Random Things: A List

1. Hello. I know it's been a while since I've written. I'm not going to count the days because I don't have the time. tempo e denaro folks.

2. M and I celebrated our 7th anniversary last Saturday. We couldn't believe seven years had gone passed when it seemed possibly four years at the most. It has been a good seven years, challenging and wonderful at the same time. I remember the day like it was yesterday. We may have been late coming back from the hairdressers. The bridesmaids dresses may or may not have been closing properly, causing my three visiting aunts from Ontario to scramble after my three attendants to pin their dresses closed. Four or more pairs of black socks might have been borrowed from the pastor (who thankfully lived in a manse next door to the church) because the groom, the groomsmen, and possibly even the ushers did not remember to bring black socks. White socks with black tuxes - so classy. But it was a great day. I remember being nervous before the ceremony but being totally relaxed afterwards - it's done, we're married, now the party can start. I remember being served food and punch by my new father-in-law at the standing reception. Sushi - yum! Photographs, cruising around in a silver El Camino, laughing, enjoying the day. It was exactly the day we had planned out - a fun, relaxing day with eachother and our family and friends. We have been so blessed and are looking forward to many more years to annoy, I mean, love eachother.

3. To celebrate our anniversary, we went to Vancouver for supper and then strolled around the downtown area a bit. It was a beautiful, warm night that has been scarce this summer and we decided to grab a table at a pub right on the sidewalk and have a pint (or two). It was a great place to people watch. A woman walked by wearing acid-washed jeans and a fanny pack. A guy walked by with a bright yellow snake draped over his shoulders (yes it was real). Guess which scared me more? Hint: it wasn't the snake.

4. I love Swagbucks. I get free stuff for doing searches I would normally do for my job. It's awesome.

5. Just as I was working tonight I could not remember how to spell inevitably. It scared me. But then I spelled somatically right. So it's a wash. Phew, I'm okay.

6. My oldest baby A, turns 4 (four!) this Thursday. I'm in denial. I can't believe it has been four years. Where has the time gone? What a little pint-sized, fireball of blessing she has been. One is for sure - our life will never be boring.

6. I went to see The Wiggles with A as a birthday present. It was so much fun. I will be singing "Hot Potato, Hot Potato" the whole rest of the week but it was worth it. She had a blast singing and dancing. However, I have to say that riding the Sky Train made a bigger impression on her than seeing Anthony, Murray, Sam, and Captain Feathersword live on stage.

7. I have just said goodbye to someone I've spent a lot of time with the past few months and have known for almost a decade. It was hard shutting the book on that friendship, but I know I'll see him and his friends again, probably not for a while. Other old friends are clamouring for attention and I've been neglecting them and the new friends I could possibly make. I am talking, of course, of Harry Potter. The final movie came out a few weeks ago but I wanted to read the series over before I saw it. It was a bittersweet moment when I read the final page of the final book, knowing that the last movie was waiting for me to see it. And then what? I have a long relationship with Harry Potter. I started reading the series for a university class on Children's Literature. The books had been out before then and my sister loved them but I dismissed them as a fad. Then I was assigned to read the third book for my class. I decided to read the first two as well, to get the whole story. I was hooked by the first line. Since then, every year or so there has been the delicious, delightful anticipation of a new movie or book. But now that is gone and I am a bit sad. I felt the same way after finishing reading the whole The Lord of the Rings books consecutively. I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends, who I spent a lot of time with (albeit procrastinating studying for finals). Anyways, it's time to move on and so I'm looking for some recommendations.

8. Costco had Christmas decorations in their store on Monday. Seems like it gets earlier and earlier every year. Pretty soon the stores will just leave them up all year round.

9. I don't really have anything important to say in #9. I just didn't feel like ending at #8. My younger but taller sister is getting married in 10 days. Things are busy but exciting. You won't see me for a while, but hopefully I'll be back before September. Happy August!

My Favourite Things Monday: Books/Series

My Favourite Things Monday, on a Tuesday - do you see the trend here?

One might wonder how I find time to read, let alone re-read books, with two kids and a full-time job and a part-time job. But I do. I have to. It's a compulsion. I'm the kind of person who has at least two if not three books going at the same time. If I have three books on the go, one of them will be a cookbook. One is usually a fiction and the other is usually nonfiction. I go through the fiction faster than the nonfiction choice, but I like to have variety. And I usually like to leave my various books lying open all the around the house. I like it that way, but M doesn't. I don't really get it.

This week's theme is books that we like to reread. Ever since I had to read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for a university course, I fell in love the whole series. Almost fanatically. As in pre-ordering the books months before they came out. Staying up until the wee small hours in the morning, or sometimes not at all, because I couldn't put the book down. The seventh book came out a few years ago, and the final movie is due this summer. I really don't know what I'm going to do with myself, now that all things HP are finished.

Sigh.



I think I can manage to find something to divert myself from my pain and nostalgia.

As in re-reading the series again. For the nth time.

However, there are other diversions. I've discovered these great books called The Pink Carnation series. Regency era romantic spy suspense combines with a little Bridget Jones or Becky Bloomwood. The modern-day heroine is a history graduate student doing research in England. It's not a huge stretch to see why I like this.

I also return to Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility or the lesser known Persuasion once in awhile. Pretty much anything in the historical or historical fiction category will catch my attention. Other authors I like are Philippa Gregory or Micheal Phillips (although he can be very pedantic at times).

summer is here

A numbered list, not it any particular order, of what has been happening lately in our West Coast Grace life...

100. The number of jobs it seems like I've applied for... online, etc.

7. The number of rejections I've received. What are the other 93 people doing? I'm not sure, but I'm hoping they're falling over themselves at my transcription credentials.

1000. The number of times I've worried about jobs and feeling discouraged that I've received no positive feedback. It's also the number of times I've reminded myself that God is taking care of us and that He will provide. As a friend of mine keeps repeating on her blog, God is good all the time!

3. The number of weeks filled with beautiful sunny days we've had down here. Nothing is better than sitting outside eating lunch or dinner or just hanging out... and forgetting to put sunblock on your legs and almost getting a second-degree burn! Annie has a slide and a little pool and there's no better way spending the afternoon reading a good book and watching her play and splash around.

2. The number of days this past weekend that we spent at the beach, first the lake and then the ocean. It's also the number of sea snails that Annie threw at me yesterday at Crescent Beach. I didn't enjoy that too much.

1. The number of new words Annie seems to come up with every day. It's amazing to watch as she learns and grows... every day brings a new word or phrase or adventure. She's such a joy (except when she's teething, which brings me to my next point...)

4. Teeth (eyeteeth, that is) that are coming in at the same time in her little mouth... I will be so happy when they're all in.

494. The number of pages in the latest book I'm reading, Paris 1919 about the Paris Peace conference after WWI. Not your usual light summer reading, but I've had my eye on it for a long time. I am a history major after all.

9. I wanted to reach 10, but apparently I've run out of things to say...

10. The End.

the movie

This weekend I took part in a ritual sure to have been celebrated by people, mostly teenage girls, all across the continent, perhaps even the globe.

I watched Twilight, the movie.

I loved the books, as you can see here. But I was entirely ambiguous about the movie. It was disappointing in many ways, even giving moviemakers leeway with regards to the process of turning books into movies. Like I said on my FB page, at the risk of angering some pretty fanatic Twi-hards (the name for Twilight fans... although I really doubt that any of them would visit this blog...) Edward, who is a "tortured soul" kind of character in the book, looks constipated for most of the movie. The actor finally gets it right by the last scene. Jasper, not a main character but one of the more intriguing ones, looks the same way. I wonder how they could keep up the look that long while shooting such a lengthy movie. The only character I really thought was a perfect fit or who got the role right was the actor who played Bella's father, Charlie.

Another criticism I have of the movie is that it wasn't believable. I don't remember much from the acting course I took many years ago in college, but one thing that really sticks out is my professor stressing that what is going on onstage must be believable. It doesn't matter if it's written in the stage notes, if it's not done in a real way, the audience won't believe it and it will be forced and staged (kind of a paradox, really, that a play shouldn't be staged and it can't be forced even though you have to follow the stage directions).

I didn't really understand this until I was doing a dialogue with classmate and we had our coaching session. We were doing the scene from The Diary of Anne Frank where Peter and Anne have a conversation about movies and movie stars and Peter (finally) kisses Anne. My prof told me, Anne, that even though the stage directions said, Peter kisses Anne, Anne, in the scene, really works to get him to kiss her. If she didn't, and Peter kissed her anyways according to stage directions, it would seem false and fake. The kiss had to be believable. It had to come from somewhere, for some reason. Peter has to want to kiss her and the audience has to see that to believe the kiss is real.

I unconsciously apply that lesson to movies, even though it has more to do with the theatre. Most movies are not really lacking in the believable factor. But I found that Twilight was, especially when Bella and Edward are declaring their feelings for each other. Having read the book I knew that it had it to happen, but in the book you know all the feelings, thoughts and events that precede that scene. You know where they are coming from. In the movie, Edward has done little to cause Bella to fall in love with him and so their relationship feels forced.

But perhaps I'm reading too much into it. Movies based on books are rarely as good as the books are, with changes and shortcuts and different character interpretations. Imagination has no limits, which is what you use when you read; movies have to be within a certain time frame, they have a thrill factor and not be to complicated, etc. I do tend to give moviemakers a little leeway taking all that into consideration. But I guess I am a bit of a purist and tend to be critical when too big of changes are made or major things are left out(like the dragon scene in the movie version of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and when the actors chosen do not fit into my reading of the character. A few of the book characters who really come to life (for me) in the movie version were Winona Ryder who plays Jo in Little Women, Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn in Lord of the Rings, most of the actors in the Harry Potter series and, in part, the newest version of Pride and Prejudice.

There is a risk involved watching a movie based on a much-loved book. You are asking the director and the actors to form the feel of the book and its characters for you. You risk altering the world and characters your imagination has formed, based on the author's words. Sometimes that first impression doesn't come back and your view is tainted by a bad movie interpretation. I have had that happen and it is sad in a way. The author is the first one who came up with and created this world and those characters in the first place. Anything else besides his or her written words and your imagination is really just getting it secondhand.

(short) book review

So I cut my evening working hours short (at 10 p.m.) tonight in order to work on my lesson for Bible study tomorrow morning. But then I entered blogosphere and got distracted. Oh well.

So before I go just a quick paragraph on The Jane Austen Book Club. I read it because I love anything and everything Jane Austen except the movie Becoming Jane which is an entire fabrication of the great author's life (and I am fully aware I'm repeating myself. Maybe if I say it often enough, people will not be tempted to see that movie and also will tell everyone else in the world who went gaga over it that it is a LIE.)

Anyways, probably because of this great love I was really excited about the book and I imagined how I would write it if I would write about that. I guess I loved my ideas or expectations more because the book was a disappointment. Self-absorbed, self-pitying characters who are somehow in this book club together only because they love Jane Austen. They don't really know eachother that well, but they spend their time criticizing the others in the group (each chapter we get to see into another character's thoughts, but really, it's just a different tune to the same song that gets quite annoying after a while). They are so petty in their judgments and the author's attempts at providing the typically abusive, exotic, multiple-marriaged, self-tortured, sexually odd backgrounds for each of the characters feels contrived. But perhaps that is the point... the richness of Austen's characters juxtaposed with the pettiness and emptiness of hers... perhaps... it feels like a stretch.

I ended up skimming through the book. I don't often not finish a book because I do want to give an author the benefit of my doubts, although I am often disappointed when I do that (I shudder when I remember Mohintin Mistry's A Fine Balance... I hated it, but give me credit that I finished it). I would want someone to do the same for any of my writing even if they were intensely critical as well.

I am not giving this a recommendation. I guess it becomes a check on my reading list as one of those trendy books I read but didn't like or more likely didn't get. But when moving in certain circles at least I can sound smart.

two minutes

... to tell you about two interesting books I've started to read recently. The Year of Living Biblically, One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs. An editor-at-large for Esquire magazine, Jacobs decides to explore religion and faith and follow the Bible as literally as he can. I was only on the introduction and I was hooked. He is at time irreverent, but he actually asks some good questions and brings up good issues about faith and religion (which is surprising that he is so refreshingly honest, being a journalist..)

Also, The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I'm less sure about this one, but being a lover of all things Jane Austen (except the movie Becoming Jane which is really a total fabrication), this book has always been on my list.

I'll keep you informed as to how they go.

bibliophile

I am unashamedly in love with books. This love affair has lasted my whole life, nurtured by mentors and teachers who have shared their favourites with me and have recommended other literary treasures.

I knew I loved reading but I didn't realize how much I loved books until I returned to my local library today after an absence of almost 4 years (also, my previous fines followed me as well, much to my dismay). This was the library I had poked around for pretty much all of my childhood and young adult-hood (see here).

When I was in university I had a great library at my fingertips (Koerner Library) and plus I had an endless reading list taking History and English, so going to the library was the last thing on my mind.

Today I had what has been called "a Jonah day" (10 points if you know where that saying is from)... and when M came home he took one look at me and sent me out (I have such a good husband). I had been talking about going to the library because I had recently finished the Twilight series and was looking for something else to read.

So I went to my hometown library. As soon I as walked in I was bombarded by a whole host of good memories and just inhaling the scent of paper and glue and bindings lifted my spirits. As I nosed around the Classics and Canadiana sections and moved to Adult Fiction, I realised a few things: First, how much I just love books. The sight and smell of them, the endless possibilities they represent... Second, how much I miss my own library, currently sitting in boxes in a storage shed at my grandparents-in-law. Third, this library does not have a good selection. Fourth, this might have been the reason my teenage years were so full of random book picks (again, see here). Fifth, I might as well let the librarians do the work for me, so I went to the computer and requested all the books that I wanted to read but couldn't find. They will conveniently be delivered to my library where I can pick them up.

Anyways, do you remember that scene in the movie Beauty and the Beast where Lumiere and Cogsworth show Belle the library and the books reach up the ceiling and she needs a ladder to get to them all? (can you feel the excitement here?) That is my dream library! Built-in solid oak bookcases, hardwood floors, a big desk, deep leather armchairs with burgundy velvet ottomans and, of course, a fire crackling merrily in the hearth... a place where characters could come to life and you could be transported to an unknown land, all by picking up a good book...

In my younger days I had wanted to marry an member of the English nobility (not necessarily a duke or baron, a minor title would have suited) because those manor houses have fantastic libraries and that was the only way that I could see of obtaining one...the idea of being "Lady Di" also had its attractions... but it was those rooms full of first editions I was after...

Well, I married someone with a Dutch pedigree as spotless as my own and there you have it. And I must admit that building my own library has been a great adventure, one that I never would have had if I had married my English lord. What fun is there in books that are not your own? The whole fun in loving books is to make them your own, with pencilled in notes, underlines, spilled coffee or tea (or even oatmeal, if you're making oatmeal for breakfast and the book is so good you can't put it down, so you stir the cereal and read at the same time). The quest for the next book in an eagerly awaited series, the excited uncertainty when you pick a up a new author you haven't read before, the endless discussions (or agonies!) over good books with good friends (that Mr. Darcy! or Elizabeth or Harry or Edward or Emma or Tess or Anne).

One thing I am really excited about is the prospect of sharing this love with my little girl. To relive Bilbo's adventures or Anne's shenanigans with her will be so much fun. And perhaps one day in the far future, when I'm old and grey, grandchildren will come to my library, pick a favourite book, curl up on my lap in an old chair with a fire merrily blazing beside us and... who knows what adventures we will have? But I know for certain that it will be good.

word of the day: propinquity

I love words, especially words that sound interesting or are fun to say... some words you just want to say over and over again... letting them slide over your tongue like tiramisu or chocolate mousse... like the word slowly...

Propinquity is one of those words. It even has a wonderful meaning: (noun) nearness in space, time or relationship.

Origin: Latin propinquitas (nearness), from prope (near).

I don't know if I'll ever use this word in daily life or in a future novel, but it sure is fun to say.

in review

So I finished reading the Twilight series today and felt the need to write about it. Spoiler warning: if you haven't read or finished the series, continue you at your own risk.

I first heard about Twilight when the movie came out last November. I didn't even know it was a book, let alone a whole series. I must admit that I dismissed it (and disdained it as a teenage fad) immediately. To me it was just Interview with the Vampire for the next generation, kind of like Averil Lavigne is this generation's Alanis Morisette (although I think Alanis did it better).

I had done the Anne Rice and Interview with the Vampire thing many years ago. And I had moved on. I have a unique approach to reading... I obsess and then read all I can of a particular author or genre. I spent one summer reading Jeanette Oke and cannot and will not pick up another book of hers. I did the same thing with John Grisham (although I will pick up a new book of his if it looks interesting), Stephen King, Margaret Atwood, Thomas Hardy, Tolkien, Lewis, Irish writers, Canadian lit, Harry Potter, etc. I went through a lot of genres and authors this way. I had probably read a lot that I shouldn't have, or perhaps shouldn't have read certain things at the age/stage I was at. Most of the time I would just wander around the local library and pick up books that sounded remotely interesting. Your reading list is not boring that way, but you do get exposed to a lot of things you might be better off not knowing...

I had the same approach with the Twilight series. I probably would not have read it at all if my 17-year-old brother-in-law hadn't given it to me for Christmas. But once I picked it up, I was hooked. And I'm still trying to figure out why exactly this is. I mean for fantasy it is average. Harry Potter it is not. It does not even reach the same level as Lewis or Tolkien.

Maybe it is pure escapist fiction at its best and I was at a point in time where I needed something frivolous, mindless, vicariously exciting to give my mind a rest from stress, my course, trying to hear and identify the many different terms describing just how many different ways the human body can suffer (the cancer ones are the hardest).

However much I was hooked on the series there are some problems.

The story follows the story of Bella, your relatively average teenage girl who has real self-esteem problems. She falls in love with a member of the local vampire family Edward, who is the most perfect, wonderful, polite, beautiful, sensitive person on the planet. She can't get over how perfect he is physically, emotionally, personally. She reacts like a spineless jellyfish everytime he gets within two feet of her (although I do have to be honest to myself about this... M does the same thing to me). But her spinelessness goes deeper than that. Any self-respecting feminist would read this book and gag (as I did at times). It gets quite nauseating, but Bella just can't help herself... sigh... She's very descriptive.

This book is geared towards young adults/teenagers, an age group that already goes through mental hoops dealing with self-image, self-consciousness, etc. Reading this book would give me an even bigger complex.

I am probably not the best judge of this, being into many different kinds of books myself in my own teenage years, but I figured I was kind of an exception. I was a reader and that already set me apart from a lot of people. I was reading adult books when I was 14 or 15 so I didn't really know what Young Adult (YA) books were like. But I don't think they were as physical and sensual as this series is. Once Edward and Bella get together, the raging hormones take over. But since Edward is afraid of hurting Bella they don't ever take it all the way. However, they do seem to do everything else.

Also, all the characters seem to be stricken by extreme self-absorption and melodrama. Edward leaves Bella because he just can't take hurting her anymore. Bella just can't understand why someone as perfect as Edward can even be with her. Neither one can live without the other, literally (as book 2, New Moon describes). Jacob the werewolf, also in love with Bella, runs around in a funk of unrequited love and self pity.

I've had many discussions about this series with others who are fairly educated and well read. They too were hooked, although perplexed about it. One friend currently in college said she and her friends talked about how they could disguise the books so they could read them in class (the boring ones, of course).

On the other hand, I am a reader, a writer and a strong proponent of the written word. Even though I don't like everything about these books, I like the fact that kids and teenagers are getting excited about them. Anything that gets them away from the TV and computer and into a book is a good thing. Anything that gets them excited about books and reading is a good thing. And if the random and sometimes awkward literary references scattered throughout the series gets them into Wuthering Heights, Pride and Prejudice or even Romeo and Juliet it will be even better.

So, if average writing gets teenagers (and adults) excited about reading and entices them onto bigger and better things then, in review, lovesick, self-absorbed, vampire teenager melodrama just might be worth it.

Autumn

I know September has been over for a few weeks now, but I came across this passage while reading an author who has never failed to make laugh out loud, causing my husband and brother-in-law to give me strange looks. If you ever have a chance to read any of the stories from The Vinyl Cafe by Stuart McLean do so.

As I read this passage I had to chuckle, as M and I found ourselves in the same situation:

from Home from the Vinyl Cafe,

September is the most beguiling of the months. It is the month that won't let go of summer and it is the month that calls from the crow's nest of the year and announces, in the thinning air and morning dew, that summer is gone and autumn is already here. One day September will lull you into believing that you should assemble your things and mount a picnic on a Saturday afternoon - September is made for Saturdays. But when Saturday comes, you spend the morning fumbling around in the attic, looking for sweaters, because it is raining and cold. You look at the picnic supplies you gathered and you wonder how you could have been so misguided.

September is a month for plans and a month for no plans. The month of full shelves and empty fields. A time for leave-taking and taking stock. It is the end of summer and the beginning of all that is to come.