#i read catcher in the rye for english senior year and i had a huge doc full of notes for the paper i wrote on it afterwards

[steviescrystals]

i graduated high school 3 years ago and i’m still not over the fact that NO ONE TOLD ME the district would delete all of our school accounts like a month later and now every paper, presentation, project, etc. i made on that account from 5th-12th grade is just gone forever 🫠

[bonvoyagenoona]

Fav books recs pls?

Oooh! I might’ve done a list like this before, but here are more thoughts.

Many of my faves of all time came from my high school English teachers’ assigned reading list (I had two very amazing teachers whom I admire to this day), but my list also includes standards, YA books that have impacted me, and others, in somewhat chronological order of when I read them?:

Spying on Miss Mueller - one of my fave YA books, it’s about four boarding school girls during WWII who are enamored with their glamorous German headmistresses, but all is not what it seems, such a sweet story and thrilling adventure

The Bell Jar - my ultimate favorite book of all time, and the edition I found had the poem “Mad Girl’s Love Song”, which was also life-changing

Idk if you’re also into poetry but, given that I brought it up, ugh, “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning”

Breakfast at Tiffany’s

The Catcher in the Rye

The Poisonwood Bible

Crime and Punishment - I actually didn’t think I’d enjoy this, but when I read it in an English class, I was very drawn to it, so much so that when we were assigned it for the summer before senior year, I went ALL OUT with my project and wrote diary entries for each chapter/passage/sentence that stuck out to me and gave commentary, and my teacher was like “WHOA THIS IS AMAZING” lol

Notes from Underground - yes, became a fan of Dostoevsky and read this in college for a lit class, cracked me up at times at the pitiful nature of human existence, while also prompting lots of existential thoughts that I hadn’t had before

Same with The Stranger

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men - found David Foster Wallace in college, and his “This is Water” commencement speech at Kenyon College had an impact on me, very thought-provoking and hits on consciousness and awareness (full speech here)

Polish Joke and Other Plays - if you like plays, I like David Ives! I ended up writing a bunch of one-act plays after reading his stuff in college, very fun

EVERYTHING NORA EPHRON, from Heartburn to I Feel Bad About My Neck: And Other Thoughts on Being a Woman and every movie she wrote in between, MY QUEEN

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) - in fact, EVERYTHING by Mindy Kaling, she’s one of my writing heroes!

Year of Yes - Shonda Rhimes’s autobiographical stuff actually changed my life, and I think about the lessons I learned from this book every day

Becoming - I mean, duh, history-making, and I was already weeping when Michelle Obama started talking about her parents, such a relatable story as a first gen immigrant

Live From New York: The Complete, Uncensored History of Saturday Night Live - OK listen, I was OBSESSED with SCTV and SNL from the time I was about 5 to 30, OBSESSED, I wanted to write sketches for them and for late-night shows generally, and Tina Fey and Seth Meyers’ times as head writer had a HUGE creative and life influence on me, still does

Yes, Please - this book is amazing, Amy Poehler has actually become one of my top comedy heroes, along with Mindy and Mike Schur, and BJ Novak, and John Mulaney, and just a bunch of people in that kind of group?, and I say that with somewhat surprise because I was such a Tina Fey stan (so yeah, Bossypants is good too), but a lot of Tina’s reactions to current events since just seem tone deaf, whereas Amy Poehler has led with joy and exploration

Here are some recent reads that I’ve started but haven’t finished, been recommended, or been wanting to check out (these are currently sitting on my shelf):

Literally everything by Sally Rooney (lol @bluejin0812​)

Crying in H Mart (ugh how have I not read this yet)

Three Little Truths

Super Host

Tablo’s Pieces of You, sent to me by a dear friend!

I haven’t been reading or writing nearly as much as I’ve wanted to these days, what with life getting busier. But always happy to learn about books and your thoughts on them! Share more here and I’ll reblog to spread the word!

[my-salty-life]

The news of them made my stomach churn: the girl - a sophomore - left school after the rumors of their relationship spread, and I was left facing the sickening memories that seemed inescapable after receiving them a year ago.

    It began at the start of my junior year; my favorite professor asked me to be his new work study. The previous one had decided to set the school sponsors ablaze with his righteous fury because how dare the English department of a Baptist institution require upper-level English majors read The Catcher in the Rye, a book with one-too-many “GD’s” for his taste, all the while playing Skyrim and boasting about the talent of Marvel movies in spite of their own inclusions of the phrase. Needless to say, the boy soon left the school, ironically opting for a secular institution.

    The offer to fill the place of the English professor’s assistant seemed too good to be true. My previous assignment as the English tutor left me worn, and I was eager to try a different work study assignment. The semester started off well; while the job was not as quiet as I hoped it would be (my professor was very social), it was still enjoyable to assist in various research projects and grade papers. I grew to trust this professor, and he was one of the first people I told about my bulimia. He agreed to help monitor any food that I ate while working.

    My recovery from bulimia was a slow burn, but it quickly worsened during dress rehearsal week of a play I was in. I let the stress overtake me and was hospitalized due to low potassium levels the day after the play. It was during this hospital stay that I received a text from my professor. He asked that I visit his house so that he could give me some soup that he made to help with my stomach (after struggling with bulimia for nine years, my stomach had grown sensitive). I was foolish and agreed.

    That was the second step.

He hugged me when I arrived. It sent an uneasy feeling throughout my body, but I thanked him for the soup and words of worry before leaving. My face felt hot with embarrassment, and I told myself that nothing was meant by it; friends hug each other all the time, and he probably considered me such. 

More signs arose throughout the next few weeks, and yet I shrugged off each one - a hand on my shoulder, his moving my hand to his shoulder when he needed comfort over losing one of his older professors, his hands brushing over mine for a second too long whenever he handed me documents - I shrugged it off as my being too sensitive. I told myself he was just a touchy person, and I didn't understand most relationships, so it wasn't anything major. 

The final warning sign was perhaps the most blatant, but my mind was too set on the professor-student friendship. 

The date is still branded on my memory - it was the day of the second anniversary of my dad's death: December 12, 2017.  He said we should celebrate the end of the semester after my finals and offered to treat his work-study to dinner. I didn't read between the lines. He explained it as a boss would to an employee that he was treating to dinner. It isn't until after the fact that I realize how stupid I was. 

I realized what it was as soon as I sat in the car. His hand went to mine, and my senses turned cold. It occurred to me that this was a date, but I was far from assertive and couldn't find the voice to say no, so I went along with it. I let him hold my hand, I carried on a polite conversation, and I felt dirty the entire time. I remember asking myself how I could be such an idiot as I tried to will myself to speak up.

I failed.

By the end of the “date,” I felt ashamed. I let this professor eleven years my senior hold my hand. I wanted to leave, and yet I wanted no one to see me, so I told him I could walk home. He stopped by his house. I followed, though every bit of me felt sick. I could feel the sashimi trying to creep its way out of my stomach, and I went to the restroom as soon as I arrived. 

I returned, and candles were around his front room. He asked me to sit. I sat down, and his arm snaked around my waist, his thumb burning circles on my hip. It was clearly meant to be a sensual atmosphere. I still feel the guilt of being unable to speak up; I went along with the hand holding and, by the end of the sickening date, held my hand open for him as I saw it as what he wantwed. I didn't want to hurt him. Now I realize that the primary reason for this fear was because of my viewing him as a friend. I thought I had brought this on myself for not speaking up sooner; it was my fault for failing to tell him to stop, and I knew that if I said no, I would lose someone that I considered a trusted friend. I was trying to explain my way out of this situation.

Looking back, “trusted” was a load of crap.

It was not until he tried to kiss me that I gained my voice.

“I don’t want to kiss anyone unless I know I’m going to marry them.” It was and remains a true statement.

    He seemed shocked, and the sound of my phone moved him away. I felt relief at seeing my mom’s text, and I lied amd said that I needed to go because my sister was wondering where I was. He said something about dating, and I said I needed time to decide, only for him to respond by saying that I need to decide right away. I managed to give myself twenty-four hours of freedom, and he stopped me before I had a chance to leave, offering to give me a ride back.

I told him no, that I’d walk home, and that I needed some fresh air. He said okay, but gave me a kiss on the forehead before leaving, and I had to keep from crying. It somehow made me feel even dirtier, like a part of me was being inappropriate while also being cruel for not speaking up. 

The smile he gave afterward still makes me anxious; the TV never stays on when a person makes that expression. It was meant to be a kind smile, but it only made me sicker. 

I remember going back to my dorm and crying in the shower before curling up in bed. My sister was my roommate at the time, and she recognized the negative emotions seeping from me. I didn’t tell her what happened, and she didn’t ask; she simply came up and rubbed my back as I shook silent tears. I found the will to tell an online friend that I’ve known since high school, and she was a huge help through that time; I fell asleep talking to her at around three in the morning.

The next day, I went to the professor’s office, going no further than the door frame. I told him no and left. He emailed me a few times and tried to approach me in the school lobby, but I never expanded on anything until months later, when I sent an email about how I couldn’t stand his touch. He began avoiding me after that. I chose to never report the incident, feeling like I was partially at fault due to my never telling him to stop. It wasn't until the situation with the student occurred that I was able to report what the professor did to me, and even then it wasn't until I had graduated from college, not wanting to report while a student out of fear of the rumors spiraling. The school had the professor removed from campus within 48 hours. 

 I still struggle with the Lord’s telling me to forgive him, and yet I’m trying.He married that student in August, and today marks two years since the incident involving me, and four years since my dad's death. May the professor somehow learn to grow closer to God through this, and may I do the same. 

[buddyhollyscurls]

blossom (do all 3), blush, bright, candlelight (or whenever your last dream was), cuddly, cutie pie, daylight, euphoric, fairy, garden, glow, jiggly, kisses, prince, princess, rainbow, starlight, soft, toot, whiffle, wispy (sorry there were just so many questions i liked!!!)

MY DEAREST DIANA U ARE AN ABSOLUTE TREASURE THANK YOU SO MUCH

blossom; favorite book/movie/song?:

favorite book: the pigman series by paul zindel, because of romek by david faber, and the catcher in the rye by jd salinger 

favorite movie: life is beautiful, la strada, coco 

favorite song: ironia by mana, back to black by amy winehouse, i’ve been good to you by the miracles 

blush; what was your stuffed animal as a child?: when i was about 12? or so my brother got me and my sister a gift card for build a bear workshop lol i got a bunny i named babz she has on a purple sweat suit. i kept the box and her birth certificate but my niece messed them up and lost her jacket when she was a baby :( but i still have babz she sits on my vanity in my room i don’t think i’ll ever be able to give her up. 

bright; mermaids or fairies?: definitely faires i hope to be a fairy in my next life preferably a forest one who is able to make plants grow

candlelight; what did you dream about last night?: the last dream i REMEMBER had something to do with my trying to prevent death?? IDK BLAME GOBLIN I HAD JUST FINISHED WATCHING IT AND IT WAS SERIOUSLY AFFECTED THAT SHOW FUCKED ME UP 

cuddly; what’s your favorite time period?: the 60s have always held a huge fascination for me. like i remember i used to love February bc that was when we would talk about the civil rights movement and stuff and through that i remember being like 12 and seeing documentaries about the black panthers and woodstock. 

most precious item you own: i have a lot of those babz is one, i’m a very sentimental person i have a hello kitty box filled with pics friends have given me i have a Berenstain bears book i once put in a time capsule with my sister and brother that we had to dig up super early bc we moved ummm i still have cards and stuff friends have given me one is even from my tenth birthday, drawings my niece has made me, a shoebox full of journals i’ve filled up things like that i feel if i made them or if someone gave them to me they’re super precious. my book and movies as well.

favorite album of all time: tie between back to black or stg peppers 

talk about someone u love: i’m going to talk about my nieces and nephews rn bc i love them so much: adelie is the oldest she’s ten and my favorite person in the whole world. when she was born i took care of her a lot even stopped going to school for about a year so my sister could go and we got so close bc of that she is just so funny and silly and loving i hate that my girl has to grow up i want her to be little forever. next is my nephew Malcolm he’s so energetic and he plays a bit too rough with adelie and his brother and sister but he’s a great big brother he looks out for them and he and adelie get along super well. nicole is next she is an actual angel she is the sweetest girl in this entire planet she is so nurturing and she is super helpful and gentle. and finally my nephew diego. he’s three and the exact clone of my brother i even have this ig post of a side by side photo from when my brother was little they’re wearing red shirts and i stg they even have the same smile. my little man is so cute. when he was born it took a little while for him to warm up to us bc we don’t get the chance to see him as much as we did when adelie was born. but now its a complete 180 sometimes i’ll be walking and he’ll just run up and give me a hug and it makes my heart soar 

fairy; do you have a pet?: sadly i don’t haha i want to have a senior cat or senior dog but that’ll have to wait until i get my own place. hopefully whenever i get into something called a serious relationship we can get a puppy together and raise it together but who knows when that’ll come i don’t want a puppy until then tho

garden; how many languages do you know?: outside english i know spanish and a tiny bit of italian and portuguese just barely tho lol not enough to have a conversation but i can probably pick up a few sentences i want to learn italian portuguese french (that one is SUPER HARD THO FRENCH WTF) and maybe arabic 

glow; list the top 5 things you like about yourself

1: ppl tell me i’m funny

2. i’m really honest 

3. i’m tenacious 

4. i’m very empathetic 

5. for the most part i’m a postive person i’m one of those ppl that are just everyone’s personal cheerleader 

jiggly; what do you usually like to do on weekends?: watch movies lmaoooo this weekend alone i saw train to busan, silenced, see you tomorrow, this is not what i expected, turn left turn right, and lust caution. i don’t see movies during the week (during school anyway) so usually all week i try to be like what am i watching this weekend. it’s very rare i willingly make plans over the weekend we can hang out during the week but weekends are for movies.

kisses; what romantic cliché do you wish for most?: i am a romantic sap lol i am the cheesiest person i know but for some reason i’m not into cliches i guess like hmmm i guess for me the one i want most is to fall in love with my best friend. like i meet someone and we just click and they make me do the chris evans laugh A LOTand i’m able to open up and just talk with them and gradually one day its like oh snap. so this is the person i’m supposed to be with. tight. 

prince; how would you describe your handwriting?: atrocious. sometimes i can’t even read what i just wrote. but i hear ugly handwriting is a sign of high intelligence so theres that lmaooo. 

princess; do you play any instruments? if not, are there any you wish you could play?: uuuuhhh i don’t :((((((((( if i could i wish i could play guitar (i only know a few chords) drums, piano, bass, even the sitar ok brian and george made it look sick af 

rainbow; what was the last line of the last book you read?: “For the first time ever, I think Haddock may have a point, you know.” my mad fat diary by rae earl (if u haven’t seen the show i highly rec it it’s one of my fave ever just a side note)

starlight; what was your favourite show as a child?: hey arnold ok don’t even get me started on it i’ll talk forever how great it is even now its just timeless even adults should watch it and i’ve said this before and i’ll say it a million more times helga g pataki is probably one of the most complex, interesting, well written female character EVER on any show i owe craig bartlett my entire life. 

soft; describe your favourite spot in your house: the dining room its huge and its got big windows i love looking out windows so when i write i like sitting at the table to look out every now and then sometimes i’ll just look out that window when i wake up and be like damn its a new day. 

toot; what is something you find unique about yourself?: hmmm…. i guess how idealistic i am. and how intense i feel about things. when i was a kid i thought everyone had strong feelings about something and just LOVED things all the time but getting older i realize being passionate about things esp things like books and tv and movies is really………. odd haha. like even now i will type paragraphs about a favorite movie or something that happened in a show and my friends will be like why are u like this. the same goes with how idealistic i am like thought it was normal to have so many things u want to do and see in the world but when i talk to my friends theyre like oh i just never thought about doing that so it makes me feel odd sometimes bc i know i expecet a lot out of life hahahaha. 

whiffle; if you could have a magical power, what would it be?: either flight or invisibility 

wispy; do you like the place where you grew up? do you think you will live there when you get older?: i LOVE san diego and i LOVE california (in spite of how damn expensive it is here) but even when i was little i didn’t see myself living here as an adult with a family. i just always felt like this world is so big why live in one place your whole life. one day i want to live somewhere green and have my farm with my little animals and soccer team of kids haha. like linda and paul mccartney. 

[mousedetective]

Your opinion on... whether the "classic" literature that everyone hates such as Great Gatsby and Catcher In the Rye and all those Shakespeare plays should still be required reading in school, or if modern literature such as Harry Potter or LOTR or Game of Thrones, along with hit movies and TV series, should start taking their place. :-)

So this is a subject I actually have a pretty big opinion on!

When I was in high school (think 1994 - 1998), there wasn’t a huge push for modern literature to be taught in any way. We had a textbook with selected stories, poems and snippets of novels, one play and it was grouped together kind of along the lines of whatever our history class lined up to (freshman year was kind of “fuck if I know” because most freshman didn’t take history since we had a required skills class they had to take, sophomore was world or US literature, junior year was the opposite of what you did your sophomore year and my second high school had British literature your senior year). I have a very vivid memory of my friend Joe taking my copy of “The Tale of Two Cities” and ripping out a page because he hated the book, and my painstakingly taping it back in because…well, I loved it, and my father was also a stingy bastard who wouldn’t buy me another copy.

However, my junior year, I lucked out to take the creative writing class with Mrs. McGill at my first high school, and in that class we read the classics, yeah, but I also got to recommend we read one of my fave R.L. Stine “Fear Street” books in October, and that month we watched Hitchcock’s “Strangers On A Train” to learn about suspense. My teacher was always encouraging us to read what we wanted to read, watch what we wanted to watch, and apply our favourite parts to our writing. That was my favorite of all the Englishy classes I took in the four years I was in high school because I got choices (runner up went to my freshman English teacher, who happened to assign “Romeo and Juliet” to us when the DiCaprio/Danes movie came out…since we weren’t going to finish in time we had the choice of comparing/contrasting the last acts, which we hadn’t read, or writing a three page paper on what was the better interpretation between that and the 60s version and why…I compared and contrasted the whole damn movie).

My son, on the other hand, goes to something which is basically a combination private school/charter school for kids who just can’t be in regular public school for whatever reason. Their lesson plans are pretty close to regular high schools except there’s a lot of self-paced learning involved…except in English. The kids get a book assigned and they can read ahead if they want but they discuss it a chapter at a time. My son has read Lord of the Flies, The Great Gatsby…and The Fault In Our Stars, all as class assignments. His teacher encourages them to read outside materials other than the books and watch adaptations and learn as much as they can about the media they’re consuming. And my son fucking loves it. He was just as excited to read TGG as he was TFIOS. Because he had choices in going above and beyond the book. Most importantly, their teachers there encourage all outside reading, whatever the student wants. My son writes reports on comic books and classics and he just keeps looking for books to read, constantly (it’s why he was so depressed his book collection at his adopted home got ruined in the rain and why he’s so glad to have books at my house).

And now? I don’t particularly read much more than fanfic (I send more time writing than reading). I have to talk my son out of checking out twenty books to read every weekend, and I don’t see that being something that changes. English isn’t where his interests lie, like me, but he enjoys a good book, and no one has tried to force him to only read classics in school so he still gets excited about learning and reading.

I think teachers who are open to allowing more modern literature are going to get better student. Teachers who encourage them to consume related media outside of class and compare it to what they’re reading are going to bring out great critical thinkers. And squashing all that? You’re just going to make kids hate learning, and that’s a damn shame.

“your opinion on ______”