Book blogging

When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Sedaris has an enjoyable writing style, and I guess if we all carried around notebooks and made note of the minutia of our every day lives then many of us could churn out columns of similar interest.


But in the end it gets a little tiresome.


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Merry Christmas Break!

Welcome to day two of Christmas break. The last week of school was chaotic and kind of pointless, but we did have a pretty rockin' winter program on Friday. My students sang, I'm Gettin Nuttin' for Christmas and pretty much knocked it out of the park. I was so proud of them.

Before the program we had our Christmas party. I had a parent volunteer to host it for me, and she did an AMAZING job. I was absolutely gobsmacked by the time and effort she must have put into it. Of course, she kept saying that it was nothing special, but you should have seen it. The kids had several crafts to do and a game to play - it went swimmingly.

I'm pretty much ready for Christmas now. I finished most of my shopping yesterday (one last thing to pick up today) and got everything wrapped. It was not a relaxing start to my holiday, but at least it's behind me.

I'm making a point of NOT going in to school until after Christmas. There are things I could do there, but I'm just not doing it. An actual break from work - that's what I need right now.

Oh, and I'm finally healthy (mostly anyway). It's only been forever.

Book blogging

The Shipwreck That Saved Jamestown: The Sea Venture Castaways and the Fate of America by Lorri Glover

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

What to most of us know about the history of English America during the colonial period? Not much, that's what. In fact, many of us don't know much beyond what Disney's Pocahontas taught us - most of it flat out wrong. So this book is an absolute eye opener. The astonishing saga of the Sea Venture - being caught up in a hurricane and wrecking off the coast of the Bahamas - juxtaposed against the horrors of the "starving times" in the Jamestown settlement was almost poetic. Glover has taken a spotlight and illuminated one of the darkest corners of American history. A fantastic read.


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Another reason why I love my school

Coio was on the phone with her friend (R) - it was her first phone conversation, beyond a few prompted words to Abuelita Lelia, ever, and it was cute. She asked R , "The person in charge of your school - is she nice?" and then said "The person in charge of our school is Miss Diana, and she's really nice."

She went on to ask, "Do you remember when we used to go to school together? That lady who was in charge of that school? She was mean to me."

Who says three and four year olds don't remember? One of my main regrets from the time I worked at that place is that I allowed MY OWN CHILD to be mistreated - in my presence - because I was too cowed by the boss lady to speak up. I vowed that day I would never let it happen again, and I count my lucky stars that my eyes were opened before the boy was banished to the atrocity she calls "The Toddler Program."

Book blogging

The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

I probably would have liked this book more if had understood it. There's a reason I'm no statistician. Mlodinow had a lot of interesting things to say, and he used some memorable examples to illustrate the different laws of probability, but I just couldn't get my brain around the concepts.


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