Falling for/Cheating With (?) Kindle

For my birthday earlier this month, my husband surprised me with a Kindle.  Oh, I've wanted one since Amazon first introduced their e-book in 2007, but the still small voice inside my head just couldn't convince me that I needed to spend the money.  I love the technology.  I secretly laugh inside when I hear people saying "I'll never get one of those Kindles.  I just have to read the actual book.  The e-book just wouldn't be the same."

They are correct--the e-book just isn't the same as the printed text.  And that's a good thing.  How I love thee, Kindle...let me count the ways.

1.  I can lie in bed and hold it with one hand, snuggling under my warm quilt. My hand never gets tired.  I never have to use two hands to turn a page.

2.  I can enlarge the font to make it easier to read.

3.  I can shop for a new book anytime in the Kindle online store with the click of a button.

4.  I can take my Kindle anywhere and pull it out whenever I want to.  It's in a cover and looks like a journal or book.  I even downloaded a Bible to it and carry it to church.

5.  My library is with me whenever I want to change books.  I have anywhere from four to six books going at any one time, and the flexibility my Kindle gives me has changed my reading experience forever.  Now I may have ten or twelve books (or up to 1000) available to read anytime.

6.  I can email pdf files to myself from my approved emails.  The file I didn't have time to read at work I took home with me to read later that night on my Kindle.

7.  Each time I hold it, I'm subtly reminded that I am holding the equivalent of the printing press in my hand.  Hundreds of years from now, someone will be writing about the advent of the electronic book and the shift that occurred for reading and writing because of it.  History, in my hand.

No, Amazon did not pay me to write this blog post, which is why I'm going to mention a couple of negatives.  Amazon's Whispernet, the wireless network that delivers my e-books to my Kindle, is as slow as Christmas.  Hopefully that will change as the technology advances.

And finally, I did feel somewhat guilty when I ran into my favorite public librarian at an event in town this past weekend.  She mentioned that she hadn't seen me in the library in a few weeks, and I admitted to receiving my Kindle as a gift.  Her reply: "So now you're cheating on me with the Kindle."  Well, yes, I am, at least until the new wears off.  Books will always be my favorite things--now I just have a new medium with which to enjoy them. 

King's "Under the Dome": Everyman/Everywoman for Themselves

Do we all have Stephen King periods in our lives?  Mine was my senior year in college.  I plowed through most of the books King wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s that year.  Two have stuck with me because they made me think beyond the horror and gore: The Stand and Needful Things.  I'm going to add Under the Dome to this short list. 

These books of King's boil down to the basic struggle between good and evil.  The circumstances he creates within his plots bring out the best and the worst in his characters. And I am definitely drawn to characters. I have tried to explain to my husband, who does not understand yet accepts my book lust, that I am not as interested in the plots of books as I am the characters and how they respond to the circumstances within the plot.  And I am again drawn to Stephen King because of his ability to create a community of characters unlike any other writer I know.

Under the Dome overtly alludes to Golding's Lord of the Flies, but there are few adolescent males within this tale.  Instead, King weaves his magic creating this community filled with everymen and everywomen.  The people under the dome could be just like any of us.  Instead of placing a group of boys within a lawless, closed society, he closes a society to outside influence and allows the society to deteriorate within its dome while the rest of the world watches.  There is no outside adult who will fly in to save the day at the end of the book; instead, the characters under the dome must use their instincts to survive, and it is a child--of sorts--who saves those under the dome. 

Under the dome, currency is not important--instead, power is the evil that rules this little world.  I am sure King intends for me to draw parallels between ideologies, politics, health care, environmental issues and climate issues in the book and what is happening in American society today.  No surprise there.  But what does surprise me is the author's note at the end of the book.  This book has been a long time in the making, with the idea occurring to him early in his writing career.  Stephen, has America really been this corrupt for so long?

Expert Lurker Seeking Other Online Educators

I love my online networks.  Without them I would not be the educator I am today (and may not even be in education without them).  What's the draw?  Over the past ten years, I have thought long and hard about why I'm drawn to reading what others do or don't like to do in their classrooms.  I began learning through an online network when I was a student at Bread Loaf School of English in the summer of 1999.  Thank you Bread Loaf Teacher Network for teaching me how to interact with a group of professionals online.  Thank you for encouraging me to get my students involved with other students online. Because of BLTN I stayed in the profession.  I had the guts to get my doctorate.  So thank you, thank you very much.

Within the past three to four years, I've become involved in other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.  I read educator's blog posts and have many I follow, even if I don't agree with them philosophically.  I have tried to post on Twitter and my own blog regularly, but am only sporadically successful in posting.  Life has gotten in the way!  And I have been too easily defeated by people I categorize as gatekeepers of the technology within my professional life.  The only people who encourage me to use online networks to grow as an educator are online educators.  Unfortunately I haven't found many of these educators within my school building. 

Am I turning over a new leaf?  I always do after I've had a week or so off to regroup and refresh my mind.  This time, though, I want to find others like me out there.  I know you are there.   Here's another teacher who feels similarly--let's explore together.

If Hee-Haw Were Here Today...

Larry the Cable Guy would be holding the sign that said BR549.

Don't Forget Your "hiney" shot!

My eight-year-old daughter Rebecca said the darndest thing today. 

As she and my mother were riding through town after school, she asked my mom what a "hiney" shot was.  Not realizing my daughter had a flu shot at school earlier today, Mom was caught off guard by the comment.  When Mom asked her to repeat the question, Rebecca somberly asked her what a "hiney" shot was.  Then she pointed out a billboard and said, "You know, that 'hiney' flu shot that's up there on the sign."

Mom had to pull over to keep from having an accident.  The number one printed on the sign was in a sans serif font.  The sign actually read "Get Your H1N1 flu shot."  Smart kid.