The beginning of school has never been easy, and since becoming a teacher, it has only gotten harder. Starting the week before, anxiety would begin to kick in until the night before when I wouldn't be able to sleep. Even weeks before school starts, I'll have dreams where I show up to school without a syllabus, without a class roster, or the students just ignore everything I say, but usually the nightmare is about school - not the day before school starts.
Well, today is the first day of school and yesterday was pretty much a nightmare. Actually, last week was a nightmare as well - I still don't have a school laptop so I couldn't print, check emails, or plan very well, and a migraine hit around Wednesday around the same time my throat started to hurt. Our text books wouldn't be delivered until school had already started, the studio had failed final inspection... you name it, it went wrong. By Friday I was ready to go home.
Saturday was rough, but not as bad as when I went to bed. I could not sleep. My daughter, who we have been trying to get to sleep by herself, actually slept about 4-5 hours alone while I kept waiting for her to wake up to do something about it my agony. Finally, she did, and I took something but I felt distinctly feverish. Sunday morning I had a 100 degree fever. Great. Tomorrow is the first day of school - how can I stay home?
I go to Quick Care and see a doctor, get a prescription that took the pharmacy 45 minutes to fill, then go home to find out that my daughter has scratched my husband's eye while I was gone.
Back to the emergency room with the baby and husband. Things went slowly, but relatively smoothly until we tried to fill his prescription: Walgreen's had a thirty minute wait, so we went for yogurt, but when we got back, we found out that they thought we were just getting out of line so we started from the bottom again. Then they couldn't find proof that insurance would cover his eye drops, so at 11 o'clock pm last night after a trip to the emergency room, Walgreens, and everywhere else, we finally get home. It was a bit much for any day, much less the Sunday before school starts.
But, you know, school went wonderfully today. I have wonderful classes, I teach wonderful subjects, and I'm feeling so much better.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
My nook
When I finally made my decision which high-tech device I would purchase, I faced another equally daunting decision to make: Kindle vs. nook. I used to work at Barnes and Noble, so I remember concerns about the Kindle taking over the printed word well and how that didn't happen, then I heard from dear friends still working there that the manager's pay raises and benefits depend on how many nooks sell in a week, much like the dreaded Membership Card did when I worked there. I do not approve of this carnivorous practice, and for a long time was swayed against the nook for this reason, but as a consumer and not an employee, I allowed myself to remain objective.
Why I would have chosen the Kindle: the keyboard, the library, the weight and size, and the amount of time it had to fix bugs. It's been around longer. Half the people I have spoken to about this say Kindle instead of eReader.
Why I chose the nook: the size was still smaller and lighter than most of the books I read, the interface was relatively easy to navigate after some initial handling, and I am familiar with their search engines. Also, the removable battery was a better option to how the Kindle's is built in, and the flexibility it offers promises to keep it competitive (it has chess and soduko, and plans to add more options.) Also, I was able to handle it before I bought it. I would have liked to have seen a Kindle in person...
Why others did not even occur to me:
Sony: It did not offer even half of what the others did, and still was pretty expensive. I have an app on my phone that does pretty much what the Sony Reader does with a smaller screen.
I-Pad: I don't want another phone, lap-top device, or any other electronic device to have to depend on so much. I like my Droid. I did not get an iPhone because I do not want AT&T, and I have appreciated the freedom in Doid's market. I appreciate the extra help an I-Pad would offer, and I did consider getting that instead of a new laptop, but I wanted a reader without the backlight. It's literally true! No eye strain on my nook! Awesome!
Drawbacks to any ebook include the whole 'you don't actually own a book' thing. Recently, George Orwell's publishers removed Animal Farm and 1984 which is ironic on so many levels. I'm not happy about the control publishers have over already published works, not to mention the very real threats that are posed in 1984, but because I still have my books in print, I am not too concerned about my reading material on the nook. The nook is mainly for things I want to see from The Daily Show, Colbert Report, or some random health book - none of these books would affect my professional life, and I am not an archivist. If you are either, you should NOT get an ebook for these reasons. Besides, flipping pages is hard enough. Using buttons to scan through pages would be silly.
So, how do I like it so far? I love it! I'm reading more, I'm watching TV less, and my wrists don't hurt as bad. Turning from one page to the next without a bookmark is difficult, and making marks are challenging, but worth it if you are just reading the book.
What am I reading, anyway?
I'm reading Change Your Brain, Change Your Body which is surprisingly obvious, and The Mysterious Benedict Society, which is surprisingly brilliant. If you enjoy puzzles and Harry Potter, you would like it - like the computer game, Myst; but I have to admit, I'm not reading it on the nook. I'm struggling with the print version, enjoying every word.
As I said, ebooks have not, will not, nor should not, get rid of the written word.
Why I would have chosen the Kindle: the keyboard, the library, the weight and size, and the amount of time it had to fix bugs. It's been around longer. Half the people I have spoken to about this say Kindle instead of eReader.
Why I chose the nook: the size was still smaller and lighter than most of the books I read, the interface was relatively easy to navigate after some initial handling, and I am familiar with their search engines. Also, the removable battery was a better option to how the Kindle's is built in, and the flexibility it offers promises to keep it competitive (it has chess and soduko, and plans to add more options.) Also, I was able to handle it before I bought it. I would have liked to have seen a Kindle in person...
Why others did not even occur to me:
Sony: It did not offer even half of what the others did, and still was pretty expensive. I have an app on my phone that does pretty much what the Sony Reader does with a smaller screen.
I-Pad: I don't want another phone, lap-top device, or any other electronic device to have to depend on so much. I like my Droid. I did not get an iPhone because I do not want AT&T, and I have appreciated the freedom in Doid's market. I appreciate the extra help an I-Pad would offer, and I did consider getting that instead of a new laptop, but I wanted a reader without the backlight. It's literally true! No eye strain on my nook! Awesome!
Drawbacks to any ebook include the whole 'you don't actually own a book' thing. Recently, George Orwell's publishers removed Animal Farm and 1984 which is ironic on so many levels. I'm not happy about the control publishers have over already published works, not to mention the very real threats that are posed in 1984, but because I still have my books in print, I am not too concerned about my reading material on the nook. The nook is mainly for things I want to see from The Daily Show, Colbert Report, or some random health book - none of these books would affect my professional life, and I am not an archivist. If you are either, you should NOT get an ebook for these reasons. Besides, flipping pages is hard enough. Using buttons to scan through pages would be silly.
So, how do I like it so far? I love it! I'm reading more, I'm watching TV less, and my wrists don't hurt as bad. Turning from one page to the next without a bookmark is difficult, and making marks are challenging, but worth it if you are just reading the book.
What am I reading, anyway?
I'm reading Change Your Brain, Change Your Body which is surprisingly obvious, and The Mysterious Benedict Society, which is surprisingly brilliant. If you enjoy puzzles and Harry Potter, you would like it - like the computer game, Myst; but I have to admit, I'm not reading it on the nook. I'm struggling with the print version, enjoying every word.
As I said, ebooks have not, will not, nor should not, get rid of the written word.
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