Julia Strimer
My blogs
| Industry | Education |
|---|---|
| Occupation | Retired teacher |
| Location | United States |
| Introduction | I retired in 2004 after teaching high school English for 31 years and loving every minute of it. Now I'm enjoying having time to reflect on life, and this blog is about that process of reflection. I want to consider the influences of those individuals who have inspired me by following their own "drummers", and obviously Thoreau is one of them. Stephen Spender, WWI poet, wrote "I think continually of those who were truly great." I used this poem in my World Literature class to stress the introduction to Socrates, but the words could well apply to so many of the "different drummers" who have inspired me. "Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,/ And left the vivid air signed with their honor." The trips that have meant the most have been my pilgrimages to Walden Pond and Cape Cod to follow in Thoreau's footsteps. Also, I visited Carmel CA to see Tor House, built by Robinson Jeffers, my favorite poet, for his wife. These two men have inspired me when I have despaired over the human condition; Thoreau gives me his pond and Jeffers his Pacific Ocean--and both say that there is more to life than the mess humanity creates. |
| Interests | Children and grandchildren, literature, film, philosophy, gardening, pondering |
| Favorite movies | Harry Potter, House of Flying Daggers, Hero, March of the Penguins, Serenity |
| Favorite music | Eagles, Jackson Browne |
| Favorite books | SOPHIE'S WORLD by Jostein Gaarder, SLEEPING IN FLAMES by Jonathan Carroll, EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer, HARD-BOILED WONDERLAND AND THE END OF THE WORLD by Haruki Murakami, all the Harry Potter books, all the Martha Grimes mysteries, the entire LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy, the Thomas Covenant series by Stephen Donaldson |