2001

2001
Springfield, PA

My age: 45-46

School- I took adult education classes at the Main Line Night School. I took Ti Chi classes and i sucked at this skill.

Work Principal- Springfield High School Springfield High School, Springfield, PA.  There are 1200 students and 100 staff members.  

Movies- I love to go to the movies.  I even like kids' movies and since I have so many nieces and nephews, I always had an excuse for watching a family-friendly movie.

• Harry Potter- I loved these movies.
• I am Sam- Sean Pen should have won teh Academy Award for this performance.
• A Beautiful Mind- This movie very clearly showed me what mental illness looks like.
• The Royal Tenenbaums- I didn't watch this movie until after it left the theatre and was available in the discount movie bin at Walmart.  But I loved this movie as I do every other movie Wes Anderson makes.
• Shriek- I liked this movie even though it had too many fart jokes.
• Princess Diaries- I love Julie Andrews.
• Amelia- This movie was fun and quirky.

Music

• I looked at the top 100 songs of the year and did not recognize one song or most of the artists.
• I listened mostly to world music at this time.
• I would go to Border's Book store on a regular basis and just walk around the store and listen to music.
• I gutted a closet in my bedroom and made that area my music center.  I would sit in there and just listen to multiple CDs throughout the evening.  I liked to examine the album cover, read the lyrics and discover the contributing musicians.

Books- I used to read every week night from 10 PM to 11 PM.

• A Walk Through China- Peter Jennings
• The Orchid Thief- Orleans
• Silk- Alessandro Baricca
• The Blacker the Berry- Wallace Thurman
• Soar with Your Strength- Clifton
• Yo- Julia Alvarez- "In front of him stands his old friend, Doug, whom he has known and not known in the way it is in most friendships, full of their disclosures and abeyance."
• When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon- Frances Park
• Love and Garbage- Ivan Klima- "The amount of freedom is not increasing in our age, even though it may sometimes seem to be. all that increases is the needless movement of tings, words, garbage, and violence. And because nothing can vanish form the face fo the planet, the f ruins of our activity do not liberate us but bury us."
• Peppers- Amal Nay
• We Band of Angels- Elizabeth Norman
• Neither Here Nor There- Bill Bryson
• Ex Libris- Anne Fadiman
• The Girl's Guide to Hunting and Fishing- Melissa Banks
• Breakfast on Pluto- Parick McCabe
• The Pleasure of Their Company- Doris Grumback
• Becoming A Woman- Esmerledo Santiago
• The Accidental Asian- Eric Lu
• The Bones of the Master- George Crane
• The Camino- Shirley Maclain- "When a society begins to think separately one from the other, it is the beginning of the end of civilization."
• Waiting- Ha Jin
• Beyond The Sky and the Earth- Jamie Zeppa
• Second Hand- Michael Zadooriam- "I've noticed that when people hit their thirties they start seriously acquiring things. Once they have the big things- cars, homes, spouse, children, they keep at it, acquire, acquire, acquire, fancy 2nd cars, pool tables, boats, really big things. But they're not making their lives fuller, just heavier.{
• Asleep- Banana Yoshimoto
• Ben In The World- Doris Lessig
• A Small Place- Jamaica Kincaid
• Honky- Dalton Conley
• The Bridegroom- Ha Jin
• The Liar's Club- Mary Was
• The Snow Leopard- Pater Mattiesen- "Between clinging and letting go, I feel a terrific struggle."
• To Timbuktu- Mark Jenkins
• Land of a Thousand Hills- Rosemond Carr
• Siberian Dream- Irina Partaena
• Lying Awake- Marc Salzman
• Mutant Messages From Forever- Menlo Morgan- "You will have to decide for yourself what to discard, what to replace and what to accept."
• Butterfly Burning- Yvonne Vera
• Wild America- Peterson & Fisher
• Lost Daughters of China- Karin Evans- "Although he was 79, it of course seemed too soon for my father to die and it felt as if our life together had gone so quickly."

Travels-

• I went on an African Safari to South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. I saw 50,000 seals which haunted me two months later when newscasters reported that 50,000 work in the World Trade Centers.  I had a visual of this massive number.
• I spent summer weekends on Long Beach Island, NJ.

News events:

• George W. Bush is sworn in as President of the United States after a very controversial election.
•  9/11- the Twin Towers and other buildings are bombed.  Just as the whole world panicked, so did everyone in my school.  This day was the most difficult of my career.
• The United States invades Afghanistan in an attempt to find Bin Laden.

Family
My great aunt Margaret died.  She was 87 and lived in Albany, NY. She was the last of my grandparents' generation.