When I read a story I want to come back to or I want to somehow use in the future, I just open a new tab on my phone and keep it there. As a result, I have a ton of open tabs sitting in Safari, probably slowing things down, who knows. I’m kind of an article hoarder, maybe. Here’s what’s on my phone tabs:

Lavar Ball’s Junior Basketball League Could Force NCAA Reform: I read this and thought it would be a great article to discuss and write about for my composition classes. I have a lot of kids who are interested in sports, but not especially interested in writing, but they are generally down to write about things that they are into.

Why Trying New Things Is So Hard To Do: I read this probably just after I made the jump to Roseville and it popped up on my social media feed. I thought about it a lot, even starting this blog, and I thought it might be another good article for my composition students.

The 19 Best Sentences of 2017: This is another link for my composition students. I think focusing on beautiful, precise sentences is a good activity for any level of writer. We can always get better at it.

The Most Dangerous Writing App: This is a website that lets you write for a period of time, but if you stop writing for more than 5 seconds during the writing, it erases everything you’ve written and you have to start over. It forces you to write without stopping. I think 3 minutes is the smallest period of time you can set it for; I might challenge my students with it at some point. If you write for the entire time without stopping for too long, you can save what you’ve written. Scary.

This Artist’s Re-imagined Useless Household Products Are Guaranteed To Make You Cringe: THEY SO DO! I saved this to show Annika and maybe for messing with my students for writing, too.

Historically, Men Translated The Odyssey. Here’s What Happened When a Woman Took the Job: For the first time ever, I’m going to be teaching The Odyssey next trimester. I thought this article might be useful for that class.

Aromatherapy Shower Melts For Colds and Flu (Or Anytime): My friend Amy made some of these a couple years ago and gave me a gift of a few of them. They were awesome and I decided I wanted to make some myself, so I looked up what seemed to be the best, simplest recipe and let it sit in my phone for a long time. I haven’t made them yet. I want to.

Common Lit: Themes: When I learned that I was going to be teaching literature again, I went looking for different resources to help out and ran across this one. It is a really cool website that shares different types of literature on similar themes. There is more to this website, but I haven’t had time to delve into it. Obviously. Because it’s been sitting in my phone since November.

America’s Love Affair With Uniformed Men Is Problematic: A friend and former student who has made a career in the armed forces and intelligence recommended this article with great enthusiasm. I read most of it, but never actually got through to the end of it because I was so busy. I am going to finish it.

Why Kids Can’t Write: If you aren’t convinced about how serious I am about helping people learn to write, you should be by now. This is an article (and actually, there is a series of articles by the New York Times) that I have kept in my phone since August. I should go back and reread some of these. I don’t always agree with everything in them, but they are thoughtful.

IsNowIllegal.com: This website lets you make anything illegal by executive order in a GIF. Great fun.

I also have an open Google search for Sofi Tukker tab, mainly because I’ve had their song Best Friend running through my head off and on for weeks and I kind of love it.

So there you go. An honest accounting of all the tabs open in my phone. For the most part, they are pretty great links. I just made your day that much more interesting. You’re welcome.