I love books. And, not to brag, it's just a fact, I read a lot of them. I read a lot of bad books, but I also read a remarkable number of good ones. And there is no doubt in my mind that I would not be sane today, after going through high school, South America, and now college, without books. And so, on this dreary Monday, some of my favorites-
To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee
The Red Tent- Anita Diamant
The Awakening- Kate Chopin
The Scarlet Pimpernel- Baroness Orczy
The Bean Trees, Pigs in Heaven, The Poisonwood Bible- Barbara Kingsolver
Anna Karenina- Tolstoy
The Catcher in the Rye- Salinger
Flowers for Algernon- Keyes
Pride and Prejudice- Austen
The Things They Carried- Tim O'Brien
The Life of Pi- Yann Martel
The Fountainhead - Ayn Rand
100 Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
The Time Traveler's Wife- Audrey Niffenegger
The Davinci Code, Angels and Demons- Dan Brown
Things Fall Apart- Chinua Achebe
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo- Stieg Larsson
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress- Dai Sijie
Gathering Blue- Lois Lowery
Little Women- Louisa May Alcott
House of Spirits, Eva Luna- Isabel Allende
Fight Club- Chuck Palahniuk
Obviously not completely thorough, and I seriously hesitated on Fight Club, but it's a general overview of all my favs that come to mind. Please comment and add your own favorites! I'm going through books like wildfire and will need something else to read soon!
If I haven't already raved to you about it yet...my new fav. website (after f-book of course) www.booksidoneread.blogspot.com ~~do it!
Monday, March 30, 2009
Monday, March 23, 2009
Gen Chem
I switched my class this block from Environmental Sociology to General Chemistry 107. yay...
No, actually, I'm really excited about it. the yay was for dramatic effect. I went to my sociology class first, and got the whole shpeel about syllabus and course work and how 80% of our grade was participation (in class, with 27 other people...not exactly my strength) and decided it was not going to be a super ton of fun and what I need right now.SO! I went down to registration. Figured out where Chem 1 is, and proceeded promptly to Olin Rm. 185 (which is freaking hard to find.) I need a class with some answers right now. before diving into Intro to Psych next block. and it turns out Chemistry has LOTS of answers. hooray! and also lots of Labs, and quizzes, and exams, and problems, and yikes! no social life for 3 weeks!
~~~~~~~
www.isittuesday.com
genius.
~~~~~
Adjectives for Spring Break: exhausting, rejuvenating, warm, sunny, nostalgic, friendly, snowy and slushy, loving, short, full, interesting, and illuminating
~~~~~~~~~~
heads up. F-bomb....
www.thefuckingweather.com
useful genius.
~~~~
I love my family.
No, actually, I'm really excited about it. the yay was for dramatic effect. I went to my sociology class first, and got the whole shpeel about syllabus and course work and how 80% of our grade was participation (in class, with 27 other people...not exactly my strength) and decided it was not going to be a super ton of fun and what I need right now.SO! I went down to registration. Figured out where Chem 1 is, and proceeded promptly to Olin Rm. 185 (which is freaking hard to find.) I need a class with some answers right now. before diving into Intro to Psych next block. and it turns out Chemistry has LOTS of answers. hooray! and also lots of Labs, and quizzes, and exams, and problems, and yikes! no social life for 3 weeks!
~~~~~~~
www.isittuesday.com
genius.
~~~~~
Adjectives for Spring Break: exhausting, rejuvenating, warm, sunny, nostalgic, friendly, snowy and slushy, loving, short, full, interesting, and illuminating
~~~~~~~~~~
heads up. F-bomb....
www.thefuckingweather.com
useful genius.
~~~~
I love my family.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Flying Home
Yay! It has been 9 hours since I finished my oral final exam for my FYE history class, Civilizations in the Middle East. What a fantastic 9 hours. My final went well, and I feel like overall the class was pretty good. But Seriously, I was so ready to be done with that class. Adios Islam! Hooray!
~~~~
I'm sitting in the DIA, and I realize now that I picked a particularly bad spot to sit and eat my Panda Express. "Caution, the moving walk is nearing its end. Please watch your step. Thank you." Bose headphones time! and my new favorite song for the past few days/weeks (can't really keep track) but the music video is fantastic. I feel very politically active just listening to it.
~~~~
So, I know I talk a lot about the stuff I read, and I have the feeling I'm going to be quoting a lot of stuff in this blog. But it's what I do. I read. I read for class, read for pleasure, read to get tired, read to kill time, read to get through college, read to get more knowledge. You get the idea.
I've been reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson since December, and I just can't seem to get through it. It's interesting, but at the same time it's not. At times it's funny, and at times it's just a history of national parks and very dry...whatever. I can identify with a lot of the stuff he talks about though, and says, especially this last one. It made me laugh out loud on the plane because it is just SO true. And I whole-heartedly agree-
"If there is a greater reason for being grateful to be alive in the twentieth century than the joy of stepping from the dog's breath air of a really hot summer's day to the crisp, clean, surgical chill of an air conditioned establishment, then I really can't think of it."
~~~~
I'm sitting in the DIA, and I realize now that I picked a particularly bad spot to sit and eat my Panda Express. "Caution, the moving walk is nearing its end. Please watch your step. Thank you." Bose headphones time! and my new favorite song for the past few days/weeks (can't really keep track) but the music video is fantastic. I feel very politically active just listening to it.
~~~~
So, I know I talk a lot about the stuff I read, and I have the feeling I'm going to be quoting a lot of stuff in this blog. But it's what I do. I read. I read for class, read for pleasure, read to get tired, read to kill time, read to get through college, read to get more knowledge. You get the idea.
I've been reading A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson since December, and I just can't seem to get through it. It's interesting, but at the same time it's not. At times it's funny, and at times it's just a history of national parks and very dry...whatever. I can identify with a lot of the stuff he talks about though, and says, especially this last one. It made me laugh out loud on the plane because it is just SO true. And I whole-heartedly agree-
"If there is a greater reason for being grateful to be alive in the twentieth century than the joy of stepping from the dog's breath air of a really hot summer's day to the crisp, clean, surgical chill of an air conditioned establishment, then I really can't think of it."
Monday, March 9, 2009
Streamside
I went up to see R,J,C,J & C this weekend, and had an absolute blast. We did nothing in particular, besides go to the infamous Rio and watch copious amounts of movies(4 for me!) and sit around and visit, and I was the happiest and most content I've been in 3 weeks. 2 months, if you don't count my little jaunt to Aspen when I got to see KLS, my lovely primhermana for 3 days.
I was the happiest I've been in 2 months. Unbelievably more happy than I have been at school. There's something simultaneously very wonderful and very sad about that fact.
And now I have to go study, because spring break starts in 1 day, 15 hours, 30 minutes and 42 seconds, and I need to study for that final I have to take before I can go home.
I was the happiest I've been in 2 months. Unbelievably more happy than I have been at school. There's something simultaneously very wonderful and very sad about that fact.
And now I have to go study, because spring break starts in 1 day, 15 hours, 30 minutes and 42 seconds, and I need to study for that final I have to take before I can go home.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Snow
Besides being the weather phenomenon we all know and love, Snow is also the title to the book I'm reading for my final symposium for my middle eastern history class. It's by a Turkish author named Orhan Pamuk, who's won the Nobel Prize in literature two or three times, once for this book. I'm a little over halfway through it right now, and it is fantastic. Even reading it at lightning speed (block plan), I totally understand the cultural context, social nuances, and personal issues going on at several levels. Snow's a recurring theme, obviously, and it's also very deep, but if you have some time and want a really good murder mystery meets sad love story meets social turmoil book, it's a keeper.
Here's two of my favorite excerpts from my reading today. I just love when authors get it exactly right at that exact moment in fictional time. Perfect:
"And how beautiful was the falling snow! How large the snowflakes were, and how decisive. It was as if they knew their silent procession would continue until the end of time. The wide avenue was buried knee-deep; it climbed up a slope to disappear into the night. How white and how mysterious!"
context-- sad, sorry, pathetic, but oddly courageous and charming man "Ka" is trying to win the heart of his long lost "love" (personally, I think he's delusional and should base is love on more than a first glance after 20 years of separation...but whateva. then it wouldn't be interesting.) anyways, this is his love's sister telling him what he needs to do to get the girl:
(Ka): "What do I have to do to convince her to trust me?"
"It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him. But her head needs time to understand what her heart has decided. If you ask me, there's very little a man can do at this point except wait for time to take its course. If you really love her, all you have to do is tell her all the beautiful things you feel about her; why you love her, why you want to marry her."
I don't necessarily agree with all that, but I think it's an interestingly beautiful idea. and in this story, it totally fits with the themes and ideals of the characters.
Hooray historical fiction and no more smelly, yucky, non-fiction essay crap!
Here's two of my favorite excerpts from my reading today. I just love when authors get it exactly right at that exact moment in fictional time. Perfect:
"And how beautiful was the falling snow! How large the snowflakes were, and how decisive. It was as if they knew their silent procession would continue until the end of time. The wide avenue was buried knee-deep; it climbed up a slope to disappear into the night. How white and how mysterious!"
context-- sad, sorry, pathetic, but oddly courageous and charming man "Ka" is trying to win the heart of his long lost "love" (personally, I think he's delusional and should base is love on more than a first glance after 20 years of separation...but whateva. then it wouldn't be interesting.) anyways, this is his love's sister telling him what he needs to do to get the girl:
(Ka): "What do I have to do to convince her to trust me?"
"It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him. But her head needs time to understand what her heart has decided. If you ask me, there's very little a man can do at this point except wait for time to take its course. If you really love her, all you have to do is tell her all the beautiful things you feel about her; why you love her, why you want to marry her."
I don't necessarily agree with all that, but I think it's an interestingly beautiful idea. and in this story, it totally fits with the themes and ideals of the characters.
Hooray historical fiction and no more smelly, yucky, non-fiction essay crap!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Monday Monday...
I don't really know how that song goes, but I know it exists. and I know it talks about how much Mondays SUCK, and I would agree that as a day of the week, it is one of the worst, in general. Today, however, while it was by no means comparable to an uplifting Sunday afternoon, was alright. Here's my list for this Monday Monday; Things that made me smile:
~my talk on the phone with mama this afternoon
~the arrival of my new white linen pants in the mail
~70 degrees and sunny
~delicious foccacia bread and dipping oil at my new favorite coffee/book store combo place
~the wonders of modern medicine, specifically ibuprofen
~the gay couple cheerfully having a glass of wine at the table next to me in this coffee shop, in the middle of conservative Colorado Springs (which I understand is by no means an anomaly, but it still made me smile!)
~the prospect of going to R&J's in Ft. Collins this weekend, courtesy of the lovely CS and her "gramma" car
~my conversation with MT online, he always makes me smile
~the fact that HSM:3 is ready and waiting for me when I get home
~the realization that I only have 8 days left until spring break!
~it's 6 o'clock and I'm already almost done with my homework for this evening
~~~~~~~~~
I really think I want to be a doctor. Or at least I'm thinking about it seriously.
~my talk on the phone with mama this afternoon
~the arrival of my new white linen pants in the mail
~70 degrees and sunny
~delicious foccacia bread and dipping oil at my new favorite coffee/book store combo place
~the wonders of modern medicine, specifically ibuprofen
~the gay couple cheerfully having a glass of wine at the table next to me in this coffee shop, in the middle of conservative Colorado Springs (which I understand is by no means an anomaly, but it still made me smile!)
~the prospect of going to R&J's in Ft. Collins this weekend, courtesy of the lovely CS and her "gramma" car
~my conversation with MT online, he always makes me smile
~the fact that HSM:3 is ready and waiting for me when I get home
~the realization that I only have 8 days left until spring break!
~it's 6 o'clock and I'm already almost done with my homework for this evening
~~~~~~~~~
I really think I want to be a doctor. Or at least I'm thinking about it seriously.
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