sunshine part 1

 

As I mentioned last Friday, the mind-expanding Ruth from There is no such thing as a Godforsaken town has nominated me for a Sunshine Award!  Here's how it works.

1. Share 11 random facts about yourself
2. Answer the 11 questions the nominating blogger creates for you
3. List 11 bloggers
4. Post 11 questions
5. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers
6. for the bloggers you nominate to answer and let all the bloggers know they've been nominated.  (You cannot nominate the blogger who nominated you.

Let me begin by sharing 11 random facts:

1.  Eleven is a favorite number of mine, being my birthdate and a prime number that kind of sticks out from the crowd.
2.  I have lived in New York, London, Paris, Munich (everybody talk about...pop muzik).  But not in that order--Munich came first, then New York, London and last Paris.
3.  Harriet the Spy and I are the same age. When I lived in New York City, my first apartment was on East 84th St. between 2nd and 3rd, just blocks from Harriet's spy route.  It was somewhat surreal for me to discover that all that NYC geography that I had read about was real and that I was IN IT.
4. I always imagine that physical tasks like painting a room or yard work are going to take much longer than I think--while I could sit and work on a writing-type project for HOURS without getting daunted.
5.  I believe that teachers should do some lunch and recess duty, or more exactly that teachers should enjoy lunch and recess with their class.  Eating and playing together is healthy.
6. There was a time when I spent every Sunday in an office under the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island.
7. I believe in personal ads.
8. I own a series of mixtapes and playlists labelled "Music for Instant Attitude Adjustment."
9. If the sun is out I have to be in it, and in winter I need to look right at it.
10.  I'm a planner, not a pantser, but most of my best and most interesting ideas come in the moment, not during the planning.
11.  I have a dozen watches and a hundred earrings but no necklaces.

My 11 questions from Ruth are...

1.  What's your favorite song right now?

Easy.  "Happy," by Pharrell Williams from the Despicable Me soundtrack, with a video and lyrics totally appropriate for kindergarten and the power to instantly adjust even the crankiest attitude.

2.  What made you decide to start blogging?

I realized it was a way to connect with other children's poet types as well as to exercise writing and reading skills of many kinds.  It's also a place where I can exert complete and utter control over both content and style (unlike in all the other spheres of my life).  Huh--you'd think I'd post more often, considering that.

3.  What's your favorite post you've ever written?  (Link, please!)

No fair!  I love all my children/students/posts equally, of course....but if I have to pick one that does well what I enjoy most in my blogging, it would be this one. It connects oral tradition and literature with my work as a teacher, with my experiences as a child, as an adult and as a parent, and includes an original poem--demonstrating "the interdependent web of all existence," as we say in UU congregations--or at least my existence, my juicy little universe.

4.  What's a book you've given (or loaned) to multiple people because you love it so much?

Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv.  I worry about nature-deficit disorder on a daily basis.

5.  What Hogwarts house would you be in?

All the quizzes (and more importantly, my children) say Hufflepuff.  I don't love badgers but that's fine by me.

6.  What's your comfort food of choice?

I'm a large-bowl-of-salty-snacks kind of person (pretzels and a glass of milk), but there are days when I could eat an entire chocolate cake (no frosting, again the glass of milk).

7.  What book character would you like to have lunch with?

Harriet--see above.  We would invite Claudia, too.

8.  What's your favorite podcast?

What's a podcast?  I listen to the radio.  NPR Morning Edition; sometimes All Things Considered; Wait Wait Don't Tell Me and This American Life if I get a chance.

9.  What's a movie you've watched many times?

Disney's Mulan, which my then 5yo son watched  incessantly the year we moved to France and he had to man up and pose as a French speaker in demanding and alien school environment.  What a wise boy he was and is.

10.  What are your favorite clothes to wear?

I can't adDRESS this right now.  I'm in the middle of an almost sick obsession with the idea of the capsule wardrobe and it's embarrassing.  It has to do again with complete and utter control.

11.  What's a book on your wish list?
That IS my wish list: 1) read a book. 
I'm having a lot of trouble with adult novels in the last few years (ie since I started teaching full time).  When I find one I love, I fall in and read it to the exclusion of all other unrequired activities, which may come to include basic things like showering and feeding the family.  They do say that books are dangerous. 

That's all I have time for this week, and it's a shame I didn't manage to get it done in time for PF.  But you can visit the roundup any time of the week with Karen at http://karenedmisten.blogspot.com/ !