Back to Work and Reading Update

Today I spent several hours working in my classroom. I put all the new classroom library books on the computer and my daughter helped shelve them all. I started setting things up and thinking about how I want to do things this year - what worked well, what I hated all year. I'm excited about the new school year, looking forward to seeing the kids sitting in those chairs. Only ten more days!

Since school got out for the summer, here are the books I finished reading:

Book #25: Kids are Worth It: Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline, by Barbara Coloroso. This is a great book, but since I had read it a couple of times before, it didn't hold my attention as much as when the information was new. That's why it took me so long to read it. I highly recommend Coloroso's parenting books.
Book #26: What Came Before He Shot Her, by Elizabeth George. At the end of George's previous book, there is a random murder; this book tells the story of that killing from the perspective of the killer and his family. If one of the purposes of reading is to enter new worlds, this book certainly succeeds. Again I found myself amazed that George is an American. The story helps us understand what it must be like to be disenfranchised in today's London. Harrowing reading, but I'm glad I finished it.
Book #27: The Other Mother, by Gwendolen Gross. I'm afraid this book was a bit of a disappointment - not as good as the descriptions I had read about it. It did have some interesting observations on the "Mommy War" - the battle that is allegedly raging between working mothers and those who stay at home.
Book #28: Touching Snow, by M. Sindy Felin. I know I just used the word "harrowing" but no other word will do to describe this book. It's about child abuse of a horrific kind taking place in a Haitian-American family in New York.
Book #29: The Day Joanie Frankenhauser Became a Boy, by Francess Lin Lantz. Somehow Joanie's name has been written as "John" on the roster at her new school. Since she has always wanted to be a boy, she seizes this opportunity, with some comic and interesting results.
Book #30: Replay, by Sharon Creech. This book is about memories, family, life with many siblings. Beautiful as Creech's writing always is.
Book #31: Austenland, by Shannon Hale. I was very much looking forward to reading this book but I was a bit disappointed by it. I wasn't convinced by the premise and I could never quite figure out the point of this story. Sorry, because I love Hale's other books that I have read.
Book #32: Black Ships, by Jo Graham. This is a retelling of the Aeneid and I enjoyed it immensely. I even bought my own copy of the Aeneid as soon as I was done reading the novel.
Book #33: Going Going, by Naomi Shihab Nye. I hadn't read any of this author's fiction before, and I love her poetry. This was a good read, raising some interesting issues about how packaged life is becoming with the increase in franchised businesses.
Book #34: The Wild Girls, by Pat Murphy. This book has a theme of writing as salvation. I enjoyed it but didn't find it completely convincing.
Book #35: Extras, by Scott Westerfeld. The first book of this series was my favorite, but I liked the ideas behind this one, too. Everyone in the world of this story (which turns out to be set in Japan) has a fame ranking. I think this could start some interesting discussions with middle schoolers.
Book #36: Due Preparations for the Plague, by Janette Turner Hospital. One of my favorite books is Hospital's short story collection Dislocations, but I hadn't read any of her novels. This one has a grim theme: terrorism and trauma. It is brilliantly plotted and although I at first thought I wouldn't enjoy it, I ended up loving it.
Book #37: The English American, by Alison Larkin. This book was a hoot. The author, according to the jacket information, was adopted from an American family and raised by a British one. The protagonist of the story has the same history. This is full of wonderful, spot-on observations of the differences between the two cultures. I can completely imagine this as a chick flick and the ending was a bit predictable, but this was a great read and lots of fun.
Book #38: Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri. What can I say? Lahiri is brilliant.
Book #39: Confessions of a Jane Austen Addict, by Laurie Rigler. I feel silly saying this, but I found this book more convincing than the Hale one, and that's surprising when you consider that the heroine is a 21st century woman who wakes up one morning and finds she is living the life of a contemporary of Jane Austen. I liked it, especially the ending, which I didn't see coming.
Book #40: Warning Signs, by Stephen White. I've read several of White's books about the clinical psychologist Alan Gregory. His characters are very well-drawn and grow from book to book. This one was suspenseful and exciting.
Book #41: First Boy, by Gary Schmidt. I've already raved on and on about how much my students and I liked Schmidt's Newbery-honor-winning book The Wednesday Wars. This one wasn't quite as good but still very fun and timely, given the election coming up in the U.S. I can picture this one as a fast-paced movie. I think my middle schoolers will like it. It has a slightly mature theme, given the scandal that ends up being central to the plot (not going to say any more!), but I think my kids can handle it.

Sigh. I love summer. But now it's back to work and I won't be able to keep up this reading pace. I sure did enjoy it, though!

Friday

I got home on Wednesday, and I've been trying to get things in order at home so that I can turn my attention to my classroom. This was made more complicated by the fact that our luggage didn't arrive at the same time we did. We picked it up at the airport the next day. At least our electricity is working, which was a big improvement over last year's homecoming.

I didn't get around to doing a Poetry Friday post today, but fortunately many other people did, and you can see the roundup here at Becky's Book Reviews.

Interview with Steven Curtis Chapman Family on Good Morning America

I was traveling yesterday and so didn't get to watch this when it aired on GMA but I watched it this morning. Please take a look.

Poetry Friday - Grass

Everywhere I have been this summer, I have seen flags flying at half-mast. These flags are a constant reminder that this is a nation in mourning; so many young men and women are dying in places most of us will never see.

This poem by Carl Sandburg can be read in more than one way; is Sandburg criticizing us for how fast we forget those who die in battle or is he saying that time heals all wounds, and the grass is simply doing its job by covering up the horrors we don't want to remember? Perhaps a bit of both.


Grass

Carl Sandburg (1878-1967)

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo,
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.




Today's Poetry Friday roundup is at The Well-Read Child.

Theme Day - Metal

It's August 1st (already!?) and today's theme for the DP bloggers is Metal. You can take a look at thumbnails of the participants' photos here.

Break

I will be away from my blog for a few days. See you when I get back!

And the Award Goes to...

My friend Writer2B from Findings gave me an award! It's called Arte y Pico and comes from this blog. I can't read most of the Arte y Pico blog, since it's in Spanish, but here's the author's definition of "Arte y Pico": "What is the meaning of the expression: And basically, ironically, it translates into a wonderful phrase in Mexico, 'lo maximo.' LOL! It will never find its counterpart in English, but if it HAD to, it would be something like, Wow. The Best Art. Over the top." LOL indeed to that description applied to me, but thanks!

The rules are as follows:

1) Select 5 blogs that you consider deserving of this award, based on creativity, design, interesting material, and contribution to the blogger community. The blogs can be in any language.

2) Post a link to each blog so that others can visit.

3) Each award-winner has to show the award and link to the blogger that awarded it.

4) The award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show a link to Arte y Pico.

Thank you for this honor - but now I have to honor five other blogs! The problem is not finding five blogs, but narrowing down my choices to five. To make things easier, I immediately decided that I can't choose any relatives, because, well, it just wouldn't be fair. But I think you're all artists and I read your blogs every day.

I also decided I won't choose blogs that get hundreds of comments for every post. For example, I think that Angie from Bring the Rain is an artist, turning the terrible sorrow of her daughter's stillbirth and the death from SIDS of her little nephew into art through words, pictures, and music, but so many hundreds of people respond to her that she might not even see my comment.

So here goes, some folks whose blogs I consider works of art, and I hope they feel honored. And they don't have to feel obligated to put the angel in the evening dress on their blogs.

1. Tara is almost disqualified by her many, many readers, but not quite, I guess. Tara's blog is one of the first I started reading regularly. It is illustrated by her husband's beautiful photography and it tells stories of her family's life in Haiti where they work as missionaries. Tara is so honest, talking openly about doubts and fears and how difficult it can be to deal with a place where things don't seem to get better very fast, or, sometimes, at all. Here's her blog.

2. I like to read teacher blogs, and especially blogs of writing teachers. This one is an inspiration. Stacey and Ruth are young teachers who are constantly trying new things, looking for ways to help their students love writing, and, most impressive of all, writing every day in their notebooks. This is something I aspire to, but it just doesn't seem to happen. Stacey and Ruth illustrate how being writers themselves helps them teach writing.

3. Here's someone else who writes every day, and what a poet she is! Although we have different belief systems, I love what Tiel Aisha Ansari writes. Read this sestina about the California wildfires, for example, or this sonnet about a Tetris nightmare. So often her work takes my breath away. Her blog is called Knocking from Inside.

4. I could choose many of the Daily Photo blogs to award, but I'm going to go with my long-time favorite, from Sharon, Connecticut. I posted here about how Jenny's photos have often served as a borrowed view for me. She doesn't post every day any more, but her photos are worth waiting for. Check out other Daily Photo blogs here.

5. Jessica is an artist and a stay-at-home mom. She hasn't been blogging long but so far she's written some wonderful posts. Read this one to see how she is making art with her life. Her blog is called One Wild and Precious Life, a quote from this poem by Mary Oliver about paying attention.

Happy 200th Post, Amy!

Amy from Experience Imagination is celebrating her 200th post by asking readers to link to their favorite post from her blog.

I really liked this one, where Amy painted a word picture of how God stands by us and encourages us through our trials. And here she asks a question about comment etiquette - how do you guys deal with this issue?

Off to leave a comment on Amy's blog to tell her I entered her contest!

Poetry Friday - Fold Me a Poem

Among the many books brought home by my children from the library was this one, Fold Me a Poem, by Kristine O'Connell George and illustrated by Lauren Stringer. We have all been enjoying reading it.

On each brightly-colored page we watch a little boy making origami animals and read wonderful, quirky poems about the fun he is having.


Protection

At one end
of the table,
the rabbits.

At the other end,
the foxes.

I don't
want
trouble.


Dragon

Dragon!
Behave yourself.

Remember:
You are
made of
paper.


At the end of the book there is a list of resources for learning how to make these animals yourself. You can also check out the websites of the author and illustrator, Kristine George and Lauren Stringer.

The roundup is at A Year of Reading today.

Drinking Tea

from The English American, by Alison Larkin

We sit down...while Billie makes us all a cup of tea. The American way. Which means she sticks three coffee mugs half full of water in the microwave for thirty seconds. Then she dunks the same Lipton tea bag in all three mugs until a nasty brown swirl appears. Then she adds a squidge of lemon and tells us to "come and get it."

If you are English, you will know how I feel about this. If you are not English, let me take this opportunity to tell you how to make a drinkable cup of tea.

First, you warm a teapot. Then you put in tea leaves - Earl Grey, Lapsang, or Darjeeling, ideally. One teaspoon for each person, and one for the pot. Then you pour in water that has been boiled. In a kettle. After waiting a few minutes for the tea to brew you pour a little milk into the bottom of a teacup. Then, using a tea strainer, you pour in the tea. Then, if you take sugar, you add sugar. Then you drink it.

If you are English and have the misfortune to find yourself drinking tea with an American who has made it incorrectly, you do not give any indication that the tea is anything other than delicious. Instead you say something like what I say to Billie, which is, "Thank you. How lovely. Do you by any chance have any milk?"

When your American watches you pour in the milk and declares that next time she'll put the milk, the sugar, and the tea in the teapot all at the same time, because it'll be so much quicker that way, you do not flinch. Instead you smile, politely, and pretend to drink the mug of tea in front of you. You can't of course, because apart from everything else, the lemon has made the milk curdle. So you pour it down the sink when no one's looking.

Amen, sister!

I am not quite as picky as this character. I do drink my tea out of a mug. (But not a styrofoam cup!) I also tolerate tea bags, but please, it needs to be actual tea. Not something made out of grass or fruit or some such thing. Tea.

Carnival Time

Here's this week's Carnival of Education.

Bird Day

Almost every day I read the psalms for the day from the Psalter in the Book of Common Prayer. That means that on the 20th of every month I read Psalms 102 through 104 (I usually read the morning and evening Psalms all at once in the evening, since mornings are not a good time for me to concentrate on anything). I have started thinking of the 20th as Bird Day, because look at all the bird references in these Psalms:

Psalm 102:6-7 "I have become like a vulture in the wilderness, like an owl among the ruins. I lie awake and groan; I am like a sparrow, lonely on a house-top."

Psalm 103:5 "He satisfies you with good things, and your youth is renewed like an eagle's."

Psalm 104:12 "Beside them the birds of the air make their nests and sing among the branches."

Psalm 104:17-18 "The trees of the LORD are full of sap, the cedars of Lebanon which he planted, in which the birds build their nests, and in whose tops the stork makes his dwelling."

I don't know that there is any profound meaning in the timing of this monthly bird-fest but it makes me smile every time. I love the range of emotions in these verses and that we can bring all these things to God. And I know that His eye is on the sparrow.

Because there are Lots of Countries in the World and it's Hard to Keep Track of Them

Nation Of Andorra Not In Africa, Shocked U.S. State Dept. Reports

Poetry Friday - Louisville Zoo

We went to the Louisville (KY) Zoo on Tuesday. I highly recommend going in the middle of the week because there was hardly anyone there when we first arrived. Later in the day more people came but it never got unpleasantly crowded.

We found most of the things we expected - lions, tigers, no bears because they are at another zoo right now. However, I found something I wasn't expecting: poems.

In the middle of the zoo there is a tiny cemetery. Here it is:



Some signs explain what it is (you can click on all these photos to enlarge them):





But there was a poem, too, written, I'm guessing, by a member of the family.



There was another poem, too, but I only got a picture of one part of it.



You can read the rest here.

And you can read other people's Poetry Friday posts at the roundup here.

Why?

Why does anyone learn Esperanto? I've often wondered that myself.

Rowan Who?

I don't know if anybody else has this problem, but whenever I read something said by the Archbishop of Canterbury, I think of Mr. Bean. And, no disrespect intended, but I wonder, why did they make Mr. Bean the Archbishop of Canterbury? It just seems an odd choice. (Here you can watch how Mr. Bean behaves in church.) So, in case I am not alone in this:


This is Rowan WILLIAMS:




and this is Rowan ATKINSON:





Clear now?

It was just me, wasn't it?

Bookish Meme

I borrowed this one from my friend Writer2B.

1. Do you remember how you developed a love for reading?

I don't remember a time when I didn't love reading, so I don't really remember developing that love. I learned to read when I was four, and I was asked to leave my first school because I could already read and they didn't know what to do with me. I know that our house was always filled with books and magazines and that, although we didn't have a lot of money, we always had new books all the time. I remember a used bookstore in Nairobi where we used to take our paperbacks and trade them for store credit and more books. Our parents bought us books about our interests. I had a book confiscated from me once when I was about eleven because I was reading it during French class (at boarding school). I even remember the book - it was this one:



When my parents came to school I cringed when I saw that teacher coming over to talk to them. I was sure I was going to be outed as a miscreant who read books in class, but all she said was, "I really appreciate parents who know how to give good books to their children." Now I try to be that kind of parent.

2. What are some books you read as a child?

The first book I read, according to family lore, was The Funny Little Book. I didn't realize until I Googled it just now that this book was written by Johnny Gruelle, of Raggedy Ann and Andy fame.



I loved the Narnia books from an early age, and I remember reading The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when I was seven years old. I'm pretty sure this is the first one of the series that I read. I went on to read them all many times, including one time through the whole series read aloud during family car trips. I had a wonderful second grade teacher who didn't make me work through the readers everyone else was doing - I could pick whatever I wanted. How glorious! All I had to do was read aloud to her every once in a while so that she would be sure I was making progress. That teacher read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator aloud to us that year, as well as, I think, some of the Paddington books. I know I read all the Danny Dunn books because I remember a teacher looking askance at this choice when I was in about fifth grade. Oh, there are too many to list. I read voraciously. I remember Saturday afternoons in the library at boarding school - completely unsupervised and completely happy.

3. What is your favorite genre?

Hmm, it's hard to say. I mostly read novels, and I like a pretty wide variety of those. I do enjoy anything with cross-cultural implications - from Henry James to Jhumpa Lahiri. I don't know that there's a name for that genre.

4. Do you have a favorite novel?

Again, it's so hard to pick just one. I have read many that I consider just about perfect. Some of them are The Peacock Spring by Rumer Godden, July's People, by Nadine Gordimer, A Room With a View, by E. M. Forster, Far From the Madding Crowd, by Thomas Hardy, The Game, by A. S. Byatt, The Great Divorce, by C. S. Lewis, and The Giver, by Lois Lowry. To name a few.

5. Where do you usually read?

I read in bed a lot these days, but I try to carry a book with me anytime I am likely to be waiting, so that I can use that time reading. I can read pretty much anywhere, including in a moving car, provided someone else is driving.

6. When do you usually read?

I always read before I go to sleep. Even when I was in graduate school and had an inhuman amount of have-to reading, I always had something I was reading for pleasure and I spend at least a few minutes on that before going to sleep. But I read any other time I can, too.

7. Do you usually have more than one book you are reading at a time?

Sometimes - it depends. I often have a professional book going at the same time as a novel.

8. Do you read nonfiction in a different way or place than you read fiction?

No, not really.

9. Do you buy most of the books you read, or borrow them, or check them out of the library?

Some of each. I am trying to buy fewer books. I have an addiction. Whenever we go over to someone's house I always search their shelves and ask to borrow books. I use libraries as much as possible.

10. Do you keep most of the books you buy? If not, what do you do with them?

I'm trying to keep fewer books, just as I'm trying to buy fewer. If I don't think I will reread it, I try to pass it on. I still have an alarming amount of books. Sometimes I will donate them to the library I go to. If they are appropriate for my students I put them in my classroom library. I've always wanted to try that thing where you leave books in public places for others to take, but I haven't ever done it.

11. If you have children, what are some of the favorite books you have shared with them? Were they some of the same ones you read as a child?

This is one of the great joys of having children. I've been able to read many, many of my favorites to them. They have some of the books I had as a child, which, when you consider how many times we moved, is pretty amazing. It has been fun sharing books like Mr. Shaw's Shipshape Shoe Shop and Cranberry Thanksgiving.

Since our kids are quite far apart in age, it has been hard to read aloud chapter books to both of them, until this past year. We have read all the Narnia books aloud, Wednesday Wars, and we're now on the fourth Harry Potter book. (Obviously not all of those are books I read as a child!)

12. What are you reading now?

Black Ships, by Jo Graham. Checked it out of the library. It's a novel about the Aeneid. I'm enjoying it so far.

13. Do you keep a TBR (to be read) list?

Yes and no. I have a Wish List at Amazon that kind of functions that way. If I read about a book that sounds interesting, I put it on the list. But often I just pick up something that catches my eye.

14. What’s next?

I have a stack from the library: The Wild Girls, by Pat Murphy, Going Going, by Naomi Shihab Nye, Mara's Stories, by Gary Schmidt, Unaccustomed Earth, by Jhumpa Lahiri, When We Were Saints, by Han Nolan, First Boy, by Gary Schmidt, and Due Preparations for the Plague, by Janette Turner Hospital. Some of these I'm checking out as possible read-alouds for my class, some I looked for, some just caught my eye. I love the library!

15. What books would you like to reread?

I reread all the ones I mentioned in number four. I reread the Narnia series every year or so. Others I have frequently reread are Dislocations by Janette Turner Hospital (a book of short stories which appears to be out of print and perhaps even unavailable) and Home Life, by Suzanne Fox, a book of essays about the idea of home and rooms - I don't know why but for some reason I just love this book. And of course I keep rereading the Bible. But you asked what I would LIKE to reread. Hmm. I don't know. Lots of books, I guess.

16. Who are your favorite authors?

Some of the ones I've already mentioned. I like most of A. S. Byatt's books, though they seem to be getting increasingly difficult and obscure. I love C. S. Lewis, Nadine Gordimer, Susan Howatch, Thomas Hardy, Jhumpa Lahiri, Edwige Danticat, Naomi Shihab Nye, Pablo Neruda, Billy Collins...there really are too many to list.

This meme was fun to do. Any compulsive readers out there, why don't you answer these questions, too? Let me know when you do!

Stuff I Love in the U.S., Part 2

Emboldened by the huge response to my last post on this subject (OK, it wasn't a huge response, but three separate individuals commented!), I have decided to tell you some more things I love in the United States.

1. Libraries. A public library is an amazing thing. Books, magazines, movies, music, tax information, all kinds of information - all free. All available to anyone, no matter how much money they have, whether they are citizens or not, whether they are educated or not. Seriously, it makes me tear up just thinking about it.

2. Showers. Yeah, we have showers at home. But the ones here are hot, and have amazing pressure, and I don't have to worry that the water on the roof might run out. (Not that I waste water, of course. I couldn't bring myself to be that relaxed about it.) The water is also clean, so if I get some in my mouth I don't have to worry about that either.

3. Roads. The roads are way, way nicer in this country than they are where I live. They are smooth, well-maintained, nicely signposted. It is a pleasure to travel on them. Which brings me to another thing I like here...

4. Cheap gas. You think I'm kidding, but I'm not. Gas costs at least two dollars a gallon more where we live than it does here in the U.S.

5. Trees. The country where I live is very deforested, and while great efforts are being made to reverse this, it's still a huge problem. It never stops making me happy to look around and see trees everywhere.

Poetry Friday - Adelstrop

I heard this poem for the first time this week; it was read on the Classic Poetry Aloud podcast. I love the description of a place seen from a train, the stillness of a railway platform and the sounds of the countryside around. It's a beautiful snapshot of a moment that happened over 90 years ago - the poem was written in 1915 - and because Edward Thomas wrote it down, I can re-experience that moment today.


Yes. I remember Adelstrop —
The name, because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontedly. It was late June.
The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adelstrop — only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and around him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas



Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

FYI

On Monday I read a couple of great posts on Stuff Christians Like. That guy blogs so much that the posts aren't even on the front page any more. Jon showed a before and after photo of a missionary's prayer card. He got some interesting discussion, too. Here's the first version and here's the improved version.

Here's this week's Education Carnival.

And here's a breaking news story you should know about:


Volatile India-Pakistan Standoff Enters 11,680th Day

Stuff I Love in the U.S.

1. Electricity. Except for a brief flicker during a thunderstorm, it's on all the time. All the time, I tell you! Seems excessive, doesn't it? Here's a conversation I had with my son:

Son: Mom, I want to watch a DVD.
Me: OK, we'll see, maybe later.
Son: But Mom, is the power on?
Me: Yes.
Son: Then I'd better watch it now, before it goes off!
Me: Well, in the United States the power doesn't go off, so you don't have to worry about that.
Son: WHAT?!

2. Restaurants. Where I live, there are good restaurants too, just not so MANY of them, and not so much variety of kinds of food. You know how some people have monthly or even weekly date nights? My husband and I try to go out without the kids at least once a year. So far we've had two dates since we've been in the States! Oh yes. This is the life!

3. Laundry. I posted about this two summers ago. All the things I said there about why I love doing laundry in this country still apply, with the addition that the washing machine we used to have at home hasn't worked in about a year, so now all our clothes get washed by hand. If washing by hand suggests gentle sudsing in Woolite, forget it. These clothes are scrubbed. I mean, they are CLEAN. And then they are hung on the line to become board-like. I don't understand why people complain about doing laundry here, since it is so easy and fun. I have to stop myself from doing laundry every day.

4. Exercise. It is easy and fun to exercise here. (See the easy and fun theme I'm developing?) At home I get up at 5:30 to walk, and if I do it much later there are loads of people on the street to look at me. Even at 5:30 there are people on the street but usually not too many. Here, there's hardly anyone out whatever time I walk, and if someone is out it's usually an exerciser like me. It isn't weird to exercise here. Not only that, but in this town there is a beautiful walking trail complete with baskets of flowers hung at intervals! What could be lovelier? Rarely (OK, never) is there a goat or a stray starving dog or a dead rat. Of course, exercise is more crucial here than at home (see #2).

I could go on, but I won't. I know full well that the fact that life seems easier here is in a large part because I'm on vacation and not immersed in my regular life and its problems, and that life is just as complex and stressful in this country, and in some ways more so. There are just different stressors. I also know that I love my regular life. Really, I do.

Philosophy from a T-shirt

"Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. It's the hard that makes it great."

I saw this on a T-shirt but it's from the movie A League of Their Own.

Midwives as Agents of Change

Here's an interesting article by the head of an aid organization called Merlin. She suggests that a priority for the G8 should be making childbirth safer for women around the world by providing training and logistical help to midwives. There are some very simple ways this can happen. My favorite excerpt: "In Sri Lanka we give midwives motorbikes. In DR Congo we give them canoes. In Afghanistan, we give them a donkey."

Glorious Fourth

Rain on a parade is a metaphor for disappointment, but in spite of the rainy weather we had a great morning celebrating the Fourth of July.

Today I have thought often of an episode of Speaking of Faith called Surviving the Religion of Mao. Here's a quote from the interview with Anchee Min (I really recommend reading the whole transcript):

Ms. Min: You asked me how I changed. I think coming to America plays a big part. If I were in China, I would die in confusion because this problem that's the mental knot. I couldn't unknot it, and I couldn't do anything about it. And I was too close, I didn't have a perspective, couldn't see. So coming to America, I think, what the moments that struck me was that, you know, my daughter was in the nursery school. First thing she was taught was love. And then she would, you know, come home and say, ‘Everybody's different, but everybody's perfect.’ Things like that. You know, it moves me.

And also the incredible moment I share with other immigrants and the day that we accepted as American citizens in the big hall in LA with 40,000 people, which is so ridiculous. You know, it was like we're all prepared, you know, different languages, struggle, try to get the English right. When the music comes on, "Oh, say" — we all couldn't finish the first sentence, just broke down crying. And we laugh, smiling and crying and looking at each other. We know what it's like to be American. It was to be allowed to be human, to be ourselves. You know, moments like this. And also, you don't want me to go on with all these, you know…

Ms. Tippett: No, it’s fine. Go on.

Ms. Min: …great things about I feel that I am more Chinese in America than I could feel if I was in China. You know, the moment I step on my motherland in China, my guard will be up. I talk differently, behave differently.

Ms. Tippett: So how can you be more Chinese here? Just because you can be yourself, and yourself is Chinese?

Ms. Min: Mm-hmm.

That's one of the things it means to me to be American. At its best, the United States is a country that takes in people from around the world and gives them the freedom to be who they are.

Happy Fourth! Here's hoping it clears up for the fireworks tonight!

Poetry Friday - July 4th

For today's celebration, let's join Gregory Djanikian for an "Immigrant Picnic."

It's the Fourth of July, the flags
are painting the town,
the plastic forks and knives
are laid out like a parade.

And I'm grilling. I've got my apron,
I've got potato salad, macaroni, relish,
I've got a hat shaped
like the state of Pennsylvania.

Things start out American enough - but soon the family is arguing over the use of language. But wait, what could be more American than that? Read the rest of the poem here.

I've only read a few poems by Djanikian but I have loved every one of them. Here's a link to some more of his work.

And here's a link to today's Poetry Friday roundup, at In Search of Giants.

World's Happiest Country

A study comparing the happiness of countries around the world done by the National Science Foundation has come to a different conclusion from the Happy Planet Index, which found that Vanuatu was the world's happiest country. This new study says Denmark is the happiest. (Both studies ranked Zimbabwe at the bottom.) You can follow a link on this page to a full listing of the countries surveyed by the National Science Foundation (only 97 of them, but they say that covers 90% of the world's population).

Of course it all depends on how you define happiness. The Happy Planet Index uses three factors - ecological footprint, life-satisfaction, and life expectancy. In the National Science Foundation study, called the World Values Survey, they simply asked citizens of various countries how happy they were. NSF researchers conclude that people are more likely to be happy in prosperous democracies that are at peace. They also say that happiness is increasing worldwide; they have been doing their survey since 1981.

I find attempts to compare the world's countries to one another fascinating, especially when they involve something as subjective and difficult to measure as happiness. Someone with whom I was discussing this news story commented that Denmark's suicide rate is very high. I found this link which seems to support that statement. It looks as though there are nearly twice as many suicides per 100,000 people in Denmark, the happiest country, as in Zimbabwe, the most unhappy country.

How happy are you? Take this test to find out. I took it but unfortunately the scoring feature doesn't seem to be working and I have to say I'm not very happy about that. Seriously, though, that page has several more links to interesting reading about happiness, including information about Bhutan, a country whose stated priority is "Gross National Happiness."

Carnival

Here's yesterday's Education Carnival.

Breaking News!

I was at the bank today and in the lobby there was a big screen with headlines flashing on it. One of them was that Angelina Jolie's obstetrician had called a press conference.

I really think every time a woman goes into labor, a press conference should be called, because what is more exciting than the birth of a baby? Certainly once the birth has happened, a press conference should be called and there should be much rejoicing and photos in People magazine.

But, as I found out when I hurriedly looked up the story upon my return home, not only have the babies not been born, not only is Angelina not in labor, but the birth is still "weeks away." Yes, the doctor called a press conference to inform the world that an obviously extremely pregnant woman is going to give birth in a few weeks.

At least I didn't miss the news, thanks to the big screen at the bank! Whew!

Soundtrack

I have seen various versions of this meme. Nobody has tagged me but I thought it looked fun. I got this particular version from here, via Google.

IF YOUR LIFE WERE A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp, Media Player, iPod, etc.)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

I have no intention of trying to pretend I'm cool. I teach middle school, remember? I am painfully aware of how old and un-cool I am. Also, I should warn you that I have very eclectic - not to say weird - taste in music. I'll try not to cheat, though.

Opening Credits - "Never Be an Angel," by Margaret Becker. "So many, so many mistakes I make,/ So needing, so needing a touch of grace."

Waking Up - "Blood Makes Noise," by Suzanne Vega. "Blood makes noise/ It's a ringing in my ear/ Blood makes noise/ And I can't really hear you/ In the thickening of fear..." Hmm.

First Day at School - "A Lullabye," by Teresa Doyle. This comes from Putumayo's Dreamland CD. I love Putumayo. Not sure why I'm singing lullabies on the first day of school. If I'm going to sing them, though, this is a lovely Celtic one.

Falling in Love - Handel's "Water Music." Hm again.

Fight Song - "Waltz from Serenade for Strings in E, Opus 22," by Dvorak. What a civilized fight.

Breaking Up - "I Surrender All," by the Newsboys. "Can you hear the sound of laughter/ from the other side of life?/ There are days when I feel like a stranger sometimes/ Tell me, are there any other fools like me?. . . . He doesn't love us 'cause of who we are,/ He only loves us 'cause of who He is." Love the Newsboys.

Prom - No prom at my high school, but here goes. "Tik Tik Tak," by Glykeria. From Putumayo's World Playground CD. I think the lyrics are in Greek. Very catchy, and, no doubt, fun to dance to at my non-existent prom.

Life is Good - "Dolencias," by Pablo Carcamo. This is from an album called Magic Flutes and Music of the Andes. I don't speak Spanish, but the dictionary definition of this is "ailments." So, I guess, the glass is half empty even though life is good. Or something.

Mental Breakdown - "Concerto for guitar and viola d'amore, Allegro," by Vivaldi. I fight to Dvorak and break down to Vivaldi. This is one of those understated movies. It's probably going to be shown only on PBS.

Driving - "Ayiti - Bang Bang," by Carimi. From another Putumayo album, their French Caribbean one.

Flashback - "God Moves in a Mysterious Way/The Lord is in His Holy Temple." From Amy Grant's hymn album, Rock of Ages.

Getting Back Together - "Etienne et Petunia," from the Appalachia Waltz CD, with Yo-Yo Ma playing.

Wedding - "Suite for Trumpet & Organ," by Purcell.

Paying the Dues - "Clarinet Quintet in A Major," Mozart. Played by Benny Goodman. SO gorgeous. I'm not sure what paying the dues even means in this context. But I love love love Mozart clarinet music.

The Night Before the War - "The Boy in the Bubble," by Paul Simon. From the Graceland album. I think I wore out two copies of this cassette tape. Maybe three. "It was a slow day/ And the sun was beating/ On the soldiers by the side of the road/ There was a bright light/ A shattering of shop windows/ The bomb in the baby carriage/ Was wired to the radio..."

Final Battle - "What if His People Prayed," by Casting Crowns.

Moment of Triumph - Bach "Violin Concerto in A Minor, Allegro."

Death Scene - "Arise, Arise, You Slumbering Sleeper," by Custer LaRue, from In the Shadow of the Blue Ridge. This is a CD of artists from Virginia, put out by a public radio station.

Funeral Song - "In Christ There is no East or West," played by bagpipes. Really. From Song of the Piper.

End Credits - "Bi Thus A Mo Shuile," by Maire Brennan. It's "Be Thou My Vision," sung in Gaelic.

That was fun. It's scary how appropriate some of these are. And I didn't cheat - much. Just pressed refresh a couple of times when everything was coming up classical. And, OK, I didn't want my death song to be "I'm Leaving on a Jet Plane." I'm not superstitious but I just didn't like the sound of that one. And then there was that soundtrack from an animated movie about Beatrix Potter, I think - why is that in there? I confess I skipped "Tom Kitten." But not because I'm trying to pretend to be cool. Just because, well, it's about a kitten. So yeah, I cheated quite a bit. But it's my blog.

So, anybody else want to try it?

No, no, no!

Today is the first day of the month. As I do each month, I am drawing your attention to the Daily Photo Blogs' theme day. This month's topic is "No." That is, participants are supposed to post a photo of a sign forbidding something. Here's a sample, from Sharon, CT. After you look at that photo you can find links to all the others. Or go here to see thumbnails.

This theme makes me think of my brother, who, when we were children, liked to collect ways to say "Do Not Enter" in various languages and then post them on his bedroom door. I think he had over a hundred versions of this friendly greeting. I wish I had a photo of his door to post, but sadly, I do not. If you have one, bro, send it to me, OK?

Where I live, not all that much is forbidden. In fact, when I talk to my students about what they like about their country, that's often one of the first things mentioned. You can do what you want - there aren't rules about everything the way there are in the US. Of course, there are major caveats to this. If you have money, you can buy your way out of trouble. If you don't, you may find yourself in trouble through no fault of your own. Plus, "whatever you want" is rather a limited set of choices. And there are a few signs forbidding things - "Don't throw trash here," (usually overlooking a large trash pile), "Don't pee here, please," the occasional "No smoking" sign. Recently, traffic lights have started appearing here and there in my city, and at first people weren't quite sure how to react to this development. Traffic chaos increased instead of decreasing.

When my husband and I visited Japan, on the other hand, we were amused to see a sign in the airport: "Welcome to Japan. Please follow the rules."

Enjoy your trip around the world exploring what everyone forbids!

Two Planets

(Famous Blue Marble photo of Earth, taken from Apollo 17 and borrowed by me from Wikipedia.)

I have referred several times recently to dealing with culture shock/fatigue by pretending that the United States and the place where I usually live exist on different planets. The reason for this is that if I am constantly comparing the two places, it is hard for me to enjoy being here in the US. I see acres of clothing in a store and I think about the second-hand clothing sold on the street at home. I go to the library and start feeling emotional because I wish such a bounty of books was available to kids in my neighborhood. I even teared up at the park, and at Cheekwood, for the same reason. I can't avoid feeling overwhelmed some of the time, but I try to minimize that feeling.

Also, I often blurt out strange things that people don't understand. For example, once I was walking down the street in early August and a family was emptying the kiddie pool they had had in their back yard during the summer. As I saw the water flowing down the street, I felt almost sick. "Do they realize how many times they could have flushed the toilet with that water?" I started to rant. "Do they know how many people have to carry water miles on their heads, and they are just pouring it out on the street?" Fortunately, only my family heard this tirade. Comments like that tend to make people uncomfortable, in my experience. I say this sort of thing less often if I am doing my other-planet fantasy.

The fact is, I can't help thinking of the following passage from Tracy Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains (great book, by the way).

He [Paul Farmer] went on writing his letter. I looked around. The airport, Charles de Gaulle [in Paris], has an angular, steel-and-glass simplicity, which struck me just then as frighteningly complex, which made me feel projected into a future I didn't understand. I thought of its duty-free shop, where one could buy first-class pâté, confit d'oie, grand cru wines. "You started that letter on a hike in rural Haiti," I mused aloud, thinking now of those arid highlands, of medieval peasant huts, donkey ambulances. "It seems like another world."

Farmer looked up, smiling, and in a chirpy-sounding voice he said, "But that feeling has the disadvantage of being..." He paused a beat. "Wrong."

"Well," I retorted, "it depends on how you look at it."

"No, it doesn't," he replied, in a very pleasant voice. "The polite thing to say would be, 'You're right. It's a parallel universe. There really is no relation between the massive accumulation of wealth in one part of the world and abject misery in another.'" He looked at me. He'd made me laugh. "You know I'm being funny about something serious," he said.

One time I listened to Farmer give a talk on HIV to a class at the Harvard School of Public Health, and in the midst of reciting data, he mentioned the Haitian phrase "looking for life, destroying life." Then he explained, "It's an expression Haitians use if a poor woman selling mangoes falls off a truck and dies." I felt as if for that moment I could see a little way into his mind. It seemed like a place of hyperconnectivity. At moments like that, I thought that what he wanted was to erase both time and geography, connecting all parts of his life and tying them instrumentally between the gleaming corporate offices of Paris and New York and a legless man lying on the mud floor of a hut in the remotest part of remote Haiti. Of all the world's errors, he seemed to feel, the most fundamental was the "erasing" of people, the "hiding away" of suffering. "My big struggle is how people can not care, erase, not remember."

It's easier for me if I don't remember, if I don't think about the huge differences between the first world and the third. But I think Farmer is right. It's hard to live between worlds, but some days I have no choice. Because thinking there is no connection has the disadvantage of being...wrong.

Race

This morning my mom and I got up early and ran (actually, we walked) in the 5K race that this community always has for the 4th of July. We always walk - one year I even pushed a stroller with a two-year-old in it - and we still usually get medals. I guess most of the women in town of our (advanced) age have better things to do. This morning I did not get a prize, but my mother was third in her age group. Whoopee! It was a lot of fun, as it always is.

And then, there is the race t-shirt, which I can wear for the year and pretend I'm an athlete. I always look to see where articles of clothing are made, and that's the first thing I did after I picked up my number and answered the question about what size I wanted. The shirts - blue this year - were made in the country where I live. Once they arrived in the United States, they had an American flag printed on the front and the names of the race sponsors on the back. It's strange to think about the journey my t-shirt has made, and thinking about it interferes with my culture-shock-reducing strategy of pretending that the US and the place where I usually spend my time are on two different planets.

My son couldn't understand why I didn't win a prize. He kept bouncing around at my knees, saying, "But Mom, you won! You came to the finish line!"

Yeah. By that definition, I won.

After the race, I had a pretty American Saturday. I ate, went shopping, watched some TV. And, of course, I checked out the Saturday Review of Books.

Report: Many U.S. Parents Outsourcing Child Care Overseas

Poetry Friday - Ozymandias

In honor of today's elections in Zimbabwe, I offer this reminder of the transitory nature of human power, no matter how impressive it may seem.

Ozymandias of Egypt
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said:—Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.


The roundup is at Biblio File.

Education Carnival, Jersey Shore Edition

Here's today's Carnival of Education.

Cheekwood

Yesterday we spent some time at Cheekwood, just like last year. Once again, there is an fairy tale theme, but this year with all different exhibits.

Poetry Friday

We were on the road today and I didn't have a chance to participate, but here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

Contented

I heard this great story on the radio this evening. (You can read the story or listen at that link.)

These visual artists live in New York City, one of the most expensive places on the planet. They don't have a lot of money (OK, that's all relative, but by US standards they don't). And yet - surprise! - they are happy, and they may teach all of us some lessons about growing old and being contented.

I loved listening to Hank Vergona say that "a walk down a quiet street — especially toward dusk — is as good as going to Caracas or Venezuela or anywhere. It is nourishing. That is part of art's purpose."

Carnival

Here's this week's Carnival of Education.

Flooding

When you saw that title, you probably thought of the Midwest, and yes, that flooding is horrible. I've been watching the coverage and reading about the dangers of the waters. People are suffering.

But I was listening to a podcast this morning and I found out about some other flooding I hadn't heard of. (The podcast, by the way, was Africa Today, from the BBC - Monday's edition. I learn about many situations on this program that I wouldn't know about otherwise.) Apparently people in Somalia who are already in displaced person camps are now facing flooding after three years of drought. Two and a half million people are displaced inside Somalia. Here's an article about this situation. This isn't on the scale of the flooding in the United States, but the people in Somalia have much less to lose and have already been dealing with crisis after crisis for years. And they don't have enough to eat. Here's a more comprehensive article about the many problems facing Somalia.

Prince Caspian, with Many, Many Spoilers

In spite of what I had read here and here, last night we went to see Prince Caspian.

This isn't going to be a movie review, more of a list of what we liked and what we didn't, and if you haven't seen it yet, you should quit reading, because I don't want to spoil it for you. But we really loved it, a bit to our surprise. We had read the book aloud as a family, and two of us in the family practically know it by heart, and yes, there were many things that were different from the book. But in most cases, we were willing to accept them and understood why the film-makers found them necessary.

What we liked:

- It made sense to us that Peter had become a bit of a belligerent, obnoxious teenager. It wouldn't be too easy to make the transition from High King to an ordinary schoolboy wearing that goofy uniform.

- While I kind of missed the part from the book where they slowly, gradually made the connection that they were in Cair Paravel, I was OK with them telescoping it a bit. And the scenery was beautiful.

- At first I was not at all happy about Trumpkin being taken to Miraz's castle but it did give us a chance to meet Glozelle and Sopespian and get some context for why they weren't too fond of Miraz. If they were going to reshape the order of the story, they did it well, I thought. I liked it that they transitioned into Trumpkin being in the boat with the soldiers - kind of rejoining the book's version of events.

- I loved the banter between the children and Trumpkin and found it very much in the spirit of the book, even if the actual things said were different. A favorite: Peter introducing himself as "Peter the Magnificent," Susan's response, "You could probably have left off the magnificent," and Trumpkin's dry, "Probably." Some reviews I read were negative about the portrayal of Trumpkin but I liked him. Sure, he is more important in the book because it's from him that we learn all about Caspian's childhood and what led up to the situation in Narnia, but I liked the cynical way the movie Trumpkin viewed the past and the present.

- I liked Caspian's encounters with the Old Narnians.

- Reepicheep! I was preparing to be horrified by the portrayal of this favorite character, but I wasn't. I thought he was great. He was swaggering, courageous, over-sensitive (witness his response when Lucy calls him "cute"). I liked the part when he showed up for the first time. I liked his dialogue and we all loved the scene where he tied up the cat. I can't wait to see him in Dawn Treader.

- The conflict between Peter and Caspian, while not in the book, made sense.

- I didn't even mind the whole added bit with storming Miraz's castle. It gave us an opportunity to see Caspian's relationship with Miraz and to find out that Queen Prunaprismia wasn't in on the bad stuff Miraz was doing. And I loved it that Edmund got to use his torch. The birds/aircraft were wonderful. And I liked that they got it wrong, and then had a chance to make things right.

- Others have said that Aslan hardly shows up, but that's kind of the point. They feel abandoned by him, and yet he's there, all over. He's there in the reminders of the past - the Stone Table, the carvings and pictures on the wall, the books Cornelius guards so carefully. He's there in the belief of those who remain loyal to him, especially Lucy and the wonderful Trufflehunter. Isn't this exactly what we go through? Aslan isn't a vending machine and he doesn't do things the way anybody expects - just like God.

- Is Peter great, or what? There were so many scenes when you could see despair and disbelief in his eyes - he was just trying to do the right thing and it kept on turning out wrong. I can relate, Peter.

- The scene with the river at the end is brilliant.

- I loved it that the girls had more action than in the book, though I know Lewis probably wouldn't agree with me. ("Battles are ugly when women fight," says Aslan in one of the books. Then again, the girls did ride to the wars in The Horse and his Boy.) (Oops, my daughter says it was Father Christmas that said it, in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.)



What we didn't like:

- My daughter thought the scene where the children get pulled into Narnia was a bit overdone, with the collapsing walls, etc.

- I agree with those who thought Caspian was too old. And his accent was weird - kind of off and on.

- We didn't like it that the scene where Lucy sees Aslan in the woods at night was turned into a dream sequence. Then again, if Aslan isn't going to show up until the end... I guess I was ambivalent about this part.

- We were also ambivalent about the scene where the White Witch is called back. This was just an expansion of the scene in the book, but what's with the blood she needs to return? Just a little too weird. And this was the one part my daughter found too scary.

- I couldn't understand what Lucy and Susan were sent into the woods to do. While I liked the drama of them riding off alone, and I loved it when Lucy met Aslan, I'm not sure what the plan was if Aslan hadn't shown up - and clearly he wasn't at their beck and call.

- My daughter didn't like the Caspian/Susan kiss. In fact, it made her gag a little bit, I think. But I didn't mind it.


In all, as I said at the beginning, we loved the movie. We felt it was true to the spirit of the original even though some of the details were different. We can't understand why some felt it was "slow" and "boring." And it was fun to find surprises in a story we know so well. Trumpkin tells the children (after the encounter with the bear) that they may find Narnia more savage than they remember it. The movie Narnia is more savage, and less clearcut, than the book Narnia, but I liked that. I still love the book, but the movie added to my appreciation for the story.

So what do you think?

A Different Kind of Saturday

We spent this Saturday on the road. It feels good to have a change from our usual life, to see new scenery and talk to different people about different things. It's easy to get so wrapped up in what's happening in our little corner of the world that we forget there's more out there. Someone asked if I'm experiencing culture shock and I answered that I handle it by compartmentalizing - I reason that this place and that place are on two different planets. I find I have to give myself a break from pondering the reasons for poverty and the connections between the crazy abundance I see here and the lack of basic necessities most people experience there. I'll think about all that another day.

Here's today's Saturday Review of Books.

Poetry Friday - where we are

By the time this posts (automatically, I hope), I will be in the United States (if all goes according to plan as, so often, it doesn't). I was thinking about this poem today (I'm writing this on Tuesday). I thought about it so much that I actually had to go over to school and get Good Poems, the anthology where I knew I had read it. Once I found the title and poet, I realized it was available online, but I couldn't remember enough of the details of it to find it without the book.

I do live in two places (I posted some more about that here) and I like the perspective of this poem on that phenomenon. As Locklin says, "i have always loved both the freshness of arriving and the relief of leaving."

Here's the beginning of the poem:


where we are

Gerald Locklin

(for edward field)

i envy those
who live in two places:
new york, say, and london;
wales and spain;
l.a. and paris;
hawaii and switzerland.

there is always the anticipation
of the change, the chance that what
is wrong is the result of where you are.


You can read the rest of this poem here.

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

Education Carnival

I thought maybe by now I'd be ready to think about school and teaching again, but...no. Just in case you, gentle reader, want to think about such topics, here's this week's Education Carnival. I bet there's some interesting stuff there!

Reading Update

Book #21 - The Broker, by John Grisham
Book #22 - The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai
Book #23 - Still Bored in a Culture of Entertainment: Rediscovering Passion and Wonder, by Richard Winter
Book #24 - The Higher Power of Lucky, by Susan Patron

First Monday of the Summer

There's a special kind of pleasure on the first Monday of the summer vacation. The pleasure starts Sunday night, when, instead of the usual rush to get everybody to bed because it's a school night, you can be a little more relaxed. No school tomorrow!

Yesterday we partied with graduates for most of the day. Graduation was Saturday evening, as usual, and Sunday was the traditional round of parties and open-houses. We got to bed later than usual - and that was OK!

Today, to celebrate the beginning of our first full week of freedom, my children and I went with a friend to visit a blogging buddy who lives out in the country. We shared lunch together and our children played and we talked and talked; it was a wonderful, restful day.

A big part of the pleasure of this day is that it's the beginning - summer stretches out ahead of us and we don't know what it holds. Sure, we know it will go fast, and that it won't seem any time at all before school looms ahead, but for today, anything seems possible around the next bend.

J.K. Rowling at Harvard

My daughter and I just watched J.K. Rowling's commencement address at Harvard. You can go here to read the text, watch the video, and/or download the MP3. She did a great job.

The Inheritance of Loss

The Inheritance of Loss, by Kiran Desai, is a fantastic book, about living as a foreigner and what it means to be home. The sense of place in this book is so vivid that it was strange to stop reading it and realize I wasn't in Nepal or New York City. The writing is beautiful, with a style bordering on magic realism; the characters are poignant and believable. I loved this book and recommend it highly.

Some excerpts:

"Looking at a dead insect in the sack of basmati that had come all the way from Dehra Dun, he almost wept in sorrow and marvel at its journey, which was tenderness for his own journey. In India almost nobody would be able to afford this rice, and you had to travel around the world to be able to eat such things where they were cheap enough that you could gobble them down without being rich; and when you got home to the place where they grew, you couldn't afford them anymore."

"'Good night. Good-bye. So long' - not Indian sentences, English sentences. Perhaps that's why they had been so happy to learn a new tongue in the first place: the self-consciousness of it, the effort of it, the grammar of it, pulled you up; a new language provided distance and kept the heart intact."

This passage describes a phone call between Biju in New York City and his father in Nepal. "The atmosphere of Kalimpong reached Biju all the way in New York; it smelled densely on the line and he could feel the pulse of the forest, smell the humid air, the green black lushness; he could imagine all its different textures, the plumage of banana, the stark spear of the cactus, the delicate gestures of ferns; he could hear the croak trrrr whonk, wee wee butt ock butt ock of frogs in the spinach, the rising note welding imperceptibly with the evening....Suddenly, after this there was nothing more to say, for while the emotion was there, the conversation was not; one had bloomed, not the other, and they fell abruptly into emptiness."

Saturday Review of Books

Here it is.

Poetry Friday - A Quiet Life

Since I live in a place where some of the "necessities" you take for granted in the developed world may just not be there when you need them, I found this poem, "A Quiet Life," by Baron Wormser, irresistible. It begins

What a person desires in life
is a properly boiled egg.
This isn't as easy as it seems.
There must be gas and a stove,
the gas requires pipelines, mastodon drills,
banks that dispense the lozenge of capital.


Later in the poem Wormser adds:


Political peace too. It should be quiet
when one eats an egg. No political hoodlums
knocking down doors, no lieutenants who are
ticked off at their scheming girlfriends and
take it out on you, no dictators
posing as tribunes.

You can read the rest of this poem here; it was Monday's selection on The Writer's Almanac. I listen to the podcast of this every day. Well, when internet access and electricity permit. "This isn't as easy as it seems."

Here's today's Poetry Friday roundup.

And There Was Much Rejoicing

I just had the walk-through of my classroom - it is all put away for the summer and the shelves are covered against dust. My checkout sheet is completed and summer has really truly begun!

Here's this week's Education Carnival, and maybe I'll read it when I regain an interest in education again. It'll probably only take a few days.

And...We Did It!

The kids are gone; the halls are quiet; the debris is still to be dealt with.

I spent the morning corralling kids, signing off on cleaned-out lockers, getting textbooks returned and checking them against my list, preventing mayhem, attending a promotion ceremony, helping serve at a reception, hugging kids, signing yearbooks, getting workers to remove locks from lockers (this was pretty exciting and involved sparks, so of course everyone wanted to crowd into the hall to watch), getting probably fifty books back for my classroom library (found in bedrooms and lockers and at the bottom of backpacks), and generally ending the year.

It's over.

Almost There...

One more day with kids!