words, words, words

 5,000 pages read in roughly a month and I am DONE in my ways than one with "The Song of Ice and Fire" series.  I've kind of had it with these books to be perfectly honest. I really enjoyed the first three  in the series and then it took a very sharp nose dive. I believe I have previously expressed my frustration with the fact that for many, many, many pages nothing of note happens - the author is more long winded than my college Shakespeare professor who actually succeed in putting another professor to sleep one day during a particularly grueling lecture on Henry V. Well,  George R. R. Martin manages to up his game in books 4 and 5. If you thought the first 3 books were frustrating, you aint seen nothing yet! I really wanted to throw book 5, "A Dance with Dragons" against the wall in hopes that a few thousand pages would just miraculously fall out. I read several reviews from fans to see if I was over reacting and much to my delight, I am not. But I kinda alrea...

I had kind of a delightful thing happen this week. One of my students sent me an email out of the blue and before I tell you what was contained in that email, I will give you a bit of a back story on this particular boy. I met him when he was in the 6th grade about 6 years ago. He was for lack of a better term: a problem child. He is and was a very bright kid but had a lot of anger issues and didn't apply himself in the least. He would walk into my classroom some days and just throw his book bag across the room as far as he could. My staff wanted him kicked out my program because no one could handle him - he would get sent to my office for behavior problems at least 2x a week if not more but I loved this kid. I knew he had potential and a wisdom beyond his years and at the risk of sounding too "Dangerous minds," he just needed someone to root for him. Well, guess who that turned out to be? We formed a solid bond and he stayed put in our program for the next 3 years. When...