Break is so much more fun when you don't have things hanging over you. Grad school. Student teaching. I have a more professional wardrobe now, though. Shopping is fun, but I don't have the shop all day and still feel fresh stamina. I wear out, especially if I can't find anything. I think I get sensory overload with all the different colors and patterns and choices.

Christmas was good. I forgot my camera cord, so if I decide to post pictures, they'll have to wait. My cousins are cute. I get to see them once a year, and it was especially fun to see my 2 year old cousin. Two is probably my favorite age to play with/watch. Most people say the terrible twos, but I think it's such a fun age.

I find that my posts are mundane.

My high school English teacher offered to let me teach any lesson I want to, and I think I've found an O. Henry story that will be really good. It's about different people telling the Jack in the Bean Stalk story in completely different ways. It's good and entertaining. I really like O. Henry's stories. I like American authors. Many people don't think that American authors are very good, especially compared to English authors. Part of that is because America is a young country. If I was going to write a thesis, I would write it about the search for a national literature in America. I wrote a paper on this topic for Jacksonian America, and I think it was my favorite paper. I found that my favorite topic is literary history. For me, the two can't be separated. You can't truly understand literature if you don't understand what culture and time period it was written in was like. If you don't know what Romanticism was, Romantic literature won't make as much sense. Candide won't make much sense if you don't know the optimism of the time that it was written. If you don't know what the Russian Revolution and comunism in Russia was like, then Animal Farm won't be real clear. I love literature. I really like words and using words. Language is an amazing and powerful tool. Too often we are careless. Very careless with it. There is a reason why the Bible warns against the tongue. It is small, but powerful.