Barnes and Noble book fair

My oldest daughter is the librarian at Clinton Prairie High School near Frankfort. Due to tight budgets, she is always looking for ways to increase the collection for the students and make the best use of the money available. For the last two years she and Barnes and Noble have worked together to create a Book Fair. Yesterday was the 'shopping day.' At checkout the customer just mentioned that he/she was shopping to benefit Clinton Praire and the total was credited to their tally. Throughout the day various groups from the school performed or helped in some way--such as a band group playing Christmas carols, several students singing, and teachers playing Wii games in the video section of the store. Also several students read stories to children in that section of the store while their parents shopped. Megan was pleased with the total amount sold---nearly $4000 tallied for the school. She will receive a portion of that to use to buy books and other merchandise for the library. It is a good deal for everyone---the school, Barnes and Noble, and the customers who can shop for Christmas gifts and also help the school without giving any extra money.

Online sales are still going on until Dec. 15. Even though I was in the store two different times and checked out twice, I still forgot a couple of things that I really wanted to purchase as gifts, so I may have to do some online shopping soon.

If you would like to participate in the book fair, let me know. I have vouchers and can share the number to submit at checkout if you would like to help out a worthy cause!

Give a book for Christmas!

Did you like to find books under the Christmas tree when you were growing up? I did! My favorites were Nancy Drew stories! Santa would bring my sister The Bobbsey Twins stories, and I would read all of those too. I graduated to the classics, such as Black Beauty and Swiss Family Robinson, plus Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. I also read Heidi and Little Women. Needless to say, I loved to read. I absolutely loved Christmas break so I could read, and read, and read, and not have to go to school. As I grew older, I still loved to receive books; my favorite gift in the last few years was my Nook. Now I hope that Barnes and Noble gift cards appear in my stocking.

I always give my nephew (who will be 10 on Dec. 31)a book or two. He is not the avid reader like his aunt and his oldest cousin (my daughter, the librarian), but he is appreciative of his gifts (at least he always thanks me!). As I was browsing through the children's section of B and N the other day, I found an easy-to-read version of both Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Even though my librarian daughter didn't think he would like either, I still believe that Nick will unwrap those on Christmas Eve. Every boy should read those two books. Of course, if you are taking ENGL 223 next semester, Huck Finn is one of the first things we will explore. Maybe you should pick up the easy-to-read version at B and N? Up to you!!

More on books and buying books in the next post.

O Captain! My Captain!

Even though poetry is not my favorite thing, I do like Whitman's poem. It was featured in the movie Dead Poets' Society, starring Robin Williams. In fact, the students used that poem as a basis for a salute to their instructor after he was dismissed for the school.

Williams' character, John Keating (a play on the names of several great English poets) used several lines from "O Captain! My Captain!" at the beginning of the movie, then the students dubbed him "Captain" throughout.

After his dismissal he returned to his classroom to retrieve his personal items. As he left the office area to walk through the classroom one last time, one student said, "O Captain! My Captain" and stood on his desk in tribute to Mr. Keating. This led to most of the students honoring their instructor in the same way with many of the students atop their desks before Mr. Keating's departure.

This scene has always been a special one to me. My gifted/talented class at West Central studied many of the same poets as they did in Dead Poets' Society. Jokingly they sometimes addressed me as "Carrotop." Imagine my surprise when I walked into my classroom one day as they were supposedly working on a projet and I heard one of them say "O Carrotop! Our Carrotop!" and up they went on the desks. I was stunned. I was amazed. I had tears in my eyes. AND I took a picture later (I asked them all to repeat the 'standing on the desks' for the picture).

Yes, even though poetry is not my favorite genre, that poem has a special place in my heart, and every time we study it or I hear a reference to it, I think of Chris, Scott, Jerry, Tracy, Candy, Joy, Aaron, Christine, and others who put a special twist on that poem, just for me.

Reading on the iPad

Anyone who knows me, or who is around me for extended periods of time, know how much I love my grandson. Of course, Mamaw is a lover of books and reading, so the favorite gift is a new book. One of our favorite activities when Landon was just a baby was my sitting in a chair, holding him, and reading a book to him. Even though he couldn't comprehend, or maybe even actually see the pictures, I still read to him.

Now Landon loves books. He is nearly two, and he has been dragging books from his basket in his living room to Papa to read to him. Sometimes I have the opportunity, but he tends to like Papa's sound effects and the way Papa's lap has spots for him to cuddle in.

Over the Thanksgiving time off, I was searching for new free apps for my iPad and discovered a free book---Toy Story! It is so cool...even for me. There is music. There are bright colors. An unseen voice reads along with the text, which is highlighted to follow the voice. I also found a Christmas story that has a calendar that updates the days, hours, and minutes to Christmas, along with an animated story that tells about Santa's arrival.

Yesterday afternoon I took my iPad from my bag (actually a very large purse), and immediately Landon yelled "Birds! Birds!" because he likes to play Angry Birds with his Uncle Matt. He isn't coordinated enough to use his pointer finger to fling the birds and bombs and other things through the air, but he enjoys touching the screen and trying.

When he crawled up into my lap to play "Birds," I opened instead Toy Story. Oh my. What a reaction! He loved it. He was yelling BUZZ and WOODY all the way through. We read it not once, but twice. Then he gently carried my iPad to Papa, and they sat on the couch and read it again.

I have been thinking about my grandmother often through the holiday weekend, as I always do on Thanksgiving. I commented to my husband on Thanksgiving morning that she would have been amazed that I was checking my laptop for Alton Brown's turkey recipe from the Food Network's website (which is a very good recipe, by the way). We have come a long way from the recipe cards or making things from scratch, adding ingredients until the taste is just right. But Grandma would have never thought about sitting with me or my sister or my cousin on the couch and reading a book on an iPad. What we are taking for granted would have shocked her. It still shocks my mother that she could listen to music, any kind of music, through Pandora on my iPad.

The times...they are a'changin' that's for sure!

Poetry

I am not a big fan of poetry. Don't gasp with astonishment. I just haven't enjoyed many of the poems I was forced to read during my high school years, in college, and after that through my teaching career.

Why not, you may ask? I don't know, really. I enjoy some things, like Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven." I like some of the British works by Tennyson, Wordsworth, Shelley, Keats, and Byron. I like Carl Sandburg, Edgar Lee Masters, and Edwin Arlington Robinson. The poems I like are usually the ones I teach. Others though..not so much.

Maybe it is modern poetry that I just don't enjoy. Most of it is written in free verse, or it has very few of the poetic elements and just seems to be a smathering of words on paper. Maybe I turned sour on poetry when my high school students penned mishmashes of words on a paper in 5-10 minutes and said, "Here Mrs. Siemens! I wrote a poem, just like you wanted me to do." No technique, no alliteration, no onomatopoeia, no allusions, no rhyme, no similes or metaphors, no rhythm...just words on paper, written to look like a poem.

With that being said, here we go into the last Pod for the semester, Poetry. I am not cringing with this Pod, however. I like Walt Whitman. Even though Emily Dickinson was a little strange, I do like her poetry. Some of the things they wrote have stayed with me through the years. I do like "Because I did not stop for Death, it kindly stopped for me" even though it seems rather morbid. Leaves of Grass is enjoyable, mostly because it reflects on nature and I like that.

Poetry could have been easily eliminated from the curriculum; however, in a survey class, all genres should be explored, and poetry cannot be ignored. It is part of the American literature history. It is a vital form of expression. There are many great poets to be read and understood.

I still don't enjoy it though.

Not *that* much into nature....

My husband and I bought a pop-up camper a few weeks ago. A family from our church was selling theirs, only two years old, to buy a bigger camper to use while their young children still wanted to go camping with them. Good idea.

We have been tent campers forever. I like tent camping. I like cooking over the fire. I like snuggling into the sleeping bag and waking up all snuggly and warm on a crisp fall morning, ready to cook over the open fire and enjoy the great outdoors. Ok...beginning to sound like Thoreau a little, so I will quit on that.

As our daughters got older, we traded camping for hotels, and then reverted back to camping again. In fact the first time our second son-in-law met the family (and lots of our friends) was on a camping trip around Labor Day weekend. What a way to get to know everyone!

We hadn't camped for a while, actually since our grandson came along. We spent most of our weekends seeing him, watching him grow..until this weekend. His first camping trip.

Our new pop-up is going to be shared. We knew that from the first idea of buying it. Hilary (youngest daugher), Blaine (her husband), and Landon (our grandson) took the pop-up to Tippecanoe River State Park this afternoon. They are camping there with friends, actually Blaine's best man, his wife, and son.

We went to the park to join them for dinner (Bev makes wonderful chicken/rice soup each time we camp with them...absolutely delicious). It was very dark. There were very few campsites being used. Landon was enjoying the outdoors--kicking leaves, saying "HOT! HOT!" to the flames in the firering. The pop-up is roomy and looks comfortable. The space heater was running, plus the former owners tossed in their heated mattress pads with the camper since they had no use for them anymore. It should be snuggly warm in there tonight.

However....the bathrooms are closed. All of them. Locked. No facilities.

Now I like to camp. I like to cook over the fire. I don't mind getting dirty. I can sleep in my sweats and then wear them during the day. I can tolerate the showers at the campground.

But I cannot go without a bathroom. My husband said it wouldn't bother him at all. Blaine, Tony, and Brandon said the same thing. But me? No. I need a bathroom. It would be a VERY long night without one.

I am glad we are back home. It is warm. We have electricity and lights. I was able to finish The Scarlet Letter pod. But best of all...we have a bathroom! Yeah!

Salem Mass

This past summer I had the opportunity to travel to Boston for the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Institute. I can't say that I was totally enamored with the city or the area, but my perspective was from a dorm room at Boston University, taking the transportportation system everywhere I wanted to go, and eating meals in a campus cafeteria. I am not much of a 'city girl' so these were things that made the trip not so enjoyable, but I tried to soak up the culture as much as I could, and I made a list of 'things to see and do' on a return trip with my husband.

The R and R day was Thursday of a very long week, and I really enjoyed our plans for that day. Ethan Heicher from the Kokomo chapter put together a group to travel to Salem and visit that historic city and then enjoy dinner at Legal Seafood in the evening, right on Boston Harbor.

The boat trip to Salem from Boston was fantastic. The wind in my hair, water droplets hitting my face, bright warm sunshine....ahhh...bliss..especially after feeling caged in a tiny dorm room all week.



I loved the ride to Salem and back, plus we were able to view many historic and non-historic sites along the shore. Fun.



At the dock in Salem our group split, and I opted to roam the city with three ladies, total strangers to me, to check out several spots of interest. I learned quickly that their interests were a little different than mine. I wanted to see Hawthorne's Salem, the witchcraft trials, the House of Seven Gables, the cemetery where the hanged witches from The Scarlet Letter era were buried.





They had no interest in that. Witches on broomsticks, black cats and cauldrons, spiders and tarantulas..those piqued their interest instead.



After a nice lunch at a seaside restaurant (fish of course), we wandered to a Witch Museum and then parted ways.





I sat on the square for quite a while, thinking about the times of Hester Prynne and Rev. Dimmesdale. I stood at the shoreline later, waiting to board the boat for the return trip to Boston and thought how the Pilgrims must have felt as they landed in this new country, some to be burned and hung as witches. Plus I watched a group touring the city on these things:


Because we were off to check out t-shirts with witches and broomsticks and spiders on rubbery webs, I did not have time to explore the House of Seven Gables from the inside, so I will have to save that for the next trip. But I did enjoy the brief visit to Salem, and I am excited about a return trip sometime with my husband.