A Very Merry Christmas Dinner

Course One: Spinach Salade

This one I came up with myself. Ingredients included fresh spinach leaves, sliced radishes, sliced carrots, craisins, sliced almonds, and Italian cheese. I topped it with a very thin coat of dressing made from olive oil, apple cider vinegar, dried basil, black pepper, and minced garlic. Yum.



The Main Course

The main course consisted of Roasted Muscovy Duck, puree of curried lentils, and fresh green beans. I was really stressed about the duck, having never made one or even tasted it before. I started out planning to use Julia Child's instructions in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, but I found some instructions on the duck's packaging that seemed easier and better. They had the seasonings and stuff all right, but their timing was off. It took about three times as long to cook it than what they said. Oh, well. It was a good duck. People say duck is really gamey, but I thought it was fine. In fact, I think it tastes better than turkey, and even most chicken.

I accidentally overcooked the green beans, and that was a very big disappointment for me, because if there's anything I hate, it's overcooked vegetables. I got busy disemboweling a pomegranate, and I didn't realize the beans would cook so fast in water that had yet to achieve a rolling boil. I guess rolling boil just isn't possible in a kettle as big as the one I was using. In the end, it was okay, because Sis sprinkled swiss cheese over them, I popped them in the oven for a few more minutes, and they were great. According to her, they were the greatest green beans she's ever tasted. I'm not going to assume that just because there are lots left over people didn't like them—there was SO MUCH food, and three pounds of green beans is just not going to be finished off.

The lentils were an interesting experiment. It was suggested to serve lentils with the duck, but my cookbook didn't have a recipe for them. So, I surfed the internet a little, then made one up. My family liked them, because they like curry and garlic. I guess they weren't pretty enough to be included in any photos.


Course Three: Vichyssoise

This dish was particularly exciting for me for several reasons. One, I just love potatoes. Two, I love to say the name of it—"Vichyssoise" has such a brilliant ring to it. Three, I tried it many years ago at some stranger's house, and it was just so good. My version was nothing like the other one. I am told it tasted more like gravy than soup. But it was good. I'm looking forward to the leftovers. It is made from potatoes and leeks and served cold.


Course Four: Fruit

The most aesthetic portion of dinner was the fruit. Fruit is so pretty anyway, isn't it? Preparing the pomegranate was fun, but next time I will give myself longer to get it done.









Course Five: Lemon Tart

Again, I am either a little dim or some cookbooks just aren't very good. We had so much trouble figuring out how to make the sugar crust that I handed it over to Sis. She did a great job, but she was confused the entire time. We chilled it overnight, and I was done trying to follow the recipe in the book. So I dug through some more cookbooks and decided what to mix together that would make a good lemon tart.

Let's just say that tart is an apt description of the dessert. Next time I think I'll try to get the lemon peel finer.





Highlights:


Getting so excited to cook!

Mom got to watch John Wayne movies while I was in the kitchen.

Grandpa said "My compliments to the chef."

Pretty much everyone asked for a second piece of tart.

Conversations With Myself

Mile 1: I wore these shorts because they used to be skin tight. Why are they falling off?

Mile 2: Wow, I remember the days when I wasn't a walking snot factory. I think I'll have some more Strawberry Halls when I get home.

Mile 3: Slumdog Millionnaire is pretty cool.

Mile 4: I wonder how much longer this basketball game is going to last. At least it isn't a smutty sitcom.

Mile 5: Nothing like techno synthesized violins mixed with electric guitar. I'm sure they heard music like this all the time in the 12th Century.

Mile 6: I'm still breathing. This is good.

Mile 7: I need a dragon!!!!!

Mile 8: Maybe a breast reduction isn't a bad idea.

Mile 9: The dude next to me is running really fast. After I run a marathon, I think I'll practice running really fast. It looks fun.

Mile 10: Wait a second. Oh, they start the time over after you've been running 100 minutes.

Mile 11: Surviving.

Mile 13: I could slow down. No, that'll just mean I have to run more minutes.

Mile 14: I'm awesome.

Mile 15: Time to hobble over to the water fountain. That was fun.

My Booktrailer for Everlost

I made this for a class. You can tell I'm into melodrama.

On Writing

Maria Montessori's methods stood heavily on the idea that writing comes before reading. Her little schools were made famous by the "writing explosion" that took place among the four-year-olds as they spontaneously began writing words on all the surfaces they could find. She started by teaching them their letters, but they taught themselves to put them together to make written words. Before they had even seen a book. Not only that, but within a few months of learning to put letters together and make words, they could put words together and write epistles. By themselves. A group of four-year-olds whose parents were mostly factory workers.

This is completely opposite to the approach taken in most schools. In kindergarten, kids are taught their letters and how to write their names, but the first goal is to introduce them to books.

It may sound strange that an obsessive lover of books such as myself might advocate against their use, but I think Montessori had an important idea. Not only does it operate on the assumption that tactile activities promote more thorough learning, but words mean the most when we use them to communicate with others, not when we use them to understand others.

People, especially children, are the center of their own universe. Why would a kid want to learn to read someone else's thoughts before learning how to write his/her own? Some people say it's because it's easier, and therefore comes as a step in a natural progression. But according to Montessori, children don't think of the world in terms of what is easy and what is hard. That is something that they learn later—in my opinion, later is whenever they begin to rank pop culture above their own intellect. In other words, I think laziness of any form is something we learn, not something we unlearn.

Maybe it's a good thing I don't have kids, because I would always be testing unconventional, experimental methods of education with them. I do that with cooking, too, but there's a big difference between a child's mind and a dinner dish. And even though most experimental cooking comes out rather nice, there's no guarantee that a kid wouldn't be warped by someone who used educational methods and theories that are not part of the established canon of "research based, data-driven" packages that vendors love to sell to traditional schools.

One Hundred Books

Lest I sound too impressed with myself, I will explain that the purpose of posting this isn't to brag about how many books I read, but to summarize a year's worth of one of my favorite hobbies. That's all my blog is about anyway—to provide an outlet for discussing the things I like to do. It's pretty egocentric, I guess. Maybe I should delete my blog again. But before I think too hard about that, I'll post my list.

It's time to evaluate the usefulness of my year, and even though reading books has only been a part of what I have done, I tend to evaluate a lot of things based on what I'm reading at the time. Some, well, quite a few if truth be told, of the books on the list below were a waste of time. I don't want to say which ones, because you never know who might come across your blog and take offense. And anyway, every book on the list was completed for a reason, at least. There are even more books that didn't make the list because I couldn't stand to read them all the way through.

Some of them were just plain comfort books. My Grandpa likes to refer to them as "intellectual chewing gum," and I've also heard the term "brain candy." An unfortunate truth I've had to accept is that sometimes I feel the need to read something to simulate positive emotions. It's not unlike going on a sugar binge, and because I'm doing physical sugar binges less and less lately, I think the amount of intellectual sugar binges might have increased (Is it a stupid thing to say that in my experience, successful efforts to become thinner are making me dumb?). But most of them were time well spent. I bolded the ones that meant the most to me, but once you start doing that, nothing fits into a category anymore.

So there, you have it. The 100 books I read in 2010. I didn't include the huge stack of picture books I lugged around in my library bag for a week, because I turned them all in before I committed their titles to memory.

And I'm not finished reading yet. I've still got 15 days.


1. The Book Thief, Marcus Zusak
2. Max, James Patterson
3. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
4. Evermore, Alyson Noel
5. Things Fall Apart, Chinua Achebe
6. The Alchemist, Paul Coelho
7. Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Ann Brashares
8. The Whale Rider
9. Chalice, Robin McKinley
10. Song of the Sparrow, Lisa Ann Sandell
11. Sister of My Heart, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
12. Freckle Juice, Judy Blume
13. All the Pretty Horses, Cormac McCarthy
14. Catalyst, Laurie Halse Andersen
15. Among the Impostors, Margaret Peterson Haddix
16. Among the Betrayed
17. Among the Barons
18. Among the Enemy
19. Among the Brave
20. Hush, Hush, Becca Fitzpatrick
21. Among the Free, Margaret Peterson Haddix
22. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson
23. Daughter of the Forest, Juliet Marillier
24. The Name of the Rose, Umberto Eco
25. Palace of Mirrors, Margaret Peterson Haddix
26. Incantation, Alice Hoffman
27. The Road, Cormac McCarthy
28. Lady Macbeth's Daughter, Lisa Klein
29. Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
30. Characters and Viewpoint, Orson Scott Card
31. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
32. The Waves, Virginia Woolf
33. Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, Anne Fadiman
34. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
35. The Doomsday Book, Connie Willis
36. Airborn, Kenneth Oppel
37. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins
38. Agamemnon, Aeschylus
39. Beowulf, Seamus Heaney
40. Antigone, Sophocles
41. The Wall and the Wing, Laura Ruby
42. Grendel, John Gardner
43. Is Literacy Enough?, Ross
44. Coraline, Neil Gaiman
45. The Double Helix, James D. Watson
46. Childhood Education, Maria Montessori
47. The Absorbent Mind
48. The Montessori Method
49. Montessori Today: A Comprehensive Approach, Paula Polk Lillard
50. The Help, Kathryn Stockett
51. Early Literacy Storytimes @ Your Library, Ghoting and Martin-Diaz
52. Fundamentals of Children's Services, Michael Sullivan
53. Readicide, Kelly Gallagher
54. After Ever After, Jordan Sonnenblick
55. Watership Down, Richard Adams
56. Animal Farm, George Orwell
57. The Night Fairy, Laura Amy Schlitz
58. Al Capone Shines My Shoes, Gennifer Choldenko
59. Rubaiyat, Omar Khayaam
60. Distant Waves, Suzanne Weyn
61. Everlost, Neal Shusterman
62. The Ninth: Beethoven and the World of 1824, Harvey Sachs
63. The Compound, S.A. Bodeen
64. A Certain Slant of Light, Laura Whitcomb
65. The Five Love Languages, Gary Chapman
66. Xenocide, Orson Scott Card
67. Children of the Mind
68. I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You, Ally Carter
69. Shadow of the Hegemon, Orson Scott Card
70. Shadow Puppets
71. Shadow of the Giant
72. Ender in Exile

Re-reads:
73. Lord Jim, Joseph Conrad
74, War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
75. Crown Duel, Sherwood Smith
76. Persuasion, Jane Austen
77. Mansfield Park, Jane Austen
78. Avalon High, Meg Cabot
79. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
80. Tregaron's Daughter, Madeleine Brent
81. A Murder For Her Majesty, Beth Hilgartner
82. Rose Daughter, Robin McKinley
83. The Blue Sword, Robin McKinley
84. The Outlaws of Sherwood, Robin McKinley
85. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
86. The Only Alien on the Planet, Kristen Randle
87. Tangerine, Edward Bloor
88. The Wednesday Wars, Gary Schmidt
89. Speak, Laurie Halse Andersen
90. Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, Jordan Sonnenblick
91. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
92. The Aeneid, Virgil
93. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
94. The Girl With the Silver Eyes, Willo Davis Roberts
95. Anne's House of Dreams, L.M. Montgomery
96. Anne of Green Gables
97. Fairest, Gail Carson Levine
98. The Secret Adversary, Agatha Christie
99. Little House in the Big Woods, Laura Ingalls Wilder
100. Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card

The Good Book Without Focus

In spite of my earlier assertions, curiosity overpowered my need for emotional recovery, so I finished reading Ender in Exile today. It was good, and that's about all that needs to be said.

Except that it's not all that needs to be said. That book was all over the place. It really should have been several books, or never written. Or a series of short stories. Or something. I don't know. I'm not the professional writer, and I'm glad Card wrote it. I did like it, a lot.

How can you call it a novel, though, when there were so many plot lines—all of which were a little bit weak—that were only weakly strung together?

It's true he needed to actually go into the part where Ender finds the Hive Queen cocoon. And he fabricated a new conflict with the Admiral of the ship that took him to Shakespeare. That was good, but it was too easy. And then there was that whole thing with Ender's letter to his mom and dad. I get it, and it was a beautiful letter, and it's the kind of thing I would have wanted to include in a book series if I could write one like this. But it's not the sort of thing you can just toss into a book and leave hanging like that.

The most disappointing part was the end, where the story was so truncated. Randall/Achilles/Arkanian and his vilifying of the Hegemon and Virlomi, and his creation of the label 'Xenocide' needed more time to develop. It's pretty obvious Card was leaving a thread there for a possible future book—the story of how Arkanian Delphiki tries to make up for all the lies he propagated and all the unrest and hatred and division he caused, all because he believed the insane ravings of the woman who raised him. In a way, it parallels the burdens Ender has on his shoulders.

It also ties in to the little subplot of Dorabella and Alessandra—how much are children affected by having crazy parents? So I guess it does loosely fit in with Ender's story, because he was so conflicted about his own mother and father.

I don't mean to be overly critical of the book, but it was somewhat disappointing, only because it's not as strong as the others. Now I wonder when the next one will be finished and published. I can't wait.

Bean Continued

I should have been prepared for the agony of Shadow of the Giant. But, stupid me, I forgot how I felt after I finished Ender's Game. Both times. This, if possible, is even worse. I'm so upset I can't really even write about it coherently, so I'm going to take a break and finish this post later. Or not at all.

****
That was a few hours ago, and I might be sufficiently collected by now. We'll see.

First of all, the whole series has thematic unity I really admire. The way the characters and situations shape themselves is so interesting.

Let's break this down. You start with a toddler whose intelligence is unlimited. He's so smart he broke the test, and he's going to keep getting smarter until he dies. Scary, a little? Well, nature intervened and also handicapped him. Just as there is no limit to his intellectual growth, there is no limit to his physical growth. You know from book one that his days are numbered. He'll die of giantism before he's 20 years old.

Not surprising that he ends up being instrumental in saving the world when he's only, what, five? But what happens next? A psycho maniac wants him dead, of course. All the psycho maniacs are after him in one way or another, but the one with the most charisma has the power, and he uses it. Bean spends a few years of his life on the run, but also figuring out how to rescue Petra, who happens to be the smartest and most aggressive girl on earth and is being held against her will by the same psycho that wants to kill Bean.

Bean, of course, succeeds in rescuing Petra, and then the inevitable happens. They fall in love. This is where the books take a serious departure from traditional sci-fi. You, as a reader, see the impossibility of this scenario, but you don't care. You want Petra to get what she wants—which is to marry Bean and have as many of his babies as possible.

Why? Because he's the smartest person who ever was, or ever will be, born. Who else's babies would she want to have?

But it's more than that. By this time, Bean has transformed out of his cold, calculating, I'm-even-smarter-and-more-ruthless-than-a-computer person and become someone startling. Oh, Bean. Oh, Julian Delphiki. We love you, and it only has a little bit to do with the fact that your days are numbered and you know it. And we weren't supposed to love you. We were supposed to fear you. But we realized that fearing you would make us enemies, so we trusted you instead—and the ultimate trust is love.

And he never asked for any of it. He was completely indifferent the entire time who loved him, who hated him, who thought they could one-up him, and who thought they could flatter themselves into his good books. Because Bean has no good books.

Meanwhile, the rest of the kids who saved the world with Ender and Bean are playing out a sick and twisted game for world dominance, against Peter Wiggin, a young man so full of his own snot that he thinks he can take over the world in spite of the fact that he was judged unfit for the battle school that made the others what they were. Or identified them for what they already were—walking weapons.

This is where it gets really complicated. Virlomi, the only woman in this whole game besides Petra, whose involvement becomes secondary after she gets pregnant with one of her and Bean's nine embryos, is abandoned in the south of India after Petra's rescue. Vir's goal? Save India from China, from Russia, and from the new united nation of Islam.

But who is in charge of these superpowers? Friends from Battle School. Vlad is in Russia, designing battle plans he's sure the Russian military will never use. Han Tsu gets himself declared emperor of China. And the Muslim nations have all united under their new Caliph Alai.

Vir's first victory is in successfully uniting India. She starts small, by piling stones in the roads and suggesting to the locals that everyone does it, has always done it, and that it is some mystical force that keeps India whole. The Wall of India. They come together as they never have before in all the history of the world, and as the unity spreads, so does her legend. She becomes a goddess, living with and for the people, and designing videos specifically meant to rip to pieces the public image of both the Chinese and the Muslims as benevolent conquerors.

But her game begins in earnest when Han Tsu tries to marry her and she realizes her value as a political piece. She topples Han Tsu's pieces, opting instead to go for Peter Wiggin, who is making great headway in creating a state known as the Free People of Earth. Peter sees that his goal isn't a merger between India and the Rest of the World, so that rejection sends her to the next person she thinks she can sway—Alai.

Vir plays dirty, and Alai falls for it both because he wants to and because he has to. Marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim throws everything off balance. It's the beginning of the end. All the other Battle School kids, one by one, realize that staying on earth will only cost millions of lives, and they leave as part of a space colonization project.

That part was particularly sad, because I really liked Vir. I especially liked the tragic twist that was created out of her own humility. She was really good at what she did—she was so good she couldn't believe her own success, and eventually ended up attributing it to powers beyond her own control, so she became a slave to fate, megalomania, and chance all at the same time. It broke her much worse than it broke any of the others.

Except Alai, maybe, because he was the one who seemed to be the most sincere in his desire to be a servant of God. He took his position believing that somehow he could lead the believers in a conquest to bring peace to the entire world through the acceptance of Islam, and he found himself betrayed by everyone—the people he led, the people who placed him in power, and worst of all, the wife that he loved. Alai's departure from earth was the one that, to me, reeked most of defeat.

In the end? What everyone knew would happen from the very beginning. Julian Delphiki's death is successfully faked, and he embarks on a relativistic voyage meant to prolong his life long enough for a mad scientist (the same one who "created" him) to come up with a cure for him and his three "handicapped" babies, leaving Petra with the five "normal" ones to live out a "normal" life. And ... Peter Wiggin wins everything. But you're happy about it, because he somehow grows on you, and you realize that he has something more important than charisma. He has an honest heart.

I understand that it's weird to review a book in this style. I've basically just given a summary with my own commentary. But that's what I do best.

My next question is, how does he come up with this stuff? I wonder if that would annoy him to know that I'm asking. But it's a valid question. I read somewhere that C.S. Lewis said that writing The Screwtape Letters was a rather torturous experience, because he had to put himself in an uncomfortable frame of mind, and in essence, be the devil. Being a writer is a thousand times more complex than being an actor, because you have to be your characters, while at the same time pulling dozens of invisible strings. How does one person handle all the emotions necessary to be all those people, when I can barely handle the emotion I feel from just reading about them?

I don't have the guts to read Ender in Exile yet. I need some recovery time first. Unfortunately, I thought I had outgrown whatever it is about me that leaves me feeling like I've been run through a blender after reading books of this type. Maybe it's something you never outgrow. It's probably a good thing for me that Shadows in Flight isn't going to be accessible for a while.

Bean

If I were a guy and could have any name I wanted, I would choose Julian Delphiki. It's the coolest name I ever heard. So cool that I keep repeating it to myself. Julian Delphiki. Julian Delphiki. Julian Delphiki. It sounds even better in conversation.

Yeah, I also think I'm really weird.

This book series is weirding me out, though. I like it a lot—no question about that. However, it is requiring too much suspension of disbelief. I don't quite understand why, because the Ender series was just as "out there" if not more. It probably has to do with the fact that usually there is no love in science fiction. Or, at best, it's hopeless, platonic, or fraternal. I can't get past the whole Petra and Bean are married thing. Or that Bean, who was introduced to me as an undersized genius orphan street rat who went to Battle School and helped save the world from an alien invasion, is now suddenly very tall, very married, and very paternal—and all he cares about is finding the embryos he and his wife created so that she can raise them by herself after he's dead. And all this before he's even sixteen. Don't tell me it isn't weird.

I haven't finished reading Shadow of the Giant yet, but yes, I skipped to the end. Everyone is always so shocked to find out that this is a regular practice of mine, but really, I don't know if I would ever make it through most books if I didn't. I just can't handle the suspense. I rarely read so much that it gives away the climax, but it does reassure me that certain characters make it to the last page. Ominous music is now playing in my head.

Children of the Mind

is my new favorite book!

And ...... spoiler alert.

I'm not opposed to weird, out-there speculation about how the universe works. Card's books are full of that. But what he doesn't do is take known laws of physics and toss them out the window. I just realized, really realized, how terribly horrible are the writers and producers of such series as Star Trek. This is probably the geekiest post I've ever written—but I just can't help but be completely appalled that in the new Star Trek film they claim that Spock was able to time travel because of a black hole. GAAAHH! Why? Why?

It's just as easy to come up with some far-out, esoteric reason it happened. Why just throw in something that obviously couldn't happen and rely on the dimness of viewers to either not notice or not care? I guess part of my frustration is that I'm embarrassed I didn't notice the first time I saw it how bad the science really was.

So now I'm becoming a science fiction geek. All because a few Christmases ago I decided it was about time I seriously tried to understand science, and not just the watered-down, random textbook version I got in school (I seriously doubt I ever had a science teacher who cared about science). My first step was to go to the library and check out a book by Stephen Hawking, whose name I remembered from watching my dad watch NOVA when I was a kid. Also, because I knew my own limitations in grasping big and significant ideas, I got the version with pictures. Thus, I read (and mostly even understood) The Illustrated Theory of Everything. Talk about life-changing experiences. I no longer see myself as incapable of understanding scientific thought—I just see myself as having wasted many chances in my youth to understand scientific thought. But better late than never.

Now I tend to get most of my science from discussions with my brother, reading biographies of prominent scientists, the occasional science documentary, and science fiction books.

Aside from the implausibility of what happens in Children of the Mind, including all the instantaneous space travel, the transference of souls in and out of both natural and synthetic bodies, and inter-special cohabitation, it never broke any known rules.

And get this—just as I was convincing myself that Card's strength was not in the beauty of his writing but the pull of his ideas, he wrote one of the most beautiful passages of prose I've ever read. I almost didn't want it to be over—the part where Jane "dies" because the computer network is shut down and the "space" she inhabits isn't there anymore. First she tries to take over Ender's bodies (weird), but they fight her back. So she goes inside the Hive Queen next, which is an interesting little interlude. Finally, she goes to the Pequenino Mothertrees, and by doing so fills them with sparkly lights and helps them grow and make blossoms and fruit. They don't resent her intrusion or her energy, because they have a greater capacity for that sort of thing. It was so joyful to read.

I also really liked just about every one of Wang-mu's inner thoughts, as well as all the things she said to people. I guess I'm still a sappy romantic, because I liked the love parts too—like where Peter was analyzing whether or not he was in love with Wang-mu, and all the stuff Miro feels about Val-Jane and what happens to her. Very sweet stuff.

The other thing is that I loved the Afterword. It's completely cool.

Now I'm out of things to say, with no sophisticated way of wrapping up my thoughts, but because this is a blog and not an English paper, I'll let it end with my favorite quote from the book.

Miro, after an intense inner battle about why he does/doesn't want Jane to take over the body of Val/Ender: "I want all bad things to go away and everybody to be happy. I want my mommy. What kind of childish dolt have I become?"

Xenocide

There are the fans, and there are the ones who haven't got around to reading his work. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn't like Orson Scott Card's books. Well, the Ender books, anyway. I guess there are some weird, less famous ones that I've heard might be lame.

A while back, it's probably been almost ten years now, I read Ender's Game. It was an experience never to be forgotten. No other book I've ever come across has taken an idea and explored it in such a way, while at the same time creating a character I actually cared about, pretty much like I care about real people. Disturbing at multiple levels—most of which can't even surface until you've finished the book, put it aside, and utterly failed at forgetting it and moving on with your life—it stretched the boundaries of what I thought fiction books could really do and how much they actually can change you.

I've been changed by other books before, but not in such a self-aware way. The Little House on the Prairie books partially defined my childhood, L.M. Montgomery's books defined my adolescence, and Harry Potter helped pull me and keep me out of a very dark period of transition. Countless other books altered my perception of the world around me and the relationships I had formed and should form—most of them good, some of them bad. But I didn't think about it that way.

When I think about books that truly changed me, Ender's Game is always at the very top of the list. I should probably go more into why, but I don't want to, because it's a little too personal, and because I'd rather discuss Xenocide right now. For a long time, I had to recognize that I could only read a book by Card every few years or so, because when an intense personality reads an intense book, long periods of recovery time are required. So I read Ender's Game, then a few years later I read it again. A few years after that, I read Ender's Shadow, and a few years after that I read Speaker for the Dead. I got my copy of Xenocide on purpose to go to an author signing, but that, also, was a few years ago. I had to wait to start reading it when I was ready. And, contrary to my expectations, waiting a few years was not a bad thing; I could remember every character and every pertinent detail.

I just finished reading it this morning, only because last night I had a hundred pages left and was holding my eyes open with stinging tears just to get that far.

I'm sure most of my reaction to this book has to do with the fact that the author and I are members of the same faith, so I understand where his ideas are both coming from and traveling towards. But I haven't read any other books that attempt to explore and explain faith and religion with science—all at the same time throwing in dilemmas of ethics that span across planets, across villages, across religious orders, across different species, across members of the same family, and even within individuals.

What is the nature of life? Why do people care about each other? Why do people exist? How do people exist? What is free will? What is bondage? What is power? What is right? What is wrong? How much of reality is limited to our power of imagination?

He's asking the questions, and he's presenting evidence for the questions to be relevant along with evidence to provide answers. But he doesn't try to answer them.

Some authors are so open-ended you almost wish they had never brought up the questions in the first place. Others are a little too eager to wrap up their own conclusions in a box and present it to readers as if it were a great gift. A really great author leaves just enough alone. Like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg, and giving multiple arguments for either one—and at the same time wondering how vital it really is whether we know or not.

What I'm saying, then, is that Card is a great author, aside from all the stylistic fumbles he has said are relatively unimportant. He believes in substance over style, and I do agree with the overall philosophy, though I'm not convinced he's entirely correct in his approach. The book would have been much stronger if he had tighter editing (I feel patronized as a reader when the author feels the need to tell me things more than once, especially how certain people are related to others; and I was informed at least six times that Ender was Miro's step-father), and even possibly if he could employ a little more verbal subtlety in characterization.

But what's the job of a critic? In the words of Anton Ego, "the average piece of junk is worth far more than our criticism designating it so." There's plenty of junk out there in the world of books, but Xenocide isn't part of that pile.

Love Languages

I was told to read The Five Love Languages book. Being the persuadable, suggestible person I am, I did so. I'm sure it will come in way handy some day, but today I'm just not sure why I did that. I figured out a few days ago what my love language is, and reading the book just made it more blaringly obvious. I am "Quality Time."

People sometimes assume that I'm "Words of Affirmation." Not so. I like words of affirmation. They are nice. I also like acts of service--but they are more likely to make me feel guilty than loved. Even more so with gifts. I guess it's good to know that all these years I've been beating myself up for not being more grateful when someone gives me a gift, it wasn't necessarily because I wasn't grateful, but rather that gifts don't fill my "emotional tank."

So for anyone's future reference, if you want to be in my good books, all you have to do is sit down and talk to me for a while. Not something I'm getting much of lately. Oh well. I guess I just need to learn to cope with being emotionally needy.

On Books (Part Nine)

Have you ever gotten so into a book that when one of the characters should be hesitating about doing something, you yourself are hesitating to turn the page? It's an odd little feeling, and it happened to me yesterday while I was reading Everlost.

Finally getting around to starting the book was a good thing; it was one of those books I purchased after attending a reading motivation workshop, guaranteed to be interesting to young teens. I had ordered about 20 of them to pre-read and place on the shelves of my classroom, but I didn't read all of them right away, having also just begun graduate school. It sat there, and sat there, and sat there. I recommended it to a lot of kids as "something I heard was really good," but I always feel a little uneasy doing that when I haven't actually read it. Now I have! Just as I suspected, getting started was the hiccup—finishing it was not.

Victory for me, as I have this previously stated fear of never reading all the books on my own shelves.

There's always a sense of accomplishment after I've finished reading a book, but lately I've felt less of that when it's fiction. But now I have a whole stack of books on music that I've got to read before they're due back at the library. I think this evening, after I've finished everything I need to do for the day, I'll turn on some Mozart and get started.

Jordan Sonnenblick

I am going to be bold and name the author and the book outright. Once I wrote a book rant about some authors, and I wasn't exactly complimentary, then the author found herself and commented. I have rarely been so disconcerted about something. And ashamed, really. Did I think authors didn't look on the internet to find out what other people are saying about them? So, Mr. Sonnenblick, if you read this, I hope you enjoy.

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie was on a recommended new release list several years ago, and I checked it out from the public library and proceeded to read the whole book in one sitting. It had a rare quality: making me laugh while crying at the same time. I've read so many books that a lot of them tend to lose their impact, but this one still packed a punch. I started recommending it to my students, and often reading it with them. Just about everyone likes it.

What's not to like in a story about a middle school boy with a typical middle school attitude but a very big heart and very big problems? The interactions between Steven and his little brother, Jeffrey, who is fighting to survive leukemia, are indescribable in a review. You'd just have to read it.

I assumed that in spite of the way it ended, Notes from the Midnight Driver was about all the sequel it was going to get; then, late last week while browsing the shelves looking for something completely different, my eyes fell upon After Ever After. And then I read the front flap and realized it was about Jeffrey. Then, I realized I had to read it. Immediately.

Same experience as the first. I see why other reviewers referred to it as a "brave" book. It deals with some seriously controversial issues ... well, controversial for anyone who's at all interested in the past, present, and future of American public schools ... in addition to the very relevant tale of what happens after a child survives cancer.

When I first finished it, I was kind of thinking along the lines of it didn't fully resolve all, or really any, of the issues it brought up. But even after very brief reflection, I've decided that's a strength. That's what makes these stories so powerful—they just tell the story, rather than asking questions and giving cookie-cutter answers to them. There was just enough of a resolution for the book to feel complete, and to allow the reader (me, I guess) some closure.

Great book. Definitely worth investing a few hours in.

Random Stuff

I found out today that it's official. My Professional Portfolio passed! I am so relieved. That was just one of the many things looming over my head lately that I've been trying not to worry about. Check off the list, and move on.

This morning I found out that it's a lot harder to keep running after a big event. I tried to rest up yesterday, especially considering it was the Sabbath. Then I got up to go to the gym, and after just one mile I was a little tuckered. I stopped and did a bunch of crunches and triceps work, then got back on the treadmill for 2 more miles. In a way, that feels wimpy, but in another way it feels like a great victory.

You Did It!

"You did it! You did it!
You said that you would do it,
and indeed you did!
I thought that you would rue it,
I doubted you'd do it.
But now I must admit it
That succeed you did!"


I should get a medal ... wait, I did!


Here are all the details on the Bud E. Bee Boo Run that nobody's really interested in. First, I don't really want to do another running event all on my own. Everyone else there either had a team or had people there to support them. The nice thing about this one was that it was a community event and a few people were really nice, and the beneficiaries were the mentally handicapped—and they were the super sweet people handing out water and Gatorade. Also the ones bestowing medals at the finish line (yay!).

I should say that with all I've read and observed about runners, I was not in denial about the fact that I'm slow—really, really slow. However, I didn't exactly plan on being the very last to finish, and about a fourth of the way through the run, I realized that I might be the last to finish. The good thing was that I had paced myself well enough that I could increase my speed over the second half. In fact, I left 6 people in the dust, and the last 2 miles were probably my fastest. That was a little surprising, but definitely in a good way. I think I'll employ the same strategy when I do a full Marathon.

Well, actually, when I do a full Marathon, I don't think I'll worry about speed at all. I think I'll let myself come in dead last if that's what it takes to finish.

Doing a half Marathon really wasn't that hard. Not, at least, any harder than tacking on an extra mile to my weekly run. I remember someone saying that it's the training that's hard, not the actual event. I would have to agree. It's taken a lot more discipline and concentration than I've put into very many things before.

A few other random things I observed about the experience—I picked a good location. This little town had lots of gradual ups and downs. The hills were slightly challenging, but I just leaned forward, switched to the next song on my iPod, and kept going. One hill in particular looked very long and steep from a certain vantage point, but by the time I got to it (both times), it hardly even seemed like a hill. Interesting.

Also, they have it arranged so that when you get a drink of water you can just throw your cup on the ground. I don't care to do that, even though I know it's socially acceptable in that situation. So I just crumple my cup and hold it in my hand until I get to a trash bin. I realized that I like having something to hold in my hand. It's comforting and encouraging, for whatever reason, to hold my iPod in one hand and a crumpled up cup in the other.

Until the wax coating on the cup deteriorates and the paper starts to come off on your skin.

But by that time, I had usually found a trash bag. I guess when you don't have a person to hold your hand, you resort to cardboard cups. Hehe.

One other very funny part was that when I was nearing the finish line and everyone was cheering for me, the finish line sort of collapsed. It was one of those plastic air-balloon finish line arches, like a piece of a bounce house or something. Well, it fell over. But they got it back up just in time for me to run under it. That was great fun.

Finally, here are the credits:

Heavenly Father, for giving me EVERYTHING, including a healthy body and lovely weather to run in.

My family, who even though several of them could have cared less, still pretended to support me.

Florence Welsh, for her amazing voice and cool harp mixed with drums.

Howard Shore, for the trailer music to Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King

"Sweet Disposition," by Temper Trap

Apple, for inventing the iPod classic, in which I can store my entire music library and lots of movies, as well as create a nice playlist for running.

New Balance, for selling a bra that doesn’t cut me

Asics, for great running shoes

Old Navy, for cool stretchy yoga shorts

Everyone who offered sweet, inspiring words of encouragement

On Books (Part Nine)

All four-hundred-page books are equal, but some are more equal than others.

Can you believe I still haven't read Animal Farm?

Last week I read a lovely book, The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. I don't normally read that genre—I believe it falls into the category of "Women's Lit"—but it came highly recommended from a friend, and just the first page was enough to recommend it for itself. Who needs to finish a professional portfolio when there's a book this good to be read? I read it in a day.

Although there wasn't anything particularly deep or earth-shattering about the book, I'm still thinking about it a week later. It was just a really good story with good, strong writing. I can't think of any flaws in the author's style or execution, and that's rare. And what's more, there are a few parts, one specifically, that were real tear-jerkers. You know, it has the same effect as the closing scene of Random Harvest (sniff). I do like a good cry now and then, and that one was quite satisfying.

The reason I started this post was to muse on the difference between The Help and The Name of the Rose. What connection do I see between them? Merely their length. In all other respects, they are nothing alike. I just think that the written word is fascinating—especially when I notice that two books of approximately the same length, both of which I thoroughly enjoyed, can have such variance in the process I have to employ to read them.

I admit, the main reason I read The Name of the Rose was so that I could say I read it and thereby feel smart. I have a thing for feeling smart. But I also knew it was a mystery, and most books of the mystery genre are second-rate, valuable only as a passing amusement. And if they aren't funny, I generally don't like them. This one, though, was brilliantly marketed as an intellectual mystery—one that actually requires you to use your brain. How exciting, to be able to transcend a superficial genre in such a way! It's true, it was intellectual, but I also had to force myself to read it. I never got hooked or absorbed, and I never reached that happy point in book-reading that ensures a rapid race to the end. It was slow. All the way through. However, I wouldn't necessarily say that's a weakness, unless you're of the camp that believes a book, in order to be a "good book" should hook you in the first chapter. Sure, it was slow, but it was a good book.

Contrast The Help, which I have already implied that I couldn't put down, and which is also not typical of its own genre. I was hooked in the first chapter. It is also a good book.

Have you heard of a genre called Steampunk? Today was the first time I ever saw a book categorized as steampunk. Apparently, it's fantasy and/or magical realism set in Victorian-like settings. Interesting. Obviously more readers than me have grown tired of the cliché medieval fantasy setting. I would find it very promising if it didn't seem to include so many zombies.

Countdown ...

Ran 6.5 miles and walked 1.5 miles. Burned approximately 1250 calories. Five days until the half-marathon. I'm so excited!

(This past Saturday was a little scary. The plan was to run another 12-miler in preparation for the event, but I was about 3 miles away from the house when the neighborhood was blessed with a vigorous rain. I contemplated stopping at a friend's house to take shelter under their porch, but it seemed like it was slowing a little, and I was already drenched. Kept going, the rain got harder, so I was planning to try to stop at another friend's porch—then a sweet lady from my ward stopped and told me to get in the car. It was such a funny adventure I wasn't too disappointed not to finish my complete run, but then I got worried yesterday morning because I had pressure in my head and thought I might have caught cold. Still a little worried about that. I guess my lucky running shorts are fallible.)

Procrastination

Have you ever noticed that the less busy you are, the more difficult it is to manage your time? I heard once that if you're in a leadership role and you need to delegate, give a job to a busy person because a busy person will get it done. That is very true.

I went to a time management workshop at the last YSA conference several weekends ago, and at first I had a really bad attitude about it—mostly due to my prideful assumption that I've heard almost everything worth hearing from workshops for single people and I don't need someone to tell me how to live my life—especially when it's a person who has no idea what it's like to be me. Did I mention I was prideful?

The beginning part of the workshop was a little annoying, but that's only because I came in a few minutes late and didn't realize that the presenter had already explained that he was going to briefly discuss principles of time management in how they relate to you spiritually, before going into the practical stuff. I didn't want to go to a time management workshop and leave later having only heard how important it was to manage my time. If I didn't already think it was important to manage my time, I wouldn't have set foot in that room.

At any rate, the principles part was brief, and the rest of it was very helpful strategic information—well represented by hand-outs and a short quiz. Is it weird to like quizzes? I guess it isn't, because even though I never read them, I've heard that girls' and women's magazines are full of them. And I constantly get quizzes sent to me on Facebook, even though I never do them. The time management quiz was a little interesting, because I scored a 25 out of 30, which is the highest score you can get in the healthy range (26 and above indicates possible issues that could lead to burnout). How does that happen? I have come to the conclusion that at least part of it is that I did what a lot of people do on personality assessments and took the quiz based on my intentions rather than my actual habits. Ouch.

How else could you explain my current lifestyle? Positive: I get things done. Negative: I never get them done anywhere near the time I designate to get them done.

The best thing I learned, however, was from the handout on procrastination. It was so validating to read that some things actually should be procrastinated. Said in a different way, I am understanding more and more that finding peace and joy in life has everything to do with getting your priorities straight. Which means I'm going to refocus and refine my ability to procrastinate.

On Books (Part Eight)

I read too many books. I counted (hehe) and discovered that I have read over 60 this year, and that number includes some incredibly long ones.

The other day I was conversing with a girl who asked me if I'd ever been in love ... with someone real. As in, not a fictional character I read about in a book. Ouch.

I'm not offended that she said that, but I always thought it was rather obvious that I understood the difference between book men and real men. I've never fallen in love with a fictional character. For instance, I've never considered myself the sort of woman who dreams of finding her very own Mr. Darcy. And as much as I love Jane Eyre, I was all about being happy that Jane and Rochester ended up together, and nothing about wishing I could be her and have a man like that. Fictional men do not make me sigh with longing, and it never occurs to me to wish that real men were in any way like the fabricated men in literary endeavors.

The truth is that I hold men to a higher standard than what is normally expected of them—or at least, I hold them to that standard if I have any plans of making them a part of my life. They rarely measure up. But I'm pretty sure it doesn't have anything to do with the underdeveloped men in books written by women whose concept of the ideal man was not entirely in sync with my own. Frankly, the man I'm going to marry will be a thousand times better than Mr. Darcy, if only for the reason that he has to have rare abilities indeed if he's going to consider falling in love with me. I'm not trying to put myself down when I say that there are hardly any men out there who would see anything in me worth paying attention to, much less falling in love with. I am not Elizabeth Bennett—she is also a fictional character.

I have had to deliberately curb my imagination in trying to come up with the ideal husband, because in addition to the fact that the ideal husband doesn't exist, there is also the glaringly obvious point that even if he did, he wouldn't want me. And to try to imagine a future with a perfect man would be rather dangerous anyway. I always thought it was a silly idea that, back when we were teenagers in church they wanted us to do things like make A LIST.

I understand why it was done, but I remember that when I made my LIST, it was brief and to the point. I wanted a man who was righteous and kind, preferably tall. Then one of the advisors got ahold of my LIST and contributed her own addenda, including handsome, charming, funny, and some other stuff. Really? My life is not, and never has been, a storybook. It's only in bad romance novels that a girl who has average looks, average intelligence, and a lot of insecurities in addition to extreme hereditary timidity ends up with the guy who is tall, dark, handsome, charming, and funny, as well as good and kind and annoyingly selfless. I was actually taking my assignment seriously.

And I hate bad romance novels.

Equally as passionately, I hate bad mystery novels. You know, the kind where there's not a single person in the book that you actually like, and every upper-class female character has an aquiline nose and an angelic profile; where the criminal actually ends up looking rather tame compared to the people who were innocent ... or even worse, the people you really liked turn out to be the vilest ones in the end.

If life were like one of those books, I'd never want to get married because I'd be sure that ten years later my husband would turn out to be an axe murderer, or worse.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that as much as I do love books, I hope I don't have any misconceptions about real life due to my love for them. There's plenty of room in my life to accommodate both imagination and reality.

I Astound Myself

This morning while I was running, I began to contemplate myself, and my own brilliance amazes me.

At first, this seems like a conceited thing to say, but if I can explain it clearly, it isn't at all. Because the very next thing that occurred to me is that in the grand scheme of things, of all the billions and billions of souls who have or will inhabit this earth, I'm nothing particularly special. Just another Child of God.

Just another Child of God is not something you can say or contemplate lightly. People, because of our divine origins, are so deep that we could spend our entire lives just trying to truly understand one person and still never get to the very bottom of that person's character.

This is why only God could come up with a Plan that would fit each and every individual.

I guess I've been reading too much about educational theories and programs, and I'm still shocked at how almost all of them are still looking for the magic formula that will churn out smart, responsible kids like a factory churns out candy.

They need the Gospel.

Mortality

I am learning new dimensions about the truth of the pronouncement in 2 Nephi, "Men are, that they might have joy." There are few things as exhilarating as going out for a 10-mile run in the brand new autumn coolness, and getting to the top of a hill near the end, saying to yourself that nothing can stop me now! I raised my arms high up in the air, ran down that hill, and felt almost like I could fly.

I'm covered with salt and gross, but otherwise I feel more alive and more healthy than some days I ever dreamed possible.

Last week's post was all about failing cheerfully; this one is going to be all about succeeding cheerfully. In my 20s I learned cynicism, but now that I'm 30, I'm getting back my optimism. In a way, I feel like I've got my true self back. Or maybe that my life somehow started over without losing any of the experiences of the past. I wasn't there for the talk in Lubbock about the best day of my life, but I get it.

Man Looketh on the Outward Appearance

I used to make these cookies as a college student, and since I promised the little bro I would make him some cookies today, this seemed like a good choice. They always turned out so beautifully—soft and chewy and perfectly round. They even look a lot prettier in the pic than they do in real life. I have two guesses as to why they didn't turn out as I expected them to:

a) sour cream doesn't substitute in cookies the way it does in brownies (my brownies are always perfection), and

b) altitude

Oh, well. He wasn't going to be impressed anyway.


While I was doing homework, he decided to come hang out with me. I guess I'm not good company when I have a deadline.

Goals

I set goals, and I fail to meet them. I set more goals, and I fail to meet them ... and sometimes I set goals and manage to meet them. Today, unfortunately, was the first day since the beginning of June that I failed to meet my running goal. Monday is my day for long runs, and I was supposed to do 10 miles. I had to stop at 7.5. Totally unexpected. Boo.

On top of that, my love for running is being offset by the number of band-aids it is beginning to require.

But, on the bright side, I haven't quit yet, and since the beginning of the summer I've lost 16 pounds. It's kind of hard for other people to tell, because it's come off so gradually, and evenly distributed. Nonetheless, it is gone, and there's no reason to think that I can't keep it up.

Also, another distance runner approached me at the gym today, and we talked for a while about running events. He was very encouraging. It was nice to talk about it with someone who knows what it's like.

Every so often

I just have to read a fluffy princess book with a cheesy love story. It's like a need. This week was Ella Enchanted, and I think what got it stuck in my craw was watching Confessions of a Shopaholic (horribly stupid movie that almost prompted a post on How to Write a Brainless, Formulaic Rom Com—I'll just sum it up here by asserting that they all have to do with glorifying the life of a liar). Hugh Dancy is in that movie. He is also in the movie version of Ella Enchanted (another horribly stupid movie).

Perhaps one of the differences between me and other women is not that I don't watch fewer chick-flicks—but that I hate myself after watching them.

There is slightly less personal loathing involved in reading a fluffy chick book, even if it was written for 10-year-olds. And at least in Ella Enchanted, the conflict was centered around a curse, rather than a big fat lie.

Beowulf

I am reading Seamus Heaney's translation of Beowulf, and it is so beautiful I just can't say. I wonder if it's nerdy to enjoy reading the introduction of a story just as much as you enjoy the story itself? Well, nerdy or not, that's me.

One thing I found out in reading the intro to Beowulf is that Heaney feels like his own personal style has been heavily influenced by Gerard Manley Hopkins, who really is one of the greatest poets to date. I don't claim to be an authority on poetry, particularly the more modern varieties, and my own attempts at writing it are rather sad (with the exception of the Ode to My Pilot G2, which is apparently a hit with my friends, I don't even let other people read it), but Hopkins' words—to borrow some rather cliché similes—sparkle like sunlight and glitter like gold. If you haven't read Hopkins, rush out to the nearest source of poetry you can find, and devour it. I promise you, it's worth it—particularly "The Windhover."

The most wonderful part of Beowulf is the power that comes through alliteration. I vaguely remember having read Beowulf before, both in 8th grade Literature class, and possibly in college Humanities. And it's entirely possible that I was just so ignorant about poetry that I didn't notice any of the devices. It is also equally possible that the translators I read did not preserve them.

The truth that has dawned on me—and it's almost embarrassing that it has taken so long to hit home, English major and book lover that I am and always have been—is that language is powerful. Not stories, but words. If a person knows how to use words right, he/she has immense power. Well, I guess I always knew that, but to recognize that this is the reason that kids still need to study and understand poetry as part of their school curriculum, that was the new part. I almost wish to go back to my classroom with this perspective, to flood all my lessons with the all-powerful point that the reason I taught English was to give them the tools to be powerful and successful in their careers and in their relationships. Vocabulary, spelling practice, lessons in grammar and syntax, could all be tied directly back to the central goal:acquiring and using words to create a powerful persona.

Another kind of weird thing I am discovering is that for the several years I taught English, it was always a burden to teach comprehension strategies. I considered them rather useless, and even though we worked on them in class, I always felt a sense of futility. I favored the holistic approach to reading, the one that assumes that with an increased background knowledge and practice, practice, practice, anyone can become a good reader. I don't remember having ever been taught comprehension strategies myself; well, actually, I do, but I always disregarded them because I never needed them. Anyone else remember being contemptuous of the SQ3R method? I never used it. I read my assigned reading passages, answered the questions, and went eagerly back to real reading, which was always a fiction novel. I didn't need to consciously survey the passage, form questions, read, recite, and review. I was a natural at reading the way I was never a natural at anything involving physical coordination.

Oddly enough, I find myself using that method now. I can't decide if it's because I was required to teach it as part of the curriculum I used as a teacher in preparation for the TAKS test, or if really I was using it the whole time and just didn't know it. Most notably, I've been taking notes in a little book, and most of my notes are questions—questions which are at least partially answered through further reading.

Thus, there are several reasons why I am loving Beowulf. The story itself is violent and not particularly endearing, and it's no wonder a lot of people hate it. As a cultural study, it's interesting, but only at a cursory level. But rendered through the beautiful efforts of someone who must love Hopkins much more than I do, it's lovely to read.

Next up: Grendel. So far, it's weird.

On Books (Part Seven)

Last night I looked at t-shirts and bumper stickers at an online store. The featured artwork? Bibliophiles and librarians, of course.

Among my favorite designs was one featuring a cat curled up on top of an open book, and printed under it the words "All books belong to me." This combines two of my favorite things: books and cats. And I like them both for similar reasons, actually.

Really? What can possibly be similar about a cat and a book? Just one thing: you can love them without surrendering your own independence. Unlike dogs, who regardless of how laudably loyal and happy and unselfish and noble they are, are needy. Aside from all the drool and the smell and the kibble and the barking and the fact that they'll eat anything (ew), dogs just need too much attention. Cats, on the other hand, have no issue with self-esteem. If you choose not to hang out with them for a while, they don't get all emotional about it. They're too well-adjusted to really care if you don't like sleeping with them plastered against your body. A book is kind of like that too. You can start to read it, then get distracted and leave it somewhere for days, weeks, months, even years sometimes ... and when you come back to it, nothing has changed but yourself.

There is another very weird thing about me. I have allowed both cats and books to be in the bed with me when I sleep.

P.S. I downloaded iBooks and got all the ones I wanted from Project Gutenberg. Not sure how much I'll actually use it, though. And I also sleep with my phone.

Hello!

Today the Senior Primary group welcomed me to Primary by singing "The Hello Song." Apart from being embarrassed, I was relieved that because I was the new person, the Primary president led the song, because honestly, I've never been crazy about that song.

I have this attitude about music sometimes ... and Primary songs are usually top on my list of Music That Makes Me Want to Roll My Eyes. This would be why I have just been invited to accept a calling as the Primary Chorister. Not only do I get to listen to the Primary songs every week, I get to sing them by myself, sing them with kids, design and play games about the songs, and teach the words to the kids. Yay!

Actually, the "yay" was only part sarcasm. It's a little shocking, I know, but I am having fun learning all the verses to "Follow the Prophet." This is one of the biggest ironies of my personal life to date, yet I'm going to embrace it with all my heart.

I am a child of God!

On Books (Part Six)

I just finished reading a book for teens that will remain unnamed. If you want to know what it is and you can't guess, I can tell you in person, but I'm finished blogging about living authors who are still working on their careers, unless I only say nice things about them. And I'm going to say some not nice things about this book.

First of all, it was the finale of a series. I don't really like series books, with the exception of Harry Potter. I do read series often enough, but it's more in the form of professional development than recreation. I work in schools, so I feel I should read teen books; particularly the ones that are wildly popular.

This series has never been my favorite. It's too violent, too disturbing, and too vague. I never got very grounded in the world it took place in, and I think most of the reason is that the author him/herself didn't have a concept of where exactly it was going until the series as a whole was half over. I could be wrong about that. Maybe I just read it too fast. But this is the type of book you must read quickly. You can't hover over words and sentences; you can't digest any of the details because you have to find out what happens next. I agree that for a good story the stakes have to be high, but this was over the top. By the end, I had to be dead to all feeling because it was too much. The semi-happy ending wasn't even happy to me; I guess that bothers me the most because it's not supposed to be. The author crafted the story in such a way that there was never a possibility of a happy ending, and yet, it couldn't be tragedy because the main character was narrator--present tense narrator, I might add.

The series is obviously a tremendous achievement, and one that I could never hope to come close to. The next to last book, typically, ended up unraveling every knot it could, leaving the readers hanging in the most suspenseful way possible. The finale tied up all the knots neatly enough, I think. And yet, there are just too many things about it I don't like, and too many things about the ending that dissatisfy and annoy me.

It's always true in a story of suspense like this that people die. People you care about die. But the ones who died in this one, rather than bringing the story full-circle, just seemed to de-legitimize everything that happened, and by the time it was final, it was impossible to believe there was any reason for the story to go on. The protagonist had been through the wringer ten too many times by then, realistically falling apart after each one, and I really got tired of reading about how she had to deal with the worst case scenario over and over and over and over.

In spite of the gentle denouement, there was really no note of hope for the future and no reason for the characters to keep going. Just too depressing. I think I'll lay off teen books again for a while.

On Books (Part Five)

I'm reading a book about famous military villains. The first chapter was on Spartacus. As a result, I'm highly interested in learning more about the Roman Empire. The second chapter features Attila the Hun, who is slightly less interesting, for some reason. Maybe it's because the novelty has worn off, and the book ... well, let's just say the writer is passable. I would think historical biographies would be difficult to write in an engaging way. Several people manage to pull it off quite well, but it seems a relatively rare skill.

Because I was prompted by one of my blog followers (yes, I'm making it sound like my blog is actually famous, rather than the truth that only 2 or 3 people ever look at it), I'm going to introduce here my new project, which is going to make me look like a genuine dork, but oh well. I've always thought I wanted to do an advanced degree in literature, but it doesn't seem like a good idea. I've read several articles that say that the majority of people with PhDs in English do not work full-time in their field. It makes sense. Tons of people love to read, but how many English professors are necessary out there? I value the research they do, but it's hard to contribute to a body of knowledge and ideas already so saturated. Another point, raised during a conversation I had with a friend, is that there's so little action involved in the study of literature—it's more about idly discussing ideas than it is actually doing anything truly useful. So, it seemed to me that if I did that, it wouldn't really get me anywhere professionally. That leaves only one reason to do it—personal enrichment. Now, personal enrichment is a wonderful thing, but not financially sound when you consider the cost of tuition and everything else that goes into getting any kind of formal education. Besides, I'm wary of academic agendas, and I don't like the study of literary theory. This was one of the reasons behind the career decision I made a few years ago, and why I decided to pursue the degree program I did.

However and therefore, in lieu of pursuing more formal education in literature, I have designed my own course of study, with classes, syllabuses, and everything. I am designing my own program, based solely on my own interests and goals, and I will award myself some sort of diploma at the end, after I have complete a certain number of fictional hours. And I have made sure to design the classes so that they are more than just a reading list, although they are all mostly based on reading lists.

There is always the objection that an education designed by oneself can never be as challenging as one designed by an expert, and that I'm only going off what I already know, rather than being introduced to new horizons. That is regrettable, but I'm sure I'll still get a lot of valuable knowledge from my endeavor. Here's my course listing:

* Classics I (Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Plato, Aristotle, Catullus, Ovid, Beowulf, Marie de France, etc.)
* Military History (Sun Tsu and study of warriors including Ghengis Khan, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon)
* World Mythology
* Science Fiction and Fantasy Worldbuilding
* Christianity in Literature
* Rhetoric and Language
* Spanish
* Music History
* Film
* Writing Fiction
* Advanced Victorian and Early Modern Literature
* Classics II (Chaucer, Boccaccio, Petrarch, Machiavelli, Montaigne, Cervantes, Milton)
* Advanced Shakespeare

This should be highly enjoyable.

On Books (Part Four)

I've decided that this semester shall be devoted to reading the Classics—Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus, Dante, Plato, etc.

It started out pretty well, I thought, with a dive into the Divine Comedy. But less than halfway through Inferno, I got horribly, sickeningly bored. To put it mildly, I find Dante's religious misconceptions very depressing. Usually something like that isn't enough to keep me from reading just to experience the foreignness of thought and world-view. I like to compare and contrast my own outlook with those of other people, particularly as I read. There was something about it, though. I don't feel comfortable with the consignation of all his enemies to the inner circles of hell; even less do I feel comfortable with the eternal torment of unbaptized babies.

I admit, I gave up. I gave up in favor of Virgil, and I'm glad I did. I've just finished Book I of the Aeneid, and I love it. It's a slightly sad fact that I don't remember if I've read it before or not. But even if I did, it was in my History of Civilization, Humanities class, which covered everything from the beginning up until the 1500s, so there was so much material that whatever we did read was skimmed, discussed in a cursory way in class, then conveniently forgotten. I should remember, but I don't. Oh, well.

Perhaps when I finish with Virgil and some of the others, I'll find a translation of Dante that has kept the verse and still sounds decent. The one I was reading was prose, which I mistakenly thought a good thing at the time—I figured there's no way to successfully imitate the terza rima in English, so why attempt a verse translation at all? Well, any verses must be better than the prose I waded through 26 plodding pages of.

This doesn't exactly bring me back to the original reason I started this post, but I'll have to get to it sooner or later. I titled them "On Books" in imitation of Michel de Montaigne, whom I love. His essay "On Books" was what made me a fan of ancient literature in the first place. I can't wait to read more of his stuff soon.

Ice Cream (and a book about it)

I read a book while taking my graduate level Children's Literature class; the book was titled Ice Cream: the Full Scoop. Well, I thought it was cute—an illustrated history of ice cream with a pun for a title.

Think about it, though. Before electric freezers, no-one could have a carton of ice cream in their house. What a tragedy. And I think also about fictional Anne Shirley, who was just dying to go to her Sunday school picnic so she could have a taste of it, a treat so rare you were lucky if you had it once your entire childhood.

When I was little, I remember having homemade peach ice cream made with one of those huge, old-fashioned ice cream churners. The ice cream was good, but a little lacking in the frozen department—quite soupy, actually. Every time I remember having homemade ice cream that was the case. Then, we made it for a "lab" in my 9th grade science class, using two ziplock bags, lots of ice, and rock salt. It was pretty good. I was about to say something snide about the lack of educational value, but now I do seem to remember learning something about salt and the freezing temperature.

Modern conveniences are wonderful, really. My mom has an ice cream maker, all electric. You can make your own ice cream, free from preservatives and high fructose corn syrup, ready to eat, in about half an hour. Granted, that's if you discount the trip to Wal-mart to get the supplies, where everyone gets distracted by the sports equipment aisle and you end up waiting in line a lot longer than you expected, because who ever expects to have to wait in line anymore. At any rate, this evening was delightful for many reasons, not the least of which was the homemade Chocolate Almond Ice Cream.

On Books (Part Three)

I think my lifestyle is too media saturated. This afternoon I caught myself thinking what a shame it was that the book I read yesterday will probably never be made into a movie, because it would be wonderful.

But why isn't it good enough for it to just be a wonderful book?

My answer is that it is good enough. Shouldn't the two art forms be allowed to stay separate? I'm a huge fan of book-to-movie adaptations, but why? A book is a book and a movie is a movie. Completely different.

I wonder if the real reason I like movie adaptations is that it deepens my fan status. You've had this experience right? The one where you read a book you love, and then you go on a binge, trying to track down every other word the author wrote. When you've read everything, the only course left to satiate your appetite for your author-love is to watch a movie adaptation.

But if Charles Dickens were still alive, I think the honest truth is that I would probably rather go hear him do a public reading than go see a film adaptation of one of his books.

On Books (Part Two)

My sister lamented the other day that it's hard to consider oneself well read when one has moral scruples that render at least half the books out there unreadable. Sad, but true.

Most of the books I read come highly recommended by family members and friends, and the rest come from lists of the acknowledged classic literary endeavors—you know, 100 Books You Should Read Before You Go to College, Top 100 Books of All Time, etc. I have only made a few exceptions to these trends by picking some random book off a shelf when I knew little or nothing about it. One of them was Dodie Smith's I Capture the Castle, and another was Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger. Both of them turned out to be smashing hits for different reasons, but they could both be classified as "coming of age" stories.

"Coming of Age" used to be considered its own genre, it seems. Most of the books for teens and young adults prior to, and even after, the publication of the Harry Potter series, would fall into that category. The designation itself is almost derogatory. A middle school librarian friend of mine told me that when kids come to her for book recommendations, she always wanders the shelves with them and gives them lots of options. She's really good at that. But she told me that any time she mentioned a book as a "coming of age" story, it was sure to be left on the shelf rather than checked out.

There are so many factors that go into deciding to read or not to read. I almost never go by the summary on the back. I don't know who writes those things, and even if they've gotten a little better in recent years, they need to seek other jobs because they're botching the job they currently have. If anything, the summaries are what kill my enthusiasm after being drawn to a particular book due to pretty cover art, an intriguing title, or any of those other immediate recommendations.

Why does it take so much persuasion to get someone to read a book? Orson Scott Card wrote several books on writing, and I'm going to slightly modify one of his comparisons to state that reading a book you don't like could easily compare to going on a road trip with someone you don't like. The average book takes about ten hours to read, and who wants to spend ten whole hours with someone or something they just don't care about? And after you've been on two or even three road trips with really annoying people, wouldn't you start to hate road trips? Just like if you've read two or three stupid books before you've read many good ones, you'd start to hate reading.

Sometimes I am surprised at the number of kids and adults who still do like to read, all things considered—including those ridiculously saccharine and badly-written stories we were all tortured with as children. Fortunately for me, the first book I can remember having been read to me as a child (in kindergarten) was about Darby O'Gill stealing gold from the leprechauns and getting home to realize it had all fallen out through a hole in his pocket. If Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? is the only thing standing in the way between a kid and the recess playground, it's no wonder some kids hate books. I guess it made a difference to me that in kindergarten, I didn't like being in unleashed, unstructured times and places with lots of other kids. Even then, I preferred books to people.

It's easy to know where you stand with a good book. Reading books came easily to me; reading people didn't. First grade was fabulous (that was back when we didn't learn to read until first grade). I remember learning how to read, and feeling like I was finally good at something and that school might actually be worth it after all. Seriously, I wonder if that wasn't one of the best years of my life. But that was the same year I figured out I didn't understand other kids. I thought I was playing a game with a girl in my class during recess when she suddenly asked me why I was following her. This is undoubtedly very silly of me, but starting at that moment, I lost all confidence that other people wanted me around, and the only friends I've had have been the ones who have been very obvious about initiating a friendship.

I wonder if it's only in books that people are brought together by mutual love of books. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which sounds utterly inane when you just consider the title but is actually one of the more delightful novels I've read recently, has a character who is not very educated but who has developed a taste for Jane Austen. In correspondence, she writes that "reading good books spoils you for reading bad ones."

Books are like everything else, I suppose. I forget whose law it is who said that 95% of everything is crap. But I don't feel very secure in saying that, because I have attempted to write several books myself, and I would hate for them to turn out crap. We can take inspiration from the statement of Anton Ego in Pixar's Ratatouille when he says that "the average piece of junk is worth far more than our criticism designating it so." He also says that "the work of a critic is easy." I used to take issue with that, because I spent a good part of four years learning to be an intelligent critic. Now, I'm not so sure. There is a place for intelligent criticism, just as there is a place for flawed, or even failed, attempts at creation.

Because that is what a book is: a very lovely form of creation.

On Books (Part One)

I love to read books, and I love to read about books. Some of my favorite fictional characters are bibliophiles, and some of my favorite essays are about the joy and utility of reading. I am embarking on this meandering commentary, inspired by a book recommended by Heather, entitled Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Anne Fadiman. My thoughts are by no means exhaustive.

Last night I re-read a book that had a huge impact on me when I was a child. I think I was in sixth grade when I read it, only because I associate it with the library at my middle school rather than my elementary school, though the reading level is low and the complexity of the story is minimal. It's called The Girl With the Silver Eyes, by Willo Davis Roberts, who was, apparently, in her heyday in the late 1980s. What I hadn't realized until re-reading it now, nearly 2 decades later, is that this book shaped me not only as a reader, but as a writer. I unconsciously used the basic framework of this story for a novel I completed in 2005. Not that there weren't huge differences, of course, and it could not be considered plagiarism in any way, but what's interesting is that I had no idea that this little book had influenced me so much. It's a good book, to be sure, but not revolutionary or mind-blowing--nothing more than a simple story about a little girl with paranormal powers who only wants to belong to something.

The thing is, this little girl was a reader. She taught herself to read at the age of three, and she swallowed books whole from then on, allowing herself to become so engrossed that she forgot reality entirely, for hours at a time. It is a little cliché, but without that trait, I probably would have stopped reading. Telekinesis is a cool ability, but the fact that she loved books, well, that's what made me like her.

C.S. Lewis stated that "literary experience heals the wound, without undermining the privilege, of individuality." I'll have to go back and edit the wording of that quote, but it is one of my favorite concepts of all time—that all of us who love to read have at one time felt. I know some people read to escape. I don't. I read to connect. It expands your soul in a way that few other endeavors can, and at comparatively little cost. Lewis compares individuality to a wound. Everyone at some time or another has felt alone, abandoned, neglected, an outsider. When you read, you can share experiences with other people, lose the aloneness, without anything or anyone encroaching on your sense of self. You become immersed in someone else's identity without surrendering any of your own. It's beautiful.

Books as physical objects are probably going to, within the next 10 or 20 years, not necessarily disappear, but become less and less common. When that idea was first put about, I scoffed at it. Who could actually come up with any kind of substitution for a book? Why would anyone want to read a novel on a computer screen? Isn't the whole point of reading inextricably intertwined with the fact that you can do something very productive while lying in bed on your stomach? Then Amazon convinced me that it was not only possible to create an acceptable digital book, but that it was a good idea. I still worried about the future of print books, though.

Then, the further I got into library school, the more I became convinced that this direction was good. Furthermore, Apple launched the iPad, which has an e-reading application that works with multiple platforms of e-books. Print books would become a thing of the past, and good riddance—those bulky, incommodious things that make relocating so difficult and make packing for a week-long trip such a hassle, having to choose, choose, choose.

But honestly, I'm beginning to revert back to my old opinion. No substitution for a print book is going to be satisfactory. Period. Why? Because books are friends. I don't care how many bells and whistles e-books have; you might be able to e-highlight and e-annotate and e-mark for weeks, but it's not the same as touching the pages and writing notes in your own hand. You might be able to carry a thousand books on one device, but doesn't a good novel deserve its own physical space, disassociated with all the others? Where is the justice in forcing The Complete Works of Shakespeare to share dominion with XHTML for Dummies?

Simplify. Standardize. Water down. Invalidate. It starts with noble intentions, but where does it stop?

And on to another issue. Book abuse. Anne Fadiman considers the "misuse" of books to be a form of love and esteem. She shared a killingly funny story about her brother, who left a book open, face down, on his bedside table, and was rebuked by the maid, who chided him for treating the book with so little respect. I understand Fadiman's sentiment here, but I can't quite agree. I take the centrist view, though slightly leaning on the side of the maid. Do what you want with your own books, but I like mine to be well-kept and pretty, even if I have read them seven or eight times. Underlining and annotating don't count as abuse for me, but leaving it open face down will break the spine and make the pages start falling out. And then you have to make a difficult choice: replace it, or allow it to become a thing of the past? And why would I want to put myself in a position to have to replace a book when there are so many other books I could buy instead—books I might not have read yet and which might further alter the course of my life?

If it's library bound, there isn't much you can do to destroy it unless you plan ahead, but as most of us do not own library bound books, I feel I need to care for them as well as I can. The only exception I have made to this is in mutilating my combined copy of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility, because I needed to tear it apart in a unique way in order to use it as source material for a novel I started writing a few years ago. And anyway, that edition was a gift which, while I appreciated it, was not one I would have chosen for myself, being ridden with typographical errors and bad illustrations in addition to having an even more than usual unwieldy shape and size.

One of my 8th grade students' favorite days in the classroom (aside from the day I slipped on a posterboard and nearly kissed the chalkboard) was the day I did the demo on BOOK ABUSE. The school dictionaries were absolute crap, and I mean absolute crap as in none of the definitions made any sense and most of them were circular, as well as being a horrid shade of red that clashed wonderfully with our orange desks, orange carpets, and orange cabinet doors; so I could easily justify using them as guinea pigs for how not to treat a book. This included tossing it behind me, dropping it, knocking it off the desk, breaking the spine so it would lay flat without my hands holding it open, sitting on it, and other sorts of atrocities.

And when I first began thinking of my personal book collection as a personal library, I used to threaten my siblings with all sorts of ultimatums if they abused my books. Mostly the ultimatum was that if you don't treat it by my own personal standards, you will lose your borrowing privileges, which they mostly recognized as an empty threat, because I loved getting other people to read the books I liked. Still do. But some of my personal standards included: do not eat while reading my books, do not leave my books open face down, and most importantly, do not leave my books on the floor, even if it's not in a general walking path. I think my sisters have always considered me a little despotic about my things. But what would you do, growing up in a house full of five children, where personal possessions of any lasting nature were somewhat rare, and the only things you actually wanted to own (ruling out, of course, the horrible clothes procured from who knows where that you wore because you had to but wished you could die rather than appear in them in public) were the things you spent your own, hard-earned money on? A shelf full of books was something to be proud of. It's true I almost always had more stuff (books and music) than my sisters did, but that's because I worked hard to make money to buy them.

What lovely memories those trips to Bookstop are: finding yet another L.M. Montgomery novel to add to my bookshelf, using Dad's discount and spending my three dollars to go home and transcend myself. Never mind that the only reason I had that three dollars was because I babysat a troupe of little girls who never stopped talking and were constantly trying to look down the back of my shirt to see my bra. Or another troupe of little girls, of which the eldest tied me to a chair, locked me out of the house, and flooded the bathroom.

My library was bought with a price, and I was going to keep it pretty.

So, in writing this, I have come to the conclusion that while I am definitely not as erudite as Anne Fadiman (in spite of the fact that I'm a reader and a writer, I think my vocabulary sadly underdeveloped, and I hate word games and only know a few answers on Jeopardy), and I don't view the organization and care of books in exactly the same light, I don't love books any less than she does.

I told you this post was going to meander.