The Mini-Vaca of Fall Break

As some of you know teaching full-time (face-to-face and online), doing university admin work, developing an new online course, reading, writing, housekeeping, and participating in online communities can be exhausting. Thank God our university (BGSU) acknowledges the mid-semester burn-out and rewards students and instructors with a Fall Break.

I needed it more than I thought I did.

Of course, I worked during Fall Break--revising lesson plans, developing my next semester's online class, housekeeping, etc.--but I managed to sneak a little bit of fun.

Thursday afternoon after some much needed vegging FD and I drove down to Findlay to buy some fresh veggies at the Farmers Market.

My only regret is that we just now found about this locally produced heaven. We got tasty heirloom tomatoes, fragrant basil, a perfect cauliflower, crisp peppers, just-dug-up potatoes, a ziploc baggie of very sweet lettuces, an gorgeous eggplant, delicious zucchini bread, homemade granola, a mouth-watering mini apple pie, awesome goat sausages, freshly ground turkey, and some jams.

Needless to say, we've been eating like royalty for the past few days.

There's nothing like getting food straight from the farmers, not some refrigerated, fluorescent-lit supermarket. Honestly, we didn't pay much more than grocery-store prices. And if we did, I'd rather support local farmers than Kroger.

Sadly, though, the Farmers Market's last week is this Thursday. FD and I teach during its 4:30-6:30 hours, but come May we will be visiting it all summer long. I can hardly wait, even though I'm dying for fall to get here.

(90 degrees in October...And there are still freakshows who think Global Warming does not exist!?! WTF?!?

In addition to our Farmers Market trip, my parents came in for a visit, which was super-nice.

We hung out at the house for awhile, grabbed a nice lunch at Biaggi's, and then looked at a mini-storage unit. (Yes, I got my masterful multi-tasking from my Pops. In addition to his work addiction. Pictures do speak a thousand words--one cliche that totally accurate.)

FD and I caught up on some movie watching too: The Last Mimzy (totally AWESOME--a family version of Donnie Darko in a way--5 out of 5 Hello Kittys) and 300 (rad camera work that slowed down footage so sequences replicated frames in a graphic novel--too bad the ending kinda sucked--4 out of 5 Hello Kittys).

We got a bike ride or two in and lots of reading.

Goodbye, Fall Break. I'll miss you until next year.

Hello, Final Drafts of Essay 2 and a very, very busy week.

Book Review and A Little Bonus

As rad as Ghost World by Daniel Clowes is, I think I would have enjoyed reading it more back in high school or undergrad.

Or maybe I just don't like the way it makes me feel about post high-school life--too many memories--good & bad.

Four Hello Kittys.

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I'm lucky to have a very talented hubby, who I love very much!

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New obsession: GoodReads

As you probably guessed, you can find me under Hellokitty.

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It's exhausting uploading my whole library. I've just included my favs and recent reads. One of these days I get my whole library on there...

The Speed of Dark & Fun Home--Two Book Reviews

Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark was a really interesting read about an autistic man, Lou, and his quest to understand his diagnosis and his relationship to the "normal" world. What was compelling to me was the similarities drawn between autism and "normal"--seriously I sometimes thought I could be diagnosed as autistic. My favorite chapter dealt with Lou and his reflections on his church and how God sees him.

My not so favorite things were the ending of this novel, which is a little too perfect for my taste. Also, the notion in the title "the speed of dark" (and light) was referred to way too much in the novel. I felt like I was being hit aside the head each time it was mention--let me rephrase that, each 10 times in every chapter it was mentioned.

I think this book definitely would appeal to those interested in autism, moral dilemmas, and the potential of science in the future as well as those interested in reflecting on what is "normal" in society, which, according this novel and my point of view is a very skewed and really close-minded notion.

I'd give it 3 1/2 Hello Kittys. That repetition of light and dark really ticked me off.

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Fun Home by Alison Bechdel is a fantastic graphic novel. The story line is for bookies who especially love Fitzgerald, Wilde, and Joyce. Bechdel does a great job of paying homage to these big dogs and threading them into a contemporary storyline that attempts to come to terms with Bechdel's sexuality and her relationship with her deceased father.

This memoir is riveting in its honesty, intellect, and emotion. Where I think sometimes graphic novels rely too much on the graphics and not enough on the language, Bechdel's narrative is just as strong if not stronger than the illustrations. Her power with language and unwavering ability to connect with literary texts upped the ante for other graphic novelists to focus just as much on the writing as the illustration frames.

I adored Fun Home, but the only drawback was that, at times, it was almost too literary. Sometimes I wanted more personal--I felt like Bechdel sometimes hid behind the literary to get out of the personal.

Regardless, it's a fabulous read!

4 Hello Kittys.

Graphic Novels Rock!

American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang is definitely a worth-while read.

The story line is really eye-opening to the issues of current-day assimilation, which are told through the eyes of the narrator Jing Jang. Carefully interwoven into Jing Jang's story are two other stories/fables that connect with Jing Jang's near the end of the novel.

The themes of race, culture, stereotyping, family, identity, and, in a sense, history are at the forefront and intelligently dealt with in a funny and, at the same time, emotionally honest manner.

Also, as a graphic novel it is easy to read. Some graphic novels are hard to follow because there's too many frames on one page, too much going on in each frame, and the print is too small to read. American Born Chinese has few frames to each page, which makes it easy to follow text/dialog, and Jang uses a good size font. Also, the drawings are very visually appealing and do an excellent job of conveying the (as I call it) "unsaid."

National Book Award finalist and winner of other literary awards, American Born Chinese is rich and thoughtful. It left a lasting impression on this reader.

4 1/2 Hello Kittys.