AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Mar. 19th, 2004 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xaaraCalculus and I have a love/hate (or is it a hate/love?) relationship. We generally get along, especially when all that he asks of me is the occasional derivative and integration, perhaps a little fundamental theorem. But when Calculus shows up demanding that I use an infinite number of cylinders to calculate the volume of a paraboloid (which, I might add, I could care less about), I draw the line. Some subjects are just cocky enough to think I have immense expanses of time to spend on them. "No reading, writing, exercise, or other enjoyable activity," they say. "Just me, me, me!" They're annoyingly selfish.
Advanced Placement tests are coming up soon, and the school just informed me that since my family does not qualify as low-income, we have to pay more than they originally quoted us. No matter that we compare juice prices in the grocery and have a nasty mortgage on our house, we have to pay a ridiculous sum of money for tests that most likely determine a lot about college. I told my teacher that this morning. "It's funny," I said, "Because I can pay for the tests, but now I can't go to college." My teacher thought it was hilarious. Most of the class thought it was mildly witty. One extraordinarily dense girl thought it was true.
We have a concert on Sunday for which we are not at all prepared. We're playing Romeo & Juliet by Tchaikovsky, Three Dances by Khachaturian, Saturday Night Waltz and Hoe-Down from Rodeo by Copland, and Rhapsody in Blue with this virtuostic marimbist who makes me feel terrible every time she plays. I mean, I can slap down a pretty decent Saber Dance or even Porgy and Bess, but she's just flying all over the bars. And her marimba is huge. Actually, the word "huge" doesn't even begin to describe it. It comes in twenty-odd pieces which all screw and clip and slide together and when you touch it it lets off the most amazingly rich sound. I've been told it sells for USD 10,000+. Of course, this means that I won't be getting one until I win the lottery.
PEN/Faulkner, a program that, among other things, arranges for authors to visit schools around the US, sent my AP Lit class an author today. We'd all read his book, Breaking Her Fall, an awful excuse for literature that was poorly conceived, poorly developed, and on top of all that, poorly written. We were prepared to speak nicely to him so we wouldn't feel bad when he jumped out the window upon hearing what we truly thought of his book. Actually, I suppose a little background is appropriate here. This author, Stephen Goodwin, wrote a book that's marketed as a story about a father and daughter, which it's really not. It's not about anything realistic, and it's certainly not about the daughter, who's a character about as round as a crepe. Or really even about the father, whose voice rambles on and on as if he has absolutely nothing better to do than write about himself. (Like me, in a way. :p )
Okay. This author showed up in our classroom and started talking and I recognized him immediately. Well, not him per se, but his voice, his diction, everything about him matched the main character of his book perfectly. So now I have a much better understanding of the book - it's just the author putting himself in a situation, writing about it, and then thinking someone else is going to care. It's arrogance in the extreme, and it's quite a turn-off. Not to mention the fact that Goodwin disparaged public education in Washington DC in front of my class. I felt like saying, "Don't you realize you're in a public school? And that we're proud to be part of a public school? And that public education is at least equal to and in some ways more comprehensive than a comparable private education?" But I didn't, of course. I just sat there and told the man, in so many words, that I didn't connect to his book because the characters were entirely unrealistic. I added under my breath that I also didn't like it because I couldn't stand the main character. That, however, would have struck home with the author and I wasn't feeling vindictive.
If I ever publish a book I now know what not to do. I'll run it by an audience of the group about which it's written. I'll have something interesting happen. If nothing interesting happens, I'll at least include a witty or funny character. Or maybe, if it's as bad as this latest attempt at literature, I won't publish it at all.
Advanced Placement tests are coming up soon, and the school just informed me that since my family does not qualify as low-income, we have to pay more than they originally quoted us. No matter that we compare juice prices in the grocery and have a nasty mortgage on our house, we have to pay a ridiculous sum of money for tests that most likely determine a lot about college. I told my teacher that this morning. "It's funny," I said, "Because I can pay for the tests, but now I can't go to college." My teacher thought it was hilarious. Most of the class thought it was mildly witty. One extraordinarily dense girl thought it was true.
We have a concert on Sunday for which we are not at all prepared. We're playing Romeo & Juliet by Tchaikovsky, Three Dances by Khachaturian, Saturday Night Waltz and Hoe-Down from Rodeo by Copland, and Rhapsody in Blue with this virtuostic marimbist who makes me feel terrible every time she plays. I mean, I can slap down a pretty decent Saber Dance or even Porgy and Bess, but she's just flying all over the bars. And her marimba is huge. Actually, the word "huge" doesn't even begin to describe it. It comes in twenty-odd pieces which all screw and clip and slide together and when you touch it it lets off the most amazingly rich sound. I've been told it sells for USD 10,000+. Of course, this means that I won't be getting one until I win the lottery.
PEN/Faulkner, a program that, among other things, arranges for authors to visit schools around the US, sent my AP Lit class an author today. We'd all read his book, Breaking Her Fall, an awful excuse for literature that was poorly conceived, poorly developed, and on top of all that, poorly written. We were prepared to speak nicely to him so we wouldn't feel bad when he jumped out the window upon hearing what we truly thought of his book. Actually, I suppose a little background is appropriate here. This author, Stephen Goodwin, wrote a book that's marketed as a story about a father and daughter, which it's really not. It's not about anything realistic, and it's certainly not about the daughter, who's a character about as round as a crepe. Or really even about the father, whose voice rambles on and on as if he has absolutely nothing better to do than write about himself. (Like me, in a way. :p )
Okay. This author showed up in our classroom and started talking and I recognized him immediately. Well, not him per se, but his voice, his diction, everything about him matched the main character of his book perfectly. So now I have a much better understanding of the book - it's just the author putting himself in a situation, writing about it, and then thinking someone else is going to care. It's arrogance in the extreme, and it's quite a turn-off. Not to mention the fact that Goodwin disparaged public education in Washington DC in front of my class. I felt like saying, "Don't you realize you're in a public school? And that we're proud to be part of a public school? And that public education is at least equal to and in some ways more comprehensive than a comparable private education?" But I didn't, of course. I just sat there and told the man, in so many words, that I didn't connect to his book because the characters were entirely unrealistic. I added under my breath that I also didn't like it because I couldn't stand the main character. That, however, would have struck home with the author and I wasn't feeling vindictive.
If I ever publish a book I now know what not to do. I'll run it by an audience of the group about which it's written. I'll have something interesting happen. If nothing interesting happens, I'll at least include a witty or funny character. Or maybe, if it's as bad as this latest attempt at literature, I won't publish it at all.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-19 07:57 pm (UTC)Good luck on your AP tests. Calculus...bleh.
So now I'm curious...if Breaking Her Fall isn't about the father and daughter, what's it about? (Never read it, doubt I will, just curious, like I said.)
I hope this doesn't open a sore spot again, but I'm sorry to hear about your friend's brother. Just before Christmas, almost the same thing happened to the son of a coworker, and I know it's really hard.
Oh, one more question I wanted to ask you... fast-pitch or slow-pitch softball? *g*
(no subject)
Date: 2004-03-20 03:01 pm (UTC)I couldn't really figure out the theme of Breaking Her Fall. The initial premise was that a father had been told that his daughter was involved sexually with some boys at a party, went to the location of the party to find her, and ended up accidentally knocking a boy in such a way that the boy fell into a table and lost his eye. So, at least at first, the book was interesting. But then the court case of the boy's father against Tucker (the main character) was lost amid the drifting of Tucker's life. Over the course of the novel, it seemed that the author changed his mind several times, deciding to focus on the court case, Tucker's adulterous relationship with a friend's wife, and Tucker's relationship with his daughter. Any one of those foci would have been perfectly adequate; together, their power was diminished severely.
Thank you for the sympathies. It's been difficult, but we're pulling together and I think his family is beginning the process of recovery.
Fast-pitch. That is, if we can find a fast pitcher.