As it seems now, I will be free all May, June, July, and August, which is more time off than I expected and wanted. A higher than normal summer-term enrollment might change my schedule, but as always, that will be a last-minute or a last-second development, and I'm not counting on it.
So, do I ever want to read, read, read! This reading wave will be excellent for the blog, which has been a shambles for months.
I may have mentioned this promising scenario already, but I have been dreaming all winter of sunny, sandy beaches along beautiful Adirondack lake shores, where I will tote a beach chair, my cooler of iced tea and lemonade, and my books. And I must not forget, polarized lenses and a wide-brimmed hat. Very cool. I can't wait for this sedentary sporting event. Maybe they'll start showing beach reading events on ESPN! I'd be one to watch, anyway.
My friends all say they absolutely cannot picture me lounging on a beach. (This, because I love mountain hiking, bicycling, birding, paddling, and swimming.) But I've told them, just wait and watch me become a big, fat slug on the beach.
Oh, books I'm reading now? I'm more than halfway through An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James, which is primed and loaded with setting and atmospheric details. If James were writing today, her editors would discourage her from including such detailed descriptions. But I love them, knowing that they're not the fashion today, and thank goodness, we can retreat to an earlier era (in this case, 1977) and immerse ourselves in setting.
I'm not optimistic about any reading happening this weekend. Oh, I must grade dozens of huge research papers by Monday. My prayer? Please, don't plagiarize, dear students of mine. Each plagiarized paper requires hours of a teacher's time searching online for THE PLAGIARIZED SOURCE(S).
Happy spring, wherever you may be, readers. Please drop a line and let me know how this spring is treating you!
Baby Island by Carol Ryrie Brink, for the #1937Club
12 hours ago
Judith, what a shame that your teaching work is tailing off at the moment, but at least you're able to look on the bright side of things.
ReplyDeleteI'm putting in a request that if you get to that Adirondack lakeside please put some photos on flickr and here. Otherwise we may not be able to believe that you are actually relaxing for once!
Katrina,
ReplyDeleteIt's such a breath of fresh air to read your comments! After snow six days ago, we were 83 degrees today, letting me know that summer will be here any minute.
I may choose to audit a class in May and June that I've been told I will likely be teaching in a year's time: Children's & YA Literature.
But that would be two mornings a week and LOTS of fun reading. The teacher is a renowned specialist in Reading education and Children's and YA literature, so I think I'd be interested to get his take on the genre and see how college students respond to an immersion in KID LIT, as it is fondly called.
Still plenty of time for the beach!
Judith