The only thing slower than Christmas is the end of the last day of work before Christmas Break.
Christmas itself is coming quite fast - I've hardly had the energy to enjoy the season yet, and it's only four days away. This is all wrong. I never got around to cards, presents...
My students will spend the last day before Break finishing essays. Every year I do something stupid like this, assigning essays at some point as a means of shutting people up while, presumably, improving their writing skills. I think it's just super-terrific thinking that I've done this right before Break, knowing there is only a week of the semester left after Break, so everything pending must be graded Really Soon.
Compare to, say, two years ago, watching Elf and tossing chocolates into the crowd. Or letting the Honors class create a picnic based on foods from the novel we were studying.
"Miss! All of our other teachers are letting us have parties."
"Good, then you're set for parties. We'll be the class that works hard and feels satisfied in our academic rigor."
(Please feel free to quote that if you're recommending me for any headmistress positions. I'm looking for something upper mid-Atlantic, circa 1962.)
I envy (fake name omitted), the teacher who is showing On* Fl*w Ov*r th* Cuckoo's N*st to (grade level omitted). The teacher whose TV wasn't swapped for a jackless relic over the summer. The teacher who doesn't (?) know the district policy yet. (All movies must be rated G. No PG, no PG-13, no R, not even with parental consent.) Most ignore this policy, but with my TV gone, I cuddle up to it. I'm sanctimonious on account of rain.
(pause, clock-check, another strand sighs as it fades to grey)
Some Simply Limeade would "go down a treat" right now. That's Mike's expression. It's also because of Mike that I appreciate Asterix or even know who/what it is. And therefore can appreciate this. I love annotated things. A good annotated edition of anything is the thinking person's pop-up video block. I would read The Annotated Henry James, I love those little notes of trivia so much. (This is meaningful if you know how priggish I find James.)
I read The Abstinence Teacher last night. It's a quick read (let's put it this way - I checked it out of the library around six), and enjoyable for what it is, but what I was expecting was literary fiction. This is solid chick lit. Well, wavy chick lit, since most CL doesn't regularly dip into the male point of view. Very nicely written, though. I know the author's a bigwig writing professor so my comment comes off like I'm calling the Empire State Building "pretty big, by the way," but it never hurts to be polite and supportive. Season of joy and all that. It's a beach book... if the beach is where you wait for the bus.
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