In which I transcribe the girl's Star Wars story

Ocne upon time there was a jedi and a priss

• Once upon a time there was a Jedi and a princess.

there name wur Luke and Laya

• Their names were Luke and Leia.

there dads name was anakin and there moms name was saje

• Their dad's name was Anakin, and their mom's name was Sage - Sage is the girl's teacher at school.

But the evll henae wotoo to rveje on the jedi

• But the evil Henna - Henna is the villain in the movie, Barbie: Mariposa - wanted revenge on the Jedi.

Luke and anakin hav lisaveres

• Luke and Anakin have light sabers.
  

Laya is a fidee priss sow is her mom

• Leia is a fighting princess, and so is her mom.
  

the evll henae had a pllen

• The evil Henna had a plan.
  

she well tere anakin to the docsid and she did and she put honsolo in the covnit and she cachd Laya and she gav her to jodo

• She will turn Anakin to the dark side, and she did. And she put Han Solo in the carbonite, and she caught Leia and gave her to Jaba.
  

jodo mad her a serevit and she didi no wat to doo with Luke

• Jaba made her a servant; and she did not know what to do with Luke.
  

Luke wet atere hon Laya and anakin

• Luke went after Han, Leia and Anakin.

There are pictures and everything. I'm thinking of getting it scanned into the computer somehow. Must save this one for the ages.

Book blogging

Diving into Darkness: A True Story of Death and Survival by Phillip Finch

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

I don't think I have it in me to ever even consider a hobby such as cave diving - not even casually. Finch takes the reader deep (really deep) into the dark underwater world of breathing regulators, drysuits, gas mixtures and guidelines to tell the story to two men, Dan and Dave, who have planned an ambitious dive deep into the belly of Africa to rescue the remains of a fellow diver lost years before. From the outset the reader knows that someone dies and someone will be caught up in an epic struggle to make it out alive - but Finch does a pretty decent job of maintaining the suspense. Even though I had pretty much figured out who it would be, I was still anxious to know the details, and was astonished to find that the climax of the story was not, in fact the end. Finch kept me engaged right up to the very last page. Five stars with no reservations.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

Deeper by Roderick Gordon

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Good, but not as good as Tunnels. I felt like the author was beating me over the head with a couple of the storylines in this one (yeah, ok, I GET IT ALREADY), and that this book could have easily lost a hundred pages or so in editing.

There's a third in the works, and I hear there are movie talks as well. Figures.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Like Hosseini's first book, A Thousand Splendid Suns is set in Afghanistan and covers several decades of history. It is the story of two women who have the misfortune to end up married to the same man. Theirs is a struggle to survive a life with a man who would rather they exist solely for him within the walls of their home in a country where women are literally bottom of the barrel of importance. It is astonishing and gut wrenching. Hosseini has proved that lightning can indeed strike the same place twice; I'll read anything this guy writes in the future.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

This story of a boy growing up in Kabul - back when Afghanistan wasn't synonymous with religious extremism - is beautifully written and achingly real. It is the story of a rich, privileged boy (Amir) and a poor servant boy (Hassan) whose real or imagined friendship (depends on who you ask) carries them through childhood until both of their lives are irreversibly tainted by evil.

And then the Russians come.

Years later, Amir - now living in America - receives a call from Pakistan. An old friend of the family tells him, "There is a way to be good again," and draws him back to his childhood home. He barely recognizes the land of his birth, but the chance to finally find a measure of relief from the guilt he has carried around most of his life is undeniable.

Unlike novels of lesser caliber, The Kite Runner never reveals its secrets before Hosseini is ready. The last hundred pages or so are filled with revelations and back-to-back shocks and surprises. In retrospect, the foreshadowing of many events was apparent, but at no point does Hosseini bang the reader over the head with it. There is a quiet morality within this heartbreaking tale, and the reader is well expected to find it without help.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

Distress by Greg Egan

My review

Rating: 2 of 5 stars
Meh.


By the end I had a hard time mustering up the interest to continue reading. The "Aleph moment" did not capture my fancy and all the talk of Distress and the mixing plague was so much blather.

I should have stopped reading days ago, but I hadn't been to the library, and didn't have anything else to read.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

Sorry - just one more today, then I swear I'm done. For a while anyway.

The Unthinkable: Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why by Amanda Ripley

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

Who survives when a disaster strikes? People who don't freak out for too long, that's who. Can you increase your chances of survival? Yes - and Amanda Ripley will teach you how.

If for no other reason, read this for the story of the people who made it out of the towers on 9/11. Good stuff.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars

A non-voyeuristic history of virginity from the earliest civilizations to modern times. What does it mean to be a virgin? Has it always meant the same thing? What is the value of this *thing* we call virginity? Questions all considered and addressed by Blank in a straightforward, unapologetic manner.

But if you're squeamish at all about things *down there,* avoid this one.


View all my reviews.

Book blogging

In His Sights: A True Story of Love and Obsession by Kate Brennan

My review

Rating: 3 of 5 stars

Kate Brennan is an alias, a precaution made necessary by the fact that this book's author is the victim of stalking, and her stalker is still at large. The story is horrifyingly true, and knowing this makes her honesty all the more breathtaking. Brennan reaches back nearly two decades to the time when she first met Paul, the man who will later become her hunter. He seems so normal - superficially - but as the months and years go by the reader takes up a role normally played by the audience in a horror movie. "Don't listen to him!" You will want to shout; "Just walk away!" But, as in any horror movie, the heroine can't hear; these scenes have already been played out.

Brennan humanizes the victim of domestic abuse and stalking. No longer can you afford the luxury of thinking that a woman who stays in an abusive relationship is foolish or weak or any of the other pejorative labels we apply to such women. She is strong, professional and capable of shouldering her own weight in the world - yet she still gets taken in by the predator. Her journey gives us insight into the mind of such an animal and gives hope to those in similar shoes. Definitely worth the read.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

The Body Toxic: How the Hazardous Chemistry of Everyday Things Threatens Our Health and Well-being by Nena Baker

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
I'm scared. I feel like I never want to buy anything ever again. While I'm at it, I'll try to stop eating and breathing and doing all the other mundane things I do every day that invite toxins into my body.

I don't mean to imply that Baker was inciting people to panic or that her writing was unduly alarmist. She was just absolutely thorough and detailed. She pulled no punches and airbrushed nothing. In the end, the picture was devastatingly clear.

Ok, so I can't completely remove myself from modern society. What *can* I do? Stop buying microwave popcorn, that's a start. And my non-stick cookware has been shoved aside in favor of some shiny new stainless steel. But it would be absolutely fabulous if the government could be convinced that petrochemical companies who create possible toxins should not be allowed to flood the environment with their chemicals without first proving that they are not harmful.


View all my reviews.

Book blogging

The 101 Most Influential People Who Never Lived: How Characters of Fiction, Myth, Legends, Television, and Movies Have Shaped Our Society, Changed Our Behavior, and Set the Course of History by Allan Lazar

My review

Rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is one to keep out where it is easily accessible and can be picked up whenever a few spare moments present themselves. I like that I can bounce around - picking and choosing which influential characters I'd like to read about rather than reading cover to cover. And, any book that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer as one of the most influential characters in history is tops in my opinion.


View all my reviews.

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.


View all my reviews.

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.


View all my reviews.

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.


View all my reviews.

More book blogging

Reading the OED: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages by Ammon Shea

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars
Funny - almost enough to make me want to pick up a copy of the OED myself. Shea's description of his struggle to get through the definition of the word "set" by itself is worth reading.

Enlightening - each of the 27 chapters (one for each letter of the alphabet and one for the bibliography, which was exceedingly boring apparently) begins with a stream-of-consciousness type narrative and ends with an eclectic sample of seldom heard and even less often used words.

Refreshing - I read this in a couple of days after reading a much weightier volume, and it was a welcome change.

View all my reviews.

Book blogging

Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama

My review

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Beautifully written, if somewhat overwrought at times. Written before Barack Obama had any presidential aspirations (and it's obvious in his plainspoken accounts of the drug use, drinking and smoking of his youth), this book is a moving account of a man between standing between worlds trying to find his place. It was great fun to read in the final days of the campaign that would make the author the President of the United States.

View all my reviews.

MY FEEP!

C-Rex jumped off the couch at daycare. The sitter was just across the room cleaning up from lunch, and CR and another boy were both standing on the couch. She told them they needed to sit down or get off, and they both jumped off the couch. CR hit the floor hard - but on his feet, gave a yell and started screaming. She called me right away, (I could hear him screaming in the background) and I told her to watch it for a while and call me if he were still crying in 30min. She called back 15min later and said she thought it was getting worse and asked if I would be OK with her giving him some Tylenol. I said yes.

So I cut my errands short and hurried back to get him. She had finally calmed him down a bit, but he of course started crying again as soon as he saw me. We got him to the doctor, but while we were sitting and waiting I was looking at his foot and ankle - wiggling them around - and nothing seemed swollen or discolored. Nothing looked wrong, but when I put him on the floor he curled his left foot under his bum and cried out, "my feep! my feep!" The doctor came in and asked me to take off his pants so he could look at his whole leg. He took both legs and bent them up and down, stating, "his hips are OK, and his knees. His thighbone is good. His ankle and toes and all of the bones in his feet" (this as he carefully fingered each bone in turn). Then he took the boy's calf in his hands - firmly but gently - and CR flipped out, screaming, "Hey! TOP IT! TOP IT! Owie! My feep!!"

The doctor said he was pretty sure it was broken and sent us to the hospital for an x-ray. At the hospital the admissions girl was surly and rude. She couldn't find the order for the x-ray and kept us sitting there for 20min. Finally she got everything she needed and sent us over to radiology. They took the films - C-Rex hated it b/c he had to hold his leg out straight and not move. Plus he was not digging the little lead apron they wanted to cover his boy bits with. I had to hold him down for the pictures, but we got through it. Then we waited for the films to be read and for further instructions from the doctor. The word finally comes down that, yes, he has a broken leg. In fact, he has *two* broken bones. The verdict is "non-displaced buckle fracture of the tibia and the fibula."

All this time the boy's mood is surprisingly upbeat considering the fact that he has two broken bones and has not had a nap.
Finally we went back to the doctor's office where we waited another million years and finally ended up with a blue cast that goes from his mid-thigh down to his toes. The casting process was the worst part of the day. He had to be held down by two people (me and a medical student) while the nurse and the doctor wrapped his leg in the casting material. He screamed and tried to thrash and kick, and we were holding him down! It seemed like it was never going to end!

Of course, it did, but that only left me with a very unhappy boy with a massive new weight holding him down. He wanted it OFF and tried and tried and TRIED, crying "pease! pease! I need on!" (He doesn't get the difference between off and on all that well).

He's sleeping now, but I don't know what kind of a night I've got ahead of me. By the end of the day he was crawling around well enough, but he's still pretty ticked that he can't stand up. He's got to have the cast on for at least four and a half weeks, and I can't bathe him in the meantime. I guess he'll be a bit ripe for the next month or so.

So that's my saga. Honestly, I'm surprised it took him this long to end up at the hospital, as I've been expecting it for the last year or so - ever since he became mobile, really. I thought it would be a cracked open skull, but a broken bone is just as good.

I'm exhausted - it's been a LONG, crazy day.

A Brief Update

My boy likes to sit on the potty. But don't try to take his diaper off for it. No, he'd just like to sit with his clothes on and make a "sssssss!" sound. It's pretty cute. Hopefully this means he's getting close to actual potty training.

I'm actually pretty spoiled about diaper issues right now. Since the boy goes to daycare all day most days, I don't deal with a whole lot of diaper mess. It's a pretty sweet deal.

(edited to remove the repetitive "actually"s - where's my thesaurus?)