Category Archives: Just for Fun

Go, Team! Decorate your own Felt Pennant at this Week’s Crafternoon!

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Need a little therapeutic crafting pick-me-up?

Consider coming to one of the Durham Tech Crafternoons happening this week on the Main and Orange County Campuses and creating your own felt pennant!

felt pennants available for the upcoming crafternoon in various colors with fabric paint

Join us on Wednesday, September 22 from 11:00 AM to 1:00 PM in the Orange County Campus Lobby or on Thursday, September 23 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM downstairs in the Main Campus Library for some socially distanced fun.

Paint, felt pennant/banner, scissors, rulers, graph paper template (for those who like to do some planning), and some letters to create your own logo stencil will be provided. 

Crafternoons are co-sponsored by the Library and Student Engagement and are open to all students, faculty, and staff. 

yellow felt triangle banner/pennant on graph paper with scissors and ruler

Want some inspiration or your own template to work with? Keep reading! 

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Crafternoons are back!: Fall 2021 Schedule

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The Library, Student Government Association, and Student Activities Office are excited to announce our fall Crafternoon events schedule.

fall 2021 crafternoons: pennants, candles, agendas, and pumpkins

Supplies are provided and all students, faculty, and staff are welcome.  Come meet new friends, try new crafts, and relieve some stress!

We already held our first event of the semester– decorating agendas or notebooks–but we’ve got more planned! 

Event Location Date Time
Felt Pennants & ‘A
League of Their Own’ Movie 		Main Campus, Wynn
Multipurpose Room Main Campus Library, 105A Downstairs Study Room		 Thurs.,
Sept. 23 		1:00 PM –
3:00 PM
Felt Pennants Orange County Campus,
Lobby 		Wed.,
Sept. 22 		11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Pumpkin
decorating 		Main Campus, Wynn Cafe
outdoor patio 		Thurs.,
Oct. 28 		1:00 PM –
3:00 PM
Pumpkin
decorating 		Orange County Campus,
Lobby 		Wed.,
Oct. 27 		11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
Design Your
Own Wax
Candle 		Main Campus Library, 105A   Downstairs Study Room Thurs.,
Nov. 18 		1:00 PM –
3:00 PM
Design Your
Own Wax
Candle 		Orange County Campus,
Lobby 		Wed.,     Nov. 17 11:00 AM – 1:00 PM
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New Semester, New Goals (and pet pictures!)

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After a year of working from home, we’re (mostly) back on campus and ready for a great Fall 2021 semester. 

We all have goals for the new semester, but our work-from-home coworkers/roommates are excited to be setting new benchmarks for their  success.

Click through to read their goals cleverly used to promote some Library services (and see Library staff pet pictures— I’m not trying to bury the lede too much here). 

brown tabby with green eyes peeking Royalty-free peeking photos free download | Pxfuel
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What We’re Reading: I Will Teach You to Be Rich

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I Will Teach You To Be Rich by Ramit Sethi, Second edition

This book was read by Courtney Bippley, Main Campus Reference Librarian and Library podcaster.

Title: I Will Teach You to Be Rich, Second Edition 

Author: Ramit Sethi

Genre: Self-help/Personal finance

Read Great Things Challenge 2021 Categories: A book that will help with your self care, A book recommended by a Durham Tech Library staff member, Choose your own category (Personal finance book).

Summary: From iwillteachyoutoberich.com- Not just another boring, personal finance book. You don’t have to be perfect to be rich. Or the smartest person in the room. Or a type-A personality. In fact, with Ramit Sethi’s six-week program to financial independence, you can start with any amount of money, do just 85% of what he suggests, and succeed brilliantly through good times and bad.

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What We’re Reading: While Justice Sleeps by Stacey Abrams

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while justice sleeps by stacey abrams
Available at the Orange County Campus
(PS 3601 .B746 W45 2021)

A Supreme court justice in a mysterious coma puts his clever clerk in charge and in [repeated] danger in this exciting political thriller that deals with secret government dealings, bioethics, justice, regular ethics, corporate mergers, a chess move as metaphor, and complex family relationships. 

Title: While Justice Sleeps

Author: Stacey Abrams (yes, that Stacey Abrams)

Genre: Contemporary fiction, political thriller, who-dunnit

Read Great Things 2021 Categories: A book about family; Choose your own category–A THRILLER; A book recommended by Durham Tech Library staff (our favorite category)

This book was read by Meredith Lewis, the (mostly) Orange County Campus Librarian. 

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Read a Pie, Bake a Pie, Eat a Pie

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There should be another word for cookbooks that are only recipes for baked desserts. Bakebooks? Dessertbooks? Bakertbooks? We can workshop it later.

Regardless of what they are called, the library has them! I used one to make a pie on Memorial Day and it did not disappoint. The recipe came from Pie Every Day: Recipes and Slices of Life by Pat Willard. Click through to the rest of the post to see how my pie turned out!

Pie Every Day: Recipes and Slices of Life with 30 crusts and 118 ways to fill them. By Pat Willard.
Pie: not just for March 14th.
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What We’re Reading: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

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An American Marriage by Tayari Jones book cover
Available at the Main Campus (PS 3610 .O63 A84 2018) and as an ebook through Dogwood Digital Library

“Atlanta is where I learned the rules and learned them quick. No one ever called me stupid. But home isn’t where you land; home is where you launch. You can’t pick your home any more than you can choose your family. In poker, you get five cards. Three of them you can swap out, but two are yours to keep: family and native land.” –Roy Othaniel Hamilton Jr in An American Marriage 

Roy and his wife Celestial are a young, attractive, highly-educated African American couple on the way to living their dreams in Atlanta– he as a rising executive and she as a folk artist dollmaker.  Then they find themselves at the wrong place at the wrong time, and Roy is arrested and convicted of rape, shattering their world.  What will their marriage become after Roy’s incarceration, and can it possibly survive? 

This book was read by Susan Baker, Main Campus Librarian. 

Title: An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

Genre: Realistic, contemporary fiction

Reading Great Things 2021 Challenge Categories: A book recommended by Durham Tech Library staff, A book About social justice or equity, A book about family

This book was read by Susan Baker, Main Campus Librarian. 

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2021 Durham Tech Library Poetry Month Bookmarks!

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Thanks to everyone who sent me your favorite poem! 

This year’s poetry month bookmarks contain some nature poems, some poems about peeking at other people’s houses (consensually), an ode to James Baldwin, and several more. 

screenshots of the bookmark images to accompany 2021's poems

Click through to download previous years’ and 2021’s Durham Tech Library Poetry Month bookmarks, which include Joy Harjo’s “Ah, Ah,” Danez Smith’s “little prayer,” Kay Ryan’s “Sharks’ Teeth,” Stanley Kunitz’s “Halley’s Comet,” Rita Dove’s “My Mother Enters the Work Force,” Karl Shapiro’s “The Living Rooms of My Neighbors,” an excerpt from Amanda Gorman’s “In This Place (An American Lyric),” Ellen Bass’s “The Thing Is,” Terrance Hayes’s “[Seven of the ten things I love in the face],” and David Whyte’s “Horses Moving on the Snow.”

The file is a pdf, so you can print your own (and color them in, if that’s your thing). 

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