I was in school for a few days this week: one for a school improvement team meeting, where we made plans for the upcoming school year that have me really excited; another DEI committee meeting; and an English curriculum planning day. I also started moving some of the furniture in my classroom into place — I'm rearranging for next year.
I received a postcard in the mailfrom Veronique! I love this idea to take the small web to snail mail (and am generally a big fan of her blog).
Reading
what it's like by kelsey. Less reading and more admiring: is this what the notebooks and brains of the creative and artistic are like? Others admire mine for its neatness and consistency, small, even printing repeated across page and page, the same thoughts over and over again, like photocopies. I love the color, the doodles, the spontaneity kelsey has, and this is what I love about bearblog: the glimpses into the minds of others.
Cultural Competence Now by Vernita Mayfield. Continued from a previous week; this week, I read the third chapter for my district's DEI Committee.
The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I'm integrating this book into my curriculum for the next school year. It's a beautiful, poetic, important text, and I'm so excited to read it with my kids. It's heavy, and the unit I've planned around it is challenging, but I want to be more rigorous in my curriculum, and I think the kids will really connect with Esperanza.
"I wanted to be like my dad." by Kyle (on Blueberry Lemonade). A thoughtful piece on how adulthood shifts our relationships with our parents. It's interesting — I seem to have the inverse experience: moving out of my mom's house, I think, brought us closer in many ways. But I still connect with Kyle's thesis about how our views of parents evolve; perhaps the nature of parenthood is seeing your child grow beyond you.
Watching
A lot of Friends at the Table content on Twitch. Joe is a fan of their podcasts and the folks involved; I'm not into actual play podcasts or anime, so I don't join in, but I like watching some of their streams. I've particularly enjoyed their Stardew Valley series.
Playing
Final Fantasy XIV: Stormblood. I'm back on my bullshit after watching Austin Walker stream Final Fantasy XI. I've played on and off since release, but this week I finished Stormblood (which I'm tepid on) and am working my way toward Shadowbringers (which I've heard nothing but praise for). I conned Joe into playing with me too, so it's been fun to see him go back through the early game quests. I have a lot of love in my heart for A Realm Reborn.
Listening
My Los Campesinos! All Hell record has yet to arrive in the mail, so not that (but it did ship this week and is meant to be delivered tomorrow).