Life is always interesting as an 8th grade lit. teacher, but this week has been especially trying. Take 290 students between the ages of 4 and 14 all getting a bad case of spring fever, a room thermostat stuck on hotter than blazes and add in the threat of snow falling this weekend and you'll get a little picture of what my week's been like. ( Read more... )

For those of you who don't subscribe to/visit HPANA on an hourly basis (Yes, sunnys you can ignore this post b/c I'm sure YOU already know this), here's some info about some casting for OotP:

Luna Lovegood and other casting news

I was especially interested by the casting of Dolores Umbridge! :)

First I heard this morning that CBS was taking charge of the Star Trek franchise (shudder) and then I get the news that The West Wing is being cancelled! What a bunch of basticles. :(

That's it, I'm movin' to Sparta!

Finally, we've gotten a comment (although unofficial) from the Vatican, through its official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano, on intelligent design theory and evolution. For those of you with NYTimes accounts, here's the whole article:

In 'Design' vs. Darwinism, Darwin Wins Point in RomeTake it with the usual grain of salt and it actually seems ( Read more... )

Little did I know as a student back in HS that our teachers hated report card time as much as we did. I think I may dread it even more on this end of the equation than I did on the receiving end. It makes me long for the days when all I had to worry about was the interminable math grade grounding. Oh how I long for the days when my punishment ( Read more... )

I've never been a fan of the "New Year's resolution." I think they're silly and noone ever keeps them. But, if I had to make one, THIS would be it!

In the year 2006 I resolve to:

Slap stupid people in the head.

Get your resolution here

Happy New Year! . . . smack!

All right all you iPod users or researchers:

Can anybody recommend a good fm transmitter adapter for the iPod video? I've read some review and it seems, from the limited research I've done, that the iTrip seems to be the most popular/most useful of the bunch. Any thoughts?

I remember doing something similar to this a couple years back, but I've seen a few movies since then, so here's how badly I need a life:

( And most of this was PRE-netflix! )

I ran across an interesting website Literary Births that has famous literary birthdays - authors (as opposed to their creations) and I discovered some pretty neat stuff:

Apparently ladyvyola isn't the only author (prolific and gifted no less!) who was born on December 18th:

Alfred Bester and Michael MoorcockHere are some other literary types who share ( Read more... )

DAMN Fairfax County Public Schools! Damn them straight to Hell! Whoever was responsible for making the call this morning on the weather must have a limp used Kleenex for a brain. It took me THREE AND A HALF HOURS to drive 14 miles to work today. At least I didn't have to worry about getting in trouble with the boss, since my mom AKA "the ( Read more... )