October 24, 2026 VIRTUAL INSANITY

 Talk about PTSD. We have been teaching virtually for the last few weeks while our building recovers from the fire.  Seriously having COVID flashbacks. Virtually teaching is so much work. All lessons have to be uploaded into google classroom--all online work has to be be graded after it is submitted AND I'm drowning in emails all day long. Figuring out new technology is also time consuming and super frustrating. As an art teacher, it is even more difficult because students don't have access to the same materials--I can't walk around and offer a little extra help, cheer them on, or assess work while students are in the room.  IT IS ALSO AN ENORMOUS HEADACHE spending so much time on the computer. It's totally been affecting my reading AND THAT DOESN'T WORK FOR ME. My eyes are too tired to read and I've been too tired to write my blog. UGH.  Hopefully be back in school sooner than later. In the meantime, I finally finished a book yesterday that you might like, it's M. L. Stedman's new book A Far- Flung Life. The MacBride family has owned Meredith Downs, a million acre sheep station in Western Australia for several generations. As the story unfolds, It is 1958 and Phil MacBride and his two sons, Warren and Matt, are driving a truck full of sheep to the station when a kangaroo hits the truck and tragedy strikes. Phil and Warren are instantly killed and Matt ends up in the hospital for several months with severe brain injuries, black outs and memory loss. Meanwhile, back at the station, Matt's mother, Lorna, and sister, Rose, hold down the fort while navigating through their grief. When Matt finally comes home, his life is very different. He has to learn to manage a station he barely remembers. His sister Rose also has problems of her own that cause her to leave the ranch for a time, eventually  returning with scars of her own. An unspeakable event --that I will not tell you about--also changes the landscape of the family forever. This is a beautifully written, family saga that spans about forty years with many interesting characters including Pete Peachy, Bonnie and Andy, who live in extreme isolation and endure  grief, love, guilt and hopefully forgiveness. 

October 6, 2026 SMOKE ON THE WATER

 

You just can't make it up. One minute I'm at school grading projects--and the next--we are having a fire drill BECAUSE THERE IS A REAL FIRE. As a seasoned teacher--I have been on countless fire drills. They are just a fact of life. We drag all the kids outside--take attendance--keep kids orderly. OK--so we go out for THIS drill--THINKING IT'S ONLY A DRILL--and it's NOT. It took me a few minutes to wrap my head around the situation. Thankfully--we got all the kids out safely and later home.  You can drill all you want BUT until it happens at your school.....The good news is that we had just practiced a whole new fire drill line up/system two days before so the kids knew what to do. Although only one office was affected by the fire, countless others have water damage and the whole school will have to undergo a major clean up. Hopefully we will be back in school sooner than later but just think of all the extra reading I can do. I recently finished a beautifully written book by Elif Shafak called There are Rivers in the Sky. This  historically based novel is set against the Tigris and the Thames and has four main characters who are connected through the centuries by one drop of water. King Ashurbanipal of ancient Mesopotamia in the 7th century B.C., whose library held the original Epic of Gilgamesh that is later discovered by archeologists.  Arthur Smyth in the 1800's,  a product of the slums, who by grit, determination and brilliance eventually escapes to study the ancient world. Narin, a young Yazidi girl, who lives by the Tigris River in Turkey who is forced to flee with her grandmother because of ISIS in 2014, and finally Zaheekhah, a water scientist in London, recently divorced who faces an identity crisis in 2018. Their stories and the supporting characters in the book are interesting and I really enjoyed learning more these areas. Check it out and let me know what you think.