Random Thoughts about Advising

Met my six freshman from the class of 2016 yesterday.  After a week of orientation, I'm a bit brain dead, but here are some random thoughts before I lose them.

1. Love having a freshman fellow at the group meeting.  I know all kinds of things, but I still am not entirely sure about the mechanics of registering, having never done it myself.  This year's fellow, Felix, was terrific. I put him on the spot over and over and he came through.

2. I'm going to say it publicly. Orientation is too long.  It was only day TWO and these students were bored and complaining "there's nothing to do".  They're homesick. They're anxious about taking college courses.  They want to START, not hang around.  IMHO.

3. They always expect that I"m going to tell them what to take at our first one on one meeting.  The number of possibilities is overwhelming.  I know in a few months I"ll be able to look back at these first conversations and go "ah, I should have seen it coming".  Right now, I'm not sure I can predict who is going to struggle this
first semester and who is going to sail through.

4. This year's surprise question?  After telling one of my students that class started at 9 (or 10 or 11), their repeated question was "at night?".  Classes that start at 10  at night????  Oh dear, I don't think college is going to live up to their exotic expectations....

5. And the most surprising observation came during a conversation about living with a roommate.  The observation/question was "how do you take a shower?" Yikes. I can't remember. Walk down the hall in a towel?  When do you take your clothes off?  I'd forgotten all the little, daily anxieties that come with starting college. 

One student sobbed and sobbed with homesickness and anxiety.  Sometimes I don't feel like I'm qualified for this job.  But at least I was someone who could listen on the first full day of college.

Seventy Nine Books in 2011

Here's the list of the books I read in 2011 - seventy nine!  I met and surpassed my goal of reading a book a week.  Of course you will see a strong leaning towards children's literature and thus, shorter books.  I read the Harry Potter series in a big gulp.  I only read a few non fiction books, but they were some of the best I read all year -- Packing for Mars, The No Assholes Rule and Franklin and Eleanor.  I had never read Jane Eyre or A Tree Grows in Brooklyn??  Hans Brinker really isn't about Hans but is about his sister?  National Velvet is very funny and the horse wins.

I don't really know how I chose these books.  I read Lee Child because he was on a list of favorite authors of Bill Clinton.  There were advance copies I picked up at an ALA Conference.  Most of the books were sitting on my own bookshelf.  Friends gave me books.  Some (but not the majority) were from the library.  Some were books for our children's book club at work.   Have to decide what my goal is for 2012.

1. Hitty by Rachel Field
2. Last Night in Montreal by Emily St. John Mandel
3. Shit My Dad Says by Justin Halpern 
4. Bless This Mouse by Lois Lowry
5. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
6. The Hunchback of Neiman Marcus by Sonya Sones
7. When You Were Mine by Elizabeth Noble
8. Emily of Deep Valley by Maud Hart Lovelace
9. Started Early, Took My Dog by Kate Atkinson
10. The Middle Moffat by Eleanor Estes
11. Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown by Maud Hart Lovelace
12. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
13. Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
14. One Fifth Avenue by Candace Bushnell
15. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Frank L. Baum
16. Turtle Moon by Alice Hoffman
17. The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
18. Belles on Their Toes by Ernestine and Frank Gilbreth
19. Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
20. Instead of a Letter: A Memoir by Diana Hill
21. Falling Out of Fashion by Karen Yampolsky
22. Bento Box in the Heartland by Linda Furiya
23. Rat by Fernanda Eberstadt
24. Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
25. A Few Green Leaves by Barbara Pym
26. Strawberry Girl by Lois Lenski
27. The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
28. City of Light by Lauren Belfer
29. Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen
30. Hans Brinker of the Silver Skates by Mary Naples Dodge
31. The River by Rumer Godden
32. Indian Captive by Lois Lenski
33. Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine
34. The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux
35. The Mango Season by Amulya Mauadi
36. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
37. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling
38. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
39. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
40. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
41. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
42. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
43. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns
44. Esio Trot by Roald Dahl
45. State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
46. Family Under the Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson
47. The Tall Woman by Wilma Dykeman
48. Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich
49. Just Kids by Patti Smith
50. Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch by Alice Hegan Rice
51. These Happy Golden Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
52. Bossypants by Tina Fey
53. Smokin' Seventeen by Janet Evanovich
54. Dobry by Monica Shannon
55. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson
56. Love the One You're With by Emily Griffen
57. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
58. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
59. A Year at the Races by Jane Smiley
60. Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go by Dale Basye
61. The No Assholes Rule by Robert Sutton
62. Go Ask Alice by Anonymous
63. I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
64. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
65. Are you Somebody by O'Faolain
66. Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
67. My Antonia by Willa Cather
68. Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
69. Franklin and Eleanor by Hazel Rowley
70. The Three Weissmanns of Westport by Cathleen Schine
71. The Affair by Lee Child
72. National Velvet by Enid Bagnold
73. Wendy and the Lost Boys by Julie Salamon
74. We Followed Our Hearts to Hollywood by Emily Kimbrough
75. My Friend Flicka by Mary O'Hara
76. Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspread
77. The First Four Years by Laura Ingalls Wilder
78. The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman
79. All-Of-A-Kind Family Downtown by Sydney Taylor