Graduation quote

Since I am graduated as of tomorrow, I figure I would include a good quote. Here is one I found today from Tom Brokaw, which I think about sums how life after graduation should be: 

• You are educated.  Your certification is in your degree.  You may think of it as the ticket to the good life.  Let me ask you to think of an alternative.  Think of it as your ticket to change the world.  ~Tom Brokaw

Son of Citation Machine and Grey's Anatomy

This website, Son of Citation Machine, has been really helpful to me this week as I've been writing my research proposal and trying to figure out how I want to do citations. I actually discovered it a couple weeks ago when I was working on the Reference group project and we included it then as a tool to help high schoolers. It pretty much does the work of citations for you to simply things, which is great for me because pretty much all teachers want you to do it a different way and I can never keep track of which way to do it. I decided to do MLA because APA was kinda confusing and it works like a dream. I recommend it to those in college or those with kids in high school. 

This paper has been a giant pain as I am having problems trying to put what I want into paper form. It makes sense to me, but I've been wallowing in the info for the whole semester. So I need to send it to my mom so she can see if it makes sense too and isn't just a giant pile of crap. I'm sure it has good points, but right now it's just frustrating. 

So since this week and past couple have been pretty stressful at my house, while we are trying to figure out our finances in conjunction with the baby, and I think this quote fits in with our situation quite nicely. Now I'm a huge Grey's Anatomy fan even though I know it's a fluffy girl show, but sometimes they do say some brilliant things on there, like this quote from everyone's favorite bad boy Karev in Season 5. 

• Grey’s Anatomy, Season 5, Episode 18, Karev: "Trauma messes everybody up, but maybe that's the point. All the pain, the fear and the crap...maybe going through all that is what keeps us going forward...it's what pushes us. Maybe we have to get a little messed up, before we step up."

Joey Pigza Quote and Food Blog

I haven't blogged for about a week due to being out of town visiting my grandparents in Alabama for Thanksgiving and being generally distracted as it is the end of school, amongst other things. So I figured I would catch up on blogging by combining Sunday and Monday's post again. The Blog of the week is one that I have been obsessed with for two days called Momofuku for 2.  For those who have no idea what Momofuku is, it is the cookbook for the restaurant of the same name in NYC, created by genius chef David Chang (who Anthony Bourdain also thinks is brilliant, which gives him even better credit in my book). I had read the cookbook myself after waiting for it for over a month at the library, and thought his recipes were really ingenious twist on classics, plus the photos were gorgeous and it really makes me want to go to NYC to try it out. Chang now owns five Momofuku restaurants, which you can see through this link for more info. The author of the food blog Momofuku for 2 not only creates classics from the cookbook, like the Potatoes & Clams in Bacon Dashi  but also many other delicious creations such as French Onion Melt Sandwich, Thai Noodle Salad (which is very similar to a dish I have eaten in a Thai restaurant), and the best sounding title for a recipe Blueberry Boy Bait.

The quote of the week is a random one from Jack Gantos's third Joey Pigza book in the series called What Would Joey Do?, which is about a young boy who has ADHD and is just starting to get his life under control again. In this book, his mom who moved back in with him in the first book is dating again but Joey is not sure about the new boyfriend. I just thought it was funny. 

• “She won't call me anything like strange or abnormal or peculiar. She just says things like 'Oh, don't mind that Joey is trying to get pet termites to live in the woodwork. He's not like other boys. He is out of the ordinary.' And Booth whose head is so rectangular it looks like a shoebox with a nose stuck on one long side, gives me that I-didn't-raise-you-to-be-this-way-but-I'll-put-up-with-you-as-long-as-your-mom-is-my-girlfriend-otherwise-I-would-put-you-in-a-rubber-room look. In return I give him my Don't-fall-asleep-on-the-couch-because-when-you-wake-up-you-might-find-that-I-slowly-cut-all-your-clothes-off-and-when-you-stand-you-will-be-totally-naked-and-Grandma-and-I-will-have-your-camera-ha-ha-ha look.” Joey Pigza in What Would Joey Do

Quotes about reading to children

Since I have just finished my portfolio and submitted it, it makes sense to do a book-related quote. It's funny that I was better at writing about Youth Services than I was the reflective essay that actually counted towards graduation. Either I found this quote somewhere along the line while researching something online or it was one from one of my Children's Literature classes. In any case, it is a great quote and one that should be followed. 

• "Read and tell stories to children when they are babies, and they will love the colors and shapes of illustrations and the relaxed mood of your voice. 
  Read and tell stories to children when they are toddlers, and they will shiver at the recognition of animals and listen with delight to rhymes.
  Read and tell stories to children when they are true walkers and talkers, and they will laugh at funny incidents and fall in love with special characters.
  Read and tell stories to children when they are in their first years of school, and they will appreciate the opportunity to retreat from learning and embrace the world of relaxed imagination.
  Read and tell stories to older children and adults and they too, will find themselves transported into the world of image and wonder."--Ken Roberts

Quotes about love

Seeing as I'm 63 episodes into the anime series Inuyasha, which is about love, I figured this week's quotes should reflect that. So I decided to use my absolute favorite love quote, from the book Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. It is a fantastic book that was recommended to me about five or so years ago by my dad, and is the true story of the author and his adventures in India. 

• ‘I love you, Karla,’ I said when we were alone again. ‘I loved you the first second I saw you. I think I’ve loved you for as long as there’s been love in the world. I love your voice. I love your face. I love your hands. I love everything you do, and I love the way you do everything. It feels like magic when you touch me. I love the way your mind works, and the things you say. And even though it’s all true, all that, I don’t really understand it, and I can’t explain it—to you or to myself. I just love you. I just love you with all of my heart. You do what God should do: you give me a reason to live. You give me a reason to love the world.’--Shantaram 

Quotes & The Merry Librarian

I've been a bit behind in posting this past week due to my last-minute trip to Arizona, but I'm glad I went as I had fun and it was relaxing to get away for a few days and somewhat catch up on work. I got all my reading done for my classes, the only downside is that I spent nearly 9 hours of yesterday writing my paper and I'm still not happy with it. But that's a story for another day. So I'm catching up today by making up Sunday and Monday's post, and might write one for today later on when I have more free time.

The quotes of the week will be some of my favorite Christopher Moore quotes, taken from his books Coyote Blue and Fluke: Or I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings.  The second one is particularly funny as the kid in question, Kona, is a bit of a spacey stoner who Nate regrets hiring until he makes a brilliant suggestion about whales that proceeds this quote.
 

• “He soon found, that his thoughts, like monkeys in church, were bad company.” –Christopher Moore, Coyote Blue
• Nate was stunned. Not because he thought Kona was right, but because the kid had actually had the cognitive powers to come up with the question. Nate wouldn’t have been more surprised if he walked in on a team of squirrels building a toaster oven. Maybe the kid had run out of pot, and the spike in intelligence was just a withdraw symptom.” –Christopher Moore, Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

The blog of the week is The Merry Librarian. It is a blog created by a librarian and  other people/librarians send in stories about the unbelievable but true things that go on in the libraries. She also has a links to many other librarian blogs (which I will definitely be checking out in the future), and to her book review site (book club) and bookstore. I discovered this site after a classmate posted this link to one of her posts from June 14, which like the Merry Librarian, made me laugh out loud, as did this one. The Father's Day story, which is unfortunately the most recent post, made me smile. My only gripe is that I wish she would continue to update the site. But if you go back through the older posts, there are some gems.

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Quotes of the day

I collect funny, weird, romantic or insightful quotes. I've done this ever since I was an undergraduate. Most of them are book or movie-related, some are historic quotes from famous people. Since I have established Mondays as awesome website/blog day, I will make Sundays "share two cool quotes" day. So here's the first, in hopefully a long line of great quotes. The theme is on love. The first comes from the YA book series everyone loves to hate, Twilight, specifically from the second book, New Moon. This one is something Edward says to Bella:

• “Before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. Very dark, but there were stars—points of light and reason…And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. Suddenly everything was on fire; there was brilliancy, there was beauty. When you were gone, when the meteor had fallen over the horizon, everything went black. Nothing had changed, but my eyes were blinded by the light. I couldn’t see the stars anymore. And there was no more reason for anything.”

The second will be from a totally different book genre and is the adult historical fiction classic Shogun by James Clavell. John Blackthorne, the main character, is getting a description of how Japanese women show their "love" to their men.

• “We admire simplicity, so men and women can take pillowing for what it is: an important part of life, but between a man and a woman there are more vital things. Humility, for one. Respect. Duty. Even this ‘love’ of yours. Fujiko ‘loves’ you.”…”No she doesn’t!”…”She will give you her life. What more is there to give?