Last day of grading! Last day of grading!

I was going to wait to say anything until I was actually finished grading, but I'm just so excited that the end is in sight.  I only have a handful of research papers left to grade, and then I enter in the final grades for all my students, and then the semester is finally over!  (Except for my Helicon project, but that doesn't count...okay?  It doesn't, right?)

So, does anyone want to freaking celebrate with me some way when I'm finished??  I need a spa day or something because this semester has been TOUGH.

First non-school book in a long time!

I read Slammed by Colleen Hoover in about a day because I've been recreational-reading-deprived since school started last August (and it's a really easy read).  I chose this book because I previously read Colleen Hoover's novella, Finding Cinderella (free on Kindle) and enjoyed it a lot.

I really like falling in love type stories, but I have to say, I'm a little tired of stories like Slammed.  The fall in love immediately thing, and then lose my freaking mind when it doesn't work out thing.  Then, super fast forward to the future where everything worked out perfectly thing.  It made me really want to write a more realistic story, where the girl's feelings and actions towards herself and her entire family and life aren't completely dictated by her "relationship feelings."  Maybe someday.

Experimental Poem

In my Poetry Writing Workshop this semester, my teacher introduced us to something that is growing in popularity: digital poetry, which encompasses a lot of different things.  People are experimenting with combining sound and words, video and words, pictures and words.  These "poems" are not meant to be read without the accompanying visual elements.  It is growing in popularity so much that there are now some online literary magazines that publish these hybrid pieces.

For the class, we each had to create our own digital (or experimental) poem, and it was a lot of fun to see what people came up with.  Some inserted their poems into photos or paintings they had done, some created videos with music and voice, one created a Google map that pinpointed places where aspects of the poem took place.

Here is my experimental/digital poem.  Enjoy!  And I would LOVE to hear what you think of it, so leave comments.

Hiking

Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of the little hike we went on yesterday, because my camera is still broken.  I'm just so thrilled that the weather is suddenly allowing for extended periods of time spent outside.  We went to First Dam and did part of a trail that wound up the hill.  The boys loved it; Ciaran had to pick up and throw nearly every rock he came across, and Jude was happy to carry water and sunscreen in his "pack-pack."  Justin and I were probably more exhausted than the kids were afterwards, but it was so nice to be outside together!  Here's to summer!!

Aforementioned (on Facebook) Willow Wand

"Forget all you know, or think you know. All that you require is your intuition."

One of my favorite poems of all time

Traveling Through the Dark
by William Stafford

Traveling through the dark I found a deer
dead on the edge of the Wilson River Road.
It is usually best to roll them into the canyon:
that road is narrow; to swerve might make more dead.

By glow of the tail-light I stumbled back of the car
and stood by the heap, a doe, a recent killing;
she had stiffened already, almost cold.
I dragged her off, she was large in the belly.

My fingers touching her side brought me the reason--
her side was warm, her fawn lay there waiting,
alive, still, never to be born.
Beside that mountain road I hesitated.

The car aimed ahead its lowered parking lights;
under the hood purred the steady engine.
I stood in the glare of the warm exhaust turning red;
around our group I could hear the wilderness listen.

I thought hard for us all--my only swerving--,
then pushed her over the edge into the river.


I love the contrast between the deer and the car in the poem, and how the car (in stanza 4) almost comes alive, at the same moment that the fawn is dying.  And the speaker of the poem is so conflicted with what he knows he has to do.  There's nothing else to be done, and yet, there is a sadness and responsibility contained in that decision.

Family Pictures

Look at these two!!  They are so cute and getting so big!

 Look at these two!!  Aren't they just darling!  haha

 This is the last picture I took before I dropped and broke my camera  :(