Professional development.

After three months of bloglessness, I reappeared here last night. It heralded what was, in my mind, the beginning of a series called Bound and Determined, in which I try to read one of my purchased-but-as-of-yet-unread books weekly and then blog about it. So I introduced the concept, prattled on about Birdwing (which I read during the ice storm), and then went to bed. After sleeping on it, I made a decision.

Actually, my first decision upon waking (which, interestingly, turns out to be after getting out of the shower and eating breakfast) was not to go to work. My stomach did (and does) not feel right at all, and well, it didn't take much arm-twisting to get me to log onto the help-I-need-a-substitute! website and unplug the curling iron.

Then, after making a nest in the living room, I made this other decision. Instead of just a series, I turned Bound and Determined into its own blog. I've done this before. And by this, I mean both starting up a new project blog on a whim and starting up a reading blog. I do not have a good track record here, but you never know when I just might stick with something.

Plus, and this is where I'm really honest, I am way too impressed with myself for coming up with the multi-faceted title. I mean, bound? Like books. And determined? Because I am and the whole point of writing the blog is to keep myself motivated. Okay, I'll stop patting myself on the back, but you gotta admit… But of course, I did some research, and I'm not totally original here. Bound and Determined is also the name of a few other blogs and a work of erotica. It's a cliché, unique only in its redundancy. Whatever.

I have to admit that I'm jumping the gun a little. I've already acknowledged my paper-thin willpower. Ha, I haven't even written about a second book yet. And I have over thirty – thirty! – other books on my list. The sheer magnitude of the list alone is enough to defeat me. Some accountability can't hurt.

I'm not going to pretend that I'm not doing this because I want to be a librarian. Obviously, I am. Books and reading are what I love, but I have a lot of work to do if I honestly want to consider myself "knowledgeable about current children's and young adult literature". It's professional development.

Follow me as I develop professionally at http://determinedtoread.blogspot.com/. And join in the discussion. Ask questions. Make reading recommendations. Let me know if you have read / want to read / don't want to read the book I'm reading.

I've recently decided that books are only important because they connect us with other people. If I can't share the experience or knowledge or insight that I gain from a book, what's the point in reading it?

Bound and determined.

I have a problem. I cannot stop buying books.

Once after acknowledging our similarly overflowing bookshelves, Niaz and I half formed a pact in which we vowed to allow ourselves to buy only one new book after reading three already-purchased ones. That sounded nice, didn't it? A good way not only to get through my ever-lengthening reading list, but also to give my bank account a break. I don't know about him, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he too surrendered like I did to the siren song of bookstores. I think I read one whole book before going to Barnes & Noble and buying enough books to make my 10%-off Member Card worth the membership fee.

I have never been good with resolutions – New Year's or otherwise – and it's becoming increasingly apparent that I might have an addictive personality. This probably explains the almost-one-hundred dollars I dropped at the Southern Kentucky Book Fest in Bowling Green on Saturday. While unpacking from the weekend last night, I somewhat proudly and somewhat ashamedly added seven or eight freshly-bound books to my collection, dividing them up among the large bookcase, the small unofficial YA shelf, and the stool-turned-nightstand beside my bed. I stepped back, surveyed the situation, and one thing was abundantly clear: It's time to rededicate myself to the not-a-resolution I considered back in February.

I refused to make it public then because I'm fairly convinced that telling other people about my goals has approximately the same effect on my progress as high school sweethearts professing their love to one another via a yearbook ad has on their relationship's longevity. The endeavor is doomed before the intentions are even published.

So I knowingly enter into this with great trepidation, but here it is: My goal is to read one book a week. To an average reading adult, this seems doable, but in the two months since I half-heartedly began, I've finished three books. (Time to buy more?! Okay, so I've already taken care of that. Plus, I've decided not to impose a book-buying embargo on myself because I learned long ago that I'm too smart – er, weak – to fall for my own fictitious rules and deadlines.) I can blame in on the lifestyle of being a new teacher, but let's face reality. The height of the book-stacks has reached mountainous, and intervention is critical.

I'm bound and determined to scale this constantly growing mountain. And I'm taking you with me.

Birdwing by Rafe Martin

I have a feeling that even if the plot of this fairy tale had been disappointing, I would have still loved it despite itself. Luckily, the coming-of-age adventure of Prince Ardwin did not disappoint. I had not expected that a winged boy would become the one character in all of literature with whom I most identify.

This is one of the many books that I've purchased because of its attractive cover, even though I later learned that the artist's rendering of the protagonist, the one-armed-one-winged Ardwin, is inaccurate. (No, the wing is on his other left, I'd say.) I picked it up at the Scholastic Book Fair that the book club sponsored in the library at school. I mean, I had to buy books to support the student organization, right?

Not surprisingly, though, the book landed on my bookshelf unread until a month or so later when Victoria asked me for reading recommendations and I, despite having read the book, suggested it. She and I once had a tryst with the Brothers Grimm, and this story reimagines and expands the Grimm's tale "The Six Swans". Seemed like a match. She took it, read it, loved it, and foisted it back at me so that I could read and love it, too. Done and done.

Rafe Martin's writing style drew me in immediately, and I suspect it would carry me through an even poorly spun yarn. The tale is written in prose, but it is nothing short of lyrical. Martin is fond of alliterative and original adjective pairs, prepositional possession, intriguing names, and weighty nouns and verbs. His characterization is vivid and his setting is timeless in the way that the realms of the best legends are. The cast line-up is full of archetypes (orphans, evil step-mothers, and wizened wizards), but Martin develops them into a unique humanity despite their otherworldliness. The themes of love, loss, betrayal, and belonging are worked out with heartbreaking and redemptive reality.

Birdwing's narrator is omniscient, which explains my frustration with the thought processes and choices of Ardwin, the young hero. The reader is far more enlightened about reality and its consequences than he, so the attempt at dramatic irony sometimes fails because the plot twists are apparent to the reader long before the twists occur. This makes Ardwin seem very naïve, but this may just be part of the tale's theme. This youthful naivety juxtaposes nicely with the young man at the end of the novel.

I would have loved this book no matter what because I am a sucker for a nicely turned phrase, but Birdwing is more than a pretty book. It is a journey that takes us – Ardwin and the reader – fearfully into our insecurities and brings us victoriously out of ourselves.

Coming Soon! Bound and Determined: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Check it out here.

¡a leer!

I have the following: a teaching job that will officially begin in the fall, a long list of books that I want to read, and quite a bit of time. I shouldn't feel guilty about sitting around reading for a month or so, should I? Okay, good.

Here's the list.

• Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen -- I checked this book out from the public library and have only read thirteen pages. I am bound and determined to read the other four-hundred nine before the due date comes around. I have to earn my right to check out an unlimited number of books next time -- books I will check out, not read, and return late. And I want to be a librarian.
• Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis -- I have, of course, already read this, but the movie comes out next week, and I feel obligated to re-read.
• I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak -- I bought this book on a recent (small) B&N binge. I read his book The Book Thief while I was in Honduras, love it, recommend it, and can't wait to read more from where it came from.
• Flash Fiction -- A compilation of short short stories, also purchased during the aforementioned bout of consumer therapy. I'm getting a feel for the form, reading a few pages at a time. Once, at four in the morning when I couldn't sleep.
• Malinche by Laura Esquivel -- I bought this hardback at a mark-down-mark-down price at the mall. I wanted to buy it at that fancy-pantsed bookstore in Seattle, but it was just too pricey. Now I've had it for several months and haven't touched it.
• Twilight by Stephenie Meyer -- I'm putting it on my library list. Allison, I blame you if I jump on the vampire wagon.

I'm going to pretend that putting this list on here will hold me accountable or something.

And then there was one.

One week, like the Barenaked Ladies' song.

I've spent most of this past one trying not to be sick. I've almost succeeded. In the relaxation part of my self-medication, I have seen quite a few movies. I've watched Benny & Joon on Encore more times than I could count. So many times, in fact, that I even started writing a blog entry about how, even though I don't call myself a rabid Johnny Depp fan, I think he's a fantastic actor. Thank goodness I came to my senses and didn't publish that one. I blame it on all the honey intake.

Some of you might be relieved to learn that I have finally watched Sliding Doors. I had heard enough about the theory to have the movie figured out, but it was worth watching. But as I was watching it today, I was reminded of something I realized last night.

Now, I am certain this is unoriginal. It might even be obvious. I don't think, though, that it had ever actually occurred to me. Last night, something clicked in my brain about why we love Story -- and by Story, I mean books, movies, sitcoms, whatever. At least in a traditional sense, a story is complete. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Of course, it might begin in media res and the resolution might insinuate a future, but by necessity of its medium, a story is going to finish (in 312 pages, in two hours, in thirty minutes). And here's the kicker: as a reader/viewer, we get to experience that. We get to behold something complete, something whole. And that's more than any of us can ask for in real life.

I think the same reason we love Story is the same reason I find romantic movies completely frustrating: the illusion of the Big Picture. (This is where I know I'm not saying anything new here.) When we watch a movie, we see the whole plot, and in many instance, we know more than the protagonist does about his or her story. Also, because we're watching a movie, we even have a sense of a coming resolution because we know it's supposed to end in twenty five minutes. The character doesn't have that luxury. What I'm hitting at here is omniscience.

In "real life" (I dislike that term), we don't have omniscience. We can only see as far as we are, and we don't even perceive that very well. Story, though, lets us be omniscient for a little while. We at least are allowed to have faith that everything will turn out okay. In our own actual experience, it's not that easy.

As an occupational hazard of living a life, we don't actually get to see it in its entirety until, well, the end. And who knows if we will ever have the opportunity for ultimate hindsight, some posthumous Big Picture feature presentation? At that point, I guess it doesn't matter anymore.

The point, I suppose, is that Story is almost like glimpsing the Eternal. (Not always, I realize. Otherwise, there sure would be a lot of crappy eternity out there.) So stories are frustrating because we can never immediately liken our own lives to them. Time doesn't allow us that. But neat little plots are maybe smudgy reflections of reality. They give us hope of wholeness, of everything working out for the good. We can see that perfection in the stories that we read and watch, and for a moment, we know that our story is like that, too, even if we can't yet see it.

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

window poem at 9:04 am

While I waited to call the travel agent back this morning, I picked up the copy of Wendell Berry's Collected Poems 1957-1982 that I got when I went through my poetry-buying rash, which also included the purchase of multiple collections from Billy Collins and Deborah Garrison. Today, I opened the book randomly to the Window Poems section. Before I found this larger collection in the bookstore, I nearly bought this originally handprinted, hardbound copy of Window Poems because of the accompanying woodcuts throughout. But I bought the larger collection instead -- more for the money, said conscience at the time -- though I had forgotten the window series was collected in it. So this morning, by chance, I opened to number 6 in the series of poems about windows and was somewhat "inspired" to try my hand at one. After all the most beloved aspect of my room is the, well, windows.

window poem at 9:04 am

I think my two are facing south and west.
I don't have the sense of direction like
These farmers whose land the eyes overlook,
That sense of understanding seen in the
Sun's eye as he does his thing, or as the
Moderns would have it, as we do our thing.
But it's the last day of January,
And who can trust the sun this time of year?

I prefer the one that I think opens
To the south, with the hills rising into
Its second-floor view. Gray trees line the top
Of the slopes, reminding me of that bed
Of pins that, if you push your hand into
Its points, there is a metallic model
Of your topography on the other
Side. Upstretched limbs thus indicate the land.

The white pseudo-panes and faux-wood blinds are
Transparent graph paper: It's an upward
Trend with a slight decline at the moment.
(I imagine Al on that dramatic
Hydraulic thing that lifted him into
The rafters in front of the red-lined screen.)
We are peaking somewhere near the middle
Of the last pane, at about the sixth slat,
Depending on how I hold my head. But
You know, numbers do not ever lie.

Of course, this was before I went back and started reading Window Poems from the beginning, a very good place to start, as it turns out.

"The window has forty
panes, forty clarities
variously wrinkled, streaked
with dried rain, smudged,
dusted. The frame
is a black grid
beyond which the world
flings up the wild
graph of its growth,
tree branch, river,
slope of land,
the river passing
downward, the clouds blowing,
usually, from the west,
the opposite way.
The window is a form
of consciousness, pattern
of formed sense
through which to look
into the wild
that is a pattern too,
but dark and flowing,
bearing along the little
shapes of the mind
as the river bears
a sash of some blinded house.
This windy day
on one of the panes
a blown seed, caught
in cobweb, beats and beats."

Wendell Berry
Window Poems, number 3

Well said, Wendell. Well said.

What would you do if your mother asked you?

Last Saturday night, I watched my nieces, Victoria and Kathryn, while Sissy and Randy went to a dinner at their church. I spent the night at their house (for the third night that week), and before I left the next morning, I wrote this:

I put on yesterday's clothes. And I put on yesterday's socks, but they were yesterday's socks yesterday. They're all stretched out in the heel and toe, lint clinging inside and out. I unwad them and put them on my feet and set out to find my shoes.

Walking across the living room rug in my sock-feet reminds me that these socks have got to be washed soon. It feels like when I was a kid, sleeping over at a friend's and I've been there for a week, and the morning my mom comes to get me finds me in the same clothes I'd been recycling -- play clothes, pajamas, whatever. And a lot like those friend's-house mornings, I can't find my shoes. I'm looking under couches, under the futon I just made up, behind recliners until I remember Dr. Seuss.

We had a "book party" in Kathryn's room last night -- a regular Seuss marathon. I read Green Eggs and Ham, which I don't think I've ever really read before, and The Cat in the Hat. Victoria joined us on the alphabet rug and got in on the action by reading us the sequel to the Hat Cat's adventures.

It was beautiful.

Kathryn, three, listening with rapturous joy as her sister, twelve, reads her a book. Victoria -- who used to hate to read and still stumbles over some of the Doctor's rhymes, rightfully so -- is volunteering to read with enthusiasm. She hands me the pages with red background because, somehow, that trips her up. But together, reading, listening, looking at the whimsical illustrations, we manage to finish all three books. And with the vigor of the Little Cats and Voooom!, we "clean up" Kathryn's room and retire to the living room for a dose of freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies and television. When Sissy and Randy return, it appears that we hadn't experienced the simple joy of reading at all, but rather that we are certified Couch Potatoes.

But this morning, the whole family of them has gone to church, and I'm about to leave, except I can't find my shoes. Until I remember our book party, as Kathryn called it. So I went into her room, still and strewn with Pinkness. In front of the miniature kitchen, I find, in this room of little pink things, my shoes -- big and brown and looking as foreign and as wild as Thing One and Thing Two.

All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished

I am not sure how a twenty-four year old, single, unemployed person such as myself can accumulate so much stuff. But I did. In three and a half years, I've managed to acquire enough belongings to fill a standard-sized horse trailer -- and then some.

When I lived at Southwood for a month in the summer of 2004, I barely had enough to make a sub-leased room with a borrowed bed feel like home. I was able to carry the entirety of my book collection in one box -- the box my Tiffany lamp, which I bought solely for the sake of that room, came in. This weekend, I found that box -- labeled "BOOKS" -- and filled it with books again. Except, this time, I labeled it something like "Literature A-Cisneros" or "Spanish Language and Culture." See, I'm estimating twenty boxes of books that we packed into the corner of the horse trailer. The books, though, serve only as one fossil of this era.

When I first shifted my little pile of stuff from Southwood to Brentwood, my new apartment was still relatively empty. After hanging a freshly purchased shower curtain and feeling accomplished, I selected an English class literature anthology from my little bookshelf and sat in the floor, in the corner of the living room where the monstrous bookcase eventually stood. I read, from beginning to end, the Lorraine Hansberry play "A Raisin in the Sun" in one anticipatory afternoon.

I can't believe my apartment is almost as empty again as it was that day. It's not nearly as clean, though. I've still got that to do. But once I've collected the last evidences of my residence and once I've exterminated all the dust rodents, I think I'll have a seat in that corner again and read something. Of course, I would punctuate the chapters of my existence with literature.

But what should I read? Too bad all the books have been packed and taken away.

It's not you; it's me.

Just this past semester, I wrote on the front of one of my classes' folders: I HATE POETRY. It wasn't true, even then. Maybe it was the class, the professor, the specific poem that we were harassing as a group. Or rather, it was the way the professor was using the poem to harass us that made me write it in capital letters, to emphasize my disgust. That's the thing. Over the past years as a literature student, I've come to view poetry as a weapon scholars use to batter us intellectual fledglings into humble submission.

It makes me sad. So much so that a couple years ago, I wrote a research paper about ways to make poetry seem less intimidating in the classroom. Hoping that students and poetry can be friends, I decided that the microteaching that I have to deliver in a couple weeks ought to be about poetry. So I set out on the search to find the poem to incorporate into my lesson. I still haven't found a poem I want to "teach," but I have found my new favorite poet.

Introducing Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate and NY State Poet, and his poem "Thesaurus."

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

See, I don't hate poetry. Thank God, because this stuff makes me happy.

It was this passage from the poem "Reading Myself to Sleep" that had me at hello: "and the only movement in the night is the slight / swirl of curtains, the easy lift and fall of my breathing, / and the flap of pages as they turn in the wind of my hand." Aaaah.

So now I'm going to go put fresh sheets on my bed and read myself to sleep.

Thank you for riding the Raven.

Twenty-three is the age that scares me. It is the threshold of oblivion. It is the age when the numbers start to blur. Or perhaps that was twenty-two. If twenty-two was the apex of the hill on the roller coaster, twenty-three is the initial descent. I know it sounds like I am describing turning forty and rolling over the hill. Maybe forty is that big drop with lots of air-time, but this twent-three that I am contending with now is that first teaser hill. The one that makes you realize there's no turning back.

I don't really like roller coasters that much.

And I never thought that age would bother me. Age ain't nothin' but a number, right? Maybe so, but if time passes without fail twenty-four hours each day, these numbers start to add up. How did all these "sands through hourglass" pile up so quickly, and who is shoveling them? Call me Hootie (or the Blowfish, if you prefer), but I don't want to believe in Time. Just thinking about it is enough to make me hold my breath -- an attempt to slow things down.

But as for the age of twenty-three itself, well, I don't know. It's less about feeling older and more about being more aware of time. But so far, I can't say it's wonderful. In the course of the few days since my birthday, I've suffered several minor set-backs involving everything from inexplicable numbness in my hand (they all say it'll pass) to a series of road detours that made me feel like I was in a maze with no exit.

Surely it will get better.

No I'm not colorblind
I know the world is black and white
I try to keep an open mind
But I just can't sleep on this tonight

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

Don't know how else to say it
I don't want to see my parents go
One generation's length away
From fighting life out on my own

Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
But honestly, won't someone stop this train?

So scared of getting older
I'm only good at being young
So I play the numbers game
To find a way to say that life has just begun

Had a talk with my old man
Said "help me understand"
He said "turn sixty-eight"
"You'll renegotiate"

"Don't stop this train
Don't for a minute change the place you're in
And don't think I couldn't ever understand
I tried my hand
John, honestly we'll never stop this train"

Once in a while, when it's good
It'll feel like it should
And they're all still around
And you're still safe and sound
And you don't miss a thing
Till you cry when you're driving away in the dark
Singing
Stop this train
I want to get off
And go home again
I can't take the speed it's moving in
I know I can't
Cause now I see I'll never stop this train

"Stop This Train," John Mayer

Poem in October

For those to come.

Today is the last day of Banned Books Week. If there is any one issue that I actually do care about at all, it is the freedom to read. Thanks to ALA, here is a list of The 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000.

For fun, I am going to bold the ones I have read. Because I am a little lazy, there are ones that I own, but I haven't read them yet. They will be italicized. And there is a far-too-large amount of them that I am ashamed to say that I haven't read, but have full intent to do so. As a sort of goal-setting exercise for myself, I'll underline them.

Of the books that I have read on this list, I want to thank every teacher who made me read it, every library from which I borrowed it, every store from whose shelves I purchased it, and my parents for allowing me the freedom to read it. You are all wise folks.

1. Scary Stories (Series) by Alvin Schwartz
2. Daddy's Roommate by Michael Willhoite
3. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
4. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
6. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
7. Harry Potter (Series) by J.K. Rowling
8. Forever by Judy Blume
9. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
10. Alice (Series) by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
11. Heather Has Two Mommies by Leslea Newman
12. My Brother Sam is Dead by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier
13. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
14. The Giver by Lois Lowry
15. It's Perfectly Normal by Robie Harris
16. Goosebumps (Series) by R.L. Stine
17. A Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Newton Peck
18. The Color Purple by Alice Walker
19. Sex by Madonna
20. Earth's Children (Series) by Jean M. Auel
21. The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Paterson
22. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
23. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
24. Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
25. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak
26. The Stupids (Series) by Harry Allard
27. The Witches by Roald Dahl
28. The New Joy of Gay Sex by Charles Silverstein
29. Anastasia Krupnik (Series) by Lois Lowry
30. The Goats by Brock Cole
31. Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane
32. Blubber by Judy Blume
33. Killing Mr. Griffin by Lois Duncan
34. Halloween ABC by Eve Merriam
35. We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
36. Final Exit by Derek Humphry
37. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
38. Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
39. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
40. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Girls: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Daughters by Lynda Madaras
41. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
42. Beloved by Toni Morrison
43. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
44. The Pigman by Paul Zindel
45. Bumps in the Night by Harry Allard
46. Deenie by Judy Blume
47. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
48. Annie on my Mind by Nancy Garden
49. The Boy Who Lost His Face by Louis Sachar
50. Cross Your Fingers, Spit in Your Hat by Alvin Schwartz
51. A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein
52. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
53. Sleeping Beauty Trilogy by A.N. Roquelaure (Anne Rice)
54. Asking About Sex and Growing Up by Joanna Cole
55. Cujo by Stephen King
56. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
57. The Anarchist Cookbook by William Powell
58. Boys and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
59. Ordinary People by Judith Guest
60. American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
61. What's Happening to my Body? Book for Boys: A Growing-Up Guide for Parents & Sons by Lynda Madaras
62. Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume
63. Crazy Lady by Jane Conly
64. Athletic Shorts by Chris Crutcher
65. Fade by Robert Cormier
66. Guess What? by Mem Fox
67. The House of Spirits by Isabel Allende
68. The Face on the Milk Carton by Caroline Cooney
69. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
70. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
71. Native Son by Richard Wright
72. Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women's Fantasies by Nancy Friday
73. Curses, Hexes and Spells by Daniel Cohen
74. Jack by A.M. Homes
75. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A. Anaya
76. Where Did I Come From? by Peter Mayle
77. Carrie by Stephen King
78. Tiger Eyes by Judy Blume
79. On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer
80. Arizona Kid by Ron Koertge
81. Family Secrets by Norma Klein
82. Mommy Laid An Egg by Babette Cole
83. The Dead Zone by Stephen King
84. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
85. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
86. Always Running by Luis Rodriguez
87. Private Parts by Howard Stern
88. Where's Waldo? by Martin Hanford
89. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene
90. Little Black Sambo by Helen Bannerman
91. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
92. Running Loose by Chris Crutcher
93. Sex Education by Jenny Davis
94. The Drowning of Stephen Jones by Bette Greene
95. Girls and Sex by Wardell Pomeroy
96. How to Eat Fried Worms by Thomas Rockwell
97. View from the Cherry Tree by Willo Davis Roberts
98. The Headless Cupid by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
99. The Terrorist by Caroline Cooney
100. Jump Ship to Freedom by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Stood on the corner for a while.

Some time between now and 1 o'clock, DHL is supposed to be delivering the fourth version I've had of this cell phone. I'm really about to give up.

Anyway, to ensure that I do in fact receive the package -- as I didn't yesterday because I forgot to tell Cingular my apartment number and then they gave DHL the wrong phone number to contact me...the freaking phone company forgot my phone number! -- I am spending my between-classes time here instead of on campus. (Yes, I'm aware that sentence was nearly impossible to disentangle. God, I love punctuation.) Normally, I would camp out on the third floor of Waterfield and read copious amounts of Spanish literature. But no. I tried to tell myself I would do my homework here. Of course not. I'm shopping on iTunes and looking at exciting, new production pictures for Order of the Phoenix.

And blogging.

And now, a random thought on life and literature:

Plot. The representation in fiction of a character's efforts to achieve a purpose in the face of obstacles, concluding with his decisive success or failure.

-- Theme and Form, 1964

In creative writing classes, we talk about the differences between character-driven and circumstance-driven plots. The circumstance-driven one is like an action movie where what happens to the characters determine how things end up. The character-driven one is a story that is moved along, complicated, and resolved because choices that the protagnist makes. It's the difference in an external locus of control verus an internal one. So of course, the character-driven plots make for better, more meaningful stories. They are significant.

So yeah, this applies to life, right? You can float through life like a piece of crap and just let things happen to you, or you can make decisions. I just realized the other day that letting life come to you (er, me) is basically living a circumstance-driven plot. It's a crappy story. Anyway, the moral of this story is that I'd much rather live a character-driven plot. Even if it means making some bad decisions here and there, of which I am scared to death. If nothing else, it makes for a better story, eh?

Don't need to lose it to know that you got it

The weekend before finals ain't quite what it used to be. I have no fear of the coming week. The week of hell is the week before finals, and it's over. And that's all that matters.

I've spent today doing relatively nothing.

Yesterday afternoon, I had to finish my world lit paper after my last class. I had already finished classes an hour before the notion of the novelty came to me. But I had to furiously finish the paper before the offices in Faculty closed up at 4:30, so I couldn't quite relax yet. I dashed in to drop my paper off in the box a half an hour before closing time, walked back to my apartment, hit the couch, and have hardly been up since. I've been reading Bee Season. I'm almost done. It's good to read whatever I want. Though I should be reading A Passage to India for world lit. Ah, I've got until Tuesday.

I'm not crazy

It is cold.

Is fall anything more than a concept? I felt it coming, and now, I feel it leaving. Was it here? It's possible that I've glorified it so much that I forgot that fall is cold like this. At least the leaves are turning. After HEL yesterday, I walked around the quad and took some (rather crappy) pictures. I liked shuffling through the yellow leaves under the trees in front of Pogue Library. It reminded me of playing in the leaves at my house before it was my house, when my grandfather lived there. Later, when I was leaving campus, I walked back in front of Pogue, and the maintenance men had chopped up all the leaves into a fine mulch. How nice of them.

Um, I guess that's it. I haven't anything else to say. Things are looking a bit busy. Lots of time consuming projects in my future. But they're spread out a little bit. A little bit.

I want to sound happier, but I read I am the Cheese for teaching lit, and I hated it. I know this sounds terrible, but mental illness creeps me out. Let's get real. I'm in denial because I know that crap runs in my family, and I think if I think about it too hard, I'll go crazy. And now, I have to write a journal entry about the book. Maybe I'll check back when I've forgotten about rubber rooms and paper slippers.

One-and-twenty: In Memoriam

On my way to class on Thursday, Ms. Catlett came back to haunt me (as she sometimes does) in the form of the day that she recited A. E. Housman's "When I was one-and-twenty" in senior English.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard a wise man say,
`Give crowns and pounds and guineas
But not your heart away;

Give pearls away and rubies
But keep your fancy free.'
But I was one-and-twenty,
No use to talk to me.

When I was one-and-twenty
I heard him say again,
`The heart out of the bosom
Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
And sold for endless rue.'
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.

And so, between classes, I snuck down to the modern languages lab and printed me off a copy. I'm not sure I really live up to the wisdom and experience of it all yet. But what's better to mark a passing of a year than a poem? Right, right. Nothing, of course.

I really don't know where twenty-one went. So many things marked the year as special. (Warning: Faint whisperings of pseudo-moral haughtiness ahead.) Though it wasn't a big deal, legal alcohol consumption, the automatic presumed glory of twentyoneness, was enjoyable. I wasn't like aaaah, finally, but you know.

But really, twenty-one was about striking out into new territory, literal and figurative.

This whole year was lived "on my own," one could say, in an apartment by my own little self. Though that hasn't necessarily meant that I've grown up (though I have), it's at least been something drastically different. Through the experience thus far, I've learned volumes about decisions, relationships, and myself.

Journey, in its most literal sense, took form when I went to Spain this summer. I physically left everything known and went into the unknown for five weeks. Okay, it's not as if I went on an intergalactic quest without another soul within contact, but close. Leaving the homeland for a period of time (preferably extended) is a noble pursuit that everyone must chase. Fits nicely with twenty-one, I think. Not that I meant for it to work out that way. It just did.

Oh, and as a grand finale, I semi-sorta committed myself to following through with Spanish education. (I should be ironing things out with Dr. Bodevin this week.) Okay, so it's a bit weak for a grand finale, but it has some serious implications. Lots of extra schoolin'. Lots of extra opportunities. It is a venture that makes me apprehensive but excited, daunted but hopeful. I think those are the good ones.

I think we (or at least I) try to put heavy significance on every year, every chapter of our lives. This one was pivotal because... I'll never be the same after... But years and dates and birthdays and numbers are all so arbitrary. As much as I want to think that it's depressing that no one will ever remember how old I am again until I turn forty, it doesn't matter. Every bit of our lives is important. No matter how signficant or insignifcant something, some period of our lives feels, it all has equal impact on us. We are always a culmination of what we've been and what we are.

Today, I am twenty-two.

But twenty-one is not lost, for in addition to twenty-two, I also am twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, and everything that went before.

I like how Donald Miller puts it in the introduction to Through Painted Deserts:

And the closest thing I can liken life to is a book, the way it stretches out on paper, page after page, as if to trick the mind into thinking it isn't all happening at once.

Gone

Oh. My. I am almost gone. Asleep. I can barely hold my eyes open. I would've thought that walking this morning to the library in the 7:20ish cold would wake me up. Nope. I'm sitting at the desk, making an attempt to read Heart of Darkness for world lit since I never read for that class, and I'm about to just fold up and go to sleep. How incredible that would be.

I'm not sure I unplugged the curling iron. Again. Oh, dear.

Eh. Midterm grades were okay. I had As in everything except Morgan's classes. Let's do be honest. I make about C-effort in those classes, but I truly think he gave everyone Bs. He really has nothing to go on except our journals. And I'm golden in that department.

Taking a look at the ol' Murray State planner, it seems as if this week has possibility to be a bit stressful. And next week ain't a-lookin' much better. Tests and quizzes abounding. But those are always better than papers, I say.

It's not very often that I reread a book. Especially for a class. But I finished rereading The Giver last night. That's an awesome book. The second read produces a whole different insight because you know how things are. Anyway, it's a book I recommend to anyone at all. If you haven't read it, do. Nothing like an easy read that makes you think. Right now, I should be writing a teaching lit journal entry about it, but Morgan has my journal. I could write pages and pages and pages on that book. Maybe I'll write it on different paper and staple it in or something. Definitely a book I want to teach. No doubt.

Alright. Yes. I am just writing to do something in order to stay awake. And much to my slacking pleasure. There are SparkNotes for Heart of Darkness. I am really not helping myself at all...

Spark

Today, Dr. Morgan asked us to journal about the most important text we've ever read. I had a difficult time coming up with something. I ended up saying that Brennan Manning's Ragamuffin Gospel has recently had a profound effect on me because it helped me to come the realization that I don't let myself be loved. Also, I'm now frequently reminded that I have my halo on too tight. That's what I came up with for my journal.

Several people shared their entries. Many people described the book that triggered within them an interest in language and reading. For some, it was the first book that they ever read.

I've been thinking lately about what made me choose English to study. How did I end up so interested in reading? Of course, that presumption could be debated. (See: All the books I haven't read.) But what started it? I'm not sure. If I had to pin a book down, it might be Charlotte's Web. In second grade, Mrs. Hawkins read it to us in class, and afterward, I got the book. I'm sure it was the first book that I ever read. But I've never thought of giving it credit for my literacy.

Maybe it was my cousin Arenda. When we were little, she (being two years older than I) would sit me down on her parents' bed and read Superfudge to me. Later, she made me read some of her books. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and A Wrinkle in Time are the ones I remember.

Oh, in third grade, there was this literacy push and the school gave us all a free book. I chose How to Eat Fried Worms. And at some point, I think I bought some Ramona books. I'm seeing a Judy Blume pattern, here.

And then, in junior high, there was R. L. Stine. Maybe that's where it began. I devoured those books. But I'm a little hestiant to credit Fear Street for everything.

I'm just not sure. And these days, I'm making up for lost reading with children's literature. If I had read about Narnia when I was little or if Harry Potter had've existed back then, I'm sure I know where I could place the (beloved) blame.

I guess I'm a fluke. Not that my parents aren't responsible for my active imagination. They told me stories and piqued my interest in the world. But reading wasn't something that happened very often. I remember being a kid and looking at a copy of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn on the bookshelf (with the encyclopedias, whose pictures I looked at for fun), but it never ocurred to me to read it. And I didn't until I was a sophomore in college.

But here's the thing. Kids need books to spark their imaginations. And it is because kids don't see any value in books that there is a whole generation of functionally illiterate people. And this, my friends, is a sad thing.

If you get the chance, read a kid a book. Give a kid a book. Write a kid a book. I know I sound like a Saturday morning public service announcement, but I think it makes all the difference in the world.

lovely

Today has been absolutely lovely. While walking to class this morning, I was filled with a sudden desire to read The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I've never read it, but I knew that it matched the magical feeling I had.

Call me a geek. I don't care.

After class, I came home and began looking for a copy of the book to buy off the internet, but I wasn't sure I was getting the right edition from half.com, so I thought that maybe-just-maybe that used bookstore on 12th Street might have it. So I lit out in great hope. But they didn't have it. They did, however, have three Newbery Medal winners to add to my quickly-growing collection.

I have Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse, and few days ago, I ordered The Giver by Lois Lowry and Missing May, which I read in junior high, by Cynthia Rylant. Today, I bought Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson, and a hardback copy of Crispin: The Cross of Lead, a rather new Newbery Medal winner, by Avi.

When will I read these? I have no idea. And I'm not really sure what my obsession with children's books is, but I think I'm trying to make up for my nearly bookless childhood. And I think children's literature has such a greatness that we don't usually comprehend as children and that we choose to ignore as adults. Plus, I have to do two book talks on Newbery Medal winning books this semester in Teaching Reading.

[Before you think of me as a deprived person--and maybe I am--let me tell you that my parents raised me well. The tradition of storytelling runs deep in my blood, as well as an insatiable curiosity. These are ingredients for the love that I have for reading and writing. And I did read as a child, just not as much as most of my book-loving peers. I'm a miracle, I suppose. Or more likely, a late-bloomer. But I am lucky. Most people who don't learn to love reading as a child never do. Child and adolescent literacy is so important. Hear the teacher?]

Alas, my search for The Wind in the Willows didn't cease, mind you. I knew that I would be able to find a copy at the Calloway County Library. And I did. There were several different editions, and to my excitement, they had the one with illustrations by Ernest H. Shepard. It has that wonderful Beatrix Potter pastoral feel. So I checked out my first book from that library. Thank you, Dr. Bolin.

Ignoring the cold and clinging to the beauty of the day, I went to the park to read. I settled in a sunny spot for a few pages, but it was just too chilly. So I closed the book (which was hitting this incredibly sappy spot I've been speaking of) and pulled out the camera. I liked to have killed myself--or atleast broken a bone or two--several times climbing and crawling about the creek. Let's just say I got a little muddy. And I'm washing my jeans right now. It was great, great fun. :-)