ALA - A Mecca for Librarians

What a whirlwind this week has been! It's only halfway over too!
I went to my happy cabin last weekend, but just before I went,  I found out I needed to be in Lehi, UT on Monday, so I prepared for that and made the trip up and back in one day. I did get to meet up with my friend and eat SUPER good Korean food, so it was worth the trip.
Then, Tuesday, before I got to work, my boss messaged me and asked if I'd like to go to the ALA (American Library Association) conference in his place on Thursday, since he had a family thing come up. I happily agreed, having absolutely no idea what I was really in for. I mean, I had gone to ULA back in April, and loved it, but ALA is HUGE! And the trip is 5 days long!
Anyway, we got the proper paperwork setup so I could go in his place, and then today (Thursday) I drove down with the library's assistant director to Las Vegas to get the party started. The drive was nice enough, until we got to Vegas; traffic is always crazy! We also got a little lost, but my co-worker's sense of direction is impeccable, and we found our way soon enough.

I'm staying at a nice inn, where there is a full kitchen and bathroom and living area....basically it's a full studio apartment. It even has a fireplace, because, you know, Vegas is...cold...?

After we arrived, we walked over to the convention center to register and I got my swag bag and name tag (rhyme!) and went back to my room...and bought a ticket to Cirque du Soleil's KA!
After I bought the ticket online, I rode the monorail (is the monorail new? I swear I didn't know it existed until today) to MGM Grand and got my actual ticket. Then I wandered around that place for like an hour and then went over to the New York, New York to waste time there.
And finally the time came!
So, I've seen "Worlds Away" and I love the soundtrack, but actually seeing Ka was phenomenal!
As you walk in, there is no stage, just a big dark pit with fire balls bursting up into the air sporadically, and the sides of the theater look like this:

It's mesmerizing. It like a sci-fi forest or something. It was really intricate and even was used by the actors to fly from and drop down into the audience and even to pound on drums. Oh, and they shot flaming arrows onto the stage from these catwalks. 

Then there was the stage itself:

The stage was that platform sticking straight up. It could move in any direction, and the action worked with that feature. It was an amazing thing.

The costumes, as in every Cirque show, were amazing. This one below had very long feathers that did float and dance around with every step. What I'm saying is, if it were mine, I'd never take it off.

 There was a storm scene, and the boat rocked and people fell off and down into the pit, and then when the boat sank, there was a really cool scene where there was a projection of waves rising (projected onto a silk screen or something) and then the actors were "swimming" through the air/water and bubbles were projected and rose from where the actors were. It was a pretty surreal scene, and visually dazzling.

 There were countless amazing parts, but one that stands out was this:

The actors were in and on those wheels and zooming all around, and once guy had a rope and was doing jump rope tricks while the contraption rotated around and around. I actually gasped (along with most the audience) when the jump-rope caught on the guy's food and he stumbled for just a moment. Seeing these kind of things live is a rush in itself!

So there you have it. 48 hours ago I would not have even guessed that I'd be here. I'm very much looking forward to the actual ALA conference, and who knows what else I'll do while I'm here!

New York City!

Ok, so I know it's been forever and ever since I last updated this blog. Every time I open up my Internet browser, one if my default tabs is blogger - I set it that way so I'd always be reminded to write, but lately it's been more of a guilt initializer. Not this time though!

Clear back in March I took a trip to New York City to visit a friend and have lots of fun, and rest assured, both goals were met! Besides the frigid cold, I did so much fun stuff that only the pictures of my bundled-up self remind me that it was cold. 

Since I'd been to the city before, I was less worried about seeing everything, and more into seeing new things and just enjoying my time. Here's the condensed version of my trip (with pictures!):

I took a red-eye from SLC to NYC and thus arrived at about 7 am, and my super awesome friend Caleb picked me up from the airport. We went to his place where I dropped off my stuff, and from there went to a breakfast diner to begin our super long day. We went to the ground zero memorial, which was nothing but construction the last time I was there. It wasn't too crowded, which was nice. 

After that we went back to the apartment to relax and chat. My friend and I met at our teaching job in Korea so there was plenty to catch up on. Our other friend Natasha (also met in Korea) lived in NYC and she came over and we had a great time catching up. It made me miss my Korea friends so much! To compensate, we went to Koreatown and ate a Korean dinner and topped it off with noraebang. I'd been awake for nearly 40 hours by the time we finished that so we called it a night and I slept deeply. 

The rest of my trip was a bit more leisurely. We got rush tickets for 'Chicago' and had pretty good seats. It was a fun play and different than how I imagined it would be. The orchestra was on risers on the stage. It had a really vaudeville feel to it. I liked it a lot. I also went to the Nintendo store, called Nintendo World. I want part of my ashes scattered there. There was a launch party for a new Yoshi game so they had games and prizes to win. I won a piece of gum. Caleb won a real prize and got a Yoshi keychain.

I went to lots of stores and spent time at the Rockefeller plaza, went to the Brooklyn Bridge, went to Brooklyn, which was the very most 'hipster' place I've ever EVER been (or seen or heard of) but there were some great bookstores!

I also went to the library, which I didn't do last time. It was astounding! I loved it so much! They had an exhibit on children's literature, and it was fantastic! There was also a section on banned books, and some of the reasons for the bannings were so stupid. For example, 'A Wrinkle in Time' was banned because 'it makes young people believe in the imaginary.' There was a tower of banned books, even!

My trip was 4 days and every bit of it was great. My friend even got me started on the show 'Attack on Titan' which I've since devoured and shared with more friends and family. 

I ate awesome huge pizza, Korean food, bubble tea, Chinese, and ice cream after just about every meal. 

The whole trip was so fun, I just love traveling and catching up with friends! Where should I go next?!?

Rockefeller Plaza:

Brooklyn Bridge:

Banned books tower:

THE Winnie the Pooh toys! Eyeore's tail was actually nailed on!

I am standing in the 'Goodnight Moon' room:

New York I love you!

A Gannondorf statue I really want:

Nintendo World is so great!

Pikachu, I choose you!

One World Trade Center. It's almost finished:

I<3NY!

Coronado!

Last month I went with my dad to California! He had meetings for work there, so I just bummed around during the day and explored Coronado on foot. It was nice to be somewhere warm in January!

Blurry pictures are the best! This is Downtown San Diego.

I was walking around and found this awesome house! I later found out that it's called the Baby Del.

I went on a tour of the Hotel Del Coronado while I was there, and it's a pretty magnificent building! I enjoyed walking through and learning about its history. I need to see "Some Like It Hot" and "Stuntman" since they both feature the hotel prominently.

Hotel Del Coronado!

Moi!

Moi! And Point Loma! And the Ocean!

 There was a guy on the beach making a giant sand castle, as well as a random ad for Utah...?

Come See Utah!

Impressive sand castle!

After my dad's meetings, we would go do some other fun stuff. We went to the San Diego LDS Temple and I took a selfie. We also had Coldstone ice cream twice in two days. They were both my dad's idea, if you can believe it.

Selfie.

We also spent some time in Old Town. We went to the Mormon Battalion museum, which has been redone since I was there 11 years ago. We also went to eat at the Cafe Coyote, which was super good and I'd go there again for affordable SUPER tasty Mexican food. We also went to Seaport Village and ate Greek food, and walked down to the aircraft carrier and other ships. It was dark and a little bit scary at night, but we saw a rat scurry from a bush and across the sidewalk right in front of us, so it wasn't all that bad.

I also spent a good while in the Coronado Public Library. They are very well put-together! I talked with one of their reference librarians for a while too. A huge budget can make a HUGE difference!

I'm a Member!

 My trip was pretty fun, and I got to take a week off work for it. It was needed and I had a nice time. I can't wait for my next adventure (NYC, here I come)!

I got creative

For Christmas a couple months ago, I decided to make my super cute niece a doll for her gift. I didn't want it to be a girly stupid doll though, so I made a pattern and picked out fabric and buttons and made this double-sided beauty:

  

I hope that through the years it sticks around and that it will be one of those weird conversation starters when her friends come to play. 

I wanted to try my hand at making a similar monster doll with a tail (which would be a bit more complicated to construct) so I made this:

They take a while to make, especially since I sorta make up what I do as I go, but it's fun to make ugly things that can still warm your heart. 

Barf Breath

Here's something that actually happened.
A few months ago, I was sitting on a little stool at work, shelving stuff on the bottom shelves (hence the stool I was seated upon). When lo! a lady came over and cornered me because she didn't want to tell the whole world her special secret. She told me the following story in hushed tones, mere inches from my face:
"Um, hi. Um, I'm not feeling well, and I threw up in the ladies room. I cleaned it up, but you might wanna go and mop or something. But I cleaned it up."
As she told me this, she exhaled right into my face. And because breathing is normal for all people (including myself), I unintentionally inhaled her literal barf breath. I wanted to retch right there, but I was on the clock and it would have drawn attention. It was disgusting. After the lady went back to the computer lab to spread her illness (because the library doesn't have enough malicious germs to make people sick), I went to the staff room to wash my hands in a crazed attempt to cleanse the virus that was surely nestling snugly in my lungs. I kept thinking, If I get sick from her haggish vomit breath, I'm gonna be SO PISSED! I was rather nervous for a week at every sniffle or sneeze I had, but in the end, my constant exposure to disgusting people for the last 5 years has strengthened my immune system sufficiently.
My initial distress over the matter was apparent, and I told a coworker what horrors had befallen me. She was a saint and went to check the women's restroom to assess the situation, but came back reporting that it was not clear wear the barf had landed. We left the cleaning duties to the janitors. I'm not ashamed.

Oh Yeah, I Have a Blog!

I can't even remember what I wrote about last. Or when it was. That's because I've not written anything in months and months...
So, to catch you ghost readers up on all the stuff that's happened (which isn't much) I'm gonna write in this some more! Hold on to your butts.
Since no one reads this, I can probably write about my feelings and whatever without fear of anyone asking me about it later. So, I'm going to vent a tad about birthdays.
I'm not trying to promote my birthday, and I'm not telling when it is just to prove it, but I sorta like my birthday. I don't care about any of the "another year older and wiser too" stuff, but I think that when it's someone's birthday, they should feel happy and just a little bit extra special and awesome.
The reason I'm writing this is because I try to acknowledge the birthdays of my family and friends with thoughtful, if simple, gifts. AND I don't need facebook to remind me. The thing that bugs me is kind of selfish though: no one ever reciprocates! And a "Happy Birthday" facebook message doesn't cut it - in my opinion - if it's from close friends (I mean, I guess it could if it was more than 2 or 3 words...). I guess what my dilemma here is this: I don't feel like trying to be awesome and thoughtful for other people's birthdays when I don't get any of that back, y'know?
To be even MORE whiny, this year, I'm going to be out of state on my birthday because I'm going with my dad on his business trip, which hopefully will be lots of fun, but if I even make a comment of something I'd like to do for my birthday (literally, I mentioned going out to eat), I get the response, "But you're going to California for your birthday." I'm NOT going FOR my birthday, it just coincidentally takes place over my birthday.
Jeez, people, It's my party and I'll want to have fun if I want to!
It comes down to this: everyone should be treated a little extra special on their birthday, including me. Is that so wrong?
Other than that bit of first-world problems, I'm pretty good. My Christmas was nice and easygoing. Since I'm not in school anymore, the "winter break" wasn't any different than usual.
Man, I'm really going to have to rack my brain for stuff to write about because I can't remember anything right now. Oh, I DID watch the movie "Cirque du Soliel: Worlds Away" and thought it was spectacular. I recommend it to anyone who will never make it to a live show because of the ticket price.
In an upcoming post, I'll include some pictures of stuff I've made lately.
Later!

New Adventures!

I meant to write last Friday since stuff was still fresh, but I guess I got lazy and didn't feel like it. So I'm doing it now!

So, last week was Halloween. I went as Finn the Human. I say "I went" but that makes no sense. Let me better explain...

I fell in like with the show "Adventure Time" earlier this year, and I decided to be the main character for Halloween. My new friend Tawny was Princess Bubblegum from the same show and by total coincidence we met up and got our picture taken at a Halloween party.

Coincidentally, my momsie helped us both make parts of our costumes.

She was the best PB there! I made my own hat with my mom's help and my Golden Sword of Battle with my brother's help. I painted the sword and it looked pruddy gud, if I say so myself. I made it out of a 78 cent yard stake I found at the hardware store. My brother used a machine in my parent's garage to make the square angles more tapered and stuff. He did it because I would have cut off my fingers and then Halloween would suck and my sword would be useless.
Speaking of issues with fingers, a young guy came into my work place today and seemed to be missing a thumb. Not a big deal, I wouldn't even mention it here except for my co-worker noticed it and loudly asked with a chuckle if he was left or right handed. I felt embarrassed for the guy. That coworker says the most tactless stuff to people. I should create a secret blog called "Offensive Shiz my Coworker Says." (Lightning Edit: I just found that there are plenty of other websites dedicated to such a thing...I might just have to contribute.)

Moving on...

So, my Halloween was sorta weird. I was asked to represent my church ward in the Trunk-or-Treat think that the YSA wards were doing. I found out rather last minute, and so I didn't decorate my trunk at all. I still went with a fake smile and soon the smile became genuine. The guy who parked next to me was in the very same situation except he put the candy on his trunk and then talked on his phone the entire time. I mean, I didn't really want to do it at first either, but this guy did the BARE minimum.
After I ran out of candy I went indoors to the dance, but I'm super awkward at dances. I'm super awkward because I don't dance. It seemed that for the most part, other people don't either. There was lots of mild jumping and stuff during the fast songs, and lots of rocking back and forth during the slow songs. There was that one couple who were swing dancing like a destructive tornado that everyone steered clear of for their own safety, but that couple was the minority. I got tired of that scene and REALLY needed to go grocery shopping, so off to the store I went. In costume. I hate myself. Then I went to a Mexican place for food.
Later, on actual Halloween, I went to my parent's house and basically had candy duty. The night was pretty easy-going. My cousins were there and visited, and my brother and his baby came over too. The dogs never stopped barking. I wonder what they think they'll accomplish by barking. Nothing has come of it yet in the 7 or so years we've had them, except for us yelling at them to shut up.
Anyway, Halloween was fun and mellow.

On Friday the first, I had my very first day of substitute teaching! It was a success and I only punched one kid (he deserved it)! I taught Sign Language and Music to middle school kids. I definitely think that my teaching year in Korea prepared me for it. I was pretty calm and confident and I think that the kids didn't hate me. I don't think I was as energetic in my middle school classes, but then again, it WAS the day after Halloween, and every kid had a bag of candy with them.

Short story shorter: I officially started my second job as a substitute teacher and didn't suck at it. Yay me!

Friday night, after teaching, I met up with my friend Marty (hi Marty!) and his GF and we drove to Zion to see the movie Gravity in 3D in the IMAX theater. It was super cool. I really enjoyed my time. The best part (relatively speaking) was that the admission price was less that it would have been at the scuzzy theaters in my poor provincial town. The price for a movie is $8.50, plus $2.00 for 3D, on a regular sized silver screen. The Zion theater, which I had a dollar-off coupon for, came to a total of $9.00 for 3D on a screen bigger than you could shake a stick at.
It was an hour's drive to get there though... Oh well, it was a treat-yo-self kind of thing that I don't regret at all.

I swear there was something else I wanted to write about....

Um....Oh! My roommate told me about this other blog called hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com and though I'd vaguely heard of it before, I finally started reading it. Holy jackalope, that girl is SO funny! If you want to read about her unnaturally crazy life and don't mind glossing over the occasional cuss words, you'll have a snorty good time.

I'll write another post when I think of something amazing to tell all you non-existent readers out there. Until then, happy Novemember!

It snowed and was really cold today. :(