Taylor the Teacher

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Talked to my friend Olivia today. Olivia once wrote a funny short story about a squirrel named Jimmy. We went to college together. Olivia is a teacher, too, and she’s been too busy teaching and giving birth to mess with Web 2.0, so she’s, like, such a web poser.

Not really, but I’m doing 80s slang today because, as I’ve mentioned before, language is lovely – I mean, bitchin’. (“Bitching” is bad, but “bitchin” is good. See what I mean?)

So I told her I’d shoot her an email with some of the totally rad sites that I like to read when I’m chillin’. But since I’m 81 percent% addicted to blogging, I figured I’d blog it instead.

That way, you guys could offer her some suggestions in addition to mine. My own Internet life totally exploded when I bought a laptop in April, so I’m just now in the last few months discovering these things. I’m, like a total geek-wad myself.

I’m going for fun stuff here. I figure she’ll find the professional stuff in her own sweet time. That’s what I do with my students…. show them the knarly stuff first. (This is also why I often do an etymological illustration of the word “rectum” on the board. Nothing gross. Just what the root “-rec” means. It’s great. I have their full attention, and it seems to justify to them why I read the dictionary.)

Also, Olivia reads the dictionary, too. I had to rat her out in case you thought I was too much of a dweeb.

So, Olivia…. Here are some of my favorites…

Blogs I like :

www.dooce.com – The first and best. Not the first ever on the web but first to fire me up about blogging. Love this blog. Really. She’s hilarious. And she’s real.

www.postsecret.com - People make their own homemade postcards, write their deepest secrets on them, and mail them anonymously. Very interesting, creative, and cool.

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/ - Notes people send the bloggers notes between roommates. You’ll see what I mean.

http://mashable.com/ - This is a blog that will tell you about more cool sites than you’ll ever be able to visit.

http://apostrophe-abuse.blogspot.com/ -Documents inane uses of apostrophes, something Olivia will appreciate if only because I used to drive her crazy bitchin, I mean, bitching about poor grammar & punctuation I saw in the world (which is totally everywhere, by the way.) She used to call me “grammar girl.”

Other interactive sites I find cool:

www.stardolls.com – dress up virtual dolls. Olivia will understand. Olivia and I used to stay up late nights stuffing tissue into Barbie’s dress, posing her with fattening foods, and writing notes from Barbie to our roommates. I did my first writing from a doll’s perspective in collaboration with Olivia. It’s cool if you don’t understand.

Lost in Translation: - lost in translation will translate any phrase back and forth between five different languages. Way fun.

Urban Dictionary: Define your world! The only thing better than reading the dictionary is writing the dictionary, right? Allows users to define slang words. Then allows other users to vote on the definitions.

Grand Text Auto: Interactive fiction. I know there are many more of these, and I’m just now getting into these, so any others you find I’ll be, like, totally grateful for.

I didn’t include facebook because I already nagged the hell out of Olivia to sign up. Didn’t include myspace because I don’t care for or about it.

What am I missing? Please help out my friend, and me, by posting your own suggestions here!

UPDATE: I almost posted a comment to my own blog, which would have been totally gauche but I can’t remember that a-href crap for making a link. But I cannot believe I left off i can has a cheeseburger! Oversight due to too many glasses of wine, and unforgivable.