Cinderella--Grimm

Todd Packer

Packer's Best Moment: Season Eight, Episode Sixteen: After Hours When Dwight gets kicked by Jim after he gets the buttons from Cathy per "college rules" in 'The King and The Hunchback' and he comments with his double meaning statement.

“and he lost at his own lame game”

Packer's Worst Moment: Season Nine, Episode Seventeen; The Farm When he laced the cupcakes that he brought as 'apology cupcakes' to the office and the staff either got stoned or diarrhea

Packer's Best Line: Season Two, Episode Two

So a guy goes home, tell his wife, "Honey, pack your bags, I just wont the lottery" She goes "Oh, my god, that's incredible, where are we going? He goes "I don't know where you're going, just be out of here by five."

Packer's Most Memorable Moment: Season Three, Episode Eleven: Back from Vacation When he gets Michael’s picture of Jan from their Sandals Jamaica trip “Wait. I just got it from somebody else. Wow, this is hot. Damn! How do I get you out of this picture? “

Dunder Mifflin is a part of..Say-ber (Sabre)

Hopped of the train in Scranton, PA

Another cloudy, grey afternoon

Home of the Railriders and Scranton Miners

Did you pack your snow shoes?

 Jumped in the cab

Here you are for the first time

Look to the right and you see the-electric-city-sign

This is gonna be a good day

For Dunder Mifflin and Sabre

The stock markets going crazy and you really don’t know us

Too much pressure and you’re nervous

That’s when the taxi man turned on the radio

And the music took over your brain

And you thought this might be insane

But you decided to try and stay

 So you put your hands up

You take a deep breathe

The butterflies will fly away

Your noddin’ your head like yeah

Straighten your tie like yeah

You got your hands up

You’ve done this before

We’re all gonna be o-kay

Yeah, yeah, ye-eh-yeah

Dunder Mifflin is a part of Sabre

 Get to the office in your taxi cab

Everybody’s looking at you now

Like “Whose in charge, whose calling the shots”

Is this gonna all work out?

So hard with the sun down by seven

Hope you don’t get seasonal depression

‘Cause it all gets cold and starts to snow

I guess you never got the memo

The stock markets going crazy and you really don’t know us

Too much pressure and you’re nervous

That’s when the Andy and Erin jumped center stage

So they could sing you a welcome song

So we could all sing you this song

And we hope you sing along

 So you put your hands up

You take a deep breathe

The butterflies fly away

Your noddin’ your head like yeah

We’re noddin’ our hears like yeah

You got your hands up

You’ve done this before

We’re all gonna be o-kay

Yeah, yeah, ye-eh-yeah

Dunder Mifflin is a part of Sabre

 Feel like skipping on that flight (on that flight)

Tallahassee’s just alright (alright)

Something her feels just right (just right)

It’s that welcome song that let’s you know you’re gonna Be! Al-right!

So you put your hands up -> Dunder Millfin is a part of Sabre (x2)

Snarkiest Lines

1. Season Two, Episode Ten: Christmas Party (Ryan)

“What line of work are you in, Bob?”

2. Season Three, Episode Eleven: Back from Vacation (Angela)

“Did you try the petting zoo?”

3. Season Three, Episode Twenty-Three: The Job (Stanley)

“The same as the ratio of unicorns to leprechauns.”

4. Season Two, Episode Six: The Fight (Pam)

“Could you practice on the forms?”

5. Season Six, Episode Three: The Promotion (Oscar)

“Where would Catholicism be without the Popes?”

6. Season Six, Episode Five: Mafia (Dwight)

"That’s why they call it Murder, not Muckduck”

7. Season Four, Episode One: Fun Run (Jim)

“One day Michael came in complaining about a speed bump on the highway. I wonder who he ran over then”.

8. Season Three, Episode One: Gay Witch Hunt (Stanley)

“I got them a toaster. They called off the wedding and gave the toaster back to me. I tried to return the toaster to the store, and they said they no longer sold that kind of toaster. So now my house has got two toasters”.

9. Season Five, Episode Four: Baby Shower (Dwight)

"Jan had the baby, and Michael wasn’t there to mark it. So the baby could be anybody’s. Except Michael’s”.

10. Season Two, Episode One: The Dundies (Pam)

“You know what they say about a car wreck, where it’s so awful you can’t look away? The Dundies are like a car wreck that, you wanna look away, but you have to stare at it because your boss is making you”

Displaced, Deserted...Degraded?

Another library institution is school libraries, which if not more crucial to a community to a local library are at least equal. School libraries, as with education, can be a great building block and equalizer of the community and the current racial, economic, social, and other divides in our communities by bringing people together and expanding their horizons.

The city of Chicago has a lot of diversity with a portion of it having to do with it’s large immigrant communities. Separate from their history, the people of Chicago and from around the world come to see the  renowned museums mixed with avid sports fans, corporations and religious organizations. But for a community with so much action and so many people working hard and creating, there are apparently few school libraries. While people can pretend the age of smartphones, video games, and ereaders are partially to blame and make this change okay, from 2013 to 2017 the school libraries decreased by 65% (from 454 to 157)(1). This drop has been noted by students, some who didn’t even know school libraries were a thing and it’s a bigger deal than even they may understand. Similar to local libraries that can be centers of community, education, exploration, personal and community growth while promoting opportunities; school libraries do all that earlier on while also introducing children to reading. By introducing students to libraries earlier in their school years and as a part of education where they can choose their path, learning about different people’s stories and encouraging them to see reading as an expansion of their lives and can be a guide to their futures. Even something as simple as a library cart can make a world of difference, but I hope Chicago continues to work to bring back their school libraries for now and for all of our futures.  

(1)    https://www.saveschoollibrarians.org/chicagoschoollibrarians 

The Lion King

The Lion King is a big deal for me. The Lion King was both the first movie I saw in theatre and the first play I saw on Broadway and Lion King II: Simba’s pride was my first “new movie”. Similar to how the first Harry Potter book is my home of film, the Lion King story and series is my home of film. 

While the story is home for me and has a lot of great moments, there isn’t a particular connection to the story except for enjoyment. The opening scenes are what I remember most, the music and the visuals that the film received accurate praise on. 

The story is also good, you see Simba grow up and the characters of Rafiki, Timon and Pumbaa are original and home themselves. Rafiki, a somewhat sarcastic but also caring character, how people will choose not to listen and that it’s okay to not be seriously serious all the time. Timon and Pumbaa show that true friendship encompasses risking your life and how it’s okay to be different from your friends and also a little silly. 

The Lion King is also a movie/story that I’ve been able to look at differently as I’ve aged. While the opening sequence of music, artistical beauty and family resonate the same with me about 25 years later, I was able to have a deeper appreciation for the Broadway show when I saw it as an adult than when I was younger and my relationship and understanding with the characters has changed because while I remember the story, enough time has gone by where I don’t remember all the details and I am in some ways meeting the characters for the first time. 

Similar to The Lion King, The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride was also a film that I related to differently as I watched it. While at first Simba was just an annoying dad who didn’t understand, an older me appreciated the true fear he had for his daughter (while also wondering how he would have reacted about his son in the same situations). The biggest change for me occurs with Naku and the relationship with his mother, who learned too late how she should love all her children and how one can become broken when being considered less than by all sides and how much a sibling being there can help, as his sister Vitani was--even though she also teased him. 

Finally, The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, I remember watching it. I’m sitting on this plastic crappy desk in the tv room, I had just gotten the movie from a video store (woah), its playing a few feet away from me on this BIG tv that weighed more than I did and I got annoyed because we were leaving to go see a friend but I HAD to keep watching because I didn’t know how it ended!!! In that moment, I realized that I didn’t know how it ended. Prior to that movie every movie I had seen, I remembered seeing before and mostly remembered what happened (something I wish wasn’t the case as rewatching tv shows isn’t the same--but not important here). This was huge for me, so thank you Lion King, Lion Kin on Broadway and Lion King II: Simba’s Pride for being a great series reference points in my life so far

Hailed, Held, Hung

While my main venture into a library will be for books, as previously stated they are also community centers and should me a resource to increase opportunity and equality of the local residents. A recent episode of Patriot Act with Hasan Minhaj looked at another form of inequality, unequal access to the internet.

The internet had become an additional resource all residents in the U.S. and in other developed nations need to have in order to be a successful part of society. Further than the internet, more accurately it’s the instant access to the internet via smartphone but even if not instant the internet has replaced many telephone, mailing and older forms of communication and information access, especially when it comes to research, employment and getting assistance. And again, libraries were part of making up for these inequalities for those who cannot afford, understand or otherwise access the internet.

Unfortunately, again libraries and the communities who need these opportunities and access are hit the hardest. Closing libraries, shorter operating hours and fines related to late library books are creating a further divide. As the world progresses, we have to make sure that not only we don’t leave people behind but that we are doing what we can to rise everyone up together

Tough, Tattered and Tiny

A food desert, simply put, is an area in a community where at best residents and others in the community “best” access to food may be a local convenience store. Similarly, as technology has changed our world to more internet-based and virtual there are fewer libraries that are more spread out. While only hitting on a few of the benefits of libraries, these libraries have grown in the absence of traditional libraries. They’re small, partially funded by people’s unwanted or previously read books where you can take and leave books as you please and allows those who don’t have access to wider libraries to still keep the *free* possibility of reading open. A barrier that an enthusiastic reader such as myself cannot ignore.

 The most common, and smallest, are similar to those influenced or constructed by www.LittleFreeLibrary.org; that sells various little libraries that can be customized, eco-friendly and even some that also work as benches. While not ideal, these libraries can also serve as a viewpoint of the local community; are they sharing information about learning how to knit, how to join law enforcement, gaining citizenship? Are there more kids or adults, fashionistas or environmental advocates? Both? For those who cannot access a traditional local library, and even those that can; these smallest libraries are simply fabulous and I would encourage anyone to check out a book, check in a book or make a donation.

For nearly a decade, Diana Ramirez hadn’t been able to take a book home from the San Diego Public Library. Her borrowing privileges were suspended, she was told, because of a mere $10 in late fees, an amount that had grown to $30 over the years.

Ramirez, who is now 23 and stays in Tijuana with her mother, attends an alternative education program in San Diego that helps students earn high school diplomas. To her, the debt she owed to the library system was an onerous sum. Even worse, it removed a critical resource from her life.

“I felt disappointed in myself because I wasn’t able to check out books,” Ramirez said. “I wasn’t able to use the computers for doing my homework or filling out job applications. I didn’t own a computer, so the library was my only option to access a computer.”

In April, Ramirez finally caught a break. The San Diego Public Library wiped out all outstanding late fines for patrons, a move that followed the library system’s decision to end its overdue fines. Ramirez was among the more than 130,000 beneficiaries of the policy shift, cardholders whose library accounts were newly cleared of debt.

The changes were enacted after a city study revealed that nearly half of the library’s patrons whose accounts were blocked as a result of late fees lived in two of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. “I never realized it impacted them to that extent,” said Misty Jones, the city’s library director.

For decades, libraries have relied on fines to discourage patrons from returning books late. But a growing number of some of the country’s biggest public library systems are ditching overdue fees after finding that the penalties drive away the people who stand to benefit the most from free library resources.

From San Diego to Chicago to Boston, public libraries that have analyzed the effects of late fees on their cardholders have found that they disproportionately deter low-income residents and children.

‘We Wanted Our Patrons Back’ — Public Libraries Scrap Late Fines To Alleviate Inequity

Illustration: Connie Hanzhang Jin/NPR

Mommas

They are two characters that couldn’t be more different, they are also two characters who couldn’t have more in common: Molly Weasley and Fleur Delacour. 

While Fleur started out (and on some level remained) snobby and shallow, even when knowing her as a Triwizard Champion there were glimpses into someone who was more than that. For starters, she was a Triwizard Champion and showed to be brave, intelligent and talented. She would loudly talk down about Hogwarts’ decoration and education, but I feel there were reasons underneath for that, while she held herself to high regard she also wasn’t arrogant as when she did poorly she didn’t blame others but herself, usually being a harsher critic of herself than anyone else. Long before Bill, she proved to be loyal to those she considered her friends in going what she could to help them and showing distraught when they were killed. A rarity, she was also able to separate competition from competitors, making life-long bonds with Victor Krum and Harry Potter, and probably Cedric had he lived. 

While always the parent to be afraid of, Molly Weasley was generally seen as this strict for fair Mom. She hadn’t had a professional career of her own, focused on having many children, and took pride in the domestic chores that allowed her children and husband to have as easy and comfortable lives as possible. Tere are many things to adore and look up to in regards to Molly Weasley, she was never ashamed of being poor, always tried her best to help her children while not allowing them to be snobs (I’m sure Draco would still be Draco even if they didn’t have a Knut to their name) and of course, was the one who wore the pants in the family and outside and inside the home made sure others knew it was a wizards talent, nature and heart that made them good or bad, not their bloodline. 

During the Second Wizarding War, Molly joined the Order of the Phoenix, but still in a way that stayed true to her nature of being the natural caregiver by taking care of things on the home front (EXTREMELY IMPORTANT BTW--just a different type of person) instead of going out and battling. We all knew she was a badass, and not a woman to mess with but it is how she chose to use that badassery that blasted thru when she obliterated Bellatrix. Here, Ginny, Hermione and Luna, all (female--important) wizards who are noted at the top of their class and have fought in many battles before cannot destroy Bellatrix, but a mom? Momma Molly, easy. This was such an important element of her because for the most part it’s hidden and it is in this case that I connect her so much with Fleur. People have layers, they’re complex, they all react to things and show different aspects of themselves at different times. This is such an important thing to understand when it comes to being a human and connecting with others. 

Remember, Remember the Titans

This is one of those movies, stories, days where I am both excited and appalled about how much and how little has changed in the world. Remember the Titans hits on a lot of topics, some that are only becoming more discussed than they were in 2000 when the film was released, and definitely not when the film took place in 1971.

There is discussion about how this story isn’t real, but of course it’s real. It might not be the day-to-day real actions and challenges faced by this specific number of obstacles but this all did happen. While the main focus of the story is racism, but it also touches upon current-hot phrase toxic masculinity and homophobia. Boys who were taught to be one thing, come to realize what they have been taught is wrong, something especially difficult when it seems that it’s almost everyone that is telling you something else. As the younger generations are showing to be more open-minded and tolerant overall there still are obstacles for them against their parents’ and sometimes friends and shown with Gary and his mother and his girlfriend who couldn’t understand what he was thinking—even though they couldn’t explain their point of view. Separate from general teasing both the players and the coaches have difficulties seeing what they have in common with people they believe are ‘different’ from them—with the players having an automatic hatred of Sunshine and the coaches missing they are both strong leaders who try to be good, equal and fair men and attentive fathers.

So whether this film accurately portrays the Titan players of 1971 of Coach Boone, it does portray the changes and struggles people dealt with once they were able to interact with each other without the rhetoric of others. One of the most important parts of this are the diner scenes once the team starts winning. Gary’s character, who at first hates Julius and is racist, homophobic and a bunch of other crap, gets confused when his girlfriend doesn’t like Julius right off the bat. Excusing the fact that just weeks ago he hated this man for no reason, he doesn’t understand why she does—because his viewpoint has now changed. Gary deals with this again because while the team is okay with black players winning games, they’re not okay with them eating at their restaurants. I think one of the best parts of this film is the constant reminder that while they were able to come together at camp, they had to refight some of their own battles once they left – because the world isn’t just how they see it.