I am finally writing again. and reading again. Both are wonderful but come with their own hazards. I live my books too much, I have to read them smartly so as not to be sucked into the fictional world never to return again to reality - seriously.
First I read the creepy, scary, downright grossly intriguing books by Michael Grant. They are supposedly for middle school age kids - NOT! I'd say high school at the least, and being an adult and reading them was a bit scary. My friend described them as Stephen King and "Lord of the Flies" on crack! Yeah - I agree totally.
But I could not put them down. I read through 4 volumes, "Gone", "Hunger", "Lies", and "Plague" in like one month. I can't wait for the next volume. I love the kids in the book. I relate to them, they are my friends. And I worry so much about them that I just have to read the next book.
So what do I do in the mean-time? I read Stephen King's "Duma Key". I am so frightened that I can only read a chapter or two at a time, and I'm only 20 pages from the end. But I live the dang books in my head.
Then to top it off, I have a bug infestation in my house (&*$# wet spring!) and I have had to clean and even take out drawers and clean the bottoms of dressers and cabinets. I think we also may have disturbed their little homes when we remodeled. But I dream weird dreams and then have to get up and clean more with tooth brushes and borax (which bugs hate). I feel crawly things on me. I see things moving in my peripheral vision, I hear chewing noises....
I LOVE SUMMER so I can just immerse myself in anything other than work.
And truly there is no book or bug scarier than a room full of pubescent students especially if you have nothing prepared with which to entertain them for 40 minutes.
My Favorite Poet/teacher just wrote this on his blog (see link in my list of links):
____________________________________________________________________________
W
hy I suck as a teacher (except that I don't).
I did a freebie gig at a middle school in Harlem today, and it was very challenging. There were only about 20 students in the class—sixth, seventh, and eighth graders all together—with almost as many City Year corp members in the room as well (college graduates who give a year of their time to work with inner city youth) so you'd think a veteran like me would find that easy, right? Wrong.
The majority of the students have very poor listening skills, and they talked and hit each other throughout the entire class. One girl in the front row spent the entire time playing games on her phone! Why did I put up with it? Aren't I to blame by allowing that kind of behavior to pass as acceptable?
Well, sure. But I was a visitor to their classroom and there to talk about poetry. Didn't seem right to be all Mr. Behavior Cop. Many would have just shut me out completely after that. So I just did my best, using every trick I remembered. I was loud when they were quiet and quiet when they were loud. They told each other to be quiet so as not to miss what I was saying (except that telling each other to be quiet invariably involved yelling and hitting each other, which never worked). They interrupted my poems when I used words they didn't know, which is fine by me, except one of the words was "smugly." I guess the student thought it was a mixture of "smart" and "ugly"?
When I gave them time to write quietly, it was hard for them to do either. Half the class preferred to write with big colorful markers instead of pens. There were more than a few pretty pictures of flowers. When I asked them to please work on what I had asked them to do, no one ever remembered what that was.
When the girl in the front row blatantly tried to show her neighbor, who was trying to work, something on her phone, I had to stop and tell her I found her behavior insulting to me. No big thing. She actually got better after that. In the end, I thought I had HORRIBLE control over the class.
But of all the poet/teachers I know, I can only think of two or three who might have done any better with that group. Surprisingly, when the kids were gone and it was just me and the City Year corp members, they all said they were amazed at how well behaved the class was! "You got them to work! To participate! It was amazing to see them respond to you! I was trying to take notes on all the techniques you used!"
A little perspective goes a long way.
So hurray for being scared in a fun, relaxing way with good books, cozy bugs and friends who are so competitive with "Words with Friends" (scrabble app for those with iphones - PS, I'm Babs1953 if you want to play!) PSS - how many points for COZY?
The majority of the students have very poor listening skills, and they talked and hit each other throughout the entire class. One girl in the front row spent the entire time playing games on her phone! Why did I put up with it? Aren't I to blame by allowing that kind of behavior to pass as acceptable? 
