to blog or not to blog, that is the question

Murder, Ghosts, Incest, Skeletons, Suicide, Insanity . . .
What more could you ask of a tragedy? We have begun Hamlet in my high school literature class. It is my favorite of all of Shakespeare's works. I love going over lines of it, stopping now and again to ask one of the kids to interpret. It's fun to watch them think out the language and retell the story in their words.

In this same class, we recently completed The Old Man and the Sea, a story I have somehow missed over the years. I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it, despite its less-than-happy ending. What excited me the most from this story was a rewrite one of my 8th graders did, telling the story from the vantage point of the marlin. With phrases like, "I notice how effortlessly the water envelops me." and "I prefer the shadows the deeper water offers me." and ". . . (a human) could not last even a tide's turn in this vast ocean without yielding to its own defeat." This paper followed the sophomore boys' papers which read like instructions: "Then the fish swam up to eat. Then the fish ate. Then the fish was hooked. Then the fish tried to swim away." Then I wanted to eat my own red grading pen just for something interesting to do. Creativity, thy name is woman!


Superheroes, Word Addictions, and more Insanity
Last night, Kacey began one of her texting novellas during which she chastised me for not blogging. I think her actualy phrase was, "OH MY GOODNESS WOULD YOU FREAKING BLOG???"

To which I replied "yes" if she would give me a topic. She suggested Winterfest, or How Much I Miss My Daughter, or The Significance of Anniversaries. I decided to blog about the following:

"Overcoming Addictions to Facebook Word Games: A 12-Letter Program."

STEP ONE: I admit I am powerless over word games

STEP TWO: I have made a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself. Oooh, "searching" and "fearless" are 40-point words! Yea me!

It's true. I'm totally addicted. It's like Boggle, but honeycomb style. And I don't have to bribe people to play with me! Five-minute rounds, every time you make a word the letters fall out, and new ones fall down. Love it. Words. Speed. High Scores. I am such a nerd.


Reduplicative Not-so-super Heroes
Then Kacey suggested we could come up with more stupid superheroes just for fun.

She began with "Cheese Louise" the Cheese Whiz Queen against the Crackers of the World".

I continued with the following:

Super Duper - He tricks bad guys
Itsy Bitsy - She is tiny, but has a mean bite!
Hubba Bubba - the redneck Romeo
Teeny Weeny - Underdog's miniature Dachshund cousin
Hum Drum - the one man band
Big Whig - A giant Founding Father
Roly Poly - the Eastern European Gymnast
Scrub a Dub Dub - The Japanese doctor who also does voice-over work
Chrome Dome - Headbutts bad guys with his shiny silver bald head

There was one more, but it was morally questionable in nature, and since I had to explain it to my daughter, and also since I had already completed my "searching and fearless moral inventory" according to STEP TWO, it is probably better left unwritten. :o)


Boys will be Boys
Oh, and speaking earlier of Winterfest: A quote heard from one of our sophomore boys to his mom as he was leaving the hotel and running down the outside steps, "Don't worry Mom, I've got my pants with me!" I will leave the mental picture to your imagination.


To blog or not to blog . . . not to blog might have been the better choice.