Random Things You’ll Like

Uncategorized 1 Minute

UBC-completed

I wanted to thank everyone who stopped by during the Ultimate Blog Challenge last month. I posted at least once a day, every day during the month of July, and have no plans to stop now. So, keep coming back for more. Please?

Stephanie Chandler has a post up at the Nonfiction Authors Association titled Why Writing Non-Fiction Could Be Your Calling. I talked about this on Monday, and she seems to have followed a similar path. It’s an excellent article, if you’ve either decided to write nonfiction or are trying to decide. Or not. In any case, it’s a good article.

Finally, Kristen Lamb (another one of those bloggers I read faithfully, and so should you) posted a piece to her blog called The War on Fun—How Modern Culture is KILLING Creativity. She recently started homeschooling her son because, as she puts it, he was “fired” from preschool for being more concerned with fighting zombies than with reading at a college level. She talks about summer vacation when she was growing up, and how the current obsession with getting kids into top colleges and universities is destroying what little creativity the kids are allowed to have. I’m recommending it because (a) Kristen is a fantastic writer and (b) it has inspired me to write my own memories of summer vacation. Kids in my county start school again this Monday, and it blows my mind.

How’s your day going?

Published by John Holton

Internet disc jockey, lover of old TV (especially the commercials), inveterate wise guy.

Published

10 thoughts on “Random Things You’ll Like”

  1. I was pretty surprised that kids in the Tennessee town where my mother lives were starting back to school while I was there. I guess it’s a prevalent trend. My wife’s school doesn’t start back till the first of September.

    I have great memories of summer vacations when I was a kid. Wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

    Lee
    Tossing It Out

    Like

    1. I think there’s a move afoot to turn school into a year-round affair, because that’s how they do it everywhere else, like ten weeks on, three weeks off. Won’t change the results, I fear, but I don’t have a dog in that fight, anyway.

      The greatest thing about summer vacation for me was that it was three months of no structured activity. I was free to roam the neighborhood from dawn to dusk and not have to worry about homework or anything. Especially not the nuns.

      Like

  4. And she’s right about all the scheduled stuff that kids do nowadays — though my grandkids are reasonably un-scheduled during the summer (given their annual two to three week visit to Grandpa Mike and other stuff) and we only let them do one or two extra-curriculars when school’s in session — but I have friends whose kids seem to be in class for this, that and the other thing ALL THE TIME.

    Like

    1. When I was going into third grade (1964), they decided that they were going to start on August 31, the last Monday of the month. Problem was, that was the week Dad had for vacation, so he said, well, you guys will start the day after Labor Day. The nun was a real bitch to me for about three weeks. One day, I made some smartass comment (if you can believe that 😉 ) and she pulled me out of my chair by my ear and yelled at me for not starting school when everyone else did. I went home that afternoon and told Mom. She called the convent and chewed out both my nun and the principal, then yelled at me for being a smartass. The nun and I were fine after that; I think Mom put the fear of God into her. Oh, and that was the last year they started school in August.

      I mean, it’s just wrong. The kids got out the Friday before Memorial Day, and they’re going back two months later. They got gypped out of a whole month of vacation. It sucks to be a kid these days.

      Like

    2. I love her line about the mothers being like Carnival Cruise activities directors :D. I have to say, though, it’s not easy to get around in the suburbs (especially the newer ones) unless you have a car, and kids are dependent on their parents (usually their mothers) driving them everywhere. And then they wonder why kids are fat. We used to walk everywhere….

      Like

  5. Leslie told me that the kids in Indiana started school on Wednesday! (She’s visiting her other grandfather there this week and next….) That’s just wrong, wrong, wrongetty wrong. I can’t imaging going back to school in frickin’ July or August! (Well, maybe the end of August, but even that seems too early to me…)

    Like

Comments are closed.