Silly poem is silly

In American Lit 2 yesterday, we were reading Imagist poems to kick off our Modernism unit. While our textbook can be the bane of my existence at times (I can't wait until I have time and energy again to go out on my own and supplement that sucker!), it does have a fun little selection from Des Imagistes. The kids enjoyed the short and sweet (and accessible!) images of poems like "In a Station of the Metro" and "Heat," and they got a good laugh out of my personal favorite, "This is Just to Say." One class finished a bit earlier than the others (that will happen when there's only ten enrolled and six who show up regularly), so I had them try to write their own "non-apology apology poems." Here is mine, lovingly dedicated to A. :)


This is just to say

The computer froze
While you were out
I'm sorry
I thought I was fixing it
But it deleted all your games

Silly thing

-February 7, 2012

Resolved

As discussed in previous posts (re: Yoga class), I tend to require a bit of external motivation when it comes to establishing habits and meeting goals. This still surprises me, too, as it doesn't fit with the strong-willed, stubborn, goal-oriented persona I generally don (and in many ways, genuinely so), but I suppose you can only ask so much of a person who still only gets out of bed if/when other people expect her to (Although, I blame that entirely on my alter-ego, "Sleep Me," who values sleep over all things, including other vital bodily needs.).

Anyway. If I'm going to consider myself to be serious about this English Teacher thing, and I usually do, then I need to get much more serious about the amount of reading I'm doing (or in my opinion, not doing). Cue: external motivation, however artificial, via blog. As I did over summer break with a fair amount of success, I will list the major works I finish here as I finish them. I am also going to attempt to match my summer pace, so I am setting a goal of 50 books in 2012. To encourage progress, I will count books I read for work, even if I have read them before, and I will count books started but unfinished before the 1st of the year. To add novelty and a bit of anecdotal research for our iPad project at work, I will note which books are read via ebook.

If I am to have any modicum of success in this venture, I have to start setting aside time for it. This is where the true challenge and the true resolution lies. It's far too easy to choose passive forms of entertainment and lay zombie-like on the futon in front of Top Gear marathons or scroll through miles of images every night on Pinterest, but by resolving to read more, I am resolving to be a more active participant in my 2012. At least until the Mayan Zombocalypse starts, when they'll have to pry a book out of my cold, undead hands.

1. My Ántonia - Willa Cather (I liked it a lot more than I thought I would. It was also fun and easy to teach, which surprised me, too.)
2. The Soothing Soak - ed. Megan Worman (This book is waterproof! So cool! And yes, read entirely in the bathtub. A few interesting pieces and some classic poems, but also a lot of fluff.)
3. Iliad - Homer, trans. Stanley Lombardo
4. Romeo & Juliet - William Shakespeare
5. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. Odyssey - Homer, trans. Stanley Lombardo
7. Sloppy Seconds - Tucker Max (Yes. I know. But I needed something completely inane and mind-numbing and it was free to download to my iPhone, which I read it on.)
8. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
9. La Bella Lingua: My Love Affair with Italian, the World's Most Enchanting Language - Dianne Hales
10. Aeneid - Virgil, trans. Stanley Lombardo *read as pdf on iBooks
11. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - Mindy Kaling
12. A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry
13. Inferno - Dante Alighieri, trans. John Ciardi
14. Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides (A. Ma. Zing. Don't be surprised if his other works appear here soon.)
15. Fifty Shades of Grey - E. L. James (Don't judge me, monkey.)
16. Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
17. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
18. The Pearl - John Steinbeck
19. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
20. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen
21. Winter's Bone - Daniel Woodrell
22. Bossypants - Tina Fey *listened to on audiobook - very funny that way
23. Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk - David Sedaris
24. The Kid: What Happened After My Boyfriend and I Decided to Go Get Pregnant - Dan Savage
25. Girl From Mars - Tamara Bach
26. The Notebook - Nicholas Sparks
27. The Crucible - Arthur Miller
28. The Marriage Plot - Jeffrey Eugenides (less awesome than Middlesex, by far)
29. The Secret Life of Bees - Sue Monk Kidd
30. How to Tell if Your Cat is Plotting to Kill You - Matthew Ingram, aka The Oatmeal
31. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
32. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
33. The Memory Keeper's Daughter - Kim Edwards
34. Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse, trans. Susan Bernofsky
35. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain *read on my iPad for the second time

Summer Reading!

Check back to this post often: I'll be updating the list regularly as I am unemployed for the summer and have nothing else to do. :D

Completed:
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
It Gets Better - Dan Savage and Terry Miller
We - Yvgeny Zamyatin
Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert
Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
Hint Fiction - Edited by Robert Swartwood
Rebecca - Daphne DuMaurier
and just under the wire... Mockingjay - Suzanne Collins

Couldn't quite slog through:
The Sound and the Fury (audiobook) - William Faulkner (The stream-of-consciousness is really hard to follow while you're also navigating the busy streets.)

So the grand total: 10 books! I'm pretty proud of myself, actually. It's an average of a little less than a book per week, which is a pace I would love to continue... but with student essays and lesson planning looming, I know that's a very lofty goal. But I'm definitely going to try. :)

A Moderate Success

The end of April is upon us. While I most certainly did not achieve my goal of one poem/one day this month, I did much better than I really thought I would. I posted something nearly every day, and over 1/3 of those posts were originals. I easily doubled the number of total posts I had as of April 1st, and I read a lot of new things, which can never be complained about.

It's funny; in the first few days of the month, I wondered to myself, "I'm writing easily about simple, fun prompts right now... can I keep this up if some drastic, life-changing event happens this month?" The answer was no. Life-changing events repeatedly swept in and consumed my body, mind, and soul, preventing the clear head and time needed for my best writing. (Dad update: he's home and comfortably complaining about the lack of good television during working hours. Back to normal.) I guess the lesson here is that while I do still produce more under pressure (ahh, college), it is nice to have the distinctly adult luxury of deciding what's truly important to me (outside of work, anyway) on any given day.

And today, what's important is resting, reading, and readying myself for a kick-ass HoD show tonight. Thanks for reading almost every day, friends, and I'll be back again soon - 19 days left of school. :)

Mission Accomplished

Today's read-around activity was a great success. So great, in fact, that I am now exhausted and consider my poetry-sharing duties fulfilled for the day. 123 kids read as many poems as they could in 25 minutes, which was usually between 6 and 10... so you do the math. I'll be checking out the insides of my eyelids.

Weekend "off"

I've been working more than not this weekend, including working to clean up the aftermath of a (small) kitchen grease fire. Good times.

I'm at work even now, in my classroom, frantically finding more poems to use for my read-around lesson tomorrow since I'm suddenly pushing it up a day. Don't let people tell you I'm inflexible.

Anyway, Poetry Foundation suddenly strayed from the children's section and led me here... and it might be my new most favorite thing EVER. I'll need to read it several more times, and not ALL of it applies directly, but it almost knocked me over on the first read. So much of me is in this poem, it's ridiculous. For one thing, she is SPOT ON about peanut butter. The rest is more open for interpretation.


Peanut Butter

By Eileen Myles Eileen Myles

I am always hungry
& wanting to have
sex. This is a fact.
If you get right
down to it the new
unprocessed peanut
butter is no damn
good & you should
buy it in a jar as
always in the
largest supermarket
you know. And
I am an enemy
of change, as
you know. All
the things I
embrace as new
are in
fact old things,
re-released: swimming,
the sensation of
being dirty in
body and mind
summer as a
time to do
nothing and make
no money. Prayer
as a last re-
sort. Pleasure
as a means,
and then a
means again
with no ends
in sight. I am
absolutely in opposition
to all kinds of
goals. I have
no desire to know
where this, anything
is getting me.
When the water
boils I get
a cup of tea.
Accidentally I
read all the
works of Proust.
It was summer
I was there
so was he. I
write because
I would like
to be used for
years after
my death. Not
only my body
will be compost
but the thoughts
I left during
my life. During
my life I was
a woman with
hazel eyes. Out
the window
is a crooked
silo. Parts
of your
body I think
of as stripes
which I have
learned to
love along. We
swim naked
in ponds &
I write be-
hind your
back. My thoughts
about you are
not exactly
forbidden, but
exalted because
they are useless,
not intended
to get you
because I have
you & you love
me. It’s more
like a playground
where I play
with my reflection
of you until
you come back
and into the
real you I
get to sink
my teeth. With
you I know how
to relax. &
so I work
behind your
back. Which
is lovely.
Nature
is out of control
you tell me &
that’s what’s so
good about
it. I’m immoderately
in love with you,
knocked out by
all your new
white hair

why shouldn’t
something
I have always
known be the
very best there
is. I love
you from my
childhood,
starting back
there when
one day was
just like the
rest, random
growth and
breezes, constant
love, a sand-
wich in the
middle of
day,
a tiny step
in the vastly
conventional
path of
the Sun. I
squint. I
wink. I
take the
ride.

Rain, rain...

I'm beyond ready for warmth and sunshine. I'm also beyond ready for sleep this evening. Goodnight.

The Rain
by Robert Creeley

All night the sound had
come back again,
and again falls
this quiet, persistent rain.

What am I to myself
that must be remembered,
insisted upon
so often? Is it

that never the ease,
even the hardness,
of rain falling
will have for me

something other than this,
something not so insistent—
am I to be locked in this
final uneasiness.

Love, if you love me,
lie next to me.
Be for me, like rain,
the getting out

of the tiredness, the fatuousness, the semi-
lust of intentional indifference.
Be wet
with a decent happiness.

Potluck

I literally just grabbed a book within reach, opened to a random page, and am now posting the poem from that page. Yay for reading new things! Even more yay for reading new things that are randomly but fairly applicable to myself! I like it. Thanks, Theodore Roethke.


The Waking

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

It Gets Better

If you have never heard of or read any of Dan Savage's work, immediately stop reading this joke of a blog and check out his. Up until last summer when A. first told me about him (he's been a long-time reader), I was sadly unaware of Dan and the great work that he does, but I am now a quick and devout convert. I read the column every week, listen to the podcast most weeks, and regularly check out my Savage Love app on my phone.

For those who are faint of heart or just adorably well-mannered, reading tales of people's dirty, dirty problems and exploiting a human tendency toward voyeurism are not the only reasons to consume the words of Dan. Do people write in about their fetish questions and kinky/sticky situations they've embroiled themselves in? Yes. Does he regularly make me blush and giggle like a middle schooler? Yes. But more importantly, Dan's answers convey a rare blend of honesty and realism that is absolutely fascinating. Even when he's being an asshole about it, Dan tells it like it is, and he's usually right. He's ultimately very relationship-positive and very people-positive, which I regularly appreciate in my own life and relationship. We saw him speak in person at KU tonight, and no matter what subject was broached (religion, sex, politics, education, you name it), I found myself generally agreeing and wishing that everyone could be at least a little bit more like Dan.

My favorite example of this actually has nothing to do with the sex advice column at all. Last fall, as the rash of LGBT teen suicides hit the national media, Dan was launching the It Gets Better project. The premise is simple: adults telling kids that despite how hopeless it all may feel at times, life gets better. People make videos and tell their stories to document themselves as living proof that good things can and do happen to LGBT kids who then often turn into successful and happy LGBT adults and that suicide is not the best/only choice they can make.

As an ally of the LGBT community, this makes me happy because of the potential which movements like this have to inspire real change on a larger level - it puts thousands of faces to the human/civil rights needs of the LGBT community and can hopefully make a difference in the attitudes of people around the world. As a teacher, I am thrilled to have a tool for my toolbox if the need should ever arise - if I ever see a kid struggling or if a kid reaches out to me, I have a website to send them to, and as soon as financially possible, I'll have a book to hand them. If nothing else, whenever I feel helpless in the fight against the bullying that occurs in my classroom and breaks my heart, I have the right words to say to the kid who doesn't even know how to ask for help: It. Gets. Better.

And tonight, as a poet, it gives me a moment to reflect on all the ways it has gotten better. As the project grows, it is beginning to encompass ALL the ways in which it gets better, and that's certainly something we all can relate to and hold on to. This is rough and disjointed, but I wanted it out there tonight to help me process the awesomeness that was meeting Dan and thanking him for his work. Enjoy and critique to your heart's desire, and then go read more Savage Love. You know you want to.


It Gets Better

Hopeful in its realism,
the simple phrase proves
that any three words –
not just those three –
can have the power to change lives.

Warm and reassuring,
your hand in mine
is the love letter I would send
to selves past; selves who doubt
their faith in love and beauty
when the loneliness is crushing.

Sardonic yet grateful,
the advice columnist thanks
awkward young educators –
inspiring an optimism for change
in a battle that often seems so
one-sided.

April 19, 2011

Together

The purpose of poetry is to remind us
how difficult it is to remain just one person...
-- "Ars Poetica"

We are better together.
-- Jeff K.

This one has to count for two, but I think it's appropriate since combination and togetherness ended up being the theme of my weekend in just about every way. Over the last three days, I appreciated being together with old friends, new friends, and my very best friend. My growing to-do list prevents me from exploring this topic with my own words just now, but in this late Sunday solitude, I did have time to go back to one of my favorite e.e. cummings poems. I quickly discovered that it rings truer now than when I first dog-eared the page ten months or so ago, and it speaks to the kind of togetherness I am most thankful for this evening.


skies may be blue;yes
(when gone are hail and sleet and snow)
but bluer than my darling's eyes,
spring skies are no

hearts may be true;yes
(by night or day in joy or woe)
but truer than your lover's is,
hearts do not grow

nows may be new;yes
(as new as april's first hello)
but new as this our thousandth kiss,
no now is so

Going hunting

I started researching today for a poetry activity I'm going to do with my kiddos in a few weeks - I'm straight up stealing a WCP lesson where you just continually throw poems at kids almost all hour and then ask them what they did and didn't like. Very simple, but when you're dealing with kids and poetry, especially with 6th graders who think poetry always has to rhyme, it's all about exposure. Anyway, I realized I would need to find a LOT of poems that are appropriate for this age group, and I didn't want to be all lame and obvious about it by photocopying a bunch of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss. So I hit up the Poetry Foundation. I'll be gathering things from there (and taking suggestions! hint, hint!) for another week or so until I'm ready to kick off our big poetry unit, but this is my favorite that I found today. It immediately reminded me of a Rilke poem I read on the very first day of my internship last year, and that made me smile.



Blueprints?
By Sara Holbrook

Will my ears grow long as Grandpa's?
What makes us look like kin?
Tell me where'd I get long eyelashes
and where'd I get my chin?

Where'd I get my ice cream sweet tooth
and this nose that wiggles when I talk?
Where'd I get my dizzy daydreams
and my foot-rolling, side-step walk?

Did I inherit my sense of humor
and these crooked, ugly toes?
What if I balloon like Uncle Harry
and have to shave my nose?

How long after I start growing
until I start to shrink?
Am I going to lose my teeth,
some day?
My hair?
My mind?

Do you think
I'll be tall or short or thin
or bursting at the seams?
Am I naturally this crazy?
Is it something in my genes?

I'm more than
who I am,
I'm also
who I'm from.
It's a scary speculation--
Who will I become?

Another day, another cop-out...

Better day at work, good (hard!) workout after, then a delicious dinner and movie night w/A. means no time for poetry. I feel a bout of inspiration coming on this weekend, though. :)

Speaking of movies, we shared one of my favorites tonight: American Psycho. It was a big part of my high school years, so it was fun to re-visit. I think it's quickly become a favorite of someone else's, too. Movies are a big thing for us, so I did a speedy search and found this poem. I rather liked it, so I'll share it with you.

The Film
by Kate Northrup

Come, let’s go in.
The ticket-taker
has shyly grinned
and it’s almost time,
Lovely One.
Let’s go in.

The wind tonight’s too wild.
The sky too deep,
too thin. Already it’s time.
The lights have dimmed.
Come, Loveliest.
Let’s go in

and know these bodies
we do not have to own, passing
quietly as dreams, as snow.
Already leaves are falling
and music begins.
Lovely One,

it’s time.
Let’s go in.

Bedtime again

It snuck up on me - dinner with a friend ran long (did I really expect anything else?), and I didn't even think about this until somewhere on K10 as 10pm approached. But, the first thing I found on the Poetry Foundation seems to fit well with much of the conversation had between two young teachers at dinner.

Easier said than done, Lizzie, but I'll keep giving it my best shot.



On Education
By Elizabeth Bentley 1767–1839

December 1789
When infant Reason first exerts her sway,
And new-formed thoughts their earliest charms display;
Then let the growing race employ your care
Then guard their opening minds from Folly’s snare;
Correct the rising passions of their youth,
Teach them each serious, each important truth;
Plant heavenly virtue in the tender breast,
Destroy each vice that might its growth molest;
Point out betimes the course they should pursue;
Then with redoubled pleasure shall you view
Their reason strengthen as their years increase,
Their virtue ripen and their follies cease;
Like corn sown early in the fertile soil,
The richest harvest shall repay your toil.

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/182498

Windfall

I'm really disappointed that the Borders in Lawrence is closing soon - I love going to bookstores whether they're corporate establishments or holes in the wall with dusty bookshelves, so I mourn the demise of any book seller. I'm also sad to lose the location of some great college memories - the free wi-fi lent itself to many hours in the cafe slaving over midterms, final portfolios, and a few poems when the required work wouldn't come. I even met up with A. there for our first date out on the town - I found him drooling over cookbooks when I arrived. Typical. If nothing else, downtown nightlife will be in big trouble if anything happens to restrict access to that parking lot! (For the record, I always made it a point to at least walk through Borders and consider future purchases before heading to the bars. But I also always buy a soda or candy bar if I use a gas station for their bathroom.)

The one good thing about a bookstore closing, though, is liquidation pricing. A big thank you to the federal government for the safety bubble created by my tax refund, and a thank you to Borders for giving me the opportunity to work on that "read more, dammit" goal I made for this year. (Still working on the "write more, dammit" goal... one thing at a time.) So, here's the list of new acquisitions - I've only read two of them before, so feel free to pester me about any one of these to make sure I'm progressing. :)

Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
Alice's Adventure in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Sound and the Fury (audiobook) - William Faulkner
100 Selected Poems - e.e. cummings
Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
Poet's Choice - Edward Hirsch
Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides
The Reader - Bernhard Schlink
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

All for well under $100!!! But before I can start any of these, I have to finish the books I've already started or borrowed from students and friends. Currently reading: We, Yvgeny Zamyatin; The Amber Spyglass, Philip Pullman. On deck: Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut; Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins.

Time to clean off my glasses and settle into some spring break reading... but first, there's a new Lego set that needs building with my sister. :)

Test day leaves time for thinking

I am frustrated.

I want to write. I want the feeling of creativity and inspiration that comes when I write. I feel like a hypocrite every day when I ask my students to write while I do not.

But I’ve got nothing.

It’s a goal of mine (call it a Resolution if you must) to both read and write more this year. I’ve been reading (We, The Golden Compass – both are excellent so far), which is a start, but I can’t write.

I feel like my brain is constantly on overdrive, and every time I think of something vaguely creative or meaningful, it immediately gets shoved out of the way by the never-ending deluge of more pressing, practical problems and tasks. Have I filled out that form yet? Did I ever make it to the printer this morning? I’m running out of clean clothes. And gas. What am I going to do about my student who is tardy every single day? When’s the last time I went to the grocery store? Oh crap, my phone is dying again. What am I going to do in class tomorrow? Should I take K-10 or I-70 to KC today? Hey, that would be a cool idea for a poem… wait, where did I leave my to-do list?

And so on.

Everything comes in fits and starts, like an engine that won’t turn over. I feel like my days are choppy, and my thoughts reflect that. When inspiration does hit, it stops short of completion, and I suddenly lack the time and patience to work and follow through. My notebook is full of half-ideas and clipped phrases, and that’s when I bother to grab it at all.

Try as I might, I can’t push down the nagging fear that I might not be challenging myself intellectually right now; that the unavoidable boredom of constructing basic sentences and simple paragraphs 5 times a day every day could be a contributing factor to the increasingly basic nature of my thoughts. It's not the only distraction or the only possible cause, but it’s always been in my nature – get bored, get comfortable being bored, settle in. Don’t rock the boat. Change is scary. Change takes work. Sigh.

Like everything else I’ve tried to write lately, I don’t know where I’m going with this, how it ends, or what I want out of it. I think I just needed to… write.

...aaaaaaand, we're back!

I just finished writing 36* pages of reflections and explanations and justifications… and I’m exhausted. Mentally, physically, emotionally, “spiritually, ecumenically, grammatically…” (Name that movie!) and so on.

As I struggled to find new words to say the same things in seemingly different ways and made tenuous connections between what actually happened and what some far-removed executive body envisions as “ideal,” I found that my growing fear and aggravation had nothing to do with the impending deadlines. Despite the massive amounts of work and the absence of a social life, my internship gave me a great gift that I am now terrified of losing: I’ve been reminded of how much I truly love to read, love to write, and love to be smart with other smart people. These things had nearly been beaten out of me by years of reading drivel (“academic” drivel, but drivel just the same), writing hundreds of pages of b.s. that could be summed up in about five sentences, and being forced into artificial discussions with disinterested interlocutors. I still identified myself as a reader and a writer, but I wasn’t bringing the goods anymore. This spring, LHS happily re-awakened the beast, but the last two weeks threatened to shoot it with horse tranquilizers as the familiar headache slid back into place like the lid of a roll-top desk.

The work was torturous. Each sentence felt more painful than the one before; I had to stop and rest for a few minutes after each mental contraction as if I was giving birth, but to someone else’s child. There is nothing of me in those lines, and yet I feel empty. The page count grew, and I could feel the numbness and apathy creeping back into my writing as the newly-resuscitated joy seeped away. Books that had unrelentingly captivated my attention just a week before remained nearby, but their pages held little comfort as my eyes strained and my mind failed to focus. I wondered if this experience might once again bury my creativity and curiosity under the weight of a bureaucratic academia, but even in the darkest hours at the library, there were moments – moments where a happy turn of phrase was woven in amongst the tedium, or half an idea for a poetic line was scribbled on scratch paper before it was lost in the fray.

Now it is done. Now it can be summer. My first – perhaps of many – in Lawrence. I plan to take a few days, or maybe a week, to recuperate from my battle with the printed word; movies and TV shows will be watched, an apartment will be cleaned, and celebrations will be had. But as I settle into new, less strenuous routines, I expect myself to come back to those books left unfinished and to come back here often to read and write and exercise my smarts. Right after I catch up on LOST.




*Yeah, I didn’t fix it when Word 2007 set my margins at 1.25” and I might have spent more time intently looking for adjectives and adverbs just lengthy enough to bump each paragraph to one more line than the time it would have taken to develop one more original idea, but it can’t be argued that I just completed a ridiculous task. Let’s just say that the next time I write something the approximate length of a thesis, it had better be far more interesting and I had better take more than two weeks to do it.

Re-public

As we discussed the general awesomeness of the infamous Jon Harrison scissor-kick picture over coffee and Pink Box baked goods at the generally awesome LHS Focus Film Festival this afternoon, the idea of making things from our pasts public again was humorously pitched – and I’ve decided to take a break and have some fun with it in the form of a quickie photo essay.

Last year in Methods class, we started the semester by telling the story of our “literacy history,” so I had my mom scan and send me these pictures, which I will now "re-public" here. They are also the only truly good pictures of me in existence, I believe; sometime after this, I transformed into the least photogenic person on the planet (don’t ask about the “Kid Rock face” pictures).

8 months - Dang, that's a cute baby! And no, this wasn't posed - I really did pretend/attempt to read, and I really did lay around holding the books with my feet. The weirdness started early, folks.

1 year-ish - This one has nothing to do with reading, it's just ridiculously adorable (except the Mizzou hat... I was obviously being brainwashed at the time). We refer to this time period as the "Cindy-Lou Who" years.

Just shy of 2 years - I've got my parents to thank for my frequent and early exposure to the wonderful world of words. More than just about anything from my childhood, I remember the books. I remember the library. I remember being read to and loving it. My mom remembers me reciting the alphabet at 15 months, recognizing new words at the grocery store at 2 years, reading the pool rules off the wall at 3 years, and reading Charlotte's Web to her (without seeing it before) at 4 years. I don't know exactly how it happened, but I literally cannot remember what it feels like to not be able to read. Thanks, Mom.

5 years - Once an English teacher... always an English teacher. My stuffed animals knew their Dr. Seuss backwards and forwards, let me tell you.