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
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Sunday, January 1, 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
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
Monday, November 7, 2011
Already waiting for May
I didn't even know the Poem-a-Day topic today was "waiting," but as the rain came pouring down, this came pouring out and well, turns out it fits. So here it is. It's rough due to lack of time spent and it reveals a weakness for alliteration, and please be careful not to trip over the chunks of rust that were knocked off, but here's to waiting through one last winter alone.
November 7, 2011
rain crashes on screen windows
audibly foreshadowing the ice to come
while flashes of friction
signal summer’s last desperate gasp
wintry air seeps straight through both
rented walls and pale skin like paper
and I begin to wage war on the cold
swathed in scarf and blanket
worn slippers shuffle and
guard against glinting floor tiles
to make a microwave earn its keep
but no amount of swirling soup and cocoa
no vanilla flickers of candlelight
no artificial source of heat can warm
the space beside me as the wind howls
east down the highway corridor
which separates as easily as it connects
November 7, 2011
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Yoga + Poetry = Yogetry?
15 years of dance classes in my (relative) youth may not have provided me with any kind of lasting coordination or grace, but they instilled in me a need for my exercise to be scheduled. Despite the fact that I can see the apartment complex workout room from my couch and there is a TV in there that can show me Modern Family just as easily as mine can, I can never motivate myself to work out unless I know someone is expecting me to show up (even if they're really not).
So, I bought myself a Groupon for Yoga classes (75% off!) at a studio less than three minutes from my apartment and convinced myself I could carve out the time to throw on stretchy pants and attend the 10 classes by the end of the semester. Tonight, I went to the first one.
Tonight's class was a combination of Yoga and creative writing, and although I was skeptical (possibly rightly so) about the quality of both the writing and the Yoga I was about to do, it was a peaceful way to spend an afternoon and I got the teeniest bit of writing out of it.
After working (and wobbling) through Warrior poses, we stopped to read William Stafford's "Being A Person" and write whatever came to mind. Unsurprisingly, even in the barefoot earth mother atmosphere of the Yoga studio, work was still on my mind when I read the line, "suddenly this dream you are having matches Everyone's dream," and the result adds a bit of Emily Dickinson and a lot of my current stress level to Stafford's earthy nature scene. It's completely scattered and unedited, but it entertained my fellow barefoot earth mothers, and that's got to be worth something.
Matching Everyone's dream
Everyone thinks they know
how to teach; Everyone
went to school, so
Everyone is clearly an expert.
Everyone has an expectation
of finding Everyone's dream teacher -
well, good morning, Everyone,
it's time to wake up.
This isn't just Someone's job -
it's everyone's job.
Everyone must also help themselves.
Our dreams can't match if I get no sleep.
October 5, 2011
So, I bought myself a Groupon for Yoga classes (75% off!) at a studio less than three minutes from my apartment and convinced myself I could carve out the time to throw on stretchy pants and attend the 10 classes by the end of the semester. Tonight, I went to the first one.
Tonight's class was a combination of Yoga and creative writing, and although I was skeptical (possibly rightly so) about the quality of both the writing and the Yoga I was about to do, it was a peaceful way to spend an afternoon and I got the teeniest bit of writing out of it.
After working (and wobbling) through Warrior poses, we stopped to read William Stafford's "Being A Person" and write whatever came to mind. Unsurprisingly, even in the barefoot earth mother atmosphere of the Yoga studio, work was still on my mind when I read the line, "suddenly this dream you are having matches Everyone's dream," and the result adds a bit of Emily Dickinson and a lot of my current stress level to Stafford's earthy nature scene. It's completely scattered and unedited, but it entertained my fellow barefoot earth mothers, and that's got to be worth something.
Matching Everyone's dream
Everyone thinks they know
how to teach; Everyone
went to school, so
Everyone is clearly an expert.
Everyone has an expectation
of finding Everyone's dream teacher -
well, good morning, Everyone,
it's time to wake up.
This isn't just Someone's job -
it's everyone's job.
Everyone must also help themselves.
Our dreams can't match if I get no sleep.
October 5, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Requited
I can’t get it through my head that someone loves me. Actually loves me. In a happier-when-you’re-around, reach-for-you-in-my-sleep, sweep-the-nasty-bugs-out-of-your-entryway-for-you-without-complaining kind of way, and he shows me and tells me every day. This blows my mind.
My name literally means “loved one,” or “lovable,” so in theory this should be a frequent pattern, easy to understand, but over a decade of serial unrequited and/or poorly timed loves has me classically conditioned to believe that there is absolutely no way someone could return my feelings for them – especially if those feelings are so intense as to be overwhelming and incomprehensible.
So I’ll try to write about it and hopefully it won’t be overwhelming or incomprehensible. ;)
the mirage of waving white satin
and a diamond sparkling in the sunlight
was always an oasis only accessible for other girls;
those far less thirsty and desperate than this weary traveler
sent down the wrong road too many times
by those who may have meant well
but how can those who are lost give directions?
those too clumsy and careless to realize the damage they’ve done?
little did I know that one particularly bad turn
would divert me down your long, lemniscate road
and now that you’ve caught up
all passersby sink into the sand
September 6, 2011
My name literally means “loved one,” or “lovable,” so in theory this should be a frequent pattern, easy to understand, but over a decade of serial unrequited and/or poorly timed loves has me classically conditioned to believe that there is absolutely no way someone could return my feelings for them – especially if those feelings are so intense as to be overwhelming and incomprehensible.
So I’ll try to write about it and hopefully it won’t be overwhelming or incomprehensible. ;)
the mirage of waving white satin
and a diamond sparkling in the sunlight
was always an oasis only accessible for other girls;
those far less thirsty and desperate than this weary traveler
sent down the wrong road too many times
by those who may have meant well
but how can those who are lost give directions?
those too clumsy and careless to realize the damage they’ve done?
little did I know that one particularly bad turn
would divert me down your long, lemniscate road
and now that you’ve caught up
all passersby sink into the sand
September 6, 2011
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Change: 24,001; Amanda: 0
The time has come, friends. As much as I loved the original title of this blog (“Tales of a Sixth Grade Something”) and am naturally averse to change, I am now preparing for my new role as high school teacher (yay!), so it is no longer accurate. Frankly, I’m not sure it was ever a great name for the blog since I wrote far less about my first year of teaching than I might have liked or originally intended. But the nice thing about the transitory nature of the intertubes is that the title can continue to change to reflect my ever-changing life and authorship (I feel myself heading in a much more prose-y direction… stay tuned).
I puzzled and stewed over the new name for awhile, as I never have much confidence in my naming abilities (God help me if/when I’m a mom-to-be), but like with all good names, I knew it when I heard it. At the end of a largely silly but mostly reassuring meeting with my new co-workers (SO EXCITED TO CALL THEM THAT), the phrase “middle of the middles” was tossed about. The comment was made somewhat in jest and in relation to curriculum-mapping strategies - not any kind of deep or particularly inspiring discussion - but it hit me as an oddly perfect way to sum up the stage of life I find myself in.
A. and I joke about having our respective quarter-life crises, and I’ve read a plethora of new studies showing that “millenials” (or whatever the hell we’re agreeing to be called) are having difficulties transitioning into adult life in any of the ways an older society expects us to… and I can’t say I’m immune to all that. Everything about my life feels middle-esque right now. I’m no longer in my first job, but most likely not in my last either, so I’m about to begin a middle job (where I do plan to stay for a relatively long time, believe me). I’m no longer an ever-present part of my immediate family, but haven’t yet created my own, so I’m doing my own thing here inbetween. This is neither my first apartment nor my dream home; one year into a no-longer “new” relationship but not moving forward just yet; still feel like a kid but expected to be the adult… you get the idea.
So, “Middle of the Middles” it is, at least for now. Try not to get Jimmy Eat World songs stuck in your head every time you visit.
I puzzled and stewed over the new name for awhile, as I never have much confidence in my naming abilities (God help me if/when I’m a mom-to-be), but like with all good names, I knew it when I heard it. At the end of a largely silly but mostly reassuring meeting with my new co-workers (SO EXCITED TO CALL THEM THAT), the phrase “middle of the middles” was tossed about. The comment was made somewhat in jest and in relation to curriculum-mapping strategies - not any kind of deep or particularly inspiring discussion - but it hit me as an oddly perfect way to sum up the stage of life I find myself in.
A. and I joke about having our respective quarter-life crises, and I’ve read a plethora of new studies showing that “millenials” (or whatever the hell we’re agreeing to be called) are having difficulties transitioning into adult life in any of the ways an older society expects us to… and I can’t say I’m immune to all that. Everything about my life feels middle-esque right now. I’m no longer in my first job, but most likely not in my last either, so I’m about to begin a middle job (where I do plan to stay for a relatively long time, believe me). I’m no longer an ever-present part of my immediate family, but haven’t yet created my own, so I’m doing my own thing here inbetween. This is neither my first apartment nor my dream home; one year into a no-longer “new” relationship but not moving forward just yet; still feel like a kid but expected to be the adult… you get the idea.
So, “Middle of the Middles” it is, at least for now. Try not to get Jimmy Eat World songs stuck in your head every time you visit.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
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. :)
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. :)
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