Candy Hearts & Saccharine Souls
As you know from the rapid replacement of holiday displays which began at midnight on December 26th, Valentine’s Day is coming. February, it turns out, is the month of love.
Well, not REAL love… but exploitative, crass, commercialized love, packed with artificial ingredients – cultural pressure to overspend, unnecessary emotional theatrics, and the obligatory scarlet flora whose lifespan will fall WELL short of the concomitant credit card payments.
In other words, it’s the most American holiday this side of the 4th of July!
Blue Cereal would like to SHARE the love this year throughout the month of February. Initially I thought I might stick with the tried-and-true… Daily lingerie pics of myself in lacy garments of the sort which inevitably SCREAM, “I’m trying WAY too hard.” Whitney Houston (or whoever the kids are listening to these days) belting out that “Eye…hee-eye… will always love youuuuu…hee-oooouuuu!” Maybe even some of those little candy hearts with wacky messages like “Diabetes turns me on!” or “It’s OK – I’m #11FF!”
But it all seemed too obvious. Too crass. Too commercial and not at all useful. (Well, except for the lingerie shots. I may still do those. Viewership has been down and I could use the clicks.)
Instead, February will see the return of a few things I’ve enjoyed doing in the past.
Killer Blue Serials
Our first “Share The Love” feature will be a weekly installment of “Blue Serials” – summaries and commentary on the best recent edu-blogging, edu-news, and anything else which catches my attention. It’s my goal to use whatever platform I have to promote the lesser-thans, the little people, the wish-we-were-more-like-Blue-Cereal crowd. I can think of nothing more noble than wanting to be more like me, and I’d like to encourage these aspirations.
With that in mind, I’m asking you, my Eleven Faithful Followers, to recommend posts or articles related to education (or not) from the past month or two which deserve a wider audience or a second look. You need not limit yourself to blogs or publications of a particular size – my readership may not be as large as whoever you have in mind, but that doesn’t mean the same people read us both. Email me at [email protected] with links and a brief explanation of why you like whatever it is you’re recommending, and we’ll see how things unfold. When in doubt, send it on – we define “related to education” rather loosely around these parts!
If I use your suggestion, I’ll send you a Limited Edition Rare Inspirational Full-Color Collectors-Only Blue Cereal #11FF Lunch Box – one of the longest-named gimmicks in all of edu-bloggery! These were a big deal a few years back, and I recently discovered an untapped stash of a few remaining items which remain homeless and alone. If I understand the laws of supply-and-demand correctly, that means that the more you talk them up and project a desperate desire to secure one, the more status we can BOTH pretend this lunch box conveys on any who wields it.
Sharing Is Caring
The second February “Share The Love” feature will be an open call for guest bloggers. Whatever you’re willing to share with fellow teachers or say about the world of education (or even the world in which education occurs), this is your chance. I’m not talking about you weirdos who want to promote your herbal supplements or low-cost imitation iPhones here. I’m looking for classroom experiences, lesson ideas, successes or failures, political issues, etc. – actual writing by real people about education, or kids, or life, or whatever’s on your mind.
Recommended length is 1,200 – 1,600 words, although I’m flexible if it’s any good. Email me your post and if I use it, you’ll receive one of the same #11FF Lunch Boxes I was carrying on about above. (I hope you were paying attention because I REALLY don’t want to have to repeat all that.)
Finally, anything else which might pop up here during February will either be about faux love (maybe a collection of my favorite “tainted love”-themed songs?) or about you and I actually sharing REAL BRILLIANCE and REAL LOVE with one another and the world at large. Either way, I hope you’ll play along. Otherwise, it’s going to be a long, lonely, depressing February!
