Reflections along the Journey

Dieting and parenting

2011-04-22T15:18:00.000-07:00

I knew taking care of a baby would be a lot of work and yet somehow I thought I might find time to blog occasionally. I suppose if I rarely found time to blog before she was born I should have expected to find even less time after.

Just recently SusanV posted an interesting story/recipe on her blog FatFree Vegan Kitchen about her 14 year old and very thin daughter saying she wanted "to go on a diet," not to lose weight, but because it was something she saw other mothers and daughters doing together. I remember that when I was in upper elementary school (5th or 6th grade) some of the more "grown up" girls started talking about going on diets in a way that seemed to link dieting to "being mature." SusanV handled it well by allowing her daughter to go on a "diet" that involved no food restriction and simply meant they would eat cabbage soup together everyday.

I've been thinking a lot about body image issues and dieting because I am a new mother. I have seen several sources (though I can't think of them at the moment, one might have been on this blog) say that the self image children develop can be tremendously affect by their mothers' self image.

My idea of a diet has certainly been shaped by my mother. Whenever I think "diet" I think "no or very little chocolate." My mother has worried about her weight at various times through out my life, but I always remember her resolutions being about eating less chocolate. She would say something like, "I'm going to lose some weight; I'm only going to have one small piece of chocolate per day and only on odd days of the month." She never restricted carbs or protein or fat in order to lose weight. In fact, she has taught me that often the best weight management strategy is to focus on eating delicious fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains so that there is no room or time to fit in junk food. (She has struggled with managing cholesterol but discovered that the solution is to add flax seed and oat bran to her breakfast every day and to try to use "good" oils like olive oil.)

I really hope that I can model healthy eating for my daughter and that I will be able to be content with my weight and how I look so that she can learn contentment too. I want her to learn that her body is important and valuable, that food is a necessary and wonderful part of life, that eating is not about guilt but about taking care of her body.

Generations

2010-10-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

I'm a mother now.

The fact that I have a daughter keeps surprising me. Seeing the start of a new generation in my family has also made me reflect on the generations that have gone before me and what legacies they have left. And that makes me wonder what I will leave for the generations that come after me.

I worry sometimes that I am like the servant who burried his tallent in Jesus' parable and was reprimanded when his master returned. So many people have poured tremendous amounts of energy, education, guidence, and love into my life and yet I don't have much to show for it. I occationally help my husband prepare questions to lead a small group bible study. I work at an entry level position in a library. And now I am caring for my daughter. I pray that the many ways my family, friends, and teachers have blessed my life will now bless my daughter's life through me.

"To my great-great-great-granddaughter, live in peace." - Sara Groves in her song "Generations."

Books left the building long ago

2010-08-04T12:53:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to overcome a ridiculous urge to make everything here perfect; I need to just post some stuff already.

I subscribe to OCLC's Research feed, which you can find with other OCLC RSS Feeds here. Just recently, recorded presentations, papers, and slide shows from the 2010 Annual RLG Partnership Symposium: "When the Books Leave the Building: The Future of Research Libraries, Collections and Services" showed up in my reader.

While a number of presentations are interesting, I was especially fascinated by Adrian Johns' paper As our Readers Go Digital. (I only read the paper; I didn't watch the recorded presentation.) Johns pointed out, among other things, that some of the content he is now able to read outside the library (thanks to digital copies and his e-book reader), like political pamphlets from the 1670s, were originally meant to be read outside the library in coffee houses and other active locations. It's not new that books are leaving the building; they left long ago. From that perspective on books and information already belonging outside the library, Johns presented some possibilities for how librarians can support reading and academic culture. I really enjoyed his essay and added his book, The nature of the book : print and knowledge in the making, to my "to-read" list.

Open Access Journals

2010-06-16T12:08:00.001-07:00

I have been thinking about what will happen to my ability to do library science research if there is a period of time where I am not an employee at a major university, since I have come to rely upon journal access that the library purchases. I have started paying attention to which journals are open access and which require paid subscriptions.

There are already several open access library science journals I know of, but I just recently discovered DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals. When I checked the Library and Information Science subject heading, I found those journals I already knew about and several more that look really interesting.

Theological Librarianship is only in its third year, but has some content I really enjoyed. The first issue of the first volume has a nice note to authors, some interesting articles, and an explanation of how to write a Bibliographic Essay. I have found at least one interesting article or essay in every issue that has been published so far. I will definitely be checking in with this journal in June and December when it's two issues become available.

I just recently learned about Library Philosophy and Practice from my professor, Mary Bolin, who taught my Spring 2010 seminar in Metadata and who is one of the editors for this journal. I intend to keep up with this journal, and not just because I just submitted an article to it. (I'm hoping to hear back about it by August.) This journal has a very wide scope and some of the articles are pretty interesting.

The journal of Collaborative Librarianship hasn't had very many articles I have found especially exciting, but over all, its content seems like it could be very useful if I am ever in a position where I need to look for or build partnerships for a library.

DAOJ has many more journals besides these and I am hoping to find time to explore some more of them in the near future.

Considering blogging

2010-06-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

I created this blog two years ago for a class assignment. Now that I have finished school, I am considering taking up blogging. I'm still not sure how well that will work out. For one thing, I'm not exactly sure what I want to say, espcially to such an indefinate audience. I am considering writing about the books I read. I know there may be better places to post informaiton about reading interests, but I don't feel like making any definate commitments to websites designed for that sort of thing.

Anyway, this is an experiment. I'll see if I come up with anything to blog about over the next few weeks.

Reading...

2008-08-23T17:30:00.001-07:00

Currently I am reading:

Ambient findability by Peter Morville

Go put your strengths to work : 6 powerful steps to achieve outstanding performance by Marcus Buckingham

The Indexing companion by Glenda Browne and Jon Jermey

Understanding archives & manuscripts by James M. O'Toole and Richard J. Cox

Metadata fundamentals for all librarians by Priscilla Caplan

Welcome to my Blog!

2008-08-01T19:27:00.000-07:00

This is my first publicly accessible Blog posting. I'm not sure how I am going to use this space yet.

I am considering:

Talking about my garden

Sharing thoughts about the books I read

Occasionally sharing my feelings about life's injustices

I have to confess, I begin to encounter writer's block whenever I think about anyone else reading what I write, so I don't know that I will post very often.