It's coming

My Practicum's around the corner. This Friday, I find out where I'm going; in less than a month, I'll actually be there. It'll probably be RI, but there are no guarantees. And then after that -- assuming I pass -- comes the really big news: where I'm going to be teaching. It'll probably be RJC, but, again, there are no guarantees. The MOE's four-strong Placement Unit makes that decision on behalf of all teachers, with schools' manpower needs the most important criteria. Even if a school wants you, there's always the small possibility that you could end up elsewhere; and I need to remind myself from time to time not to take things for granted -- not to assume, that is, that I'll end up where I want to be.
Posted by kungfuzi at 8:32 pm | 0 comments

  Here we go...again

School has restarted, and I can already tell it's going to be better this term. My new Literature instructor, an NIE veteran of 18 years, knows her stuff inside out, speaks proper English, has an understated sense of humour. We've already learned more from two classes with her than we did all of last term with...that other woman. Meanwhile, I'll be writing an actual scholarly essay for my History class: most likely a historiographical piece on the rise of Nazism in Germany. Despite lacking access to research material on the Nazis (of which there is a phenomenal amount, as you'd expect), I intend to put some serious effort into this essay, and am currently re-reading The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans for a general, authoritative overview of German history from 1871 to Hitler's appointment as Reich Chancellor in January 1933.
Posted by kungfuzi at 12:03 am | 2 comments

  2006: A Year in Books

I didn't read as many books in 2006 as I did in 2005, but most of them were really good. Here's a list of all the books I completed (there were many more that I didn't).

Anthony Grafton, The Footnote
Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia
Orlando Figes, Natasha's Dance
Linda Colley, Britons
Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France
Peter Gay, The Enlightenment, Vol. 1
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince [re-read]
A. S. Byatt, The Biographer's Tale
Paul Johnson, Modern Times
Francis Seow, To Catch a Tartar
Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich
William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair
Niall Ferguson, The War of the World
Peter Saccio, Shakespeare's English Kings
Damon Linker, The Theocons
Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
Giuseppe di Lampedusa, The Leopard
John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics
Denis Judd, Empire
Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire
Posted by kungfuzi at 11:53 pm | 0 comments