flaneuse.org

It doesn’t get any nerdier than to say that books are my addiction of choice. Really, it doesn’t. Alcoholics and drug addicts have long histories and, often, romantic stories — as well as the very real trials of physiological addiction. But me? Life gets tough or complicated or boring, and I delve into whatever I can find, and I do mean *whatever*. I have read both War and Peace and the Twilight saga twice. I will read most best-sellers and just about anything written in Regency and Victorian England, with a newfound love of Dickens (who knew Bleak House could be such a page-turner?). I will read through the toughest times, finding sad books whose characters’ lives are much more difficult than mine, in order to put things in perspective. Lately I have started reading much more non-fiction — good, journalistic prose about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in preparation for a course I am teaching, but also the book on the Columbine shootings and much more.

Not only that, but my reading itch means I must keep myself supplied and the libraries in my area often leave much to be desired (not to mention I think I have an outstanding balance at the public library and am so embarrassed about it that I only go to my university library, which has little in the way of new fiction. Besides, I like to own my books — new or used — although I give away quite a few of them). I’m buying about a book a week and also re-reading. At any given time, I’m reading at least three things. By my count, I’ve read more than 20 books either new or that I had already read since the beginning of June. Seriously.

Do I need to get out more? Yes.

On the way home, there was an interview on NPR with Derek Filkins from the New York Times about his work in Afghanistan and Pakistan and his new book: The Longest War. This was perfect because the book we’re going to be reading and learning about in the summer reading program is Three Cups of Tea, a book I chose because I think it has the potential to change how people think about education and other parts of the world and, most importantly, how one thing or one person can really make a difference — particularly in non-traditional ways. We’re reared here in the US to believe that we have to do things in the usual manner: go to school for so many years, follow the rules, choose our career, get our jobs. Yet new studies show that most of us will have more than 10 jobs before we’re 35. The future isn’t set, and we have so much more control over the present than we really realize, I think.

That’s an incredibly important lesson not just for the students in our program but for us as well. I teach because I think not only that teaching makes a difference but that learning is an essential part of my life. I am beginning to get excited about teaching and learning again, slowly. Which is just absolutely the thing that I needed to happen.

So I am sitting here, blogging for the first time in like six months — which means I have been too busy to sit or think or do anything. I’ve been busier than a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest, as my BFF Joe would say. Too busy. Much. Too. Busy. I lost sight of things to such a degree that I landed flat on my back, literally, with bronchitis and threw out my back from coughing and the dr ordered bed rest. No computer even, for like four days. I. almost. died.

And now I am sitting in the back row of a training institute I am doing for 8 instructors and 8 tutors for a summer reading program for 150 incoming first year students. No — I am not kidding. The same summer the book is due and I begin teaching for the new digital lits program and my tenure papers go in, I get the opportunity to put together what I have only dreamed of, the opportunity to take my pilot version of what I think developmental education should be — built on student expertise, interesting content, and useful, authentic technology, and make it run. Right now.

I am terrified. It feels like there is so much riding on this.