Factory Girls

This morning I finished reading Factory Girls. This is strange for me because in recent years, I either haven't had enough time to really devote myself to a book, or I have had too many books going at once for any of them to finish in a timely fashion. Factory Girls just pulled me in, though, and I couldn't put it down.

Chang focuses less on the work done in the factory itself, and more on the conditions and choices present in the girls' lives, and how they react and adapt to those challenges. It's difficult to sum up because I've never encountered anything like this before.

They grab life by the neck, and eat their bitterness.

Any woman in any job should read this book.

Book Haul, End of August

I had a free day from work, it was terribly hot outside, and The Bean had several overdue books. (and so did I, actually) So we loaded up our bags and went out to the local library!

My picks for this round:

The sun is down, so please excuse my indoor lighting and weird carpet

The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields

I picked this up COMPLETELY randomly from the shelf in the mystery section. It's about murder and witches, from what the inside flap says. I try not to read the inside flaps or the back covers too closely, as they are sometimes written by people who haven't properly read the book, or who don't understand the concept of SPOILERS.

The Gluten-free Table by Jilly Lagasse and Jessie Lagasse Swanson, and

The Allergen-Free Baker's Handbook by Cybele Pascal

More and more these days, people are talking about giving up various things, either because of allergies or just for the general improvement of their feelings & health.

I am not one of those people. I believe in eggs and butter and creamy cheeses. I'm not sure where I fall on gluten, but as it has yet to make me sick, I haven't given it up. However. I know a lot of people who are limited in their diets, for whatever reason.

Recently I was having tea & juice with my extremely celiac friend Lovely Alice, who told me that she had finally given up on settling for the limited options she had out in the world of pre-made food, and instead had learned how to cook. She showed me her lunch, in a little box in her bag. It looked incredibly delicious, and more importantly, wasn't going to kill her. 

Later, I chatted with another friend about starting an allergen / vegan friendly bakery. She told me to bake something 1000 times until I had it perfect in my own way. This is, of course, good advice for any undertaking, but even better when you get to eat your results.

At any rate, it's time to learn a few new skills in the kitchen...

Women's Wicked Wit by Michelle Lovric 

Anthologies are fun, snarky anthologies are the best!

The Friendly Jane Austen by Natalie Tyler

This is a lovely book that reads somewhere between an older encyclopedia, a chatty magazine article, and the back of a Penguin edition novel. It explains in both concise sections and longer essays the various aspects and meanings behind Jane Austen's life & works. 

Borkmann's Point by Håkan Nesser

I wrote a while ago about Jo Nesbø's The Leopard and The Snowman as being creepy Scandinavian murder mysteries. Here comes a story from Sweden. I think I may have found my new favorite genre. 

I started reading Factory Girls by Leslie T. Chang so quickly that it wasn't in my book bag when I went to take the initial haul photo. Chang tracks the stories of several factory girls in China. It's something I know nothing about, and it's fascinating. 

Ruminations & Mission Statement

Recently I was asked about how to generate ideas for a blog. If you've been following along for the past few months, you might ask yourself why I would be asked such a question. Well, I was available at the time and purported to have some experience in the subject.

The truth is, I have only read a wee bit on blogging, and mainly suggested that my friend go and read the same. I read a LOT of blogs and can extrapolate from the content generated therein, but as a blogger myself, my only experience has been personal anecdotes & diary-style updates on DiaryLand, LiveJournal, and several now-defunct Blogger & Wordpress blogs.

When I started up this blog, about a month or so into writing it, I reached out to some of my fellow Library Science students, and asked them what sort of things they would like to see in a librarian (in-training) blog. Uniformly, the answer was articles about issues & trends in the library world. When I read that, I groaned a wee bit. Not that those topics aren't interesting... THEY ARE. There are several great blogs (Hack Library School leaps to mind) that cover these topics, and because they are written by students or newcomers to the field, they are fresh and at times above and beyond what the American Library Association or the Library Journal might cover in terms of honesty and applicable-to-YOU material.

Briefly, I didn't feel competent in those areas, nor did I feel that there would be any point in competing with such material. Hence my groan.


However, in talking with my friend about his blog, I thought more about what I was writing, and why I was writing it. Why, I thought, should I ignore those topics, just because I don't feel qualified to write about them? I'm a student, aren't I? Why should I turn away from something just because it's difficult or unnatural to me? The sort of silly nature of my writing shouldn't exclude thoughts on more serious subjects, nor should serious subjects prevent me from talking about BARF (har har har) or zombies. Just because this is a personal blog as opposed to a professional one doesn't necessarily mean that it can't be BOTH.


That said, I have been giving a lot of thought as to what this blog IS and what I want it to be. Giving room for a certain amount of growth and change, at the onset (that is, NOW), I would like to offer the following topics as the things I care about in writing:

1. Library Science, or Being An MLIS Student

What it is: Issues in librarianship that interest/provoke me, issues faced through schooling, reading, and classes, any struggles or realizations along the path of getting my degree and becoming a real life library lady, comments from a library user vs. librarian

What it isn't: Bitching about coursework & professors, uninformed inflammatory ranting.


2. Books

What it is: Book reviews, hauls from the library / bookstore, BARF, personal library thoughts, occasional silliness & honest opinions. Occasional movie, theater, or music comments as necessary.

What it isn't: Again, inflammatory ranting, personal attacks, unbiased. (I want to offer my personal preferences opinions, including criticism)


3. My Life

What it is: Travel, hobbies (anything that is taking up a good chunk of my brain & time, such as running, language learning, knitting) and anything that comes up through BARF or applying a book to real life.

What it isn't: Gossip, my day job, family. Anything in my life not explicitly covered above.



Is that the sort of thing you want to read?

Book Haul, Japan 2013

Every year I take a trip to Japan in August, to see the sights, eat the food, visit friends, and join in a crazy dance festival. I say "every year" though this is only my second year back, but it's my sixth time to join the dancing, so I figure I can count it as a sort of tradition-in-the-making.

At any rate, the eternal question whenever you visit somewhere is what sort of Thank You / Hello / Long-Time-No-See gift to bring along. It is of course rational to bring something small and portable that fits in luggage easily, and also will survive the trials of checked luggage.

This, for example, is a lousy choice for a souvenir. Best drink it up yourself.

"Rational" takes on a different sort of meaning sometimes.

I thought it rational to bring cookies. Big, light, breakable boxes of cookies. It was tough getting them all to fit in my suitcase. I left a lot of clothes behind, and forgot a few essential items because of it.



But do you know what was left when I gave all those cookies away to my dear friends?

Space. Space was left.

Space for BOOKS.



The weight limit for checked luggage on Delta is 23 kilos per bag. I clocked in at 17 and 12 kilos on my bags, but only because I bought a few clothing and snack and souvenir items as well, and didn't have enough space for MORE BOOKS.

A fairly sensible choice, if I do say so myself. 

Also, why are magazines so HEAVY? Is it paper density?

At any rate, after hitting some bookstores, here is what I dragged home:

Summertime means COMICS!! Oh youth!

From left to right, top to bottom;

Sailor Moon 1&2

My friend requested these. I was surprised to only find the first two volumes in the used book store, maybe it's because the show is putting out another season next year? (This year? I forget) It's popular, but not that popular... my high school students had no clue what it was. 

Maison Ikkoku 1&2 

Also from the used book store. As I was shopping, a guy trucked by me with volumes 3-8 in his hands, so I ran to where he had come from to see if he had left anything other than.... volumes 1 & 2. Nope! Oh well. At least they carry them!

Anyway, Rumiko Takahashi is my favorite manga-ka (writer & artist) ever, she has great lines and funny stories and tells a lot visually. I have a whole shelf dedicated just to her works. But these two books are actually going to push it onto two shelves...

Seishun Shonbori Kurabu (Melancholic Sentimentalism of Youth Club)

So in proper bookstores (as opposed to used ones), all the comics are wrapped in plastic so you can't read before (or instead of) buying. This makes it hard for me to buy books because I can't check the content or reading level: if a story is about magical made-up crap, or has too many difficult kanji with no kana (easy characters to tell you the pronunciation of kanji), then it's out of my league. 

But sometimes the staff puts out little sample chapters. It limits my shopping, but it's better than nothing. This is about a high school club that goes around watching (and judging?) other peoples' love lives & relationships. I know, that's super weird, and it doesn't make any sense, but I can really understand the vocabulary in high school life stories more easily than anything else.


Asahi Nagu

It's about a girl who joins her high school's kendo club.
Kendo vocabulary!


Principal

A girl from... Tokyo or something, comes to some high school in a small town and meets a boy who is friendly, and a boy who is a huge jerk (they are of course best friends or cousins or something). GEE I wonder if there will be a love triangle oh gosh I can't wait to find out oh golly oh wow.


Private Prince

A female university student meets a Prince who is studying at her university for some reason. Somehow they meet and form a relationship. But of course it is complicated because he is a prince.


Sora & Hara (side story), Sotsugyousei 2&3 (Graduating Students)

A high school romance story. The story itself is kind of trite and without a lot of depth (REALLY? REALLY? WOW) but I'm pulled in by the art, which is this sort of bendy, slightly disproportionate stuff.

Real books for real people?

The Pillow Book by Sei Shonagon

So this showed up a few days before I left, and I started to give it a read, and it's actually quite good. The Penguin Edition has of course a lot of notes, but also gives maps, and historical figures lists, and illustrations... which is good because I know absolutely nothing about life in Heian Era Japan. 

Some pieces are boring (like lists of trees or lakes, who cares?) but other pieces are really romantic or interesting or just plain fascinating. 

The Hunger Games (Japanese)

One of the presents I bought for someone who hosted me was a copy of The Hunger Games in English. Originally I went into the bookstore looking for Twilight (because sometimes you just need easy vocab in order to get by) but chose this instead (obviously a better choice). I need a dictionary, but I still struggle.

Shikoku Japan 88 Route Guide

I heard later that you could get this at many of the major temples in town, so I could have saved myself the train ride up to Temple #1, but... it's a beautiful temple and I'm glad I went.

This is the English guide to the 88 temple pilgrimage around Shikoku island, which is about 1200 kilometers. It's my dream to someday take the pilgrimage on foot, all at once, in spring. I dream this with a ferocity that makes me hesitant to write too much about it here and now, or perhaps, ever.

Trash or treasure?

Treasure, actually. I love magazines. Especially these fashion magazines, because they don't clutter up with articles, instead, it's just piles upon piles of photos of outfits. My love of Japanese fashion magazines is eclipsed only by my love for interior decorating magazines & books. 

...do I really need to say more about magazines? Lordy, I hope not. 

Oh right, one of them came with a "special gift"

Kate Spade, apparently

I skipped over a lot of magazines because they came with a "special gift", which is usually a bag, and I didn't need another bag, let alone several other bags. But I wanted that particular magazine, so now I have the bag...

...and also this shoulder bag, which I bought before I left, knowing that I was only going to fill it with magazines for the plane ride. 

It's the perfect size, and also made me laugh. Not because it's amusing, but in the way that an uncomfortable truth can make you laugh... just at how the world is sometimes. Japan always makes me feel both extremely comfortable with myself, and very weird & disconnected & fake at the same time. "Don't Let Me Be Lonely" felt like a good reflection of how I was feeling.

So that's the newest stuff on my bookshelf, everybody. Happy summer reading!

A bit of this and that

I had a great idea the other day, about something I had read that really jived with the way I see the world and my place in it, and how I use my thoughts to create happiness/positivity/etc... and then I didn't write it down, and now I can't even remember what book it was that I had been reading. Ah! That sort of thing just happens, doesn't it?

Here I am sat at home, trying to rest while simultaneously doing my chores. Trying not to check the mirror every 10 minutes for signs of impending dry socket (ew, seriously) and also trying not to compulsively tongue holes in my mouth (so tempting!). Come on, little blood clots, work your magic!


I'm getting ready to go to Japan. And by "getting ready", I mean I dragged my box of dancing kit out of my dresser and put it on the bed so I'd remember to go through it later.

Just need my passport and I'm ready to go

I've been debating what to bring with me for reading. Usually I tote my iPad with me, because then I can use it for internet in Starbucks as well as for reading. I've got mostly free books (Austen, etc) on there, as well as The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear because I can read them over and over and never get tired. I'm tempted by Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, which was recently given to me, but it's all about India and I want to keep my head in the game on this vacation. Maybe if I was flying to India, haha. Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld is also in the running, though it's a book on loan and I don't want to muck it up. 

There's always that pile of Robert Jordan "Wheel of Time" series that's been on my shelf for months. Vanity Fair was bought LAST YEAR and hasn't been touched yet. My new Jane Eyre was only $3 so I don't care what happens to it in the suitcase. I just ordered Sei Shonagon's The Pillow Book, which I have been meaning to read since high school, but I don't know if it'll be the kind of entertainment I'll want to read in my spare time & on a plane.

Sei Shonagon was this lady in the Japanese Emperor's (well, the Empress's really) entourage way back when, who kept a diary of all the stuff that went on in the palaces. She wrote lists, observations, and gossip. She was a contemporary of Lady Murasaki, who wrote the first novel (The Tale of Genji) and was apparently snarky, smart, and poetical. Which was basically par for the course for anyone who managed to make it as a woman in those times.

Also, she's on Twitter:

Some guys are talkin sittin next to my cherry blossom vase and one is wearing a cherry blossom cloak haha awesome
— Sei Shonagon (@shonagon_sei) July 20, 2013

Amazing.