As a college librarian my job ebbs and flows with the rhytm of the academic year. This parallels my home life as well. My husband is a professor and my daughter is in middle school, so things slow down at my house in the summer, just as they do at work. We take some time off from our jobs, and Paloma heads to summer camp. We take a leisuely vacation, return and then hang around the house for a few days. Things are starting to gear up again though as August comes to a close. Classes start here at Bridgewater State College next week, and school begins the following week for my daughter. Things will begin to move at a faster pace both at home and at work, and mornings will become a scramble as we attempt to get three people out of the house by 7:30. While there is always some groaning about the start of a new school year, there is excitement as well. Seeing old friends and learning new things have a certain thrill to them.
The two "Back to School" books I chose to read this month are My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student by Rebekah Nathan; and Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose. I have received a copy of My Freshman Year, but have not started to read it. I plan to start blogging about it next week. In the meantime I will suggest to readers the following book with a similar theme: David Owen's High School:Undercover with the Class of '80. As an adult, Owen created a transcript and "transferred" to a high school in New York with his editor masquerading as his mother. He attended classes, joined clubs, made friends, and took his wife to a high school dance, much to her chagrin. No one at the school ever discovered that he was incognito. I remember that he said he doubted any of this classmates would ever find out about the deception since none of them ever read a book that wasn't assigned. This is an old book to be sure, but a good one. I must have read it 25 years ago. Since I was a member of the class of '82 much of it rang true for me. My guess is that much of what he says still holds true. Perhaps I'll revisit it myself.
I close with the immortal words of Patty Simcox in Grease "Don't you just love the first day of school?" See you in September.
The two "Back to School" books I chose to read this month are My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student by Rebekah Nathan; and Unlikely Disciple: A Sinner’s Semester at America’s Holiest University by Kevin Roose. I have received a copy of My Freshman Year, but have not started to read it. I plan to start blogging about it next week. In the meantime I will suggest to readers the following book with a similar theme: David Owen's High School:Undercover with the Class of '80. As an adult, Owen created a transcript and "transferred" to a high school in New York with his editor masquerading as his mother. He attended classes, joined clubs, made friends, and took his wife to a high school dance, much to her chagrin. No one at the school ever discovered that he was incognito. I remember that he said he doubted any of this classmates would ever find out about the deception since none of them ever read a book that wasn't assigned. This is an old book to be sure, but a good one. I must have read it 25 years ago. Since I was a member of the class of '82 much of it rang true for me. My guess is that much of what he says still holds true. Perhaps I'll revisit it myself.
I close with the immortal words of Patty Simcox in Grease "Don't you just love the first day of school?" See you in September.
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