Hmm.

In light of that mini-speech I gave at the NCTE, I’m starting to think, hey, what’s so wrong with being on the porch?

I’m feeling a little disillusioned with pop culture.

Last night I was watching Toy Story 3. It’s not the first time I watched it. It’s the third time, and yeah, there are some funny bits, but I really don’t get the ‘magnificence’ of it.

I actually think the first one is the best.

I tried really hard to tear up, like I felt like I was supposed to, at the end, and yeah, a little tear fell but nothing like normal.

I cry easily!

And yet somehow the waterworks were wanting in this one, and I was left feeling kind of puzzled.

Maybe it’s just more of a ‘boy’s movie’.

And maybe it didn’t help that I’d watched a gem like Steven Spielberg’s Amistad just before that.

I don’t know if it was the after effects of all the recent injustices towards black people. The case in Ferguson and Eric Garner’s where both cops who acted recklessly and killed unarmed black men, got off scott free, but there was something very satisfying about the opening mutiny scene in Amistad!

It’s gory and it probably made a lot of white audiences uneasy, seeing black slaves revolt like that! But I don’t know, I felt the crew deserved it!

Honestly we should turn away from the claptrap of most Hollywood movies!

Blech!

It’s hypocrisy!

What I’m finding more and more is that even while I seem to be chasing certain people’s approval, looking inward on that warm cabin, other people are stepping forward and asking for my services.

Who needs that cabin???

Go where the opportunity arises!

And even while the Canadian establishment doesn’t seem to notice my work, the sting of their not noticing has gotten less and less.

I mean, really who cares?

It’s all about the work!

Creating better and better stories! Helping more and more kids, especially immigrant kids, with their language skills through the workshops I gave as Artist in Library.

I really really love children!

Yesterday when I was doing the Public Speaking workshop for the 5-12 year olds at Fairview Library, this little five year old girl, Serena (I think she’s Phillipino, so cute!!!!) lay down on the chairs while one of the other kids started telling his story, and put her head in my lap. And I patted her back and she smiled up at me! So cute!

And I just thought, “Awww!”

And oh how they begged for me to tell Big Red Lollipop, chanting, chanting, till I had to explain to them that this was a workshop where they were supposed to learn to tell, not me! And the way I quieted them down was to tell them, quite honestly, that if there was time at the end, yes, I’d tell it.

Spoke to the branch manager and the librarian who was acting as liaison and they both said how much they’d loved working with me! I’d done 63 programs at the library in the course of about four months! More than any of the other Artists in library  and she asked me if I always worked this hard, and I said, “Yeah. Actually I do.”

Because I always try to give my hosts more than they bargained for.

I think it’s the immigrant in me.