Summertime photography

There are many things I enjoy about summer: finding the time for reflection (a blog reflecting on my past school year is forthcoming), getting caught up on sleep and housecleaning (still working on the latter), and of course, reading (often with accompanying book reviews). I recently had the pleasure of reading and reviewing Andy Karr and Michael Wood's The Practice of Contemplative Photography: Seeing the World with Fresh Eyes (my review is posted here on Elephant Journal). Included with most of the chapters are exercises, "assignments," in which one gets to implement and practice the principles taught in the book. I took the time to complete many of the assignments, and was rather pleased with many of the results. I put them together in a slide show below...enjoy!

Busy weekend!!

This was definitely one of the busiest weeks/weekends I've had in a while. The Colorado State Thespian Conference was fun, and I had the unique opportunity to get to meet some students I hadn't met before, and to spend some time with some students that I've wanted to get to know better. Apparently sleep at these things is optional since I didn't get much of it at all. I made up for it today though, by sleeping for 12 straight hours, which is pretty remarkable for me. I did manage to get a few book reviews and even a top 20 gift book suggestion list up on Elephant Journal as well, which earned me some (well deserved) harassment from Ms. Phillis over the fact that I never quite seem to stop working. I do... just not for very long and not very often.

Two more weeks until December vacation... wowzers. My goal is to actually go a few days without any sort of contact with the world, not including the time spent on the train. I'd like to take some time just for me... I've noticed that when I do that, the world spins just fine, thank you very much, and so I plan to give the world a break from me again.

But for now, I've got to get ready for another week. Blog topics to post, presentations to finish grading... a teacher's work is never done!

New feature; Currently Reading

If you happen to look at the sidebar, you'll see a new item: Currently Reading. I figure as both an English teacher and advisor for the new book club at the school, it was only appropriate for me to post something like this. I plan to use this little section to post up what I'm currently reading (go figure) but also to post running commentary and thoughts on whatever it might be without having to keep reposting the title and whatnot in blog entries. The title of the featured selection will be linked to the home page of the publisher so that anyone interested in learning more about the book or even being able to get a copy of it will be able to simply click on the title and get all the info they need.

I hope you enjoy it!

Working at the office

Spent the day at the Elephant office trying to get my email configured correctly (still hasn't happened... grrr....) and in general working on things for the Elevision event with Robert Thurman later next month. It was a decently productive day, but would have been much more so had I gotten that goofy email working.

One thing has become definite fact. The best way to get around Boulder is NOT by car. I've made the decision that whenever I go to Boulder, that I'm just going to park the car in one spot and spend the rest of the day on my bike. Blake and I were able to get around Boulder faster by bicycle, and we were having a LOT more fun doing it.

I even got a spiffy new shirt today (the one I'm wearing in the picture), a new yoga video to review and some NEW BOOKS to review as well! New books!!! WOOHOO!!!

Yeah... umm... so my summer reading list has broken the 100 book count, I think. And no... that's NOT a bad thing at all! Of course, the only real down side is that I might not get a whole lot of time to do a lot of reading until after the Elevision event, but then again, I always seem to find time to read, no matter what else is going on! ;-)

The other cool event of the day is that Blake got invited to blog for Elephant. He's super stoked, and I'm pretty proud of him as well. I missed hanging out with Kyle today since he stayed home and kicked back for the day, but tomorrow is Farmers' Market day, so we'll get to spend some time together then. (Yay!)

First batch done... and new books!

Whew! The first batch of post-school meetings is over. I actually get a few days off until I have my next batch of meetings on June 3rd. So this weekend is farmers' market weekend AND it's the Boulder Creek Festival, so that should be pretty cool. I'll be sure to get some pictures and put them up. The other upside of having some time off is that I'll be able to get some reading done... yay!

Speaking of which, I'm up to about 75 books to have read by the end of summer. Yeah, I know... you would THINK the goal is to decrease the number by reading them, but Mr. Hansen gave me a $20 gift card to the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, and there is almost no place my will is so weak as in a bookstore. I mean... I had $20 to spend and of course, it was in a BOOKSTORE! I mean.... what else was I supposed to do? ;-)

So I picked up a couple more books and added them to the summer reading stack. I'd like to have Plan B 3.0 done by the end of next week. Not sure what I'll read next.... I'd only have 74 to choose from! ;-)

Summer reading list

So with the arrival of American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau today, I took a count of the number of books I plan to have read by the end of summer. Including Plan B 3.0, which I am currently reading, I have 71 books set aside for reading as soon as possible. *ahem* Woops. Didn't know I'd set aside quite that many.

I don't know... I think it's pretty cool. (Professional nerd, remember?) Know what would be cooler? Actually having them all read by the time my students come back in August. Of course, that's not including any books I might buy over the summer....

Must... resist... must... not buy... books...... Yeah. That'll happen. I'm quite sure I'll end up buying a few more to read... I do know that I'm in search of Peace is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hahn, so there's one to pick up anyway.

Speaking of books, I'm thinking of starting a book club when school starts up again this fall. Basically we'd get together once a week for a couple of hours, have some snacks, and read and talk about books. I think it'd be super sweet to get a grant to fund it as well for the snacks, the books, and maybe even a field trip or two to a local (and independent!!) bookstore. Yeah... more mega-nerdy type stuff, but I really think it could be a lot of fun, and I bet there are a fair number of students that would join it. We'll see... stay tuned!