This blog is: actually mostly friends-only now, because I'm a grown-up lady and I need to get a job. XD

I am a: teacher, 19th Century Brit Lit enthusiast, newlywed, double dog owner, reader, and writer.

This blog is about: books, movies, tv, pop culture, trivia, graduate disillusionment, cultural criticism, roadtrips and bar tabs, coffee, wine, cooking, life in the city, life in the country, telling the better story, travel, late-onset domesticity, romanticism/Romanticism, arts & crafts, my dogs, and my life in general.

These are the main characters:

( click here )

Add, read, comment, discuss.

Does anyone have any advice on traveling by rail in Europe? I'm interested in buying a "EuroRail" pass for Epic Vacation 2011, but I want to make sure they're worth the money, reliable, have plenty of stations, etc. I've checked the maps and they go everywhere we want to go and beyond - and the packages fit with the length of our stay - but I'd hate to find out that they're actually, like, Radio Flyer wagons pulled along a dirt road or something.

I've looked at EuRail, but there's also RailEurope - obviously they're different companies. I've mostly looked at EuRail.

For the record, our main stops will be Budapest, Verona, Venice, Rome, Vienna, Prague, Bratislava, Munich, Berlin, and possibly Zagreb. We're based out of Budapest, but will have overnight stays in many of the cities mentioned.

Any advice you have on travel - or on visiting these countries/cities - will be greatly appreciated!

( artsy-craftsy finds )

( family things, food things )

I am thinking of a list of things I'd like to accomplish in the next year, but that will have to wait for another post.

If you haven't heard this yet, you should.



That is all.

First: I just made the most awesome study guide for Twelfth Night ever. Work!BFF has some of my rising seniors in her English 12 now, and since they'll be hanging out with nothing to do once the seniors in their class are done with exams, she's going to start some of my AP summer materials with them. So yay, Shakespearean comedies to end the school year!

Here were my three essay questions for their study guide. They have to pick one and write a brief essay on it, due to me in the first week of school next year.

( essay prompts )

I feel pretty good about these. Our other summer reading selections are Martel's Life of Pi, Achebe's Things Fall Apart, and Morrison's Beloved, and students will have a study guide with pointed questions for those as well, along with a choice of essay questions. It's a lot of work, but it's going to drastically broaden their base of knowledge for our class, and for the AP exam.


Non-teacher things: I have added to my reading list!

( In 2010, We'll Read Again )

This weekend is our yard work weekend! We're finally getting our lawn mower and putting the weed whacker together; we're planting the last two trees; and I'm going to pot some of the flowers I started last week. The oregano is growing beautifully, and I've potted it and moved it outside permanently now. I'm hoping my flowers do well, too. I planted zinnias, petunias, sweet pea, pansies, vincas, and impatiens from seeds. They're all sprouting at different rates, and I'm afraid I might have put the seeds for some of them - the vincas and impatiens in particular - a little too far down, but the zinnias and pansies are coming up strong. The zinnias are ready to thin out and pot, although I know it'll be a good while before they bloom. But I like starting plants from seeds; it's exciting to see them break through the dirt, stretch upward, and open up their leaves at last.

We're also going to - finally - buy the clock and mirror and floating shelves we want for the living room, since we want to have things a little more decorated before the big department cookout we're hosting for Jim's colleagues. I think it's going to help complete things on the main floor... it's still looking a little bare right now. I know, it's less meaningful than watching seeds sprout, but it's part of our work weekend nonetheless.

I should have ended that post with that really insightful thing about gardening. Next time!

Sunday evening gardening. It's a sweet life.

Happy Mothers Day to everybody out there who does some mothering. And to my mother, who is technology illiterate and so doesn't read my blog, but who is still single-handedly the most incredible mother in the entire world. I love her.

I just put together a freaking sweet poetry unit for my 9-Honors students. I have 35 literary terms for them to learn, and a selection of poems for them to read, identify the terms, and interpret.

Here are the poems we're reading, arranged thematically:

Intro:
"Eating Poetry," Mark Strand

Sonnetpalooza:
Sonnets 130, 12, 29, 18, William Shakespeare
"Whose List to Hunt," Sir Thomas Wyatt
"Loving in Truth," Sir Philip Sidney
"Since there's no help," Michael Drayton

Carpe Diem/Love and Loss:
"Dream Deferred," Langston Hughes
"To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," Robert Herrick
"Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," Robert Frost
"Nothing Gold Can Stay," Robert Frost
"Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night," Dylan Thomas

Loss:
"Ballad of Birmingham," Dudley Randall
"On My First Son," Ben Jonson

War:
"Dulce et Decorum Est," Wilfred Owen
"The Man He Killed," Thomas Hardy
"In Flanders Fields," John McCrae
"APO 96225," Larry Rottmann

Close to Home:
"Convocation Address (April 17, 2007)," Nikki Giovanni
"Providence," Natasha Tretheway

Paraphrase:
"A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning," John Donne
"I felt a Funeral, in my Brain," Emily Dickinson

Parsing Modern Language:
"Hidden Meanings," Dabney Stuart
"The Guitarist Tunes Up," Frances Cornford
"Curiosity," Alastair Reid

Adolescence:
"We Real Cool," Gwendolyn Brooks
"Acquainted with the Night," Robert Frost
"Nikki-Rosa," Nikki Giovanni
"Theme for English B," Langston Hughes
"Mad Girl's Love Song," Sylvia Plath

Looking Back:
"Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," Adrienne Rich
"The Wild Swans at Coole," W.B. Yeats

Saying a Little, or a Lot:
"The Red Wheelbarrow," William Carlos Williams
"To a Louse," Robert Burns
"In a Station of the Metro," Ezra Pound
"Suicide's Note," Langston Hughes

Awesomeness:
"Golden Retrievals," Mark Doty
"Today," Frank O'Hara

Allusions - Poems about The Odyssey:
"Siren Song," Margaret Atwood
"The Cyclops in the Ocean," Nikki Giovanni
"An Ancient Gesture," Edna St. Vincent Millay
"Ulysses," Alfred, Lord Tennyson


I'm going to project poems, one at a time, onto the white board, and have students mark them up for various examples of figurative language, etc. They love writing on the board. I may add or subtract poems as the unit progresses - it's the first time I've taught "beginner poetry," so to speak. AP poetry was a little different - but I'm really excited to do this with my 9th graders.

After finishing The Mill on the Floss, I must announce that George Eliot is my homegirl.

This is all.

AUGH. Went to bed at a reasonable time last night, then woke up at 2:30 a.m. when Ginny yarped in her crate. So we let the dogs out, decided to wash the pad this afternoon after school, let them sleep on the bed with us instead. Only Ginny's stomach was still gurgling, so I let her outside to potty, which took about 10 minutes for her to sniff and decide where to go. Then she thought it was playtime. We finally got her settled down, and I got back in bed, only to have Jim snore for the next hour. And then this morning, I dropped my cereal (dry) all over the floor, and Orwell gobbled it all up - so I really hope he enjoys Frosted Mini Wheats. Like, he was underneath the furniture, licking the floor. So ridiculous.

When I come home, I have to clean up crate barf and Mini Wheat crumbs, and deal with a dog on a sugar high. All in a day's work.

I need more sleep. XD