Jennifer Anne Kogler

Oh dear.  I’ve temporarily abandoned blogging again.  But not to worry!  I have written myself 14 Post-Its to remind myself this weekend that some serious blogging needs to be done.  That’s all I have to report.  Yup.  That’s it.  Why are you still reading?  There’s nothing else.  I promise.

Hiya!

Last week, I was in San Antonio.  Which meant I got to stride along the River Walk and see the Alamo.

 Let me tell you the problem growing up fifteen minutes from Disneyland: I go to a really famous place, like the Alamo, and I immediately think it looks like Disneyland.  Every famous landmark now reminds me of Disneyland.  In truth, Disneyland is modeled to look like a bunch of ACTUAL famous places.  Like, as I was walking along the River Walk, I kept thinking that the it was actually where the Jungle Boat Ride meets New Orleans Square near Frontier Land.  But the River Walk was probably there before Disneyland.  

Anyway, my trip to San Antonio was great . . . and I did enjoy seeing the Alamo, but I imagined it to be bigger in my mind and also there was no basement that I could find, at least.  

I could not have started the week off at a better location – with Jamie Jennings and Shannon Sankey, the awesome, self-proclaimed “library chicks,” from Wood Middle School.   Then I was off to Eisenhower Middle School.  I was happy to have another presidentially-named middle school under my belt.  It has been a little while without.  Teresa Diaz had just moved to that media center and as far as I could tell, Eisenhower is very luck to have her.  

After that, it was on to Tejeda Middle School with Lydia Black taking care of all the details and keeping things in perfect order.  We had a couple teleporters there that got close, I promise.  Brandon and Andrew gave it a try, for sure.

I ended the week at Bradley Middle School.  They also had a new librarian, Terry Ramirez . . . not that you could tell.  Everything went off without a hitch and it was a perfect place to end my visit to San Antonio.  I left with the warmest of feelings.

Eisenhower and their staff of loyal voulunteers actually set up a little signing area of me.  Check it out:

I wonder what I’m laughing at.  I oftentimes crack myself up . . . so your guess is as good as mine.  

Random ending thought:  If anyone has any pictures of feral hogs they’d be willing to send me, I’d sure appreciate it.  I’ll explain later.  Like in my next blog.  Not to worry.  Until then . . . jak

So, um, hi.  There’s really no excuse for me not posting for the last week and a half or so.  Sometimes I just go into blogging funks.  But I’m feeling absolutely blogtastic today, so here I am.

Anyway, I finished up Atlanta in grand style.  I was at Dodgen Middle School, where Sue Klodnicki’s enthusiasm was only matched by her sense of humor.  In fact, I have a picture of her.  Are you ready?  

OMG.  Another sideways picture.  I know that you were beginning to miss them, weren’t you?  Right?  Anyway, That’s Media Specialist Sue Klodncki.  And that the cool mural in her library.  If she looks like she’s hilarious, it’s because she is!

I finished up the week at Autrey Middle School with Laura Hunter.  Autrey presented a special problem for me because it was Spirit Say.  Which sounded like a lot of fun (honestly, there were teachers running through the hallways with fairy wings and bug-eye masks on — we should all be so lucky to go to a school like that).  The problem came during my standard Q & A session.  My usual tools to signal to someone that I was calling on them didn’t work.  

“You in the red,” I’d say, calling on someone in a red shirt.  And then forty kids in red shirts would point to themselves because part of Spirit Day entailed wearing the same color.  Whoops.  

Anyway, I saw my first scorpion while running in a park near where I was staying.  It was kind of large and kind of scary.  I ran in the opposite direction, of course.  So my Flight or Fight instincts are totally intact.  But now I can check scorpions off my list of poisonous creatures left to see.  Which is something.  

On to THE ALAMO!

Hello there!  Greetings from The Peach State.  At least, I think that’s the state name of Georgia.  I think in 5th Grade we had to learn all the nicknames of states.  

Well, my time in Georgia got off to a rip-roaring start.  No, I mean that literally.  I was on my way to Hopewell Middle School when all of the sudden I heard this siren. It was pouring buckets outside, so I figured there had been some horrendous car wreck somewhere.   But it was strange, because the siren wasn’t getting closer and it wasn’t getting further away.  

Once I was at Hopewell, I was whisked into a “safe room” with no windows and told that tornadoes were circling the area and the siren was a tornado warning.  Now, I’m from California . . . and we have earthquake drills that involve dropping and covering, but this was something else entirely.  Anyhow, the ten people trapped in the small safe room couldn’t have been funnier or nicer about the whole thing, including media specialist Janice Etscovitz, so I was a happy camper.  Or tornado warning participant.

Of course, being a huge Wizard of Oz fan, I found the whole thing to be quite exciting (and, of course, was thrilled that the tornado didn’t actually do any harm.  I’m not quite sure which is scarier, earthquakes or tornadoes, but I may have to say tornadoes . . . because there’s more warning, but there’s also more time to worry about them.   What do you think?

I spent the last two days at Hopwell and it was just as exciting as the tornado warning that kicked it off — but for all the right reasons.  B.V. was the second student I’ve tried to send to Candyland, but it turns out that practice does not make perfect.    Next time!

And look.  There’s my head.  Kind of.  And my legs.  Georgia is bee-uuu-tiful.   Trust me.

It was back up to Cave Creek on Friday.  I was at Desert Arroyo Middle School, hanging out with Renaissance man Ray Flamm.  Tristan and Brooke really did try to teleport.  I guess I still need to practice.    On to Georgia!

Thursday brought me to the southern part of the Phoenix area — specifically Payne Middle School in Queen Creek.  Also, I have some excellent desert pictures, but my blog is not cooperating, so as soon as I get on good terms with my blog again, I’ll be putting up some visuals.

I was lucky enough to get to spend the day with Stephanie Emery, book enthusiast, media specialist, logistical genius and all around fantastic person (as was Ann-Marie).  I also got to meet with the Payne Book Club — every member was totally awesome.  We also had some great wannabe teleporters.  RJ, Jared and Landon wanted to go to the olympics, New York and Maui.  Landon was even 99% sure that it would work.  Surprise, surprise . . . it didn’t.

I promise I’ll put pictures up . . . at some point.

Hiya,

On Wednesday of last week, I was still in the Phoenix area, this time around Cave Creek at Sonoran Trails Middle School.  I saw no caves or creeks, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t beautiful. I didn’t realize that cacti got that tall . . . but they were as big as trees.  No really, they were.

Anyhow, media specialist Julie Young was exactly that.  She made a revolving power point and pretty much researched everything about me.  I think she knew more than I did.  Shawn wanted to teleport to McDonalds.  We didn’t get him there, which is too bad — he was hungry.  But we kind of did have a successful teleporter, thanks to Julie’s handiwork.  David went to France.  Well, maybe he didn’t go to France.  You’ll have to ask him.

Anyway, it feels good to be back on the road again.



Hi there,

First off, if you’ve sent me an email, and I haven’t written you back, gently email nudge me again . . . I may have lost your email in transit.  My email was on the fritz for a few days, so your email have been eaten.  Speaking of emails — those of you that have sent me electronic notes, THANK YOU.  I’ve gotten such wonderful emails from students and teachers and ordinary citizens and lizards.  Okay, I haven’t been contacted by any lizards yet.  But here’s hoping.

Secondly, I’m officially back on the middle school circuit — and I’m thrilled.  I started off at Kyrene Akimel A-al Middle School near Phoenix, AZ.  Media specialist Rhonda Brewer greeted me with her stylish Weepul shirt (which I got a kick out of, because we had the same magazine drive at my middle school).  The whole thing was organized to a t!  It took me a couple minutes to get the rust off, but it was a great day.  Katy, Abdul and Christian didn’t teleport, exactly.  Though I really thought we might get Christian to Wal-mart,  He was looking for bargains.  Also, it marked the first time that an assembly has done the wave while waiting for me to begin.  There were some very energetic teachers behind the whole thing – it was pretty cool.

And I just know you’ve been missing more pictures of my face in front of schools.  Fine, maybe you haven’t.  But I really did fall in love with the Arizona landscape (and all the cacti), so I’ll begin posting those as soon as I download them. 

Talk soon,

jak

Well, well, well.  Lufkin Road was a well-titled school to end my spring/summer school tour on.  First of all, Lufkin Road was the most unusual-looking school I’ve visited.  It used to be an office building that has now been converted into a school.  The principal, assistant principal and media specialist Diane Ruby were all so so nice (and well-organized).  I could not have left North Carolina (or this leg of my tour) with any warmer of a feeling in the pit of my stomach.  Travis, Ricky and Jamie were great sports.  As was the entire audience for my three talks, who were sitting calmly on the cafeteria floor.  I don’t know about you, but when I’m sitting on a hard surface for more than ten minutes, one of my feet or legs usually falls asleep.  

Anyhow, so I’m done for now visiting schools (as most schools are done for the summer).  It’s been great in so many ways, it would be impossible to list them all here.  Besides, I’m not sure anyone would want to read them.  But DO look for more blogs about writing and everything else I can think of.  If you have any ideas as to what I should blog about, please let me know!  And now, for some FINAL TOTALS for my school tour:

Number of Students I Chatted With: 25,685 (wow, that’s like a small city)

Number of Appearances:  146 (I think I’m pretty sure I have most of what I say memorized now)

Number of Cities:  33 (a good odd number)

Number of States: 5 (but don’t ask me 

Hi again.  On Thursday, I was still in North Carolina, and loving every minute of it.  Chad, Alex and Mallory wanted to go to Amsterdam, The Bahamas and home respectively — all teleporting answers that I respect.  I also met a couple of wonderful librarians again — Teresa and Debbie.  And because the book was out, they had a whole display of my books set out.  Fern’s face was everywhere.  I felt fairly special.   I haven’t gotten the pictures downloaded for Salem, but when I do, I’ll post them.  And on to the next!