Sunday Salon: July 29, 2018

My life in books: 

I participated, sort of, in the Reverse Summer Dewey Readathon. I had huge intentions to read for most of the time, but ended up going down to Los Angeles yesterday (almost 2 hours away) so that took up most of my time. I did manage to read one book, the Grisham listed below.

 

• Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro--one of my favorite YA books this year
• Intention: Critical Creativity in the Classroom by Amy Burvall and Dan Ryder-- a book for work
• Love and Luck by Jenna Evans Welch--Fun YA

• What Girls Are Made of by Elana K. Arnold--YA
• I gave upon Hasty Death by MC Beaton (adult mystery) as it was just not enough.
• Calypso by David Sedaris--Adult short essays/stories

• Jane Doe by Victoria Helen Stone--a TLC Tour book 
• Camino Island by John Grisham--Good solid Grisham

Challenges progress:

• Big Book Summer Challenge--I have read 2 books longer than 400 pages this summer. 
• Non-fiction--My goal is 20 books and I've read 34! 
• Literary Voyage around the world--Read books set in as many countries as possible. I have read in 33 countries so far, and in the past two weeks added ...
• Literary Escapes--Track the US states. I have read books set in 25 states so far and in the past weeks added North Carolina and Minnesota. I have read half the states!
• Read all of the ALA YA Award Winners--I have already read 6 of these winners.
• Motif Reading Challenge--The June motif is Crack the Case (mysteries) so I did that with Blackout by Alex Segura.

My life outside books:

Working:

It's summer break so it should be nothing, but I actually met with a few teachers to go over curriculum with them, which was fun.

Personal:

It was my Birthday last week (July 20) and I had a nice, but relaxing day of grading, reading, shopping, and a family dinner.

I took a chance a week ago and installed the Be My Eyes app on my phone and signed up to be a volunteer. Here's the scoop on this app:

• There are over 88,000 people with low vision or people with complete blindness registered
• There are over 1.5 million seeing people who have signed up as volunteers on the app.
• The idea is that someone who cannot see makes a call on the app and they are routed to someone who speaks their language who can help them read an expiration date on food, choose a shirt to wear that will match their trousers, find a lost item, etc.

It makes me nervous that I won't be able to help someone when they call (what if they have a cooking question? I am not a great cook). But, I am also excited to help if called upon. The calls only come in from 8:00am to 9:00pm so you won't be woken up in the night. I got my first call, but when I answered it another volunteer had already helped (each call goes to 10 volunteers).

I saw two movies with my daughter in the past two weeks and they were both absolutely wonderful and I highly recommend both. "Call Me By Your Name" is beautifully made and "RBG" is inspiring and informative. We also went to see the new Mamma Mia movie, but walked out. Bummer.