It's the most wonderful time of the year - back to school!

Does everyone remember this commercial?




That guy is me. Minus the kids. I don't have children in school.

For some odd reason, I am in love with the first week of school. I still remember the smell of the first week of school I used to imagine it smelled of hope and new beginnings (though I now realize it is actually a combination of  bleach and Elmer's glue).

There was nothing quite like opening a brand new box of crayons. Running your fingers over the multicolored points that represented endless possibilities. Speaking of endless possibilities: New notebooks. NEW NOTEBOOKS! In fact, to this day I have never completely filled a notebook.  I usually get about half way through and the call of a fresh pad of paper beckons me to abandon the old and christen the new.

I may sound like a crazy person, but to me the first day of school is akin to New Years day. I remember my first day back to school after a nearly two year hiatus. I was a transfer student at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (go, Rebels!) and extremely nervous to be back but beyond excited. It was a fresh start, and though I my new supply list was void a brand new box of Crayola's I did revel in the feel of the glossy text book sheets against my fingers. I loved the challenge of a new year, a new environment, and the opportunity of an education.

I am a sucker for the first day of school, which is probably why I married a teacher and also why I majored in Elementary Education. I've enjoyed dozens of my own first days of school, witnessed countless others as my husband ushers in a fresh crop of students each year, but suddenly I am faced with a whole new world of firsts. My oldest daughter is preparing for Kindergarten next year. KINDERGARTEN! It will probably be my best and worst first day of school to date. This morning I drove my dear little darling past her new school. She'll be participating in a special Pre-K class this year. Half the students will be "typical peers" and the other half will have various special needs. The typical peers will help model behavior for the special needs students, while all the students participate in the standard state curriculum for preschool. My daughter has been invited as a typical peer.

As I drove her past her new school I pointed it out of the window. Her eyes grew wide with anticipation, her little legs started kicking with excitement and she asked, "Is that really my school, Mommy? Do I really get to go to a REAL school?" Being an emotional wreck as I usually am, my eyes brimmed with tears of joy at her enthusiasm for learning and the prospect of a new beginning.

I loved every first step on my journey to my degree, and I love that no matter how old or young one might be, you are always being afforded opportunities for an education.

7 Great Books That Got Me Weird Looks At Book Club

I have been in a lot of book clubs.

It almost never works out.

Here's part of the problem. Once I feel assigned to read a book, I have a hard time being excited about it. Picking my next book is always an exciting thing for me, and when I don't get to do that because there's one I have to read, it takes some of the fun out of reading for me.
But the other problem is finding a book club that suits my personality. Everyone reads a little differently and likes different kinds of books. I happen to like a lot of different kinds of books, including an array that didn't always go over well when I brought them up at book club. Here are a few gems (all of which were really good books!)

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach*: I actually read this one in my most successful book club, and we all loved it. It's this truly fascinating book about what happens when people donate their bodies to science, what happens to bodies when they decompose, body snatching, and more. Mary Roach is hilarious and insightful, and I love her. Then I brought it up at another book club a couple of years later and it went something like this: "And there was this cool part where old people who were dying just ate honey until their bodies turned INTO HONEY! And then other people ATE THEM AS A DELICACY!"

In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex* by Nathaniel Philbrick: This is an absolutely wonderful book about the true story that inspired Moby Dick. I could not put it down. It was full of history and science but presented in a wonderfully readable narrative form. I brought it up at a book club like this: "And then after the whale crashed into their boat, they all got lost at sea and started eating each other!" (Correct. That's two for cannibalism.)

World War Z by Max Brooks**: This book is  written like a series of oral histories, and it's fun and a little gory, but also thought-provoking. Someone at my book club was talking about a book they'd read where they examine what would happen if we lost power, and how nursing homes and hospitals would be affected and so forth, and it reminded me of a part in this book where the blue collar workers became much more valuable to society than the accountants and lawyers and such because they have real-life skills when America is no longer inundated with first-world problems. But what I said was, "That reminds me of this book I read about the zombie apocalypse!" There is no coming back from that when you're talking to 40 year old ladies from church.

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson: This is a really fantastic book about the Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer who built a death hotel and lured young women into it. It is CRAZY and so well-written. This is what you should not say about it to someone you want to convince you are not a nut for reading it:  "I thought I would just like the part about the serial killer, but the part about the World's Fair was really interesting too!"

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson: This is a fun, creepy book about these two sisters who live in their family house and are ostracized by their town after the rest of their family mysteriously was poisoned all at the same family dinner. Whoops. "So it's about these two sisters who are living alone after one of them is accused of having poisoned their whole family, and the other one is crazy. And it was awesome."

Cinderella Ate My Daughter by Peggy Orenstein: This is a very interesting, well-researched and (I thought) fairly balanced book about the girly-girl culture that seems to be springing up as women gain equality, and whether it's ruining/limiting our daughters. Pretty much all I had to say was, "I just checked out a book called Cinderella Ate My Daughter. It's about feminism."

The Secret History by Donna Tartt**: I read this one for a book club too, but only about two of us actually read it, and then while we discussed it, lots of people looked at us suspiciously. "So their teacher gets them all obsessed with the Greek classics, and there's a guy named Bunny, so you know he's doomed, and there's a weird part where the protagonist is just hanging out in an apartment with no heat because he's too proud to mention it to anyone and he almost DIES, and IT WAS SO GOOD!!"  

Okay. So looking over the list now I realize that it's possible my tastes occasionally tend toward the macabre. And then those are ALWAYS the books that come up. But I swear some of them aren't as bad as I made them sound. In fact, they were great!

The moral here is two-fold.

1.  Don't judge a book by its cover, or by the weird thing someone says to you about it before you've read it. There are lots of really fabulous books out there that don't sound good but just are. (Have you ever tried to explain Room by Emma Donoghue to anyone and make it sound appealing? It is nearly impossible, but it is SUCH a fantastic book.)
2.  If you're going to be in a book club, find people who already know you're crazy. 

What great books have you stopped telling people about lately?

*Parts of this book should not be read while you're eating lunch.

**Contains some strong language and adult themes.

Loveliness on the Red Carpet

Students at the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders made this video, which I saw this morning on the news, wishing Sandra Bullock good luck at the 2010 Academy Awards. The school posted the video on YouTube, with this text:

Sandra Bullock was a founding member of the Ann Richards School Advisory Board and an early supporter of the school. Students created this video to wish Sandra good luck at the 2010 Academy Awards, where she is nominated for Best Actress for her role in The Blind Side. Bullock's character in the film is instrumental in giving a young man an educational opportunity, and the Ann Richards School sees Bullock as equally instrumental in helping provide girls with a college preparatory education. The Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders in Austin, Texas, is a public college preparatory school for girls grades 6-12, founded to give young women from economically disadvantaged backgrounds the skills and confidence necessary to pursue college educations and careers.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L05eVory8Ys

I will be honest with you: I haven't actually seen The Blind Side. I saw a trailer for it several months ago while seeing a different movie, and--I hate to confess it--the preview made me cry. Enough, in fact, that I have been putting off seeing it all this time. But the Oscars and the movie aside, I want to say how happy it makes me when people who have the means get involved in education. There are few things more important than giving kids all the opportunities they can get, and it is really wonderful to see people care about that.