Rachael M. Ali Library

May 12, 2020

Taking care of yourself. May is Mental Health Awareness month. As an introvert, this time at home has not been as hard on me as other people in my house. However, there are things that I have to do to safeguard my mental space. I have not been on Twitter since the beginning of March. I never posted anything on Twitter, but I follow many educators and librarians. The negative comments that would be between the tweets that I wanted to read were starting to bother me. I still receive notifications when particular favorites tweet, and I'll check that tweet and leave. I know that I cannot handle the negativity right now. I consider myself a realist (the glass has water in it), but I know that I am influenced by a constant string of negativity.

It is okay to step back from things that are causing you more harm than good right now.

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May is Mental Health Month

Each year millions of Americans face the reality of living with a mental illness. During May, NAMI joins the national movement to raise awareness about mental health. Each year we fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for policies that support people with mental illness and their families.

Text from NAMI, click the link for resources from NAMI.

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Something Interesting from Grammarly

Article

Someday we are going to look back at this time in our history and try to explain it to our students, children, or grandchildren. I use Grammarly to help with my writing. They email me weekly stats about my writing. There are blog articles included in the email. I found this one interesting today. Grammarly has been tracking the tone of how we write for almost a year now. The article tracks a shift in tone from optimistic to informative. Check out the article if you are interested in this type of statistics.

The photo is a screenshot of my writing last week.

The second article was about expressing our mental health needs. I think that everyone struggles with how to express our concerns and frustrations. Not just during this strange time but in general. We have learned in our house that "I" statements are significant in communicating our concerns or needs.

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Ambassador for Young People's Literature

The National Ambassador for Young People's Literature is a two-year position from the Library of Congress. The recently appointed Ambassador is Jason Reynolds. Each ambassador creates a program for engagment with young readers. He has a series of videos with writing prompts and encouragement. One prompt is to create your own medal. Check out the video.

Reminders

1.email me at my @stmarkshs.net account if you need a quick answer. Replying to this newsletter or the email in the about box is not the quickest way to contact me. Because the newsletters are public I do not want my primary email address available. I do check the library email but not every day.

2. I am here to help you in any way that I can. I miss you all.

3. The quote of the day is on the library Instagram. librarysmhs

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