Opalescence

Last week, during my training at the regional branch, I not only watched but participated in a story hour with the children’s librarian.  Overall, I was pretty pleased: I managed to get and (somewhat) hold the attention of about 15 kids, ages 7 and under; I finished one entire book (Little Rabbit Runaway, pictured below) for them; and was told that I did a good job of projecting, doing interesting voices, and overall acing the performance angle of things (yea theatre degree).

Then I watched the gentleman we had at my branch today.

For starters, he was wonderful with children.  Contracted to us from the Children’s Museum of Houston for a final installment of a juvenile activities program, he was energetic, playful, and bantered well with this crowd, which was a good 25 or so.  He not only read to them (in both English AND Spanish), but set up some crafts and held a prize raffle for the kids and their parents.  They ended up getting some bilingual books.

And, oh yeah.  This guy was BILINGUAL.  Switched in and out, and back and forth between English and Spanish with such ease he made it look like a cakewalk.  I was not only impressed, but also envious; here I thought I’d been making decent progress in my quest to master Spanish (it’s one of my New Year’s resolutions for ‘07), but clearly saw that I have a LONG way to go, in terms of both speaking and understanding the language.

So, as I’m sure you can imagine, my jaw was on the floor by the time this guy was done.

He was, of course, not only happy to see me (as were many of my new co-workers; my branch had apparently been without a children’s librarian for some time), but also ready and free with advice for the performances and activities I will be giving.  Essentially, he said that he had the same problem I did with the language when he started, but to just dive in and hold Spanish storytimes, and that the parents and the kids would be happy to help me out and that I’d get it in good time.

Still, I was kind of left with that feeling a new stand-up comic might get if they were going on after, say, Jeff Dunham or Jerry Seinfeld.  The sentiment of, "How the heck am I gonna top that?"

Needless to say, I’ve got my work cut out for me.  With some help from my co-workers, I’ll hopefully be up to the challenge.

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I did something I haven’t done in a long time: SLEEP for a couple hours during the evening!  From about 7:30-9:30 I dozed on the couch while Sarabeth watch TV and surfed the net.  I was only awoken when something worthy (the movie, Addams Family Values) came on the TV.

This was the result of a very full work week, one that now doesn’t involve pulling fifty-something hours at a movie theater, but is nonetheless very challenging and exhausting.  I learned a lot of new procedures and tasks, but the real change for me was the public services aspect.  My last library position in serials mostly had me dealing just with coworkers, so interacting with the many library patrons and the general public was both educational and an exciting challenge.

What I noticed in particular was the constant repetition of several kinds of questions, mostly having to do with either registering for the public computers or using the printer/copier units (which I admit can be confusing).  It was just a constant.  There are dead periods, hectic periods where there are constant demands on your time, and patrons of all ages, personalities, and ethnicities that can affect how you interact with them.

Clearly, public services will be an interesting challenge!

I was told I did a good job this week, so I’m looking forward to going to my branch and continuing to rise to the challenge.

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