Takin' Care of Business

Tomorrow morning will be the first day of teacher in-service that I have not attended in eight years. Without fail, the end of August heralds in another academic year for me, and I readily anticipate it with my own new school supplies and ideas for my students. However, I have a newborn who is not yet a month old. Therefore, I will be sitting out the entire first six weeks of the school year. And as I think about all that I'd like to do in my classroom and with my lessons, my emotions are getting the better of me. 

It's tough because I wouldn't want people to think I don't love my own children. I have two beautiful boys:

Being able to hang out with my 3-year-old this summer before the baby was born made for great memories. Since the baby arrived, I have equally enjoyed the cuddling and loving that a baby requires to be happy. There is no doubt that I love being a mom especially since my children totally rock.

It's just very few people are blessed with jobs that they love. I AM TEACHING. Everything about it fits my personality. It is also a great feeling that in a small way I am changing the future. There are so many minds to open and enlighten. Not to mention how much I learn from the students who walk into my class. In the past eight years I have influenced and been influenced by roughly 1200 students. That's only counting the ones I have directly taught.

So tomorrow morning when my alarm doesn't go off but I wake up at 6 o'clock anyway to feed my baby, I will probably fight back tears because I know that the academic world will continue to spin without me.

Mad About Hatters

Oddly enough I am not a fan of the actual stories Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. I have tried to enjoy it every time I force myself to read them. I just can't do it. The writing feels flat and gets incredibly boring incredibly quickly. What I do LOVE are all the interpretations of Alice's adventures. In actuality, most people are interpreting the animated Disney version which is far more entertaining than reading the stories. A couple of my favorites are Tim Burton's version from 2010 and the Frank Beddor Looking Glass Wars book series.

In all honesty, there was a 100% chance I was going to like Burton's Alice because Tim Burton is pure genius especially when he teams up with Johnny Depp and Danny Elfman. I was right. The idea that Burton brings Alice back to Wonderland to fulfill a prophesy based off of Carroll's poem "Jaberwocky" is a unique way to pay homage to both the stories and Disney's animated version of them.

With Beddor's book series he explores the possibility that not only are Alice's adventures real, but she is our salvation from her evil aunt who goes between Wonderland and our world meddling with dark and dangerous things. It it young adult fiction, so it didn't take me long to read the books which I greatly appreciate since I'm a working mom with a newborn.

The other day I was channel surfing and caught the last 30 minutes of a show on the Syfy channel, and within that half hour I realized it was another version of the Alice story. I immediately looked into it, and thanks to instant streaming on Netflix was able to watch the two part mini-series Alice. (Actually, I've watched it multiple times because I like it so much. I'm sure my husband is sick of seeing it on the television.) The version Syfy created was actually quite clever. It also had some big names like Kathy Bates, Tim Curry, and Colm Meaney. But the best part was that I met him...

Okay, that's a goofy wallpaper that I will probably put on my laptop. Here is a better shot of the British actor Andrew-Lee Potts...

What can I say? His version of Hatter is great and I had to know what else he had starred in. So I did what anyone with too much time on her hands during summer break would do: I searched for info on him instead of working on lesson plans for next year.

Do I now follow him on Twitter? Why yes I do. Did I watch interviews of him on YouTube? Why yes I did. Did I then begin watching the show Primeval on Netflix because he is a main character? Of course. And that has caused a whole other problem/blog post.

For now I will continue to follow Mr. Potts' career like a good little fanatic.