Since yesterday we had a literary question, here's a new one: Was there a book you had to read for school that you absolutely hated? If so, what was it?
Personally, in high school I had to read "The Pigman" by Paul Zindel. I don't remember much about it(yes, I googled the author), I just know that I hated it so much that when the semester was over and I knew that I wouldn't need it again, I gathered a bunch of sticks in the back yard, built a fire in the grill, and threw the book on top to burn it into nothingness.
Things Fall Apart.
Read it no less than 3 times from Junior High into College. Had swaths of it memorized. I don't HATE the work, I am just bored by it.
A big problem encountered in literature classes has been The Great Works perspective which results in a lot of people believing they are well read in reading these amazing works of classic literature and they are just reading the things that the teacher/professor and their peers like.
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My clothes fell apart.
Everything I've ever read by Herman Melville. Bored me to tears.
Also Nathaniel Hawthorne. I completely understand why his work is important, but reading it is just painful to me.
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Dutch books are so incredibly boring. Or at least, Dutch "literature." It's either World War 2 stuff, or colonialism. Oh, and sex. As Woran said, it's all very boring and actively turns kids off reading. Everything's mopey and depressing, because the subject matter is depressing.I have to disagree with that, though here, visit to Auschwitz camp museum is often part of late elementary/high school curriculum for those close enough for it to be a reasonable one-day trip. Isolating kids from monstrosity of the war is worse than exposing them to it, because it brings unhealthy glorification later on.
As Woran mentioned, we get exposed a lot to our history and the World Wars. I just think that forcing children to read stuff they don't want to read, about subject matter they can't fully comprehend, leads to resentment. As I said, I liked reading, and I still disliked reading literature, because it's simply not fun.
I honestly don't know what the goal is here. Yes, reading "proper" books is important, but even the teachers know that at least half of the students will still see movie versions or summaries. Students end up turned away from books and think they're boring, and those who don't, still won't get the full understanding the teachers hope they will. It's a lose-lose situation. Just encourage kids to read whatever they want to read, and just try to add in some literature in your curriculum, rather than forcing it down their throats.
I had to read Heart of Darkness when I was 17, and boy, was I unprepared for that. The teacher said we all quoted some literature site a lot, but admitted that was his fault for handing out such a difficult book. Heart of Darkness is a thin book, but uses such intricate language that now as an English major at university I would hesitate to tackle it. Imagine throwing it at some 17-year olds.
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I had to read Heart of Darkness when I was 17, and boy, was I unprepared for that. The teacher said we all quoted some literature site a lot, but admitted that was his fault for handing out such a difficult book. Heart of Darkness is a thin book, but uses such intricate language that now as an English major at university I would hesitate to tackle it. Imagine throwing it at some 17-year olds.
My mom had a student who wanted to take on extra challenges in her class. This was around 1985, give or take a year. Basically he ended up taking a second class on his own time for full credit, and Mom and he worked out the curriculum together.
One of the books he picked, on his own, was Heart of Darkness. She had...concerns...but he handled it well. So she picked the next author for him. Kurt Vonnegut. I don't remember which specific book, but I do remember there being an ink blot on one of the pages with the caption "This is a picture of my a**hole."
The Witch of Blackbird Pond was probably a decent teen book, but having already become a fantasy fan by the time my class read it, I was utterly disappointed that the protagonist was not in fact a witch and that no magic whatsoever was to be found in her story.
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Man, they ripped out a tree while I was driving to get more rock!
I wanted to rip that out!!
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I had to read Heart of Darkness when I was 17, and boy, was I unprepared for that. The teacher said we all quoted some literature site a lot, but admitted that was his fault for handing out such a difficult book. Heart of Darkness is a thin book, but uses such intricate language that now as an English major at university I would hesitate to tackle it. Imagine throwing it at some 17-year olds.My mom had a student who wanted to take on extra challenges in her class. This was around 1985, give or take a year. Basically he ended up taking a second class on his own time for full credit, and Mom and he worked out the curriculum together.
** spoiler omitted **
One of the books he picked, on his own, was Heart of Darkness. She had...concerns...but he handled it well. So she picked the next author for him. Kurt Vonnegut. I don't remember which specific book, but I do remember there being an ink blot on one of the pages with the caption "This is a picture of my a**hole."
Breakfast of Champions.
I went through a lengthy Vonnegut phase and read *everything* he'd ever published, even the obscure ones like The Sirens of Titan.
Last summer, my mother and I were in a Walmart (my uncle had surprised her with a new flatscreen and told her to go pick it up, after she'd carried his mortgage for half a year), and I looked up at the logo on the Walmart signage, and said, "You know what that reminds me of?" And without missing a beat, she said, "an a**hole. I remember. I think of that every time I see the Walmart sign."
My mom rocks.
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With her ninth birthday two weeks from tomorrow, Hermione has given me the order for her most ambitious birthday cake request yet.
In previous years, she has asked for:
Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the garden (all marzipan),
Grandma's horses (sculpted cookies on grass-colored icing, painted with food dye in the correct coat colors),
a mermaid (marzipan again),
chibi Princess Leia and R2D2 (still more sculpted marzipan, it's my default),
Hermione playing quidditch on top of the cake (sky colored icing, cookies mounted on sticks to raise them up),
Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak the hippogriff in a pumpkin patch on top of the cake (personal best, the hut was also cake and I found chocolates that looked like river rocks to press into the outside of the "walls", Buckbeak and the pumpkin patch were marzipan),
and, in my worst failure ever, a marzipan Frodo on a one ring cake last year. Frodo, it must be said, looked like a deformed cave troll, and the "brass/copper" icing dye I ordered to make the glaze for the one ring turned out to be more of a shimmery burgundy, so it really didn't work.
Since we recently let the kids watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, she wants Elizabeth Swann in a pirate costume on the deck of a ship, battling a kraken, with blue wave frosting and the kraken's tentacles wrapped around the ship.
Blue buttercream is easy, I'm probably going to do the kraken out of sculpted homemade fondant (it worked pretty well for GothBard's Hello, Cthulhu! cake many years ago), I ordered a used mini Elizabeth action figure on eBay for five bucks, and for the ship, I'm thinking to make some gingerbread house dough and mold it around an upturned pyrex batter bowl in the oven to bake the sides and prow of the ship, and also make a few loose broken planks to float in the water.
Watching GBBO on Netflix has inspired me, and I really want to make this one look amazing. Especially after last year's failure. No pressure.
Since yesterday we had a literary question, here's a new one: Was there a book you had to read for school that you absolutely hated? If so, what was it?
Probably Rebecca or Beloved. Possibly also Walden. I'm sure there was at least one more I despised even more, but I appear to have scrubbed it from my memory.
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Every time I read a new headline I just imagine Reverend Malthus going, "Yep. Nailed it."
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We did WW1 and WW2 in school. WW2 is such a central part of our national mythology that it couldn't very well have been missed out.
With her ninth birthday two weeks from tomorrow, Hermione has given me the order for her most ambitious birthday cake request yet.
In previous years, she has asked for:
Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the garden (all marzipan),
Grandma's horses (sculpted cookies on grass-colored icing, painted with food dye in the correct coat colors),
a mermaid (marzipan again),
chibi Princess Leia and R2D2 (still more sculpted marzipan, it's my default),
Hermione playing quidditch on top of the cake (sky colored icing, cookies mounted on sticks to raise them up),
Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak the hippogriff in a pumpkin patch on top of the cake (personal best, the hut was also cake and I found chocolates that looked like river rocks to press into the outside of the "walls", Buckbeak and the pumpkin patch were marzipan),
and, in my worst failure ever, a marzipan Frodo on a one ring cake last year. Frodo, it must be said, looked like a deformed cave troll, and the "brass/copper" icing dye I ordered to make the glaze for the one ring turned out to be more of a shimmery burgundy, so it really didn't work.Since we recently let the kids watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, she wants Elizabeth Swann in a pirate costume on the deck of a ship, battling a kraken, with blue wave frosting and the kraken's tentacles wrapped around the ship.
Blue buttercream is easy, I'm probably going to do the kraken out of sculpted homemade fondant (it worked pretty well for GothBard's Hello, Cthulhu! cake many years ago), I ordered a used mini Elizabeth action figure on eBay for five bucks, and for the ship, I'm thinking to make some gingerbread house dough and mold it around an upturned pyrex batter bowl in the oven to bake the sides and prow of the ship, and also make a few loose broken planks to float in the water.
Watching GBBO on Netflix has inspired me, and I really want to make this one look amazing. Especially after last year's failure. No pressure.
so...
Should I hire you to do my birthday cake?
Dutch books are so incredibly boring. Or at least, Dutch "literature." It's either World War 2 stuff, or colonialism. Oh, and sex. As Woran said, it's all very boring and actively turns kids off reading. Everything's mopey and depressing, because the subject matter is depressing.I have to disagree with that, though here, visit to Auschwitz camp museum is often part of late elementary/high school curriculum for those close enough for it to be a reasonable one-day trip. Isolating kids from monstrosity of the war is worse than exposing them to it, because it brings unhealthy glorification later on.As Woran mentioned, we get exposed a lot to our history and the World Wars. I just think that forcing children to read stuff they don't want to read, about subject matter they can't fully comprehend, leads to resentment. As I said, I liked reading, and I still disliked reading literature, because it's simply not fun.
I honestly don't know what the goal is here. Yes, reading "proper" books is important, but even the teachers know that at least half of the students will still see movie versions or summaries. Students end up turned away from books and think they're boring, and those who don't, still won't get the full understanding the teachers hope they will. It's a lose-lose situation. Just encourage kids to read whatever they want to read, and just try to add in some literature in your curriculum, rather than forcing it down their throats.
Oh, yes, I agree about the negative impact of forcing the kids to read and picking the wrong books as obligatory. I devoured books myself as a kid (I don't have stamina for that anymore, though), often in a single sitting, and occasionally two books in a single day. The obligatory school readings fared much worse for me...
I had to read Heart of Darkness when I was 17, and boy, was I unprepared for that. The teacher said we all quoted some literature site a lot, but admitted that was his fault for handing out such a difficult book. Heart of Darkness is a thin book, but uses such intricate language that now as an English major at university I would hesitate to tackle it. Imagine throwing it at some 17-year olds.
We got Lord Jim around that time instead (Joseph Conrad is sure to stay in Polish literature, as an example of Polish writer who wrote and was considered successful in foreign language) - and it was one of the books I either didn't read or completely forgot afterwards.
Which reminds me, that Heart Of Darkness is a book I want to read one day... When the libraries will be open again and I will remember to get it.
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With her ninth birthday two weeks from tomorrow, Hermione has given me the order for her most ambitious birthday cake request yet.
In previous years, she has asked for:
Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the garden (all marzipan),
Grandma's horses (sculpted cookies on grass-colored icing, painted with food dye in the correct coat colors),
a mermaid (marzipan again),
chibi Princess Leia and R2D2 (still more sculpted marzipan, it's my default),
Hermione playing quidditch on top of the cake (sky colored icing, cookies mounted on sticks to raise them up),
Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak the hippogriff in a pumpkin patch on top of the cake (personal best, the hut was also cake and I found chocolates that looked like river rocks to press into the outside of the "walls", Buckbeak and the pumpkin patch were marzipan),
and, in my worst failure ever, a marzipan Frodo on a one ring cake last year. Frodo, it must be said, looked like a deformed cave troll, and the "brass/copper" icing dye I ordered to make the glaze for the one ring turned out to be more of a shimmery burgundy, so it really didn't work.Since we recently let the kids watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, she wants Elizabeth Swann in a pirate costume on the deck of a ship, battling a kraken, with blue wave frosting and the kraken's tentacles wrapped around the ship.
Blue buttercream is easy, I'm probably going to do the kraken out of sculpted homemade fondant (it worked pretty well for GothBard's Hello, Cthulhu! cake many years ago), I ordered a used mini Elizabeth action figure on eBay for five bucks, and for the ship, I'm thinking to make some gingerbread house dough and mold it around an upturned pyrex batter bowl in the oven to bake the sides and prow of the ship, and also make a few loose broken planks to float in the water.
Watching GBBO on Netflix has inspired me, and I really want to make this one look amazing. Especially after last year's failure. No pressure.
Your kids get to pick what they want on their birthday cake?!
I was happy to get a cake in the first place when I was her age!
Those children these days are spoiled rotten... *shakes cane*
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We did WW1 and WW2 in school. WW2 is such a central part of our national mythology that it couldn't very well have been missed out.
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Dutch books are so incredibly boring. Or at least, Dutch "literature." It's either World War 2 stuff, or colonialism. Oh, and sex.
One of my favorite porn stars from the 70s is dutch. She is a fascinating woman with a very non american view of sex which made her more interesting, even when she was speaking about her work long after she retired. I even see it in non sexual works like Ragnarok on Netflix.
Yeah, the books about sex were pretty interesting to read as a teenager. Of course, if you got a stuffy old guy as a teacher, then those book were NOT on the approved book list...
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With her ninth birthday two weeks from tomorrow, Hermione has given me the order for her most ambitious birthday cake request yet.
In previous years, she has asked for:
Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the garden (all marzipan),
Grandma's horses (sculpted cookies on grass-colored icing, painted with food dye in the correct coat colors),
a mermaid (marzipan again),
chibi Princess Leia and R2D2 (still more sculpted marzipan, it's my default),
Hermione playing quidditch on top of the cake (sky colored icing, cookies mounted on sticks to raise them up),
Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak the hippogriff in a pumpkin patch on top of the cake (personal best, the hut was also cake and I found chocolates that looked like river rocks to press into the outside of the "walls", Buckbeak and the pumpkin patch were marzipan),
and, in my worst failure ever, a marzipan Frodo on a one ring cake last year. Frodo, it must be said, looked like a deformed cave troll, and the "brass/copper" icing dye I ordered to make the glaze for the one ring turned out to be more of a shimmery burgundy, so it really didn't work.Since we recently let the kids watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, she wants Elizabeth Swann in a pirate costume on the deck of a ship, battling a kraken, with blue wave frosting and the kraken's tentacles wrapped around the ship.
Blue buttercream is easy, I'm probably going to do the kraken out of sculpted homemade fondant (it worked pretty well for GothBard's Hello, Cthulhu! cake many years ago), I ordered a used mini Elizabeth action figure on eBay for five bucks, and for the ship, I'm thinking to make some gingerbread house dough and mold it around an upturned pyrex batter bowl in the oven to bake the sides and prow of the ship, and also make a few loose broken planks to float in the water.
Watching GBBO on Netflix has inspired me, and I really want to make this one look amazing. Especially after last year's failure. No pressure.
You are a hero!
Huzzah for 303 Squadron!We did WW1 and WW2 in school. WW2 is such a central part of our national mythology that it couldn't very well have been missed out.
Your kids get to pick what they...With her ninth birthday two weeks from tomorrow, Hermione has given me the order for her most ambitious birthday cake request yet.
In previous years, she has asked for:
Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny in the garden (all marzipan),
Grandma's horses (sculpted cookies on grass-colored icing, painted with food dye in the correct coat colors),
a mermaid (marzipan again),
chibi Princess Leia and R2D2 (still more sculpted marzipan, it's my default),
Hermione playing quidditch on top of the cake (sky colored icing, cookies mounted on sticks to raise them up),
Hagrid's hut and Buckbeak the hippogriff in a pumpkin patch on top of the cake (personal best, the hut was also cake and I found chocolates that looked like river rocks to press into the outside of the "walls", Buckbeak and the pumpkin patch were marzipan),
and, in my worst failure ever, a marzipan Frodo on a one ring cake last year. Frodo, it must be said, looked like a deformed cave troll, and the "brass/copper" icing dye I ordered to make the glaze for the one ring turned out to be more of a shimmery burgundy, so it really didn't work.Since we recently let the kids watch Pirates of the Caribbean 1 and 2, she wants Elizabeth Swann in a pirate costume on the deck of a ship, battling a kraken, with blue wave frosting and the kraken's tentacles wrapped around the ship.
Blue buttercream is easy, I'm probably going to do the kraken out of sculpted homemade fondant (it worked pretty well for GothBard's Hello, Cthulhu! cake many years ago), I ordered a used mini Elizabeth action figure on eBay for five bucks, and for the ship, I'm thinking to make some gingerbread house dough and mold it around an upturned pyrex batter bowl in the oven to bake the sides and prow of the ship, and also make a few loose broken planks to float in the water.
Watching GBBO on Netflix has inspired me, and I really want to make this one look amazing. Especially after last year's failure. No pressure.
Oh, wow... Poland prior to Solidarnosc and the fall of the Iron Curtain. It somehow didn't really occur to me what that must have been like until just now.
When I was growing up, we were always poor, but flour and sugar are *cheap* here, so pastry was the one thing that was guaranteed.| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Dutch books are so incredibly boring. Or at least, Dutch "literature." It's either World War 2 stuff, or colonialism. Oh, and sex.
One of my favorite porn stars from the 70s is dutch. She is a fascinating woman with a very non american view of sex which made her more interesting, even when she was speaking about her work long after she retired. I even see it in non sexual works like Ragnarok on Netflix.
Yeah, the books about sex were pretty interesting to read as a teenager. Of course, if you got a stuffy old guy as a teacher, then those book were NOT on the approved book list...
My intro to erotica was Marion Zimmer Bradley's depiction of Beltane in "The Mists of Avalon" when I was a freshman in high school. I guess I was a late bloomer.
Bhlerg. Rainy night and an annoying (though not terribly intensive) headache preventing me from sleeping. And I am out of painkillers.
My intro to erotica was Marion Zimmer Bradley's depiction of Beltane in "The Mists of Avalon" when I was a freshman in high school. I guess I was a late bloomer.Dutch books are so incredibly boring. Or at least, Dutch "literature." It's either World War 2 stuff, or colonialism. Oh, and sex.
One of my favorite porn stars from the 70s is dutch. She is a fascinating woman with a very non american view of sex which made her more interesting, even when she was speaking about her work long after she retired. I even see it in non sexual works like Ragnarok on Netflix.
Yeah, the books about sex were pretty interesting to read as a teenager. Of course, if you got a stuffy old guy as a teacher, then those book were NOT on the approved book list...
I read that as well, and was also considered a late bloomer by some.
Rain day today, the General is happy, apparently the kids have been driving her crazy.
So, the Assistant Principal called me last night to explain that "different kids learn differently", "different families expect different things", and "teachers have a lot of leeway", which was a great long-winded way to say, "Yeah, we can't force the teachers to actually hold any classes, so you're SOL."
Not Albany Unified School District's finest hour.
Rain day today, the General is happy, apparently the kids have been driving her crazy.
That seems like a non-sequitur; why would having the kids stuck IN the house because of rain help?
My corner store got a nice little article written about it.
Unfortunately, being me, I hate it when a place I like gets good press, because it means it'll be more crowded next time I go there.
Rain day today, the General is happy, apparently the kids have been driving her crazy.That seems like a non-sequitur; why would having the kids stuck IN the house because of rain help?
Because rain means Cap doesn't go to work, so he keeps the kids out of The General's hair while she's trying to work from home.
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Rain day today, the General is happy, apparently the kids have been driving her crazy.That seems like a non-sequitur; why would having the kids stuck IN the house because of rain help?
Because I'm there soaking up their attention.
I'm basically a force field, that makes sandwiches.
So, the Assistant Principal called me last night to explain that "different kids learn differently", "different families expect different things", and "teachers have a lot of leeway", which was a great long-winded way to say, "Yeah, we can't force the teachers to actually hold any classes, so you're SOL."
Not Albany Unified School District's finest hour.
So I'm guessing you're starting to look for alternate placements for Impus Minor? If I recall right that was your other option. Forgive me if I'm remembering wrong, my brain is still somewhat scrambled eggs after the move.
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Rain day today, the General is happy, apparently the kids have been driving her crazy.That seems like a non-sequitur; why would having the kids stuck IN the house because of rain help?
Because I'm there soaking up their attention.
I'm basically a force field, that makes sandwiches.
that's the best kind of force field!
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So I'm guessing you're starting to look for alternate placements for Impus Minor? If I recall right that was your other option. Forgive me if I'm remembering wrong, my brain is still somewhat scrambled eggs after the move.So, the Assistant Principal called me last night to explain that "different kids learn differently", "different families expect different things", and "teachers have a lot of leeway", which was a great long-winded way to say, "Yeah, we can't force the teachers to actually hold any classes, so you're SOL."
Not Albany Unified School District's finest hour.
We're not looking at that *yet*, but we'll see how things play out over the rest of the semester and the summer.
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Also, good afternoon FaWtLites! I hope everyone is keeping well, has a good day today, and a great rest of week ahead. :)
its good to see you.
Monster girls forever!
What I learned this week.
Apparently I'm irresistible to rabbits too.
That's not really that surprising I guess.
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My corner store got a nice little article written about it.
Unfortunately, being me, I hate it when a place I like gets good press, because it means it'll be more crowded next time I go there.
The photos are oddly endearing. Not something you'd expect in a review of a market. It's their faces. Also the seriously old-school produce pricing signs. I haven't seen those in decades.
Freehold hungers.
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Was racing this morning, trying to beat the oncoming rains and get the newly planted flowers etc covered with real dirt (not the cruddy clay crud I have in my garden space. To be fair, I HAD some topsoil, but it all came out with the bushes roots) :P and then the base of the plants covered with mulch, before the rains arrived today.
Yep. Didn't make it. >_<
But its as done as it going to get right now.
After the week of rain, I'll get around to getting the bricks/whatever to line the garden area with and the rest of the mulch or Mondo Grass or whatever I'm filling in the gaps with.
Then I am DONE.
I like to do a lot of odd stuff, and I'm not afraid of hard work,...
But I Can NOT believe there are people who do this nonsense for fun?!?!?
O_o
Fergitaboutit. Give me my Theatre performing, my stage combat, my building things I want to for whatever reason, But this gardening crud is for the BIRDS! :P
(NO offense to those of you who like it. In fact, you are welcome to come by and visit anytime and play in my garden all you want to!) :)