43/106

Here is another of those book lists in which one marks the books read, waiting, tried but put aside, and never heard of. I've only bolded those I've read and asterixed those that I have. This time though it's the books most often said as unread on the 1,oo book list. (Thanks to Fillyjonk for this fun review :)

*Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights
*The Silmarillion
Life of Pi : a novel
The Name of the Rose
*Don Quixote
Moby Dick
*Ulysses
Madame Bovary
The Odyssey
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre
The Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies (have it at home, might read it)
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler’s Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
Atlas Shrugged
*Reading Lolita in Tehran : a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault’s Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
*The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
*The Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
*Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver’s Travels
Les Misérables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela’s Ashes : a memoir
The God of Small Things
A People’s History of the United States : 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
*Slaughterhouse-five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake : a novel
Collapse : how societies choose to fail or succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything
*Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values
*The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity’s Rainbow
The Hobbit
In Cold Blood : a true account of a multiple murder and its consequences
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers

I find it interesting that there are so many Neil Gaiman books listed.***CV

The Real Dumas

The Club Dumas, Arturo Perez-Reverte (362pp)In which antiquarian book collecting crosses paths with sataninc ritual, a world weary devil, and a Poe-etic Spaniard living in a mildewing mansion with a headless angel filled garden. It took me about a third of the book to get involved with the story. I wonder if any of his other books are worth pursuing.
**
The Amazing Kavelier and Klay, Michael Chabon (639pp) 1930's, the birth of the comic book, Prague, death defying escapes, true love, Dali, magical realism, a Max Ernst (sans Leonora Carrington) walk on: what's not to like? Well I could have done without the Oyster episode. But the dirigible cafe was great! Teabird does such a thing still exist in NY?
***
Currently reading Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas****CV

Cake and Ale

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,

Burnt on the water.

The poop was beaten gold,

Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that

The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes.

For her own person,

It beggar'd all description: she did lie

In her pavilion—cloth of gold, of tissue—

O'er-picturing that Venus where we see

The fancy outwork nature.

Who knows where happy thoughts may lead engaged upon a pleasant task on a day such as this? I am most happy to share this day with you Will S. ***CV

So then he asked.....

Yesterday was the second class of the Belle Curve. Before going in I prepared some of my lessons for the coming week (we've started the junior great books programs) and then went to the cafe. The counter person was a little harried as he was the only one there and had just had a rush with a consequent back up of orders to send out. So I waited to order while the preceding customer set up her table, which apparently wasn't hygenic enough because she requested a rag and if she had to use it herself she would, but really (and this was all implied by her tone of voice) she shouldn't have to as he was the help and she was the customer.

So he said he would but would she mind waiting a few moments?

*sigh* If I must.

She then preceded to move to a different chair across the way from the unhygenic table. And then when another chair (one of the comfy red ones) was vacated she went over to that one and set herself up. Then her order was ready, so she had to get up and fetch it.

Ah the trials of being high maintenence.

Then I got asked a personal question by the counter boy.

Don't you love it when someone says: Can I ask you a question? It's kind of personal? What do you say? Yes I mind!?

I figured if it was personal he'd be embarassing himself not me so I said sure.

Odd what people consider personal.
**
Books read this week:

The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart

***CV

Tip-Toe through the.....

Taxes are done!

Yesterday when I went out for my final day of spring break I found out what the bulbs were that line my walkway. My walkway is abundently supplied with oxalis (sour grass) wild onion, pretty flowers that are weeds in camoflauge, roses, lilies and a jade tree. Mixed in with this are these large bulb leaves which I have been presuming are failed tulips.

But no. They are irises! And one is setting buds and it is five feet tall.

Dear lord!
**
So Saturday (before the blooming iris) I participated in a class to make a skirt. It's a knit skirt and so far it seems to be coming along fairly well. The pattern is called Belle Curve and is part of the 2007 winter Knitty collection. I'm using a beautiful shade of brown called chocolate (Cascade 220).I'm hoping it turns out well. The plain star stitch is a bit of a tease but I realised that if I knit the row before the pattern row less tightly, then the plain stars are less work.
***
I started Jane Austen's, a History of England yesterday but have not made much progress****CV

Give a Spider some Scissors....

Travelled into the city yesterday. I decided enough was enough and I would go to see the woman who has cut my hair since I was 13 (yes: thirteen). Got on a nassty BART car: as someone apparently felt that their snack must be shared with the poor hungry BART seats and apples and peanut butter are the bART seats favoritist goody. (As I said nasssty).

I get off at Powell street and walk up past the cablecar turnaround, the DSW, the huge Victoria Secret across from the equally huge Disney store and get to Sutter. I go in to the store front and walk up and find out that the salon she is in in is one more floor up so after three flights I arrive. And she starts hacking away. This pleases me enormously. When I ask for a Brooksie A-line I want a Brooksie A-line not a slanted 70's c curve which is what I have been given the last two times I've gotten my haircut.

I feel so lite!

Afterwards I go to the book store and find two reads: History of the Ancient World, Susan Wise Bauer and Twenty Years After, Alexander Dumas. Then I go back to the BART station feeling all pleased and there's this guy who insists on invading my personal space to try and sell me a BART ticket I do not want nor do I need and as he will not get out of my face I have to tell him:
"Look! I just want to get my ticket without being bothered!" And after staring at him and not moving he takes a hint.

I can then get my ticket and go down to the platform and board a train where I am promptly surrounded by men in suits, with wireless laptops at the ready, headed home.
**
I am still reading Perdido Street Station but as of today I have less than eighty pages to go. Mind, they are tight packed tiny font pages but - I have hopes that the Good Fairies of New York may be started tonight.

In order to accomplish this near feat of concluding the feast fest of slake-moths and oneirotic Clotho like spiders I went to a cafe and latched onto one of the comfy red chairs. Got me a lunch and a drink and settled right in. Then, how odd, I don't remember anything sharpish in my food stuffs. Hmmm, I don't recall hearing any bone like cracking. Why then does one tooth feel jagged and the other not?

Guess along with a visit to my familiar hair stylist it's time for a visit to my familiar dentist. Seems part of a molar has dissolved leaving a ten year old (most likely older say 12?14?) filling to hold up the fort on one side. *sigh*
***CV

***CV

For Told

Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

TS Elliot

It all begins with one....

Last night I had the strangest dream

I ever dreamed before

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room

The room was filled with men

And the paper they were signing said

They'd never fight again

And when the papers all were signed

And a million copies made

They all joined hands end bowed their heads

And grateful prayers were prayed

And the people in the streets below

Were dancing round and round

And guns and swords and uniforms

Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream

I ever dreamed before

I dreamed the world had all agreed

To put an end to war

Simon and Garfunkel

And the mome wraths.......

I finished the baby surprise sweater. Of course it didn't really fit as I was following the original pattern and the "baby" I was making it for just turned one. S'okay. It ws a fun adventure knitting origami and now that I have done it once I think it will go quicker and better next time.
*
I apologise for the surreality of my most recent posts. Something about writing reports when I have to tell all about each child without judgement ( because I not only have to think about the person now but the person of the future who will reread these reports much as we all look at old report cards) requires intense mental gymnastics and this blog was my outlet.
**
I am currently reading Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen, and this afternoon I made a few book purchases for my most welcome week of Spring Break:

Persuasion, Jane Austen

Perdido Street Station, Chia Mieville

Dingo, Charles de Lint

***
Has anyone ever read a book called, The Chalice and the Blade? I recently attended a conference where the author was a keynote speaker and I'm curious about the response readers of her work have had. I know how I responded and apparently I'm in rapport with most of my workmates in this reagrd. So if any who reads this post has read any of Riane Einsler's work: what was your reaction? ****CV

Tea and Hemlock

If I do not see another progress report again it will be too soon. (I say this knowing full well that I'm going to be seeing them, and more, in less then three months *sigh*).

**

Meanwhile, I've been sedating my mind by cruising egl sites (elegant gothic lolita) Goodness, ssoooo much lace and bows and frills and, well, da-rama. ..... I do like that clodhopping alice in wonderland mary janes though *g* Sweet and amazing at the same time. Along with this of course I'm continuing to indulge in the Nick marathon so it's rather intersting to look at kawaii dress up pics and listen to lyrics that only Nick can write -

Red Right Hand indeed.***CV

Green Gloves.....

Lovely Creature

There she stands, this lovely creature
There she stands, there she stands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands

So I asked this lovely creature
Yes, I asked. Yes I asked
Would she walk with me a while
Through this night so vast

She took my hand, this lovely creature
"Yes", she said, "Yes", she said
"Yes, I'll walk with you a while"
It was a joyful man she led

Over hills, this lovely creature
Over mountains, over ranges
By great pyramids and sphinxs
We met drifters and strangers

Oh the sands, my lovely creature
And the mad, moaning winds
At night the deserts writhed
With diabolical things

Through the night, through the night
The wind lashed and it whipped me
When I got home, my lovely creature
She was no longer with me

Somewhere she lies, this lovely creature
Beneath the slow drifting sands
With her hair full of ribbons
And green gloves on her hands

by Nick Cave, Murder ballads

Roll the Stone Away!

Hello?

Anyone there?

*cough*

I am still in the cave that is progress reports. However, as this weekend would imply, there shall be a recovery. I see a crack of light and with only 9 more to go (see I kinda had to re-do them starting yesterday but I seriously buckled down today and 20 are as complete as I'm going to do them) I have hopes of some free time tomorrow.
**
Meanwhile I started making a baby surprise sweater (I simply cannot report progress on my commute) but had to rip it because one decrease side had 25 stitiches while the other had 21 and symmetry seemed kinda important. My stitch count is still (albeit symmetrically) wacky though. Hmmmm***CV

flash from the front lines

I think that copy and paste are my new best friends. Without them I do not know how I will manage to survive this progress reporting. Yes, I should be working on them now. But after 3 and a half hours so far today I think I deserve a weee bit of a break.

I do admit I have never filled out a seven page report before. Umm seven per child that is. And this is only the first semester.

Okay, break over***CV

Goods

Okay, it's been so long since I posted about books (and I'm waaay to lazy to look) that I may repeat myself.
**
Morality Play, Barry Unsworth (206pp) A half starving run away monk stumbles upon a troupe of medieval players while they are saying a final farewell to one of their group. He decides to join up with them as a replacement for their dead comrade. They continue to travel (with the corpse in their wagon) towards their destination when they come upon a village which has been the scene of murder. A guilty person has been found and sentenced. The evidence is not as clear cut as it should be however and the troupe decides to step out of its routine of miracle plays and recreate the crime itself. Read this book for the setting and detail, not the mystery.
***
Hikaru no Go, vol.11, Yumi Hotta (195pp) Hikaru is up against Ochi who has been studying with Akira. Who will be the victor and join the ranks of the professionals??
****
Cast in Secret, Michelle Sagara (521pp) I finally found a copy of this book in Portland. It's not literature. It's a lite read about a spunky girl on an inaginary world with two hot guys interested in her; without all the heavy petting. It's a fun series. I must admit I liked Cast in Courtlight more (but then I'm a word girl). This time Kaylin must face her fear of the Tha-alani in order to retrieve a pandoras box. I do wish there had been more of Nightshade( I like the tall dark, brooding and dangerous in my romantic leads); however, I suppose Severn needed some of the spotlight.
*****
While in Portland I restrained myself and only came home with a few items;

The Black Sheep, Balzac

Hikaru no Go, Yumi Hotta

Classical History of the World for Children, vol. I

The Songs of the Kings, Barry Unsworth

The Portland Bridge book

The Rise and Fall of Alexandria, Justin Pollard and Howard Reid

Alexandria and the Sea, Kimberly Williams

Gods Graves and Scholars, CW Ceram

******

Okay I guess it's time to return to writing progress reports****CV

Scroll XVII.iv a

The conference I attended was all about the ancient city of Alexandria. It is essentially a way to recreate aspects of an historic multicultural setting in which children can learn about the people places and events as well as that language of a specific city in a specific time. There are stories, paintings, mummy portraits (paintings of themselves people had made while they still onsidered themselves beautiful), timelines, who am I games, a model of the city, an ancient coptic scroll : all sorts of fun things to do inluding learning to speak and read Alexandrian latin.

This particular course was created by an amazing person named John Wyatt. He has been working on it for over twenty years. I am so very glad that I was able to attend this past week as Mr. Wyatt is reaching a point in which travelling cross country is not the best use of his time. He is very funny and charming and extremely smart. (Well anyone who speaks at least five languages should be, right?) He also likes fairy tales and of course is a classicist.

I also heard him speak two years ago and this is why I can say that I hope he takes good care of himself so we have him for a very long time :)
**
Before telling the story of Alexandria to the children this afternoon I went on line looking for pictures of the new Library Alexandrine and discovered: they are looking for a head librarian.

If ONLY I'd studied Arabic *sigh*

Perhaps I should apply anyway. Can you imagine having a rejection letter from the Library of Alexandria?!***CV

I am the Pause

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

animal q & a

One of the aspects of presenting lessons the way they are done in my school is that there is that potential for great work. Not great in the sense of, omg you just dicovered a new source of pollutant free energy that will last forever! But great as in large. I honestly haven't seen much of that type of work this year.

Until today.

Today I decided to present a material that was completely upended and confused yesterday. It is a set of photographs of different animal species with facts about each animal on the back. So today I invited three children to come play a game with me. (It's another classification work). We chose how to organise a miscellaneous set of cards under a broad category and then refined it into subcategories. After the lesson the children chose to either continue in the same category or another.

One group decided to continue the same and also decided to do every single animal card -that was not already in use by the other two gropus (yeah I had this lesson double again in process). Anyway the box contains easily 100 cards. The pictures were literally climbing the walls in one subcategory. And in order to have all the cards fit the children had to move tables and chairs to create space to lay out the rugs to lay the cards on. I think they used 8 rugs total.

They reorganized the cards at the end of the day (because they spent all day on it) so that tomorrow they could start making their chart of it.
**
On another note, and taking into consideration that not all people percceive things the same, I presented the Noun work to a different group today.

Facility with words: a natural gift or a learned skill?

Discuss.****CV

to Name

I have to share.I had the most fun lesson today. One of the children last week requested a lesson on the spiritual noun (we have a really pretty symbol for it) so I said sure. So today we arranged a time and I set it up in one of the rooms. Meanwhile I got sidetracked by questions and when I came back another child who had seen the chart asked if he could join: sure.

Also during this time I invited a third child who really needs the busyness of lessons. So we sit down and I ask them what the work of a noun is.

"A person place or thing"

Yes a noun can be a person, place, or thing but what is the function, what is the work of a noun?What does a noun do?

Once that was answered we could get into the classification: Because people who work with words realised that if someone didn't organize them it would become really messy. Nothing but nouns everywhere.

So of course we seperated the common from the Proper (Sherlock Holmes versus detective) and then the concrete from the abstract. That was fun because the children could see, literally, as we stacked our cards of nouns that the concrete pile was so much higher than the abstract one, then we seperated the high stack into collective and material before sorting though our 4 abstract nouns into aspects of quality, action, state, idea.

In fact I lifted ball from the concrete pile after we all agreed ball could also mean a dance.

Where does spiritual come in? We had the word 'word' as an abstract idea (it can't be touched, it can be given and kept but not seen) and from that we had a conversation about the Word.

I love socratic type lessons and the children were so involved that some other children sat-in! ***CV

Cardboard Box part II

How, you might wonder, did I find out that the hotel was sold out? (It still boggles me that such a thing is possible. I really can't fathom a400+ room building selling out. But I digress.) Using the handy phone number attached to the conference acceptance letter (uh yeah so I can attend but you won't let me actually sleep 'cause, I dunno, the conference will be so fascinating I would rather be awake all 84 hours of it. Riiiight).

Said number connected me to a lovely and chatty lady who, in the time of our conversation of finding out the rooms were gone and locating other possibilities which were either twice the original rate or so far out that cab fare would make the flight ticket look like the cost of a cup of tea, or rooms that had their own conference table for eight, seperate loft bedroom and breakfast included - all I want is a bed I kept saying, not my own conference hall: the one affordable room she found was booked out from under me.

*sigh*

So I went online. I found a room with a web discount only slightly more than the conference rate. It's located maybe ten blocks from where I used to live which means (quel horror) I will have to walk past Powell's: every. single. night.

Oh dear***CV

Cardboard box to spare?

About a week ago I received a flier for an upcoming teacher conference. One of those get on a plane and travel kind. It looked really interesting. It was all about the city of Alexandria and incorporated latin language as well as ancient history. However, part of my team is still in training and so both have to take time to go and do observations at other schools; as well as the fact that the conference is not months away but less then two weeks from the date of my receipt of the flier.

(I really want to go)

So I figured it couldn't hurt to ask as the worst that could be said is, "The notice is too short so maybe next time".

(Did I mention I really want to go?)

I gave the flier to my admin. and she said she'd talk it over with the directress but .... I said, I understood it was really short notice. Both of them came back later and told me that it looked wonderful and wow they sure wished I and another of my team members could go, it would be such an opportunity but the timing ... again I said I understood, and really, who knew if there was any space anyway, you know? They said let's see what works out with the observation rescheduling (one of my team has been trying to rearrange her 2 week observation so she can be back in time for an important school function). Sure, I said.

(I so want to go)

Last Wednesday, while my team mate was still waiting to hear back from the school she is to observe at my admin said, "Just go. We'll figure out coverage". That night I booked my flight and paid my conference fee. Yay!

Today I called to book a room.

They're sold out.***CV