Top Ten, in no particular order

Tonight when I was walking Piper, I was thinking about Susan Minot's novel Evening, which I finished reading today. I can't seem to shake this book. It was hauntingly sad, but not in the typical lugubrious, saccharine way. It ached in the places where you put away lost loves and relationships that will never, despite your best effort, actually work. I'm not sure the film adaptation will capture what made the book work, but whatever. God knows I'll see it.

Reading this book reminded me of my Moon Goddess of a sister Cyndy and the Top Ten lists on her blog. They started with the top ten "songs of her life" that she was playing to her stomach and unborn baby, and then she later carved out her top ten choral and orchestral pieces, and her top ten books.

Frankly, I loved reading these top ten lists, and would like to be the first to call for their return. In any shape or form, on any topic.

In that spirit, it seems a little absurd to not make a book list of my own.

I should say that this list is based on the presupposition that some books are too obvious to list. Those would be Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, Orwell's 1984, anything by Shakespeare (with the exception of a few of the histories), Bronte's Jane Eyre (sorry, but I'm still a little in love with Mr. Rochester...and what the hell, you might as well throw Pride and Prejudice in there because Mr. Darcy is about as good as they get in Victorian literature), Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, and Huxley's Brave New World.

It also does not include the obvious drama choices, which would be Beckett's Waiting for Godot, Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Wilder's Our Town.

Also, "Birches" by Robert Frost is my favorite poem.

In no particular order:

1. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

I think every junior high girl should read this book. I honestly believe it would make them stand up straighter and love themselves more.

2. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

This was the first book that made me believe there was more to literature than a plotline. It's probably the book I would credit with turning me into an English teacher.

3. The Family of Man created by Edward Steichen

Okay, so this one isn't actually a book, but was an exhibition created by Edward Steichen in 1955. It consisted of 508 photographs from 68 countries. The professed aim of the exhibition was to mark "essential oneness of mankind throughout the world." I wasn't around in 1955, but I have it in book form.

4. The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway. I once made all of my high school friends read this on choir tour so we could discuss it. And my dad thought I was going to be a doctor. Right.

5. The Once and Future King by T.H. White. This book should be required reading for all ninth graders of the world. I loved it so much (and like Cyndy, loved the last chapter of it so much) that I typed the whole damn thing out for Abby my junior year of high school. God, I was destined for nerdiness.

6. The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien.

This book made me believe that not all great books were written by dead authors. Probably the best book in any high school curriculum.

7. Beach Music by Pat Conroy. I love this book and have read it more times than any other book (that I haven't taught). I don't know what else to say about it. It is wonderful in every way.

8. My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult. This was the first of many Picoult books that I've read. It was good enough to keep me glued to the pages while driving through the beautiful Swiss countryside. I think I put it down to look out the window when we got to the Alps, but I'm not entirely sure. This book made me weep in a humiliating, undignified way.

9. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
I think I love this book so much because I did NOT read it in high school. There's too much going on with this novel to not mention it on the top ten list. It should also be on a list of novels with great last sentences.

10. Last and painfully not least, I love a particular trilogy of books by Heather Graham that are historical romances about the Civil War. In no way am I proud of this choice or would I deem these selections "Great Literature." In fact, if in front of a room of sophomores, I would deny this selection to my dying breath. But as a junior high girl, I absolutely adored these books--I fell in love with the Cameron brothers, I admired the witty heroines with whom they fell in love, and I believed wholeheartedly in the beauty and lost glory of The South.

While I'm admitting things, I might as well admit that I also reread them on a trip to Mexico in college and found them equally entertaining.

Ugh, so, SO embarrassing. You can tell how embarrassing by their cover images and their titles: One Wore Blue, One Wore Gray, and And One Rode West.

You can borrow them if you'd like.

Etymology of Names

After looking up the etymology of "Lenny" for Laur and John's new puppy (don't miss the cute pics below), I spent a little time on the "Behind the Name" website. This would be a good opportunity to discuss the apparent inequity between the names of my siblings and me.

CYNTHEA (Cyndy):
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, Greek Mythology (Latinized)
Pronounced: SIN-thee-a (English) [key]
Latinized form of Greek Κυνθια (Kynthia) which means "woman from Kynthos". This was an epithet of the Greek moon goddess Artemis, given because Kynthos was the mountain on Delos on which she and her twin brother Apollo were born.


MICHAEL
Gender: Masculine
Usage: English, German, Czech, Biblical
Pronounced: MIE-kul (English), MI-khah-el (German) [key]
From the Hebrew name מִיכָאֵל (Mika'el) which meant "who is like God?". This is the name of one of the seven archangels in Hebrew tradition and the only one identified as an archangel in the Bible. In the Book of Revelation in the New Testament he is portrayed as the leader of heaven's armies, and thus is considered the patron saint of soldiers. This was also the name of nine Byzantine emperors and a czar of Russia.


RACHEL
Gender: Feminine
Usage: English, Jewish, French, German, Biblical
Other Scripts: רָחֵל (Hebrew)
Pronounced: RAY-chel (English), ra-SHEL (French) [key]
Means "ewe" in Hebrew. She was the favourite wife of Jacob and the mother of Joseph and Benjamin in the Old Testament.


The abridged version:

Cyndy: Moon Goddess
Michael: One who is like God
Rachel: A sheep. Oh, and also a wife and mom.

Nice.

Welcome to the world, puppy

Laur and John stopped by tonight with their new little puppy, Lenny.

One. Cute. Puppy.

Aaron Sorkin, will you marry me?

Tonight I watched the most recent episode of Studio 60 which my Tivo (thankfully) recorded despite the long hiatus in the middle of the season.

I know that the show is getting canceled and has gotten terrible ratings, but God help me, I love it. Frankly, any show by Aaron Sorkin is worth watching. I've decided to start rewatching The West Wing this summer. I figure that should keep me good and distracted from the thesis writing.

In other news, James Van der Beek (Dawson of Dawson's Creek fame) was on Criminal Minds tonight playing a schizophrenic, Bible thumping, serial killer.

Weird?

Yes.

Summer summer summer time, summer time...

Summer officially started today at 1:30 when I walked out of school after our end of the year Tears and Cheers luncheon. (Yes, we call it that for real.)

However, the summer fun started a week ago. Here are some highlights:

A trip to St. Cloud last weekend for Jim's brother's 40th birthday:

Rach, Abby, Spud: The Nightlife of St. Cloud

Rach, Abby, and Mr. Hatten, the elder

Classic, classic Spud story moment

Abby playing the Big Buck Hunter. This game was as fun as it looks. Seriously.

The adult celebration of the end of the school year commenced immediately following commencement:

T Klob

Cyndy, Michael and I had a rare dinner outing together at Maynard's tonight. It helped that Michael's girlfriend works there and could swing us a table.

School's out for summer

For as long as I can remember, I've been bad at goodbyes. I can't manage to get through them without crying, and everything takes on this monumental significance and sense of poignancy.

The end of the school year is no different. I fall in the love with the students a little easier, the stupid things they say and do seem a little sweeter, and their earnest little faces during their final exam are pretty damn endearing.

This is not to say that they don't do things to make those goodbyes a little easier. I've never responded to so many stupid questions in my life as I did during the sophomores' final exam:

"I don't need a thesis statement for this second question, right?"

"Is this panel where these characters are talking a good example of silence?"

"Does spelling count?"

"Instead of writing an essay, can I just make a bullet point list?"

"Maybe you just want to cancel the test?"

And my personal favorite: "Can I come by after school to see my grade?"

Um, no.

But in all seriousness, here's what I love about the end of the school year: the sense of completion, of finality, of having completed something significant, profound, and important. Last night as I was walking in to graduation with one of our assitant principals, he turned to me and said, "I've done this a million times, but every time I still get a rush."

And he's right.

There really IS something to processing with colleagues in academic garb, with 500 some seniors who still have everything in front of them, with trumpets blaring, into a room so packed full of people their sense of pride is practically tangible.

The great thing about teaching high school, of course, is that as soon as you get swept away in these moments--swept away enough to ignore the 100 degree heat and the definitive sensation of sweat running down every part of your body--one of your students will pick you out of the crowd and bring you crashing back to earth by shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Hey Tholen! THOLEN! Did I frickin' PASS?!?"

It's the ups and downs, really, that make teaching so interesting. That's just how it is. You'll be in the middle of what you find to be the most enlightening discussion about the nature of our human existence as exhibited in this great text, and some kid will raise his hand and ask to "take a squirt."

Nice.

The bottom line, though, is that if you can find good friends to keep you laughing--to keep you sane, really--all you'll remember at the end of it all is the way that kid smiled when you assured him that yes, he did (amazingly) pass, the way they awkwardly hang around your classroom at the end of the day because they just want to talk, the way they shout your name in the hallway just to say hey, and the way they thank you sometimes on their way out of your classroom, and you'll think:

This is it. There is nothing I would rather do.

Photo Credits

You should know that I already wrote up a snotty reply to Jedd "Polite Guy" Haas who is apparently pissed that I google image searched the word "sunrise" and used his picture (the FIRST one to come up) in my last blog.

I wrote a clever, snotty blog in response because I'm unable to turn the other cheek. Twice.

And I deleted it. Twice.

I'm not sure it's worth getting into some kind of legal snafoo over a dumb picture that wasn't, frankly, the best one that google could come up with.

But I'm still smarting a little bit.

Not the best way to drum up business, pal. Humph.

I'm not sure I believe in jinxing things

But at the same time, there are things I don't want to say too loudly to the universe because if I've learned anything, it's that you just never, ever know.

But I feel like whispering at least this:

Over the last week, there have been moments when I've felt like the sun is finally rising on something significant, profound, and important in my life, and that maybe, just maybe, it's all going to work out.