Assignments

Note to self. Always remove the instructions from an assignment before submitting it. Some teachers miss the work if you leave the instructions in.

In future assignments, I get to do a book report on an author, for which I chose Terry Pratchett. The more of his work I read, the more I like it. He really is a quality writer.

I also will be doing an assignment cataloging books from my personal library. You might think I'd do the scifi, or perhaps the anime, but I have decided to do my cookbook collection. I wish I'd held into the Bull Chef. Maybe I'll order myself another copy. He's often full of bull, but he also shows old ways to cook things, older seasoning or alternative cooking methods. It is because of him I learned how to use the broiler further away from the food. That turned out to be really useful. I also learned the joy of steak and gravy. That is a traditional dish rarely served in modern times, but it tastes fantastic. Especially if you sautee mushrooms and onion. The library where I work has a really good cookbook collection. About a four hundred of them, maybe more. Think about that. Yes, a fair bit will be overlapping, but a lot won't. They aren't borrowed nearly enough. If it were up to me, I'd make displays from the different cuisines so people borrowed them more often. Food is life, and good food is good life. Do not underestimate its power. Someday I will have that ability. This being Valentines day month, most obsess about "love" or "chocolate" or cakes. Bah. I'm looking forward to Saints Patricks Day, because I get to boil corned beef, cabbage, red potatoes, caraway seeds, bake soda bread (irish biscuits fyi), and serve Guiness Stout and probably Jameson whiskey. Tradition is worth observing when it leads to a hearty meal. Many feasts have important traditional reasons, but the underlying one is feasts boost your immune system and fat reserves so you don't DIE FROM EXPOSURE, which was a real threat for most of human existence. Ireland has crappy soil, but not as bad as Scotland. Both have frost lift of boulders out the ground, which makes plowing the soil very problematic, and is the real reason for the pretty stone walls. That's as far as they wanted to carry the damned stones every spring. Piling them up in a wall just makes sense. Ergo, you get paddocks. It looks pretty, but its just laziness.

You want to see industrious people, look at Switzerland. After the ice melts in the spring, they take wheelbarrows and dig up the muck at the bottom of their fields, in the ditch, and push it to the top of the hill where they dump it again. Every year. This way they rescue their soil from further erosion. It is hard work.

Despite the lack of books for teenage boys in the young adult section, it otherwise conforms to every recommendation for young adult needs. Its a well designed space and comfortable. It just needs more for boys. Many of them like Scifi rather than vampire love triangles. Scifi is almost made for teenage boys, really. Mercedes Lackey and all those suits of powered armor and space battles? Why not.

I suspect that gamer resources might be welcome. I will check to see what they have.