sail your ships

Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens, 855pp
I love Flora. She has such a surreal manner of speaking that it is a delight to try and figure out just what she is trying to say. Little Dorrit, or Amy, is the daughter of the Marshalsea a debtor's prison where debtors were placed until they could pay off their debts. Apparently as long as they were in the Marshalsea they couldn't be hounded and yet because they were in there they had no way of earning income. So yeah: makes as much sense as Flora but there you go. Sweet and good souls are pitted against corrupt and murderous rogues.

Anecdotes of Destiny and Ehrengard, Isaak Dinesen cc77pp
Isaak Dinesen writes marvelous fairy tales that are not necessarilly happy but wonderfully intricate and carefully embroidered. I did not know she was the author of Babette's Feast. Yesterday I found a copy of Carnival which contains other short stories by her. I may end up reading Out of Africa.

Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn, cc07pp
What happens when the tiles from a statue depicting a sentence containing all twenty-six letters of the alphabet start falling off? Is it a nessage to the town? Some think so and one by one letters become banned from speech and writing. It becomes a capital offence to use the leters for anyone over the age of seven.

Meanwhile I am indulging in dvd nights. So far I've watched the Avengers, a Fish Called Wanda and You Only Live Twice. Tonight I realised that I have Nick Cave concerts on dvd.

summer time

Summer has begun. While many of us head in different directions we will be all reunited in the fall. When asked by a parent did I have any plans for my vacation my answer was: sleep.

Perhaps teachers hibernate in the summer so they can growl throughout the winter?

One child surprised me by giving me a farewell hug. But then this is a child who has matured greatly over the past year. From trying to figure out why children couldn't take over the class when there were more of them then the adults to what he is today.

celebrate

Tomorrow is the end of the year party in which we not only celebrate our year spent together but we welcome sixteen new children into the class. This means that there will be 55 children. Have i mentioned that three of the team are gone already? Two left last week to continue their training and one left to help his family move from one state to another.

Oh and the architect came in and the demolition of part of the classroom is set to begin next week which means that while we are celebrating in the park half the classroom materials will be moved into one of the rooms, if not more.

ah change

testing, testing...is this thing on?

As one of the parents said last Friday : I have left the dark side of pc-dom and entered the light realm of -

"What is that faintly fruit scent wafting from the computer room? Could it be macintosh?"
"Wasn't macintosh an olde designer bloke?"
"I thought it was rain gear....."
"Ewww fruit scented rain gear?"
"Better than fruit scented elderly gent wouldn't you say?"


I did get to watch my first ever personaly owned dvd: the Avengers and I have A Fish Called Wanda, too.

Books read:

Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens 426pp

Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson 2i9pp

Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell 509pp

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo 465pp

The Summer Book, Tove Jansson i70pp

Currently reading: Little Doritt, Charles Dickens
Seeing soon: Nick Cave, 'cause he's touring the large venues in the Fall
CV

no cue

Louise de la Valliere, Alexandre Dumas 678pp
Raoul and Louise are not so much main characters as they are pivots upon which the true interests of the story may move about. So it is that Colbert comes closer and closer to removing Fou-uet while the king courts Louise and has a really cool spiral seret passage hidden by an amazing 'oh no one would guess that that ever so clever folding screen is for something other than changing behind' wink wink, constructed leading from the king's best friend's room -read toady- to Louises bed chanber. Anyway we find out that Aramis is a little too cold blooded while Porthos is such an amiable hercules. And then Raoul returns from England to find Louise in the king's arms which leads to.....

The Man in the Iron Mask, alexandre dumas, 568pp
The films lied. Sad. Just depressing and sad and, yes, last night I skimmed the final chapters. I don't need to read about them all dying.

Tonight I picked up a copy of the Count of Monte Cristo but I may read Oliver Twist first...