Family and Life:
I saw an interesting movie last weekend: The Race to Nowhere. It's about high school students who are taking on too much (multiple AP courses, 2 sports, 3 clubs, community service, hours and hours of homework), not sleeping enough, and they're freaking out. I think many students today of all ages are over-scheduled, over-homeworked, and they are stressed.
What's interesting is that the movie really got me thinking about me as a grown up. I am over-scheduled. There. I've said it out loud. So, I am trying to downsize a bit. This means admitting that my National Boards aren't going to happen the way I want them to this year. So I am going to do part of it this year and part of it next year. Once I made that decision I felt pretty good about it.
Work:
We've just ended our Term 2 at my school (we're on a 4x4 block schedule), which means I've spent the last couple days collecting textbooks. Lots of heavy lifting! But, I have wonderful PTSA moms who come and help; we couldn't do it without them. And, on Tuesday, we get to do it all in reverse as our students start a new set of classes and get all new textbooks.
Books and Reading:
My book group met this past week and we're going to read The Girl That Fell From the Sky by Heidi Durrow. I remember seeing a lot of reviews of it around the blogosphere, but now don't remember if people liked it or not. The other one we considered The Crying Tree by Naseem Rakha, which sounded so good I bought it too.
Big Question:
Netgalley. Do you use it? Do you like it? Is there a time frame in which we have to read and review the books? I'd love to hear your experiences with it. Thank you!
Give Aways:
I have three give aways going on right now:
- A copy of Little Bee by Chris Cleave. It's international and ends on Tuesday, January 18, 2011
- A copy of The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. It's international and ends on Thursday, January 20, 2011
- A copy of Muslim Women Reformers by Ida Lichter. It's international and ends on Wednesday, January 26, 2011.
4 comments
I agree that kids today are over scheduled; I do believe in keeping kids busy, but it must be reasonable.
I want to read both book that you are reading right now, and as for NetGalley, I checked it out but never found anything I was dying to read, so I passed.
Diane--Kids definitely need to be kept busy; I know that the ones not doing clubs, sports, theater, etc at my school tend to be the ones who don't do as well in school and get into more trouble (too much free time on their hands), but some kids are doing just too much
I am oversheduled! I've been trying for years to declutter, but for ever single thing I abandon, I add two more. The internet doesn't make life easier, it makes it harder. And kids are also over-scheduled. The whole process starts so early - do more than you can/should!
I love NetGalley. I have tons of books requested from there - and I'm not sure when I'll get the time to read them, but this year, I'm trying to be more disciplined about that. My understanding is that there is no deadline date.
Aths--No, the internet doesn't make it easier, it just means I am on the computer WAY more. Good to hear about NetGalley. I've only requested 2 books so far and thought I'd see how that goes
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