ahora vamos a contar

a good friend of mine and i have been rather annoyed with ourselves for not reading literature in spanish since we graduated from college (local feature magazines, Glamour En Español and ¡Mira! don't count, we've finally admitted this to ourselves). summer school and trainings notwithstanding, we've decided that our "summer off" should be well spent by means of a Spanish book club. personal enrichment and vocabulary development, what could be more fun?

since i know you're now intrigued, here's what you should do to join:
1) send me your name, email, location and degree of Spanish fluency (basically, we don't want to look like chumps but it's always nice have someone smarter than you to rely on for fuzzy metaphors and unfamiliar cultural/historical references)
2) buy one of the following books: Bendíceme Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya or Mi país inventado by Isabel Allende. neither book is supposed to be especially difficult, but if you've never read a novel in spanish before this may not be a good place to start. i'd suggest children's literature or short stories to anyone who needs a less daunting task (and if you'd like a list of specific suggestions, i'd be happy to help you out).
3) now that i think about, we can also do an english option, but you'll have to promise to read while drunk so that you're struggling a little bit, too.

i'm not really sure what all (how texan am i?) this will entail, but we want to make it entertaining AND educational... sans the powerpoint presentations, chapter summaries, and book reports that made stuff like this boring in high school. if our fellow clubbers live in texas, that might even be a good excuse for a roadtrip =)

i hope some of you are interested! meeting random folks from the internets is always fun, no? keep it real, i'm off to pack up my classroom. the teacher that was there in the fall left approximately 18 boxes of useless shit* for me to inventory and redistribute (cause you KNOW i'm not wasting space in my class with things i have no use for! i'm talking about english materials from the 70s, an entire box of YARN, etc.). i broke three nails friday afternoon, let's see if i can polish the rest off today.

update: add to the list of useless shit a container full of plastic eggs, dozens of kid-size plastic mugs and glasses, a light-up black cat and pumpkin, tinsel, several ratty baskets, and two containers of disgusting used children's toys.

a few words of advice to new teachers who are cleaning out closets: just because it's laminated does not mean it's important. seasonal items are not worth keeping if they are not easy to store and keep dust-free. and organize, organize, ORGANIZE! and label, label, LABEL! yeesh. the custodians are gonna kill me when they figure out that i'm responsible for filling up all the trash cans over the weekend.