10. Readers/Reviewers Who Love Every Book.  No you don’t.  Don’t be afraid to have a negative opinion about a book.  Isn’t that what we’re here for? to be honest?  You can be respectful & tasteful & still not like a book.

Ginger from GReads had this in her guest post at The Broke and the Bookish‘s blog (the host of the meme). While I don’t claim to LOVE every book I read, I think that most of the time I rank anything I remotely like in the 4-5 category. I have hardly any 1-3s (but a couple 0s). So I thank Ginger for pointing this out and making me realize that I really did need to clarify my ranks.

So, after having looked at a few blogs that posted their ranking systems, what I came up with is pictured to the side. (I also have it posted in my sidebar.)
(NOTE: There is a difference between hating a book and not finishing a book. I might be able to finish a book and say I hate it, but  sometimes I may despise/hate a book SOOO much that I can’t even finish it. A small difference, but a difference nonetheless.)

Title: Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
Author: Gregory Maguire

Genre: fiction (sort of spoof-ish)
ISBN: 9780060987527
Length: 368 pages
Published: 1999
Source: personal collection
Rating: 2/5
Resolutions: Personal Collection Resolution

Reason for Reading: I really enjoyed Wicked by Gregory Maguire, so I wanted to see if I would also like this one. Plus, I’ve owned this for at least five years and hadn’t read it yet–so it counted for my Personal Collection Resolution.

|

Summary (Product Description):

We have all heard the story of Cinderella, the beautiful child cast out to slave among the ahes. But what of her stepsisters, the homely pair exiled into ignominy by the fame of their lovely sibling? What fate befell those untouched by beauty…and what curses accompanied Cinderella’s looks?

Set against the backdrop of seventeenth-century Holland, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister tells the story of Iris, an unlikely heroine who finds herself swept from the lowly streets of Haarlem to a strange world of wealth, artifice, and ambition. Iris’s path quickly becomes intertwined with that of Clara, the mysterious and unnaturally beautiful girl destined to become her sister. While Clara retreats to the cinders of the family hearth, Iris seeks out the shadowy secrets of her new household–and the treacherous truth of her former life.

My Thoughts: Doesn’t that make the story sound like there’s going to be a lot of jealousy and sibling rivalry?? That’s what it sounded like to me, but those two aspects I thought would play a major part in the story were practically nonexistent. So my primary expectation of the book wasn’t met. Now, I know, that’s not the author’s fault that the product description misleads possible readers. But there were other reasons I didn’t really care for the book.

The reason I disliked this one is related to why I enjoyed Wicked so much. In Wicked, Maguire told the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, before Dorothy stumbled into the Land of Oz in The Wizard of Oz. He didn’t rewrite a classic with Wicked, but created a completely untold story. But in CoaUS, I think Maguire did rewrite a little too much of a classic fairy tale, at least for my taste. The beginning of the story was pretty good–when Maguire was creating a story all his own, I liked it. But when Iris and Ruth became Clara’s stepsisters and Margarethe became her stepmother, that’s when I started to dislike the story. The author tampered too much with the story when the father-figure in the story didn’t actually die and when the relationship between the stepsisters was vastly different–possibly even the complete opposite–from what we normally hear in the Cinderella tale.

I truly feel that lots of other people would like this book and that it was just me who didn’t care for it. But if you do read it, be forewarned that, in my opinion, the product description isn’t very true to what is actually in the story.

2011 Resolutions.

1. Stay Healthy
how to definite stay healthy? Eat healthy and Exercise more. My target is to swim at least once a week. Cin, Fala, Teng, did you hear me? I want a swim (not dry swimming hor!) haha! Other than swimming, there’s no sport i can do. I hate running, i feel like a sick kid when i ran. I just have pain all over me and worst, i feel like vomiting after run lol… I love swimming, and i wish there’s waterproof mp3. Imagine i get to listen to music and exercise at the same time? it’s heaven!

2. Meatless Monday
i’m a reader of Beverly’s Secret. one day, beverly was talking about her plan on meatless monday. i went on to read more on Wikipedia and understand meatless monday. i really think it is a good initiative. actually, meatless monday is to encourage people to improve their health by not eating meat. the initiative wasn’t just for us, it also for our motherly earth. personally, i think is a good initiative that everyone should practice. it is not really hard to avoid meat once a week. for me, it don’t need to be on a monday, as long you take the effort to practice once a week. Thumb up for people whom are practicing it. i understand it might take times to do it, why not, give yourself a try starting from next monday onwards? My aim is 2 days in a week! Hwaiting! You can do it too~

3. Save Save Save
i always think we should set aside certain amount every month after payday. there’s too many thing unpredictable happening everyday. it’s just snow yesterday in korea. the earthquake that hit badly to Japan last week? who would have expected it? in short, no one would able to guess what is going to happen tomorrow, or rather, the next minute…  and of cos, if you save enough, you get to travel to places you want, buy something that you always want. Saving sound great right? Let’s start now!

and wishes for 2011. world peace. travel to seoul. travel together with family. and watch SS501 on stage. lastly, BE HAPPY!

Title

Reason for Reading: Natalie at Coffee and a Book Chick gave this book an AMAZING review last fall and then she raved about it again in a vlog post about some debut authors she’s been reading. So I decided I just had to read it Plus, you know I’m always up for a dystopian novel

Summary (Product Description):

Amy and her parents believe they will wake on a new planet, Centauri-Earth, three hundred years in the future. But fifty years before Godspeed’s scheduled landing, cryo chamber 42 is mysteriously unplugged, and Amy is violently woken from her frozen slumber.

Someone tried to murder her.

Now, Amy is caught inside a tiny world where nothing makes sense. Godspeed‘s 2,312 passengers have forfeited all control to Eldest, a tyrannical and frightening leader. And Elder, Eldest’s rebellious teenage heir, is both fascinated with Amy and eager to discover whether he has what it takes to lead.

Amy desperately wants to trust Elder. But should she put her faith in a boy who has never seen life outside the ship’s cold metal walls? All Amy knows is that she and Elder must race to unlock Godspeed‘s hidden secrets before whoever woke her tries to kill again.

My Thoughts: This book is amazing! I know, I tend to think this of every dystopian novel I read. I think I like dystopian novels because they are so different. Authors who can create whole new worlds–and do it well–deserve a lot of credit. And Revis did such a great job with this book–and it’s her debut!

One of the things that I loved about this story is that it all (well, except for the first couple chapters on “Sol-Earth”) takes place on a spaceship. But it’s not like Star Wars or Star Trek (granted, I’ve never seen Star Trek). I have never read a book set on a spaceship before, but I think Revis did a great job not making the story really science-fiction-y. The population on Godspeed appeared to be slightly primitive in respects and very advanced in others–they put a lot of research into science, namely because of a big problem with the ship, but in other areas the general population is kept in the dark (and only concerns itself with agriculture).

I think what I loved most about this story, was the “murder mystery” bit, as Revis calls it Just when I thought I had figured out what Eldest was hiding from Elder, it turned out to be the complete opposite! That’s not to say that I like to be proven wrong, but that the mystery wasn’t too easy to figure out or too obvious. I never would’ve expected what the real problem was.

Thoughts on the Cover: I think the cover is beautiful. But one of the best things about it, is that it’s reversible. Now, for me that didn’t really matter because it’s a library book so I couldn’t reverse it But I had already seen images online of the reverse, so it was alright.  And I think the cover, if kept on the blueprint of Godspeed side, might look a little “busy”.

|

I am so excited that in about a year–sometime in late winter/early spring of 2012–the second book in the Across the Universe trilogy will be published: A Million Suns

Title

Reason for Reading: About five years ago I was a senior in high school and I took physics. (I’m not really sure, in retrospect, why I took physics–it’s possible I took it just to go to an amusement park for a field trip haha) Towards the end of the year, my teacher showed us a PBS documentary about String Theory, something I’d never heard about before, as I don’t venture into the field of physics when I don’t have to. But it sounded really interesting and I loved the documentary. So I’ve been meaning to read the book the documentary was based on for years. And I finally got around to it!

.

Summary: I think the best way to summarize this, since it’s sort of a confusing topic, is to show you. Below is a video that contains the “trailer” for the PBS documentary (it’s only about the first three minutes of the video).

The levels of magnification, according to what String Theory says: 1) macroscopic level (matter); 2) molecular level; 3) atomic level (protons, neutrons, electrons); 4) subatomic level (electron); 5) subatomic level (quarks, three make up each proton & neutron); and 6) string level

My Thoughts: Surprisingly enough, I actually did understand about half of the book–that was more than I expected. It starts off with explaining special and general relativity as per Einstein–this is the big stuff, like planets. I understood this stuff pretty well, considering. But when the book ventured into quantum mechanics (the really really tiny stuff, smaller than atoms), I got completely lost. I think this might have to do with the fact that much of the quantum mechanics contained math beyond my comprehension. I could picture the big stuff, but I couldn’t picture the small stuff. So, what I understood of the book–especially black holes and hidden dimensions–I enjoyed. But what went over my head…well, it went over my head But I read everything because I was afraid that if I skipped a part, I would miss something that would help me understand something else later. I do give Greene credit for putting in the preface a statement that says, “You can basically skim or skip such and such a part because it’s very abstract and doesn’t have much impact on the rest.” And he forewarns again in the text when it’s coming up.

But I love the examples used in the book. Most of the time, they really helped me understand a certain point

There were a couple points in the book, especially Chapter 11, when Greene went into much detail with personal anecdotes about his own research in the field. That whole chapter focuses on Green’s own research–if it had been from another researcher, it might have warranted only a few pages. So this part was of a different writing style than the rest of the book and didn’t flow very well.

This is a Calabi-Yau manifold, a six dimensional shape and one of the fundamentals of String Theory. (Don't you think it's pretty?!))

And, in case you’re even slightly interested, this is the definition of string theory (according to Wikipedia):

String theory mainly posits that the electrons and quarks within an atom are not 0-dimensional objects, but rather 1-dimensional oscillating lines (“strings”).

I wouldn’t recommend the book to the average reader. But if you’re interested in knowing more about string theory, the PBS documentary The Elegant Universe, hosted by the author of the book, Brian Greene, is excellent. Here’s a link to the first part of a seven part collection on YouTube, which will lead you to the following parts–you should be able to watch the whole documentary this way.

1. I really wish I had planted daffodil bulbs in the fall.

2. My body has decided to reject my internal stitches and one of my incisions abscessed. Two others are sore. Apparently there is nothing I can do about this except wait and see. If I get a fever from infection I will go back to the surgeon.

3. From the statement above, you can imagine there hasn’t been a ton of exercise. I had a small window between the “all clear” for exercise and the abscess. In that window, Jared and I went to a local park and played tennis for two hours. I suck, but it was FUN! And a lot of work… I was so super sore the next day. So, I see a lot of that in our future.

4. Work is keeping me on my toes. And that is a major understatement. One day off in the last 10. The up side? A possible promotion in my future. (not getting my hopes up… not getting my hopes up… not getting my hopes up… not getting my hopes up…)

5. Daylight savings time is HERE! This weekend!

6. I’m heading to New Jersey next weekend to see my niece and nephew. Excited about that and hoping staying on WW won’t be too challenging during that time.

7. I really need like 3 days in a row at home to do nothing but spring clean, clean out, and do yard work. I do not see that anywhere in my near future

8. Weight update: 1.4 pounds lost since January 1st. Seriously? I am officially back to my pre-Christmas weight though… so at least I’ve finally undone that damage!

9. I didn’t give up anything for Lent.

10. I think that’s all for now.

I did give you guys the head’s up that although I would be blogging again, I couldn’t promise any kind of consistency. So, I hope to see you before another month goes by! How are you guys doing with your weight loss? Anyone else on the new Weight Watchers program?

this one’s getting kind of neglected, at least until spring break. i’m back to the wedding dress-drawing board and buried under a stack of undergraduate papers that need grading.

So, with these in mind, Here are my resolutions
1. Blog more often- Starting my meals and exercise plans as well as interesting places I have been to

2. Only a meal out per day- This might be a little tough, but by having a meal at home I think I will be able to save a an amount. Besides, it will be healthier as well!

3. Try a new recipe a week

4. Revise my Korean and prepare for the next semester

5. Exercise! -I’m currently trying VERY MUCH to follow Zuzana & Freddy’s weekly workout schedule on bodyrock.tv. Its awesome but it can be REALLY tough just looking at Zuzana’s body gives me the motivation! So, here’s my plan.

Strength training: At home (according to bodyrock)
Cardio: School’s Gym (Alternate days- Mon, Wed, Fri), with morning walk on the weekends in Osvill’s basement!

6. Cut down on refined sugars (aka. CANDY!)

7. No snacking or eating after 9pm

8. Try to sleep early! (By 12pm)

With all these stated, wish me best of luck for my coming month!!!! ^^

And before I leave, here’s what I had for lunch today~

Pumpkin Wrap, apples and hot cocoa!
 
 

The pumpkin wrap was AWESOME! I tried it with some Ketchup and Mustard but it is great even without extra condiments~ Definately a MUST EAT again!

I also made some peanut butter protein balls last week. 
 

SO GOOD. And its all in my tummy now! Got to make more of them soon! Time for grocery shopping! Organic Agrave, Peanut Butter, Yoghurt, Nuts, Oats and SO MUCH MORE!

Alright. Got to go sleep while watching Sex and the City now! hee… It has been my MUST WATCH show since I switched to my single room. ^^ Got to wake up early to send Jae and Kota off to the airport tml at 1030~ Their leaving to Taiwan for their holiday~
 
Today’s Workout: 4km walk,Bodyrock.tv (550 Rep Fat Massacre- 525 to be exact! I skimmed on the push ups)

Title

|

Summary (Book Description):

Everyone knows the fifty winners but what about the hundreds of other statehood proposals that never worked out? Lost States is a tribute to such great unrealized states as West Florida, South California, Half-Breed Tracts, Rough and Ready, and others. History buffs will be entertained and enlightened by these bizarre-but-true stories:
—Frontier legend Daniel Boone once proposed a state of Transylvania on the borders of Indiana and Illinois. (His plan was resurrected a few years later with the new name of Kentucky.)
—Residents of bucolic South Jersey wanted to secede from their “filthy” north Jersey neighbors and form their own union.
—The Gold Rush territory of Nataqua could have made a fine state but since no women were willing to live there, they had to settle for being part of California.
Accompanying the stories are beautiful full-color original maps detailing how these states’ boundaries might have looked, along with images of real-life artifacts and ephemera. Lost States is a quirky reference book for history buffs, geography geeks, and anyone who enjoys lush, fascinating cartography.

My Thoughts: This book was pretty funny Of course, it was written to be funny. I mean, how could this not be funny: “Planning new colonies was kind of a recreational sport in that era [the mid- to late- 700s], much as fantasy football leagues are today” (p53). I love these books about forgotten things–or rather, things overlooked. They’re so interesting! I really enjoyed That’s Not in My American History Book that I read a few years ago. And Quirk Books is such a great publisher for this sort of book Here are a few of the proposed states I found most interesting:

• Albania: recently this Eastern European country has had a strong loyalty to the US and wanted to become a state
• Forgottonia: some counties in western Illinois were circumvented by the vast highway/interstate network and felt left out, so they wanted to be their own state
• Greenland: this is one the US actually wants and Denmark won’t sell (I’m not sure why Denmark wants/needs it, but I know the US wants it because it’s a great place to set up defenses near Russia–and this probably isn’t as big an issue as it would’ve been 15-20 years ago)
• Nickajack: I just like the name It was an area in the South (northern Alabama, eastern Tennessee) that didn’t want to secede with the rest of the South during the Civil War, so it tried to become its own state
• Washington: originally this was going to be eastern Ohio, not including Columbus (apparently it’s a problem that Ohio has so many large cities in a small space–living in Ohio, I never noticed that); and an interesting little tidbit that Trinklein believes would’ve happened: “If the proposed state had become a reality, Ohio’s vote in the 2000 elections would’ve been likely been split. That means no George W Bush presidency and probably no Iraq War.” (But who really knows if that would’ve happened)

Interestingly enough, I learned a few other random facts that didn’t really have anything to do with states or boundaries. I find it funny that I now know:

• there’s a city in New Mexico called Truth or Consequences
• Salt Lake City streets are wide because Brigham Young wanted teams of horses to be able to u-turn
• nothing in the universe can reach absolute zero (Nick tried to explain why, something with molecules, but he didn’t finish because he couldn’t remember exactly)
• the US spent an average of $103K on each Iraqi during the war
• northern Minnesota is colder than Anchorage, Alaska
• Puerto Rico has won the Miss Universe pageant three times

Well alright then.

1. Rebuild my relationship with Jesus.

Not gonna lie, this one has been a miserable fail. I can’t seem to bring myself to care. And the only reason I’m even talking about it now is because I committed to writing this darn post. So there you go. If something is supposed to change, it will. Right now I’m not going to worry about it.

2. Read the Bible every day.

Accomplished! I’m actually kind of enjoying it. (Strange how I like reading the Bible and still my relationship with Jesus is at a stalemate…)

3. Clean up my language.

Though I’m not really making a conscious effort to do this, I’d say I’m doing pretty damn good. And I’m sure as hell going to keep killing it next month

4. Get help for depression and cutting. 

There are 12 new cuts on my arms and two on my ankle resulting from a lapse of self-control on the 24th, and I had a very dark period of time directly after that. However, I’m now feeling far more positive and in control due to the support of my family and my circle of friends. Most of them still aren’t aware of the extent of my problems, but just knowing that I have people to turn to is a great help.

Also, I’ve made a solemn promise that I will refrain from self-harm for the entire month of March. I know that it’ll be a huge struggle, for I’ve come to realize that I have an unhealthy love of scars and tend to create more as soon as the old ones start to fade. HOWEVER, I’ve figured out that exercise is a fairly effective way to keep my depression at bay, and that will certainly help.

Update: complete. Back in another month!

Title

Summary:

Laura Grey has had enough of governessing. After sixteen grim years spend schooling the children of England’s elite aristocracy, Laura sheds her domestic shackles and heads to the Selwick spy school, expecting an exciting new world of elaborate disguises and thrilling exploits. With the code name “the Solver Orchid,” Laura sets off for France in service of the master spy known as the Pink Carnation. There’s just one hitch. The Pink Carnation wants her to infiltrate the household of Andre jaouen, right-hand man to Bonaparte’s minister of police–as a governess.

Andre Jaouen has enough on his plate with rumors of a Royalist rising sweeping Paris, causing intrigue, unrest, and a lot of overtime at his office in the Prefecture. The arrival of his children, formerly tucked away in safety in Nantes with their grandfather, gauses a whole new level of complication, especially with his sinister colleague, Gaston Delaroche, who is determined to one-up him in whatever way he can–even if it means threats to those Andre holds dear. Hiring a governess is meant to be the solution to the problem, and Laura, with her references as impeccable as her drab gray dress, seems like the perfect candidate. But from her first day in his household, Andre finds he’s hired far more than he’s bargained for…

With political intrigue and sinister plots swirling around them, can Andre and Laura uncover the secrets of state–and of their own hearts–before it’s too late?

My Thoughts: This book is  different from the first 6 books in the series. Laura Grey/Laure Griscogne is a governess who got bored. She joined the spy school run by Selwick and is on her first assignment under the direction of the Pink Carnation. The difference in this book is that Laura is a completely new and random character, at least to my recollection. She’s never been mentioned or alluded to by any of our other heroes and heroines (probably because she doesn’t hail from that aristocratic social circle. It’s odd having a heroine that is actually trained as a spy, because usually the heroines sort of fall into the situation. It’s odd being set in Paris from the get-go and not in England at all in the book (they usually start and/or end there, with Betrayal of the Blood Lily being the exception–but that’s set in British India). It’s odd that no other characters from past books–except the Pink Carnation and Richard Selwick in very small doses–are in this one.

Despite all those oddities, I LOVED this book. In spite of or possibly even because of these differences, the book was amazing. In fact I think that, because of the lack of connection to the rest of the series, this book would be an excellent stand-alone novel. Now, the “present” chapters with Eloise and Colin would have to be taken out and the Pink Carnation and the Purple Gentian would need a tiny bit of explanation. I wouldn’t necessarily want this book to be a stand-alone novel, but I think that it could have been written as one. But it was obviously easy to incorporate into the series–however little connection was there

Quotes I Like:

“If you only read the same things over and over again, how do you expect to learn? A narrow library leads to a narrow mind.” (p42)

|

“Talent is no prerequisite to proficiency.” (p96)

Other Posts I Have About this Book: I have a couple articles about the book cover: the first being about how romance-y the cover is; the second being about how readers petitioned for a change to that cover; and a third about the new cover (the one that it was published with). (This was obviously a big deal to me! )

Lauren Willig is one of my favorite authors. And her writing isn’t the only reason why Lauren is wonderful at reaching out to her readers. She hosts lots of little contests and giveaways on her website, http://www.laurenwillig.com, such as the one for a Christmas ornament a few months ago that I won . One of the things she did recently was reach out to readers who don’t live near enough to visit her in the stores when she tours. (I do live near one of her typical stops, but it’s still about 2 hours away.) All I had to do is email her my address and she sent me a bookplate for my new copy of The Orchid Affair, since I can’t get a signature in the book Of course I still put my own bookplate in there, too (and blotted out my last name for privacy)

let’s begin, religious-style, with a confession: before i started teaching, i knew next to nothing about judaism, christianity, or islam. i’ll repeat that: i had negligible, almost non-existent levels of knowledge about the great “big three” monotheistic faiths of the world.

there’s a sense in which i don’t think i have to blame myself—i didn’t grow up going to church, or hearing these canonical stories, or being entrenched or exposed to religion in really any sense at all. and my philosophical awakening in college pretty much eliminated any likelihood i had of experiencing some grand conversion experience in my 20′s. but there’s another sense in which i am to blame—i am, after all, responsible for not taking the initiative, of not making the effort, to know as much as i can about the world, and the world includes three big monotheistic religions.

now that we’ve gotten all of that out of the way, i can say that i have learned a lot since the fall of 2008. my knowledge has expanded to the point where i no longer feel terribly uncomfortable teaching the first 25 chapters of genesis, or the gospel of mark, or the cow. fun fact: i actually bought my first bible on my second date with ryan, which was last april. i’m working on incorporating important passages from each sacred set of texts into my own dissertation, which has to do with charity. it’s frustrating at times to search through my 1965 catholic bible (complete with drawings of the prophets) without a clear idea of where i should be looking for certain things, but i’ve been able to sort of manage so far.

a few weeks ago i realized that i should have made a new year’s resolution this year to read, from start to finish, the entire old and new testaments. the best way to increase an understanding of anything, after all, is to do the damn research. when i ran this idea by ryan, he loved it, and he jumped on board with the project and convinced me to move up the start date; so instead of pushing the project back until next year, we’re planning on starting on march 1st.  so that’s what we’re doing. i’m anticipating that it will take about a year (i’m also concurrently reading criticism along with the texts themselves, so i can get a solid understanding of history and context) and at the end of a year i will have not a complete set of knowledge, but at the very least a better understanding of the world. not to get all meta, but this, really, is what it means to be an academic, i think; taking on a project of this magnitude for real, personal edification, for the pursuit of knowledge and understanding.

I won’t say Sunday was the absolute nadir of my mood and energy because the last few months at work have been really difficult–it’s hard to pick one lowest moment. All my life, even when my circumstances have truly sucked, I’ve always started each day with an optimism that things would get better. Sometimes the events of the day would confirm my hope; sometimes the day’s events would quickly dispel whatever hope I felt. The past few months have been hard.

Somehow, fortunately, I seem to have turned a corner. In general, my posts here aren’t cathartic (sad, I know, since I do so much whining). Maybe Sunday’s post was. I don’t really want to question it. As I’ve known all along, good thoughts and good actions build upon themselves, begetting more positivity. That may sound cheesy, but for me, it’s true.

I had a great day today. I left work three hours early to take care of some errands (more about those in a second). I walked at 12-13 miles today. I finally (FINALLY!) faxed information to qualify for partial student loan reimbursement (one of the perks of my job).  I haven’t let negative coworkers bring me down, and some of them are even seeming–as crazy as it sounds–nice (or at least not mean).

None of those is the reason today was awesome, though.  I was going to e-mail Pater Familias about this directly, but he jokingly chided me for using this blog as a means of communicating with him and Flaneur Vric’s Mom. So, I thought I would (just as jokingly) do exactly that: break news to him in this goofy forum. First, a picture:

These are Virginia license plates, on my dining table. What could possibly explain this picture?

Dear reader, I have registered my car in North Carolina. I am living within the law again, at least on this matter (this post has taken me forever to write because my stolen internet is crapping out).  Sometime between the last time I registered my car in NC (2007-ish) and now, the NCDMV opened a branch about a mile from where I live.  Score!  The agent who took care of my registration today had no idea what she was doing.  This led to numerous Is-my-application-going-to-be-denied-(or-delayed)-because-I-am-missing-some-vital-piece-of-paperwork? moments, but all stress was for naught.

Yes, I have a properly registered car.  It only took 6 months for me to accomplish this.

After I managed the registration (FINALLY!), I decided to show appreciation for my good run of karma by giving a little back.  I drove across Durham to try to give blood.  ”Try” was the operative word, unfortunately.  My hemoglobin was slightly too low (and they checked it twice).  D’oh.  They had given me a sticker when I checked in:

I didn’t make a difference, today at least.  (That is why I chose to post a dark picture of the “I make a difference” sticker.  Also, the picture has my name on it, to support the veracity of this brief story.)

Potiki is a novel by Maori author Patricia Grace. The story takes place in New Zealand, following the Tamihana family. The time period and location of the story aren’t mentioned precisely. It is, however, mentioned that the location is on the coast–the Tamihanas live on land between a rocky beach and hills (I’m not familiar with the topography of New Zealand, but it seems this could describe many coastal areas.) As for the time period, it seems to me that the story is not very far in the past, and the book was published in 1986. And because of modern conveniences that are mentioned–jet boats, for one–is a clue that it can’t be too “historical” in nature. The characters portray a wide range of people–coming from a family of four children, this really struck me. Tangi, James, Manu, and Toko are all very different from each other and, at the same time, have similarities–this describes my sisters and me to a T. And the larger Tamihana family are portrayed, the aged granny, the mentally handicapped aunt, the strong father and mother, amongst them. Characters are developed and find themselves throughout the story.

For the most part, the story focuses on the Tamihana family and the “power people” who want to buy their family land to turn it into a tourist resort. This is what initially interested me when I began looking for books set in New Zealand. I wanted to read a book that had a large focus on a struggle between the native population of the Maoris and the “intruding” white people. It just happened that this book promised such a struggle in the form of traditional family land being coveted by the enterprising white businessmen. I was particularly interested in the thirteenth chapter, when the “Dollarman” (really a Mr. Dolman) was a representative of the businessmen just wasn’t understanding why the Tamihanas wouldn’t sell their land if their wharenui (meeting house) was moved in it’s perfect state to another location. Here’s a bit of the conversation:

‘Mr Dolman, no amount of money….’
‘Well now, wait a minute. We have, since our previous communication, had another look at the figures. I’d like to….’
‘Mr Dolman, I know we’re hurrying you, but it’s only fair that you should know. There is nothing you can say, no words, no amount of money….’
‘But look. I’m not sure that you have fully understood…Your land here would skyrocket. Your value would go right up….’
…
‘Everything we want and need is here.’
…
‘We’re not getting very far with this are we?…I must say I expected you people to be more accommodating….’
‘Not so accommodating as to allow the removal of our wharenui, which is our meeting place, our identity, our security. Not so accommodating as to allow the displacement of the dead and the disruption of a sacred site.’ (p104-106)

The Tamihanas had friends in Te Ope–I’m not sure if that is a city, an area, or even officially anything in New Zealand–possibly just invented for the purposes of the story. But the Maori people of Te Ope had their land taken away from them during war to be used as a landing field. After the war, the Maori did not get their land back. Rather, the land was made into a park while they just stood by and watched, because their homes had been destroyed. As I was trying to find out about Te Ope, whether it was a real place or people, I stumbled upon an article in Wikipedia (yes, possibly not the most reliable article) about the Maori protest movement that occurred during the 1960s-1970s, at the same time of civil rights movements all across the world. I found out about a Raglan Golf Course, in which land was taken from Maori owners during WWII for an airstrip and then the land was leased to and developed by a golf course. (Eventually, in the 1970s, the Maori occupied the land and successfully regained the territory, from what I understand.) Sound similar? I really do wonder if the mention of people from Te Ope was to include a fictional parallel to the real past. And I wish that I knew more about the history of that part of the world (Oceania). In school here, we focus so much on the United States and Europe, I think sometimes we forget that there is more to the Oceania region than being colonized hundreds of years ago. I think I would like to learn a bit more about this area through historical fiction–any suggestions?

Back to the story, the fact that the “power people” actually went to extremes to get the land from the Tamihanas just made my feelings about the issue stronger. I’ve often been upset how the Native Americans were treated in regards to their lands, and the fact that somehow native peoples everywhere tend to be treated in such as way just makes me so mad.

The stories had changed. It was as Toko had said, the stories had changed. And our lives had changed. We were living under the machines, and under a changing landscape, which can change you, shift the insides of you.
Above all we lived under the threat and destructiveness of the power people, and we had only really begun to understand the power.
Before the burning of the house we had known and felt our own strength, which had come from knowing ourselves, and from knowing a direction. But after that time, the time of the fire, we began to really live with fear, and with a question in our minds as to what else could happen, what else could be done in an attempt to destroy us. Was the strength of our own feet enough? Was it enough to have feet on ground? ‘Because it’s not ordinary,’ Reuben warned. ‘Not just a dirty game. They’ve found money won’t shift you and they’ll want to push you off, frighten you, get you off somehow. We mustn’t think it’s just a dirty game that they’ll become tired of sooner or later. They can’t help it, can’t stop. Can’t think, because they have become just like their machines.’

My (Other) Thoughts: As far as the book aside from these points is concerned, I did like the story. It was what I expected, as far as the native vs. alien struggle. And, I often found the language to be very lyrical while reading. But while all of this is true, I was confused. There were many different narrators in the story: Roimata, Hemi, Toko, Mary. But then there was a very roundabout way of telling the story. I don’t know, but perhaps that is a Maori story-telling tradition? It felt as though, while reading it, I knew it was right but I just didn’t feel like I was reading it the right way. (Does that make any sense? )

One thing I definitely didn’t like about the book was all of the Maori words that went unexplained. Whether stand-alone words or complete sentence, the foreign language was never defined. Whole sentences or poems/songs were in Maori and never translated–I have no idea what they mean. For this reason, I sort of felt alienated as a reader, like I didn’t belong I’m accustomed to a foreign language, being explained as it goes along. Like, “……wharenui, meeting house,….” or something. I looked up a few of the Maori words, but most of them I could understand through the context. But the longer bits of Maori I couldn’t understand

I would, however, recommend this book to anyone looking for what I was searching: a portrayal of the life of Maori people juxtaposed with the “power people” and/or in more modern times. If you’d like a fun book about New Zealand, I don’t think this is exactly the way to go.

Read Shannon’s review of Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones–her New Zealand pick–at Giraffe Days

Read at least SIX books that are about or are written by authors from around the world, specifically from each of the following countries:

• New Zealand
• Cambodia
• Turkey
• India
• Ireland
• any sovereign Native American tribe

And, subsequently, discuss these books and viewpoints about the country with Shannon at Giraffe Days.

But, I have added to this “Travel the Globe Resolution”
I’m calling it “Further Exploration”

I’ve decided to expand it. While I will still follow the above resolution, I’m just going to add a bit to it. In order to see even more of the world in 2011 (via books, of course), I want to read at least one book located in each of these “geographic regions”. (I was going to go with continents, but there are many more “geographic regions”, such as Central America and the Middle East.) And, note this: the books read for the original resolution may still be counted towards my more encompassing “Further Exploration” addition.

• North America
• Central America
• Southern America
• the Caribbean
• Western Europe
• Eastern Europe
• Northern Asia
• Southern Asia
• Oceania
• the Middle East
• Africa

Further Exploration

Pak Mario punya obat manjur
untuk sukses? 

Ada, tapi kapsulnya banyak, mau?

…Ya, mau!

OK, yang merah ini untuk
menghilangkan malas,
yang biru anti bimbang,
yang hijau anti menunda,
yang ini anti keluhan,
ini anti ngeyel,
ini mengurangi ketergantungan
pada tahyul dan dukun.

Terus, yang ungu ini untuk apa?

Supaya tidak lupa minum ini semua.

Terus, kapan minumnya?

Sore hari, setelah bekerja keras.

Lho?

He he he …

dari Pak Mario Teguh.

Sungguh, post ini sangat bermanfaat dan semoga mujarab bagi dia.. si orang yang lagi ngetik ini…. sepulang kerjanya.

Azeek!

Title

Reason for Reading: Nick and I get to go see Jerry perform soon and I’m so excited! He’s one of my favorite comedians Plus, I’ve had the book about a year, even if it’s older.

Summary: Essentially this is a compilation of some of Jerry’s bits.

My Thoughts: I really liked these bits Some of them were those that Jerry began or ended episodes of Seinfeld with. But there were more than simply those. It would’ve been a pretty boring book to read if I’d already seen him perform all of the bits in it. There’s not a lot to say about this book, because of what it is. It’s probably a good thing that I’ve seen Jerry so much onSeinfeld, or I might not be able to pick up on the “timing, inflection, and attitude” as easily as I could

Some of My Favorite Bits:

I’ve always wanted to invite a woman up to my apartment for a nightcap then just giver her one of those little hats that flops over on the side. “That’s all. I just wanted to give you that. You can go now. If you want to go out next week, I’ll give you a short robe that matches.”

|

Don’t get me wrong, the wedding ceremony is a beautiful thing. The vows, the costumes. I think the idea behind the tuxedo is the woman’s point of view that “Men are all the same, we might as well dress them that way.”
That’s why, to me, a wedding is like the joining together of a beautiful bride, and some guy. The tuxedo is a wedding safety device, created by women, because they know that men are undependable. So in case the groom chickens out, everybody just takes one step over, and she marries the next guy.
That’s why the wedding vows isn’t, “Do you take Bill Simpson?”
It’s, “Do you take this man?”

Ironically, he actually did this bit! But it was the only bit from the book that he did…which isn’t a surprise since the book is almost 20 years old.

|

Somebody just gave me a shower radio. Thanks a lot. Do you really want music in the shower? I guess there’s no better place to dance than a slick surface next to a glass door.

Title

Reason for Reading: Yesterday I was just Googling when I noticed that the Google sign was different, as they are very often. But I looked to see what it was in remembrance of, since they’re usually only different for holidays or famous birthdays. And, apparently, yesterday was Jules Verne’s 183rd birthday I’ve been meaning to read this book, but it was being pushed back because I had books for discussion or books due back at the library and I didn’t get around to it. So I used Jules Verne’s birthday as my major reason for reading it

Summary:

Jules Verne’s career as a novelist began in 1863, when he struck a new vein in fiction-stories that combined popular science and exploration. In Around the World in Eighty Days, Phileas Fogg rashly bets his companions £20,000 that he can travel around the entire globe in just eighty days, and he is determined not to lose. Breaking the well-established routine of his daily life, the reserved Englishman immediately sets off for Dover, accompanied by his hot-blooded French manservant, Passepartout. Traveling by train, steamship, sailboat, sledge, and even elephant, they must overcome storms, kidnappings, natural disasters, Sioux attacks, and the dogged Inspector Fix of Scotland Yard to win the extraordinary wager. Combining exploration, adventure, and a thrilling race against time, Around the World in Eighty Days gripped audiences upon its publication and remains hugely popular to this day.

My Thoughts: I think this story started off a bit slow because of the nature of Phileas Fogg. Even the first little bits about the journey around the world were a little boring. It wasn’t until after they arrived in India that it started to really pick up. I was thinking, “This could turn out to be the most boring trip around the world ever!” But, if you can make it past the first 10 chapters (which is about a fifth of the book), it gets so exciting!! Between Fogg and Passepartout, drama ensues–even if the former hardly emotionally registers any drama or excitement.

I think I like the adventure in India the best–what a rescue! Although the mishap in shipping from Hong Kong to Yokohama was pretty funny, especially with what happened to Passepartout. And the train ride across the US was fairly gripping. In a way, this book resounded with Around the World with Auntie Mame that I read last year. Even though Phileas and Mame are as different as night and day…

Quotes:

Passepartout found himself at first in an absolutely European city, with its low front houses, ornamented with verandas, under which showed elegant peristyles, and which covered with its streets, its squares, its docks, its warehouses, the entire space comprised between “Treaty Promontory” and the river. There, as at Hong-Kong, and as at calcutta, there was a confused swarm of people of all races, Americans, English, Chinese, Dutch…” (p157)

I particularly found this quote interesting. Passepartout is in Yokohama (Japan), a place where the British Empire hadn’t spread. But there was still a very European influence in part of the city. Which made me think…Is it really traveling if you go to a place exactly like home that’s in a foreign country? Especially during the time period of the book (1872) when customs and parts of cultures weren’t so widespread as they are today? True, right after this quote, Passepartout ends up going to the “native” area of the city. I think, if and when I ever have the chance to travel, I’m going to try to stick to the policy of not-doing-something-you-could-do-at-home (I can’t wait to go whale-watching in Alaska in a couple months!! Don’t get that in my land-locked state.) But I won’t give up tourist-y things completely, of course. Certain things must be seen.

A minimum well employed suffices for everything. (p19)

How wise!!

This was the best I could do holding my iphone out in front of my belly (mental note: one more excuse to get iPhone 4 = better blog photos). You can only really see two of the incisions in this photo, but let’s be real… you probably didn’t even want to see those! (oversharing?) I have a Facebook friend who had gallbladder surgery a few weeks ago and posted a picture of his big, hairy, freshly cut open belly on FB for the world to see. I figured I could at least wait a few days and only share it with you guys

So anywho, a few things to update on. First, I need to make a correction to my last blog post updating my resolution list. You know how you can work really hard on a diet and see no results and then BAM! you lose 1.6 pounds overnight? Well, that’s what happened the day after my last post. So, on February 1st I weighed exactly 1 pound less than January 1st, instead of the gain I posted. WOO HOO! (A loss is a loss, right?)

And on the weight loss front since surgery, this morning I was at 222.6. I’m actually a bit surprised that after eating nothing for an entire day and then like eating like a bird the following two days that I’m only at 222.6. I had several people tell me about friends who lost weight after GB surgery and I’ll be honest, I thought that all the pain and missed time at work and medical bills might be a teeny tiny bit more worth it if I came out 15 pounds lighter Yes, I know that’s a sick way to think. I’m still working on my healthy attitude.

The good news is is I am ULTRA pumped up to get back to my regular routine, including Weight Watchers. As I told Jared this morning, my goal is now to “plow through 200s!” I’m not putting a time limit on it, I’m just saying that I’m going hard core, gung-ho, with no excuses, until I hit 199. The sooner, the better. I seem to do better with really concentrated bursts of dedication. The bad news is I am not allowed to exercise for 3.5 more weeks. At least not intensely. I’m not even allowed to lift more than 10 pounds right now I think it may be time to bring the treadmill back in from the garage so I can at least walk in the meantime.

And to close tonight, I wanted to share something that brings a little joy to me: The Blog Girls Podcast. I’m picky about fitness and weight loss podcasts, and this one makes me laugh out loud. Definitely worth checking out!

Image via Wikipedia

Technology is becoming a bad word with some of my friends.  They are afraid of it.  Everyday something new is on the market and they don’t know how to keep up.

Change is part of life.  Many years ago, I was fortunate to be at an event with the wonderful Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, “Change is part of life, we all must accept it”.

Years ago I worked for the Girl Scouts and we used to say it took three years to start change. The first year everyone said, “We can’t do that”.  The second year, “Half of the people said “We can’t do that, the other half said, “We can do that.” and by the third year, most of the people were saying, “We’ve always done it that way.”

I think of the way we are using computers and memory sticks.  I remember when we only had computers in the office, then we were able to move to having computers at home.  Then the laptop was developed and more people could travel with them.  Then memory sticks were developed and people could put their files on memory sticks and carry them with the laptops.  Now we have netbooks and memory sticks.

This week I was at a conference, and normally people would have given you a notebook filled with paper or a CD to take home with handouts.  This week, they said the information was on a memory stick at our places at lunch.

Think of all the trees saved just by putting all the files on the memory stick.

My Toastmaster Club uses Google Documents to keep up with our schedules for speaking. We can all log in and see what the schedule is, and we have access with any internet or Smart Phone.  Cloud computing will eventually do away with the memory stick.

Books are now moving to Kindles and Nooks and Smart Phones and I-Pads and Tablets. Paper Books are moving to E-Books and digital.  School books are becoming digital.

More trees are being saved as this revolution happens, and think of all the children who no longer have to carry backpacks.

Smart Phones and GPS makes finding your place by putting in where you are going much easier.  We are now seeing the Car navigation devices that we had to buy and plug-in being replaced by our Smart Phones.  Home Land lines are being replaced by Smart Phones.  I still have mine, but barely.

Keeping up can be difficult, but just think in three years, we will say, we always read our books on a tablet device, and we always used memory sticks and we always found our way with our smart phones. We always text our neighbors before we come over.

We will be asking, Call on the phone? What is that? I hope not, I enjoy talking to people on the phone and hearing a voice.  Let’s not do away with people as we keep up!

Related Articles

• Reversible Plug-Ins – Insert the Double U USB Port From Both Sides (GALLERY) (trendhunter.com)
• SatNavs and netbooks going the way of the Walkman (telegraph.co.uk)

Title

Reason for Reading: First, and foremost, I read this to discuss on the Rory’s Book Club discussion forum, located here. But I also was interested in reading something by Anne Bronte because I have already read books by Charlotte and Emily, her sisters (Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, respectively). So, now I have read one of each Bronte It just also happened to fit into my Victorian Lit Challenge and Years of Books Goal.

Summary:

Gilbert Markham is deeply intrigued by Helen Graham, a beautiful and secretive young woman who has moved into nearby Wildfell Hall with her young son. He is quick to offer Helen his friendship, but when her reclusive behavior becomes the subject of local gossip and speculation, Gilbert begins to wonder whether his trust in her has been misplaced. It is only when she allows Gilbert to read her diary that the truth is revealed and the shocking details of the disastrous marriage she has left behind emerge.

My Thoughts: Overall, I found this book to be quite intriguing. There were certainly many questions I wanted answered throughout the book. However, when those questions were answered, the story was left sort of lacking for interest. The apex of the story, when we finally find out where Mrs. Graham came from and why (and also a little later how Mr. Lawrence is involved in all of this), comes later in the novel and I wasn’t as interested in the story afterwards. But there were a few twists and turns Bronte included that brought back my interest by bits–a sick man and a marriage, to give an idea but not ruin the story. Although, I have to admit that I’ve been reading the Hunger Games series and watching The Tudors on DVD, so that might be why I was distracted when I should’ve been reading

Regardless of the slight lapse of interest towards the end, I think I have to say that I liked this book more than Wuthering Heights which I liked better than Jane Eyre. Oddly enough, I read them starting with my least favorite–liking each one more as I go along. However I think this may be due to my maturity also growing and, therefore, finding better solace in the books the later I read them. This was my first Anne Bronte. But I love that the sisters wrote in such different ways. Their villains and disastrous situations are all different, and I’m glad that no one of them fell into the style of her sisters.

I noticed at the end of this novel that the narrator was a man. Yes, of course I realized at the beginning that Gilbert is a man’s name and therefore that he is a man But much of the story was composed of Mrs. Graham’s diary, therefore being narrated by a woman. And I wonder at the fact that these two separate parts of the book weren’t very different. In today’s world I think that there are distinctive behaviors attributed to the different sexes (at least in general), but both the narrations from Mrs. Graham’s diary and Gilbert’s letter are very similar. Which leads to something else: I don’t think that I’ve ever read of a man’s feelings of love for a woman from his own perspective. And definitely not written by a woman author. I wonder if Bronte had any difficulty writing from a man’s perspective? Austen, whose writing is closest in time to the Brontes that I’ve ever read, did not write from the male perspective, but rather the male perspective as interpreted by the female character.

Favorite Quotes:

“…it is never too late to reform, as long as you have the sense to desire it, and the strength to execute your purpose.”
p347, Helen to Mr. Hattersley

|

“Increase of love brings increase of happiness.”
p374, Helen

My Thoughts on the Cover: I happen to love the cover of my edition, which, believe it or not, is rather hard to find a decent sized image of on the internet. Nevertheless, I have the Barnes & Noble edition. I think the cover image is a perfect representation of the character of Mrs. Graham.

Years of Books Goal

Image via CrunchBase

You are on LinkedIn. You have your Profile complete and now you notice there is a Groups Tab.  You click on it, and a whole new World opens up.

Yes, there are specific industry Groups on LinkedIn.com that I highly recommend for those who may not be using these Groups, go and check out this tab.  Some you must ask to be a member and some you just click and you are a member.  Some are closed groups which means the discussion is not on the internet and is not searchable and some are open discussion groups and the discussion topics appear when you search for them on the internet.

Word of warning, there are some groups that are monitored very well and some that will have some flagrant spammers.   You will know  when you click on one of the link’s and it goes to some a strange link that looks like you are signing up to work in a third world country.  If you find one of these spammers, click on them as inappropriate and they will be investigated and asked to leave.

Group discussions can help you will difficult topics and help you learn areas that you are struggling with.  It can also prove you as an expert in an area that others might need help.

Be careful however not to post in a Group things that look like press releases about your own event where you did a great presentation and your wrote your own press.  It is better to have someone else praise your work than you saying it about yourself.

Once you are a member, you can post events for educational courses that might interest those members of a Group on LinkedIn.

I run a Group for District 52 Toastmasters International, so when they  are conducting Officer Training Classes, I post these in the group.  This keeps the members up to date and they can share it with other officers in the District.

Utilizing all forms of Social Media can help an organization become more effective in their communication efforts.  We are receiving more emails and more messages everyday.  Customizing a message in a particular place in a Group may meet our needs and make it quick and fast.

Related Articles

• LinkedIn Skills Launches, Brings Real Knowledge Search to LinkedIn (hubspot.com)
• How to Remove LinkedIn Connections (idaconcpts.com)