Currently | No Time

Time and Place // 8:02am Friday, 7:54am Saturday, hey, it takes time to write a post with a two-year-old climbing all over you, wanting to play :)

Eating and Drinking // As usual, I am drinking coffee (with two creamers) (and that counts for both of the above times).

Reading and Watching // This past week has been rather busy, so I haven't really had much time to read. Any spare time I did have, I spent voraciously consuming episodes of Veronica Mars. I am a few episodes in to the second season, and may I say that despite his moments of idiocy, I absolutely adore Logan. Duncan I find to be remarkably lacking in the personality department. I am interested to see where this season is going - both with the boys and with the overall narrative.


Teaching // My Composition students are currently filming commercials in groups and preparing rhetorical presentations of them, so we didn't have face-to-face class this week. I can't wait to see what they've come up with. This assignment has resulted in some very hilarious, original, and even well filmed and edited commercials. Plus, it's a great way to see if they understand the relationship between purpose, audience, and rhetorical choices/appeals - a big objective of English II.

My Literature students are doing the prep work to turn Sheridan LeFanu's "Carmilla" into a film, so they are working in "departments": screenwriting, casting, set design, costuming, and sound. While we did meet during class time, there wasn't much for me to do. The only other time I've assigned this assignment we worked with DuMaurier's Rebecca. It went awesomely, and the final product was a movie I would love to watch. I thought it would be easier this time around because "Carmilla" is a short story, but it's less clear narratively so it actually took way more time to get started, to nail down the key scenes, to determine the primary conflict and theme. Next semester, back to a full length, basic plot line novel.

Finally my Film students are in the middle of comparing the 1989 Batman to The Dark Knight through film theories such as psychological, moral, mythological, gender, and ideological. We just started our discussion this week, and I was very, very surprised by how many of my students prefer the 1989 version of The Joker. Last semester everyone pretty much thought Nicholson's Joker was over-the-top corny and ridiculous - and of course Ledger's Joker was seriously twisted and awesome. Discussing the differences in remakes, reboots, etc. forces students to analyze the why of it - what has changed culturally to cause these changes in film? So much fun.

Man do I love the end of the semester when your students "wow" you with the combination of their own creativity and the content they've learned throughout the course.


Hating // That I couldn't participate in the readathon...again. With a husband who works six days per week, and a kid who isn't quite ready for self-entertaining while mommy reads, I just can't swing it. I am with you all in spirit though.