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Jeremy Melton
 Put your picture here, if you want to do so
Campus: O.P. Norman Jr. High
Job Title: Teacher
Instructor Of: Pre-AP English, Yearbook, Newspaper, Chess team, UIL Spelling and Ready Writing.
Responsibilities: I like to think of all students and all subjects as my responsibility.
Teaching Experience: 4th Year.
Education: B.A. in English, minor in Philosophy. Texas Tech University.
Personal: I am married to Mrs. Melton down the hall. We have one son (a Maltese named Jack) and one daughter (a cat named Sinny).
Birthday: September 14
Hobbies: Reading, writing, movies, cooking, watching "Law and Order" and "Top Chef" and crime documentaries with Mrs. Melton. Taking naps.
Favorites
Song: Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen, The Sweetest Decline by Beth Orton, I Never Go Around Mirrors by Keith Whitley. Kathleen Edward's album "Failer" is probably my favorite album from the last five years. This summer, the Meltons have been listening to Michael Buble, John Mayer, Journey and K.T. Tunstall.
Book: Far too many to name, but here's a few: All the Pretty Horses, 100 Years of Solitude, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Wonderboys, Middlesex, Sophie's Choice, White Oleander, The Tender Bar, The Liar's Club, In Cold Blood, The World According to Garp, The Executioner's Song, Mystic River, The Brothers Karamazov, For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Great Gatsby, Caro's LBJ Trilogy, Manchester's Churchill, Truman, Shakespeare's Tragedies. This summer I read some of the crime novels of Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos and Michael Connelly, all excellent and under-rated novelists.
Movie: Again, far too many to name, but here's a few: The Godfather I & II (As close to Shakespeare as American Cinema has came), Rear Window, Lonesome Dove, The Deer Hunter, JFK, The Empire Strikes Back, Rocky, Band of Brothers. I also love stupid comedies like Dumb and Dumber, Kingpin, Tommy Boy, Office Space and everything Will Ferrell has ever been in, especially Anchorman and Old School. This past year, Mrs. Melton and I enjoyed quite a few movies. The Departed, Babel and The Dead Girl were all three excellent. Blood Diamond and Half-Nelson were also very good, and Casino Royale was the best Bond movie I've ever seen.
Food: Probably depends on my mood, but I get hungry for Mexican food more often than anything else. Every now and then, though, nothing beats a good plate of spaghetti and meatballs, or a well-made cheeseburger.
Quote: Almost everything that ever came out of Winston Churchill's mouth, especially, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."
"In the final analysis, we all share this basic common link: We all inhabit this small planet; we all breathe the same air; we all cherish our children's futures, and we are all mortal." JFK
Web Site: I like to get on Amazon to shop for books and new authors. Michael Chabon's homepage is thoroughly entertaining. The Onion. NightTrain's Literary Quarterly. I love Reuter's Odd News, also. And, of course, anything related to Texas Tech Football.
A bit more about me
I hope it's not an educational sin to say so, but I don't think that my main reason for teaching is to show kids how to punctuate a sentence. I like to think that my main job is to inspire kids to become life-long learners. It's such an enormous world with so many fascinating things to learn and places to go. I could live a thousand years and never get bored. So, I spend a lot of time talking about things that may seem unrelated to the classroom, but it's mainly because I'm such a curious person. I tell them the stories of my life, so that they may see their own lives as stories. Stories that they are the heroes of. So there's a pretty good chance they may come home and tell a story about something stupid I did when I was in 5th grade.
I want to share with them the small tragedies and comedies I've witnessed, so they get acquainted with the force of good narrative, and they'll always know that no matter what tragedy may befall them, they can pick themselves up and keep on going.
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