far From Xanadu." Methinks this Julie Ann Peters is a really marvelous writer.

Het Bibliotheek?!

Here is my Dutch Twitter page: http://twitter.com/eminnederlands.

My Dutch is in desperate, desperate need of improvement. In fact, it's down on all fours screaming and crying for improvement. We'll get there.

(Seriously, I said, "het bibliotheek." Who says, "het bibliotheek?")

~Emily

The New Kid

Last week brought a Variety Show held at my local high school. It was enormous fun; I had no idea some of these kids could do what they did.



I felt strange, though.



In the middle of the fourth grade, I started home-schooling; and so I haven't really been able to grow up with my elementary school classmates - not in the way they grew up with each other. So when I was there in the audience, watching and listening to everyone greeting each other with intense hugs and little shrieks and big smiles, I felt like The New Kid: only in this instance, I knew everyone but nobody knew me.

I got the chance to catch up with a few kids, though. I ended up have a wonderful time.

Sometimes I wish I were part of the high school.

~Emily

A Little Hole Opens Up In Me (And Other Things)

I have twenty Followers on Twitter. It's funny, I joined Twitter because Neil Gaiman talked (and talked) about Twitter and obviously really liked it; and so I figured, Okay. Something's got to be kind of cool about this Twitter thing. Whatever it is.

And I think it's just so much fun, and actually is very cool.

I am EmilyLady on the site, if thou art by some chance interested.

I picked up a copy of Laurie Halse Anderson's new book today - "Wintergirls"! I told myself I would wait until I found it at the library to read it, but I knew I would be upset and missing it if I didn't take it home with me from Barnes and Noble. And so I did. I had to.

Sometimes that just happens when I start a book - I put it back on the shelf and walk through the door, to the car waiting outside ... and a little hole opens up in me.

What else is there to say? ...

Well. Not much. I just felt a twinge of guilt for neglecting the blog for a few days; for some reason I feel lately that I have to update a lot more often than I once did.

Not that I don't enjoy it. And thanks so much to everyone (particularly the Fiends) for commenting. It's such a treat.

~Emily