Gots me some new books

image courtesy of Mark Gorman

Erik and I are off to Bruges this weekend (apparently it's quite the romantic place)



image courtesy of symbioticpublishing.com


and I've picked up three books from the school library to keep me reading on the two-hour train ride. We're taking the train...how classy are we?

I've opted for Nick Hornby's Slam, Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated, and Marina Lewcycka's A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian (the latter came highly recommended, though I usually don't like to choose culturally diverse themes. For reals).

So there you have it. I'm all stocked up, I have very little school work to do tonight, and I'm feeling like a million bucks. Life is good.

American Girls

(hilarious) Image courtesy of bibbitybobbityboo.tumblr.com (soooo beautiful)

In response to my burning desire to stop being a consumer, I actually stopped myself from buying a measly £2 whopping £2 cup of Starbucks coffee when I was in the city for a conference last week. I'm taking this all very seriously.

As a matter of fact, on Sunday I splurged and bought not one but two coffees (one I shared) and wound up spilling my own all over the pavement. I think it was karmic retribution. Maybe it was trying to put mittens on while balancing two cups of coffee? I guess we'll never know.

Anyway, I finished Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann last night and just loved it. It was sad and all the things you certainly don't want to read about right before bed, but some of the messages were so beautifully written; so poignant and true for so many of us. Here are a few that stood out...

Being in love is like leaning on a broken reed. It is to be precariously balanced, to teeter between the vertical and the horizontal. It's like war, it's to demand of one's sensibilities the impossible-- to expect paranoia to coexist with faith, chance with design, to enlist suspicion insensibly in certain regards and suppress it blindly in others.

page 288

Lately I've been thinking of Cuba. I imagine it to be the last original place. All you ever hear of Cuba is, There is no freedom there! Television is state-controlled! Yet for all the supposed freedom in America, there is a confounding deficit of ingenuity in terms of thought and taste. Style is dictated by the controlling influences and concerns of a mass marketplace. People are trained to be dutiful consumers-- we all want the same stuff, not because it's good or convinced that we can't live without it. We forgo all logic of quality and durability.

page 367

It makes me think of how lucky I was to meet Maman when I was a girl. How auspicious for a woman with an abundance of resources to come upon a child with a surplus of lack.

page 507

Farewell! Thou art too dear for my possessing.

William Shakespeare page 541

Being Jack's friends, you are probably resistant to simplistic analogies. However, I beg you to indulge me. If one is a gardener, one cannot treat a rose as one would any other flower. A rose wants coddling, and to be sure, few people have the patience for it-- so much of the product, so much of the time, is a wall of thorns. Why does God give us the rose? To humble us, to better us, to encourage forgiveness and understanding. And for those who show forbearance, the reward is divine. Yet it occurs to me that the rose is not only the reward, but the acknowledgment of the success of our efforts-- the sensitivity, the tenacity. It is the proof of the virtue of faith. The rose singles out the tender. God has strategically placed the pure in the midst of the perilous to separate out those who can and will strive to reach for an ideal. My suspicion is that once you have been called upon to love this way, once you have proved you capacity, you will be called upon again."

page 571

Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl Music Video

Obsessed.

Pushpins

I see a world map on a big wall

(it might be in the future library, but I can't tell quite yet).

Image courtesy of Flickr (or is it Apartment Therapy?)

I want to put pushpins in all the places we've been.

You can have the blue ones and I'll take the pink ones.

Somehow we'll see it all.

Time to Rest

Image courtesy of villaprincesa

Exhausted: drained of one's physical or mental resources; very tired.

The. Students. Are. Done. Their. Exam.

And now, we sleep.

A side note...

This is why I am a teacher: A few days ago, I asked the students to tell me an event that is certain to happen. Mathematically speaking, this is quite a challenge.

The sun "coming up" tomorrow is mathematically certain (though scientifically bogus), as is the chance that Tuesday follows Monday. But these take creativity and a certain amount (no pun intended) of vernacular to get right.

The typical responses ensued, "That I'll have dinner tonight" (very likely, but not certain); "That I'll watch TV tonight" (again, likely, but certainly not certain [again, excuse the pun]). And then something magical happened.

A little gaffer who I've grown quite fond of raised his hand. When called upon, he plainly and without sarcasm or wit,

"It is certain we will learn something new everyday."

Yup...it's those moments, folks. It's what makes this all worthwhile.

(And when kids respond, "EASY!" when asked how the exam went! Phew!)

A-LEASH!

In honour of my gracious, loving, empathetic, warm-hearted, and energetically-spirited friend Alicia...

Image courtesy of Halifornia

Happy Birthday, my love.

xxxxx

Calling it a Night

Sometimes one of the best things you can do is snuggle up with a hot cup of tea, laden with honey and warm milk, and head to bed before nine o'clock.

Here's what I'm thinking about right now...



The Mother Hen and Doug are headed to Austria in the new year and I get to help them plan their itinerary. My Salzburg above ;)

I got to talk to Laura tonight for half an hour. She told me a secret and she had to go because the bebes were crying for a snack. It was truly a perfect conversation. That might sound sarcastic, but knowing that the children were there waiting for her, needing her, while she was working from home made me so happy (and since neither of us can keep a secret, we both relish in the spilling of them and in the listening to them).

After seeing Little Tamarisk on Bill's Tasty Weekends last night, Erik and I opted to book two nights at the Bed and Breakfast in January. Life in Jolly Olde is pretty sweet.

Night night xxx

Who Killed Economic Growth?

Perfect Paris Pictures

I've been reading The Blue Hour for months now, as Brian captures the light in England like no one else can. He outdid himself in capturing Paris in a way that I only wish I could (though I do try).




Take a peek at the pictures here and dream of springtime in the city of love...

Sunday Mornings

Since I was a young girl,

I used to dream of the perfect Sunday morning.

It would include strong coffee,

a newspaper or two,

sweet snacks followed by a savoury brunch,

and a guy who loved all this stuff

as much as I did.

Here's to perfect Sunday mornings.

I hope your weekend was grand.