On a personal note, my little brother usually spends two weeks to a month with me in the summer. Every summer it's the same. We switch to his sleep schedule--go to bed no earlier than 2 and get up anywhere from 6-2 the next day--and we do whatever we feel like. Sometimes it's sharing music, sometimes it's me dragging him to the theaters in Atlanta and making him eat foreign food and sometimes it's us spending 3 hours at a comic book shop or video game store. This is why so many of my replies happen late at night.
My brother is a tenth grader, and he has for the past four years had summer reading. Last year it was Edith's Mythology--a book that is great information but horrible organization--The House on Mango Street and The Miracle Worker. This year it's 1984, Fahrenheit 451 and King Leopold's Ghost. The conversation here never turns into, "Ben you should read" but eventually I have to say, "Dude, seriously. It's July 8th, and you've read one book."
Today, he hopped on a soap box of how he was more than certain not all of his teachers were hard at work getting ready for the new year. I was flabbergasted. This from the child who has sat no less than 4 feet away from me while I trudged through The Great Gatsby, Ethan Frome, A Doll's House, The Hunger Games, Good Omens, The Color Purple The Heart of Darkness, Hamlet, Othello, The Merchant of Venice, and I'm still not done for this coming semester! This from the child who was dragged to bookstores and made to inspect footnotes and endnotes and listened to me yell at the television while screening movies because they took out "the important/good part." No, obviously, no work is being done here.
As Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, The Awakening, The Memory Keepers Daughter, Macbeth, A Brave New World, The Bonesetter's Daughter, The Things They Carried and all the other books I have to clear before August 1st loom down at me from across the desk, I wonder if any of my students assume that I'm sitting on a beach somewhere enjoying my summer.
No, dears, sadly, I'm working too.
Keep at it, and know I'm at it too.
Seriously....Joyce...God, why?
Friday, July 8, 2011
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2 comments:
alright Im telling you now. I REFUSE to read Jane Eyre or Brave New World.
Haha RF, you know I love you and this amuses me for three reasons. One, because most of the class has already had to read "A Brave New World," and two, you can refuse to read ALL the books and fail the course. Lastly, I honestly think that you will LOVE "Jane Eyre." I'm reading it this week, and it's a comfortable read. Also I think you could greatly identify with Jane. She has a now-let-me-tell-you-why-that's-stupid attitude that reminds me of someone. I wonder who.....
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