http://www.parenthetical.net/2009/07/11/im-a-white-lady-i-can-do-anything/

http://www.parenthetical.net/?p=699

This summarizes every movie about urban public school teachers ever:
Nice White Lady.

mizkit

We took a day trip out to Tulsk today. There’s pretty much literally nothing in Tulsk except a convenience store, a ruined abbey dating back to 1406, and an archaeological dig site dating back to the Mesolithic that we got to climb around in.

Obviously it was well worth the trip out. :) No, seriously, it was! It was awesome. There’s also a visitor’s center, except sort of ironically all the information in the visitor’s center is about the Queen Mabh site a couple miles down the road, because they didn’t know what they had in their back yard (literally) until very recently. They’d just finished up this summer’s dig yesterday, and apparently the last things they found were a baby’s skeleton in a sheltered grave of some sort, and evidence that the site was Mesolithic in origin, which was much, much older than the Bronze Age materials they’d found evidence of at the last moment of last year’s dig.

The woman at the center said we could climb around and have a good look at the site, but that she didn’t know how much of it was tarped over, because the wine had been opened the previous evening before the tarping was finished, and everybody came in to celebrate the summer’s work! :) So we went all around the edges and then were like, “…there’s no one to tell us no, and she *saaaaaaid* we could climb around…!” So we actually got down into the castle/keep/god-knows-what-came-before ruins. I mean, how often do you get to climb around in Mesolithic ruins? It was pretty cool. :) I’ll post pictures soon.

Dad made a smart-ass comment on our way there, I said, “Oh, I’d go for that,” and Ted started extrapolating how it would work, and now we have this awesome idea for a business. We have to figure out who to talk to here about getting money to pursue a business idea to see if it would be viable…

mizkit

[	Tags	|	overachievement is a lifestyle choice, thinks to do, work, writing	]
[	Current Mood	|	busy	]

July Thinks To Do:
- finish TRUTHSEEKER revisions
- revisions for DEMON HUNTS
- proposal for Walker Papers #6
- write “Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight”
- Chance graphic novel proposal
- an essay or two for the Chance GN
- getting together all the materials for that GN
» includes asking my team if they want to write essay things
» and getting color notes to Jason
» email a reminder to the team
- proposal for WAYFINDER
» messy outline completed, synopsis to follow
» actual chapters & stuff won’t be done until I get the 2nd TRUTHSEEKER revision letter, I think, ’cause that still needs work
- (rough) WORLDBREAKER pitch

I have moved:
- Marvel application
- Mia graphic novel proposal
- Walker Papers short story

to August (first half of August, I swear, Lanny), although I had previously thought I’d moved the WAYFINDER/WORLDBREAKER stuff to August. Today corrected that think.

Damn, I feel like I’m juggling hot potatoes right now. I also just agreed to write another short story (that was what prompted LAG’s comment earlier), but it’s not due until December, so that shouldn’t be difficult. Also, I think I’m well past the place where I can claim I don’t write short stories. I used to not write short stories. Now I do. :)

http://www.parenthetical.net/2009/07/10/my-most-excellent-year-a-novel-of-love-mary-poppins-fenway-park-by-steve-kluger/

http://www.parenthetical.net/?p=644

Three three-dimensional best friends, families that genuinely love each other, disability and homosexuality just tossed in like the normal parts of life they are, and it’s even set in Boston! Sold.

The plot is complicated — there’s a deaf kid, a theater production, a wacky road trip to New York (does it count as a road trip if it’s on a train?), a baseball memorial at Manzanar — but it basically boils down to a coming-of-age love story. These are a dime a dozen on the YA shelves; it’s the details that make a book stand out (or not). Fortunately there’s nothing generic about My Most Excellent Year. (Did you notice the bit about the baseball memorial?)

My only gripe is that the year — and I say this as a person who loves happy endings — is too excellent. Need tickets to the Red Sox? Good thing you have a bodyguard who knows a guy! The kid you’ve adopted is obsessed with Mary Poppins? Well, of course Julie Andrews is going to decide he’s the cutest thing ever and be his best friend! If you establish a pattern where everything works out for the best every time, the stakes never get high enough to worry about the characters. By the end I was rolling my eyes at each plot twist.

Despite this, I found it warm and fuzzy and entertaining, though I didn’t adore it the way a lot of people seem to.

(Side note: What’s with all the framing devices in YA? Is it really necessary to use the Autobiography Assignment trope? Can’t you just tell a story? I know I’m being too harsh here, but it’s starting to remind me of my students whenever they’re asked to give a speech: “So, I stayed up last night worrying about what I was going to say in this speech. First, I looked up ’speech’ in the dictionary…”)

Also reviewed at: Valentina’s Room, Kidliterate, and Book Crossing.

http://www.parenthetical.net/2009/07/10/joey-pigza-swallowed-the-key-by-jack-gantos/

http://www.parenthetical.net/?p=694

In two weeks I’ll be heading to the Simmons College Children’s Literature Summer Institute. Three days of talks by and schmoozing with fabulous authors, editors, and other people working in the children’s lit field (not to mention some dear friends). So excited!

I realized that I’m unfamiliar with the work of a number of people speaking at the conference — mostly because they write for younger kids or children’s poetry or something else outside of my wheelhouse — so I’m going to try to rectify that.

Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key is the first in a series about Joey, a fourth grader trying to get his ADHD* under control. I’ll be the first to admit that out of the world of problems that my students have, ADHD is not one I get. At a fundamental level, my reaction tends to be, “Oh, just chill out already!” In the same way, some of my colleagues don’t get why my favorite nerdy quiet kids can’t have a non-awkward conversation with their classmates. Teachers are people too, and we gravitate towards different types of kids.

But we still have to teach all of them fairly. And like the best fiction, Joey Pigza put me in Joey’s (tied-together, tossed down the hall, spinning in circles) shoes and helped me get for the first time what it’s like to be the kind of kid who can’t sit still. It was written to be entertaining and maybe comforting for kids, but it ended up being bibliotherapy for this teacher, too.

* Presumably, though the diagnosis is never named.

Also reviewed at: MentalHelp.net, Blogcritics, and HomeschoolBuzz.com

mizkit

In the War Room just now, Laura Anne said, “Kit, I am in awe, once again, at your mixture of productivity and total lack of self-preservation.”

I suspect that says it all. Not that she should talk. :)

I’m also kind of fond of this final line of the synopsis I’m currently working on: “and KERSPLODY is the final scene of the book”

Sounds good, huh? :)

mizkit

[	Tags	|	fanboy, geek, swimming, x-geek	]
[	Current Mood	|	okay	]

Doing the 100s Wednesday was apparently more than my shoulder could handle. I am very crankily not swimming again until Monday in an attempt to set it right, and I will not do sprints until I’m in much better condition. *sigh* I’m also going to try to mostly stay offline over the weekend, particularly off the laptop, because using it aggravates the injury. It is possible this will cause me to shrivel up and die. I’ll keep you posted. Or not, if I’m supposed to be offline…

Muahah. The postman has just delivered the last of our mad spending spree materials: the complete Angel DVD collection (because I’m a fruitcake, and want to watch seasons 4-7 of Buffy alternating with seasons 1-4 of Angel, the way they were aired, and Ted is a good enough person to agree to my lunacy), two of the X-Men graphic novels I need to catch up, and the last of the Star Wars RPG stuff to complete Ted’s collection. Wow. Could we be any geekier?

Arright, I’m going for a walk since I can’t swim, and to the bank because the landlord sent the reimbursement check for the new furniture.

miles to Minas Tirith: 454.4