I could have written this book!

I've been told a few times that I should write a book. Now I found one that I could have written! Really, I could have penned this thing in no time flat!

Amazon gives a review of the book as this, "Tackling everything from the peer pressure to have children to resisting the siren call of suburbia". Doesn't that sound like me? Except of course, I'm a forty-something woman so I'd have to add ten years worth of wisdom to the piece. I haven't actually read this book, but it says the author "mouths off" about being older, pregnant, raising kids, peer pressure, marriage, dieting, etc. That sounds like me! I can mouth off about all kinds of things! Have you read my blog?

My sister, the NaNoWriMo writer, really pesters encourages me to write a book. I just couldn't think of anything to write about, but shoot, I can rant till the cows come home! Could I rant a book? That sounds pretty easy!

I think I shall declare "rant" a verb! Maybe I'll rant a book! Right in between changing diapers, tripping over toys, plucking gray hairs and helping my husband grade papers (He hands me the essays students write in Spanish so I can roughly translate. Not like it matters, they can't spell in Spanish either.) In fact, I might be able to rant a whole series. Wouldn't that be fun! A full set of published PMS!

It's a nice idea; in the meantime, I have other things to do that tear me away from typing. Chasing my children! Currently, one is standing on her bounce and spin riding zebra and one is reporting a dead rat in the glue trap out by the garage door. Who has time to rant a book?

Role Model or Dummy? You decide!

Have you heard about Kayne West and his pride on "being a non-reader"? Yup, the guy doesn't like books. Doesn't read. He's a rapper who is well known and there are tons of kids looking up to this guy and his success. So he puts out a statement that he's proud to be a non-reader? What kind of message is that?

This guy went to school. He dropped out of college, which means that he did complete elementary school and high school and somehow managed to get into college. You can't drop out unless you actually got started. How does someone get past the third grade without reading? So.... we know he did read just by knowing that he got into college. Or, did he?

The guy wrote a book! Can you believe this? He's all proud to be a book basher and he wrote a book? Uh huh. Suuuuuuuure, he did. Yeah. First clue that leads me to think someone else wrote it for him? The title is spelled correctly. It's a rare thing these days to find the word "you're" spelled correctly! It's a personal pet peeve of mine and there are some very intelligent folks out there who can't get it right. Think Kanye knows the difference between your and you're? He might; he might not. Bet his editor does! Reviews do say that the book doesn't have a lot of text, some blank pages, and it is a book of quotes of his profound non-reading wisdom. Wonder if he read his own book?

How sad for the youth who look up to this guy. He might as well walk around whacking little kids with his itty bitty book. And he's really missing a lot of good stuff by not reading. I sure hope the guy doesn't make an impact on the kids who think he's pretty cool. Obviously, he's not thinking about his little fans who could benefit greatly from reading.

Pop Culture suffers a blow. Sad. Sad. Sad.

Audio Books

Just want to share some free audio book sites.

San Diego Public Library

Project Gutenburg

Librivox

Audio Books For Free

Internet Audio Archive

Free Classic Audio Books

Learn Out Loud

If you know of more, let me know and I'll add them for my reference as much as anyone else who happens upon this post.

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

I'm writing papers this weekend. I have three that are due next week. 1. For my Post Colonial Fiction class I have to write about Cultural Hybridity. 2. For my United States Literature class I have to write about the rhetorical strategy of Herman Melville. and 3. For my Western Literature class (the class where we watch films and never read) I have to write about American Values and/or Identity in the movie "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".

Ouch! Gracie just bit my knee!!!

So anyway... I need to watch this movie and figure out what deep message about American values the director, John Ford, is supposed to be saying. For his movie "Stagecoach" our professor said that the stagecoach was America and the Indians who attacked were representing the communist countries; so the movie was all about America struggling to become a superpower after suffering from the great depression, and it was about WWII, and it was about McArthism.

Hmmm.... I totally missed all that! I saw a stagecoach, John Wayne and some comic book kind of Indian attack. Now when I watch the Liberty Valance movie I'm going to have to pull from the clear blue sky some sort of far fetched ideas about what the movie means and write a paper on it. Any ideas?

I'll work on Cultural Hybridity and Melville's sarcasm later. Tonight is John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart night. Of course, I have to wait until "Finding Nemo" is over - we have to watch Fishies!

Mommy's in College

I started college this past week. I've been attending Cal State University on a very part time basis for the past two years. With pregnancy and an infant, I haven't been a very good student. Time to jump back in and see if I can finish this quest for an education. So, here I am giving it a try.

First of all, enrollment has skyrocketed. It always took me an hour to get from here to there (including parking) but no.... both Monday and Wednesday it took me 35 minutes to get to the exit that I take (pretty dang good!) and then I was in a bumper to bumper line of cars that went from the exit all the way to the college parking lot. inching forward, inching forward, go a little bit, inch, inch, inch.... you know, like in the movie Office Space.... that took an hour. The line was 6 miles long!!! I'm not kidding. 5 miles from the exit to town, and a mile across to the campus.

I got a $2000 scholarship! I get $500 per semester for 2 yrs, so I'm hoping to finish my BA by then. I should be able to finish it up in 3 semesters if I have planned it well. Then I can begin the teacher credential program. Feels like I will be a student forever. It's a long road.

My classes are twice a week and they go something like this:

US Literature: This class focuses on early American literature up to the year 1750. Wow, that is early! This was a good class. I was terribly late though cuz I misjudged traffic. The professor seems like a decent guy. He is requiring the class to post to an online forum - ha! I can do that! Yippee!

British Literature, again the early period. Oh no. This teacher is a spaz. She's super loud and hyperactive. She was bouncing off the walls. Waving her arms around the whole time too. She tripped over her own feet and almost fell over and she spilled her coffee. She might drive me nuts. I went to another professor and asked if I could take this same class from her instead, but she doesn't teach it. Can I take it independent study? No. I'm stuck with the spaz.

Post-Fiction. This class is about post-colonial, post-modernism, post-feminism, post-whateverism. We have to read 9 books and watch 2 movies. This guy has a following of students who were all excited to see him again. That's a good sign. But he's Chinese and I had a really hard time figuring out what he was saying in English. His accent is going to take me some time to get used to. I hope I don't miss much while he's talking and I am trying to understand it. I sure didn't catch a whole lot this week. He's got a soft voice too. Polar opposite of Professor Spaz.

Western Literature: This class is in the evening and only on Wednesdays. The professor was hired on Monday. He's an art museum director with a PhD in Literature. He is going to assign movies to us. Cool. That's easier with a toddler who likes to rip books apart. Works for me! He seems like he's going to run a good class even though he didn't have time to prepare fully for the class, he seemed like he had a good idea of what we are going to do. Syllabus will be out next week.

So, I have four literature classes. That's 17 books total. Three are anthologies, two are textbook type books full of theory. The rest are just books.

Things I learned this week:
#1 - Leave Really EARLY

#2 - Gracie is fine without me (I keep having to relearn this, for some reason it never sticks in my head)

#3 - The college has a million stairs and I am super outa shape! (how did I forget that?)

#4 - My backpack is heavy. Books, laptop, laptop cooler, water, sandwich, apple, purse, etc. I feel like I'm packing up to move out when I leave the house.