Wednesday, June 14, 2017

A Literary Outline of My Days

Well, readers, as of the end of May, I have reached the age that Fanny Price is through the majority of Mansfield Park (and have just finished a reread of that delicious novel). I stand at the brink of prospects such as Anne Shirley faces at the end of Anne of Green Gables, though she chose to give them up.

Laura Ingalls became a teacher at 16; I can't imagine doing that, but now I can say that at 18 I was a recess teacher. For three days I led fifty homeschooled 3-13 -year-olds (not all at once!) in obstacle courses and relay races. Crazy, but also a good experience. I went into it thinking, I know preschoolers! I can handle these! (I teach Sunday school for 3-5-year-olds at my church). Um... There is a big difference between ten of those kiddos and twenty. Plus no walls to contain them in, haha. I still love kids (ahem, I'm getting a degree in Elementary Education so I'd better) but I now know that I know nothing. It was also a very strange feeling to realize I was completely in charge and that I was the "adult" who legally had to be there. Odd, very odd.

I just finished reading Little Dorrit. Oscar Wilde says that "If one cannot enjoy reading a book over and over again, then there is no use in reading it at all." This is certainly true of LD. It is my new favorite Charles Dickens book. I now very much want to watch the BBC version of it, and I think that I shall have little trouble in getting my middle sister to watch it with me because this fellow is in it:

THE Mr. Darcy in her eyes.

Sophie Hatter would be aghast at the state of my house, as I have not been pursuing her sham career at'all this last month. I hope we are a little cleaner than the castle, but studying for tests and preparing for parties is not at all conducive towards neat habits.

have been practicing Sherlock Holmes' instrument, and to my great delight my teacher has at last given me a book on reading music for the violin.

And most exciting, I have at last taken up the [figurative] blue notebook of Jane Penderwick. No snippets yet as I'm still trying to keep the motivation for the final chapter.

Alas, I could find no literary reference to tell of perhaps the most momentous event, viz. my high school graduation. It is a strange feeling to be viewing high school as a past thing. I've still been doing 'school work' but it's not stuff that's necessary for high school (i.e., CLEP tests and history books that I enjoy). For those still in high school or below, graduation seems eons away, but all of the sudden it comes way faster than you expected.

Theoretically summer brings more time for reading. Of course one is always busier than one expects, but I hope you all have time to fit in at least a little something now and then. Happy reading!
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