I Have the Need...

...the Need to READ!

I start my TENTH year of teaching tomorrow.  TEN!  YEARS!  This year it is my goal to become the official bag lady of Franklin Middle School.  I will have a bag full of grading everyday.  Teaching reading AND writing equals lots of grading.  I think this year I'll use my Erasmus bag.  

I'll have my purse...of course.  It's packed with a wallet, a coupon/gift card Beatles wallet, usually a camera, a pencil pouch full of pens, markers, and some Burt's Bees, and always my Papa Hemingway Moleskin planner.  That is usually a bright green (seen below) or yellow duffel-like bag with a sling shoulder strap.  You could also probably find a few stray diapers in there.  

This year, though...this year...number 10...I'm adding a new bag to the bundle.  Book.  Bag.  Literally...a bag FULL of books.  I'm pulling a Rory Gilmore.  I've decided I need books...a VARIETY of books to travel with me everyday.  They make me feel safe, protected, and I'll have whatever I'm in the mood for.  I've taken some guidance from Ms. Gilmore by putting multiple genres into the bag, and with the help of my Kindle, they'll all always fit.  I have the biographies (early years Elvis, Monkees, and the 1992 Dream Team), some graphic novels AND a few issues from the new Smallville serial, and being a middle school teacher, I have a young adult novel.  Oh, and did I mention the Stephen King and Back to the Future novelization on the Kindle?  I didn't???  Well, they're in there, too.

This bag is a book nerd's dream bag.  It's like Mary Poppins' carpet bag thanks to the endless possibilities that could be stored on that bad A Kindle.  I may have rough days at school, and I know I'll have great ones, but no matter what, I can always unwind at the end of it with a few pages from one of my book bag's many tomes.