Teaching is a Job

Date Posted: 08.06.07

I will begin by stating that I am a teacher in a public high school. I teach 10th and 12th grade English. I am over 30. I have been teaching for more than 3 years. This should establish my bias clearly.

My rant for today is simple. Teaching is a job. I go to work every day because I am paid to do so. If I did not teach I would have to do something else to make money. I adore my job. I love getting up every day and knowing that I get to bring in the bucks by doing something worthwhile and good. However, it is still my job.

I state this so stridently because as an educator, I often hear the phrase "well, we are in it for the kids." Most of the time when I hear that phrase it is directly before or after some bright new idea to make my life more difficult. If I hear that phrase one more time I am going to rip off some vital body parts stuff them in tortillas and feed them to the hungry teenagers. Emmmm salty!

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Book List

Date Posted: 08.05.07

This is my list of 100 novels to read this year. I intend to write at least a paragraph about each of them. My goal may be too ambitious given that I have to work a lot but I will do my best. The purpose of this little activity isn't to prove I can read fast. It is to force myself to expand my thinking and read outside of my comfort zone.

These novels are listed alphabetically. I have read a few of them already. I chose them by combining lists from the websites listed below. Novels that appeared on 3 or more sites were all listed. Then I looked at authors with multiple works and cut them down to one if possible. I researched as many of the books as I could. Then I admit that I simply deleted books I had never heard of. I also kept a few books that people have suggested to me and a few that I simply insist belong on my list. I deleted many of the books I have already read but I kept the ones I felt warranted another read or more intensive analysis. Ultimately, the list I have made does not really constitute the "top 100." It is just a list to give myself a reasonable reading goal.

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100 Years of Solitude, Quotes

Date Posted: 08.04.07

The world must be all fucked up, when men travel first class and literature goes as freight. (Marquez 431)

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100 Years of Solitude

Date Posted: 08.04.07

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez is the story of the town of Macondo and the family that founded it, the Buendias. The story covers over 100 years and seven generations. The town begins in isolation. It develops politics, faces civil war, begins modernization and industrialization. It becomes prosperous only to loose that prosperity and ultimately revert to isolation.

The family follows the same path. The progenitor of the clan, Jose Arcadio Buendia and his wife Ursula bequeath to their children and grandchildren a complicated web of entangled truths. Each member of the family follows their destiny heroically. Ultimately, the final surviving Buendias deciphers a prophecy predicting his own death as it defines and validates the cycle of the family's development

I read this book because a friend suggested it and it is on my list of 100 books I will read this year. I did not have any expectations. I didn't really know what the book was about. I think I approached it with as open a mind as possible.

Unfortunately, 30 pages into the book I was not impressed. 50 pages and I was mildly annoyed. 100 pages and I hated it. It is a fine example of Magical Realism which I have never found particularly appealing. I didn't understand it. Like most people, I don't usually enjoy things I don't understand. It makes me feel inferior.

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The Censorship of James Joyce

Date Posted: 08.02.07

"For decades censors have fought to emasculate literature. They have tried to set up the sensibilities of the prudery-ridden as a criterion for society, have sought to reduce the reading material of adults to the level of adolescents and subnormal persons, and have nurtured evasions and sanctimonies."

- Morris L. Ernest in the foreword of Ulysses by James Joyce; 1933

I just received my copy of Ulysses by James Joyce. I have not read it yet but this quote in the preface struck me as enormously worthy. I particularly enjoy the implication that adolescents are equal to subnormal persons. That is priceless. I can't wait to read this book.

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