TIMES Warehouse Sale

I've abstained from buying books for a few months now. I vowed to finish reading the titles that I have already before buying yet another book.

My reading list and my 'books read' list are embarrassingly disproportionate.

Yet, today I felt like breaking my vow. I just have to buy some new books. Not just a new book, but some.

So I headed down to CapSquare to take advantage of TIMES' warehouse sale. It felt so good to peruse all the books, with all the nice covers and inviting titles.

One title made me laugh out loud: Portrait of a burger as a young calf.

And the venue's nice too. It's well-lighted and airy.

The crowd wasn't too big, so I took my own sweet time to check out the books systematically, row by row :-)

After an hour or so, I have 5 books in my hand. Chucked one out and proceeded to buy the other 4. They are:
-Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri,
-The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler,
-Teacher Man by Frank McCourt, and
-The Hapless Teacher's Handbook by Phil Ball (I just love the title!)

All 4 books cost RM77.75


I bought the first 2 books because I love Jhumpa Lahiri's writing and anything that has got to do with Jane Austen.

I bought the last 2 books because... well it's pretty obvious isn't it?

I said in my last entry that my students live in an insulated world. I'm now convinced that so am I. I've written little else apart from teaching ever since I've started working.

Like now, even though the entry is supposed to be about the books I've just bought, I'm going to tie it to teaching.

In today's and yesterday's newspapers, I happened to read articles criticising teachers. I couldn't help but take the affront personally.

I really hate it when people say that those who took to teaching did it because it was their "last resort"

In my case, and in many, many other teachers, it's NOT.

And to those who think that teaching is such an easy job, read this extract from an interview with Frank McCourt:

Interviewer: You describe teaching as the 'downstairs maid of professions'. Why do you think that many parents, pupils and social commentators have so little respect for it?

Frank McCourt: People in general look down on teachers the way they regard members of their own family: they think they know what teaching is all about when the fact is they don't have a clue, any more than they know what surgery is all about. Also, many people think teaching is easy. Oh, you simply walk into a classroom and blather and the kids sit and listen. Hell, no.

X X X

Hear Hear!