Oh, Yuletide. You're always such an interesting time of year. From the endless Frosty and Rudolph songs on the radio, to making gifts for my friends and family, to finding a tree, all the way to the various holidays that we celebrate, it's always a fun time of year.
This year, as I mentioned previously, I am becoming increasingly more and more fed up with the radio's song choices, and have gone to far as to talk about creating my own station of holiday music for the EXPRESS PURPOSE of not playing any songs about magic snowmen or reindeer. I don't dislike the songs completely, but the frequency is really wearing on me.
As usual, I'm busy at work, creating gifts. I always make gifts, and although it takes a while to get it all done (and my out-of-state friends may end up with late gifties, sadly), I love doing it.
Remember the classes that my family and I teach, the ones that started in September? Well, just yesterday was the final day of the semester, and I could not be prouder of all of the students. It was a lot of fun, and while the workload of getting everything prepared for the ten classes we taught at once was admittedly heavy, I can't say that I didn't enjoy it. We're already brainstorming for next semester, and it's looking like we'll be teaching a whole pile of new classes, and I'm thrilled.
Life is always busy, and right now is no exception. I'll be surprised if I reach my goal of 52 posts by the end of the year, but let me tell you, I'm going to try my best.
This has been a pretty newsy post, so I'll toss it to you all...if there's still anyone reading this, that is.
What's new in your life?
Now I must go so I can sleep so I can wake up and do more Yule elf things.
Cheers,
Whimsy
Friday, December 16, 2011
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Week Forty-Four: The Face On The Milk Carton
This was written as a project for one of the classes my family and I teach. We did a book report on our least favorite book from the six that we covered in our Banned Book Club. I had great fun with this.
The Face on the Milk Carton
This book tells the story of a teenage girl who finds out that she was kidnapped as a toddler through a series of totally unrealistic coincidences and absurd conjecture. Janie Johnson is our paper-flat heroine, a girl with no apparent interests other than the boy next door and no more character depth than trying not to drink milk because of her mild lactose allergy. One day, while surrounded by her insipid and wildly annoying friends who don’t seem to really know her at all, (judging by the fact that they can happily ignore that Janie is having a complete and total mental breakdown while they cheerily eat their lunches,) Janie finds a photo of herself in a missing children’s ad on the side of a milk carton. She recognizes the photo of herself from the dress that she’s wearing, goes into a tailspin and promptly decides that her loving parents must have stolen her away from her “real” family at a young age, all in less time than it takes her school lunch to get cold.
Here is where the real fun starts for Janie. Not only does she spend ninety percent of the rest of the book flip-flopping between hysteria and numbness, she also acquires a markedly crappy boyfriend named Reeve and fails every single one of her classes, but she also becomes so attached to the milk carton with her face on it, she can’t be without it for more than an hour at a time.
During poor cardboard Janie’s meltdown of self destruction, the strangest part of the book happens. Nobody notices. Her teachers just simply keep on giving her assignments, not one of them stopping to wonder why this formerly brilliant pupil is doing so poorly. Her friends actually get mad at her for being distant, not even noticing that she’s having full-blown panic attacks in front of them. Her supposed “Best Friend” calls her up one night, and when Janie doesn’t want to make small talk about nail polish and boys, gets so upset that she essentially disowns her as a friend.
When Janie finally reaches her breaking point, she skips school with her boyfriend, Reeve, and takes a four hour trip down to New Jersey to attempt to find her family through searching through a phonebook at then stalking them outside their home. Neither Reeve nor Janie seem to see any problem with this, and they wait creepily in the car while Janie’s assumed biological family comes home from school. In this interlude, Reeve appears to just have been waiting for Janie to be done with her parked-car stalking so that he can ask her to go to a motel. Janie turns him down, and they get back in the car to make the four hour drive back home. About halfway back home, without having exchanged more than six words, Reeve turns off the highway, drives into a astonishingly skeezy motel parking lot, and rents a room using his mother’s credit card. Janie, who has not been interested in finding a motel *wink wink*, turns him down yet again and then they get back in the car and drive away, not even bothering to check out. With Janie’s breakdown taking up most of her brain space, is it really the golden opportunity to try to find a motel?
For the rest of the ride, Reeve doesn’t speak to her until they realize they had better get their stories straight for their parents, who are going absolutely insane from wondering where their children have gone, and then shortly after the road trip to New Jersey, he dumps her.
I think now is a good time to pause the manic action of this book and talk briefly about the writing style. For example, the metaphors weighed down the pace of the book like a dumbbell on a folded paper airplane. As a matter of fact, wading through the metaphors was like sloshing through a four foot vat of jelly. Reading the superfluous metaphors made me feel as if I was drowning in the ocean with thousands of paper cuts all over my skin.
When the plot wasn’t being bogged down by the poor word choices, The Face on the Milk Carton felt both intensely melodramatic and breakneck, slowed down and meticulously described in all the wrong places, and then suddenly the writing would take off and sweep over hours or days of time in a sentence or two. There was no plot arch, and the one big plot point of the book was stretched out into an overlong, dazed and poorly paced literary cacophony of confusion.
In short, The Face on the Milk Carton is a novel full of unrealistic coincidences, gaping plot holes, overly complicated metaphors, and a plot that is stretched so thinly it’s nearly at its breaking point. The underdeveloped characters left me without a speck of sympathy for their unrealistic plights, and the ending, while leaving the story open for a sequel , left me apathetic with no real desire to read onward.
The Face on the Milk Carton
This book tells the story of a teenage girl who finds out that she was kidnapped as a toddler through a series of totally unrealistic coincidences and absurd conjecture. Janie Johnson is our paper-flat heroine, a girl with no apparent interests other than the boy next door and no more character depth than trying not to drink milk because of her mild lactose allergy. One day, while surrounded by her insipid and wildly annoying friends who don’t seem to really know her at all, (judging by the fact that they can happily ignore that Janie is having a complete and total mental breakdown while they cheerily eat their lunches,) Janie finds a photo of herself in a missing children’s ad on the side of a milk carton. She recognizes the photo of herself from the dress that she’s wearing, goes into a tailspin and promptly decides that her loving parents must have stolen her away from her “real” family at a young age, all in less time than it takes her school lunch to get cold.
Here is where the real fun starts for Janie. Not only does she spend ninety percent of the rest of the book flip-flopping between hysteria and numbness, she also acquires a markedly crappy boyfriend named Reeve and fails every single one of her classes, but she also becomes so attached to the milk carton with her face on it, she can’t be without it for more than an hour at a time.
During poor cardboard Janie’s meltdown of self destruction, the strangest part of the book happens. Nobody notices. Her teachers just simply keep on giving her assignments, not one of them stopping to wonder why this formerly brilliant pupil is doing so poorly. Her friends actually get mad at her for being distant, not even noticing that she’s having full-blown panic attacks in front of them. Her supposed “Best Friend” calls her up one night, and when Janie doesn’t want to make small talk about nail polish and boys, gets so upset that she essentially disowns her as a friend.
When Janie finally reaches her breaking point, she skips school with her boyfriend, Reeve, and takes a four hour trip down to New Jersey to attempt to find her family through searching through a phonebook at then stalking them outside their home. Neither Reeve nor Janie seem to see any problem with this, and they wait creepily in the car while Janie’s assumed biological family comes home from school. In this interlude, Reeve appears to just have been waiting for Janie to be done with her parked-car stalking so that he can ask her to go to a motel. Janie turns him down, and they get back in the car to make the four hour drive back home. About halfway back home, without having exchanged more than six words, Reeve turns off the highway, drives into a astonishingly skeezy motel parking lot, and rents a room using his mother’s credit card. Janie, who has not been interested in finding a motel *wink wink*, turns him down yet again and then they get back in the car and drive away, not even bothering to check out. With Janie’s breakdown taking up most of her brain space, is it really the golden opportunity to try to find a motel?
For the rest of the ride, Reeve doesn’t speak to her until they realize they had better get their stories straight for their parents, who are going absolutely insane from wondering where their children have gone, and then shortly after the road trip to New Jersey, he dumps her.
I think now is a good time to pause the manic action of this book and talk briefly about the writing style. For example, the metaphors weighed down the pace of the book like a dumbbell on a folded paper airplane. As a matter of fact, wading through the metaphors was like sloshing through a four foot vat of jelly. Reading the superfluous metaphors made me feel as if I was drowning in the ocean with thousands of paper cuts all over my skin.
When the plot wasn’t being bogged down by the poor word choices, The Face on the Milk Carton felt both intensely melodramatic and breakneck, slowed down and meticulously described in all the wrong places, and then suddenly the writing would take off and sweep over hours or days of time in a sentence or two. There was no plot arch, and the one big plot point of the book was stretched out into an overlong, dazed and poorly paced literary cacophony of confusion.
In short, The Face on the Milk Carton is a novel full of unrealistic coincidences, gaping plot holes, overly complicated metaphors, and a plot that is stretched so thinly it’s nearly at its breaking point. The underdeveloped characters left me without a speck of sympathy for their unrealistic plights, and the ending, while leaving the story open for a sequel , left me apathetic with no real desire to read onward.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Week Forty-Three: Out Of Hibernation
Hello, bloggy-types!
Yes, I know, it's been a while. I disappeared during November, but on the bright side, I've written my third novel.
It went better than I'd expected, actually. Especially since I had my busiest November on record, managing to finish 50,000 words has been quite the trip. I had very little idea as to what I wanted to do with my novel this year, and almost everything that I'd planned went straight out the window. I couldn't be happier.
As of now, I'm re-reading it, and to my surprise, there's actually some not-that-bad bits in there, including an argument that I particularly liked. Clearly, I'm going to need a lot of time to edit it into something coherent, but at least it's there. I had a really good time with it this year, and I'm really proud of my little fledgeling book-baby.
With the self-imposed challenge of BOW'11, I've obviously missed a handful of weeks, but that's okay, I think. My goal has been revised to post 52 times this year, so look forward to tons of posts until December 31st. Even though I technically failed the guidelines of this challenge, I don't really feel like it. I've posted roughly forty-three more times than I would have without attempting this mad project, and because of that, I have a window to look back at how I was feeling, what I was doing, and who I was throughout this past year, and in that case, it was totally worth it.
It's the Christmas-Yule season now, the house is decorated, and the holiday music is playing over the radio.
For now, I have to say goodbye. It's time to go get the tree, and we need to find the biggest, fattest tree we can, so I must go.
Look out for Whimsy's triumphant return, as I attempt to write 10 blog posts in three weeks.
Happy holidays!
~Whimsy
Yes, I know, it's been a while. I disappeared during November, but on the bright side, I've written my third novel.
It went better than I'd expected, actually. Especially since I had my busiest November on record, managing to finish 50,000 words has been quite the trip. I had very little idea as to what I wanted to do with my novel this year, and almost everything that I'd planned went straight out the window. I couldn't be happier.
As of now, I'm re-reading it, and to my surprise, there's actually some not-that-bad bits in there, including an argument that I particularly liked. Clearly, I'm going to need a lot of time to edit it into something coherent, but at least it's there. I had a really good time with it this year, and I'm really proud of my little fledgeling book-baby.
With the self-imposed challenge of BOW'11, I've obviously missed a handful of weeks, but that's okay, I think. My goal has been revised to post 52 times this year, so look forward to tons of posts until December 31st. Even though I technically failed the guidelines of this challenge, I don't really feel like it. I've posted roughly forty-three more times than I would have without attempting this mad project, and because of that, I have a window to look back at how I was feeling, what I was doing, and who I was throughout this past year, and in that case, it was totally worth it.
It's the Christmas-Yule season now, the house is decorated, and the holiday music is playing over the radio.
For now, I have to say goodbye. It's time to go get the tree, and we need to find the biggest, fattest tree we can, so I must go.
Look out for Whimsy's triumphant return, as I attempt to write 10 blog posts in three weeks.
Happy holidays!
~Whimsy
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Week Fourty-Two: Shanta
Once upon a time, I had the best dog ever. Her name was Shanta, and she was everything from a partner in crime to a pillow. Shanta and I grew up at the same time, we spending thirteen years of our lives together. I remember when I was younger, Shanta was a staple in whatever I was doing, whether it was smashing dog treats with rocks and feeding her the mixed up powder as a gourmet doggy restaurant, or playing house in the woods with Shanta as my pet wolf, she was always there.
One year, my sister and I decided that since Shanta was a husky, it would be a brilliant idea to hitch her up to one of the sleds and have her pull us down the hill. Shanta decided that it would be the opposite of brilliant. To our dismay, she was terrified of the sled, and so ended our very short career as mushers.
In the summers, I spent hours making terrifically inedible foods from flowers and sand. Shanta, who wanted to be included, regardless of what it was we were doing, developed a habit of helping herself to whatever blossoms were designated for our colorful salads. In turn, we developed a habit of plucking rhododendron flowers and feeding them to her, in lieu of actual dog treats from the store.
As I grew older, flowers gave way to little bits of whatever food I was eating that day. Carrots and sandwich bread, egg salad and potato chips, you name it, Shanta wanted some. Everything but fruit, that is. She couldn’t stand fruit, yet she would beg for it if we had some. It never seemed to cross her mind that she didn’t, in fact, like apple cores, no matter how much fun we seemed to be having with ours.
When she lived outside, Shanta slept in the snowdrifts, nose tucked under her tail, leaving behind a little round icy divot in the flakes. During her days, she raced through the woods, catching anything foolish enough to wander into her path, and more frequently than not, devouring it. The sheer fact that she could catch birds was a testament to her speed and agility, and her area of the yard became a graveyard for small woodland creatures, while our family struggled to remove the hapless toads that hopped in her way.
Twice, we almost lost her. The first time, we could only assume that she chased after a deer and sprinted out of the range of her invisible fence. The second time, we found her (with the help of some wonderful people) three and a half hours away in Wrentham, MA. She had been hit by a car, broken her leg, and almost certainly been abducted. From that day forward, Shanta became an indoor dog. Her life and our family’s lives changed forever.
A “begging line” was established in the kitchen, and Shanta’s disgusting but well-loved toy, “hamboogie”, moved inside with us. Tina learned to tolerate the new addition, not finding much joy in having an intruder in her cat-only home, and we learned to tolerate the mountain of fluffy white hair that Shanta left wherever she went. The house was full of laughter and an enthusiastic dog. Suddenly, picking up spilled food became Shanta’s job, a job that she was all too happy to take on. I should say, she was happy to clean up everything but the fruit. Old habits die hard.
After a while, I decided that Shanta needed a voice to share her opinions about what was happening around the house, so I became her “tail-voice”, vocalizing on her behalf, and attempting to tap into what she was thinking from the look on her face. It soon became clear to everyone in the house that Shanta had very clear opinions about certain things, like perceived favoritism of the cat, certain high-pitched singers on the radio, what sort of food should be cooked for dinner, and was indefinitely puzzled by the fact that humans shed their entire coats every day, and that while her snowdrifts of hair were a source of annoyance, nobody found the fact that humans sheadded daily odd at all.
It never really occurred to me that, while I was growing and becoming older, Shanta was, too. In my mind, she was always my puppy, and I called her that, as the years past. Last April, Shanta suffered a series of seizures, and rapidly declined, dying a week later.
I miss my puppy every day. She was one of the most sweet, gentle, loving, funny creatures I have ever met, and I am immensely privileged to have spent 13 years of my life with her.
Once upon a time, I had the best dog ever. Her name was Shanta.
One year, my sister and I decided that since Shanta was a husky, it would be a brilliant idea to hitch her up to one of the sleds and have her pull us down the hill. Shanta decided that it would be the opposite of brilliant. To our dismay, she was terrified of the sled, and so ended our very short career as mushers.
In the summers, I spent hours making terrifically inedible foods from flowers and sand. Shanta, who wanted to be included, regardless of what it was we were doing, developed a habit of helping herself to whatever blossoms were designated for our colorful salads. In turn, we developed a habit of plucking rhododendron flowers and feeding them to her, in lieu of actual dog treats from the store.
As I grew older, flowers gave way to little bits of whatever food I was eating that day. Carrots and sandwich bread, egg salad and potato chips, you name it, Shanta wanted some. Everything but fruit, that is. She couldn’t stand fruit, yet she would beg for it if we had some. It never seemed to cross her mind that she didn’t, in fact, like apple cores, no matter how much fun we seemed to be having with ours.
When she lived outside, Shanta slept in the snowdrifts, nose tucked under her tail, leaving behind a little round icy divot in the flakes. During her days, she raced through the woods, catching anything foolish enough to wander into her path, and more frequently than not, devouring it. The sheer fact that she could catch birds was a testament to her speed and agility, and her area of the yard became a graveyard for small woodland creatures, while our family struggled to remove the hapless toads that hopped in her way.
Twice, we almost lost her. The first time, we could only assume that she chased after a deer and sprinted out of the range of her invisible fence. The second time, we found her (with the help of some wonderful people) three and a half hours away in Wrentham, MA. She had been hit by a car, broken her leg, and almost certainly been abducted. From that day forward, Shanta became an indoor dog. Her life and our family’s lives changed forever.
A “begging line” was established in the kitchen, and Shanta’s disgusting but well-loved toy, “hamboogie”, moved inside with us. Tina learned to tolerate the new addition, not finding much joy in having an intruder in her cat-only home, and we learned to tolerate the mountain of fluffy white hair that Shanta left wherever she went. The house was full of laughter and an enthusiastic dog. Suddenly, picking up spilled food became Shanta’s job, a job that she was all too happy to take on. I should say, she was happy to clean up everything but the fruit. Old habits die hard.
After a while, I decided that Shanta needed a voice to share her opinions about what was happening around the house, so I became her “tail-voice”, vocalizing on her behalf, and attempting to tap into what she was thinking from the look on her face. It soon became clear to everyone in the house that Shanta had very clear opinions about certain things, like perceived favoritism of the cat, certain high-pitched singers on the radio, what sort of food should be cooked for dinner, and was indefinitely puzzled by the fact that humans shed their entire coats every day, and that while her snowdrifts of hair were a source of annoyance, nobody found the fact that humans sheadded daily odd at all.
It never really occurred to me that, while I was growing and becoming older, Shanta was, too. In my mind, she was always my puppy, and I called her that, as the years past. Last April, Shanta suffered a series of seizures, and rapidly declined, dying a week later.
I miss my puppy every day. She was one of the most sweet, gentle, loving, funny creatures I have ever met, and I am immensely privileged to have spent 13 years of my life with her.
Once upon a time, I had the best dog ever. Her name was Shanta.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Week Fourty-One: NaNoWriMo Prep
Why hello again, my charming bloggians.
As you all know, November is creeping up ever faster that I thought possible. I am without a full-formed plot, without main characters, and without an outline. In addition to this, I will be teaching three days a week in November (and spending countless hours doing prepwork for the classes), attempting to keep sane, not fall behind on my BOW'11 project, and furthermore, the show that I'm in is opening the first weekend of November. It's all I can do to keep my head above water now, let alone attempt to write a book.
So now it's time for me to step back and look at my November in a realistic way. Will I be able to handle all this without going utterly bonkers? Can I take even three minutes to squeeze in another handful of words? No.
Is it madness to think that I could take on a project of this magnitude? Yes.
Will I be doing it anyway, despite my better judgement? You bet.
Am I taking on 50,000 words of a genre that I am not wildly familiar with? Indeed.
How excited am I? There are no words.
~Whimsy
P.S.
Thank you to all those who have commented. I love you all and send tons of hugs your way. I wish I had time to properly write back, but maybe in December? Thanks for sticking with me!
P.P.S. Are you NaNoing this year? What's your book about?
As you all know, November is creeping up ever faster that I thought possible. I am without a full-formed plot, without main characters, and without an outline. In addition to this, I will be teaching three days a week in November (and spending countless hours doing prepwork for the classes), attempting to keep sane, not fall behind on my BOW'11 project, and furthermore, the show that I'm in is opening the first weekend of November. It's all I can do to keep my head above water now, let alone attempt to write a book.
So now it's time for me to step back and look at my November in a realistic way. Will I be able to handle all this without going utterly bonkers? Can I take even three minutes to squeeze in another handful of words? No.
Is it madness to think that I could take on a project of this magnitude? Yes.
Will I be doing it anyway, despite my better judgement? You bet.
Am I taking on 50,000 words of a genre that I am not wildly familiar with? Indeed.
How excited am I? There are no words.
~Whimsy
P.S.
Thank you to all those who have commented. I love you all and send tons of hugs your way. I wish I had time to properly write back, but maybe in December? Thanks for sticking with me!
P.P.S. Are you NaNoing this year? What's your book about?
Monday, October 10, 2011
Week Fourty: Everything Is Happening.
Do you ever have one of those weeks where everything is happening at once? Yeah, me too.
So that's why this is just bordering on late. I've been splitting my time between teaching and prepping for 10 different classes on three different days, rehearsing for the show I'm in, trying to get ready for NaNo, still keeping up on my weekly ASL lessons, learning to roller skate for the aforementioned play, read at least a little, keep the laundry going and the house at least marginally clean.
Clearly, it's been a bit nuts over here.
Just today, I spent 2 hours at the local skating rink just practicing going around and not falling over while holing on to a stack of books. Not as easy as one would think, especially since the last time I roller skated was at my cousin's birthday party, when he turned 5 or something. (This would have made me 6 years old.) Two weeks ago, the role I was play in the show swapped from the smallest part to one of the lead roles. For this new part, I have to learn to skate. Yes, I'm trying not to kill myself.
In addition, as I mentioned before, I'm thinking about NaNo. It's looking like my novel this year will be a huge sci-fi crazy-thing, and I couldn't be happier.
Anywho, I'm getting tired (it is 1:15am, after all), so I'll let you all go.
Hoping for a better post next week,
Whimsy
So that's why this is just bordering on late. I've been splitting my time between teaching and prepping for 10 different classes on three different days, rehearsing for the show I'm in, trying to get ready for NaNo, still keeping up on my weekly ASL lessons, learning to roller skate for the aforementioned play, read at least a little, keep the laundry going and the house at least marginally clean.
Clearly, it's been a bit nuts over here.
Just today, I spent 2 hours at the local skating rink just practicing going around and not falling over while holing on to a stack of books. Not as easy as one would think, especially since the last time I roller skated was at my cousin's birthday party, when he turned 5 or something. (This would have made me 6 years old.) Two weeks ago, the role I was play in the show swapped from the smallest part to one of the lead roles. For this new part, I have to learn to skate. Yes, I'm trying not to kill myself.
In addition, as I mentioned before, I'm thinking about NaNo. It's looking like my novel this year will be a huge sci-fi crazy-thing, and I couldn't be happier.
Anywho, I'm getting tired (it is 1:15am, after all), so I'll let you all go.
Hoping for a better post next week,
Whimsy
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Week Thirty-Nine: Unbridled Enthusiasm
There's something I've noticed, and it's become more and more blatant the more time I spend with young children*.
When young children see something that makes them happy, they show it in every molecule of their body. They see no reason to tone down the absolute joy that they feel. If something is exciting, they jump up and down, squealing with glee. When they find someone who likes the same thing that they like, it's a cause for a party.
Here's the thing. When we grow older, many, many people lose that unbridled enthusiasm. We go from showing our happiness on every inch of our bodies to hiding the fact that we're enjoying inside ourselves. At some point, it's like there's an unspoken rule that a certain amount of joy and outwardly expressed emotion that becomes uncool.
Now, pardon me, but this is where I would like to jump in. I think that the idea that we have to squelch the fact that we're happy is complete and utter bollocks. The whole "cool people don't subtly jump up and down, quietly cheering when they find the book that they wanted at the library" idea is completely absurd.
I know many, many people who have a bunch of wonderful interests, and yet, most of the time, they live in a state of restraining themselves from letting themselves really become enthusiastic about what makes them happy.
When you can't even express your joy outwardly, I think that's so very sad. Furthermore, when people do express the fact that they're excited, I've actually seen them apologize for it. Being enthusiastic is not a bad thing, people. Let's stop treating it as such.
So go ahead, enthuse about your favorite books. Spend the whole day in excited anticipation of a new episode of a TV show. Do a happy spin because you've found the exact tea you wanted at the grocery store.
Just don't let enthusiasm die out. Please. If enthusiasm dies, what a bland world we'd have.
Happy Saturday, everyone!
*And by "young children", I pretty much mean anyone from the age 6 to 11...loosely around there, at least.
When young children see something that makes them happy, they show it in every molecule of their body. They see no reason to tone down the absolute joy that they feel. If something is exciting, they jump up and down, squealing with glee. When they find someone who likes the same thing that they like, it's a cause for a party.
Here's the thing. When we grow older, many, many people lose that unbridled enthusiasm. We go from showing our happiness on every inch of our bodies to hiding the fact that we're enjoying inside ourselves. At some point, it's like there's an unspoken rule that a certain amount of joy and outwardly expressed emotion that becomes uncool.
Now, pardon me, but this is where I would like to jump in. I think that the idea that we have to squelch the fact that we're happy is complete and utter bollocks. The whole "cool people don't subtly jump up and down, quietly cheering when they find the book that they wanted at the library" idea is completely absurd.
I know many, many people who have a bunch of wonderful interests, and yet, most of the time, they live in a state of restraining themselves from letting themselves really become enthusiastic about what makes them happy.
When you can't even express your joy outwardly, I think that's so very sad. Furthermore, when people do express the fact that they're excited, I've actually seen them apologize for it. Being enthusiastic is not a bad thing, people. Let's stop treating it as such.
So go ahead, enthuse about your favorite books. Spend the whole day in excited anticipation of a new episode of a TV show. Do a happy spin because you've found the exact tea you wanted at the grocery store.
Just don't let enthusiasm die out. Please. If enthusiasm dies, what a bland world we'd have.
Happy Saturday, everyone!
*And by "young children", I pretty much mean anyone from the age 6 to 11...loosely around there, at least.
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