Less than a week!

This time next week, I will be an alumni of Seattle Pacific University - hallelujah!!!

It's really hard to believe that I have only three more days with my students - Monday and Tuesday I am teaching and Wednesday we have an all-day field trip to Tillicum Village. I'm going to miss those little guys!

I have a place to live! Next Sunday, I will be officially moving out of SPU housing and into a house in Ballard (a district of Seattle). Ballard is known for its Scandanavian roots, so there are lots of yummy bakeries and blond hair blue-eyed people - much like Holland, Michigan :) My new house is only about ten minutes from where I am now, which means it is only 15 minutes from church, Gracie and Oliver, and Queen Anne. The house itself is awesome: two-story bungalow with hard-wood floors, fire place, dining room, amazing kitchen, little backyard, baby grand piano... I love it! I will be living with Jackie, who's in her 50s (?) and is an RN in Seattle. She rents four rooms out of her home to college-aged/post college Christians. There are three bedrooms upstairs, including mine. Carrie and Catherine are two of my other housemates. I've met Catherine, and she's really nice. She's working on her Master's in Education :) There are also two dogs I'll be living with - Beasley, the little dog who looks like Toto, and Socrates, the Great Dane who comes up to my waist. And then there's Duchess, the little black kitty who sits on Jackie's car and a Mystery Cat who I have yet to meet. Oh, and did I mention that the place is entirely furnished?!

I have lots of work to do this weekend, like the majority of my electronic portfolio...*sigh*. That's what tomorrow afternoon and Monday evening are for, I guess!

Oh, I started a new book! One of my students gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card for Teacher Appreciation Week and I finally got a chance to use it. I'm now reading The Brothers K, by David James Duncan. I've been meaning to read it for awhile, as it is a book that Pastor Dan often refers to in his sermons. It's long, too (600+ pages), which is even better! While at B&N last weekend, I browsed their two tables titled "Summer Reading." Upon circling the tables, I noticed that I had read the majority of the books on the tables. I honestly don't know if that is a good thing or a bad thing! I mean, I love being well-read and I just plain love to read, but a part of me is starting to think that because I have read most of the books on BOTH the "Summer Reading" tables, there aren't any more books for me to read this summer! Now I know that this sounds incredibly silly, but it's honestly what went through my head last weekend. Let's be honest: I LOVE the thought of school coming to and end and me writing up my summer reading list. I LOVE seeing the piles of books stacked on my dresser and floor, waiting for me to finish my current read and pick up the next book that is on the top of the stack. And I LOVE going to Barnes and Noble in early June and slowy taking my time, purusing the "Summer Reading" tables, making a list of the books I want to read. And somehow, for some reason, that last love of mine evaporated last weekend. I've read all the books on the "Summer Reading" tables - now what will I read?

Oh, and here's a list of the books I have read that were on the tables:
Night, by Elie Wiesel
Angels and Demons, by Dan Brown
The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown
The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
The Brothers Karamazov, by Dostoevsky
Middlesex, by Jeffery Eugenides
Middle Passage, by Charles Johnson
Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger
Keeping Faith, by Jodi Picoult
Vanishing Acts, by Jodi Picoult
My Sister's Keeper, by Jodi Picoult
East of Eden, The Grapes of Wrath, Travels With Charlie, and Of Mice and Men, all by John Steinbeck
Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe
A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving
Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg

Yeah, so those are some of the books on the tables. I've been thinking about coming up with a system to read books, such as reading all of the Pulitzer Prize Winning books that interest me. I could always read more children's literature, too.
So, if you know of any good books, please send their titles my way. I need to compose a summer reading list!