Don't Bother Me, I'm Ending World Hunger

Somebody help me - I'm addicted to FreeRice.com! Tomorrow I have to go back to work after a few days off, so some of the rest of you take over. C'mon, you can spare a few minutes to end world hunger, right?

Brief Moment of Sun

What do you do on your first day of sunshine in a week? The answer for many of the people in this city is: laundry! Roofs, bushes, even the occasional clothesline, were covered with drying clothes. I just hope they got them down in time, because now it's raining again!

Saturday Review of Books

Here's today's edition.

Carnival

Here's this week's Education Carnival.

Poetry Friday

Although I've been reading a lot of poetry lately, and writing some too, I don't have a poetry post for today. I do, however, know who does. Check out the Poetry Friday roundup here.

Little Problems and Big Problems

Rain, rain, rain. There's rain in the forecast every day through November 10th. This is not the kind of weather we expect here. Normally, even in the rainy season, the rain is mostly at night. Here are the problems I have: Seasonal Affective Disorder - I guess that's an exaggeration, but this weather makes me feel depressed, and with all the life events recently, I'm already not feeling cheery; laundry has been on the line for days and is still as wet as when it was hung up; the solar fridge/freezer is completely thawed, making it just like our fridge used to be back when we had a regular one plugged into the city power; everything in my house is damp and cold and miserable; the power is out again - this time we have one phase, and it's not the same phase as we had last time, so some things work and others don't, and the electrician thinks this was probably caused by the wind and the rain, but we'll see when he gets here in half an hour or so.

But of course, living in this country always gives me perspective on my own little problems. Because here are some of the problems around me: many houses have been washed away; there is extensive flooding; the two-digit number of casualties in the news is estimated by some to be more like a four-digit number. People who had very little to start with have lost everything. And more lives have been lost than will ever be properly counted, many in remote areas that are hard to access at the best of times.

So I guess I can put up with my problems.

Who Knew Ending World Hunger Was This Easy?

Try playing the vocabulary game at FreeRice.com. For every word you get right, ten grains of rice will be donated through the UN to help end world hunger.

I don't get it, exactly. If these companies can donate, why don't they donate anyway, without me playing a game? But on the other hand, I'm enjoying the game...

DP Theme Day

Today's the Daily Photo blogs' theme day for November. The theme this month is "Blue." Here's Eric's entry on Paris Daily Photo, along with links to the other participants. But for some reason he doesn't seem to have a link to Jenny's post from Sharon, CT. Looking at these beautiful photos was just what I needed today. I loved many of them, like this one from Papua New Guinea and this one from Ocean Township, New Jersey.

Rain

It keeps raining and raining and raining. Everything feels damp and clammy. The clothes are molding on the line.

I think a lesson on the pathetic fallacy might be in order. It really does seem as if nature is grieving along with us. On Monday the kids were saying that God was crying.

Weather

We ended up not having school today, due to a huge storm that has devastated the country. The government called a day off school - but not until 7:15 this morning, at which point many teachers and students had already arrived. In some ways it's a blessing, since this gives some space to take care of details. We'll get together again tomorrow to mourn our friend.

Grief

Today was a horrible day, but I guess the only way through grief is to go through it. That's how I've been talking all day, sounding kind of like Yoda. Or at least, like someone who's been through this grief thing before. I've said "I don't know" lots of times too, though. As in, "I don't know why she died when she was so young and doing so much good work." And, "I don't know why things like this happen." Lots of the time I didn't know what to say, but we all cried together and it seemed to work out somehow.

We started the day with an assembly, telling the kids exactly what had happened and sharing some scripture with them. Some of the kids said they didn't really believe it was true until they saw the Director crying during his talk. Honestly, I don't know how one would deal with a situation like this in a school without some kind of spiritual beliefs, because what is there to say in the face of death? What comfort can you give or receive without God's help?

We went to class, and we spent some time talking about our loss, remembering this person we all loved so much. There were many tears. Later we went out to the display that had been set up with photos and memorabilia from her office. There was paper for the kids to write things they remembered and appreciated about her. All of these writings will be put in a book for her family.

While I was in front of the display, kids were coming back and forth from my classroom. After a while I went back to check on the ones who were inside and there was a smell of burning. I had lit a votive candle which a staff member had given me this morning, and I had also stupidly left the matches on my desk and then left the room. What was I thinking? It turns out that some of my boys had been setting fire to pieces of toilet paper (we had a roll in the front of the room for nose-blowing purposes) and someone had even dropped one of the burning squares of paper into the recycled paper box. Thankfully we didn't have a burned down school to add to our list of crises, but it was a reminder that seventh graders can careen quickly from heartfelt grief to acts of arson. And that they shouldn't ever be left alone with matches.

When my eighth graders came, they were pretty much wrung out from a morning talking and grieving together. We talked for a few minutes and then we played a rousing game of Taboo. I felt a bit uncomfortable, as though we weren't being respectful, but then I remembered that K. knew these kids - she had taught them! - and that she would understand what I needed to do to get through my day with them. They were genuinely devastated by the loss but there's only so much crying you can do at one time. We all need breaks from the high emotion.

Tomorrow I'm going back to normal teaching. I'll be sensitive to students who need to talk, but none of us can handle the free-form grieving any more. On Wednesday morning we will have a memorial service and then we are off the rest of the week (national holidays).

I always read a poem with my students each day, and tomorrow I am planning to use Death, be not proud. And yes, it's a bit much for seventh and eighth graders, so here's the paraphrase I wrote. I'm planning to read my version first, and then Donne's. (I know his is way better, by the way. But if you have suggestions for how I could improve on mine, please feel free to comment.)

Death, don't think you're all that, even though some have said you're mighty and dreadful - you aren't. You think you're defeating those who die, but that's not the way it is, and you can't kill me, either. We get pleasure from rest and sleep, which are just imitations of you - won't we get even more pleasure when we die? As soon as good people die, they get rest for their bodies and freedom for their souls. You, Death, are a slave to many things - fate, chance, rulers, criminals. You hang out with poison, war, and sickness. If we want to sleep, we can always take Tylenol PM and get a better rest than you can give us, so what do you have to be proud about? After a short sleep, we'll wake to eternal life, and you, Death, won't even exist any more. Death: you're going to die!

If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be getting through these days. Because I do believe it, I can, somehow.

A Death in the Family

We have lost a colleague this weekend, a young, beautiful, and healthy woman. To my readers who know me personally and know where I'm writing from, email me for more details.

Middle School Drama

Mrs. Bluebird says: "I quit watching soap operas when I began to teach middle school because I have all the drama I can stand in my life."

Boy, is she right!

You can read the rest of the post here.

Saturday Review of Books

Here's today's edition.

Poetry Friday

Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at Literary Safari. One of these days I'm going to get organized enough to participate, too.

Reading Update

I haven't posted a reading update since August, and the reason, plain and simple, is that I haven't been reading much. Which makes me feel like a slug. I have so much grading every night and often fall asleep just a few pages into whatever I'm reading after I finally clear away all the student writing. I love Writer's Workshop, but someone rescue me from the huge stack to read every single evening.

Anyway, here goes...

Book #59 was a teacher book, The Nine Rights of Every Writer: A Guide for Teachers, by Vicki Spandel. It's mostly of the inspiration variety rather than the "here's what you can do in class" variety. Some very practical tips, though. Recommended.

Book #60: My Sister's Keeper. This was my first Jodi Picoult book and I liked it enough that I tried another one, Second Glance, but that one didn't grab me and I didn't finish it. My Sister's Keeper has a few too many neat coincidences, but overall I was fascinated by the premise and it kept me turning pages.

Book #61 was All American Girl, by Meg Cabot. This one was from my classroom library. It's a fun, quick read and quite popular with my seventh and eighth grade girls.

Books #62 and #63 were murder mysteries by Elizabeth George, In the Presence of the Enemy and For the Sake of Elena. I've commented before how amazing it is that Elizabeth George is American, because her British diction is just about perfect, at least to me it is, and remember that I haven't been in England in - ahem - well, just about twenty years now, but at one point I lived there for four years.

It truly is pitiful to me that I've only read that much since August, but right now I'm reading a couple of good books that perhaps I'll have something to say about: Kids Are Worth It (a reread - this is one of my favorite parenting books) and The Writing Workshop: Working Through the Hard Parts (And They're All Hard Parts) (which I'm loving). I haven't started a new novel yet but I have a big stack of them waiting for me.

This Week's Carnival

My grades are due today, but I will spare a moment to link you to this week's Carnival of Education.

So That's It

"The more you bang away, the more it becomes a classic, dunnit?" - Mick Jagger, interviewed on NPR this morning

Books Middle School Boys Will Fight Over

I know, I know, we're not looking for ways to get them to fight, but I have to admit I was secretly happy when my boys almost came to blows over a book. The series many of them are enjoying right now - and fighting over - is the Spy High series. I also have lots who are reading the Artemis Fowl books. I see from the site I just linked that there's a graphic novel coming out. I don't have that in my classroom - just the old-fashioned ones with words in them. The kids love them.

More Links to Other People

Ursula K. Le Guin has some interesting things to say about writing. Thanks to Semicolon for getting me browsing on this site.

I found this next one on Blogger and it's priceless: The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. And a link from that site to one mocking my own pet peeve - Apostrophe Abuse.

And here's The YA YA YAs, a blog about YA literature. And Poetry for Children, a blog about - well, you figure it out. Thanks, Chicken Spaghetti.

In Which My Blog Becomes Devoid of all Original Content, Merely a Place to Post Links to Other People's Sites

Here's this week's Saturday Review of Books.

And here's yesterday's Poetry Friday roundup.

And now I'm off to work on my grades and next week's lessons.

Wednesday Off

We had the day off today - a national holiday. It's wonderful to have a Wednesday off and know you're going back to two days, and then another whole weekend! Of course, I worked a lot today, but this evening I have absolutely no grading to do. I also entered lots of grades on the computer. Friday is the last day of the first quarter and report cards are looming.

Here's this week's Carnival.

So Now it's the Water

Remember I said that city water was our only utility that was working?

Yeah.

Earlier this week there was roadwork on our street - big trucks smoothing things out and spreading mud about. We don't know if that's the extent of the work or if there are plans to pave it. But in any case, this afternoon we noticed water spurting out of the pipe across the street, rather than into our cistern. Passers by were collecting it. I even saw someone having a drink. (Hint: just because it has potable in the name of the company doesn't mean that the water is potable. I'd boil it first, lady.) Yes, the lovely big trucks broke the water line.

It's raining a lot now - too much, in fact, and there are reports of flooding around the country - but we hope we can get this little problem fixed before the dry season starts.

Carnival Time Again

Here's this week's edition of the Education Carnival.

Troy Revisited

Turns out the crying over the mention of his father wasn't added by Brad Pitt. Achilles does it in the Homeric story, too. My apologies.

Rats

In view of the rat craze reportedly sweeping France, I guess we can expect to have lots of tourists coming to see our enormous, abundant rats. Surely you're kidding about the rat craze, BBC. Tell me it's a joke.

Troy

I'm reading a kids' retelling of the Iliad with my eighth graders right now. Last year I read Black Ships Before Troy and this year I'm using The Trojan War. So far I like this year's version better; it seems easier for the kids to follow and understand. Less emphasis on the funeral pyres, which got to be almost a joke last year when I was reading Rosemary Sutcliff's retelling.

I just watched the movie Troy. While I feel sure my kids would enjoy it, obviously I can't show it to them, since it's rated R, and deservedly so.

I enjoyed seeing the places where the filmmakers changed and adapted the story. The most important difference is that the Hollywood version completely eliminates the supernatural element of the story. They do show the desecration of the temple of Apollo, and some characters are alarmed by this; Briseis is shown to be some kind of a believer in the gods; several characters, including Priam, refer to the gods as forces in human life. However, both Hector and Achilles appear to mock the idea that the gods have anything to do with people, and certainly there is none of the interplay between what's going on with the immortals and what's happening on earth that is constant in Homer.

Beyond that, there are many places where the movie takes liberties with the story. Several characters die who aren't supposed to until much later. Some survive who are supposed to die. Achilles seems more of a tortured hero in the movie than he is in the book; Homer makes him seem a bit of a spoiled brat and a mama's boy, but the Brad Pitt Achilles cries over Hector's body, which he just got done desecrating. There are also some misty eyes over the mention of Achilles' father. (Edit: turns out the conversation between Priam and Achilles over Hector's body - including the references to Achilles' dear old dad - is pretty much as Homer wrote it.)

I don't know what soldiers of this time period looked like but I have a hard time imagining that they wore the combination medieval knight/Roman soldier garb shown here. But hey, all the guys look really good, so I guess that's what counts. I did like the way you could see the Trojans watching from the top of the wall. I talked to my students about that, and how the whole concept of warfare was completely different from today.

In all, I found this movie entertaining, but the violence is grotesque and there are several scantily-clad ladies on view. Not for eighth-graders.

Take a Look at This Week's Carnival of Education!

Here it is.

Mice

Yesterday morning when I was waiting for the electrician, I saw THREE mice in my living room. Of course my daughter immediately said they must have been blind, but if they were, they were certainly dealing with it well. I've never seen anything like the way these mice were carrying on. They were dancing around - frolicking is only word for it. I know this makes me sound like Beatrix Potter, but it is the truth. Later I saw one in the kitchen that seemed a bit more business-like and serious about life.

Here's another mouse post from last year.

Fixed

Our electrician came over early this morning and repaired our connection. There's still some work to be done but it basically works. What a relief. Not only that, but we got hours of electricity today. It's off now, though.

Saturday Review of Books

Here's this week's edition.

Electricity Update

Well, I've been trying to avoid the subject, but a couple of my loyal readers have emailed me to ask what's going on with the electricity. Since I don't have more than a couple loyal readers, I have to keep them happy, so here goes.

Last night the electric company came to fix the transformer. They came not because Neighbor 1 had been calling them every few minutes all day, though he had, but because Neighbor 2 went out and tracked down a repair truck and paid the guys money to come to our neighborhood. When they arrived, they began asking other neighbors for money as well. (See Thursday's post about corruption. It's a way of life here.)

By the time the repairmen left, the other houses in our neighborhood had power, but ours still did not. The only thing we can figure is that it has something to do with the rewiring we had done when we got the new generator. The light comes on in our kitchen showing that the electricity is coming to the house, but none of the appliances is being reached by the electricity. (You can tell from my bumbling explanation that I have only the vaguest concept of how any of it works.)

Our electrician (who in a country with low employment is doing very well for himself, even if we're the only people he works for) is coming over this afternoon to work on the problem. We hope the power comes on before he gets here, because otherwise he can only do a limited amount.

I am heartily sick of the whole subject, and in fact I had decided yesterday that I was going to focus on living with the "new normal" of generating all our own power, and stop even thinking about the electric company. In fact, I was pretending they didn't exist. Denial was working very well for me until they showed up last night and raised my hopes again.

Let's just not talk about it any more.

Article on S.E. Hinton

I'm going to share this article with my students on Monday. A 40th anniversary edition of The Outsiders has just come out and the author has been talking about her writing.

I can't tell you how much my kids love this book - boys and girls, good readers and not-so-good. It strikes a nerve with everybody. It's incredible that it's 40 years old, since some of my students think a book from the nineties is too old to bother with. They've never heard of Paul Newman, who's mentioned in the first few lines of the book because that's how Ponyboy wants to look. (My students didn't even know about the salad dressing, but no doubt that's because they don't live in the U.S.) I told them to take my old-lady word for it, he was/is a heart-throb! There are many references in the book they don't get. But it doesn't matter. The story is so alive to them that they don't even care.

I love what Hinton has to say about teenagers, about writing, and about the book. I'm glad she took the time away from her current writing project to do the interview!

Corruption Index Comes Out Again

Transparency International just came out with the annual Corruption Perception Index, ranking the countries of the world based on how corrupt they are. Once again, this country is very corrupt, but some other countries have apparently become even more so because we aren't ranked quite as high - or low, I guess - as we were last year.

Take a look. You can even see how your country compares with others. You might be surprised.

Here's what I posted when the list came out last year.

Spoke Too Soon

When the power came on, we had some brownouts and then the power went in and out for about fifteen or twenty minutes. Then there was a huge boom and the sky lit up, and then nothing. Fortunately that boom came from a different transformer, not our beautiful brand new one, but the effect is the same - no lights, and this time it's worse because the solution we'd put all our hopes in didn't work. I called the power company and they said they'd come right away, but we all know that doesn't mean they'll come right away.

Sigh.

Transformed

The new transformer has been installed. The power company came today and put it up on the pole, only three weeks after we purchased it. (We went together with a bunch of neighbors, knowing that the power company would not replace the burned-out one in our lifetimes.)

We're excited - now when/if the city power comes on tonight, we'll have lights! (Right now we're running the generator.)

And just think, gentle reader, now this blog can stop being all about how I have no electricity. I was about to change the title to "Whine Whine Whine Poor Me in the Dark."

Carnival

Here's this week's Carnival of Education.

Utility, Futility

So I had this brainstorm this morning. What if, instead of everybody having their own generators and polluting the neighborhood with noise and diesel fumes, we had one big generator, run by a company - we could call it the Electric Company - and then we could pay them and they could generate our electricity. That way, when things went wrong, they could fix it. For example, if a transformer burned out, they could get the new transformer and put it in, perhaps right away, without waiting THREE WEEKS. Isn't it a brilliant idea? I wonder if anybody else has ever thought of it?

So now our phone isn't working. I asked the school secretary to call for me because she has a track record of good responses. She tried yesterday, but guess what? All three repair numbers are out of service.

We got a water bill the other day and we didn't pay it yet. This morning I mentioned it to my husband at breakfast. "We need to pay the (insert name of water company which includes the word potable, just as a little joke) bill."

My son said, "What's (insert name of water company which includes the word potable, just as a little joke)?"

I replied, "It's our last working utility, so we have to pay the bill so they don't cut us off!"

The fact is, though, that we haven't received much water from the company lately. (You can read a description here of how it works.) Thankfully, God has been providing rain water.

Oh, and our internet works, too, but you kind of need electricity for that.

Hyphens are History

My dad sent me this article about how hyphens are going the way of the dodo. Well, I'm keeping the one in the name of my blog. Just doing my part for the has-been hyphen.

Weekend

We're just back from a weekend retreat, a wonderful time away at the beach - life as it's supposed to be when you're living in the tropics, but, alas, so rarely is. Not only did we have the ocean, and the pool, and friends, and a wonderful speaker, but we had 24-hour electricity that we did not have to worry about generating ourselves. Oh, and the greatest luxury of all - yes, ladies and gentlemen, I speak of hot showers! So wonderful. I felt so good after my first one, Friday afternoon, that I could hardly stay awake in the session that evening. Partly, yes, that was because I was exhausted from a morning of doing parent-teacher conferences in three languages, but partly it was just feeling so relaxed by the hot water.

Even so, it was good to get home.

Another Carnival

Wow, where did that week go? I've been buried under progress reports. We don't usually do them this early in the year, but we're trying something new. We're going to have conferences midway through the first quarter and give out detailed progress reports. This is supposed to head off problems rather than telling the parents about them after it's already too late to change things for the first quarter. I'm all for it in theory, but in practice it's been loads and loads of work. Usually we're just required to do progress reports on new students and students who are getting below a C, but this time we had to do them for every single student, after only four weeks of school. But I got finished today, and now I'm ready for the parents to come talk on Friday.

So, time to relax at the Education Carnival.

Beckett for Babies

Introduce your baby to the gloomiest of the Existentialists!

via Chicken Spaghetti.

Living Without Electricity by Choice

This family actually chose to have no electricity, unlike our family, who had it forced upon us. As you'll see, they are living without a few other things as well.

Saturday Review of Books

I'm behind on these as well. Enjoy this Saturday Review of Books on the Ides of September.

Child Mortality at Record Low

There's nothing like a positive, encouraging newspaper article! Take a look!

Carnival

I am seriously behind in linking to Education Carnivals. It's been weeks since I've even looked at one. Here's the latest.

I Saw What I Saw

Tara posted this today. Go look at it.

Madeleine L'Engle

My aunt forwarded an email to me from a friend of hers. It was called "If I Were a Blogger," and the friend had written that someone should blog reflections about L'Engle to celebrate the wonderful writer who died last Thursday.

A lot of people have. Thanks to Semicolon for rounding up some of what's been said.

Dark Village

I read this article earlier this week. This village has the opportunity to get electricity, and while many people are for it, some aren't. I found this quite interesting:


(Beginning of excerpt)

Masawo, 28, used to work in the city but returned to the village when his parents died.

He talks of a special community spirit, which he fears may disappear forever.

"Without electricity, people get together after work; they share things with each other, tell stories. I think it's a better life.

"It's not necessary to have electricity. You can wash clothes by hand. With no TV, we have more time to chat and discuss together."

And even though the women spend much of the time in the kitchen cooking and cleaning by hand, mother-of-four Okoc is also reluctant to see change.

"I like things the way they are. Here we use oil lanterns, like in the old times. It seems better like that. If you had power, you wouldn't be able to see all the stars, and all the natural living things, like frogs and other animals, would run away."

...

Presbyterian church leader Rev Chang Ying-mei - who has been instrumental in helping the village think about how it wants to develop in the future - hopes the advent of electricity will bring only superficial changes.

"Power won't change their lives..." she began to say, "but who knows? People's desires are endless.

"I'm positive about the future because the village spirit is strong," she added.

(End of excerpt - you can read the rest of the article at the link above.)


While you might think that the older people would want the traditional ways and the younger ones would be calling for modernization, in fact the exact opposite is true. I wonder what will happen.

Meanwhile, this is a good reminder to me to savor the advantages of having no electricity from time to time!

Update

I suppose that last entry was a bit cryptic. I was feeling overwhelmed by the daily details of my life, and discouraged that the hymn was counseling me to be contented with "room to deny myself." It seemed to me that I was getting plenty of opportunity to deny myself.

The update on the electricity situation is that we have been hemorrhaging money and we are now the proud owners of a new generator (one which works, which is a big improvement over the old one) AND new batteries for our inverter. We also contributed to a neighborhood project to buy a new transformer, since it's clear that the electric company isn't going to bring us one. It's exhausting to spend so much time, energy and money on something that we're already paying someone else to provide. (In the process of installing the new generator, two appliances got fried due to problems with wiring which we weren't aware of before, and, in an unrelated incident, our washing machine has quit.)

And yet...as always, when living in a country like this one, I feel guilty for complaining about any of this because it just illustrates how little I have to complain about. We had a bunch of problems but we also were able to pay for them to be fixed. We lost some appliances but, hey, we had them in the first place. The washing machine is sitting out back being worked on intermittently by a mechanic who is also doing many other tasks, but I didn't have to walk from the river this morning with water on my head. I've never had to wonder which of my children I could afford to send to school, or how I was going to feed my kids supper tonight. So all in all, it feels pretty pathetic to whine about my problems.

And yet...there are always more "yets." I still have to get my work done, whether or not I have lights to grade by. I still need to be cheerful the next day after having trouble sleeping with no fans (heat and mosquitoes both keep one from sleeping well!). I still have to look across the street and see the street light shining on the people who have electricity. That's my daily round, my common task. I feel ashamed that I don't have the grace to deal with even these few difficulties the way I see people around me dealing with far worse situations.

As Alana reminds me, glory to God for all things.

The Daily Round

This came to mind as I was exercising this morning, from an old hymn that I haven't sung for many years:

The daily round, the common task
Should furnish all we ought to ask:
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.

I suppose it's true, but it sure sounds dreary, doesn't it?

DP Blog Theme Day - Street Light or Street Sign

On the first of every month, the Daily Photo blogs have a theme day, and today's theme is a street light or street sign. My favorite so far is from Rabaul, Papua New Guinea. (You'll see why it appeals to me, I think.) You can find links there to the other blogs participating today. Take a look.

Morning

Good thing I enjoyed my electricity last night, because this morning the generator was leaking gas. Gas that cost over $5 US a gallon, I might add. So, guess more repairs are needed.

Sigh.

The house across the street (the one with its own transformer, but I'm not jealous) had electricity most of the night. I am just so happy for them. Yes, I am.

So Far, So Good

The school year has started off well, with a minimum of drama. I did have a student who had not completed his summer reading assignment and who gave as his excuse that he had inadvertently burned the assignment while he was burning all of the remains of his sixth grade year. So we'll be keeping the matches away from that one. (I had plenty of students who didn't do their summer reading, but most of the excuses were more mundane, such as "I didn't feel like doing my summer reading." Refreshingly honest, anyway.)

One of the two air conditioners in my classroom is working, and I have fans here and there (though one of my ceiling fans has no blades on it - presumably the result of my request for said fan to be repaired over the summer), so the room is very comfortable - well, once the kids leave it actually gets rather cold. My room still looks great even after two days of students in it.

The schedule is almost all ironed out, which in my experience is amazing after only two days. Pretty much everyone is behaving - though that could just be because they are figuring things out and laying plans for mayhem.

While things are going smoothly at school, at home is a different story. Our electricity problems are back. City power is out once again, after working for two weeks. (By the way, explain to me, if you can, why our electricity bill was so much larger than usual last month when our connection has been non-functional for five or six out of the last eight weeks?) Just to add to our enjoyment, our generator stopped working this week, as well. That is now repaired, and we have been able to enjoy such luxuries as running water once again. (Yes, I know, I know, it IS a luxury, compared to most of the world.) Right now, the house across the street, whose owners have sensibly invested in their own transformer, has city power, but we don't on this side of the street. Our neighbors to the right and left are running their generators. Normally, I would be rushing about, calling all the numbers I have for the power company (at least five, I think), begging them to come fix the problem. But I guess I am becoming more accustomed to the culture of Tecwil, which calls for enjoying the moment and being glad that there's some charge in the inverter batteries and the fan and internet connection are working. I'll worry about the rest of the problems tomorrow!

I'm Ready!

OK, kids, you can come to school now! I'm ready!

New-to-Me Blogs and Update

Here are two blogs I've been reading lately:

Nitty.Gritty. Jody's life has been marred by terrible tragedy, but her faith and joy are an inspiration.

Jonalyn Grace Fisher. I just heard of this woman in connection with her new book, which I haven't yet read, Ruby Slippers. It looks intriguing.

I've spent the last week working in my classroom. I've filed all the loose papers I just chucked in a box at the end of last year, entered all my new classroom library books on the computer and shelved them with the help of my daughter, and put up most of the stuff on the walls (still have a couple of bulletin boards to do). I've written parent letters, thought through how I'll handle several matters differently this year, cleaned out my cabinet and all my desk drawers. I still have more to do, but I've accomplished a great deal already. On Monday we start teacher meetings, but I'll still have some time to work in my room. The main copy machine is broken but it's supposed to be fixed tomorrow - I hope it will be!

Summer is almost over.

Reading Update

I'm working in my classroom, going through cupboards and desk drawers, getting rid of junk from three or four teachers ago. I need a break.

So, here are the books I've read lately:

Book #53 was Portrait of an Unknown Woman, by Vanora Bennett. It's told from the point of view of an adopted daughter of Thomas More. This is a time period I enjoy reading about, and there were some characters I knew a bit about already. In all, an entertaining read.

Book #54 was Fairest, by Gail Carson Levine. I didn't like it as much as Ella Enchanted, but it was good nonetheless. I read this one because my daughter wanted me to. (A character or two from Ella shows up!)

Book #55 and book #56 were Dreamland and This Lullaby, both by Sarah Dessen. A student of mine had been recommending Dessen for a while so I wanted to try her books. I enjoyed both of these, probably the first one a bit more.

Book #57 was the long-awaited Eclipse, by Stephenie Meyer. These books were also recommendations from a student. Somehow, I had it in my head that this series was a trilogy. I kept thinking that somehow everything was going to be wrapped up, and the closer I got to the end, the more I saw how impossible that was. Sure enough, I visited Meyer's site, and she wrote that there was no way she was stopping with three books. So I'll have to wait - again - for the next book!

For book #58 I went back to teacher books - this one was Boy Writers: Reclaiming their Voices, by Ralph Fletcher. I've been wanting to read this since I first saw it advertised, and it didn't disappoint. It's one of my long-term goals to make my classroom, and my teaching, more boy-friendly. Fletcher offers some great ways to do so. I think any teacher could benefit from reading this, particularly those like me, a female lit major who loves Jane Austen. It's a challenge to see things through the eyes of boys, but I'm working on it. (Having a son helps a lot, I'm finding!)

And now, back to the mess...

Their Past is a Foreign Country

Here's an interesting article on a series of British documentaries.

Fixed

Several people wrote and told us they were praying that the city power in our neighborhood would get fixed soon, and clearly, praying is a better strategy than calling the electric company. After four to six weeks (depending on which neighbor you ask), on Friday night when the zone got electricity, ours in our little neighborhood came on, too. Hooray!

Good thing, too, because yesterday when my husband was starting the generator, the starter cord came off. So now we are truly relying on the power company. Last night they gave us four and a half hours of electricity and we were thrilled! A friend told me today that when she talks about 24/7 electricity, she's just hoping for 24 hours out of every 7 days. That would be three and a half hours a day, which would be OK by us.

Rats

I'm a bit behind on my blog reading, so I hadn't seen this photo posted by Eric a couple of days ago on Paris Daily Photo. I warn you - don't go look at it if a photo of a dead rat hanging in a window is likely to sicken you. It's a pest-control business in Paris...

You have been warned. Here it is.

By the way, our internet at home works in the morning. It's a satellite connection, if that explains anything (it doesn't to me). Also, we're running the generator. So there's a lot of racket but I can get online!

Home

I flew home yesterday, and I'm adjusting to being back here. There's been no city power at our house for FOUR WEEKS. Nobody told me that until I got back - I think my husband was afraid I would stay in the States if I knew (he's been here a couple of weeks already).

Last night I went downstairs to get a drink and heard a funny noise. I turned on the light and saw a huge rat disappearing into the living room. The person who stayed in our house this summer told me she killed three very large ones with poison and our dogs killed another.

Probably the biggest adjustment is going from wireless internet practically everywhere I was this summer to no working internet at home! (Poor me - I guess in the scheme of things this isn't such a big problem!) I'm in my classroom catching up on email now. There is so much work to do in here, but I'm trying to ignore it for today. There will be plenty of time in the next two and a half weeks before school starts.

In honor of World Breastfeeding Week...

...take a look at this video about the founding of La Leche League.

Theme Day

It's August! As always on the first day of the month, the Daily Photo bloggers are holding a Theme Day. This month, they are posting photos of a typical breakfast where they live. The link will take you to Sharon, CT, and from there you can go to the other 98 sites participating.

It's getting to be that time again...

Last night I read this post from Graycie at Today's Homework. Maybe that put me in the back-to-school mode, because last night I had my own back-to-school nightmare. I was standing in front of a class trying to teach a lesson, but I couldn't find what I needed, and I was going through box after box on my desk. I think I even went through the trash. The kids were getting restless and I was getting frustrated, but I didn't give up - oh, no, I kept hunting that handout.

I'm still in the States but I'll be headed back home soon. I've been thinking about school and buying stuff for my classroom, but soon I'll be dealing with the real thing again.

Meanwhile, to get me in the mood, here's this week's Education Carnival.

Reading Update

Book #49 was the new one by Nancie Atwell, The Reading Zone. As expected, I liked it very much. Mostly, I got plenty of encouragement to keep doing what I'm already doing, but I also got some new ideas, mostly about how to handle things in the classroom and with parents. Atwell goes to bookstores every weekend, she says, and buys books for her classroom library, with particular kids in mind. She doesn't buy basals, and she apparently has quite a large budget for books. (It helps that she has her own school.) I don't have the luxury of going to bookstores every weekend (don't I wish!), mainly because we don't really have bookstores with English books where I live. I have, however, been able to acquire quite a few books for my classroom library on this trip to the US.

Book #50 was Second Honeymoon, by Joanna Trollope. Nancie Atwell categorizes the books her students read as Challenges, Holidays, or Just Rights. This book was a Holiday for me. Some of Joanna Trollope's books seem that way - just brain candy - and then turn out to have much more to them. I don't think this had any more to it than appeared at first glance, but it was still a fun read. Trollope is very good on vagaries of emotion in all kinds of characters.

Book #51 was The Double Bind, by Chris Bohjalian. Here's a book that's more than meets the eye. I don't recommend finishing it, as I did, right before you want to go to sleep. You'll be awake another hour mulling it over in your mind, trying to figure out what clues you missed and what was really going on at different points in the story. Warning - the violence is quite upsetting.

And book #52, ta-da, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows! It's a rather unusual experience for me to be reading what everybody is reading! I got my copy on Saturday morning at Wal Mart. There was no hoop-la, just a pallet of books on the floor in the middle of an aisle. They were selling them for $17.99 - did anyone charge full price? Of course, I'm not going to give anything away, but I loved the ending. Rowling wrapped up all the loose ends in a highly satisfying way. In my opinion, each book has been better-written than the one before. This one was mostly fairly grim, but there were some wonderful comic lines as well. I haven't had a chance to talk to anyone else who's read it yet, but I look forward to some good conversations.

Seven Types of Food

Amy tagged me over two weeks ago for that meme where you're supposed to tell seven random facts about yourself. Since I just recently revealed eight random facts to my adoring readers, I have had a bit of trouble coming up with seven more. I finally decided to write about seven kinds of food I like. Of course, there are more than seven, and the ones I'm including here aren't in any order.

1. Ethiopian food. If you haven't tried it, you should. It's delicious - very spicy.

2. Indian food. I think this is my favorite - that was one of my eight random facts, so it may be cheating to bring it up again. If so, I apologize to the meme police.

3. Caribbean food. Beans and rice, delicious ingredients like plantains, mangoes, avocados. Yum.

4. Japanese food. Both my children mention yaki soba when asked what their favorite food is. We also really like katsu don, tempura, and many other dishes. And, of course, sushi. Nothing like the combination of smooth fish and the way the wasabi blows off the top of your head.

5. British food. I realize the British aren't really known for their food, but I still appreciate boarding school favorites like toad in the hole, bubble and squeak, everything on toast. It has nostalgia value, anyway.

6. Italian food. I love pasta in all its forms, and practically any kind of sauce on it.

7. Thai food. Wonderful mixture of savory and sweet (lemongrass and coconut milk).

As I said, I like many more kinds of food. In fact, I've hardly met a food I don't like.

I'm not tagging anyone specifically, but if you'd like to do this meme, please feel free to do so, and let me know in a comment so that I can come and read.

La Leche League Celebrates 50 Years

Here's a great piece from Chicago Public Radio.

Education Carnival

Here's this week's Education Carnival.

Saturday

I'm really going in for the inspiring titles lately.

Here's today's Saturday Review of Books. Hope everybody had a happy quatorze juillet (Bastille Day). Here's the parade in Paris.

Wednesday

Today we went to the zoo, zoo, zoo. We all had a lot of fun. It was a beautiful drive, too. They have been working on the roads around where we're staying, though they looked fine - OK, wonderful - to us before they fixed them. Not a pothole in sight. No goats in the road. Boring, in fact, according to my husband, who really prefers third-world driving, he says. Also, there's supposedly a drought going on but everything is wonderfully green. It's never this green in Tecwil even when we've been having lots of rain.

Here's today's carnival.

International Book Project

It's time for my yearly plug for the International Book Project. (Here's last year's.)

This is a wonderful organization that promotes literacy around the world. We were able to visit again today and I got many books for my classroom library.

The IBP gets many gifts of books - and they are always grateful for them - but few donations of money, which is needed just as badly. They use financial donations mostly for shipping, though as you can see on their site, they have some needs at their facility as well. If you're looking for a good organization to give your money to, I recommend this one highly.

Snow in Buenos Aires

It snowed in Buenos Aires! This is the first time that's happened since 1918. The BBC posted some photos sent in by readers. Here's an article about it.

Happy Fourth of July

Would you believe there's an Education Carnival today? Teachers are so dedicated, aren't they? They don't even take time off for parades and fireworks!

We had a wonderful small-town Fourth, with the fireworks still to come this evening. I hope my American readers enjoy the celebration.

Migrants

I'm fascinated by people who migrate, who move from one country to another, for whatever reason. Today, the BBC is featuring stories about some African migrants.

July

Clearly I'm not good at being on vacation and blogging. I missed another Saturday Review of Books and I even missed a Daily Photo blog theme day, and this one was an especially cool one, too. The theme this month was Red.

We spent a few days in Nashville and visited Cheekwood. I highly recommend a visit if you're in the area. Gorgeous botanical gardens, a sculpture trail, a small art museum (with the Fabergé display right now). There's a whimsical "Once Upon a Garden" exhibit for kids going on through the beginning of September, and after that there will be scarecrows. It's so wonderful to go to a place that someone has had the time, money, and forethought to create just for people's pleasure. That's the kind of thing you rarely see in Tecwil. People are mostly spending their time and money just surviving, forethought is a luxury the poor don't have, and you don't see many places that are purely devoted to being beautiful. Not that Tecwil isn't beautiful - it is, but not in that kind of lush, green, over-the-top way that requires a huge team of gardeners. It's often difficult to imagine that here exists on the same planet as there.

And in case you missed it...

I didn't post the Saturday Review of Books this past weekend. And while I'm at it, here's this week's Education Carnival.

I rarely use Internet Explorer, and my blog looks the way it's supposed to when I use Firefox. The computer I'm working on now doesn't have Firefox loaded on it, so I'm forced to use IE. I can't understand the spacing on my blogroll. Most of it is fine, but then all of a sudden it starts double spacing. I can't figure out why. So the moral is, use Firefox and the blogroll will look fine.

Eight Facts

My friend Tricia tagged me for a meme where I'm supposed to give you eight random facts about myself. I'm supposed to post the rules first but they seem fairly self-explanatory to me, so if you want to read them, go to Tricia's blog for that.

So here goes...

1. I took my first airplane trip at the age of seven weeks, and so did my daughter.
2. When I was little I used to eat lemons, skin, seeds, and all, straight from the tree in our yard.
3. I have been a registered student in four different countries.
4. I like almost every kind of food I've ever tasted, but I think Indian may be my favorite.
5. My worst subject in school was P.E. and I have many bad memories associated with that miserable class.
6. I'm very careful on stairs because I once fell down a flight and broke my leg - this happened while I was pregnant with my first child.
7. I took piano lessons for years but I can't play.
8. I hate the word utilize - why can't people just say use?

I can't keep track of who has already done this meme and who hasn't. In fact, I think I may have done it already myself, but I can't find it on my blog. If you want to share random facts, consider yourself tagged!

Reading Update

I finished books 45 - 48 of 2007 before leaving home. Here they are:

Day One and Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle-Level Teachers, by Rick Wormeli. I enjoyed this book very much and picked up some useful tips. As I said before, I like his attitude towards middle school students. And I got a comment from the author last night, which was cool!

Living and Teaching the Writing Workshop, by Kristen Painter. This was my second time reading this one. It's helpful for teachers who are trying to write more themselves - full of exercises you can do and how to share your own writing with your students.

Words, Words, Words: Teaching Vocabulary in Grades 4-12, by Janet Allen. Allen summarizes the research on what works best in vocabulary instruction and includes many practical tips for working with words. There are some reproducibles in the book that I will definitely be using.

Managing Your Classroom with Heart: A Guide for Nurturing Adolescent Learners, by Katy Ridnouer. It's obvious that Ridnouer teaches in a very different environment from mine, and some of what she deals with makes me thankful for where I work. This was another helpful teacher book, and focuses on treating your students as individuals and showing concern for them, without having them walk all over you.

Still working on War and Peace...

Statistics

I wrote this last night, but didn't have an opportunity to post it.

Hours in US: 30
Number of different states seen on license plates: 35
Number of blowouts: 2
Number of blowouts previously experienced by my husband in nearly 30 years of driving: 1
Hours spent in tire shop: 2
New tires bought: 4 (After the first blowout we only got one new one, but after the second we went ahead and replaced the rest.)
Amount of money spent that we weren't planning on: I could figure this out, since I have all the receipts, but it would be a depressing statistic.
Number of issues of People I read in the second tire shop, thus updating my sadly lacking knowledge about celebrities and inspiring the format for this post: approximately 5
Number of times we thanked God for bringing us safely to today's destination: many

Carnival At the Beach!

Since we teacher-types are just loafing around these days, this week's Carnival is at the beach!

Reading Update

Books 40-44 of 2007...

Book 40 was The Town on Beaver Creek: The Story of a Lost Kentucky Community, by Michelle Slatalla. I read this for my book group and enjoyed it. It's about a town in Kentucky that regularly flooded, to the point where finally the town was abandoned and rebuilt. The author, who works for the New York Times, decided to preserve some of the memories of her family, many of whom lived in this town. The book is beautifully written. I had a little trouble keeping track of all the characters, how they were related, and what generation each belonged to. Come on, that's hard enough with my own family. I would have liked to have a family tree to flip to.

Book 41 was written by my guest speaker back in February. I'm not going to post a link to it - it isn't available on Amazon anyway - but to any of my readers who live here in Tecwil and read French, I recommend it. Email me and I'll give you more information about it. It was really interesting to read his take on events that I was here for, and also many that were before my time. Fascinating stuff. I'm sorry I waited so long to read it. It's just that when I'm reaching for a book to read for relaxation, I generally go for the stuff in English...

Book 42 was Retrovirus, by T.L. Higley. This was loaned to me by a colleague, who knows the author. It was well-done, fast-paced...not really so much my kind of book, but I enjoyed it nevertheless. It did irritate me that a lot of the suspense was ruined by the blurb on the back of the book. Just don't read that. It gives you information you aren't supposed to get until three quarters of the way through the book.

Book 43 was The Teacher's Guide to Big Blocks Grades 4-8. I started reading this a while ago after a professional development seminar, but I finally finished it. A lot of the things in it I'm already doing, but there are some very helpful suggestions I'm planning to implement next year. I know it's weird, but I do a lot of professional reading during the summer usually. It's a good time to start thinking about how I'm going to handle things next time around.

I was going to leave out book 44, but honesty compels me to admit I read it: Gossip Girl, by Cecily Von Ziegesar. I got this for my classroom library at a book sale the seniors were having. Some of the older kids were getting rid of their own books that they were through with. I brought the pile into my classroom without studying them very much except just to see that they looked like stuff my kids would enjoy. I gave this to one girl, and after reading the first few pages she came and put it on my desk and said she didn't want to read it. I asked her why and she muttered something about the language. I felt mortified that I'd given her a book to read that had disgusted her that much, because this girl is a very strong reader and has read many books written for adults. Well, the other night I decided to read it just to see what it was like. I'm afraid I agree with my student. The casual alcohol and drug use and promiscuity make the book inappropriate for my middle schoolers. The characters are shallow, horrible people, and I hope they aren't really reflective of the milieu they are representing - rich kids in New York City. I know these books - there's a whole series - are popular, but bleck, in my opinion.

And now I'm back with War and Peace - I'm hoping to at least make a big dent in it this summer. I'm also reading Day One and Beyond: Practical Matters for New Middle-Level Teachers, by Rick Wormeli. This is a great - and as the title suggests, very practical - book. It's full of ways to deal with the stuff that drives you crazy when you're teaching. I like his attitude towards middle schoolers - affectionate, but with high standards.

Chinua Achebe Wins Booker Prize

I am thrilled to read that Chinua Achebe has been awarded the Man Booker International Prize. I love his book Things Fall Apart, and I also liked No Longer at Ease (I'm not sure why that Amazon link calls it "No Loger at Ease") and A Man of the People, which is about Nigerian politics and is well worth reading by anybody who's observed third world-style politics anywhere.

Saturday Review of Books

I was out all morning doing painful but necessary things like getting vaccinations for the kids and getting a haircut for myself. Now I'm - yes - in my classroom. No school work to do, thankfully, but the internet at home still isn't working. I'm waiting for a callback (from the tech person) promised early Wednesday afternoon. Do you think the guy is going to call me back?

So anyway, here's the Saturday Review of Books.

Back in my Classroom

Sure enough, I'm back in my room, since we are having internet problems at home and I can't get the tech people to do anything about it. I spent lots of time yesterday working on it, first trying to take care of it over the phone, and then trying to get a tech person to come over, but no luck.

But anyway, at least I can check email in my classroom, and I had been missing it, so it gave me a chance to visit, too!

What do you know, the Education Carnival is up!

Finally

I managed to take the "couple of hours" of work and make them last all day! Hooray for me! I finally got checked out this afternoon, though. Now, in theory, I shouldn't have to enter my classroom again until August. I tried to bring everything with me that I would need - the books I need to use, mainly. We'll see if I succeeded. I've seen blogs by people who say they get locked out of their classrooms on the last teacher work day and aren't allowed back in until the teacher work days at the beginning of the next school year. Fortunately, we can come and go as much as we want. It's a bit of an adjustment for me to stay away for very long after working there six days a week since school began!

48 Hour Book Challenge

I've been seeing references to this on various book blogs I read, and as far as I can understand, people are doing just the essentials this weekend, eating, sleeping, showering, taking care of their children, going to church or wherever they need to go, and then spending the rest of their time reading.

I don't get it. This is what I always do, every weekend. (Oh, but I usually add grading and working in my classroom to the list above.)

But anyway. This is a great opportunity to find loads of book reviews, because in addition to reading the books, they are blogging about them. Here's a link to the explanation of the whole deal, including a list of the participants.

In case you don't know, I'm exaggerating somewhat. I don't really spend every moment either doing an essential task or reading. But I do spend a lot of time reading.

Saturday Review of Books

Here's this week's edition.

Ahem, not quite

I made some good progress, but I'm not completely finished. Another couple of hours should do it, but not today. I'm going to save it for Monday. Right now, I'm going home.

Work Day

Yesterday was a national holiday, and I didn't set foot on campus. Today is a work day. We're having a faculty meeting and finishing up in our classrooms. I've done about half of my checkout sheet, but I still have to cover all my shelves. I also want to rearrange my furniture a little bit in preparation for next year - I'm thinking if I put my big bookcase against a different wall, I'll have more space. We'll have to try it and see.

After today, I hope I'll be completely done in my classroom.

What I've Read Lately

Books 35 through 39 of 2007:

Troy: Shield of Thunder, by David Gemmell. This is the second in a proposed trilogy, but sadly, Gemmell died before completing the third. I enjoyed this one, but it left me wishing I knew more about Homer's writing. I wasn't automatically noticing all those characters and saying, "Oh yeah, I remember that." The main ones, yes, but not even all that many of them. What I liked best about this was the way the character of Odysseus would take ordinary events and turn them into fabulous, mythological stories. The origins of the Circe story were particularly entertaining.

A Certain Justice, by P.D. James. I've read this book before. I love P.D. James' novels about Adam Dalgliesh. She's very good on class in England and her characters are all hyper-aware of where they come from, their accents, and how they feel inferior to other people with "better" origins. The funny thing is that I never remember who actually did the murder, so I can read them again and again.

Playing for the Ashes, by Elizabeth George. Can you believe Elizabeth George is American? I hardly can. She is so amazing at writing like a Brit. This one is pretty distasteful in places. I even learned a couple of new-to-me British bad words - and if you consider that I went to high school in England, you'll see how surprising that is.

Forever in Blue: The Fourth Summer of the Sisterhood, by Ann Brashares. In this one, the Traveling Pants girls are nineteen or so, and in my opinion it's now out of the middle school zone occupied by my students, not just because the heroines are older, but because the content really isn't appropriate for them. Middle school girls will still, I'm sure, read it avidly. And it's very readable.

The Plot Against America, by Philip Roth. I've never read a book quite like this one. The genre is called "alternative history," but this won an award for historical novels, as well. The premise is that in 1940, instead of Roosevelt being re-elected, Charles Lindbergh became President of the United States. Philip, the protagonist (yes, he's called Philip Roth, just like the author), is a Jewish boy living in Newark, and this is the story of how events play out for his family. It's completely convincing, and Roth makes some very good observations about history. Here's one: "And as Lindbergh's election couldn't have made clearer to me, the unfolding of the unforeseen was everything. Turned wrong way round, the relentless unforeseen was what we schoolchildren studied as 'History,' harmless history, where everything unexpected in its own time is chronicled on the page as inevitable. The terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides, turning a disaster into an epic." And later: "'Because what's history?' he asked rhetorically when he was in his expansive dinnertime instructional mode. 'History is everything that happens everywhere. Even here in Newark. Even here on Summit Avenue. Even what happens in his house to an ordinary man -- that'll be history too someday.'" It's scary to think that one small shift in events could make everything turn out so differently, but that's what this book is about. I wonder how Lindbergh's family reacted to it - he certainly doesn't come out of it very well. Roth includes a section of documentation on all the major characters who are historical, and many of Lindbergh's words and actions do lead one to believe that he might have done the kind of things he does in the book, given the chance.

Last Day of School Carnival

Those Education Wonks are still working hard - enjoy this week's Carnival.

Last Day of School

No posts since Saturday, because I've been working madly to be finished with everything. All that's left on my "work" to-do list now is cleaning my classroom. Yesterday the eighth graders were promoted to high school. I had to stay at school late yesterday for the Middle School party in the evening, and I finished up all my grade-posting and various other tasks. Today I have my seventh graders briefly before they go off for their fun time.

And then...we're done for the year!

Finally! This has been the longest school year on record, I think. Part of that is that the stability in the country was quite good, and we only had two extra days off that could be traced to political problems this year (really, this time, security problems). Last year it was more like three weeks. I'm not complaining about the stability, though - it has been a great blessing.

Now I'm off to survive this last day!

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is.

Theme Day on Daily Photo Blogs

Hooray! It's a theme day again on the City DP blogs. This month the theme is "The View from my Bedroom Window." Here's Eric's in Paris, and he also has links to the other blogs that are participating. Can't wait to go look at them.

Carnival Again

School's almost out - but The Education Carnival is going strong! It's hosted this week by The Education Wonks.

The End is Near

Just one more full week of school, and then a couple of half days, and then we're done. Not that I'm counting, or anything.

The thing I love about teaching is that it's always a challenge, coming up with better ways to handle things, figuring out new stuff to add and how to fit it in. So even though I'm crazed with all the chaos of the end of the year, I'm still making lists of things to work on over the summer, little details that need tweaking, and books I want to buy/borrow. I've been reading The Teacher's Guide to Big Blocks and thinking about how I can incorporate some of it in what I'm already doing. I'm not happy with the way I'm managing writing conferences and I haven't been doing much with reading conferences at all. I want to change some things about the notebooks I have the kids keep. Some of my units need beefing up.

And, of course, I'm looking forward to a real break - nothing to grade for a few weeks! I seriously need an enthusiasm refill, after months of squirrely behavior, endless paperwork, and just plain fatigue.

Winter Holiday

I'm reading Winter Holiday aloud to my daughter. She is loving it.

I'm not sure where I got the book, but it's an old Penguin edition (the kind that says it's not available in the United States), and it has a sticker on the front that says "25 cents."

It's refreshing to read about a time when kids could go off on their own day and night, play on boats, light fires, make tea, and do all kinds of dangerous things. The parents are generally absent in this kind of book (in this case, they are off digging up things in Egypt - what could be more appropriate?). The children spend all their time outdoors, imagining, playing, having adventures. They go indoors only to sleep and for the occasional meal, or when they are in quarantine for some childhood disease that has long since been eliminated and for which we vaccinate our infants. You can't imagine these children ever riding in a car seat, or wearing a bike helmet, or, for that matter, getting in any trouble that they can't figure out how to get out of.

There are things about that world that I miss. Even in my own childhood, which wasn't quite as far distant, or as unsupervised, as the one portrayed in this book, it seems that we played much more independently than children do today. I didn't grow up in a place where kidnapping was a threat, either.

Saturday Review of Books

Here.

Carnival 120

Here's the latest Carnival of Education, hosted by I Thought a Think.

Around the World in Ten Years

Here's the feel-good story of the day (actually a few days ago, but I just read it today) about a couple who rode around the world on a tandem bicycle. It took them ten years, but they did it!