SparkNotes

A few months ago, we explored the topic of summer jobs. But what about the other nine months of the year? Speaking of nine months, what about babies? Speaking of babies, what about the age-old teen career of babysitting? (And who came up with that rather misleading name?)

Child care and high schoolers looking to save a little dough for a sweet pair of hand-painted Twilight kicks (idea: Bergstein's Twilight shoes?) have gone together since the beginning of time. (You know Adam and Eve made Seth babysit.)

Babysitting, other than a means of tax-free moulah, is fun. It can also be so exhausting and maddening that schools could cancel their pregnancy prevention programs and just make every student babysit for six hours. We examine the pros and cons:

To illustrate our posts, we use images from the bizarre and maddening site known as Shutterstock. Some of these pictures are so strange that when we editors stumble upon them, we email them to each other with subject lines such as "?!??!!!!!!!!!" "What the...." and "The people at shutterstock are on drugs."

We asked one of our favorite writers, Miss Kathryn Williams, to theorize about what the world is going on in one such confounding image. Here is her theory:

Scene: Gymboree. Two mothers sit next to each other, jostling babies in their lap. Both have strong Minnesota accents. It is 1998.

Try to imagine a time before the internet. Stop looking horrified and just try. You can't, can you? The interwebs was a game changer.

Sure, we could technically live in a world that didn't contain the following amuse-bouches. But it would be a sad, grim world indeed.

Babies with moves. Forget that scary digitized dancing baby of the Ally McBeal years. Earlier this year, this little nugget showed us that if you want it, then you shoulda put a teething ring on it. Then this diaper diva redefined the stanky leg. And of course there is the boy in the red shirt. That kid's fresh.

It seems like just yesterday we were offering instructions on how to make a gigantor homemade slip n' slide, so how is it that the weather is suddenly hovering near freezing (in some parts of the world at least)? Say it with me now: Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! In  between blowing on our hands and daring our friends to stick their tongues to a lamppost, we've come up with a few tips for keeping warm as the weather goes cold.

Our first foray into haiku inspired so many Sparklers to pick up their own quills and ponder the meaning of life (or bread bowls) that we decided to try again, this time with fall as our inspiration. We realize that we are playing fast and loose with this very venerable poetic form, so forgive us, English teachers, for making your eyes bleed.

Fallen Leaves

Raking makes blisters

But jumping in them is fun--

Until you find poo.

Aaaand we're back! As you know, the piggy flu tore through the SparkLife virtual offices last week like a hurricane through a mobile park, felling at least two of our own and potentially more. After huddling like subhuman lumps in our germ-infested beds for a week, we'd like to make a special public service announcement (the more you know...): GET VACCINATED.

Why are we taking to SparkLife to make our PSA? Because even after multiple Facebook status updates urging friends and family to protect themselves against Swine 09, there seems to be some reluctance out there to get the H1N1 vaccine.  An incomplete list of the worst excuses:

Cue the Law & Order doink doink sound, because the mystery that is the Bard of all bards has been solved—or so says HuffPo.

If you've ever felt grossly inadequate while pondering the fact that William Shakespeare (allegedly) penned 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and 2 narrative poems in his 52 years of life, then it may come as a relief that a computer program in London has shown he (allegedly) had help on at least one of those plays. (We, for the record, still feel inadequate.)

We've been feeling a little nostalgic recently for our Summer Activity Series (SAS) posts, so we decided to bundle the idea up in a scarf, pump it full of hot apple cider, and (continuing with our geometry pun), do an autumn version (AAS).

Fall just wouldn't be fall without that lovable orange gourd we call the great pumpkin. And what better way to celebrate something than to carve it up? AAS presents a primer on:

Sparkler spasc645 made an excellent point on last week's post about awful teacher types. While making fun of teachers is kind of our bread and butter here at SparkLife (they're just such easy targets), there are also teachers who inspire us, support us, and dedicate their lives to helping us become better students and people.

"Awesome teacher" is not an oxymoron. We give you five examples of teachers who rock:

One of our favorite kinds of poetry is haiku. And nooooo, it's not just because it's only three lines long. Okay, yes, maybe that's why. But anyway, it's a highly regarded form of Japanese verse. So lay off.

And what better way to express the joys and agonies of the already laconic young adult years than in haiku? A few poems inspired by teen milestones:

SAT in Haiku

Pencils down, books closed.

If I must take this again,

I will jump, I swear.