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2002-03-10 - 2:03 p.m. Aglaia mentioned that the gray font on my page was really light on her screen. I hope it is easier to read now. Thanks for telling me, Aglaia! Epiphany was talking about a game he was playing with friends and one of the questions was "What book has had the most profound impact on your life?" What a cool question. I have an easy answer for that: The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I read it for my sophomore Honors English class and it affected me deeply. I remember that the Spike Lee movie came out that same year so we walked over to the movie theater and saw it as a class. I didn't really like that class, or the teacher, but I am really grateful to her for exposing me to that book. Part of the reason it held such meaning for me was that I was in love for the first time, in my first serious relationship, and the guy happened to be black. I was sort of questioning my identity as a "white girl." I also was really interested in Malcolm X's approach. Of course I have all the respect in the world for Martin Luther King Jr., but during sophomore year somehow Malcolm X's way of doing things was much more appealing. And really, he wasn't as militant as he has been portrayed. Read the book, it's a great one. Speaking of great books, I am back from my NCTE conference. It was great experience for me, although it got a little lonely and boring after awhile. I came away with tons of ideas, but I was sad I had to do it by myself with no real friends with me. Also, I thought I would run into more people I knew, but I didn't. I only saw the mentor teacher of one of my old classmates, a few people from my district who went, and two people from my teaching program (but ones I didn't know very well). The highlight of my trip was seeing Sherman Alexie speak. For anyone who doesn't know this guy, you have to go out right now and read some of his stuff (he's another life-changer). He is the author of poetry collections, as well as the short story collections The Toughest Indian in the World and The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven. He also wrote and produced the screenplay for the film Smoke Signals. I was expecting him to be sort of scary, but he was so funny. He was a really great speaker. I wrote down some of the things he said so I'll have to remember to post some of them here. It was so cool getting to see one of my favorite authors speak. I also got a lot of free stuff at the conference. There were some really cool publishers there who let me have free novels and posters. I got all this stuff on Great Expectations which I probably won't be teaching this year, but will probably teach next year. I am really excited about all the free stuff. I also got this cool, though nerdy, book bag. It has a Shakespeare quote on the side and looks very English teacher-ish. I figure it's about time I had a nerdy-teacher-tote-bag like all the other teachers. I had a lot of fun with Helen this weekend, too. We did some shopping at the mall, hung out, and I ate a ton of food. She is a great cook. Plus I watched a lot of TV. I felt bad that she couldn't go to the conference with me. I bought her a book there as a present and she was really excited about that. I am not really looking forward to tomorrow, especially since I have not yet figured out what I'm doing with the sophomores. When in doubt, read a story in the Lit. book...blah. Oh, as far as my exercise goes, I didn't do the Gazelle while I was gone, but I did walk a lot because I parked about fifteen minutes away from the conference every day. I will do the Gazelle again tonight, plus Helen showed me these leg things that she says work after nine weeks.
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