dearest of the dearly gifted,
i hope this blog finds you enjoying your monday night – and that you have a happy week of reading – i was pretty productive last week…

book two of the five-part series on Christ by eugene peterson – i forget the specific name – it was on the language of Christ – relied a bunch on luke 11-19 – a period where Jesus spoke in parables – was worthwhile read on many levels – by far the best book i read over the week – i’ve now read three of the five books – all really good

series of unfortunate events, books like nine and ten last week – got the baudelaires up to – or rather down the stream – to the ocean where they search for the sugar bowl – if i remember book 11 right – book eight or nine has my favorite line – which i completely didn’t get or remember from years before – “there are many things that are unpleasant in life – finding yourself in a grocery store with distance runners is one of them” – love, love, love that introduction to the chapter – although my above was a paraphrase

read also “dreams of my father” by president obama – written when he was like 33 and in the mid-1990s – sort of autobiography/analysis of race relations in the world – rather long, like 440 pages – i got it along with the snicket book thursday at the public library – perhaps the oddest combo check out ever:)

finished runners world – started running times-  finished christianity today, history channel magazine – the economist – oh, and sports illustrated – suppose what i remember most was the running stuff – the articles about the mix of faith and training were inspiring

on tap for this week is a book by the snicket author – daniel handler – called “adverbs” – i probably will reread some of my boston things as well – hope your reading goes well – and best wishes to BOB people

maf

hey,
welcome back ye bloggers – oh, how i have missed the insightful comments you leave…

as for me, i finished a few things last week…

a series of unfortunate events, book six – one of my favorite ones in the early part of the series – love esme squalor – just love saying that name – esme squalor – anyway, the triplet twins are further involved in the baudelaire’s woes in the book – enjoyed the elevator humor

willie mays biography – really enjoyed it – i like a good baseball book this time of year – and mays was an incredible athlete that i didn’t know much about – ironically enough, he grew up in fairfield, alabama – and yet the state pretty well shunned him until the 1970s because of his race – sad – mays was certainly gifted – and yet a very hard worker to stay in the big leagues for close to 23 years

read sports illustrated’s baseball preview – they like the phillies over the rays in the world series – they don’t like my cubs, white sox and only showed a mild interest in the braves – sad…

i think i’ve mentioned it, but i finished the bible a month ago – and then started re-reading the new testament – so i’m back to luke 19-ish – read about the lost things in luke 15 today – sheep, coin, son

do hope your reading is enjoyable this week

sincerely,
maf

so, let’s see… i think i read some books…

a series of unfortunate events, books 1-5 – re-reads for me – it’s been five years though – and i’ve matured so much in those years that i was able to… oh, who am i kidding??? i haven’t matured any – i have enjoyed re-reading the books – handler (the author’s real name – sorry, it’s not snickett) – is awesome – love his writing style – mix of fun word play throughout – and lots i’d forgotten about the series (and it, like potter, gets better the more you get through the series)

newton’s laws – no, i didn’t go burttram on ya’ll and start reading science – it was about uk basketball – and football – but also about bama basketball and vandy hoops – coach cm newton’s memories of being at those schools – was a great read – newton was a great coach – great man too

ella enchanted – disappointed in the book – sorry all the girls reading this blog – all maybe none of you… anyway, i was expecting great things – part of my problem though is that i’m just not a good chic book person – someone needs to explain to me, please, why that book was held as a great pro-female book – b/c she still married the prince in the end – and didn’t finish school (about the same problem as the one in twilight – through your life away for a boy…)

stolen season – finished the guy’s travel through all the ballparks – enjoyed re-reading a book i read 20 years ago – the things about his trip to rickwood were at least hopeful b/c that park is in better condition today than it was then – about the only park that’s in better condition today

read ny times, b’ham news, harper’s weekly, the economist – and outside of the baseball stuff, not sure there’s much to report – b/c i refuse for this blog to digress into health plans:)

guess that’s it for this week – remember, no blogs this week – rest your hands for testing – and happy easter

mafeld

howdy,
you still don’t have to write – but i do or else i’ll forget all the books i’ve been reading…

a beautiful mind by nasar – i think it was nasar – anyway, wonderful book – much more detail than the movie – not that i remember much of he movie – in my defense, i doubt you remember much from 2001/02 either… 🙂 very sad book but lots of hope – the fact that nash came out of his problems late in life – sort of a reawakening – and that he remarried his wife – who is a remarkable woman to have to love a person with a mental illeness

american prometheus – a book about robert oppenheimer – the coordinator of the US efforts to develop and deploy the atomic bomb – again, another genius who has to deal with disappointment – for opp, the country decided nuke weapons were wonderful – about the same time he decided otherwise – and suddenly, he wasn’t the most popular person – his family was wrecked as a result too

when you reach me by stead – adolescent fiction – great read – very quickly finished – but good – story set in the 1980s – protagonist a sixth grade girl who has to solve a mystery – entertaining – won some award this year

vicksburg 1863 by groom (the guy who wrote forrest gump – which was a good book to read by the way) – story of the battle for this civil war town – i knew the basics – lots of good details i didn’t know – like the south eating rats late in the siege…

heartbreak hill – a murder mystery where the murderer is a frustrated neo-nazi set on terrorizing the boston marathon – read it quickly and learned a few things about the marathon course – but, alas, wasn’t impressed at all

christ plays in ten thousand places by peterson – wonderful book – first in a set of five dealing with Christ and theology (so Christology)  – learned a bunch but also learned that it matters little if you don’t apply things you learned about JC

i suppose the list above is way more than enough to hopefully convince you that i did read a bit over the break – do hope i didn’t wear your eyes down for testing…

happy march week!

dr roy

happy early spring break (or happy early Christmas – i guess – since it’s all early:)

let’s see… i was going to snuggle up with my cubs blanket last week and read on the oppenhemier book – and i did end up reading on it – without the blanket though – this weekend – got about 300 pages read over the weekend – got the narrative past the dropping of the two atomic bombs – the tragedy of his life is beginning

but in the midst of the week, i had two other books – best efforst by kenny moore – which was written in 1982 – a collection of moore’s essays about runners from sports illustrated – awesome writing – descriptive – as for the second book, heroes and sparrows, by roger robinson – comparable strangely enough to the moore book because it was also a collection of non-fiction essays – and similar as far as covering races and runners – both very enjoyable – robinson was living in new zealand at the time so there’s some difference there too (like culturally)

in magazine reading, the best essay i read was on the 1950 world cup star for the US – who actually wasn’t a US citizen – and who actually died in Haiti, his home country – later under a dictator – i knew some of the story but not all of it

i also read two good essays from the ny times magazine – scott brown, the new senator from mass. – and one about a newly-elected cullman state rep – the twist being that he’s an african-american and that area is like over 90 percent white

so i’m done – hope your week is a good one

maf

dear students,
hope this week is wonderful in your reading careers:) last week for me was good – read “going bovine” – all 481 pages worth – okay story – wasn’t impressed – language and certain situations in the book definitely not for adolescent reading – can’t figure out what the newberry crew saw in it – maybe they’re all “don quixote” fans…

book i enjoyed more was a biography on johnny kelley – a guy who ran the boston marathon 61 times – despite becoming a seeming encyclopedia about boston, i didn’t know that kelley had been stationed in alabama during world war ii – so that was a neat thing to find out about

with other readings – i kept up with the olympics, of course, i read the economist and learned that the yankees are looking for starting pitching in china – and sports illustrated told me that the new jersey nets are awful – all wonderful things to now know:)

for this week, i have “best efforts” by kenny moore – a book about post-munich runners – great read so far (i’ve read “bowerman” by him and loved that one too) – i also have a book on robert oppenheimer – the overseer of the manhattan project – the book won the pulitzer a few years ago – i got it saturday at a book sale in mountain brook – so i’m looking forward to getting more into it (i’m 70 pages in but the book is 700 pages long – so i suspect it’ll take me a week or two to finish)

hope your reading is great,
maf

oh, oh, oh, i have the bestest of best news!!!

so like no one will remember this but me, but we talked late in the fall about our favorite books that we read in the fall – and i mentioned “marathon woman” by katherine switzer – and then i check my e-mail this morning and instead of the typical sixth grade parent e-mail questioning my grading sanity:) lo and behold, there’s an reply to my e-mail from the fall from a Katherine Switzer – seems i wrote to the New Zealand account she checks when she’s in New Zealand – which is every six months:)

so, awesome way to begin the week – and, of course, i love her book even more now – as for reading, i got two books on loan this week – one, “once in a lifetime” came from florida – it was about a new york soccer team in the 1970s – they had a glorious three, four years – and then imploded b/c of a myriad of reasons – as a soccer nut (really, running is just a coping thing for the fact that i can’t play soccer anymore:) i loved the book – oh, and as a child of the 1970s, any references to atari are awesome

second book, “boston” came from auburn in montgomery – book about the boston marathon – i just started it – loads of photos – one i thing i learned so far is that the original course, which the course today runs close to, was built to mimic the 1896 olympic marathon in athens – neat trivia

in the world of magazines, i read how the right wing is trying to manipulate the texas education board and its new history book (or that’s at least what the writer in the ny times thought:) i read how europe is trying, again, to save greece’s economy, i read a ton about the olympics (few hockey stories which got me ready for the big win sunday night), read some baseball features (the yankees and the yankees in the japanese league – who are called the giants ironically enough – are both working together) and i finished running times (inspiring story about a 78-year-old who runs daily in a cemetery – creepy)

hope your week is great,
mafeld

yo,
so i finished the half-marathon – two months to boston – five weeks of hard training left – probably all in the freezing rain apparently…

read three-ish books last week – “columbine” – sad book – admired how the kids and the staff fought to regain a sense of control after that tragic event

“last pick” – story of the boston marathon’s race director – dave mccgillvry – very good, can-do spirit of a book – enjoyed his tale of running across america in 1978 (80 days – 3,000-plus miles – very amazing dedication – all for charity too)

“playing for keeps” – story of michael jordan – jordan was incredible when i was growing – even when i was 20-whatever and he was in the last year with the wizards – incredibly driven athlete – and i thought he was a good baseball player too his one year out

read magazines – christianity today said sports are evil, sport illustrated said that athletes are evil (or in the case of peyton manning, not evil enough) – ny times said the olympic committee and canada are evil for making a dangerous luge course – the economist said americans are evil for being so individualistic – it’s all so confusing:)

for the week, i hope to finish the jordan book – beyond that, i hope to finish season four of “how i met your mother” on dvd:)

sincerely,
mafeld

sure,
i could begin by discussing anything and everything else in the world, but i have a one-track mind, and it’s unfortunately tracked towards a date with a half-marathon this weekend in downtown – so thus the title

as for reading, i read “into thin air” by jon krakauer last week – wonderful read – tragic story – group of hikers on everest – 11 died in one day – all were left with scars from the experience – lesson? you can’t tame a mountain, and even the “safest” ways to go can pose problems

got a 1980 book on running over the weekend – it’s been interesting to compare it to current running thinking – one thing is true… there’s only so many ways to write about the experience – and then it’s recycled material unless you can write in a better way (i guess like life – there’s only so many things out there to write about – so good writing does that in a better way)

magazines – read about the us olympic winter games team – read things about the ipad – finished all the way through deuteronomy in the old testament (lots of laws and “be strong and courageous”)

hope your reading week is a good one – i have a couple of books at the library i’m hoping will come in

sincerely,
mafeld

Dear readers,
Howdy!!! I’m sitting around doing not much in eighth period – b/c it’s no fun to teach those kids:) thought I’d jot a line or two about my reading adventures from last week…

“Shooting Stars” – awesome book by LeBron James (he’s a basketball player) and Buzz something – who wrote Friday Night Lights – about LeBron’s high school basketball career – interesting so far as the things that went on and LeBron’s take – like for example, he was suspended at one point for receiving clothing – and got out of it b/c the gift was supposedly b/c he was a good student – hey, i was a good student and didn’t get $800 worth of clothing in high school… anyway, the book was enjoyable – highly recommendable if you can read books with cursing in it…

“Running in Literature” – a book about, surprise, running and stories/poems written on the subject – as always with anthologies, some of the pieces were better than others – enjoyed most the fact that three of the pieces mentioned in detail the boston marathon

“goal” – book i keep in the classroom – soccer player who overcomes adversity to do great things – i have the dvd that the book is adapted to – so now i rewatch the movie since i’ve reread the book – which i had to do before i would allow myself to watch the dvd – the book read quickly – surprised at how much came back to me about it

read my magazines – the economist, newsweek, sports illustrated – not much stands out in my memory – with the Bible, i got through Job and Exodus – i found a verse about running Job – which was cool

suppose that’s the news for now – happy reading

maf