50 Book Challenge

Last year I did the 50 book challenge and read 83 books. woo! Go me! I hope to read another vast amoung of books in 2006. Here is what I have read so far:

1. The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
2. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis
3. The Magician's Nephew by CS Lewis
4. The Horse and His Boy by CS Lewis
5. Prince Caspian by CS Lewis
6. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by CS Lewis
7. The Silver Chair by CS Lewis
8. The Last Battle by CS Lewis
9. Saints and Villains by Denise Giardina
10. The People of Sparks by Jeanne DuPrau
11. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper
12. The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper
13. Greenwitch by Susan Cooper
14. The Grey King by Susan Cooper
15. Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper
16. King of Shadows by Susan Cooper
17. American Gothic: A Life of America's Most Famous Painting by Steven Biel

I think I am off to a good start. Most of these are young adult books which accounts for why there are so many. I am on a spurt of grown up books now so I may slow down.

Two things

Look! It's Scruffy, the world's cutest sea urchin.
I found it through the Carnival of the Spineless. Go check out those invertebrates!

Also, I just put a bunch of Indigo Girls on my Workout playlist. Is that weird?

A Nonny Mouse

This blog is going to be more or less anonymous. I’m going to try to not be too specific about who I am, where I work and where I live. I have read a bit about the implications of anonymous blogging versus using your full name, and I see the point of those who are against anonymous blogging, but I agree that there are many many reasons to stay anonymous.

Here are mine:

1. I am just starting out my career, and while not shy about sharing my opinions in person, I am not sure yet what the implications of spewing them all over the internet are.

2. I teach, and feel I have to be very sensitive to saying anything that can be read and found by my students, or that will give any information about them away.

3. I don’t live in a bubble. I live and interact with people I may want to talk about from time to time, and staying anonymous on my part will help keep their anonymity as well. My friends, colleagues and acquaintances did not ask me to start a blog.

So far, I think most people who are reading actually know me, so most of this is moot, but there it is anyway.

RSS Feed

I just realized I had accidentally had "don't publish RSS feed" on. So that is fixed and all of you who love bloglines as I do should have no problems now.

Tip for Students

Never, ever ask your teacher, "Are we doing something important in class today?"

How likely am I to say, "No. Nothing important. You might as well go home."?

Hello!

Okay, I am overcoming mass amounts of grant writing and grading to get this thing going.

My name is Laurie, I am closing in on 30 and I live in Florida with my boyfriend and our two cats. We enjoy the living in sin and the cats enjoy Fancy Feast brand tuna feast in gravy. I am in graduate school for anthropology and last semester I took my qualifying exams so I am now all but dissertation (ABD). Within anthropology, my subfield is biological anthropology, and within biological anthropology, my research interests are in primate behavior. This semester I am concentrating on getting grants to fund my dissertation research, and teaching an intro biology class at a community college.

Although I am stuck in the southeast for now, I grew up in the midwest and attended college there so after nearly four years in Florida I am missing seasons like crazy.

I am interested in many things and will hopefully write about them here. I also like to have opinions on many things and will share those as well. I was inspired to start this blog by the many college teaching centered blogs I have recently found on the internets and I hope to contribute some to those sort of topics.

OK, quick intro for you, more fun to come!!!

First Post

Hey! Welcome to the new blog! I plan to write about anything that catches my fancy, although recently I am thinking most about teaching, history, crochet and young adult novels. More to come soon.