TV watchers, raise your hands...

I'm amused that as I was going over this week's readings for a second time, I was also listening to the season premiere of "NCIS" and then an episode of "Eureka". I'm one of those people who, every fall, makes a list of what tv shows they plan to watch and then only end up watching half. Or twice that, depending on the quality and my attention span. I spend at least half my day on a computer with internet access (though that also includes my job), and although I only use my cell phone for emergencies, I compulsively check my e-mail every few hours. There was a time when I watched at least two hours of newscasts a day, on four different channels.

I agree with Spandel, that we have too many distractions these days. I went on a week-long road trip with my family the past summer. My parents, my brother and I, all in one car, traveling to what amounted to nine or ten states. At first, I thought I was going to wither away without internet access for that long, without my connection to the outside world. But somewhere inside day 2, I realized that this WAS the outside world. A sunset over Lake Erie, with oranges, reds, purples, and blues layering over what felt like an endless expanse of water. Niagara Falls with its rushing water, spilling endlessly into the river below. Tourist trap? Sure, but there were places without people around, to sit and reflect on how insignificant we humans seem compared to something that's been there for years and years. Vermont and New Hampshire, with their endless expanse of forests. A rocky beach in Maine. A sandy beach in Rhode Island that I swore I'd seen before in a nightmare. The reflection on this experience is still taking place, and I hope to share that with my students someday, that there is so much in this world to write about, to use as inspiration if you only go outside and soak it up.

Switching topics now... In broadcast journalism, you're taught to write things at an eighth (formerly fifth) grade level. You're basically dumbing down stories and information so it can be understood by a wide variety of people. But at the same time, I think we're also limiting people's exposure to language.

I enjoyed how Nelson gave us strategies to pull into our own classrooms and even our own lives. When was the last time you sat for five minutes and just breathed?