Dr. Seuss..

Dec 31, 2007 08:07

..WAS A GENIUS! :O ( Read more... )

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Happy New Year’s Eve! smadaf December 31 2007, 17:38:59 UTC
Awesomeness!  Dr. Seuss!  I love his books!

The first one I got was One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, which was in a box of things intentionally left behind by the previous tenants when we moved in to our apartment in Germany, when I was two.  In some ways, it’s still my favorite.

I have maybe a dozen Dr. Seuss books, but I want to have them all.

I remember when he died.  In that week, all the sixth-graders from my school were at Camp Joy.  One day, several of us were out on a walk/hike with one or more of our adult guides-and, when we got to a stopping-place, a woman told us that she had some sad news to tell us ... and it was that Dr. Seuss had died.  I don’t remember anyone being hugely sad, but I do still remember that moment.

I have a vague feeling that, next week, his face was shown in the 15-minute show CNN Newsroom, which was aimed at school-aged kids, and which we watched on VHS in Mr. Michaels’s Social Studies class each day.  His beard did look good. :)  There’s a U.S. postage stamp of him with that beard ( ... )

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Re: Happy New Year’s Eve! shitbagxsue January 1 2008, 14:33:07 UTC
Wait a minute! Why would they tell a whole bunch of kids that Dr. Seuss just died!? :O
That's so emo..

I wouldn't know how to react. I didn't think he was alive when I was growing up. Well.. he wasn't.. But I didn't think that he was alive in the 80's or 90's. I mean.. wow.

THEY HAVE A BEARDED-SEUSS STAMP!?
That's kick-ass! :O ♥

Mr. Michaels.. Aww.
That's such a cute teacher name.

- - - -

I also remember reading StregaNona ..*looks up author* ...by Tomie dePaola.

And I only remember him and his book because he has my birthday...

..WOAH. Is he still alive? His Wiki Article doesn't have a.. well he was born in 1934..?
Oh wow. He's 70-something.

Man. These authors take good care of themselves.

..*googlez*.. AWW! He has such a round face!! He's adorable!!

He taught in Newton, MA!?..
I always thought he lived in, like, Italy.

[/end.Blonde]

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Happy New Year’s Day! smadaf January 1 2008, 17:03:27 UTC
Maybe they told us because they figured it was a ‘controlled’ way of telling-rather than having us find out in disparate odd ways and maybe some of us feeling distraught, being made fun of for it, &c.  (Now that you mention it and I think of it, that ‘technique’ reminds me of things mentioned here (tho the main kids being so concerned about Mr. Rogers’s death probably would be much younger than sixth-graders).

I didn’t really have any reaction to his death.  I suppose that was because his death would do nothing to stop the awesomeness of his books.

I think I had a weird concept of time when I was a child.  I’d see Leave It to Beaver, for example, and, though I knew it was from decades before, I didn’t really think of it as that different from the world of the mid and late ’80s.  That’s probably why, for example, I thought teenagers still wore suits and evening gowns when they went on dates.  I think I also didn’t ever think about the fact that authors could produce new books, that their ‘bibliographies’ had to ‘occur’ over time.  I’ ( ... )

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Re: Happy New Year’s Day! smadaf January 1 2008, 17:07:09 UTC
“as the years go bye”?  Ha!

Also, missing “)” at end of first paragraph.

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Re: Happy New Year’s Eve! smadaf January 1 2008, 17:18:21 UTC
I totally forgot to say something about Mr. Michaels.  He was my homeroom teacher in sixth grade, and the sixth-grade Social Studies teacher.  His wife taught, I think, third grade, at the same school.  I did not like him.  He coughed / cleared his throat very loudly.  (He also could snap his fingers very loudly, which was impressive.)  He seemed to be angry / on edge / distressed a lot of the time.  (He was obsessed by CNN, and hung on his wall a picture of himself standing with Wolf Blitzer, who was visiting schools that made use of CNN Newsroom and the Cable in the Classroom program to use TV to aid teaching-or, in Mr. Michaels’s case, to avoid teaching for fifteen minutes each class.)

He was one of those teachers about whom you think “Why are you doing this?  Wouldn’t you prefer a different job?”

For the first quarter of sixth grade, he wrote nothing in the Teacher/Parent Comments section of my report card.  For the second quarter, he again wrote nothing, prompting my mom to writeI’d find it interesting and enlightening to read ( ... )

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Re: Happy New Year’s Eve! smadaf January 1 2008, 17:19:17 UTC
I ended up writing my name anyway.  Pfft.

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AC on Fiiiaaahh! shitbagxsue January 3 2008, 00:58:13 UTC
NO!
I'm sorry you had to re-live that by typing it..

DAMN.
I am SO BAD with judging people by their name :(

But. Okay. I did the same thing with my Chemistry teacher. Ms. Byron.
Pretty cool name, huh!? :O

Not a cool Chemistry teacher.

Isn't it terrible when teachers don't give a damn!? It's the saddest feeling in the world.

She was, like, a forensic scientist or something.. and then she became a chemistry teacher.

WTF!? She doesn't even review problems she gives us in class.

Yeah. Okay, lady.
We KNOW you know Chemistry.
Teach us, plz?

She the same way.. like the ..
Yeah-I-really-don't-want-
to-be-here-right now..UGH
let's-get-this-over-with-plz-
k-Why don't you understand moles?-
It's-so-easy------attitude!

I had to get a Chemistry For Dummies book for Christmas :(

That's all he wrote you? :(
He didn't even write-out English?
Dammit.
And then he doesn't even say 'hi [Smadaf]Man. That's so emo ( ... )

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Re: AC on Fiiiaaahh! smadaf January 5 2008, 23:53:13 UTC
Without intending it, I used to form a lot of ideas about people just from their names.  The older I get, the more real examples I get of the obvious fact:  it's silly, way sillier than judging a book by its cover.

And, yes, teachers who shouldn't be teaching are a real disappointment.

Moles:  they were my downfall in Lisa Stephens's Honors Chemistry class.  I actually failed the second semester.  But you know what?  I'm going to grasp moles fully before I die:  maybe a book like yours would help me.  (I think Ms. Stephens was quite among the worse teachers I'd ever had.  She, too, was one of those who used to work in a lab and somehow ended up teaching high school.)

I don't remember anything at all about my math grades in sixth grade.  I got a B in the first quarter and a C in the second, and then a C in the third and an A in the fourth, for a semester grade of B.

Math was something of a roller-coaster subject for me.  I had really good periods, with lots of A+s, and poor periods.  It probably depended on both the teachers and my ( ... )

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NO! Don't Confiscate it, Daddy! shitbagxsue January 6 2008, 16:36:40 UTC

I feel disappointed when people don't remember me:( Dude. I am the same way. I don't have as good a memory as you do, but I totally do the same thing! I have odd habits of remembering people.. and then.. I feel like an idiot when they don't remember me ( ... )

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Re: NO! Don't Confiscate it, Daddy! smadaf January 6 2008, 19:42:58 UTC
When I was 23 and went for the interview at the insurance place I ended up working at, they took me around to meet several people after the interview.  And then they told me I was hired.  I didn't remember any of the names of the people they introduced me to, or where their desks were.  But soon I learned.  I had a similar problem once in fourth grade, when the teacher asked me to pass out some graded papers, and I didn't know who some of the names belonged to.  But, once a name and face do stick in my head, they stick pretty well.

In some classes, I was probably memorable to the teachers.  But, then again, so many kids pass through a teacher's life; so I guess it's silly to expect that they'd remember all of them after not seeing them for, say, ten years.  Still, Mr. Michaels, after not even one year?  Psht ( ... )

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Re: NO! Don't Confiscate it, Daddy! smadaf January 6 2008, 19:43:25 UTC
Most of the time, I've called 'the Gulf War' Operation Desert Storm.  That's the military name it had, which everyone at the time knew.  People also call it the First Gulf War and the Persian Gulf WarOn August 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein, of Iraq, had his military invade Kuwait, one of the countries nextdoor.  I was 10½, and it was five days after we'd moved from Virginia to Ohio.  We were still moving in and unpacking.  I was on the family-room floor, at the coffee table, watching TV.  There was a sci-fi movie that took place in the desert and had fancy, futuristic motorcycles.  I was drawing such a motorcycle.  And then the TV was playing this news about a man with an unfamiliar name, apparently the dictator of a country I wasn't familiar with, crossing a real desert and invading another country whose name was new to me ( ... )

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Re: NO! Don't Confiscate it, Daddy! smadaf January 6 2008, 19:55:06 UTC
Your silly responses-your any responses-never bother me.  I never think you're an idiot, and I never mind your writing about anything.  I like it all!

The one time I was really disturbed was when you'd smoked pot.  I still doubt myself about how I reacted to that.  Sometimes, I think I gave you way too hard a time for that.  I dono ...

When you are upset/angry/&c. and you write to blow off steam or whatever, I do sometimes feel perplexed about how to respond-and, more important, how to help.  And sometimes I worry whether I should just shut up and not say anything, because maybe you want to vent without somebody coming along and shoving more words in your face.

That icon of Bill looking down (it's from when he was eating waffles, which is why I named it "billbreakfast") sometimes represents sadness, I guess.  But, more often, it's like "I feel kind of embarrassed about the mistake I just made, or I'm worried that I'm babbling too much; so I'm just going to turn my eyes down and be quiet."

Smadaf probably wanted a more SERIOUS ( ... )

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What I forgot to write in other replies. smadaf January 7 2008, 19:09:10 UTC
If I ever don’t reply, the reason is almost certainly that I haven’t yet seen your entry/comment (usually because I haven’t gotten LJ’s email about it) or that I’m just sucking at managing my time.  Every day, I want to do so many things.  I stay busy while I’m awake; but several things always are neglected, and sometimes it’s communicating as much as I want with my beloved friends. :(

If you ever especially want a reply to a certain something and you’re not getting it, or not getting it fast enough, just tell me, and I’ll hop to it! :)

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