jock librarian

Forced to leave war-torn Vietnam, four-year-old Lac Su and his family flee Danang traveling aboard a sixty-foot boat packed with over 300 people. After several weeks of drifting across the violent South China Sea, landing in Hong Kong and getting shuffled between tent cities, the family immigrates to the United States and settles in a drug-ridden neighborhood in Hollywood, California. Home is not the heaven Lac and his family imagine. Rather, their new world is marked by the "mayhem and commotion" of police helicopters shining their floodlights across rooftops ("crackhead and junkie haven[s]"), Los Angeles' booming traffic (a "tangled, teeming mess") and uneasy underworld encounters with drug dealers, prostitutes and gangsters. In his provocative debut, Su boldly writes about the trials of his youth, chronicling the loneliness of life in America, the challenges of growing up with a demanding father (a "firecracker with a testy fuse") and his intriguing, yet dangerous liaisons with street gangs. Su tells a frank story of tough love, expressing a deep human need for acceptance while exploring the universality of family life.

Marilyn Chin's spins together forty-one tales into this wild, fiercely inventive novel about Moonie and Mei Ling Wong, a pair of Chinese-American twin sisters growing up under the watchful eye of "the Great Matriarch," their cleaver-wielding grandmother. The books begins with a fearless Moon taking revenge on a group of "trashy white boys" who have humiliated her. Moon's retaliation is sardonically described: "For thirty days and thirty nights [she] scoured the seaside howling, windswept--in search of blond victims. They would drown on their surfboards, or collapse while polishing their cars." Subsequent sections of the book follow the sisters' transformation from Chinese food delivery girls ("certain Wong-named-nobodies") to two overtly ambitious young women ("I'm attending Stanford and Mei Ling's at Harvard, both of us on pre-med scholarships and on our way to becoming important doctors"). Throughout the novel, Chin playfully sprinkles her tales with Chinese myths, parables, Taoist thought and Confucian beliefs, while presenting a terrifically diverse cast of characters including a young monk, donkey, ex-San Diego Charger, eight-armed bodhisattva, surfer and cook. The chorus of first- and second-generation Chinese immigrants is especially rich. Their voices are full of yearning, hope, rage, passion and pain.

On September 26, 2009, I will be participating in the 5.85-mile Little Red Lighthouse Swim to help raise monies for ALA's Spectrum Scholarship and bring awareness to the critical need for more ethnic and multilingual librarians within our profession.

I will swim the Hudson River in honor of five special librarians: Bonnie Farrier (supervising librarian, Andrew Heiskell Braille and Talking Book Library, New York Public Library); Jane Fisher (director, Rutherford Public Library); Cecil Hixon (former adult programming specialist, New York Public Library); Marsha Howard (coordinator, Poetry in the Branches, Poets House); and Raymond Markey (former president, Local 1930, New York Public Library Guild). Through their daily work as librarians, they have inspired me and countless library workers within New York City and beyond to embrace activist roles, foster community and commit ourselves fully to public service.

The sky was enchanting at the 6:00 AM workout.
4 x 50 FR
200 kick/swim by 50
200 drill/swim by 50
10 x 50 descend by :05 seconds
8 x 50 controlled breathing (six breaths, five breaths...)

At the second morning practice, the water glittered as we swam:
400 FR
200 IM drill
3 x 200 stroke IM order (without FR)
6 x 100
100 K
2 x 100 BK
100 K
2 x 100 BR
500 FR
500 FR with zoomers
200 cool down choice

In the evening, a group of us went to hear Olympian Dara Torres talk about her new book, junk food, training and competition at a local library fundraiser.

Spring training and Proust are "putting me on the right road." On Thursday morning, we swam:

400 FR
400 reverse IM
4 x 200 FR
4 x 100 rolling IM
4 x 100 K
2 x 300 IM (no FL) with zoomers
2 x 300 FR with zoomers
6 x 50 stroke/free fast
300 cool down

At the technique clinic, Coach Bonnie emphasized two points: 1) swim like you mean it; and 2) swim like you're a monster (i.e. tall, long, big).

In the evening, Coach Marty's short-course workout consisted of:

6 x 50
6 x 25 (descend 1 - 3, 4 -6)
4 x 25 K (2-medium, 2-fast)
4 x 50 swim (3-moderate, 1-fast)
4 x 25 K (2-moderate, 2-fast)
2 x 25 K (1-moderate, 1-fast)
4 x 25 FR fast
6 x50 (descend 1-3, 4-6)

In the chapter entitled "Combray," Proust's narrator says, "I seek my way again, I turn a corner...but...the goal is in my heart..."

Our first long-course morning practice in Fort Lauderdale was straight out of Proust:

The moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape...solid and recognisable...

300 FR
100 K
200 FR
100 K
100 FR
100 K
9 x 100
3 x (3 x100 FR/100 stroke/100 K)
5 x 200 IM with fins
1-4 rolling 50 K, 5 swim
4 x100 FR/stroke

In the evening, Coach Marty's practice was "all-powerful joy."

4 x 50 FR
4 x 50 FR drill/swim
6 x 100 build IM
1- FR
2-FR/FR/BR/FR
3-FR/BK/BR/FR
4-FL/BK/BR/FR
5-IM
6-Choice

The first night's practice was splendrous. We watched the colors of the sky change with every lap.

3 x 100 FR
6 x 75 k/d/s, odd FR, even stroke
4 x 200 rolling 50 fast
4 x 100 rolling 25 fast
6 x 50 kick odd FR, even stroke
200 FR cool down

We are so privileged to share the lanes with the FLA masters.