Writing and reading
My new tiny little laptop arrived today! Now I have even less of an excuse not to stick to my one-post-a-week resolution.
I finally finished the doorstop of a book I've been reading since before Christmas (The Shadow of the Wind, which was somewhat entertaining but not worth spending three weeks on but which was too heavy to justify carrying back and forth to work with me). Needing something new, I rummaged around in the pile under my desk and came up with a find from last semester's book sale, a collection of essays from NPR's This I Believe series. I always love listening to them on All Things Considered and (back when I used to commute by car) Morning Edition, and there are some wonderful essays in the collection. So now, of course, I'm tempted to write one myself, just to see what I'd come up with. One of my colleagues actually assigns this in her freshman comp classes, which I think is a really cool idea. I haven't read any of them, but I overheard her in conference with a student whose first line was "I believe in family dinners," which I really liked.
The tricky part, of course, is finding some way to encapsulate my belief system into a single thing. But I'm going to give it some thought. If nothing else, I think it'll be an interesting exercise, and if it ends up being more than that, I can always submit it to the series.
Pondering this idea made me think back to one of my first posts on this blog, when I was trying to find my word, as inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. I went back to it and was reminded of how much I loved that book. It's sad to say that all of the hype has kind of caused me to look down on it--kind of like the Da Vinci Code--as if the masses liking something automatically renders it unworthy. We'll call it the Oprah Book Club effect. I was just reading a review of Gilbert's new memoir in the New York Times and wondering if I'd be too embarrassed to check it out. But no. I'm going to request it from the library and enjoy it.
Now, off to yoga (but maybe pilates next week).
I finally finished the doorstop of a book I've been reading since before Christmas (The Shadow of the Wind, which was somewhat entertaining but not worth spending three weeks on but which was too heavy to justify carrying back and forth to work with me). Needing something new, I rummaged around in the pile under my desk and came up with a find from last semester's book sale, a collection of essays from NPR's This I Believe series. I always love listening to them on All Things Considered and (back when I used to commute by car) Morning Edition, and there are some wonderful essays in the collection. So now, of course, I'm tempted to write one myself, just to see what I'd come up with. One of my colleagues actually assigns this in her freshman comp classes, which I think is a really cool idea. I haven't read any of them, but I overheard her in conference with a student whose first line was "I believe in family dinners," which I really liked.
The tricky part, of course, is finding some way to encapsulate my belief system into a single thing. But I'm going to give it some thought. If nothing else, I think it'll be an interesting exercise, and if it ends up being more than that, I can always submit it to the series.
Pondering this idea made me think back to one of my first posts on this blog, when I was trying to find my word, as inspired by Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love. I went back to it and was reminded of how much I loved that book. It's sad to say that all of the hype has kind of caused me to look down on it--kind of like the Da Vinci Code--as if the masses liking something automatically renders it unworthy. We'll call it the Oprah Book Club effect. I was just reading a review of Gilbert's new memoir in the New York Times and wondering if I'd be too embarrassed to check it out. But no. I'm going to request it from the library and enjoy it.
Now, off to yoga (but maybe pilates next week).
posted by Madame Defarge at 6:31 PM
1 Comments:
My colleague does the same assignment with her sophomores. I've never read/heard them, but I guess I'll have to start - they sound great! I think you should totally go for it - it'd be a great exercise and I know it'll be brilliant. =)
And how exciting to have your own laptop! It'll become your new best friend and you'll wonder how you ever got along without it.
Eat, Pray, Love was such a great read - what luck I had an insightful friend to recommend it.
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