Today was full of fun games & activities and lots of learning.  My kind of day because I love both!  During one of the activities we were instructed to meditate on our breathing and then meditate on a memory of a work experience that brought us happiness.  I immediately remembered a little girl that was in my second grade class when I was teaching.  She was having trouble with reading and because her mom worked night, the only support she really had after school was her very young uncle who did not want to help her with reading.  I was trying differentiated teaching strategies, small group, one on one conferencing, but she was not having the progress I wanted her to have, so I decided to let her choose a partner to read with every day several times a day.  One day, all my students were partner reading while I called one student at time up to my desk for one on one conferencing.  She came running to my desk and shouting, “Ms. Todd!  Ms. Todd! I can read!  Listen! Listen! I can read!”  She then proceeded to read her book to me.  As I was meditating on this experience tears just swelled up in my eyes.  This is why I am a librarian.  Reading opens up new worlds, experiences, confidence, and knowledge so anything becomes a possibility.  I reflected on one my goals at LPL, which is to help parents and guardians help their children to get ready to read or become better readers and the thing is, this can apply to all ages of people.  I then remembered how I have always collected books and loved reading ever since I was a small child.  One may not be able to physically travel abroad due to different circumstances, but they can travel abroad through a fiction story, a nonfiction book about a particular country they might be interested in, or through the World Wide Web by using a library computer.  So many possibilities…  I was inspired to keep my focus on my goals and to create a long range plan for LPL, so that our resources continue to help patrons reach their dreams and goals so they may experience all that life has to offer them.