For the love of reading!

Most people who know me know that I love to read. Growing up it was the Babysitters Club, Christopher Pike, Dean Kontz. Now as an adult, I actually read non-fiction books. Currently, I was at a middle school in Canton where I have access to thousands of books. As I mentioned at the first of the semester I do the Dewey, which is reading 25 books from the different Dewey classifications. Doing this has opened me to all sorts of new levels of reading. It also has helped me in my career choice in English studies.

When I first decided I wanted to become an English Education major was not that I love English so much but I did not have to take as many math and sciences classes if I was a middle grades education major. Now since it working in the media center made me realize that I want to teach so I can pass on my love of reading to students. When helping students find a book in the media center I try to encourage them to read something new and out of their usual series that they read.

What I really plan on doing with my degree and my love for reading is to become a reading teacher and later get my masters in Media Technology so I can be a Media Specialist in a middle school. If I become a Media Specialist, I can continue my love of reading and be involved in selecting new books for the media center and getting suggestions from students about what books they are interested in for the media center.

I am very eager to finish school so that I may do what I want to do in the school system. I know that as a Media Specialist I will have to read most books that come so that I am able to tell students what they are about. I do that now but not on the level I want to because I am at school two-three nights a week. When I am done with my degrees, I will have more time to continue reading to my children and will have time to read on my own.

I hope that my love of reading will never die and I do not lose interest whenever I become a Media Specialist. I think that because I do not want this to happen it will not. I see the Media Specialist I work with and several reading teachers and know that I want to be like them when I am done with school. I see them encouraging students and listening to students about their wants and needs for reading and they take that into consideration when helping the students choose a book.

Overall, I see myself finishing with my bachelors in English Education and working on my masters to become a Media Specialist. I cannot wait! I look forward to the future where my work world revolves around students and books.

Curb your Enthusiasm

In class one night we watched Curb Your Enthusiasm. In the epidsode we watched Larry was making fun of or spoofing Passion of the Christ. While I have never seen this show before I found some parts funny but some parts just stupid. I understand why they were making fun of Passion of the Christ but didn't find it humorous at all. I am a Christian but I seriously doubt that would change anything because when he was making fun of Jewish traditions I didn't find that funny either. I get why some people may find it funny but I personally did not.

When the making fun of religions was going on Larry offered to buy his maid a bra because she didn't wear one. Instead of asking what size she was he was going to extremes to find out what size she would need. While at a friends house he found the friends wife's bra laying on the washer and dryer. He checked out the size but couldn't stop there he started rubbing it on his face and acting goofy and stupid with it. The next day he is approached by his wife and friends wife. Apparently they have a nanny cam and caught the whole thing. So they started yelling at him. While many in the class laughed about this I just did not find the humor in it. I guess it is because I am not a Seinfield fan. I thought Seinfield was stupid just like I did this show.

The third story line going on in this one episode is about the tooth fairy. Larry's friends little girl has lost her tooth and his squeaky shoes wake the girl up while the mother is putting money under her pillow. So once again Larry has pissed of his friends wife. Towards the end of the episode he loses a tooth while eating chicken salad and the next morning he wakes up with money under his pillow. His wife says she doesn't know what he is talking about and goes back to sleep.

While I thought this show had a few funny spots I did not perticularly care for it. All though he did clear all lose ends in one episode and it made a full circle I just did not like it. I did not like the Christian or the Jewish jokes at all. It really disgusted me when he was talking about God and Jesus and whether Jesus should have been a Jane or something like that. I am sure many people find his jokes funny but like I said before I wasn't a fan of Seinfield and won't be a fan of this show either.

Elizabeth Bishop

Being a person who is not a big fan of poetry, I enjoyed reading Elizabeth Bishop's poems. Though I did enjoy reading I couldn't get over the length of Crusoe in England! I did like how several of her poems were about nature. Even though water is mentioned in most of her poems they all have different references. In One Art a rivers are mentioned as something that she had lost as if they were her property. In Crusoe In England Bishop describes the water as waterspouts and then she goes on to decribe the them as the are alive, "they'd come and go, advancing and retreating, their heads in clous, their feet in moving patches of scuffed-up white." Here Bishop could have very easily given a vague description of the waterspouts but she decides to make them very animate. In The Moose Bishop once again has a mention of water. In this poem she mentions a bay and a river. These mentions of water is not very important in this poem so she does not go into great detail like she did iin Crusoe in England.

To those not interested in poetry or do not know much about poetry it is very obvious that these poems of Bishop's are about nature or having something to do with nature or the "real world". Like I have previously mentioned, water is in several of the poems. Not only is water in those poems but other parts of nature like animals, volcanoes, insects, and vegetation. As for the "real world" in In the Waiting Room a little girl named Elizabeth (could quite possibly be Bishop) is waiting at the dentist for her aunt's appointment. Elizabeth is looking at a National Geographic. The magazine has an article in that has women with wire wound around their necks to make the necks longer. This magazine is dated February 1918. Though this magazine is dated ninety years ago this does still happen in other countries.

Since I have not read any other of Bishop's poems I cannot say whether or not if they all have to do with nature or real topics like these poems do. Like I said at first I did like these poems. I am not a big fan of analyzing to see what the underlying message may be. I am not saying there isn't something in these poems I didn't see. Sometimes someone has to read a poem four or five times before they catch something they didn't see before. Though I am not a big poem fan so far this class is leading me to a new direction. After reading Bishop's poems and doing our close reading I may have to start reading poetry.

Glengarry Glen Ross

Glengarry Glen Ross is about several real estate salesmen trying to make a living. They are trying to be the top salesman for the month to win a Cadillac. The bottom two on the list are supposed to be fired.

Even though this is not a long play there is alot of backstabbing. In the very first scene you have Levene trying to bribe Williamson, the office manager, to get better leads. Levene offers Williamson 10% of his closing but Williamson antes 20% plus $50 for each lead. Levene takes that deal but then says he has left his wallet in the hotel room so he gets the same kind of leads he has been getting.

In the next scene we have Aaronow and Moss talking about hypothetically robbing the office for the leads to sell them. Next thing you know Moss tells Aaronow it really isn't hypothetical and Aaronow is the one that needs to rob the office of the leads or Moss will turn him in for accessory before the fact.

Act three takes place in the robbed real estate office. Levene comes in all excited about closing a deal with some people that are very hard to deal with. So he bragging to everyone about how it went down. Come to find out Williamson gave Levene that lead because he knew it wouldn't pan out. The couple apparently are known for writing bad checks to salesmen. When Levene asked why Williamson told him, "because I don't like you."

In act three we learn who really robbed the office. It was not Aaronow like it is presumed in the beginning of act three but actually Levene who went in on the deal with Moss. After Levene admits to Williamson what really happened Williamson goes straight into the other office where the police officer is interviewing everyone and tells him who really did it.

It seems as though the only honest one in this play is Aaronow. He turned down Moss on his offer of robbing the office for money and leads. Also, at the end of the play he is waiting for leads to come in from the other office. Roma, is ok for being honest. He is on the shady side with the clients. Roma kept trying to lie to a client about the property he was wanting to buy but the client's wife wanted him to get out of it. Williamson announced that the check had already been taken to the bank when it really had not. Williamson did this to Roma on purpose and is another instance of backstabbing.

I enjoyed reading this play but I'm not sure how I much I would enjoy actually watching the play. As I read it I could feel the emotions that the characters were supposed to be portraying. I thought it was very well written.

King Lear

As mentioned in the previous post about King Lear and all the family issues in Act 1 there are many more to follow. By the end of the play Edgar and his half-brother Edmund argue. At the end of the scene Edmund is dead.

Goneril and Regan twindle Lear's men down from a hundred to twenty-five. After hearing this Lear basically goes into exile with only the fool with him. Soon after Goneril and Regan start get into it. They start fighting over Edmund. Goneril poisons Regan and then is killed by Oswald.
Lear and Cordelia in the meantime are ordered to be hanged. Cordelia hangs herself and Lears dies soon after.

There is alot of family drama in this play that all come together. At first I was not sure about this play and whether I would like but after reading it all I enjoyed it. Between two of the sisters fighting over a man and people being accused of trying to kill others it really doesn't have a dull moment.

King Lear ~ Act I

Like many of Shakespeare's work, I have not read King Lear. So far in Act I there is very much going on. I have read a few of his plays and like the others I like what I have read so far.

As the first scene opens Earl of Gloucester is speaking to Earl of Kent. Gloucester's illegitmate son is there, Edmund. Gloucester says that he loves Edmund but he is a bastard child. I don't understand if he loves him so much then why was he raised by his mother and not raised with Gloucester. Next enters King Lear. When we see him for the first time he is talking about dividing up his kingdom into thirds; one for each daughter. King Lear asks his daughters to proclaim their love for him and who ever proves to love him more gets the biggest piece of the kingdom. Two of them just go on and on about how much they love him. The third daughter Cordelia does not. She states that she loves him as much as a daughter should. King Lear disowns her on the spot and divides up her piece between the other two sisters.

In the first act there are two instances about love. It is interesting because one proclaims to love his illegitmat child and the other two selfish girls are proclaiming love for their father that they don't have. As we find out later in the first act these two things could back fire on them. Edmund is so angry at his father for not raising him and loving him like his half-brother Edgar that he plots against their father and makes Gloucester believe that Edgar is going to try to kill him. While this is going on Goneril and Regan (King Lear's older daughters) are plotting in taking all power and authority from him. While staying at Goneril's, King Lear is ordered by her to get rid of fifty of his knights. He refuses and leaves to stay with Regan as he leaves he hopes that Goneril will be childless and regrets giving her his power.

I am very interested to see how Act II will be with all of these characters. How will Goneril and Regans plan work out? Will Edgar really end up killing his father, Gloucester? What will happen to King Lear at Regans?

Persepolis

When I purchased Persepolis at the KSU bookstore I didn't give this book a 2nd glance. I was just like oh just a book I have to read. A day or two later I looked up the call number in the front of the book to see where it would fit in my Dewey that I do at work. I saw that it was a 741.5. I started thinking but that is where the graphic novels are. So I start flipping through the book and sure enough it is a graphic novel. I immediately started dreading to read this book. Before I knew it was a graphic novel I was interested in reading about Marjane Satrapi and her childhood in Iran, all that was gone.

Finally, in English we were assigned to read the book. So I picked up my copy of Persepolis and started to read. Despite it being a graphic novel I throughly enjoyed this book. I do not know much about Iran or what it is like to grow up there now or in the past. I could not believe what I got from this graphic novel. This is the 3rd graphic novel that I have read and the only one that I have liked. It opened my eyes to what it would be like to live in Iran in the late 70's and early 80's. Growing up in the US, I have been fortunate enough to not actually witness war. I could not believe how if Satrapi and her family heard sirens they would need to run to the basement. I have lost friends before but not due to a war. She had several uncles tortured and killed and a friends home bombed. The women were forced to wear veils because they (the government or those over the country) thought the womens hair was a turn on for men. They were punished if they did not wear them correctly. Unfortunately, I do not know if Iran is still that way today but I see now what it was like.

Satrapi did a great job of writing this graphic novel to make it not have a comic book feel to it. I believe the illustrations helped explain things instead of just being pictures to go along with the words. On the back cover there is a sequel listed. I do not care if it is a graphic novel or not but I am going to check at the public library to see if they have it or order it. After reading this I have to know what has happened between Satrapi and her parents after she moved to Vienna.

Overall, I think this is a great book and I am actually kinda mad at myself for being repulsed by it after finding out it was a graphic novel. It is defintely a book that I will keep for my personal library and when I begin teaching I will have it in the classroom for my students to borrow. I think it would do students some good to read it; especially those that do not understand what goes on in other parts of the world for kids their own age. I would defintely recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read it!

The Moviegoer

The Moviegoer is a very funny novel. Binx defintely keeps the reader on his or her toes. He goes in and out of love very quickly with Sharon and asks Kate to marry him on a whim. At one point in time he mentions his bowel movement. When that part was read it was not expected! One conversation that Binx has with his Aunt Emily reminded me of a conversation with a twelve year old child. His responses are short and mostly consist of one word.



While Binx is funny he isn't the most mature twenty-nine year old I met. He goes off to Chicago for a business trip and Kate goes with him without telling anyone that she is going. When Aunt Emily asks him about why Binx did not say anything his response is that he didn't remember to.



Had I not been in my current English class I would not have read this book, but I am glad I did. I did not always understand the philosophical undertones but I did enjoy it. I enjoyed reading about Binx and how he took on different character types from the movies. Most of all I liked how Binx grew up at the end to take care of Kate and his siblings. I believe he grew up to be a real man.