Thank You, Ms. Rowling

I tell you, J.K. Rowling has outdone herself.  A brief rundown for those of you who perhaps are not fans.  She did the Harry Potter series, obvs, which was a huge success.  Personally, other than the very first book - which, admittedly, was written for a very young audience - I thought her writing in those books was great.  Good plot, good character development, good themes.  All that goodness.

So, a few years ago when she released The Casual Vacancy, I flitted to the store and rushed home to immerse myself in it.  It sucked.  It really sucked.  I rallied and labored for a good 150-ish pages before giving up in despair.

But, then!

Then, this British author appeared on the scene, calling himself Robert Galbraith.  He published a mystery novel (Cuckoo's Calling) about a surly detective named Cormoran Strike, and his young, eager assistant, Robin.  It was marvelous.  It was a suspenseful story that kept me up at night, frantically flipping the pages, but there was more than plot.  The main characters were interesting, battling demons of their own.  There was good dialogue, good story development, and such good mystery. 

Turns out that Robert Galbraith is a pseudonym for J.K. Rowling.

I was hooked.

And then look what I got for Christmas!

Blurry pic taken on the treadmill - sorry.

She's at it again!  And I'm so happy!  In The Silkworm, detective Cormoran Strike finds a concerned woman in his office.  Her husband, a semi-prominent author, has gone missing. As Strike looks into it, he discovers that this author is not missing, but is actually dead, and was murdered in a very disturbing and significant manner...related to the ending of his latest (unpublished, unread) book.

Dun Dun DUNNNNNNNNNNNN.

It. Is. So. Good.

I highly recommend the Robert Galbraith novels.  I hope she writes a thousand more.

No More Leftovers - Time to Leave the House

This is how our house has looked for the last five days.

I'll spare you an image of how we have looked.  Suffice it to say that when I put my contacts in this morning, my eyes were like, what the crap is going on??  With several inches of snow on the ground outside, G tromped off to work, and I headed out for a tutoring sesh.

And look!  My student got a puppy for Christmas!  Guess what we did for an entire hour?  Spelled words related to pets, wrote sentences about the dog, sounded out words about animals, etc.  L-O-V-E.  I tutor this dude several times a week and plan to load up on baby puppy lovins.

It's not all puppies and rainbows over here, though.  I've gotten one (very surprised) student inquiry about a grade.  Howwwww can your grade possibly be a surprise, I want to screech ask.  I spend a lot of time trying to tally the pros and cons of teaching in my head in such a way that the pros come out on top, but I have yet to manage that.  **sigh**

Meanwhile, there's this one.  We call this position "The Loch Ness Monster."  It has earned her a new nickname: Nessie.

That's a stupid nickname.

Someone please take down these tacky Christmas decorations.

Since we have not a clean dish in the house, I guess I best do something about that.  I considered eating cereal with a large serving spoon this morning. 

G's Good Reads of 2014

And now, the moment for which I know you've all been anxiously awaiting: G's good reads of 2014. B specifically mentioned to me, several times, to make sure I labeled this as my list and not her list. No idea why she's so adamant about that...

This was a bit of a strange year for me as far as reading goes, in that I didn't read ANY science fiction; a little odd, given how big a sci-fi fan I am. My reading was off-kilter in general in 2014, due I think to three main factors: my job and commute (I have a long commute and I do a lot of reading in my job, so I don't always want to read when I'm home), and my tabletop wargaming habit (I got into a couple of new game systems in 2014--I'll spare you the details). So overall I didn't read nearly as much as I wanted to. I had grandiose plans at the beginning of the year to re-read the Harry Potter series and the Horatio Hornblower series (7 and 11 books respectively); I got through the fourth Potter book, and didn't even crack the Hornblower books.

That being said, I did read several notable books this year. Here I present my top five, in no particular order, for your perusal. As always, not all of these were published this year--I just happened to read them this year.

1. The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman.

As I'm sure you're all aware (and I think I mentioned this on the blog at some point this year), 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War One. In honor of that momentous occasion, I decided to read this book over the summer. The Guns of August is considered one of the finest examples of historical writing ever published, and it won a Pulitzer prize. Tuchman's writing is, indeed, outstanding. The book covers a brief lead-up to Archduke Ferdinand's assassination in June 1914, then delves into the political machinations throughout July of that year that lead to the numerous declarations of war, and finally chronicles the troop movements and opening battles in August, ending just before the first Battle of the Marne in early September 1914. If you ever wondered about how World War One started, this is an excellent book to read.

2. Storm Front, by Jim Butcher.

From the back cover: "Harry Dresden. Lost Items Found. Paranormal Investigations. Consulting. Advice. Reasonable Rates. No Love Potions, Endless Purses, or Other Entertainment." Storm Front is the first book in the Dresden Files, a series of novels about Harry Dresden, a down-on-his-luck private investigator who also happens to be a wizard (Chicago's only openly-practicing wizard, as it turns out). When he isn't doing gumshoe work, he's a part-time consultant for the Chicago Police Department for those crimes that they just can't figure out themselves (namely, crimes committed by other wizards, magical creatures, etc). Set in modern times, the Dresden books are part noir detective story, part fantasy, and if the rest of the books are like the first one, a whole lot of fun. Can't wait to get into the rest of the series.

3. The Emperor Far Away: Travels at the Edge of China, by David Eimer.

This is a fascinating look at the fringes of China, both literally and ethnically. Most Westerners have a specific image in mind when we think of someone from China. This "typical" Chinese person is likely of the Han Chinese ethnicity, the dominant ethnicity in China. What most people don't realize is that the country is actually made up of many, many different ethnicities, most of whom live in China's border regions. Eimer, a long-time journalist based in Beijing and Hong Kong, travels at the far edges of the country and introduces the reader to the people, religions, and customs that make up the other China, and discusses the current issues the Chinese government faces in dealing with these groups. The book's title is taken from traditional Chinese proverb: "The mountains are high, and the emperor far away."

4. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling.

I doubt the Harry Potter books need any introduction here. This is as far as I got in the series in 2014. I wanted to re-read them all, since my first read through these books was over the summer of 2010 when I pretty much downed them back-to-back-to-back. This time I'm going through a little more slowly, and picking up details that I missed on my first whirlwind tour through Hogwarts. The Goblet of Fire is my favorite of the series; after this point, the books take a much darker turn, and while I still enjoy the story, the last three for me are not as good as the first four. B and I have had endless discussions about this; she maintains that the overarching conflict with Voldemort defines the series, and I understand that, but I would have been fine with seven books set in Hogwarts itself. The thought of a magical school for young witches and wizards set somewhere in the hinterlands of Great Britain is just really cool, in my opinion, but the last three books stray away from that somewhat due to other events. B will roll her eyes when she reads this, but whatever.

5. The Cold War: A History, by Martin Walker.

Given the chronological, geographic, political, and military scope of the Cold War, it would be a daunting task for anyone to write a readable, one-volume account of this period of our history that wasn't over a thousand pages long. Martin Walker does a good job in this book, which clocks in at only 357 pages. He touches on most aspects and most geographic regions involved (the Cold War did extend beyond Central Europe, a fact that a lot of people, I think, tend to forget), while avoiding inundating the reader with too much detail or complexity. If you're looking for a primer on the Cold War, this is a good place to start. He sums up this period in a wonderful paragraph in the first chapter: "The Cold War was a truly global conflict, more so than either of the century's two world wars. South America and sub-Saharan Africa, continents which had been largely spared the earlier struggles, were sucked into its maw. Turks fought in Korea, Algerians fought in Vietnam, Cubans fought in Angola, and American and Russian schoolchildren, whose lessons had been interrupted by nuclear air raid drills, grew up to die in Saigon and Kabul."

So there you have them, my Good Reads of 2014. If you have any books you read this year that you want to recommend, we'd love to hear about them!

A Very Un-Christmasy Book

It's a snowy winter's day in Denver and we have nowhere to be.  You know what this means: another full day in pj's, my friends.

I kind of abandoned tradition this holiday season, perhaps just this once.  I haven't listened to my Christmas music because my iPod died.  And I haven't read my usual supply of Christmas books because, well, my time for "fun" reading is limited and I made the command decision to branch out and read (mostly) new-to-me books instead of ones I've read multiple times.  Considering that from January to May I won't have a spare moment to read anything outside of academia, I feel good about this choice.

So, my latest read was The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

Holy cow (pun intended).

I hadn't read this in school but I'd heard it was crazy gruesome and disturbing.  If you live in a cave like I do, I'll remind you that it's about the stockyards and meat packing plants of Chicago in the early 1900's (late 1800's).  Sinclair actually spent about 7 weeks in the packing plants, prepping his big expose that was intended to support unions and overturn the concept of slave-wages in America.  In actuality, it grossed people out about the meat plants (not so much about the poor workers) and resulted in America's Pure Drug and Food Act.

The book follows Lithuanian immigrant, Jurkis Klskdj;foiuelkjre;lajsodifja;l (the names are impossible) and his family as they try to make a life for themselves in a dump (literally) in Chicago.  Everything bad that can possibly come out of capitalism, Murphy's Law, and our sinful human nature happen to poor Jurgis in this book, I kid you not.  His experiences show the reader just about every awful aspect of the plants, the harsh winters, the inedible food, the non-existent hygiene, diseases that result from all of the aforementioned, and just how badly institutions can take advantage of people.

The book's gruesome reputation is well-deserved.  You won't want to chow down on say, beef jerky, while you read this.  Turns out Sinclair was a huge proponent of Socialism and the book ends with a honkin explanation of that philosophy.  The book, though, in total, is engaging and easy to read.  Despite the fact that all hell breaks loose and people's ears freeze off and there are more dead horses and pigs than you'll ever be able to get out of your head, it's a fascinating window into a dark part of early America.

Also?  If we ever end up with a boy rabbit, we're naming him Upton.

Eggs, Butter, and Sugar (or: Merry Christmas)

Merry Christmas, peeps!  I hope you are either eating, drinking, or slumbering at this very moment!  Today, as well as the past few days, has been filled with eggs, sugar, and butter.  There's no eloquent way to put it: that's the truth.

The official holiday nut around here (besides Lucy) is the pecan.  Are there any vitamins of note in these?  If so, I should be healthy as a horse.

Dark chocolate pecan pie = Merry Frikkin Christmas, people!

We were up and under the tree at 6:30 this morning.  I kid you not.  Coffee in hand and wrapping paper all over the library.  I am thrilled with my new gift: I requested a glider.  This will come in handy (read: will keep me awake) next semester when I have two lit classes and 400,000 papers to grade all the time.  Also?  We need to do some work in the side room.  It needs some decorative tender loving care.  All in good time.

No, I did not get out of my pj's today.  Why would you even ask?

In dawrighthouse today there have been movies and books and cookies and chex mix and bunny lovins (not) and mimosas and naps and Xbox playing and more books and yummy deliciousness.   And episodes of Smallville.  Pretty soon there will be episodes of Frasier because I got some DVD's as gifts. (Best. Show.  Ever.)

There has not been work or grading or syllabus planning or exercise or cleaning.

I'm gliding away as I type this.  Just so you know.  Wheeeeeee.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's Beginning To Look a Lot Like Christmas

I was going to title this post, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," because it's snowing and looks like the middle of the Arctic out there.  But, it's not actually all that cold.  Or maybe I'm finally adjusting to life in the mid-West and my skin has, in fact, finally turned to leather.

So, inside and outside, it's beginning to look a LOT like Christmas.  I'm down to just one student to tutor over the break.  That said, we meet several times a week, so somewhere in my subconscious I can convince myself that I'm actually making money. 

Hold on while I chuckle to myself.

G says his paycheck laughs at my paycheck.  Then we are both like, wait, what paycheck??  Yeah.

I haven't written lately because I've been too busy sleeping and reading.  I read our latest Lit Society book (<-- more to come) and it motivated me to read a closely-associated book (<-- more to come) then I tried to read a book I borrowed and couldn't get into it and now I'm totally into another one.  I'm averaging one 2.5-hr nap each day.  I'm napping so much that I'm not sleeping all that well at night, (GAWWW, I know, I know), so every day I tell myself I'm not going to nap, and a couple hours later I wake up with a book on my face.

But I have managed to do some things, like watch the season finale of Homeland.  Today I spent our life savings at the grocery store and we are now stocked for Christmas and New Year's deliciousness.

This Pinot Noir is amazing.

I spend a lot of time sitting here staring at the tree.

Our Christmas package from G's parents was broken into somewhere in transit and all of the food was taken.  Chex Mix, home made cookies, and one gift.  The remaining gifts were here, but the wrapping paper had been ripped off them.  I guess the thieves didn't like our taste in books and dvd's.  

Speaking of Bah Humbug...

Planning the Spring semester is going to be the death of me.  I've decided to change around a lot of things, so I spend an hour or two on this every day.  Hence the napping.

I've also managed to drag myself into the kitchen.  I have a whole baking schedule this week.  Today's agenda included these cookies, and yes, I know they don't constitute actual baking...

 ...and home made Chex Mix, which does, in fact, constitute hours and hours of baking.  Tomorrow things get way more complicated.  As does each subsequent day as we work up to the Big Bang on Thursday.

Here's hoping you're off to a good start to this holiday week!

More Break, More Books

I would just like to say that I didn't get out of my pj's at all yesterday. 

I keep thinking I should work out, but since that involves changing into workout clothes, and leaving the couch, it hasn't happened yet.

But, reading?  Reading has happened.

Lit Society was the other night and it was wonderful.

Here's what I love about these people.  It was "my night" to bring the food and a couple of days before, NKC (<---Nat King Cole) texted me and asked if it was a problem if Chef Campo made homemade crab cakes.  A problem, I said?  Yawn...sigh...nah, I guess that's OK.

Hello???  Of course that's OK.  Why don't we all just have a moment of honesty and decide that I shouldn't bring food anymore?  That Chef Campo should be designated our Lit Society Chef In Residence and be brought at least into the periphery of our group?

HOME MADE CRAB CAKE SANDWICHES

Served with a fresh slaw salad.

It seems like there was something else I was going to tell you.  Oh, yes.  The book.

For last month's non fiction choice we read Being Mortal by Atul Gawande.

He is a surgeon, a visiting professor at Harvard, a writer, a husband, and a father of several children.  And the man can write.  Slacker.  Maybe I should reconsider spending entire days in my pj's.  Ah, we all know that will never happen.

Being Mortal tells the convoluted history of how we in America have come to deal with the "problem" of aging and death.  It tells the history of nursing homes and hospices, and points out socio-cultural views about dying (i.e. what is dying? Do we even know?), aging, the role of death, and what it means to live a good life.  While it is not the most uplifting book in the world, it is also not depressing, per se.  It is often humorous, even.  It raises legitimate questions about the role of medicine in prolonging life, and how much we are willing (or not) to sacrifice quality (often at horrific costs) in favor of quantity. What do we want out of life?  How can we have a bit of control, so to speak, over a quality death?  I highly recommend this book and want to read his others.

I also just finished The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom.  G was like, what is up with you this year?  Anorexia?  Death?  The Holocaust?  What's next, airplane bombings?  Maybe an in depth study of 9/11?

The man has a point.  But still, such a good book.

I'm probably the last one to this party because I'm extremely careful about reading Holocaust books.  The stories and images and events are so disturbing that I can't really let them go.  It affects me deeply, so I'm not one to pore through tons of WWII books. 

But, this one.  Wow.

Everyone in the world (literally) knows this already, but I'll explain anyway.  Corrie Ten Boom was a watch maker in a small Dutch town during WWII.  She was in her late 40's, living with her older sister and elderly father.  What started out as helping to hide a few Jews eventually led to Corrie's house becoming headquarters for the Dutch underground.  You know what's coming.  They were discovered and she and her sister - in their fifties - were sent to prison and then to Ravensbruck concentration camp.

She barely survived.  But it's not really about survival; it's about holding onto God's love and sharing it with others.  Her and her family's faith is staggering.  And so are some of the miracles that occurred because they believed and risked their lives to share their faith.  The book is remarkable.  If you, like me, somehow missed this, go pick it up!  It's a treasure!

Today will most likely be another pj day.  At least until this afternoon when I have a tutoring sesh.  However, today begins true prep for next semester.  There is a detailed syllabus and new grading rubric in my future.  Somewhere.  After I leisurely sip some coffee and stare at the Christmas tree.

Books lately

Now it feels like holiday break.  I can deal with this.  Only a couple more tutoring seshes this week, almost all the Christmas shopping is done, grades are in.  This is how I like it.

First up, Dracula by Bram Stoker.  A couple of misconceptions I had about the book before reading it: Bram Stoker wasn't British, he was Irish.  The book was published in the very late 1800's and reads in a remarkably modern tone.  I had expected it to read like a classic, if you know what I mean, and that I would squint my way through it, but it was quite engaging. 

The story is told in the form of journal entries from several different - and at first, seemingly unrelated - characters.  One is a doctor who works with a particularly unpleasant man in an asylum.  One is a solicitor who is sent far East to sort out the affairs of Count Dracula and realizes that something isn't right.  One is a prominent professor who starts to take the supernatural seriously.  One is a young woman who ends up being the heroine of the book.  A weird one to read at Christmas time, I'll give you that, but it's good!

Next up is An Apple a Day by Emma Woolf, the great-niece of Virginia Woolf.  I read this book a couple of years ago during the Africa trip and recently picked it up for another go.  Emma is a recovering anorexic in her mid-thirties who has been struggling with the disorder for 14 years.  It's a fascinating peak into such a strong and destructive mental and physical illness.  I will say that at times, it's a little over the top.  She travels the world with her journalist boyfriend and there are a few eye-rolling parts where he's scouring the streets of like, Cape Town, on a rainy night trying to find a sweat shirt for her while she waits in the hotel room.  There are plenty of parts where he pulls the chef aside in whatever elaborate foreign restaurant they find themselves in and makes a plea for simple steamed veggies.  Inevitably, they arrive with butter on them and the whole dinner is a disaster.  It's hard not to be like, Oh, please.  It's hard to understand why anyone would choose to be around her.  But then, that's part of her point.  The disorder, in the end, takes everything from its sufferer and is yet almost impossible to overcome.  It's fascinating.

Tonight is Lit Society (!) so I'll have another good book review up soon, along with food pics (you know that's part of it).

Excuse me while I go make another cup of coffee and check that Lucyfer isn't chewing on our Santa Claus decorations...

Farewell, Fall 2014

And just like that (not really, it took forever), all my final grades are calculated and entered.

Fall 2014 is officially over.

This is how the library has looked for about 4 days.

I plan to celebrate by eating leftovers of this pepperoni pizza bake I made last night.  It's divine.  Next time I'm going to add sundried tomatoes and a hint of marinara sauce. 

I've been jotting down a lot more lessons learned about teaching, but alas I do not have the energy to deal with them right now.  Also, book posts.  Currently can not analyze information or form a coherent thought.

Which means I need to go watch the latest episode of Homeland and be glared at by this one.

I plan to do absolutely nothing productive other than prep for the 7 hours of tutoring I have tonight.

Again I Ask You: WHAT HOLIDAY BREAK?!

Let me just say that on this Saturday morning I have spent (so far) two hours grading.  I have 5 final grades done.  20 more to go.

In hindsight, I could have been a lot more organized throughout the semester.

Also?  One of my tutoring students is freaking out about a paper due this week, so I agreed to work with her on it for a couple of hours this afternoon.

So again with the non-existent holiday break.  Lucy and I are not cut out for this fast-paced lifestyle.  But at least we can work in our pj's...so there's that.

There may be home made chili in our future.

TWENTY MORE FINAL GRADES TO CALCULATE????

There's been yet another change in the ole job category of my life: I resigned from the K-8 school.  I got a much-coveted position on campus as a writing consultant.  It was actually easier than I expected to resign; it's almost time for the holiday break and kids are absent and sick, and it's generally chaotic.  I will certainly miss some relationships there, and I learned a lot about education, kids, teaching, and myself.

However.

Although all of my jobs this past year have had an educational component in common, it will be nice that now my two main ones will be composition-focused.  I think they will reinforce each other, and the only (partial) outlier will be tutoring, which is fine.

I'm more excited than I'm showing on here.  Mainly because I'm starting to freak out a bit about the work load next semester.  Why did I think it was a good idea to teach TWO classes?  THEN why did I think it was a good idea to completely overhaul my syllabus and create hours and days and weeks of more work for myself?  In addition to taking TWO literature classes?  Oh, and starting a new job.  A career-level, contributing-to-my-future, most-likely-IS-my-future job?

I need a drink.

TGIF people!

Sometimes you just really need bottled water.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Someone needs to turn off these tacky lights.

 

Do I smell cookies?

 

Jingle Bells?  Really?