B.

23, spanish theater academia frontwoman, but i share all sort of stuff here

[smalltownstudying]

who says i can’t spend my free days going to the library

[msvhs-deactivated20251231]

Mary Oliver

[lapincharm]

Photos I took of The White Rabbit, an Alice in Wonderland themed antique store in Carmel by the Sea. 🐇

[ih8ikura]

[smalltownstudying]

using this as a sort of diary rn as you can see but a friend recommended me this app called finch in which you get a penguin you hace to care for at the same time it helps you with self-care

today my penguin was talking about being afraid of the dark and one of the predesigned answers the app offered talked about how it was also dark inside the egg (the one the penguin used to be in i mean) and how it was safe there, so maybe the dark shouldn’t be so scary, and i’m too tired to think about it as much as I would like to but for some reason i can’t pinpoint i find that really comforting

[smalltownstudying]

feeling a bit disappointed in myself today after a few really good days, but I finished my internship today so I should be happy about that

I guess I can’t expect to do as well as I used to overnight, after months and months of feeling not even like myself

I’m slowly getting better (this seems like an affirmation I should be repeating in my head)

[anxeious]

[smalltownstudying]

btw does anyone have any anime recs? (i’m not a big fan of fantasy/action)

[smalltownstudying]

snippets of study dates these past few days and stuff in my room (dead flowers from v’s day and my favorite part of my moodboard)

I really have been trying to get back on track but yesterday ended up being a hard day. It’s easy to fall back into old habits, even if they’re not great, and it seems i wasn’t strong enough. However, I’m trying to understand myself. Yesterday was Monday. I had too much work to start the week. I don’t think I was prepared and got overwhelmed. I must pause, feel it, learn from it and keep going.

I’m sitting on my bed right now, already fully dressed and ready to go out and try my best again.

[smalltownstudying]

it’s only four days until i finish with this schedule that has me SPIRALING

[smalltownstudying]

snippets of study dates these past few days and stuff in my room (dead flowers from v’s day and my favorite part of my moodboard)

I really have been trying to get back on track but yesterday ended up being a hard day. It’s easy to fall back into old habits, even if they’re not great, and it seems i wasn’t strong enough. However, I’m trying to understand myself. Yesterday was Monday. I had too much work to start the week. I don’t think I was prepared and got overwhelmed. I must pause, feel it, learn from it and keep going.

I’m sitting on my bed right now, already fully dressed and ready to go out and try my best again.

[smalltownstudying]

Hey there, I'm glad to be chatting with you again :)

I have been pretty m.i.a lately. I updated this blog months ago and it was pretty much just to say how much I disliked my new life (got into a new school, new city, new people...). I have been slightly depressed these past six months, I'm not gonna lie, but I think I have reached the point where I just can't keep putting off getting myself out of this hole that I've been digging. I want to do things that make me happy again, and that includes using and updating this blog and working on my self-care, among other stuff (last picture is yesterday's lunch, I've been trying to eat more nutritious meals, I love it when my plate looks so colorful). So keep an eye out for me!

I have been baking a lot (as usual; I think I perfected my healthy banana bread recipe, photo n4, might share soon) and reading a lot to get my mind off things (will share my favorites soon). I turned 23. Abandoned dreams and gained new ones. Broke contact with some people and resumed it with some others. Got my heart broken and then mended it.

So, whether you remember me or you don't, what have you been doing? what was the best thing that happened to you in these past months?

[catbrarian]

a solid visual representation of me in a bookstore

[galina]

[irishmansdaughter]

[booksinmythorax]

I'm already seeing advice from people in the US to purchase queer books and other banned or "controversial" books on paper as a way to combat the wave of government censorship that is coming. While this is a good idea (it is! absolutely!), it's not accessible to everyone, and truly, we're not going to be able to consumerism our way out of this one.

If you can buy the books, do. Whether you can buy the books or not, borrow them from your library.

Borrow the paper versions. Borrow the ebook or audiobook versions. Request the titles you want that your library doesn't have. The more a title circulates or is requested, the better librarians are going to be able to defend keeping it if and when it's ever challenged.

Use libraries like @queerliblib too. The more members they have, the better they'll be able to fundraise.

Your community resources depend on you using them. Borrow the books before they go away.

InB4: Piracy is not the solution here. We're trying to keep community resources available, not make sure individual people can read individual books. Different problems.

The books are still available. Borrowing them from your library and returning them on time and in good condition will help keep them that way.

[perpetuallyexhaustedlibrarian]

This this this!

Libraries and librarians are going to be under attack in the coming years.

Please help us by showing the people in charge that these materials are important in the only way they really understand - the number of checkouts.

We need your help now more than ever.

[thewonderfulwizardofwords]

For some additional context, the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) is the primary funding mechanism for libraries on a national level. It distributes grants to State Libraries (every state has one, though it may not be called exactly that) who then distribute that money further to individual libraries in their states. It's a federal entity that has to be reauthorized every year or that huge chunk of funding goes away, and every year of the first Trump administration the fight for reauthorization was a white-knuckle event. We got it through by the skin of our teeth each year, but it was harrowing.

Libraries are mentioned on page one of Project 2025's Mandate for Leadership (the big book of horrible policy plans). Choosing not to reauthorize the IMLS will be an easy way for the incoming administration to gut library services nationwide, especially in small communities that don't have a thriving donor base to fill those budget gaps. They'll be able to stop the "porn peddlers" and "groomers" at the cost of vital services to those communities.

One of the best tools we have to try and avoid that outcome is to prove, definitively, that libraries matter by presenting robust use statistics. Checking out books, using library spaces, attending library programs, all of that gets captured and reported to the IMLS each year. They're imperfect measures of the value the library provides to the community, but they're what we have.

At the local level it's going to be just as, if not more important to educate the community about what the library does. Your local governing authorities aren't going to be persuaded by the librarian alone, but they can be persuaded by vocal community support. That will also inoculate your community against "grassroots" attempts to shut the library down, like almost happened in Dayton, Washington in 2023.

To bring it back around to OP's original point, the imperfect nature of the stats gathered can work in libraries' favor on both fronts. It might actually be detrimental to present record-breaking circulation numbers for queer titles to the incoming administration, but the IMLS doesn't collect that level of detail. Any book you check out adds to the bottom line total that gets reported, queer or not. At the local level librarians have more control over the stories they tell with their data. If you're in a progressive community, they can be open with those more granular numbers as a way to underscore their importance as a resource to queer community. If you're in a conservative community they can lean on the bigger picture to show the impact on everyone, while knowing internally what materials are actually circulating and how best to curate the collection to serve their patrons.

[smalltownstudying]

14.10.2024: Last week I received an email that said a mandatory meeting would take place today, before the academic year starts next week. I got the cheapest train tickets I could find, which meant staying for an entire day at this city previously unknown to me with nothing else to do other than the meeting.

I couldn’t get any sleep last night, thinking about this new beginning for me, and going there alone for the first time, discovering the city on my own... I really disliked my previous college town, and I felt like a fish out of water there (which is funny because it was a coastal town). I constantly felt nostalgic for that city in the mountains where I first went to college.

This morning, when the train was arriving at my destination I started to understand what my mom (she visited this place last year) meant yesterday when she kept saying that I would like being here. This city presents itself to me like a beautiful, never-ending opportunity to explore, which is what I love the most about big cities. I keep asking myself, what have I done to deserve all this beauty? what am I going to do with all of it?

I know today is one of those days I will never forget. I am writing this on the train back home. I have a feeling this year and this place will be good to me.

[smalltownstudying]

hey guys quick update so this place has been treating me like absolute shit so far

[smalltownstudying]

last days before i move out