This is the project I've been working on. It's kind of like a rough draft right now, I may add or take away as we go along. Today was the first morning I went over it with the kids and it went pretty well. Ciaran was pointing at things and "explaining" with me. I think repetition will be key. I really like how it turned out!
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.
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.
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.
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!!
