In our modern tendency toward television shows, movies, and video games, I think we sometimes forget how to be human and how to feel.  In a fast paced society and lifestyle, what other option is there?  I think people today tend to forget that there are other options out there.  We do not HAVE to watch our television shows – feeling as though we have missed a major event in a child’s life when we miss one episode.  We do not HAVE to watch all of the latest movies.  Sometimes, settling into the comfy chair in my office with a good book is more than enough.  As a matter of fact, I am instituting a rule in my household that no one can turn on the television or play a video game, etc. until they have read for at least 30 minutes.  I think the ability to think and to learn from characters who evoke deep emotions in the reader has much more potential for teaching us life lessons than turning on the television set and allowing our minds to turn to goo.

My father sent me (and the rest of the family) an article a bit ago: www.bygonebureau.com/2012/01/09/in-the-land-of-the-non-reader/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=pulsenews

This article says a lot about our modern tendencies toward coming home and immersing ourselves in television.  Our modern tendencies to “not have enough time” for reading.  There are 24 hours in a day, 7 days a week, which gives us 168 hours a week, or roughly 8,760 hours (some years 8, 804 hours) available for activities.  Surely in that amount of time we could find time for reading.  I certainly have.  Do we sometimes have to give up other things, sure.  But really, is it that important to watch that latest episode of Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Amazing Race, Gossip Girl, etc. right away?  Or could we delay that for the far more gratifying experience of reading a book.  Furthermore, I find that in the increasing technological age, we feel at a loss for time constantly.  Is this because we feel that with all of these efficient gadgets and ability to multitask (I question whether or not that is truly possible – even computers do not truly multitask) we feel that we have to get SO MUCH accomplished in such a small amount of time.  The emphasis has become placed on the quantity of $#!+ people can accomplish rather than the quality of what we spend our time on.  The pressure to finish my dissertation (started a mere two years ago) soon from the faculty at my university has become ridiculous at times.  The endless “are you done yet” and “how’s your dissertation coming along” question sessions from people not on my committee making me feel a constant pressure that this should have been easy to do and over with quickly.  If it was easy to do and over with quickly, everyone would do it and scholarship would be on the decline.  Perhaps it is.  I for one refuse to be caught up in this quicker is better mentality.  I do plan on defending this semester, and am near completing the final chapters of the beast, but I do not feel that I have to rush into this.  This is the last opportunity, or perhaps the first, in my career to take my time and produce something that I am proud of, that I am happy with, and that I am pleased to have my name attached to.  All of this hurry up and be done with it, and my personal favorite “the best dissertation is a finished dissertation” advice that I have had pumped into my brain over the past years is simply ridiculous.  The best dissertation is one that gives me a sense of accomplishment.  One that I am proud to discuss with others.  One that means something in the research world.  I know, in the publish or perish academic environment, how dare I take my time to make something of quality.  But, hey, I am just throwing that idea out there.

All of this is saying to anyone who bothers to read this (and I don’t fool myself that I have swarms of loyal blog followers out there hanging on my every word – this is more for me than for anyone else – but I hope that it helps others sort through related problems should they happen on it), is that it is okay to take your time and enjoy the tasks you are completing.  I am looking down the barrel of a semester of teaching, finishing the final chapters of my dissertation and defending that, going on the job market, ending one relationship, starting a new one, maintaining friendships, developing new friendships, loving my children, graduating, and enjoying the time that is spared.  Despite all of that “stuff” that “needs” to be accomplished on a rather tight schedule, I am sitting here saying that I want to enjoy my life.  I want to take the time out to enjoy the romances – not only my own, but those provided by Jane Austen and Charlotte Bronte.  I want to travel through Ireland with Joyce.  I want to live with the elites with Edith Wharton.  I only have a limited number of hours, minutes, and seconds left in my life to do so.  Why shouldn’t I enjoy those that are left.  I know there are things in life that we “have” to do, but why can’t I enjoy those as well?  The truth is that I can.  It just requires a little restructuring and remodeling of my life so that I can enjoy every minute of it.  I am not saying here that I want to or have to be happy all the time.  I am talking about truly living each moment – good or bad.  Feeling what I am meant to feel.  Loving when I am meant to love.  Crying when I am meant to cry.  Dancing when I am meant to dance.  I want to, in the words of Thoreau: “live deep and suck out all the marrow of life”…  And that is just what I am going to start doing today!  Once I go get groceries of course…

Starting Austen’s Northanger Abbey next…

The other major update, after seeing my sister and her husband playing with the new “FitBit” that each of them received for Christmas, I was intrigued.  I do well with electronics and gadgets, so I figured maybe this was the answer to my complete lack of motivation in the whole getting in shape department.  My FitBit arrived yesterday, and I played around with it a little last night.  I set an initial weight loss goal (I figure that I can set another one once this is reached and I will do better and be less frustrated if I set a series of more attainable goals).  It counts how many steps I take in a day, how many miles I travel, and how many floors I climb.  I can log my weight and the food that I eat as well as how I feel…  Very cool!  Will continue to update on the progress from that.

Off I go to eat my breakfast (Special K and some orange juice), and read some more of the latest book.  I need to go to some work on the dissertation today and I owe a colleague a draft of an article by the end of the weekend, so I should work on that as well.  I think I will take a quick bike ride on the bike in my office later on as well – the bike that my beloved refers to as the expensive clothes hanger as I have ridden it twice and then used it to hang clothes on…  Time to make it a bike instead.

I’m just back from a fortnight in Canada during which time my debut novel The Generation Game was officially published.

I’ve been to Canada several times over the last twenty-odd years and it has a special place in my heart. The vastness of it, the friendly people, the beauty, the bustle, Tim Horton’s. A country of extremes. And big, big, bigness.

I first went as a 17 year old to southern Ontario – the Falls were spectacular and the welcome huge. A kind relative offered to sponsor me so I could move out  there but I wasn’t brave enough to take that  big step over the ocean.

Canada has stayed at the edge of my vision, just out of reach, but never far from my mind so when I wrote The Generation Game it was easy to put in a chapter set in Toronto. Soon after I finished the first draft, my husband booked a week’s (surprise) holiday in the Great White North for my fortieth birthday. It was an amazing coincidence to be back in the land of my dreams.

We went back the following year with our kids who fell in love with the place – of course. And now we’ve had our follow-up family visit and although we packed a lot in, we only saw a tiny fraction of the country. But what we saw and experienced was awesome (true Canadian word). My first Mountie in Ottawa. A visit to the emergency in a Montreal Hospital (never to be repeated, I hope).  Lunch in the CN Tower revolving restaurant on a completely fog-bound day. A swim in a deserted lake in probably the most beautiful place in the world.

Thinking I should immerse myself in some Canadian literature while out there, I read a fab epistolary novel, A Celibate Season, a collaboration between Carol Shields and Blanche Howard.

This worked really well as they each took on the voice of a spouse in a marriage put on hold for ten months due to a work separation. I recommend it.

Then as a parting gift to myself I bought the book How to be a Canadian by Will and Ian Ferguson. It’s hilarious.

So as I prepare for the exciting world of interviews and book signings, I will try and plot my next novel so that it will be at least part set in Canada – then I’ll have to go back for research.

A long time friends, the authors of this epistolary novel, write letters to each other taking the roles of the couple Jocelyn and Charles, who are happily married with two kids, till they take a 10 month long separation due to Jocelyn’s work. Quoting Wikipedia,  an epistolary novel is a novel written as a series of documents. Here it is the letters between the husband and the wife.

The book is so interesting that you would hardly like to put it down. I took two days to complete only because of the parental pressure! It was fun to watch the husband Chas take the household responsibilities and how easily he tries to tailor the home to his taste and ends up upsetting his wife Jock. It is kind of an unspoken rule in any household that the kitchen belongs to the person who uses it the most, rather spends time in there the most, which would invariably be the wife. And no wife can tolerate any changes to the kitchen without her concurrence. I have even seen my own mom’s discomfiture when my grandma cooks beside her in her kitchen, and tries to rearrange stuff! So, I could not believe the husband was stupid enough to attempt such a transformation in the kitchen all the while thinking he can pleasantly surprise his wife!! Poor guy, he sure takes a beating for that from his wife..

The wife Jock does turn out to be a hard-to-please woman after enjoying a taste of her professional success, she is suddenly turning blind to her husband’s love and her family ties. A part of her wants her old life back and a part of her enjoys the freedom away from the household chores and responsibilities and wants to scale newer heights in her career.

When the couple decided to exchange the old fashioned letters, I am sure they had romantic thoughts in mind. Little did they think how too much information on a day-to-day basis would drift them apart as their environments turn out to be totally unknown. Also even after you have committed to certain thoughts in a letter, by the time the other party reads the stuff and talks about that to you, you may have changed your mind. So there is always a disparity in the understanding levels.

Another food for thought from this novel is how a geographically displaced couple can keep a marriage intact and what a prolonged separation do to them.  Though it is said that a little separation adds spice to relationships, I beg to differ. When you are together as a couple, there is this interdependency that brings you together, however when you are apart and are getting used to leading separate individual lives, the interdependency is lost and an invisible bridge would come between the couples. Nothing can bridge that gap and every tryst would be looked forward with too much expectation and the couple cannot satisfy each others emotional needs in that rendezvous, tending to split them further apart. It will be very difficult to empathize with the other half’s life as that life is not familiar to you. Phone calls can only do so much, even a detailed commentary of whats happening on a day-to-day basis would be no substitute to being physically present. These are just my own thoughts and am not passing a judgment on couples who are staying apart and am definitely not willing their relationship to fail. The separation that I am referring to is at least 4-5 months apart and not talking about couples meeting every weekend! I guess that’s enough disclaimer from me!

Anyways I have always been a sucker for getting physical REAL letters as opposed to emails and I have my share of instances when I have sent letters to my dear folks. But to me physical letters can only be carrier of good news. So I have resorted to letters only when I have been overwhelmed with emotions and my speech cannot justify my love. I remember how my amma used to be excited to receive letters from her mother, of course then the letter was also a carrier of all news and updates. Still my amma felt the letter transported her back to her home village and the familiar surrounding in which she grew up, before she traveled 300 miles away with her husband. That feeling in her and her happiness, made strong impressions in me and since my childhood, I have resorted to writing letters whenever I felt my words were inadequate.

I have also given an ultimatum to my hubby that the best gift he can give me anytime would be a real LETTER from him to me.  He is person of few words and it will be a very difficult task, nevertheless I still hope he gives me one before my lifetime!! Since I read this book weeks before our wedding anniversary, I know what I am going to gift my hubby this year. It will be a letter from me!