Reading

I just finished a good book. Not a great book, but a good one. It made me want to find other books by Patrick Taylor and read them. I just finished An Irish Country Village. I was attracted to the book initially by the title, since I knew I'd be going to Ireland soon. I was really happy that it was set in Northern Ireland (part of the UK) because that's where my mom was from, and I hope to visit her little village, and maybe even find the street she lived on. But the North is different from The Republic and so I found myself "hearing" words and phrases that I found familiar. It was nostalgic for me in the sense that it evoked memories of my mom's colloquialism's that were not common to this country.

The story line is well constructed, and is reflective of real life. It's not up there with Water for Elephants or Three Cups of Tea, but it was like comfort food. Just satisfying. It's worth the $14.95 I paid for the paperback, and I don't always feel I've gotten my money's worth.

We are in South America in World Geography. I have been SPEEDING things along like crazy because we'd fallen so far behind. I'd like to spend a day doing some kind of fun, hand's-0n project though. I like to stop now and then and do something like that. I may have to run by Wally world in the early, early AM, because I'm thinking it would be fun to have the students make one of THESE. I'm sure that some students will slap something together, but others will make it a special thing and it'll be meaningful to a few. We've had to zip past the Maya and the Aztec, I'd like to spend a little time with the Inca. They're going to get to see a movie about the Inca tomorrow too. I don't show many movies, so that'll make it even more cool. Today we talked about the tidal bore that occurs on the Amazon. I think that's a very interesting phenomena, that only happens on about 100 rivers around the world. However, it's especially fantastical on the Amazon because the bore can get up to 20 mph and reach heights of 30-feet. They can go as far inland as 180 miles! It's fun sometimes to have this little known and useless knowledge to share with the students. I learned about this in Geology class back in college. It was fun to share it with the students today. Now 85 more people know about this phenomena than did before!

In the mean time, if you're looking for a satisfying read, that is the maccaroni and cheese of the book world, I recommend An Irish Country Village.