Progress: 25/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

Like The Lowland, I bought this novel when I landed in Delhi from Dharamsala and had to wait 10 hours for my next flight. However, shortly after, I discovered the miniature and inexpensive sleeping / showering rooms and used up my time napping instead. This book has sat on my shelf for almost precisely two years since -- until my next international trip. It still served its purpose to make travel tolerable -- just on several plane rides into the future.

This novel is beautiful, informative, tender, harrowing, heartbreaking. As I've mentioned previously, I want to construct an Enhanced-recommended ISU list for 2D this upcoming school year, and this would be one of those listed.

I also want to read The Kite Runner.


(I am also grateful that this has been a summer of travel, rest, love, and reading. Oh, my life.)

                     Original goal list posted here.

Progress: #2. join a choir

My Pop! Choir

My Pop Choir's Fall 2017 Term- LP

Mondays, September 11th to November 13th.

NOTE: Thanksgiving Day, Monday, October 9th session being replaced by a session Wednesday October 11th!

Time: 7:15 - 8:45 pm.

LP Location: Eglinton St. George's United Church, 35 Lytton Blvd

"Do I have to audition for My Pop Choir™?

Goodness no. My Pop Choir™ welcomes everyone who loves to sing. This is about a safe, comfortable experience. Skill levels and experience ranges from member to member but you’d never know it because when we all sing together – we have one voice.

I’m really nervous…will I have to sing alone?

No one has to sing alone at any time during the Sessions. Even finding your vocal range is done with the choir as a group – at no time, do you sing alone. We know that it may take some courage to come out and join in this wonderful experience but you’ll soon find your fears were unfounded – one of the reasons My Pop Choir™ was created, was to create a safe environment in which we could leave stress & worry behind.

Do I need to know how to read music?

Absolutely not. We use music sheets but they're simple and many members use them simply to follow when their voice group goes up or down; and for the lyrics, of course.  We learn by listening to the choir master play and sing the notes, and by repetition.

Do I need singing experience?

We often hear “I love to sing, but I’m not a singer”.  Members would all say the same thing. Some members have had choir experience but most have not. The only obvious prerequisite is that you enjoy singing."

Sounds like my kind of choir, so I signed up!

[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #16. volunteer with elephants

Elephant Nature Park
Volunteer, 1 Week Program
August 7 - August 13
Chiang Mai, Thailand

I hope everyone gets the chance to be so in love.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 24/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

I'm not going to lie: I found reading this book to be very painful. It wasn't written in a way that allowed me any emotional investment in the characters and, consequently, their outcome. Moreover, I'm not even sure of the narrative purpose or closing circumstance of any of the characters on the periphery. At best, it's written like a 235 page National Geographic article - but, most unforgivably, poorly edited. This is something I fail to understand when (1) someone considered the author to have enough merit to be published, (2) presumably the book had an (overpaid) editor, and (3) I was considering making it available as a reading option to high school students (who should be positively influenced to write by what they read, as opposed to inevitably catching mistakes for the author). I feel like cracking out a red pen, noting page-by-page edits, and mailing it back to the publisher. Alas.

So... Why did I continue reading?

(1) My dad says I'm not a quitter.

(2) I need to know if my first impressions are justified, because I give everything (and everyone) more than enough chance to prove itself.

(3) I'm in Thailand, the Wi-Fi is spotty, and I can't leave this centre in the evening.

As a "novel" that boasts a bird-watching quest at its centre that is fueled by environmental conservation against hydrofracking, I was considering this text for the assignment option outlined in my previous post. Does it fit the bill for a hero's quest through an environmental lens? Sure. Does it pass the test as something I would want my students to read? Can't say it does. At most, I'd leave it as an option with all my uncensored warnings as penned above.

Any recommendations for (good) environmentally-themed novels?


[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 23/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

My school has 3 Specialist High Skills Major (SHSM) programs: Health and Wellness, Transportation and Technology, and, the newest, Environment.

Each student in a SHSM must complete a cumulative learning activity in grade 11/12, in certain core subjects, through the lens of their SHSM. As this cannot be an additional project, this generally involves completing an existing class project through this lens.

I have adapted the 4C course as follows for the first two SHSMs:

1. For Health and Wellness students, Glass Castle free choice journals, students analyze the psychological and physical effects of the Walls' parenting on their children, supporting their analysis with external research and articles.

2. For Transportation and Technology students, they write their personal memoir about a difficult or challenging learning experience relating to their SHSM (i.e. fixing a car).

For Environmental students, I am in the process of cultivating a list of texts with an evironmental focus.

I read Dig too Deep for this list. Instead of reading the class text Ready Player One, Environmental students will complete the same project (a comparative film/text essay focusing on three aspects of the hero's quest archetype), but with a chosen text from the list.

Verdict: Dig too Deep will work perfectly for this assignment.

[Original goal list posted here.]

Progress: 22/30 - #18. read 30 texts that will aid in my teaching

I have spent the past week reading this posthumous collection of stories and essays by Marina Keegan, pausing often for contemplation, and finishing this afternoon.

I wish there were more. That is to speak about the book itself, and the life of its author cut tragically short in 2012, a passenger to a boyfriend who fell asleep at the wheel.

Owing to their relatively short length, I'd like to use either her essay "Why We Care About Whales" or "Song for the Special" with my 4Us next year -- though really anything of hers strikes me as though it would be both relatable and discussion-provoking for those classes.

Aside from writing with a youthful astutity unparalleled by much else I've read, what strikes me most about Marina Keegan, having created most of her work throughout her undergrad is this:

As a young writer, she doesn't have the same sense of preemptive mortality as so many others. She talks of marriage and children, the food in which she intends to indulge on her (elderly) deathbed, and the idea that even writers can't achieve mortality if our planet will someday die.

It's poignant and admirable. I remember calling, writing into the dark ether of a blog at 19, shaken and shaking and unable to sleep: "If I die too soon, tell them I really lived." --

but here is someone who really did; who did not take too long to learn a lot of lessons it took me at least another ten years to know.

Respect. Rest peacefully and thank you for your words.


[Original goal list posted here.]

Completed: #28. use a juicer

I'm going away for two weeks as of Saturday, so I am trying to preserve my veggies. 

I intended on using the juicer to make veggie broth that I could freeze for soups in the fall. 

It was a disaster. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but entire chunks of veggies just fell into the juice holder and the troubleshooting guide didn't give me answers. 

Fortunately this goal does not say "use a juicer successfully".

 Also I just transferred everything to a pot of water and will make my broth in my usual manner. All is not lost.

[Original goal list posted here.]