I tried as best as I could to have a great day, a day that included at least a sampling of all the things I love to do and all the things I’m committing to do more of in the new year. I’ll make a quick list here for your generous perusal. So that, inContinue reading “On the First Day of 2024: Meditation, Bicycling, Music, Reading and Writing”
Tag Archives: reading
Mindfulness in 2023: A Reflection
It has been five years since I have written one of these end-of-the-year reflections. I’m coming into this one after rereading what I wrote in 2018. In the intervening half a decade, I must have been just too overwhelmed by COVID and the ending of a career in education to be bothered to do aContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2023: A Reflection”
The Book I Read: Michael Jarmer Writer Guy Returns for Season 2!
Jesus, take the wheel! I confess: it’s been eight months since my last podcast. I also confess it has been difficult if not impossible since the turn of the new year to commit time and energy toward The Book I Read, eight episodes in before it was essentially frozen in its tracks. I offer thisContinue reading “The Book I Read: Michael Jarmer Writer Guy Returns for Season 2!”
I’ve Got An Idea: The Literary Reaction Vlog
If you’ve perused the video introduction above, you get the gist of the idea. In keeping with the new interest in the REACTION vlog, in which a person reacts in real time to a media artifact like video or music that they have never seen or heard before, I propose to try a reaction vlogContinue reading “I’ve Got An Idea: The Literary Reaction Vlog”
A Journal of the Plague Year: #3
Number of cases of coronavirus in Oregon: 75. Number of Oregon deaths from the virus: 3. Number of student contact days lost thus far: 3. Number of student contact days expected to be lost, as of this moment: 27. Number of educational hours potentially lost: approximately 175. Number of plans in place (or announced) for remote schooling: 0. NumberContinue reading “A Journal of the Plague Year: #3”
Mindfulness in 2018: A Reflection
My meditation stats were stunning in 2018, comparatively, that is. Here’s the snapshot: one hundred and seventy-one consecutive days on the cushion as compared to one hundred and twenty four days the previous year. That’s an improvement of almost an entire two month’s worth of meditation on a cushion. However, I must confess that myContinue reading “Mindfulness in 2018: A Reflection”
#303: The American English Teacher Strategizes for Kids Who Don’t Read
He assigns the pages and when class convenes he understands in short order that only a few kids have bothered to do the reading. The age old dilemma of the high school English teacher: what can be done if kids won’t read, not can’t, but won’t or don’t? Reading everything in class, either out loud or in silence willContinue reading “#303: The American English Teacher Strategizes for Kids Who Don’t Read”
Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: December 9, 2017
I realize now that it might be possible to misunderstand the title of this blog series. I just want to make clear right out of the gate that our narrator is not talking about his penultimate year on the planet. Nope. He’s pretty healthy, save for some high blood pressure (which he is working toContinue reading “Diary of an English Teacher in His Penultimate Year: December 9, 2017”
#50: On Trying Again To Read Moby Dick (Again)
I’m not reading again, but instead, trying again to read for the first time, the problem being, as I’ve said before, not one of starting but of finishing, which, I fear is, but hope is not, a general pattern in my life. Call me Ishmael. What a great first line. I read it twenty timesContinue reading “#50: On Trying Again To Read Moby Dick (Again)”
Reading With My Boy On Easter Eve
It was a first, a first on this Easter Eve afternoon. Sure, we’ve read to our son at bedtime almost every night of the week since birth, but this was the first time ever, on this warmest and sunniest day of the year thus far, that my son and I were to sit down together,Continue reading “Reading With My Boy On Easter Eve”
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