Wednesday, May 1, 2013

What I'm reading: May 2013

Don't you think having to give yourself insulin shots at the age of 7 - after you've learned to light the gas stove and sterilize the needle! - would make you tough?

In her unapologetic memoir, My Beloved World, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor gives us insight on how she became the first Hispanic woman on the Court. Despite a difficult home life, she realized she had sources of "deep happiness" within her - she was loved unconditionally by her abuelita, her grandmother. You don't need to be a woman, a minority to be inspired, heartened by the honesty of her story.

And when you look beyond the story of the Nuyorican girl from the Bronx who now is on SCOTUS, you also see her mother, Celina, who escaped Puerto Rico by joining the US Women's Army Corps, started as a telephone operator at a hospital, went back to school, became a registered nurse, and eventually the emergency room supervisor at the same hospital.

Only in America? And only if you're tough, passionate women.
_____

OK, yes. The theme of this blogpost is a recurring one: passion. Also toughness, drive, competitiveness.

I'm always thinking about things I'm interested in that library patrons might find compelling as a library program. I moderated a recent panel discussion featuring 18 and 19-year old entrepreneurs, 2012 graduates of Kalani High School - go Falcons! - all of whom turned their leadership in HS robotics into 4-year full ride scholarships to University of Hawaii Manoa, where all of them are majoring in engineering. Grant Takara, Eric Teshima and Carson Wong are the owners of Bristlebots LLC, which makes educational robotics kits. They spoke confidently and well about their business. I'm going to be watching what they do in the future.

On their evaluation forms, people wanted to know more about investing, marketing, and crowdfunding. So I picked up The Kickstarter Handbook: Real-life Crowdfunding Success Stories. There's an interview of Matt Haughey, creator of crowdsourced news site MetaFilter!!! Reason enough to read this!

What I'd like to do a program with folks who've already done this: Gida Snyder of Naked Cow Dairy, Kathy Sills of Aloha Pops, Bryan Silver of Team #3008 Kalani Robotics.

Does anyone out there in cyberspace think this is a good idea?