Currently Reading

.... will report back soon.

The miserable countdown has begun.

A distinguished (now retired) colleague of mine once explained that the portion of the school year between Spring Break and the end of the year could be described as "a freight train to Hell." I kind of feel the same way about the end of summer.


It seems as though Fourth of July marks the turning point for those of us here in Georgia. It's there to warn us that we will be back at school in one short month, and the days just seem to roll by at an uncontrollable pace from that point.


There's nothing you can do but watch in horror as your calendar gets closer and closer to THE dreaded day.


Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I can't imagine doing anything else, but there is nothing like weeks of hot sun, poolside reading, and hours of leisure time. It really is a shock to the system to go back on a schedule of any kind.


This is probably why it has been so difficult for me to start reading school books. I need to review some texts to teach British Lit and there has been a new summer reading book added for one of my courses, so I have needed to get on that as well. This past Tuesday seemed like the perfect day to do so. It was rainy outside, and I had spent my day grocery shopping and cleaning up a little around the house.

I made myself a pot of Earl Gray and sat down to read a bit as I could hear the rain falling. Both of my dogs were sleeping soundly at my feet and all was well. A while later, the dryer buzzed, and I walked upstairs to fold a load of laundry. When I returned maybe 5 minutes later, this is what I found:









Can somebody please explain how this.....



.....can do this?

I read so slowly when I read for school becuase I am making notes and "digesting" the material in order to teach it. Notes. On. Every. Page.

Gone.

[For the record, it was Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and I have another one on the way. Despite my frustraition with that little mishap, I'm excited to teach this one, and I love that it relates so well to the age group I am teaching.]

I guess next time I should leave my book on the counter or something. Apparently the coffee table if not safe from the wild destruction that is my dog.

a little shopping

I am teaching British Lit next year for the first time, and I really wanted a couple of posters for my classroom. I've done a little browsing on Cafepress.com, and I have actually found more t-shirts and bumper stickers than posters - not helpful for my situation, but I had to share them.

First we have this....

And then there's this.......
And last but not least.....

My family is at least as crazy as yours.

I have relatives in town from Texas, so this Fourth of July turned into a little bit of a family reunion. My niece is 3 and a half years old. Usually people entertain children with toys, books, movies. Not us.

We place a "thump bug" in an aluminum dish pan to watch it jump. And then we have a conversation about it.



Uncle: "Look, Peyton. It's a Jump bug!"

Great Aunt #1: "No. It's a Thump bug. T-H-U-M-P. Thump."

Great Aunt#2: "Are you sure that it's not a Blister bug? My daddy had to chop down a tree once because it was covered in Blister bugs. They land on your hand or somethin' and leave a blister where they were."

Great Aunt #1: "Look Peyton! It's thumping. That's because it's a Thump bug."

Uncle's Girlfriend (not from the south): "Is that the scientific name for them?"

Aunt #1: "Well, yeah. What else would they be called?"

Aunt#2: "What she needs now is a frog in a shoebox. Then it could smoke a cigarette."

Everyone: "Huh?"

Aunt#2: "Yeah. My cousins used to do that when we were little. If you get a cigarette started, and then put it the frog's mouth, it'll smoke it."



I mean what's more entertaining than this? Oh, how I love the dirty south.

Proof That English Teachers are Real People, Too

I remember one time that I was using some audio recordings of Julius Caesar to help my students understand it, and one of them raised his had to ask me if I rode around in my car listening to literary recordings all the time. The whole class thought it was far funnier than it really was, of course, but I assured him that I usually listen to real music - if one can fathom that. [Now as an aside, yes I do like books on tape occasionally, but I didn't feel like that was the time to reveal that information.]

My point is that many of my students probably think I live under my desk - which is generally they way I like it to be. Proof, however, that I am normal?.......CHICK LIT!

Let's be honest, as fun as it is to look at literature from a more critical perspective and dissect it, it is equally as fun to read a juicy story that makes you laugh out loud. This great suggestion came courtesy of a friend. (Thanks, Kristen!) It is a perfect summer, forget-about-school novel.

This book is about a young woman who begins to post journal entries on the Internet to pass the time at her mundane job. The journal entries are truly funny and interesting, so lots of people begin to read them. This situation is complicated because she sort of stretches a few details or "rearranges" things in her life to seem a bit different than they really are. She is okay with this because she really sort of sees her task as fiction writing. A mysterious man begins to write to her, though, and she finds herself suddenly wishing she had been honest so that this promise of a relationship could develop. What ensues definitely keeps the pages turning, and there are some really funny moments with a genuinely likable narrator. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it's a perfect by-the-pool summer read.



The first entry that she posts is a funny remembrance of playing with Barbies and her Donny and Marie collectibles who had holes in their hands so that they could hold stuff. I had to include some of it.


"Donny was wearing plastic tighty-whiteys. Seriously. There was an extra ridge of plastic that went around Donny's waist and legs. There was no bulge.....He also had a hole in his hand, but if you did it just right, you could stick in one of Barbie's spiked heels in the hole and have him sniff Barbie's shoe. Donny and Marie didn't have the money for rent, so they lived off their love in a Buster Brown shoe box. Only a ten-year-old can create an incestuous Mormon celebrity relationship and have it be romantic. [....] One day the Barbie without a head convinced Donny and Marie to put pink and blue Life pegs through the holes in their hands. The Barbies pretended the pegs were hits of acid and got the Osmonds to think they could fly." (Ribon 2-3)