Frazzled Reflections

Today, for the first time ever, we took both children to an amusement park. Our daughter has been to Disney (more on that when we get to our Magic Kingdom day) and both have been to the zoo numerous times, but we had never gone to an amusement park as a whole family. That is, until today. In Orlando there are many choices for family entertainment, but when you are the parents of two small children, there are different factors to consider than those with older children. While it may certainly cost less to take your family to the parks (children under three are free at most parks and they tend to eat less) you also have to decide if it is worth the money that you will be spending in addition to the exhausted children at the end of the day. Older children may cost more but they are also able to do more, remember more of what they did, and they usually have significantly more stamina in the sleep department than toddlers. Or at least, they are much better at pretending that they do. ...

The third book in a trilogy is tricky. I've been reading a long time and I've read a lot of series and a lot of endings to series. For example, I love both Return of the King and Deathly Hallows . Both novels wrap ups series and characters that I grew to love over the course of reading all of the books. They conclude the series in a logical way while also giving the reader just enough information to believe that the characters one has grown to love have a fruitful future ahead of them. Life will not be perfect. life may not even be easy, but they have a future that will be more positive than negative. I remember my disappointment after finishing Mockingjay , the conclusion to the Hunger Games series. While not the greatest of literary achievements, I did enjoy the series. However, Mockingjay was a letdown after the action packed, character driven Catching Fire . I wanted to see where their story ended up, but it was kind of slow and predicable. I guess that's what hap...

I am not a fan of horror fiction. As a child and pre-teen I didn't get into the Goosebumps series or Christopher Pike books. I like mysteries, but I still don't like horror films. I can handle a good psychological thriller (like Silence of the Lambs ) but I hate slasher films. They are gross, purposelessly violent, and make me afraid of the dark. To this day I still have not seen any of the Friday the 13th films or any related to that genre from my childhood. The closest I have come is seeing Gremlins , and let's be honest, that is child's play next to Chucky. But I love fiction that speculates on what could be. Fiction that looks at our sinful human nature and explores what would happen in the face of any kind of worldwide disaster. So when a new show was being advertised during the early seasons of Mad Men , my husband encouraged me to watch. I have never liked zombie fiction, but within the first couple episodes of The Walking Dead I was hooked. It wasn't the...

No, we have not brought in the nativity. Poor Joseph is just praying that he will see his family again.  I am a California baby who has spent her entire academic career in the northern half of the United States. I fondly remember those rare snow days in Detroit, MI. Snow was far from a rarity, but those snow days in the city were a treat. There was one Valentine's Day party that got completely skipped, which was probably a good thing since the Valentine's Day cards my mom had ordered from Current hadn't arrived in time for the scheduled party. We built snowmen and forts and dug through the snow fully decked out in poofy snow pants and boots. Then we moved to Illinois where we experienced more of the same kind of weather, although maybe with a little less of the hardy Michigan attitude toward snow. Then came five years in Wyoming where days off of school for snow were rare. Our first year there it hit -40 degrees the week before Christmas and we still went to school. ...

Here in the Midwest we are currently enduring the worst winter that I remember in 34 years. Sure, I've endured cold winters and I've endured snowy winters, but this winter takes the cake. Technically I have been back at school for 16 days. I have worked nine out of those 16 days because of snow/ice/cold days. We've heard about about the polar vortex, we've witnessed the weather reporters shivering in the cold all around the Midwest and Northeast, and we've seen the photos and memes advertising just how cold it is outside. With the last two days off of school I have stayed at home with my two young children, making the decision to not take them out into the cold to daycare. Yes, this winter appears to be quite the phenomenon. And it's not just because of the weather outside of our houses. For years there has been a lot of discussion in the scientific community concerning first "global warming" and now "climate change." The argument is that t...

It's difficult when I start a trilogy and I am not "in love" with the first book, especially when there are enough unanswered questions that I want the answers to. I feel the need to go on to the next book. I want to know the answers despite my initial lack of full personal investment. I enjoyed Divergent . It was a decent book by YA lit standards and it had some good points going for it, which I laid out in my first review . That being said, I was still a little hesitant about venturing into Roth's second book in the series, Insurgent . I exited Insurgent pleasantly surprised. I wasn't sure what to expect. The extensive exposition in Divergent related to the budding romance between Tobias and Tris prepared me for more of the same. Instead the book moved past the unnecessary sexual tension between the two teenagers and moved into the story of a utopia falling to pieces around them. Those who escaped the Dauntless/Erudite-led attack on the Abnegation sector...

Sounds like a strange thing for a high school English teacher with a Master's degree to say, doesn't it? After all, I spend two periods a day with AP students who are supposedly planning to use any credit they might get on a College Board test to help them get through college faster. I spend the other three periods a day teaching juniors American Literature, most of whom will go on to college to earn a degree in their chosen field. But notice that I qualified that statement with the word "most." We are in a strange place in American education right now. Some changes are for the better but there many more changes and reforms necessary if we are going to regain our position as a world leader in education, innovation, economics, and politics. There are too many reforms to discuss in just one blog post so I am here to propose one change. Stop telling kids that the only way they can succeed in life is to get a four year college degree. I'm not saying that a col...