Well, yesterday was a whole lot of fun. Here's how I spent my time:
6-7 a.m.: Blogging
7-8 a.m.: Walk dog, get ready for work, breakfast
8:30a.m. - 12 p.m.: Work work work work
12:00-12:20 p.m.: Lunch
12:20 - 4:30 p.m.: Work work work work
5 - 6 p.m.: Visit Dave in hospital
6:30 p.m.: Feed dog, feed myself
7 - 8 p.m.: Read news, e-mail, etc.
8-9 p.m.: Zoom call with financial adviser
9:30 p.m.: Bed
If that sounds to you like a day with not very much joy in it, you'd be right. That door above was a bright spot.
Work was especially crazy. Apparently it's not enough for the high school English teachers to simply bring their students down to the library to choose books for the holidays. We need to pre-select about a hundred books and lay them all out on tables and write little summaries so the kids don't have to be troubled to read the book jackets themselves. I understand pulling books when they have to fit a certain profile -- all written in the first person, for example -- but some of the teachers don't seem to care what the students check out, and all this presentation just makes a million times more work for us.
I don't know why high schoolers can't be expected to find their own books. Why can't they simply use the catalog, read the book jackets and choose what interests them? That's what I used to do when I went to the library. Why all the spoon-feeding and hand-holding?
And there's more of it today -- as well as helping the middle school librarian get some projects together, and doing all the other stuff that normally falls within my purview. Literally not a spare moment.
When I went to visit Dave in the evening, I found that someone has smashed one of the elevator displays at the hospital. The resulting pattern looks like a gigantic tree, or maybe a mushroom cloud. This is normally a screen that allows us to select the floor we need, and then directs us to the appropriate elevator. This one isn't doing any directing.
Dave seemed subdued, but more or less OK. I think he's getting pretty bored. They've taken his oxycodone away and he's now on a different pain med that the nurses administer. He's still not on solid food, which I don't understand -- they say his bowel is fine, but they want to "rest" it. Doesn't he need nutrition? He says he's not hungry, and the food is terrible anyway, so maybe it's just as well -- but still.
On the way out of the hospital I bought my own dinner at the sandwich shop -- a turkey (or chicken?), cranberry and stuffing sandwich and some mango chunks. I brought it home, where Olga successfully begged for a few chunks of sandwich meat.
Afterwards, she took full advantage of the increased space on Dave's side of the bed.
I never quite get zoom calls, beyond during lockdown to see your friend's faces. Why would you want to see your financial advisor's face, and it see yours?
ReplyDeleteHelicopter parents want their children to be served with a full plate. I think what you have described is just terrible. But then again, anything to get them to read.
The food business seems strange after hernia surgery, but I am not a doctor.
I know, I'd be happy to have a phone conversation (or even just e-mails). But We like to touch base face-to-face now and then, and I had to talk to her about tax stuff. I think "anything to get them to read" is very much my boss's philosophy.
DeleteNot the most exciting day.
ReplyDeleteShocking to see the vandalism there. Hopefully caught on cctv?
Yes, Dave will be bored..I don't blame him. He may not be getting solid food but he will probably be on meal replacement drinks..which will reduce the muscle work. I suppose having had to redo the surgery they are being extra careful?
Well done Olga for keeping an eye on you !
He is on Ensure, so there's that. But he's not drinking much of them. Even when vandals are caught on CCTV the police don't always bother to track them down. I think they have so much to do they can't worry about things like that.
DeleteI’m surprised that you would be required to do all that for the high school students (and their teachers). What do you suppose got the hospital patron so angry? I hope there was no new blood on the floor. Olga had better make room for Dave when he gets home. His Crohn’s makes everything so much more difficult. I hope he’s better and home soon.
ReplyDeleteYeah, who knows why they were so upset. They probably got bad news, and then the elevator was slow and they just lost it.
DeleteWriting little summaries: does not make sense. You already know how to summarize a book. It's the students who need practice doing this, not you. Good lord.
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY! My argument is, they need to be able to walk into a gigantic room full of information and find what they want. That is a skill that we need to teach.
DeleteAs a former English teacher, I never had the audacity to ask a librarian to pre-select a hundred books and write brief summaries of them for visiting classes. Besides, everybody knows that librarians have much more important things to do like joking with each other, blogging and tending the plants. Their grumpiness is legendary - like that of receptionists in doctors' surgeries.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Only kidding!
Well, to be fair, we didn't have to write summaries for ALL of them. I probably overstated my case. We summarized the ones that didn't have a good cover blurb or seemed otherwise vague. But yes, this seemed like overkill. I don't think the prompt came from the teachers -- I think the head librarian felt the need to do this, both to get kids to take books and to demonstrate to the teachers that she's serious about encouraging reading.
DeleteHigh school kids and you have to do that? What's wrong with those teachers? Methinks they are probably helicopter parents too, (aka "Smothers") if they have their own kids. How in the world will these kids cope in college? And beyond. Sometimes I'm glad I'm aging because the future does look bleak. It does sound like a grim day; the sandwich and Olga time might have been the best of it! I'm sure Dave really wants to be home but probably good to keep an eye out, especially with the meds. Food soon, I hope!
ReplyDeleteThere seems to be a strong philosophy at our school that the kids cannot be allowed to fail. If they are failing, then the teacher needs to do more to help them succeed. I am not sure this is always the best approach but I think that's how we operate.
DeleteWhy are the kids being babied into thinking they can't pick their own books? I don't get that; the library is a space to explore and find that thing that interests you.
ReplyDeleteI understand Dave being subdued ... hospitals and hospital food will do that!
I don't think it's that they "can't" pick their own books -- it's that they won't. They'll just spend the whole break on their phones. The head librarian wants to be sure to give them an appealing option, though I am cynical enough that I expect most of them will be on their phones anyway.
DeleteColor me not surprised. At least around here, kids are coddled all the time by those around them compared to my generation. Our school had a single librarian who just came in once a week for a couple hours to put all the returned books on the shelf. We students were responsible for finding our own books, writing our name on the library card to check it out and putting it in a slotted box on the librarian's desk.
ReplyDeleteNow THAT's my kind of librarian job! LOL! I do think kids need to learn the system and figure out how to find things on their own. They aren't learning that kind of confidence.
Deletesounds like the old saying" Give a student a fish and he eats for a day- teach the student to fish..." well, you know the rest. That is truly lame. Students are being made lazy and entitled which will do them a harm . But you know that already.
ReplyDeleteI love the smashed display! That would fetch millions at Sothebys. You could ask to have it, sign it and watch the cash roll in.
I've been using the "lead a horse to water" expression! We can show them how to get books but we can't make them read. Ultimately that's up to them.
DeleteYes, we all agree that the students should be taught to look for the books themselves. Even directing them to online summary sites would be an easy way to teach them how to find books using their phones or laptops. My grandson who is 8 says they use their own laptops in the school library center to search for books. There is an app on their laptop for it.
ReplyDeleteI think you are grumpy because you miss Dave. Your normal routine is changed and you need him home. Hopefully, all will be well soon.
So many kids come to my desk and say, "Do we have such-and-such book?" And I say, "How would you find that out if I weren't sitting here?" I'm trying to drive them to the catalog to do their own searches rather than just answering their questions. I definitely do miss Dave and I am eager to have him back!
DeleteNow I wonder if I should chronicle my day similarly! Yours sounds pretty typical. I don't get why the librarian does the
ReplyDeleteBlogger published while I was writing??? Anyway, why the librarian does the summaries. I thought that was the student's job!
ReplyDeleteHa! Weird how your comment got cut off! I think the librarian feels that with some books it's hard to pick them up and understand right away what the book is about. But to me, that's part of the challenge, and it's a skill we all need to develop!
DeleteWork-wise, I'm feeling a bit lucky. My work seems to slow down at this time of year. We close the week between Christmas and New Year and it just seems like everything is slowing down these days.
ReplyDeleteI'm betting that Dave will feel so much better once he's home. It's just a better environment for healing. Snuggling with Olga will provide a big healing element.
How lucky to have your work slow down! I wish! Yes, Dave will do much better here at home.
DeleteI have to tell you that when I see a "command" like that when I'm having a particularly unhappy time of it I think, "Make me, motherf**ker."
ReplyDeleteI sure hope Dave gets to come home soon. Poor guy.
Ha! I love that contrary spirit! LOL
DeleteI sort of understand preselecting the hundred books if only to get them in and out of the library faster but the synopsis? how is that any different than picking up the book and reading the book jacket? but yeah, that's the American culture any and everything to allow people to do less and less, make less and less effort. the result? an overweight ignorant incapable population. no wonder Trump was elected again.
ReplyDeleteI also think kids will be more invested in reading a book they chose themselves, as opposed to one that is handed to them on a silver platter with a parsley garnish.
DeleteThe kids are required to be lazy and hand-fed! You can pick out a million books but you can't make one kid read any of them!!
ReplyDeleteDave is being kept longer to help with his healing ... hence, the soft or liquid diet! What if he was home, in the bathroom, pushing to poop 💩, and that mesh gives way again! I don't think you want to deal with that situation!
Patience, Grasshopper! Patience!!
That is exactly true -- all this work does nothing to guarantee that the kid will read the book. And in fact a lot of them won't, I'm sure. All we can do is make books available.
DeleteI would think he would need some fiber in his diet to keep things moving along, so that he doesn't have to strain...? But then, I'm not a doctor!
Well, if the teachers are going to require that amount of hand holding (my gosh, every kid has a phone or a tablet or access to one - instead of looking at cat videos and TikTok, they can be looking up books), I would make sure that I'm saving every single print out for next year. A good education is not spoon fed.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we do try to save a lot of this stuff so we don't have to do it again. If I were head librarian I would focus more on teaching the kids to use the library -- on the underlying systems, like the catalog -- and less on the individual books.
DeleteStudents need the skills to succeed as they enter the larger world. Nobody is going to hold their hands. As students in middle school, we were taught how to use the library and conduct research. These are valuable skills.
ReplyDeleteI hope Dave comes home soon. You and Olga need him.
Same with me. I remember being taught how to find things and going from there. I learned a lot of it through my public library, actually, because the librarian there -- while very nice -- was not going to be a hand-holder!
DeleteYou're routine has been broken. We find it hard to readjust. Good to hear tat Dave is on the mend.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that's a big part of why this week has been hard.
DeletePerhaps I am just a grumpy old guy with an attitude, but it seems to me that the teachers are not doing their jobs with this process. As others have said, school kids need to develop skills to use in the real world. This spoon-feeding is doing these kids a disservice. How hard is it to use the library and find books they want to read? What the h**l is going to happen when they get to college? SMH. Hope Dave is doing better and can get out of there soon.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. They need to learn the underlying system and how to parse all the information in the library. Being told about individual books shouldn't really be the lesson. Unfortunately I don't make these decisions. :)
DeleteThis sounds like teachers pushing their responsibilities onto the library.
ReplyDeleteAnd the librarian trying to prove her worth!
DeleteYou're allowed to be grumpy. Olga appears to be in heaven. It always amazes me that animals that don't really do much, can sleep like they worked a sixteen hour shift.
ReplyDeleteI once read that dogs will sleep 23 hours a day once their basic needs have been met. This was based on a study of wild dogs in Africa, I believe.
DeleteAs a retired teacher of 37 years, I would never have expected that from the library staff. But the hand holding and enabling has increased every year, not only from the teachers but from the admin and the parents. It's exhausting! I hope that Dave gets to eat some solid food soon so his system can be tested out. I wouldn't want his first efforts to be at home! It would make me nervous.
ReplyDeleteIt really is exhausting, and I think it teaches kids that the world is a big, scary, unmanageable place -- which is exactly the opposite of what they SHOULD be learning. (How to deal with life!)
DeleteI guess the kids can't be blamed if it's the teachers requesting this. I just can't imagine. Half the fun in choosing a book to read is picking it up, reading the blurb, and checking out the first few lines.
ReplyDeleteI know you'll be glad when Dave is out of the hospital and things can get back to normal. Maybe you need to ask the doctor more questions.
I don't know that it is the teachers requesting it. I think it's the head librarian, who wants to be sure every kid takes a book and wants to make that process as easy and appealing as possible. Unfortunately it deprives the kids of agency, in my opinion.
DeleteIts About Time Olga Girl Found Some Room For Her AND Her Pink Blanket
ReplyDeleteYahooooooo000000000000
She loves to stretch out!
DeleteI’ve never heard of resting the bowel for a non bowel op
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess a hernia is KIND of a bowel op. While the bowel itself isn't operated on, it is involved.
DeleteI certainly hope Dave can get out of the hospital soon. You don't think all that gourmet food he cooks up has caused all this upset, do you?
ReplyDeleteHa! Let's blame the butter!
DeleteI loved looking in the card catalog! Maybe the problem is that just looking it up on a computer is too boring for the students. Ha! That sandwich sounds delicious!
ReplyDeleteYou'd think they'd be all into using the computer, though!
DeleteOlga is certainly relaxed!
ReplyDeleteShe is indeed. She loves the bed.
Delete"I want to know why High-Schoolers etc..." Me too! wouldn't they find more satisfaction n having been able to find the books that mean something to them, by the old methods, rather than having them pre-sorted?
ReplyDeleteEXACTLY. They could "own" a book they chose themselves from the thousands on the shelves, more than one that was handed to them. I agree.
Delete