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Penguin

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Everything posted by Penguin

  1. Well. I feel woefully unprepared for the start of the school year. I remind myself that last year at this time I was in the midst of moving back to the USA from Europe and that this should be easy peasy in comparison. Ugh. I have all the books and curriculum, that is not the problem. I think that everything the kiddo needs to do for 11th grade is overwhelming ME. Eldest has already started his semester, Middle starts grad school next week. Neither of which really involve me very much but I am a back-to-school nerd :tongue_smilie: I want to hear about their classes.
  2. I lived in Maryland for the first 31 years of my life, and always thought of myself as a northerner in spite of the Mason Dixon Line. I don't recall what I was taught about the Civil War in school. If you had asked me about the Confederate flag when I was in high school (late 1970s, early 1980s), the first thing that would have popped into my mind was probably Lynyrd Sykynrd. There either wasn't much emphasis on the topic, or I wasn't paying much attention. I didn't like American history much back then, so I am not sure I can blame the school. My father was a history buff but he was really into reading and talking about WWI and WWII so I knew more about those time periods than any others. I do think that most of the Marylanders I know consider themselves northerners. And that many of us are foggy about Maryland's role/stance in the Civil War. Standard YMMV disclaimer applies.
  3. Marked my calendar - I am in :hurray: for November 2.
  4. Mostly light reading for me right now, but I am super busy with the transition from summer to school. I have always loved middle grade books, and now I no longer have kids that age so I just enjoy them on my own once in a while. I am listening to Echo by Pan Muñoz Ryan. It is a long audio book (11 hours or something like that), but I highly recommend the audio version. Harmonica music features prominently in the storyline, and the audio version is peppered with the music. I finished a dusty this week (another middle grade ): A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz. Very dark and very clever. Cafe Europa had me right from the beginning, and she carried it through to the end. From the first chapter: "Europe is not a mother who owes something to her long-neglected children, neither is she a princess one has to court. She is not a knight sent to free us, nor an apple or a cake to be enjoyed; she is not a silk dress, nor the magic word `democracy´. Most likely, Europe is what we - countries, peoples, individuals - make of it for ourselves." One other bookish note: I am on a small, lazy quest to buy four of my favorite books from my youth. I got one at Christmas last year, and I just got a second one this week. This time, I got The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McPhillip. Amazon is telling me that Forgotten Beasts of Eld is out of print but a new release is coming in September. Makes me wonder why...maybe a movie will be coming or something, I dunno. My criteria is that they have to have the cover I remember, and they have to be affordable. Two down, two to go :)
  5. Tress, I just saw the post about your mom. I am so very sorry . :grouphug: :grouphug:
  6. My own health has been compromised by a chronic dermatological condition that is not recognized by most dermatologists. It has been very frustrating to have to figure everything out with pretty much only my fellow sufferers to help me through. I am sorry to hear that chronic Lyme is not recognized by the CDC. Any idea why not? -- :grouphug: to Rose and anyone else trying to figure this out.
  7. I will vote next week on Monday or Tuesday. By then, I will have my October pretty much lined up. I'm pretty flexible, though and will keep my fingers crossed that I can make it!
  8. Benign is my all-time favorite word in the English language. Happy for you :)
  9. Sounds like we have similar students. JanetC has great advice. Besides ACT and SAT prep stuff, I have saved lots of pdfs that I found by searching. Here are some good search terms for you: EOC Practice tests End of Course Practice Tests Diagnostic Tests Placement Tests College Placement Tests College Algebra Review Play around with your search terms until you get what you want! Add "with solutions" if you need to.
  10. It might have been Rose or someone else who recommended The Summer Book to you, but I am one of its ardent fans. I am always overjoyed to see that someone else discovered its charms.
  11. I hope you do it again, now that I live in your area. But I will not be back in town until mid-August. I'll just keep checking the thread to see what you come up with.
  12. I hope this thread has given you a sizeable list of schools, lisabees. I just want to thank you for it :) My son is a rising junior, and I think many of the schools listed here will be of interest to us.
  13. Yep, lucky me got to spend the morning with Jane in NC while I am in NC :) One of the books that we talked about was Cafe Europa: Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic. The author is Croatian, and this book was published in 1996. The Eastern Europe that she writes about has disappeared, but instead of that making the book seem dated it makes it seem important. She has brilliantly captured the window of time when Croatia was post-Communism but (very) pre-EU. Drakulic is a great writer. Disclaimer: I am only 50% done :) And Jane introduced me to Archipelago Books, and I am over the moon excited about their catalog!
  14. How exciting! I hope the process goes smoothly.
  15. I hope everything goes smoothly :grouphug: :grouphug: .
  16. Hello, all. I missed most of last week's thread, but I hope to review it. Seems like I missed the chance to add to my SciFi and Fantasy TBR list. I have always read fantasy, but now that I have a young adult son keen on SciFi, I am getting into reading it. I have made plans to attend the Library of Congress National Book Festival in September (Labor Day weekend, DC Convention Center). If anyone else is going, I would love to know! -- I have FINALLY finished From the Beast To The Blonde: On Fairy Tales and Their Tellers. :hurray: Yes, it was tedious. But I learned quite a bit, and I am glad that I stuck it out. Thank you, Robyn, for bringing it to my attention. Finished Death and The Penguin by Andrey Kurkov. This NPR review calls it absurdist noir, and I find that an apt description for this odd little book. The protagonist is a journalist in Kiev who has a pet penguin - there were animals for the taking when the local zoo ran out of money. Penguins and organized crime: an unlikely but winning combination :) And it filled up my "Your Name in The Title" Bingo Square! I have already ordered the sequel. I also read my first David Baldacci, Memory Man. I don't normally read thrillers, but my mom is a big fan and we are going to try to see him at the National Book Festival. So I asked her to pick out one for me. It was...brutal. It filled up my "Over 500 Pages" Bingo Square, but I left it unrated on Goodreads. I just felt so out of my element reading it, that I didn't feel qualified to rate it. I am so excited to have 23 out of my 25 Bingo Books done!! :hurray: All I have left is "Seaworthy" and "Outer Space."
  17. Julia is my son's Russian instructor and she is fantastic! DS might take her lit class down the road (i.e., 2018-2019).
  18. Not making an international move in the middle of the semester.
  19. Ha ha. I am 53, and had a huge crush on Michael York when Logan's Run came out. But they still somehow seem like vintage sci fi to me. Maybe because we are watching them with DS16 and DS23. We'll be working our way back and your suggestions are warmly welcomed!
  20. Thank you Stacia, JennW, and Butter (and anyone I missed) for the good Baby Driver reviews. Mom and I went to see it today, and loved it. There hasn't been much in the theaters lately that I wanted to see, so I had not been paying attention much to what has come out recently. Our family has been on a vintage sci-fi movie kick for home viewing. Recently, we have watched: Blade Runner Logan's Run Dark City Soylent Green Each movie was new to at least one person in the room. Very fun. Dark City was my favorite new-to-me film.
  21. I finished Laurus while lounging around on the beach :) It lagged in the middle, but that wasn't enough of a complaint to warrant less than five stars. If you like these topics, this one might be for you: medieval mysticism and miracles, healing arts, herbalism, medieval Russia, the Orthodox Church. I found the writing to be brilliant, and Vodolazkin plays with time in a way that I have never seen before. After I was done, I read around about the book on Goodreads, and was delighted to find that the translator (Lisa Hayden) occasionally popped into the discussions. She is also translating another one of his novels, Aviator, and I will surely read it when it comes out in English. I also found out that she has a great blog about Russian literature, both contemporary and classic. Oh, and I will mention one of my favorite documentaries: The Monastery: Mr. Vig and The Nun. Mr. Vig was an elderly man with a mission to covert a crumbling Danish castle into an Orthodox monastery. I don't know how easy it is to find, but sometimes it is on Netflix.
  22. I have not read these two yet, but I recdently bought them for the upcoming school year: Wobblies A Graphic History of the Industrial Workers of the World The 9/11 Report A Graphic Adaptation
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