Strange Little Collecting Project

It’s way past my bedtime on a school night and I’m going to feel like crap tomorrow, but I can’t help it. Because this is the truest thing I’ve seen in a while. And because this is exactly what happened to me today. Except it wasn't Battlestar Gallactica; it was Downton Abbey. It's a PBS series about these rich British people from the early 1900s that don't really exist and their servants that also don't really exist (yet I found myself more invested in them today than people in my own life who do really exist). I started watching it this morning while I typed up some vocabulary lists and quizzes. It was busywork so I could multi-task. After I finished up my work, I decided I would watch one more episode while I ate lunch...and then I would get serious about my grad school homework. So, I tried working on my homework while I watched it...I mean, some of the scenes were in London and Chaucer lived in London during the 1300s. It was pretty impossible for me to re...

I have always felt comfortable in an English classroom. It was the only subject in school that I approached with a sense of confidence and excitement, and I remember looking forward to my English classes the most during the school day. As a completely awkward and overweight kid, reading was the safest and therefore my favorite hobby. I began devouring books at an early age (not literally, despite what the a-hole that used to call me Fatty Fatty Fat Fat might have told you on the playground…whatever, he’s almost completely bald now). Even before I knew how to read, I would check out books from the library and pretend to read them. There’s a home video of me sitting in our sunroom when I was about 4 or 5 flipping through this book and making up the story based on the pictures. It’s pretty cute…and kind of miraculous considering that my family’s video camera was roughly the size of a SmartCar; I’m still not sure how my dad managed to sneak-up on me hauling that monster on his should...