Not All Who Wander Are Lost

My dad's currently in the hospital, being kept under because he just had surgery. I was sitting there this afternoon watching him, the monitors all beeping, whirring and clicking in the background. His feet moved, rather restlessly and every now and again he'd open his eyes and look around, but you knew that he wasn't really seeing anything. They're keeping him really groggy, and he's always hated that feeling. The meds give him some wild dreams. I've heard that from others too. What is it like to be trapped in that twilight world of dreams? All of us have regrets, fears and parts of our lives we don't want to confront. What if we didn't have a choice? What if we were trapped in that world? What sorts of demon dreams would be scraping against our minds as we slept. All of us have had nightmares. I'm usually looking for something or fleeing from something. I wonder what that says about my subconscious? I'm sure someone who analyzed dreams would ...

That was the journal topic last week. I asked my students to talk about books they loved and why they loved them. I also asked them to talk about books they hated and why they hated them. I also asked them to talk about how they would change those books they didn't like in order to make them better. It's always fun to see how the kids would change books. I'm also a little shocked when I have students come up to me and tell me that they don't like any books. Or they've never actually finished a book. I die a little inside when I hear eighth graders tell me that. I'm also always a little appalled when kids tell me they hate books I've loved. Some of them hated the Harry Potter books. Others thought The Hunger Games was boring. (How that's possible is beyond me!) I had to expand the journal assignment a little bit to movies when too many of the kids told me that they really didn't like too many books. I suppose I have my work cut out for me this year....