I totally enjoyed this slim novel. ‘Theodora’s Gift’ is a great story and shows a complex world of relationships and events past and future that many young people will relate to. For those who keep a diary as I do this extract

“Theodora had kept a diary, more or less, since she had learned to write. Theodora was the sort of person who paid attention to things. So much attention that she found she couldn’t keep it all inside her head, and that was how she had started keeping a diary.
She wrote everything down, everything, everything, everything. Everything that is, that she saw or heard, which if you think about it, leaves quite a lot of everything out.” (p7,8)

may make you think about what everything, everything, everything, you write.

I don’t write what I see and hear, I realised when I read this and thought about it. Although I possibly include some of it to explain why I think and feel. I write what I am thinking about constantly or feeling. As a result my diary is boring and repetitive at times. I keep it because like the character Theodora, I can’t keep it all inside my head and it makes me feel better to get it down on paper. Sometimes it helps me to move on. It often allows me to realise I am going around in circles or obsessing and often when I wonder if I have experienced something before, I can check and see that a pattern has formed. It does have it’s uses.

I still think it would be more interesting if I wrote down what I saw and heard!

Comics, Cartoons and Graphic Novels

March 23, 2007

johblogs

reflection No Comments

Head Trip – Don’t Ya by *shinga on deviant ART

David Bowie should definately have stayed! This cartoon captures the voice of the young people I teach.
In my ‘Creative Writing’ student group at school last year I had a couple of highly talented young people who expressed themselves wonderfully using this form. They created wonderful drawings and turned them into stories. This year not one. The group of young people enjoyed writing, but not in this form.
I must admit I haven’t taken much of an interest in this form either, so I am going to challenge myself to read a graphic novel this year and to use more comics and cartoons in my teaching. I want to ensure I don’t limit my students to my own tastes.
When I was a kid I remember my dad reading the ‘funnies’ in the newspapers and laughing and then passing them to me to share the laughs. I often didn’t find it that funny. I think I found it annoying that he found things funny at that hour of the day. I was frequently tired and cranky in the mornings. Now I get up early and don’t communicate much in the mornings and progress through it much better, not having to talk for a while.
I did like political cartoons though and often laughed at those. I need to give them a go and find out more.

Hospital

March 18, 2007

johblogs

reflection 2 Comments

My beloved Pa is in hospital. He has injured his back. It is hard to sit by his bed and see him powerless. To see the purply red marks where the drip has gone in and created a big bruise. He looks frail and elderly. He is 87. He means so much to me and I love him for so many reasons.
As I read to him yesterday he seemed to come and go, yet laughed at, responded to the story. He had conversations with me in between the hospital business that goes on. He leant over at one stage and unhooked some strands of hair that had caught in my earring. He is not so out of it, despite the painkillers, the age, the appearance of being an old man.
He asked me why I was there on a Saturday because I normally visit him on Sundays. I told him since he was sitting still, I thought I’d come both days. Last night I found out that my brothers and sisters and cousins were coming from hours away to see him, so I let them have their time today. I will see him during the week.
I can’t stop thinking about him though. I was grateful of my friends this weekend visiting and phoning and talking about their lives. Funny, both of them kept saying they felt bad about discussing their worries, when I was worried about pa, but they were doing me a great favour, distracting me.
I hope they (the hospital staff in general) take care of him and treat him with the respect he deserves. If only they knew him as I did!

Theodora’s Gift by Ursula Dubosarky

Comics, Cartoons and Graphic Novels

Hospital

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