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)