BELLA: “I’m so smart and emotional, but I just wish some macho yet mysteriously sensitive guy would come and rescue me.” EDWARD: “Hi, I’m basically a girl’s fantasy: a superhero emo kid who won’t take advantage of a girl no matter how much she throws herself at me.” BELLA: “That’s true. I also know that my [...]
Archive for August, 2008
Twilight Saga, Abridged
Posted in Humor, tagged emo kids, obsessive tweener girls, sappy pulp romance, Stephenie Meyer, Twilight on August 28, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Quotes, Pics, and Clips IV
Posted in Random, tagged "There's a Hole in the Bucket", discipleship, Eric Coyle, Ezra Taft Benson, Jesus Christ, Lady of Shalott, Ronald Reagan, Tennyson, UNLV, Waterhouse, William Faulkner, Wordplay on August 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
ARTS: Several years ago, I noticed a poster on a friend’s wall: John William Waterhouse’s Pre-Raphaelite masterpiece The Lady of Shalott: I was impressed by the passionate atmosphere in the piece, and could only wonder at the story behind it until I heard Loreena McKennitt’s hauntingly ethereal setting of Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s great poem, “The [...]
School Budget Priorities And A Satirical Analogy
Posted in Education, Humor, tagged budgets, CCSD, economy, satire on August 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
So my school’s budget for this year was cut by six figures. Other schools had even more cut than we did. This trickles down to my English department, among other ways, in the form of getting far less paper for copies than we have had in the past, which was pretty meager to begin with. [...]
Recommended Reading: Teach Like Your Hair’s On Fire
Posted in Education, tagged book reviews, effective teaching, Rafe Esquith, school reform, Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire, There Are No Shortcuts on August 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I first read about Rafe Esquith in an article in National Review. After that, I read and enjoyed his book, There Are No Shortcuts. Esquith espouses a teaching ethic that is heavy on emotion and personality, but that is more than balanced out by incredibly high academic standards and a work ethic that would make [...]
Movie Review: Star Wars: The Clone Wars
Posted in Random, tagged movie reviews, Star Wars on August 23, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Unless you’re a devoted fan of Star Wars, this one could probably wait until it comes out on disc. Other than the great sequence with a proto-Walker climbing a vertical cliff face, there isn’t much in this little movie that’s especially visually spectacular. In fact, there isn’t much that’s spectacular in it at all. (This [...]
Things I Love About Autumn
Posted in Living well, tagged Art in the Park, General Conference, Harvest Festival, Living well, Renaissance Festival, Something Scottish on August 19, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
Tomorrow I go back to work to prepare for the new school year, which starts on Monday. I’m certainly not bursting with ecstasy that my little break is over, but I will be grateful to see the 110-degree weather start to fade (in another four weeks or so we’ll start leaving the triple digit temperatures [...]
Five Classic Movies I’ve Seen In The Last Month
Posted in Arts, tagged Alfred Hitchcock, cinema, film, Howard's End, John Wayne, movie reviews, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, Singin in the Rain, Solaris, The 39 Steps on August 14, 2008 | 1 Comment »
She Wore A Yellow Ribbon I heard an interview on the radio in the early 90′s with rap group Public Enemy where they were asked about cursing out John Wayne in one of their songs. Chuck D said it was a protest against Wayne “going around shooting Indians” in his movies. I thought about this [...]
Ten Best Atheist Arguments?
Posted in Humor, Religion, tagged apologetics, atheism, Bible, Christianity, Jesus Christ, satire on August 14, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Presented here for your convenience, for the first time ever and after countless hours of painstaking research by eavesdropping on actual cafe conversations and Internet chat rooms, are the top ten reasons I overheard secular Americans give for dismissing faith. Well, not really, but it sounds about right. 10. “If there truly is an [...]
Recommended Reading: Shogun
Posted in Language and Literature, tagged book reviews, James Clavell, Shogun on August 12, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I haven’t posted anything in nearly a week largely because I’ve spent most of my spare moments engrossed in James Clavell’s epic Shogun. I don’t remember the groundbreaking 12-hour 1980 TV miniseries based on Shogun, but I clearly remember seeing Pierce Brosnan in the miniseries version of Noble House later in the 80′s. When that [...]
Ten Literary First Lines Translated For Text Messaging
Posted in Humor, Language and Literature, tagged English, language on August 6, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Just this morning I came across the brilliant web site The English-to-12-Year-Old-AOLer Translator. Let’s see what happens when we take some famous literary first lines and translate them: Now is the winter of our discontent becomes NOW SI DA WINTAR OF OUR DISCONTENT!1!1!1! OMG LOL Call me Ishmael. is translated as CAL M3 ISHMA3L!!!111!1 [...]
On Teaching Literacy
Posted in Education, tagged effective teaching, literacy, school reform, teaching on August 5, 2008 | 1 Comment »
A parent of a student recently sent me this survey as part of her masters’ program, and asked for my input. Following up on my last post (and trying to make up for the deficit of education-related posts this summer), I thought I’d share some of my meager thoughts here. Perhaps they’ll be of interest [...]
50 Things New Teachers Need To Know
Posted in Education, tagged advice, Bloom's taxonomy, cultural criticism, drop outs, fads, family, grading, group work, homework, illiteracy, multiple intelligences, parenting, self-esteem, teaching, technology on August 4, 2008 | 86 Comments »
[Update: Please be sure to also check out 50 MORE Things New Teachers Need To Know.] Now that August is here, I’m thinking about the imminent start of the new school year. For years I’ve watched new teachers start their first year with no clue about how to manage all that gets thrown at [...]
Recommended Reading: The Last Lecture
Posted in Living well, tagged book reviews, Last Lecture, Living well, Randy Pausch, self improvement, time management on August 3, 2008 | 2 Comments »
You’ll notice that this post is being filed under “living well,” rather than “language and literature” or “arts.” Don’t let that fool you into thinking that I recommend this book merely as inspirational fluff–despite the gushing tributes this book has received since Professor Randy Pausch’s untimely death two weeks ago, The Last Lectureis not primarily [...]
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