Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Go To Movies

So, today, I’m going to talk about our ten favorite movies. We are definitely a movie family. We have tons of movies on either VHS or DVD. We have a membership to Netflix and still I buy at least two movies a month. With that said, there are ten movies that I can guarantee you my son will watch every time I put the DVD in.

1. Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything: A Veggie Tales Movie (Full Screen) Ben loves ANYTHING to do with pirates. Add that this is a good story that he is completely enamored with because it is an interesting story, and you have a real winner. We love it because it reminds him that being a hero means doing the right thing when you don’t want to. Who can’t benefit from knowing that?

2. The Shrek Trilogy (Shrek / Shrek 2 / Shrek the Third) (Full Screen Edition) He adores Shrek. We love that it teaches him not to judge a book by its cover and that he gets see that beauty is more than skin deep. It’s also fun to hear him quote the ogres are like onions line but say instead, Bens are like onions. There’s a bit of violence and innuendo here, but it works for us.

3. Stuart Little Movie Collection My son loves the Stuart Little series of movies. He loves to watch Stuart flying the plane and sailing the boat and escaping the clutches of the mean cats. He also gets a lot out of the idea that families are based on who you love, not who you look like.

4. Finding Nemo (Two-Disc Collector’s Edition) Given that Ben’s room is devoted to Nemo and fish, this is hardly a surprise. He loves this movie and can recite lines from it at a drop of a hat. This was his very first favorite movie, and I’m glad.

5. Mary Poppins (45th Anniversary Special Edition) My son does a mean “step in time.” He thinks this is a cool movie because of the people and because of the animation. The popping in and out of pavement pictures. The tea parties on the ceiling. Oh, and who can forget flying a kite. He loves to watch it and I have to say, it doesn’t bother me in the slightest to put it in as many times as he asks for it.

6. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (The Friendship Edition) Oh, how he adores the Pooh movies. He loves this one the best and asks for it at least once a week. It is a guaranteed, Mommy gets grading done movie because he will watch the whole thing without moving.

7. Toy Story: Special Edition – 2-Disc (Includes DVD And Blu-ray in Blu-ray Package) [Blu-ray] and Toy Story 2: Special Edition – 2-Disc (Includes DVD And Blu-ray in Blu-ray Package) [Blu-ray] Also known as the Buzz movie and the Jessie movie. He adores these (though I admit, I have old versions of each). He can even sing Randy Newman’s “You’ve Got a Friend in Me.” That makes me smile and maybe sob just a little.

8. Happy Feet (Full Screen Edition) He loves the story with this one and the fact that there are penguins. He thinks that penguinds are super cool and that one somewhat misfit penguin can save a whole penguin colony really helps him understand how important each individual is.

9. The Aristocats (Special Edition) I’m honestly not sure what appeals to him most about this movie, but I think it’s the music. He seems to really get into listening to jazz, and he loves the alleycat song. He always asks for this one when he’s had a hard day. Since I always pick jazz as my go to, I’ve had a tough day music, I think it’s rubbed off.

10. The Sound of Music (Two-Disc 40th Anniversary Special Edition) This is a new one for him. I just received the DVD of this for Christmas, and we watched it that day. He complained it was too long and he didn’t want to watch it again. Then a couple of days ago he begged for “the singing movie” since I have a rather healthy collection of old musicals, we had to make him show us which one he meant. This is the one. Yes, there are some scary moments in the movie, but the overall story is uplifting and I know he gets the ultimate point: family loyalty is important and everything gets better when you think about things that make you happy (or, alternatively, sing and dance around for a bit).

This post is my entry for the week in Oh Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday blog carnival. Make sure you go and check out the other top ten lists, it’s a lot of fun.

Sick Days

Generally speaking, sick days are something that I’ve heard about, but about which I know little. The life of an online adjunct is such that even if you’re sick, you need to find a way to work because, well, that’s what’s expected of you.

Most schools require a minimum of five days of participation during the week. One school I work for requires six days of participation — this is defined as posting and responding on the discussion board. Grading and posting grades do not count toward your participation in a course. It generally takes a minimum of two hours to read through all of the postings for a given day and to plan my responses to those posts. Most of the time, this works just fine and all is right with the world.

However, on a day like today, this would not work. I’m just grateful that we haven’t started the term yet. Today, Ben is sick. He is sniffly, coughing, congested, and generally not feeling well. He pretty much wants to eat and rest on the couch. Given that he’s really energetic, this is a little startling.

Katie didn’t eat much for breakfast and is back asleep now. She’s been cranky for the last day or so.

I have taken a Benedryl to try to forestall the worst of how I’m feeling. We’ll see if that works.

The thing is that students often argue that faculty don’t understand the pressures of balancing family life with school. I would argue that we are working from two sides of the same coin. My performance in the classroom is evaluated, just as their performance is, the difference is that the coin in my realm is continued employment, while they earn a grade.

So, what do I do when I’m faced with a sick day and it’s a day where I need to be productive?

1. I check my email as soon as my eyes can focus and respond to any immediate concerns.
2. I check the q and a areas in my course rooms looking for any problems.
3. I make sure all sick parties have received necessary medications and are ensconced in their respective places with appropriate quiet entertainment. For Ben, that’s the couch under blankets with a cup of water, his lovey, a stuffed puppy, some books, and the Disney channel.
4. I figure out a simple lunch that we will hopefully find palatable (did I mention that Ben is a super-picky eater?)
5. I grade the minimum number of items to meet my “quota” for the day.
6. I rest as much as possible (5 and 6 often conflict with each other).

Does this always work? Nope. Do I always try to make it work? Yes. It’s hardest when I’m the only one sick because Ben is really high energy. It’s more convenient if he and I are both sick at the same time. Sad that I look forward to those days, but that’s reality.