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teaching, reading, writing, politiking
Фев. 3, 2009
05:29 pm
I called my senators today. Talked to two really nice women. One from Richard Burr (R) and one from Kay Hagan (D). Two pretty different conversations:
1. Calling Sen. Hagan was really exciting. But the fact that I didn't get to a receptionist was a bit disappointing. I called her Raleigh office and spoke to someone that gave me some information, but it wasn't very clear. I wish that I could have gotten a clear, precise, and detailed answer.
2. Calling Sen. Burr was interesting. The receptionist started off really aggressively, but eventually we talked for some time about the stimulus. She said that Burr thinks there are too many pet projects in the bill - that's the reason why he wouldn't support it. So, I pushed her on that. I asked her to tell me some examples - she never got specific. She then moved on to something about taxes (tax cuts for errbody - oh...she means the rich people that already have a lot). She directed me to the Burr website.
She also told me that Sen. Burr thought that the "good" projects (like school grants) could stand on their own and didn't need to be included in a big package like this. I wanted to say that it made more sense to pass it all at once rather than slow it down. I mean, isn't that just common sense.
Oh well.
Июл. 12, 2008
12:37 pm
my dad gave me a clarinet. it was my stepmom's and now it's mine! i've started playing again!!!!!!!!!!
Июл. 10, 2008
Июл. 9, 2008
09:29 am - Books!
The Big Read reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they've printed.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Put an asterisk next to the books you'd rather shove hot pokers in your eyes than read
5) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare [a majority - not all]
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien *
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown *
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
Май. 3, 2008
01:10 am - At another political event
I just got the chance to see Hilldawg at the JJ Dinner in Raleigh. I have to say that she is much better in person than she is on television. She's very personable and really does have some good ideas. I'm happy that I got the chance to see her.
Hell, maybe a few months ago I would have voted for her. But it remains to be all about the big O for me.
Hillary really needs to make it faster through the handshaking. It's taking her 1000000 years to get anywhere.
Bring on Barack!!!!
Апр. 28, 2008
06:02 pm
Here I am. Live. Obama. I'm at the Chapel Hill rally ready to volunteer. The people are doing the sound checking and it's pretty hilarious. The guy just repeats again and again, "wire..." Strange.
I think tonight is going to be amazing. The people, the Obama, the everything. I can't wait.
Апр. 26, 2008
09:16 pm - Correction to previous post...
I am actually going to be a volunteer at the rally helping to check voter registration records. I may get to meet the man myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can't wait!
10:31 am - Continuing the political themes
I am going to the Barack Obama rally in Chapel Hill at the Smith Center this Monday! Later on in the week I'll be going to the Jefferson/Jackson Dinner in Raleigh where he and Senator Clinton will both speak.
Needless to say but I am going to touch that man this week!
Me + BHO = True Love
Апр. 9, 2008
08:22 pm - I talked to John Edwards today...
I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina - we have many famous residents, among them, John Edwards. I've heard stories of people running into him all over town, seeing him with his kids, etc. So, anyway...I was coming home from work today and had to stop at the grocery store to pick up a few things for dinner. I went through the checkout line and was walking out the door when I saw...John Edwards. He was wearing a gym outfit (he's got skinny legs, they're nice, but skinny). I walked past and nonchalantly said, "You should endorse Senator Obama." To which he responded, "Yeah, I've heard that." I kept walking and then said, "You should do it sooner as opposed to later." Then I left the Harris Teeter.
In the parking lot I almost hit him with my car because I was parked between two huge SUV's. I would have kept talking to him, but I didn't want to be a pest.
Янв. 7, 2008
09:04 pm - How much do I love Obama right now!?!?!?!
I just read his HRC Questionnaire and his answers really made me think. I like him so much more. Look at the way he answers this question.
While 47 states allow gay and lesbian people to adopt children, some legislators are pushing to prohibit capable, committed adults from adopting because of their sexual orientation. As president, would you support giving appropriate judicial authorities the full authority to make decisions on adoption based on the best interest of the child, without bans based solely on sexual orientation?
(Support) Oppose
Comments: I believe there are too many children who need loving parents to deny one group of people adoption rights. A child will benefit from a healthy, loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
Amazing!
Окт. 28, 2007
09:06 pm
this entry is being written from my iPhone while I sit in my kitchen and watch my tea steam. It's pretty awesome how this thing works - I seeyself becoming a SMS wizard in a few weeks
Авг. 13, 2007
11:19 am - marathon training day one
time: 10:30 to 11:08
total run time: approx. 38 minutes
temperature: 90 degrees
humidity: 33% (pretty low)
type of running: streets - relatively flat with some pretty good inclines
worst hills: gradual climb along airport road, e. longview street, coming up village drive
total distance: approx 3 miles
general impressions: i need to run when it's cooler. i'll stick to indoor training for now. maybe trails early in the morning (if i wake up that early).
Авг. 12, 2007
06:44 pm - Republicans
It seems to me that the question of how left the Democrats should move is a moot point. The country is urging us to move to the left. The left is the only thing that can save this country. The Republican field, the front runners, is left leaning trying to make it appeal to the right. That's why these Republican primaries are so messed up right now and the voters are so unhappy. Hillary used to be my least favorite candidate - and she's still down there. I'm all for John Edwards now - he's a Democrat who is proud to be a Democrat. Hillary is starting to wise up. Hopefully she can wise up enough to win the election. But who knows, Edwards may sweep the primaries with Obama.
02:08 pm - making plans
is it strange that i'm already making plans for next summer? i haven't even started day one of my teaching job and i'm already making plans for what is going to happen about 180 days from today. as of now i'm planning a trip to 2.5 soviet republics. but dani, you ask, what is the half of a soviet republic? and the answer is moldova. moldova is a tiny sliver of a country that sits between romania and ukraine. the part of the country that is closest to ukraine and sits on the eastern bank of the major river in moldova is a breakaway republic. it's called transdniester and its capital is called tiraspol. in this part of moldova they don't speak moldovan (which is really just romanian) and they use their own currency. they're mostly russian speaking and there is a large jewish population there too. so, i want to start there and go around some areas of the country, staying in relatively cheap places (possibly doing homestays). then i want to get on a train and head into ukraine (odessa, kyiv, etc) - i may have a few problems there but i can piece together what's going on when i hear ukrainian and i can speak to older people in russian. finally, belarus - i don't know what to see in belarus but i really want to go to minsk.
i have such strong wanderlust - it's almost amazing to me. of course i may have the chance to travel over there with people from dps (we have some sort of thing with towns in eastern europe) - if that happens, i'd love to go along.
i just realize more and more that i'm a planner. i love making plans. i think that sometimes i love making plans more than actually going out and accomplishing said plans. i suppose that the plans are always safer than the actual act of going out into the world - but now i'm philosophizing.
speaking of plans, my lesson plans are going along really well. i've got the first twenty days of the semester planned. i know that i'm not going to stick by these plans all that strictly, but, i'd love to stay as close as possible. we're starting with an introduction to literature unit (poetry and short stories) and then moving on into the odyssey. i've got some cool ideas for things to do with the odyssey. then animal farm and a unit on satire and allegory. i think i'll do some readjusing within that first weekend when i actually get to know the kids (hell, i could have a really fast group that knows a lot more than i think they know) and i'll revamp things and push up the difficulty level. it's going to be difficult due to the fact that i have to differentiate instruction within my class - but i can do it. i really hope that my students enjoy my class and learn something that they'll treasure. i care about that and them passing the english i eoc. of course, the class having fun and actually attaining the learning goals that i've set for us is much more important to me than any friggen standardized test.
i just finished reading the kite runner - it was pretty awesome. i read it in about three days. the beginning really pissed me off because i absolutely hated the narrator. at the end, however, i found it much better and enjoyable. i liked the way that everything cycled back on itself without being too cliche. i hate how some narratives are cyclical and it just seems like a big fake. when i read a book like that i'll just sit back and think that the author is crap because he/she couldn't find any other way to end the book than to recycle the beginning and middle. i guess because the way that the author builds distance between the narrator/reader and the beginning of the book the cycle isn't as apparent until the reader is deep inside of it.
finally. i have a list of supplemental novels for my students. i'm going to put it here under a cut - if you can think of any more novels that you think should be added to this list, plese let me know. just remember a few things:
1. i teach at a public high school in durham, north carolina
2. i will have students of varying reading ability
3. we can read a wide variety of things in the ninth grade year, but i dont want to steal the thunder of teachers in later years (hence, no the great gatsby - i picked another fitzgerald book.)
( the list of books )
Авг. 11, 2007
01:11 pm - this is kinda messed up
so, i've got this idea that my students can have the chance to write to wounded war veterans while we're studying the odyssey to learn more about the issues facing veterans in our society today and compare them to the issues that odysseus faces in his life as he returns from war. i think it's a good idea. anyway, i went to the website for walter reed army hospital to get information on writing to soldiers and all they have now is these message boards that are completely anonymous with no actual connection between people. that really irks me. it seems as though it's yet another way to keep our soldiers silent and the public in the dark about what is actually happening to these men and women. there's got to be a way to write to living, wounded soldiers and to get a response from them. any ideas?
Авг. 6, 2007
11:06 pm - moodle
dear moodle,
thank you for being really easy to use. this is going to be a great year because of you.
www.englishunabridged.com
![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/elizabethia/gothicsally/silly.gif){kind=small}
chipperАвг. 5, 2007
08:39 pm - the plan for the week
monday - wake up, go to bank (open new checking account, speak to loan officer about buying a house), finish planning first five days, coffee with molly, call dps about id card
tuesday - wake up, go to jordan (talk to starlyn, get materials, drop stuff off in classroom), go to dps to get id card, go to riverside and raid my old mentor teacher's files, buy bookshelf at bed bath and beyond, use up gift card at barnes and noble
wednesday - sleep in, odyssey planning, work on class website, beer and snacks with lauren at milltown
thursday and friday...who knows, the beginning of the week is going to be busy enough. i can't wait for new teacher orientation to be over and done so that i can be at school and actually get stuff done!
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accomplishedИюл. 27, 2007
08:54 am
it is my humble opinion that starbucks frappucinos are killing the world. if you dont like coffee but still want a boost in the morning, then drink something that isn't filled with fat and calories. or, just get over yourself and thinking that you're so cool with your frap. frappucinos are also the reason why people who don't work at starbucks hate starbucks.
Июл. 20, 2007
02:47 pm
i'm realizing that the new democratic party is a lot like the old republican party. limited presidential powers, sound economic policy, control on guns, stronger personal freedoms...my g-d -- we've become libertarians!
Июл. 16, 2007
03:09 pm - the most recent
i've never been to kenai fjords national park. it was absolutely amazing. i hiked up above a glacier to the harding ice fields (elevation 4000 ft). check out my facebook page for pictures - it was just amazing.
http://www.akhs.atfreeweb.com/Hikes/Exi
next weekend - kayaking :)
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