Wednesday, March 26, 2014

Wednesday morning stuff

* Sadly, my instincts were correct: the person I suspected wouldn't get their paper done, didn't. And now it's Officially Late, so I can, in good conscience, refuse to accept it if it shows up. (This was someone who was present for lab so I know that this is not someone whose arms quit working or whatever.)

* Once again: it's 10% of my students that give me 90% of the frustration.

* I finished knitting the second sleeve of the Basketweave Pullover last night but didn't have the energy to start the finishing (sewing up, knitting on the collar, knitting on the zipper band, sewing in the zipper, weaving in ends).

* My stupid brain: two dreams: first, that I had started piano lessons again (but with a different teacher than the one I have). The teacher I had, in the dream, was very prescriptive and kept telling me I was doing everything wrong and how I needed to play JUST like she played or else I was demonstrating that I had no talent or ability. (Shut up, brain.). Second: I had to go past a public school to get to work (actually, had to walk THROUGH their multipurpose room). There were signs up advertising a Scholastic Book Fair and I thought, "Wow, I loved those when I was a kid, it will be fun to see what books are on offer" but when I went through it, all they had were toys and video games for sale and I was all "Where are the books?"

* I guess all the frothy speculation about what happened to Flight 370 was incorrect. And what I figured had happened (that they crashed in the ocean, sadly with no survivors) did. I wonder if talking heads on the news ever feel stupid after whipping up some kind of speculation that turns out to be utterly unreasonable.

I feel bad for the families in the middle of this. Especially because apparently some newsies followed them around after the announcement of "We are pretty sure the plane and everyone on board was lost in the ocean" to ask them how they "felt." I hope I never lose a family member or close friend in a tragic and newsworthy way, because I'd probably have some choice (and perhaps not FCC friendly) words for the person sticking the microphone in my face.

* Book news this week: There's a "new" translation of Beowulf being published. ("New" because it's new to publication - it was done by JRR Tolkein in the 1920s). Lynn noted this, and I also saw it on the Folio Society twitter feed. (At first I thought FOLIO was doing the edition, and I thought, "Wow, unless that's going to be one of their $500 "limited editions," I want to get that" but it looks like HarperCollins will do it.) I don't know if I'll buy it; I have a copy of the Seamus Heaney translation (which was widely lauded as great) on my shelves and have not yet read it.

I still might buy this when it comes out, though.

I need to make more time to read. 


1 comment:

Lydia said...

As of this year's Scholastic Book Fair at my school, the merchandise was overwhelmingly books. There were a few things that weren't- pointers that looked like hands, pencils, maybe some little stuffed animals with books- but almost all books.