Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Remember the "WHITE RABBIT" song with Grace Slick singing, "Feed your head"...

Forced off work for four weeks...hmmmm...but on the good side...

When I came home from the doctor's office what did I see?...no, not a band of angels comin' after me, tho it does rhyme nicely...I saw a box from The Teaching Company!!! They have way groovy lecture series about EVERYTHING and their professors are pretty fun and entertaining. I get the CDs (tho they have DVDs-but I don't watch much TV) because I'm in the car so much and they're great to listen to when I go to Em's house. I get to cram my brain with fun information as I drive over the mountains and valleys and breathe in my favorite scenery. It's "DRIVING/SCENIC/PSEUDOINTELLECTUAL MEDITATION FOR THE TIME AND COMMON SENSE IMPAIRED" ....don't knock it 'til you try it.

Anyway, I follow their lecture series closely because eventually, EVERY lecture series goes on sale...deep discounted sale....so you have to watch...and ta da....these two did it...what wonderful timing....I'm going to put them on as I lay about and wait for classes to start...make Harry Potter-type wands...(ask and ye shall receive, complete with scroll). Anyway, here are the lectures I received:

The first is a lecture series on Shakespeare who is AMAZING...stay with me here...he is a word master...when you discover him, he is addictive....ADDICTIVE...I may share periodically some charmed combination of terms he came up or that he channeled or however he put them on the paper...one of the most famous terms for "overdoing" something that is already beautiful? "guilding the lily"...think about that?...isn't it perfect?....The professor is Peter Saccio. The lecture series is entitled "SHAKESPEARE: COMEDIES, HISTORIES AND TRAGEDIES"...yay!!! Saccio is very entertaining...a tad persnickity but that's what makes him fun!

The next series is Prof. Ashton Nichols. It's 24 lectures on "EMERSON, THOREAU, and the TRANSCENDENTALIST MOVEMENT". It talks about Louisa May Alcott (who wrote "Little Women) and her kind of crazy/progressive/dysfunctional dad Amos Bronson Alcott...interesting family...Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman (who is often quoted by General Authorities "...trailing clouds of glory") Walden Pond, and the legacy of it all.

Anyway, I will feed my head since I can't feed my pain...no pain pills allowed due to a fun little common bile duct spasm disorder triggered by narcotics that mimics an abdominal aortic aneurysm..scares the crap out of doctors so it's almost worth popping one just to watch them run, but that's another post, once again...I must remember to one day write down these little "bird walking expeditions" I take at the end of my posts...

My head just growled...time to feed it.....me out.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Make sure to check out the Teaching Company's website in the next few weeks. I have it on pretty good authority that they have some great new courses coming out for the fall!

Diane said...

The second lecture sounds right up my alley. Wish I had gotten some of these for my 4200 mile trek I'm embarking on.

frizzlefry said...

There are a lot of great Teaching Company CD's on ebay too. I'm ashamed to say I spent WAY too much money with them today, but it should make this home school escapade a bit easier to bear!

Thanks for the great info!

Jette said...

Feed your head girl, feed it good.