end of summer

my brain is full of radiohead and i can't believe i have to start teaching on tuesday. i have had the laziest summer ever - at least since i was a kid and had no responsibilities. really, all i want to do is go see radiohead play once each week.

but school starts and i have to admit that i'm a little bit excited to teach my "monsters as metaphor" class, in which i will have students read Doctor Faustus and Frankenstein and Heart of Darkness. All elderly books from another era which means i will have to sing and dance to get the students to like them. then a more current book - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - narrated by a 9 year old boy whose father died in the Twin Towers. haven't read it? please do. it isn't at all what you might expect (although of course i have no idea what you might expect). it is written by Jonathan Safran Foer who also wrote Everything is Illuminated.

so, yeah, sort of excited. but really, laying around and playing on the computer and going to see radiohead . . . can't beat that.