Books...

Come on, sing it with me:  "Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.  Take a look.  It's in a book.  It's Reading Rainbow."  Reading Rainbow...  Did any of you ever watch that show?  I don't think I ever really did.  But I've developed an appreciation for it throughout my years of teaching.

Anyway, I thought it would serve as a fun introduction for the wonderful topic of books. I idn't start loving books until I didn't "have" to read them anymore.  You know, when I wasn't being forced to read for school.  Now, I'm not saying that teachers shouldn't still require the reading of these books.  Of course they should.  I'm just saying that for whatever reason it didn't work for me.  I thought of books as work, instead of fun.  Now, though, I have a completely different attitude.  A good book is entertainment...an escape...a way to relax and get caught up at the same time.

What brought about this change of heart, you ask?  Well, as I've said a few times before...I am a self-professed nerd.  As I was doing my student teaching, the Harry Potter books were still relatively new and were all the rage.  So I figured, if I was going to be a decent teacher and be in on what the "kids these days are into".  I started reading out of dutiful soon to be teacher obligation.  But I finished reading the first 4 of the books (which was all that were out at that time) over Christmas break out of sheer enjoyment.  That was it.  The nerdy beginning of my relationship with books.

Seeing as how I've already gotten a little wordy, I'll try to keep the rest of this as short as possible.  But I'm going to share some of my favorites, with the hopes that you'll share some of your own.  And I'll end with some great quotes that were shared with me by a friend at school.  Here we go:

Favorites
(in no particular order)

* The Harry Potter series
* The Hunger Games series
* The Twilight series
* The Notebook, The Choice, and the rest of the Nicholas Sparks books
* Little Women
* My Sister's Keeper and the other Jody Piccoult books that I've read so far

Coming Soon
(books I've yet to read, but am eager to)

* The Help
* The True Blood Collection
* Water for Elephants
* Bitter is the New Black and other Jen Lancaster books

Quotes

* "It's not true that we have only one life to live; if we can read, we can live as many more lives and as many kinds of lives as we wish."    -S.I.Hayakawa
* "My test of a good novel is dreading to begin the last chapter."    ~Thomas Helm
* "Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read."   - Groucho Marx


:)  :)

Pranks...

In honor of April Fool's Day...

Classic

The link above is for a classic prank on Ashton Kutcher's old show, Punk'd.  I never watched the show much, but I did see the Justin Timberlake episode.  The prank was so terrible, yet it couldn't help but be funny at the same time.

Now I, myself, have never really gotten into April Fool's Day...or pranks for that matter.  Many pranks are mean spirited and can end up being hurtful.  Other pranks can be found annoying or just piss someone off.  I would, however, like to reminisce about a few pranks in my memory:

~ My mom has always been afraid of snakes.  And when we were kids, we all knew it.  Well, my brothers would love to scare her (I do believe it was a tradition that started with Brad and was lovingly passed on to Josh).  Being that they're boys, they had one or two rubber snakes as toys.  And it wasn't unheard of for them to drop them from the top of the stairs as she was carrying laundry through the hallway.  She would stop.  Frozen.  Mouth gaping.  Silent. I mean, not a sound escaped her for several long seconds (I don't even know if she breathed). 

~ I have written about this next one before, but this time I think I'll give my dear, sweet older brother the benefit of the doubt by calling it a prank (rather than a mean spirited, intentional, repetitive, nightmare causer).  In the moments before I went to bed, Brad would sneak into my room and hide under my bed.  (I wonder how long he had to wait under there sometimes)  He would wait for me to turn off the light and get into bed.  But he had to time it perfectly...after I sat down, but before I picked my legs up.  He would simultaneously grab my ankles and scream.  Scared the living daylights out of me every time.

~ Have you ever smelled Corn Nuts?  If so, you know they only smell good to someone who's eating them at that time.  I've never had much of a problem with the scent, myself.  But a great friend and co-worker of mine HATES the smell.  So one year the other 2nd grade teachers and I decided it would sure be funny if we bought a whole bunch of Corn Nuts, put them in open containers, and scatter/hide them all over her classroom.  We also thought it would be good to give some to her students to eat in the morning and tell them to give her a nice breathy "Hhhhello" when the saw her.  But we ran out of time had a change of heart.

~ That same wonderful year at school, I had another fabulous friend and co-worker that was (still probably is) very afraid of snakes.  Well, it just so happened that I had just bought a tiny plastic (not even that realistic) snake for Mason.  So, again, us brilliant 2nd grade teachers thought it would be hilarious to hide it in her room.  Well, it got put in her lunch in such a way that when she opened her mini-fridge the lunch tipped over and the snake fell out.  She screamed, got on a chair, and I believe she told her kids to stay away so that they didn't get bitten.  It was greatness, and she was SUCH a good sport about it!

How about you?  Are there any pranks/practical jokes that you've done, had done too you, or even just heard about?  If so, please share them!

I'll leave you with another video.  This is something that I am literally surrounded with everyday...between the kids at school and my own monsters sweet angels at home.  You know, saying mean things just to take them back by saying they're "just kidding".

Just kidding