Portfolios (ePortfolios)

A very good resource for starting a portfolio program.  Short, sweet, and to the point information.  More help is needed regarding the Assessment part, but overall, a good read for anyone looking in to working with Portfolios.  Needs to be updated to include more appropriate information for ePortfolios, though.

(3 stars is because it's not an INTERESTING read.  But as far as an informative read about portfolios, it's at the top of the list.)

Pandas, Pandas, Pandas, Pandas

Any book about pandas gets a high five, in my opinion.  Jack and Annie do it again in Mary Pope Osborne's MAGIC TREE HOUSE #48:  A PERFECT TIME FOR PANDAS.  Annie is me in this book as she squeals over the pandas.  I'm so jealous that she not only gets to pet a panda, but she gets to hold one!!!  I know it's fiction, but still!

Several years ago, it might even have been 2008, my friend Teresa and I went to Washington, DC.  She to see some friends of hers and me to see the pandas at the National Zoo.  I was so excited that even though it was a very hot day and I almost passed out on the walk from the subway to the zoo, as we got inside the zoo, I couldn't wait for Teresa and her friend--I started RUNNING to the Panda paddock.  When I got there, I proceeded to squeal (yes, like a stuffed pig) over the beautiful pandas.  Every time one of them would move, I'd squeal again!!!!  Mei Xiang and Tian Tian and their cub Tai Shan are SOOO beautiful!  It was so wonderful to see them!  I stayed as long as I could, but I knew Teresa and her friend were waiting for me in the hot sun, so I cut my visit a little shorter than I would have otherwise.  Regardless, it was SOOOO wonderful seeing my pandas!!!

Then, last year, James and Samuel took me to Zoo Atlanta where we saw the pandas there, Lun Lun and Xi Lan and their baby Po (named after the panda in KUNG FU PANDA).  I think both James and Samuel thought I would come out of my skin as we drove the long way down.  Once we got to the zoo, I danced and jumped around like a two-year old on her first trip to Disney World!  Again, as we got closer to the panda paddock, I couldn't wait; I ran to them!  I started squealing (yeah, like a stuffed pig again) even before I saw them fully.  I gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed and gazed and took pictures and took pictures and laughed and cried and squealed and had the time of my life.  It was so very wonderful!!!  What a GREAT birthday present!!!!

I have so much panda paraphernalia, it's not even funny.  I have stuffed pandas, panda blankets, panda bed-spread, panda mousepads, panda nail files, squeaky pandas, robot pandas, panda calendars, copies of every magazine (as far as I know) that's been published with articles about pandas, panda towels, a panda scarf, a sign on my office door that says "Warning:  Panda in Human Body," and so many other panda items it's WONDERFUL!!!  I even cross-stitched cuddly pandas--it's hanging on the wall in my spare bedroom in my house!  I also have THE AMAZING PANDA ADVENTURE movie which is soooo much better than that ridiculous movie about a pig!!!  (How could a movie about an ugly, dirty, stinky PIG do better in the theaters than a movie about an adorable, cuddly PANDA????)

I truly LOVE pandas so very much.  If I had been interested at all in Biology, I would have become some sort of animal worker so I could get a job working with pandas all the time!!!

What makes this book even more amazing is the fact that Jack and Annie go to China to the Wolong Reserve when the terrible earthquake happened on May 28, 2008.  They helped save some pandas and helped at the reserve.  So awesome.

I read the whole book in less than an hour.  Kid's book or not, I enjoyed it simply because it's about Pandas!!!!

The Dawn has Broken

Yes!  Is it weird that I want to turn right around and read all the TWILIGHT books again?!  (I'm already thinking about going back to HP, so why not TWILIGHT, too?!)  I must say that this time in reading BREAKING DAWN, I seemed to focus on Stephenie's errors.  Her biggest problem is split infinitives.  I would think that by her 4th book, between her and her editors, that problem would have been corrected.  But rather than correct it, it's worse!  UGH!  That reason and that reason alone is what is going to keep the TWILIGHT series out of any serious educations pursuits as well as the Literary Canon of "great" literature.  I'm sorry, Stephenie.  I LOVE the TWILIGHT series; I'm a twi-hard and proud of it, but it's true.

I also found a huge mistake....at least I think it was a mistake.  I can't imagine that it was on purpose.  Once Alice has her vision and the Cullens realize the Volturi are coming to destroy them, Renesmee puts her hand on Bella's face and thinks about each member of their family:  "She showed me my own face, Edward's, Jacob's, Rosalie's, Esme's, Carlisle's, Alice's, Jasper's, flipping through all our family's faces faster and faster.  Seth and Leah.  Charlie, Sue, and Billy" (570).

Do you see it?!  Do you see who's missing?!  I don't want to tell you; I want you to see it for yourself, but I can't help it....Emmett!  How in the world does Stephenie FORGET our beloved, muscled Emmett?????  Renesmee would NOT have forgotten him....THAT is an author error.  I can't believe she include Seth, Leah, etc., but FORGETS Emmett!!!!! 

In spite of my negative comments, I honestly LOVE the TWILIGHT series.  This 5th or 6th reading (or whatever number I'm on now) has been just as much fun as the first time I read the series.  In fact, I probably love the series more now than I did before.  While it will never be GREAT literature, it's FUN literature.  I like reading things where I don't have to get deeply involved in symbolism, setting, characterization, theme, etc., etc., etc. 

Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE the literary stuff, too.  I wouldn't be teaching ENGLISH if I didn't!  It's just that it's nice for a change to read something simple and fun.  It's why I read the Mary Balogh books and Stephen King.  Why not add Stephenie Meyer to that list?!

Re-reading books...HAMLET

It has been a pretty long time since I last read HAMLET.  I almost felt like I was reading it for the first time this time through.  I know the story, but there were so many details that really stood out for me this time that I just didn't remember. 

I love that about re-reading books, though.  (BTW:  Samuel was telling me the same thing earlier.  Maybe that's why this blog is going in that direction, but it was on my mind, honestly, prior to his telling me that ever time he re-reads a book or re-watches a movie, he sees new things, new details that he didn't see before which makes it worth re-reading books or re-watching movies.  He wants to re-read the HARRY POTTER series.  I'm so excited that he wants to read them all again!!!) 

Anyway, over the years, because of my job, I've re-read quite a few things and I've almost never minded re-reading anything.  Of course, I've re-read A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM that if I have to read it one more time, I'm going to scream, which is why my students are reading HAMLET this semester rather than the other!  UGH!  I still love BEOWULF, GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT, THE CANTERBURY TALES, FRANKENSTEIN, THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GREY, and the list goes on and on!!!  Every reading brings out new things for me as well as reminds me of why and how much I loved the books in the first place!

As you know, I've been re-reading the TWILIGHT series--for about the 5th or 6th time, I've lost count by now.  And every time they're just as much fun to read as the first time!  It's the same way with the HARRY POTTER books and so many others!  Even though I can remember so many details (including character names a lot of the time) from the vast majority of the books I've read over my almost 40 years of reading, I am awed by how much I love reading a book again and again--and by how much I can love the book just as much with the 5th reading as with the first!

HAMLET is not my favorite Shakespearean play by any stretch of the imagination, but even so, I definitely enjoyed the re-read.  I have a new appreciation for the man Hamlet than ever before.  I feel his pain so much deeper now after everything I've been through.  I understand his deep frustration with his mother more than ever before.  I can even get his hesitation in acting on his knowledge of his father's murder.  I can also so many inferences to so many other stories, especially other plays by Shakespeare.  It's just fascinating.

Bree & Fred

Bree really is an interesting character in ECLIPSE.  While I didn't wonder about her and who she was or what her life was like, once I saw (a few years ago) that Stephenie had written Bree's story, I found that I wanted to know more about this wild newborn who'd come to kill Bella.  And I wasn't disappointed.  Of course, I wish Bree had made better choices, but that isn't who she was.  It's so tragic that Bree finally finds someone to love in the vampire world only to have him ripped, literally, from her the very next day.  I like that she had a relationship with Diego.  It's sad that it didn't last but a day, but it's still adorable. 

My favorite character in Bree's story, though, is Fred.  I love Fred.  His special ability is so strange, it's fantastic.  And the fact that he's smart enough to duck out rather than follow Riley blindly is fantastic.  The disappointing part is that he doesn't show up again.  I wish they'd found him and brought him in for BREAKING DAWN.  He would have made a wonderful asset in the "fight" against the Volturi.  Not to mention what a great character he is and that I'd love to see more of him! 

I wouldn't mind if Stephenie decided to write HIS story, too!!!!