I'm reading Life of Pi right now. It is my son's summer reading for AP English, so I was curious. Good read.

Anyway, I came across a brilliantly written chapter which personifies fear as "life's only true opponent." It struck me, not only because of the writing but because one of the constants my T has impressed on me over the years has been how fear is the root of my anger, depression, and anxiety.

Just want to share a piece of that chapter:

"Fear . . . nestles in your memory like gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you."

[jadedbutterfly]

What a great quote... thank you for sharing this!!

[CantExplain]

Fear can be very debilitating. Yet it exists for a reason. Some dangers are very real. If you are run down by a car, you won't get a chance to learn from your mistake.

[kaliope]

thanks for sharing

[ultramar]

This is wonderful --thank you!!

[~EnlightenMe~]

Thanks so much!

[Raging Quiet]

A good quote. Thank you.

My T said to me once that only love and fear are real emotions, but fear ruins the body and stops it from loving and we control what emotions wins, we have that power.

[WikidPissah]

Loved that book. Really love that quote too.

As a side: I always read my kids assigned books too. The books got better when they got into college...lol. Miss those years!

Originally Posted by WikidPissah

Loved that book. Really love that quote too.

As a side: I always read my kids assigned books too. The books got better when they got into college...lol. Miss those years!

I've actually meant to read the book for years, but it kept getting pushed down the list by other books. This finally motivated me to pick it up. Great writing. I can certainly see why his teacher chose it as a summer reading assignment. Hits so any of the literary concepts they'll work on this year. I teach AP English but on a higher grade level and the language course rather than the literature course. Always like to see what teachers in other schools and on different grade levels are doing.

[refika]

Great quote! Just saw the movie about a week or so ago, LOVED it. Have the book on my kindle waiting to read.

[hope2010]

Great quote! I saw the movie now I would read the book. Thank you for sharing.

Every single day I have to face my fears, I can do it, but is not easy. Thanks again,

Wow. I had forgotten about this quote. Glad someone pulled it back up again. It is so, so, so true.

This summer's book I'm not at all interested in reading: Lord of the Flies. Been there; done that; taught that. Not at all a favorite. But I'm rereading To Kill a Mockingbird (for the 532 time) to prepare an example of an assessment for the kids on my level AP classes of their own summer reading choice, so that will be my journey into a classic this summer. Otherwise I'm finishing up the Game of Thrones series right now (which definitely is not a classic, but love it all the same).

[NowhereUSA]

i hated summer reading with a passion. primarily because we moved so much, i invariably missed it somehow. try speed reading the scarlet letter because you move into a school system three days before school starts and there's a pop quiz the first day. yeah. it doesn't work.

Yeah, speed reading The Scarlet Letter is probably not a good idea. I remember reading that initially in high school with the book in one hand and a dictionary in the other.

Summer reading is pretty part and parcel for AP courses across the nation though. I have very mixed feelings about it, but these AP kids have to have a pretty extensive reading "list" by the time they hit the end of senior year if they are going the AP testing track, and summer reading is not a surprise for those in the program. It is hard for those kids that move in and out though, but that's a pretty small percentage of students in our district. We work with them though. It used to be much more extensive than it is now. Previously, it involved reading two or three full-length works, annotating, projects, essays, etc. Now we just ask for the annotations which really isn't a huge deal, and our level only reads one full-length work along with a series of historical letters (about 30 pages worth), so it is quite manageable.

[NowhereUSA]

yeah. i did ap in high school. helped me with some of my college stuff. that was like 15 years ago though. i love to read, but summer reading... well it just reminded me that i wasn't where i belonged sorry didn't mean to be a bummer.

Not a bummer at all. Remember, I'm not only teaching AP, but living with an AP student. Totally see it both ways.

[stopdog]

I adored ap english. I read the books from the classes ahead of me until I got in the class myself. I remember being extremely pissed in middle school when the library would not let me check out East of Eden without my parent's consent (which they gave)(I was on a major Steinbeck kick).

LOL. I'd LOVE to teach East of Eden. Probably my favorite Steinbeck. Doesn't surprise me that back in the day they would have restricted it for middle schooler's though. Fortunately, mostly, times have changed. Our library stocks books that actually surprise me a bit, but these are high schoolers who have to learn to make choices for themselves.

[stopdog]

I will say that EofE had some stuff I had not encountered yet at 12 and did a view of a world I had no idea about. But I had great fun looking stuff up.

LOL!! I'm sure.