haaaaaaaaalp

I need your help!
The last 9 weeks of school for English 10 is scheduled to teach a novel. Our choices are: Lord of the Flies (yes!! Already decided!) or A Separate Peace (NO!). I asked my department chair if I could do literature circles or another novel instead of choice #2. She understood and said I could probably pull it off because I definitely do NOT need 9 weeks to teach LOTF. I'm coming up with a list of books I've read for her to go over and see if the students will read or have already read them in other classes.

So far, I have:
Ella Minnow Pea: Mark Dunn
1984: George Orwell
Animal Farm: Orwell
Brave New World: Aldous Huxley
To Kill A Mockingbird: Harper Lee
The Bell Jar: Sylvia Plath (mostly because they've read a few Plath poems already and some were really interested in this book)
Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe
Beloved: Toni Morrison
Poisonwood Bible: Barbara Kingsolver
The Kite Runner: Khaled Hosseini
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time: Mark Haddon
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Betty Smith
Speak: Laurie Halsie Anderson
The Things They Carried: Tim O'Brien (felt like I needed some "manly" books on the list)
Nervous Conditions: Tsi Tsi Dangaremba
The Secret Life of Bees: Susan Monk Kidd
Life of Pi: Yann Martel
A Lesson Before Dying: Ernest Gaines
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ken Kesey
Water for Elephants: Sara Gruen

I need suggestions! What are books that you think every high schooler should read? Hopefully you suggest some that I've also read, so I can put them on the list!

do some jimmy flips!

It's David's birthday today! We went out to eat last night and hung out with a few friends. I got him lots of stuff (In Rainbows by Radiohead, slippers, a laptop desk, 2 Adbusters issues, new earbuds that hook on the back of your ear and books by Obama, Soros and C. West) and I think he likes it all. I listened closely and well.

Today we went to see Atonement since I finished reading the book yesterday. It was a pretty good adaptation of a book that involved a lot of description and characters thinking more than doing. I can see why it's nominated during this award season, it was a beautiful movie and pretty well acted.

The weather recently and the fact that we're nearing the end of February means that spring is almost here! I feel like making some mix CDs, especially since the Talk of the Nation on Valentine's was all about making mixes, so if you would like a spring-themed mix CD-- let me know!

intro to wsbg 101: parents edition

My parents and cousin Liz came for a visit last Monday through Friday. They came with no real plans or timeline, but Megan and I had a few things we needed them to do...

First (and most important!): Eat some Chik-Fil-A. And they can only order a #1.

Dad approves.

Second: Go to Food for Thought. Have dad drink a Yuengling beer.

Again, he approves.

Mom tried a mojito for the first time. I had some sort of martini named after Poe.


Third: Go through Williamsburg and W&M's campus, eat at Retro's, try the samples at the peanut shop, take senior pictures for Lizzie and make all of them take polaroids (not scanned) with Thomas Jefferson's statue in Merchant's Square and more pictures with TJ on the campus.



And thus, it becomes a tradition as we now have eight people doing this. If you come to visit, I will make you do the same.

My dad bought new shoes just for this trip and lots of walking around. Look at how new and clean they are!

Fourth: Go to Va Beach, swim in the ocean (Liz's first time!), go to Macarthur and shop, and see Pet Sounds (it was amazing! and Liz's first non-school live production)

Ocean! I now love it.

Tritan is a giant

and he has a huge turtle!

I think they all had a good time. It was nice having them here. We ate lots of good food, swam in their pool just about every night, sweat it out during the two amazingly hot days we had, and played Apples to Apples (Liz is now hooked). I took a picture of one of the rounds, because I laughed so hard:

The green card says "Quiet". I won with Helen Keller. What can I say? I have a twisted sense of humor during that game.

Today is super hot. I was planning on taking a walk up to CVS to pick up the pictures I took of Liz and having lunch, then wandering on to parts of W&M's campus, but Meg took my earbuds to my iPod. It turned out to be a good thing cause it feels about 100 degrees outside. I went up to CVS, no photos yet. Went to Plan 9 and bought two first-time pressings of Belle & Sebatian's If You're Feeling Sinister and The Boy With the Arab Strap. I wasn't sure if I wanted them at first, but then I saw the little sticker that said "Free Download of Album". What? Free download? Yes, please! So, I finally have the two albums of Belle & Sebatian's I've always wanted, on vinyl and in mp3 form. Sweeeeeet. I also bought The Road, the book it seems everyone's been talking about since Oprah got the guy to do an interview and talked up his book for about 30 minutes straight. I read the first few pages and it seemed worth it, especially since Books a Million is amazing and it was something like 40% off. I had lunch at Padow's and started reading The Golden Compass. I'm about 35 or 40 pages into it, it is really, really good. If you like Harry Potter, you'd probably like this series, as well. I stopped back into CVS since the dude working there said that the photos should be delivered any second, but they still weren't there. I really want to see what they look like!

would you like some cheese with that whine?

It's kind of disappointing when a group of people that you have known and considered friends at one point in your life are within 50 miles of where you live for a weekend and don't even come for a visit. Or call just to say hi. Oh well. Could I really expect anything different? Nah. I'm not really surprised. I'm more surprised that I don't care as much as I would've a year ago. Progress does occur.
But. It is disappointing that I write letters and only get a few back. I miss getting mail. Thanks to Megan and Julia for the cards/letters. And to mom for the care package (chocolate and coffee! yes!). Speaking of mail... Amanda, have you gotten recipes from your recipe tree? I've gotten one so far! It was very exciting. I hope everyone I sent mine off to sent one to you!

Yesterday I did something that I haven't done in a long time: finish a whole book (315 pages!) in one day. Little Children is pretty darn good; now I want to see the movie.

Three more days left. I don't have much to do this week. Tomorrow: review. Wednesday and Thursday: Test, presentations, turn in projects. Then... we are done with Julius Caesar-- thank god!
For spring break? Read all the books I got out of the library and some that have been waiting on the shelf. Explore WMBG. Finish #2 issue of zine.

hocho and froyo, hallelujah holla back!

It's weird not having a car, but it forced us to finally take a walk. The rain (what VA got of the blizzard that just hit the midwest) finally calmed itself, so we headed over to New Town. Of course, we bought magazines at B&N--I got Venuszine. I like it. It could be that I'm slightly biased cause she's from Michigan, too, but it's a nice music/fashion magazine. Then we went over to the new chocolate shop, Coco chocolatier (could be spelled wrong!) for some hocho (that'd be hot chocolate for those of you that haven't seen that episode of Gilmore Girls or remember Dan W-K's obsession with calling hot chocolate "hocho" when Rocket Star first opened up). They have some delicious looking treats there and their hot chocolate was deeeeeelicious! maybe when it gets warmer, we'll see if Ben & Jerry's has any froyo...
But this post is not about hot chocolate! It's main purpose and hidden agenda is to suggest you check out Meg's blog: http://knittinblues.blogspot.com/. She knits some really amazing stuff. Maybe she'll make something for you.
I've recently finished off some books: Fight Club and My Antonia. They were both okay. Fight Club was one of the few books where I've seen the movie before I read the book. I think the book and movie are actually equal, they did a good job. My Antonia was better than O Pioneers!. I wasn't too sure about it to begin with, but I ended up really liking it. I've started reading Vanity Fair, still slowly making my way through Days of War, Nights of Love (and the more I read, the more it grows on me) and Birthday Letters and started The Sound and the Fury today. I've gotten into a habit of reading more than one book at a time. It keeps me entertained and gives me options.
This weekend we watched quite a few good movies and one really boring one. The Departed, The Science of Sleep and Marie Antoinette were really, really good. My favorite was The Science of Sleep. The Last Kiss was incredibly predictable and boring. I am disappointed in Zach Braff!
I've been trying to start my second issue of my zine, but I'm not sure what to write about. I haven't had the energy, the time or the focus to think much about it, so that could be part of the problem.
If you haven't watched "The (White) Rapper Show", I suggest you do! Ego Trip's shows on VH1 have always cracked me up, this one is absolutely hilarious. It's a lot different than I thought it would be and they make it different from those other reality TV shows. David and I (and a few of my students) have enjoying injecting "Hallelujah holla back", "it's the ghetto revival, baby!", "King of the Burbs!" and all the other stupid sayings that come out of John Brown's mouth into conversations.
I would also like to show off my new bike, it's gorrrrgeous!: