Book Review: Carrie

I don't watch horror.  Let me repeat - I did not watch horror, that is, until I met my now fiancee' and he kept trying to convince me to watch horror movies with him at Halloween.  I refused the first year, but the second year, I allowed him to introduce me to "mild" horror movies.  Those were enough for me, but out of those movies, he dreamt up another idea: for us to read "Carrie" together.

Now, I do read thrillers sometimes.  I consumed the entire "Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" series without stopping.  So, I figured I could manage to read a horror/thriller by Stephen King.  We went to Half Price Books and each bought a copy.  The race was on - who would finish reading the book first?

I did.  I loved "Carrie" in the sense that I loved the movie "The Village" - I could relate to the religious upbringing.  For that reason, I could not stop reading the first half of the book.  The religious expectations of modesty and the prayers of repentance were all too familiar.

The second half was a drag, however.  King had basically told me, as the reader, what was going to happen in the end of the book, so it was hard to keep reading when I already knew what was going to occur.  On top of that, the constant switching from the narration of the story to the news and police reports seemed dry and repetitive.  It seemed he could have communicated the entire second half of the story in half as many pages and been more effective.

Don't get me wrong - I would still recommend the book to the same friends I would recommend "The Village" movie.  But in the same breath, I would whisper to them to skim read the second half and they would never know the difference.

Book Review: I Am Malala

I am the first to tell you that I am horrible at keeping up with the news.  I don't have cable TV, the few times I have subscribed to newspapers, I couldn't keep up with reading them, and until I discovered the "news" app on my iPhone a few weeks ago, I never even attempted to navigate the overwhelming amount of news posted on the internet.

Therefore, the first time I heard of Malala - the girl who stood up for education and was shot by the Taliban - was when the movie came out in 2014.  When I first heard of her, the thing that stood out to me was the fact that her father was supportive of her even though he came from a culture where women were traditionally subjects and men celebrated their sons rather than their daughters.  I remember this quote from Malala's father, "In my part of the world most people are known by their sons.  I am one of the few lucky fathers known by his daughter."

I was impressed by that line, and it was always on the running list in the back of my mind to one day read Malala's book, Malala's story; therefore, when I was in Half Price Books a few months back with my fiancee' and saw this book lying out on a display, I bought it.  I was in angst about my own students' lack of appreciation for the education not only available to them, but basically shoved down their throats.  I was contemplating the topics for their upcoming research paper, and I wanted lack of educational opportunities to be one of the topics.  I figured the book could be used as a source for my classroom, as well as something I could enjoy reading for pleasure on weekends and evenings.

The cover of the book points out that Malala is a "Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize," and it also has a quote from the Washington Post comparing her story to that of the diary of Anne Frank, so I must say the bar was set very high before I even opened the cover.  While the story does not disappoint, at times the story-telling does.  It is easy to get lost among the many explanations of the strife in Pakistan among the government, the civilians, the Taliban, and the U.S. government.  Sometimes there is too much telling of the story instead of allowing the reader to simply experience the action and the emotion of the story.  For these reasons, it took me a few months to get through the whole book.

Perhaps I am wrong, but I have a hard time seeing my 16-year-old students sitting down to read the entire book, cover-to-cover, simply because of the facts mentioned above.  However, next year, the first time there is grumbling about the mandatory education they are required to participate in, I will be reading them this passage from the book.

Aunt Najma was in tears.  She had never seen the sea before.  My family and I sat on the rocks, gazing across the water, breathing in the salt tang of the Arabian Sea.  It was such a big expanse, surely no one could know where it ended.  At that moment I was very happy.  "One day I want to cross this sea," I said.

"What is she saying?" asked my aunt, as if I were talking about something impossible.  I was still trying to get my head around the fact that she had been living in the seaside city of Karachi for thirty years and yet had never actually laid eyes on the ocean.  Her husband would not take her to the beach, and even if she had somehow slipped out of the house, she would not have been able to follow the signs to the sea because she could not read.

I sat on the rocks and thought about the fact that across the water were lands where women were free.  In Pakistan we had had a woman prime minister and in Islamabad I had met those impressive working women, yet the fact was that we were a country where almost all the women depend entirely on men.  My headmistress Maryam was a strong educated woman, but in our society she could not live on her own and come to work.  She had to be living with a husband, brother or parents.

In Pakistan when women say they want independence, people think this means we don't want to obey our fathers, brothers or husbands.  But it does not mean that.  It means we want to make decisions for ourselves.  We want to be free to go to school or to go to work.  Nowhere is it written in the Quran that a woman should be dependent on a man.  The word has not come down from the heavens to tell us that every woman should listen to a man.

"You are a million miles away, Jani," said my father, interrupting my thoughts.  "What are you thinking about?"

"Just about crossing oceans, Aba," I replied.

"Forget all that!" shouted my brother Atal.  "We're at the beach and I want to go for a camel ride!"

Here, in just a short passage, the girl who stood up for education (in many different ways - you will have to read the book to understand all those ways) and was shot by the Taliban, gives us a succinct picture of what the lack of basic rights, among them education, does to the women in her country.  This is what my students need to see - a wider perspective than their own.  For the purpose of widening one's perspective outside of the too narrow world we exist in, for this I recommend this book.

Book Review: The Professor and the Madman

The subtitle for this book reads "A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary."  Sounds boring, right?

Well, maybe only the part that mentions the making of a dictionary.  The other part - the murder and insanity - that is what intrigues you enough to start reading...and keep reading...and finish reading.

To be honest, I'm an English major and a high school English teacher, and even though I read and write all the time, I was still skeptical when my fiancee' repeatedly recommended this book.

The skepticism ended when I began reading because, to be honest, I couldn't put this book down.  The book reads more like a mystery/drama (somehow magically combined)  rather than a history.  The intrigue of the relationship between a madman - who, believe me, did some pretty crazy things - and a well-esteemed professor is enough to keep one reading, but how this relationship brought about the dictionary - well, that part is especially enamoring if you, like me, are into words and reading and English-y stuff.

Although I often reach a "dead spot" in the middle of many books that I end up skimming or skipping over, there was no "dead spot" in "The Professor and the Madman."  It is a page turner, and it is no wonder that it was a national bestseller.

So, if you are a person who enjoys a bit of mystery, or some drama, or even the history of things or of words - in short, if you are simply a person who enjoys reading, I am pretty sure you will find this book intriguing to the very last page.

Try it.  And let me know what you thought.

Book Review: "Hands Up!"

From a young age, I wanted to teach in the inner city.  My dream was realized a few years ago, and I was given the privilege of teaching in inner city Dallas for three years.

At the end of last school year, I left the school.  The reasons for my departure are a long, convoluted story and not relevant to this post.  Suffice to say, I miss teaching those students every single day.  Teaching in the inner city was the most fulfilling job I have ever held.

This book, "Hands Up!", showed up on my Pinterest in the last few months.  I was (and am) in the throes of missing my old job and former students, so, on a whim, I went out to Amazon and ordered a copy.  A week later, it was in my mailbox.

I am fitful when it comes to reading books.  I love reading, but it takes time and energy, neither of which I possess in excess during the school year.  I have a pile of about 18 books that I am currently in the middle of reading.  I try to read a little every night; it happens once every few nights, and rarely do I pick up the same book twice in a row.

It was different with this book.  Perhaps it was because of the subject matter and the pangs of separation I was feeling in regards to my former students, but I found myself picking up this book several times a week.  Sometimes, I was picking it up not only right before bedtime, but on an afternoon on the weekend.

The setting is inner city London.  I did not realize that when I ordered it, so when I first realized this, after reading the cover, I thought perhaps the experience would be very different from mine.  I was wrong.  I could relate to almost everything.  Yes, the education diction was different than our American terms (i.e. "year 10's" instead of "juniors" or "11th grade"), but the experiences?  They were almost identical.

I laughed my way through this book because I could relate.  Other times, I read with a lump in my throat because it made me think of THAT student or THAT experience.  The author, a teacher with "Teach First!", the British version of our "Teach for America," gives a detailed account of her school year, semester by semester (called "terms" in England).  The exhaustion, the feeling of being at your wits end, the lack of resources - it's all there.  Most of all, the portraits of the students she taught - they are all familiar.  The hard-working student, despite all odds.  The disinterested student - because they don't see how this applies to real life.  The disruptive student - because for them, school is simply a social event.  All these students are present.

If you are a teacher, especially a teacher with any experience in the inner city or a title one school, I recommend this book.  If you are a human with a heart to reach out to children of the inner city, I recommend this book to you, too.  You will laugh and you will cry.  More than that, you will recognize the children in it's pages, and it will strengthen you to tackle anew the task or dream you have at hand.

Book Review: "Keeping Faith"

Three years ago, one of my brothers joined the Marine Reserves.  It was a move that surprised everyone in my large, close-knit family of eight siblings, and a move that no one understood or wanted him to take.  As a matter of fact, several of us tried fervently to talk him out of the making the commitment.  

When he started boot camp in San Diego, six months later, all of us were resigned to his choice and supportive of him.  As a family, we support each other and this meant overwhelming my brother with letters during his weeks in boot camp.  He struggled to write everyone back, and when we received his letters, we struggled to wrap our brains around the experience he was going through.  Even more than that, when we saw him at graduation, we struggled to understand the things that had suddenly changed about him and the fact that he wouldn't hardly smile.

During the months following, when my brother was attending the rest of his training for his MOS, my co-teacher, a former Marine himself, recommended this book to me.  Not only did he recommend it to me, he also brought up his copy for me to borrow.  

As a busy teacher, I stuck it on the pile of a dozen books I wanted to read in the near future.  It sat there for over two years.  I duly moved it from house to house (I think there were three moves during that time), and I even moved it to the top of the stack a few times.  

When I finished reading "The Good German" a few weeks ago, I looked at my stack of books, trying to decide what aroused my interest in reading.  I pulled this book out of the stack.  I wasn't sure I wanted to read it yet, but I figured I'd give it a shot, as nothing else was looking interesting.

It's a step by step narrative, in the first person, from both the perspective of the father and the son, of the son's experience in boot camp.  Like my brother, John Schaeffer joined the Marines out of the blue and against the will of his family.  Also like my family, John's dad (and the rest of the family) rallied around him and supported him once he had joined and departed for boot camp.

Reading "Keeping Faith" enlightened me.  It helped me understand what my brother went through, why it was hard for him to find time to write letters, why he told us not to send packages or write on the outside of his envelopes, why he was different when we saw him again at Family Day and graduation.  As a loyal big sister, I had tried my best to understand.  While I cannot say I fully understand now, I understand a little bit more of what my brother went through in boot camp and the reasons for his change in personality.

This book touched my heart, mostly because the relationship between my brother and I is a sore spot right now.  It speaks volumes to the loyalty and love of family, even when they disagree over a life path one of their number has chosen to take.

I would recommend this book to several people.  First, to those who have family in the Marines.  It helps you understand, a little bit more, what they struggle so hard to put into words when they tell you the experience is hard but the best thing they have ever chosen to do.  Second, I would recommend this book to young people who are considering the Marines.  It seems to give you a small snapshot of what you are contemplating doing in joining the Marines.  Third, I would recommend this book to anyone who needs a reminder of how important the unconditional love of family is, whether you agree with the choice your family member made or not. 

"Keeping Faith" isn't really about keeping faith; it's about keeping the loving bonds strong in a family.

An Embarrassing Moment

I am clumsy by nature, so I have no shortage of potential embarrassing moments; however, the flip side of this is that I have a personality that doesn't get embarrassed by much.  When I look back, there aren't a lot of moments that stick out to me as embarrassing.  As I contemplated this topic, the first moment that came to mind was an event that happened only last year.

My boyfriend and I had just been dating for a month or two.  He had bought a house about six months prior to me, and I was currently looking to buy a house.  Our discussions often centered around home ownership and home decorating.  He told me about a store he thought I would like and find helpful in decorating a new home - At Home.

We were out on a date one evening, and we were near the store.  We decided to go in and have a look.  We were wandering around, exploring the garden aisles, when I picked up a huge, two or three feet long, set of wind chimes.  I had always wanted wind chimes for my back patio and being this close to home ownership, I was starting to look for those items I'd always wanted and knew I'd put to use very soon.

Everything was fine until I went to place the wind chimes back on the hook.  The hook was overly full of those huge wind chimes, and even though I tried to hook the set I had securely, it fell off and hit the floor with a loud clang as soon as I released my hold on it.

I'm pretty sure this is the only time I've ever been embarrassed in the nearly year and a half that he and I have been dating.  My face turned red, I scrambled to pick up the chimes and replace them, and I looked around fully expecting a sales associate to appear to investigate the ear-splitting noise.  I stuttered to explain it to my boyfriend, who I liked very much, but didn't know very well yet.

He wasn't embarrassed at all; in fact, we still laugh about this event to this day.  Surprisingly enough, despite my embarrassing moment, I even still shop at At Home.

The Best Trip of My Life

I mentioned it before - the best trip of my life.  I have a whole blog about this trip.  It's been almost three years since this trip ended, and I still talk about it monthly, if not weekly.

It started as a distant, foggy dream.  It started when I read books like "Travels with Charley" by John Steinbeck and "A Walk Across America" by Peter Jenkins.  These authors explored America - it's cities, it's small towns, and most of all, it's people.  Their writing made me hungry to do the same.

First, I wanted it to be a walk across America.  I wanted the leisurely pace to really explore and soak it all in.  Then, I realized that I would never have the time to walk all the places I wanted to explore in America.  Plus, it might not be too safe to walk across America as a young single woman.  My next plan was to bike across America.  I got farther on this plan.  I did the research on the kind of bike, the saddle bags, the packing list, how to train, where to stay, even routes.  That was my plan: one day I would bike across America until that day in 2011.

I had graduated with my major in English in 2008.  I had immediately enrolled in an alternative teacher certification program at about the time Texas began making budget cuts in the department of education.  As an alternative certification teacher looking for an internship, I was at the bottom of the totem pole.  Meaning, I was the last person they looked to hire.  Everyone else on the playing field would get hired before me.

I spent every year from 2008 to 2011 looking for a teaching job.  By the time the summer of 2011 rolled around, I was about to give up on my dream and I knew I needed a change of pace.  I decided since life was handing me lemons, I would make lemonade out of them.  I looked at my bucket list and saw the trip across America.  I knew that was the lemonade I would make out of these lemons!

I spent six months working two jobs.  One paycheck went to my living expenses; the other paycheck went into the savings account for the trip.  I set the leaving date for March 2012.

There was one change, though.  I knew I didn't have the luxury of enough time and money to bike across the U.S.  I knew it would take too long.  Instead I sold my truck and bought an aging, but still in good condition, Toyota Corolla.  My mechanic brother looked it over, I made a few repairs, and she was ready to go.

My apartment lease expired on February 29 of that year, and I resigned from both of my jobs a day or two before that.  I put everything in storage, and then I loaded the absolute necessities in the little Corolla and took off.

I traveled until the middle of October - nearly eight months.  I made a big loop up through the midwest and then turned east until I hit Florida and drove across the south back home to Texas.  I took a week break at my parents to earn a little more money before taking off for the second loop - up through  the midwest again, then turning west.

I spent nights in my car and at campgrounds.  I spent too many nights to count at homes of generous friends and family, who not only put me up for the night, but fed me and often took me sightseeing.  In the entire eight months, I only spent one night at a hotel - a rainy night in Lancaster county, when I was too tired to try to fight the rain camping and I had a coupon for a discounted hotel room.

Those are the logistics, but I can hear you asking, "Why was it the best trip of your life?"

Perhaps it was the freedom and independence.  Every day was a new adventure without a lot of structure.  I could stop at Gettysburg National Park and tour it for five hours if I wanted.  I didn't have a lot of time constraints.  I could stop at a random roadside seafood restaurant in Maine to enjoy crab cakes if I wanted.  I could stay up late sharing heart-to-heart talks with old friends.

Perhaps it was all the time to think on my own.  I kept a blog, which helped me record a lot of my personal growth during that time.  I spent many hours on the road or on my own sightseeing and camping.  There was a lot of time to think during that time - time I used to think about my future, where I was going, what my goals were going to be when I returned home, if I wanted to change my career direction, etc.

I think it was all of the above.  I know I came home with a renewed vision, purpose, and goals.  I know I came home feeling refreshed and ready for the fray of life once again.  I know I miss those days in the little Toyota Corolla - just me and the car and the road.  I look back on them very fondly.  This is how I know it was the best trip of my life.