The Martian by Andy Weir

I've been reading so much YA lit, that it feels strange to be blasting through more adult material. I was fairly sure that my high reading rate had to do to with the level of the books I was reading. Let's face it, it almost certainly does have to do with that. However, I blasted through this 370 page book in less than a day. I almost literally couldn't put it down, and, considering it was sci-fi, it was not an easy read.

Good, real sci-fi explores an idea. It could be, and often is, hard science. But it can also be psychological or sociological. It can even be something like moral philosophy. Real sci-fi takes that idea constructs a world around it and runs a few characters through the consequences of "the idea." Pulp, on the other hand, only needs zap guns or aliens to be termed sci-fi. I like both types, but I really feel the latter has more in common with the fantasy genre. (Change out the zap guns for magic wands and give the aliens pointy ears and call them elves. Voila, same story no sci-fi.)

The Martian is real sci-fi. The central idea is what would happen to a mars astronaut stranded on Mars. How would he survive? What would happen back home on Earth? How would he even get stranded in the first place? Weir does a good job extrapolating out the situation for his unfortunate main character, Mark Watney.

Mark's survival is, of course, unlikely, but Weir did a good job keeping him plausible. The strong implication is that he was simply lucky enough to be the mission's mechanical engineer which gives him most of the background knowledge and skills to survive. I can't imagine the crew's computer specialist being quite so believable.

So, anyway, I haven't seen the film adaptation yet but I'm looking forward to tracking it down. This is definitely a book that I would recommend.

A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson

Coincidently, I decided to try reading A Walk In the Woods one more time less than a week before the school trip to Amicalola Falls which happens to be the Southern end of the Appalachian Trail. I love Bill Bryson books, but, for some reason, I had to try three times (at least) before I could get past the first 50 pages. I guess life just kept happening. Or maybe I wasn't quite old enough to identify yet with Bryson's take on the Appalachian Trail. I have a young coworker who went nearly apoplectic expressing her outrage that Bryson had the temerity to write on the AT when he didn't even successfully finish it. *The nerve!* 

Who knows or can say why it took so many attempts. I finished this time. I did like it very much, although I didn't come to the same conclusions he did about the trail. However, I like reading Bryson for the voice primarily. He was hilariously self-deprecating about his lack of preparedness. I remain convinced that he and his friend Katz were very lucky to survive the fragments that they did hike through.

My mom hiked the trail about 5 years ago. My mother, in general, is a pretty interesting and impressive person. She really didn't need to hike 2,200 miles of wilderness to prove that, yet that's what she did.  I dropped her off at the lodge at Amicalola in March and off she went. I remember thinking at the time wow, that sounds pretty cool. And it does sound cool; there's no way I'd be able to do it. I'm a pretty tough cookie, but all practical issues about making money and family concerns aside, I simply worry too much. By the time I got to Katahdin in Maine, I'd be a complete wreck. I know I would.

Interestingly, A Walk In the  Woods underscored that for me. Bryson makes it pretty clear what an immense undertaking through hiking the AT really is. The scope of it is so massive that it's really hard to keep a hold of mentally. Interspersed with his memoir-ish bits of trail narration are short bits of history and natural science all written for the layperson and full of snarky wit. In the end, I think I found the bits of history and science more enticing than the trail narration. All in all, a good read.

Beer Chile

Everyone talks about cooking with wine, but there's no reason that the same principles don't apply to beer. Pretty much any dish that you add wine to, you could substitute a beer. Of course, the flavor will be very different, but it will work just fine. As a general rule of thumb, use lagers and pilsners for anywhere you'd normally use a white wine, a stout or red ale work well instead of a red wine. Stay away from the high gravs and specialty beers; some of them work just fine but a lot of the high gravs have so much bittering hop that it can be unpleasant cooked down in food.

1 Tbs oil
1 onion chopped
1 pound ground beef
3 Tbs. chile powder
1 Tbs. cumin
28 oz can diced tomatoes
15 oz can white beans, drained
15 oz can kidney beans, drained
15 oz can black beans, drained
1 bottle dark beer
Salt to taste

Saute the onion and ground beef in the oil. Cook until the meat is browned. Add the rest of the ingredients. Bring to a simmer, simmer 20-30 minutes.

Better the next day.

Spring Slump

It happens every spring eventually. The weather gets warmer, graduation gets closer, and the kids get squirrelly. We are most definitely in the spring slump. It wouldn't be so bad except that as a teacher, part of our role is to assert or ensure (depending on how you think about it) discipline. It's exhausting. I'm exhausted. {-P

So in light of my exhaustion, this is my lame post for the evening. Tomorrow I hike Amicalola Falls with 30 some odd students, should be awesome.

Series Completed - The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia Wrede

Sometimes, when I finish a book or a series, I don't feel happy or accomplished. I don't feel good. I feel. . . aggravated. It's like I have ants under my skin and I have to go do something (usually clean something). It's uncomfortable, to say the least, and it doesn't happen often. I don't know if I could stand reading as much as I do if finishing a book made me feel like this more often.

On the upside, it is also usually a sign that I really enjoyed something. I think it is a response to being wrenched out of a world. Good books do that. The world between the covers becomes more real for a little while than physical surroundings. I call it "the flow." It's that sense of the physical words fading back behind the image conveyed by their meaning to the point where I can almost lose track of the actual process of reading. It's what I try to help my students find.

Needless to say, I really got into the flow with this series. It's a four book series:

1. Dealing with Dragons
2. Searching for Dragons
3. Calling on Dragons
4. Talking to Dragons

I blogged the first in the series last Sunday. As I mentioned in that post, I like the strong snarky female characters, but as the series developed I grew to really like some of the male characters too who are not just backdrops for strong women. (One can go overboard on strong females too) I particularly like the rather biting satire aimed at the fainting violet varieties of females (princesses) that show up and the misogynistic male villains. It's fun.

I will be sure to keep a set of these on hand in my classroom library. They are the kind of books that appeal to intelligent and thoughtful kids, it's a comfortable high school reading level, and, while featuring female characters, should appeal to both genders.

Turn Signals

So the more I drive, the more driver behavior confounds me. For example, what is people's aversion to using their turn signal. The whole point of the turn signal is to communicate with other drivers. Sure there are some jerks out there that will deliberately make life difficult, probably because they are overly concerned with other's perception of the dimensions of various bits of their anatomy. I actually think those people are, if not rare, at least a minority. Most people are more oblivious if not actually helpful.

However, this "defensive" driving technique of deliberately making it difficulty for other drivers to read one's intentions leads to some pretty hair raising  driving. I'm not perfect, but if I notice that someone has their signal on, (and they didn't pull some sort of jerk-move like whipping around a line of cars on the shoulder to jump the queue) I let them in if it is at all convenient to do so.

I had one woman today going absolutely ballistic behind her wheel at me because she wanted to make a left turn from a side road onto a busy road across my lane and she thought I cut her off. Given the level of back up I probably would have let her out in front of me if I had any clue that was what she was up to. But no signal. So she had a clear right turn (two lanes you see)  and was at her little intersection a long time.  I had left a small gap in front expecting she might signal left but when  the traffic in front of me moved, I moved. Crazy logic there. This lady really blew up, I don't if it possible to sarcastically put on a left turn signal, but if it's possible, she did it while staring me down. (Good luck lady, your brand of crazy isn't very impressive)

Just crazy.

I had someone this morning dive across three lanes of traffic on the highway - no signal.
Someone else drove half a block down the street on the wrong side to make a left turn...again no signal

ye gods people, not everything is a competition. Not everything has to be right now. Take a chill pill and learn what all those little levers do on your steering column.

Top 5 Thomas Approved Movies as of right now

For the longest time, Thomas didn't watch T.V. It's not that it wasn't on, it was simply that he wasn't interested in it. The shift happened a couple of months ago. He's still not interested in most things, which is good since we have to cut down on T.V. consumption.

1. Home

I've mentioned this movie before. One of my students convinced me to give it a try even though it looked completely inane. It's actually quite fun and has a lot of peppy dance music which Thomas likes bopping around to.

2. Tale of Despereaux

A cute fairy tale about a brave mouse and a rat and a princess. It's a pretty improbable story that somehow all works together. It's a little slow in areas but the animation style is engaging and it has an unbelievable voice cast.

3. Big Hero 6

A futuristic animation about a boy-genius, Hiro, who is goaded into applying for a robotics program by his brother Tadashi. Tadashi is also into robotics and has built a large soft inflated medical robot named Baymax. I like this one for the way it handles depression and grieving.

4. How to Train Your Dragon 1 & 2

I just like anything with dragons. However, these two movies are inventive and fun. There's a great romantic scene in the second one between an older couple that makes Ryan mist up every time.


5. The Emperor's New Groove

This is not a good movie, it's more a guilty pleasure. What I like about it, is that it doesn't take itself seriously and plays with a lot of the Disney archetypes. And it has llamas. I like llamas