Thursday, April 29, 2010

"The Battle of the Labyrinth"

One of the cool things about Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians books is that the Greek gods move around the world with western civilization, and their places move with them. That means that Mount Olympus is in New York, and the entrance to the underworld is in California. I'd like to talk a little about one of the places that moves, so of course there's kinda a spoiler in this post.

I say "kinda" because all I'll really talk about is the place and where it is. So if you don't mind hearing about where Percy Jackson winds up going in the book then read on. But if you'd rather find out where he goes by reading the book, then read no further.

MINOR SPOILER ALERT

I'd like to talk about Hephaestus' forge in Mount Saint Helens.

I've grown up pretty close to Mt. St. Helens. Well, relatively close, anyways. We only have to drive a couple of hours to get there. And when there aren't ridges or trees (or clouds) in the way, we can see her from the Portland area. I've also grown up hearing about the history of the volcano, but I honestly don't know if people outside of Oregon and Washington are familiar with it. So I'll tell about the great 1980 eruption, and I would love to hear from my followers whether or not you were already familiar with the history.

About the eighties Mt. St. Helens started doing what volcanoes love to do: getting active. Long story short, the volcanologists said that she would explode to the south, and evacuated a bunch of people south of Mt. St. Helens. After a bit of time the volcanologists decided that nothing was going to happen, and allowed everyone to return home. But guess what? They were totally wrong, and about more than one thing.

Not only did Mt. St. Helens explode, she exploded to the north, not the south as predicted.

It was a disaster, and many people died. But I'm going to be lazy, and rather than try to explain it all myself I'll copy and paste from the Wikipedia article about Mt. St. Helens.

"On March 20, 1980, Mount St. Helens experienced a magnitude 4.2 earthquake.[2] Steam venting started on March 27.[23] By the end of April, the north side of the mountain started to bulge.[24] With little warning, a second earthquake of magnitude 5.1 May 18 triggered a massive collapse of the north face of the mountain. It was the largest known debris avalanche in recorded history. The magma inside of St. Helens burst forth into a large-scale pyroclastic flow that flattened vegetation and buildings over 230 square miles (600 km2). Over 1.5 million metric tons of sulfur dioxide were released into the atmosphere.[25] On the Volcanic Explosivity Index scale, the eruption was rated a five (a Plinian eruption).
The collapse of the northern flank of St. Helens mixed with ice, snow, and water to create lahars (volcanic mudflows). The lahars flowed many miles down the Toutle and Cowlitz Rivers, destroying bridges and lumber camps. A total of 3,900,000 cubic yards (3,000,000 m3) of material was transported 17 miles (27 km) south into the Columbia River by the mudflows.[26]
For more than nine hours, a vigorous plume of ash erupted, eventually reaching 12 to 16 miles (20 to 27 km) above sea level.[27] The plume moved eastward at an average speed of 60 miles per hour (100 km/h) with ash reaching Idaho by noon. Ashes from the eruption were found collecting on top of cars and roofs next morning, as far as the city of Edmonton in Alberta, Canada."
Now that is one amazing volcano. And because of her recent history I think that Mt. St. Helens is the perfect place for Riordan to have placed Hephaestus' forge, because the ancient monster Typhon is stuck under the volcano. And to quote Hephaestus on the subject:
"Typhon is trapped, you know. Used to be under Mount Etna, but when we moved to America, his force got pinned under Mount St. Helens instead. Great source of fire, but a bit dangerous. There's always a chance he will escape. Lots of eruptions these days, smouldering all the time" (193.)
When I read this I was like "Oh my gosh, this is so perfect!!!" I could tell that Riordan had done his homework. The book was written in 2008, and this beautiful volcano became active again in 2004.

So I guess that the whole point of this post is to say: Good job, Rick Riordan. You did your homework, and it shows. :)

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Soliloquy

For school I need to memorize a soliloquy from one of Shakespeare's plays. I settled on the following one from "Twelfth Night."

"I left no ring with her. What means this lady?
Fortune forbid my outside have not charmed her.
She made good view of me; indeed, so much
That, as methought, her eyes had lost her tongue,
For she did speak in starts distractedly.
She loves me sure; the cunning of her passion
Invites me in this churlish messenger.
None of my lord's ring? Why, he sent her none.
I am the man. If it be so, as 'tis,
Poor lady, she were better love a dream.
Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness
Wherein the pregnant enemy does much.
How easy it is for the proper false
In women's waxen hearts to set their forms!
Alas, our frailty is the cause, not we,
For such as we are made of, such we be.
How will this fadge? My master loves her dearly;
And I (poor monster) fond as much on him;
And she (mistakenly) seems to dote on me.
What will become of this? As I am man,
My state is desperate for my master's love.
As I am woman (now alas the day!),
What theiftless sighs shall poor Olivia breath?
O Time, thou must untangle this, not I;
It is too hard a knot for me t' untie."


"Twelfth Night" is funny, and I really like it.

I figured I may as well share the following photo, which demonstrates a technique I am using to help me learn it.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

"Eclipse"

I finished Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer last night. Without giving anything away in this particular paragraph, let's just say that I'm a little irritable with all the characters now.

SPOILER ALERT

There was one thing Bella did that I liked, which was punch a certain guy who didn't seem to understand that "no" means "no," and that she didn't want him to kiss her. Unfortunately it was a little pathetic when she broke her hand punching him, but at least she tried.

And after the times that Jacob kept ignoring Bella saying "no," and the ways he tried to manipulate her into "realizing that she loved him," I don't really like him so much any more.

In Edward's favor, sorta, he did become a little more reasonable. But I think he became more reasonable because he figured he didn't have a choice, not because he saw the light and realized that he should change his ways. He as good as says that at one point in the book. (I think it's when he's talking to Jacob in the tent towards the end of the book, when they think that Bella is sleeping.) So I still don't like him very much.

So whose team am I on? I'm definitely not Team Edward, and after this book I'm not Team Jacob anymore. I'd say I'm Team Bella.

What do I mean when I say Team Bella? I mean that she ought to step away from these two manipulative guys and start a life of her own. Maybe go to college in Florida like her mom wants her to -- it's probably too sunny for the vegetarian vampires to live there comfortably, and a certain werewolf hopefully wouldn't follow her that far away from his pack.

I might or might not read the next book. I'm not sure. Ok, I probably will. But I am a little more excited about reading the next book in Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

"Eclipse"

I got ahold of Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer yesterday. (I'll try not to hide in it like I hid in The Battle of the Labyrinth the other day.) I continue to dislike Edward.

SPOILERS ON THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS

It's only the first two chapters, but I still figured it was only fair to warn people.

In New Moon Edward had told Bella that he would personally make her a vampire on the condition that she marry him. Somehow that strikes me as hitting below the belt because Bella doesn't want to marry him, despite the fact that she wants him to be the one to bite her. So she's torn. Should she marry him so that he'll bite her, or should she let Carlisle do the honors even though she'd rather it be Edward? This is something she ponders in the first chapter.

As I said, this doesn't seem very nice.

Also not very nice is the fact that Edward will not allow her anywhere near her best friend, Jacob, because he's a werewolf and as such supposedly too dangerous. The last time I checked, the word "boyfriend" is not synonymous with "keeper." And if Edward really thought about it I think he would realize that hanging out around a werewolf is no more dangerous than hanging out around vampires.

And then when Bella doesn't want to finish filling out an application to Dartmouth College, Edward takes it from her to finish filling it out. He also says that he will sign her name to it for her, despite Bella's protests.

To top it all off, Edward suggests something to Bella's dad, Charlie, that Bella didn't want to mention for another week or so. You see, Bella had gotten a couple of air plane tickets for her birthday so that she could visit her mom. Bella wants to use them, but she has just been ungrounded and she wants to give her dad a bit of time to start really trusting her before she brings it up. But Edward brings it up, and it turns into a fight with her dad, as Edward must have known it would (but only because Edward is going with her).

Yep, that's all in the first two chapters. He does get a little more reasonable later on in the book, however.

SPOILER FOR LATER IN THE BOOK

After Bella has escaped twice to hang out with Jacob, Edward finally gives up on keeping her away from the werewolves. I'm hoping he continues to become more and more reasonable later in the book.

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

The gods and Percy Jackson

As I discussed in the previous post, I just finished reading The Battle of the Labyrinth, which is the fourth book in the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan.

One of the cool things about the series is that the Olympian gods are still around and are still doing their thing.

Now, being a Pagan who believes in Polytheism and as such believes that the Olympian gods are still around, I have to ask: what do the gods think of the books? I suspect that one or two of them might be irritated at how they're portrayed (such as Hera and Ares) and yet I can't help but love this series.

So I'd like to ask any of my readers who have read the books, what do you think the gods think of them? And if you don't believe that the gods are still around then you can switch the question around to this: what would the Olympian gods think if they were still around? Either way, I'd love to hear what people think.

"The Battle of the Labyrinth"

I've been running from my problems by hiding in my books. This isn't the healthiest coping strategy, but it did mean that I read The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan in less than twelve hours yesterday. And now I'm here to chat randomly about it. And when I say randomly, I mean randomly.

But first, this is the fourth book of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. I wrote about the book series previously in this post.

Now, on to the random stuff.

WARNING: MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD

I just knew that Rachel Elizabeth Dare would be in later books!

And I think it's silly that Annabeth was jealous of her. Then again I've never been jealous of a guy. Oh, wait, that isn't strictly true...

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The time where Percy winds up on Calypso's island is...I dunno. It seems so outside of the story. Yet it fits, somehow.

And while I was reading that part I couldn't help but think of the Calypso in Pirates of the Caribbean. The character is so different.

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It is SO COOL that Mt. St. Helens is in the book!!! I've lived around Portland pretty much my whole life, and that volcano is visible from the Portland area when trees and ridges aren't in the way.

When they talked about the volcano being active recently I checked the publishing date: 2008. That's about when Mt. St. Helens started doing her thing recently. It looks like someone did their homework before writing the book.

I'm rather fond of the volcano, in case you hadn't guessed. Maybe I should do a post just about her (the mountain), to talk about the history and how it seems (to me) to fit with the story.

~~~~~~~

I love at the end when Poseidon meets Sally's boyfriend and calls him Blowfish. It might not be so funny if that weren't exactly what Percy had called him in the previous book. Rather amusing.

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When Percy and Poseidon are talking at the end, Poseidon tells Percy that he's his favorite son. Somehow that doesn't sound like great parenting to me. I mean, aren't parents not supposed to have favorites?

And what about the sand dollar? What role will that play in the next book?

Saturday, April 17, 2010

"Zen Kitty"

Wow, my followers jumped from being 3 to 14. Where did you all come from? Wait, let me guess, Page Turners Book Club?

Anyways...

I went by a bookstore last night with a friend. I told myself that I would not buy any books, but guess what? I did.

I bought Zen Kitty by Vanessa Sorensen. It is an absolutely beautiful book, with words of wisdom and humor throughout it, accompanied by illustrations by Sorensen herself (who happens to be a graphic designer).

The words of wisdom and humor in it come in the form of poetry. They are each three lines, resembling haiku. I'm tempted to go into the difference between them and true haiku, but I'll restrain myself.

I would like to share an excerpt from the book which I can totally relate to, since I live with three cats.

"Sleeping Humans
Pounce
Awaken!"
You can see photos of a couple of pages here, which unlike my excerpt also show the illustrations from the book. Coincidentally you can also buy the book from Amazon.com through that link...I just thought I'd mention that... :)

This is a fantastic book, and I'm glad I got it. I highly recommend at least checking it out from your local library.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

"Hamlet"

I finished watching the movie this evening. I hadn't known that it was a tragedy and was surprised when people started dying at the end. I figured it out pretty quickly, though, and eagerly anticipated the last few deaths.

Yeah, I know, I can be sort of morbid.

But I do have a few random things I want to comment on, and random questions to ponder.

~~~~~~~

"HORATIO: My lord, I came to see your father's funeral.

HAMLET: I pray thee, do not mock me, fellow student;
I think it was to see my mother's wedding" (p 63-5*).


It seems to me that the mother's wedding is the father's funeral, in a way. After all, part of the reason that Claudius murdered his brother was so that he could marry Gertrude, Hamlet's mother.

What do you think?

~~~~~~~

Was Gertrude in on the plot to murder Hamlet's father? I'm still not sure on this point. Then again, maybe it's a point that is never cleared up? I'll need to keep my eyes open when reading the book.

~~~~~~~

Half the time I think that Hamlet is crazy, and half the time I think he's brilliant. Hmm...

~~~~~~~

The opening scene starts at midnight, but in just a few minutes it is dawn. Huh? Was Shakespeare taking poetic license, or is there some meaning in the quick passage of time?

~~~~~~~

Yep, I have a lot to ponder.


*The book I got my page numbers from is "Hamlet: Bringing Shakespeare to Life" the editor of which is Terri Bourus.

Friday, April 9, 2010

"Hamlet"

As I mentioned before, I'm reading Shakespeare's Hamlet for school. To help me figure out what's going on I got an audio book of it, and I also got the DVD of the play from the university library. I haven't watched the whole play yet, but I wanted to write down my observations and comments. And yes, I think this does actually qualify as school work, since I'm trying to get my thoughts in order here. :)

I watched about the first three hours of it the other night without subtitles, and then I watched the first two hours of it with subtitles tonight.

Without subtitles I could barely understand what was being said. I was able to figure out the plot and what was going on, but I could barely understand the words. The subtitles helped me a lot, and I was finally able to (almost) always understand what was being said. I think I am ready to sit down and start reading the book.

Something that interested me was how Hamlet brought to his mother's attention, and her husband's attention, that he knew exactly who had murdered his father: there was a play they all attended, and Hamlet had given the actors some extra lines ahead of time in which the murder of his father was described in detail. Of course the actors had no clue that they were describing a real murder, but Hamlet's mother and step father understood.

It's a story told in a story. A story within a story.

It reminds me of Susan Fletcher's book Shadow Spinner. In it the greatest story teller of all time, Shahrazad, says something to the effect of: "Sometimes the most dangerous truths cannot be told outright. Instead, they must be told in the guise of a story." That's sort of what Hamlet does.

It also reminds me of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night Dream. A company of actors perform a play in this play, and so there is also a story within a story in A Midsummer Night's Dream. At first I thought that it was just a cute little thing thrown into that play, but after Hamlet I'm beginning to wonder if there was really something to it. Hmm...

And yes, I know these are random ramblings. I am simply trying to get my thoughts down, and I know they aren't in any particular order. Order will come later (hopefully).

Correction

In this post I complained a little because I had Stephenie Meyer used the Quileute tribe -- a real Native American tribe -- in her books, even though Forks was a "fictional location." (And that's me I'm quoting here.)

Well, Carrie read my post and pointed out to me that Forks is a real place. I'd heard that it was fictional a while ago so I was quite surprised to hear this. But sure enough, when I went to GoogleMaps.com, there it was right next to Quileute land.

Thank you, Carrie, for pointing this out.

Anyways, I figured I should just get this straightened out, and acknowledge that I had posted something that was inaccurate.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

"Avalon High"

I've been bouncing from one book to another recently. It's a little crazy, but whatever. Anyways...

I started listening to Avalon High by Meg Cabot. I've read it before, and it's the new book I'm listening to as I go to sleep at night.

Elaine's parents are professors who are on their sabbatical. That means that Elaine has to uproot from her own home and move to the East coast, just so that her dad can get closer to his research subject (a sword in a museum), and that Elaine has to start over at a brand new high school. Oh yes, and once her year at the school is done, about the time that she'll be settling in? That's when her parents will drag her back home, so that she'll be returning to the school she was at to begin with.

To say that Elaine is somewhat irritable with the situation would be an understatement.

The only saving grace is that there is a swimming pool in the backyard of the house her parents are renting on the East Coast. Elaine is in love with the pool, and spends the first several minutes of the book talking about it. And no, it's not boring: her stories, such as what she did with the snake in the filter, keep it interesting and fun.

So after a summer of floating in the pool (she spends the vast majority of her time in and around the pool) she finally starts back to school. And, by the way, three of her classmates are named Lance, Jenny, and Marco.

Well, let's see...Lance's name is a lot like Lancelot, the name Jenny comes from Guinevere, and Marco sounds a bit like Mordred. Oh yeah, and Elaine is named after none other than the Lady of Shalott.

Yep, that's right, Avalon High is a modern day retelling of the King Arthur legend.

Each chapter starts with lines from a poem about the Lady of Shalott, and I just thought that I would share a song containing those same words. It's a little long, but very good.


Monday, April 5, 2010

Shakespeare

For school I'm reading three of Shakespeare's plays: Hamlet, Twelfth Night, and Henry IV, Part One.

I've seen the DVD's of the plays Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliette, and Much Ado About Nothing. I had no trouble following those. So when I sit down to read Henry IV this afternoon, I was shocked to find that it is hard reading!

What in the world do all these words mean? What language is Shakespeare writing in? Whatever it is, it's easy to follow when spoken, but not when read.

So I'm getting audio books and DVD's to help me figure out what in the world is going on in the plays.

This class does promise to be great. I just need to figure out how to understand the books. :)

Sunday, April 4, 2010

Question about werewolves

Just a couple of random thoughts about New Moon. Oh yes, and I'm afraid again that...

SEMI-SPOILER ALERT, kinda

When Jacob and the others turn into werewolves, their shoes and shirts are torn apart unless they take them off first. But, what about their pants? I hear about them running around topless all the time, so do their pants phase with them or do they neglect to mention to Bella that they have to stash away clothing in places so that things don't get embarrassing?

There was also something else I was wondering about, but now I can't remember what! Agh! Oh well.

Saturday, April 3, 2010

"New Moon" and racism?

I was thinking about New Moon this evening, and it occurred to me: does it look at racism? You won't need to have read the book to understand what I'm talking about, since I'll explain it, but still...

SPOILER ALERT!!!

I figured it was only fair to warn you.

You have werewolves, and you have vampires. The werewolves only exist because of the vampires -- when vampires are in the area, a few of the youngsters of the Quileute tribe turn into werewolves. (I actually just discovered via a Google search while writing this post that there is really a Quileute tribe, and am a little shocked. Forks, the place where the main character Bella lives isn't real, so why did Meyer use a real tribe?) A few generations before the story takes place there was a werewolf pack, and in New Moon there is a pack of five werewolves.

The werewolves don't like the vampires. I guess this is a little understandable, because their whole purpose in life is to hunt vampires. After all, none of the Quileute youngsters will turn into werewolves unless there are vampires in the area, and they resent the vampires for that.

But it goes beyond simple disliking. Bella's best friend, Jake, who happens to be a young werewolf, tells her "Vampires don't count as people" (p 359).* And later, one of the other werewolves seemed "amused that the vampire had had a name" (p 381).* So it seems that vampires are only prey to them, not real people.

The dislike seems to be mutual. Yet when I go back to reread the parts where Jake meets two of Bella's vampire friends, I can't find anything in particular to point at proving my point, like I can with the vampires.

I can, however, tell you that the vampires smell the werewolves on Bella. and they think it's a nasty smell. It works the other way too. You can see this on pages 444 and 470.* I just thought that it was an interesting -- and amusing -- little detail.

Another rather interesting thing is that the vampires and werewolves can't really be in each others presence. The explanation given is that Jake is a young werewolf, so how well he can control himself is questionable. If he loses control of himself someone might wind up dead, and Bella's friends on both sides of the vampire/werewolf line don't want to hurt her by hurting her friends.

This is rather difficult on Bella since Jake is her best friend, but at the same time she also has some vampire friends, including her boyfriend. But while the vampires and werewolves are both in town she sort of has to choose between them, as the following excerpt from a conversation she has with Jake shows:

" 'Can't I just be friends with both of you at the same time?' I asked, my voice not hiding an ounce of the hurt I felt.

He shook his head slowly. 'No, I don't think you can' " (p 469).*
So, is Meyer exploring racism? I seem to recall that the comic strip Over the Hedge uses cute little animals to look at racism, so why not use vampires and werewolves?


*The page numbers are for the large print 2006 edition.

A note on comments

I noticed that no one's commenting on my posts, and then I also noticed one or two other bloggers commenting that there's a problem with Blogger that's preventing comments from being published. Then I also remembered e-mailing with someone who said that one of her comments didn't get published. So I just wanted to say...

If your comments aren't getting published, don't take it personally. You can be pretty darned sure that I'll publish your comments if I can see them, and if Blogger will let me. The only reasons I would NOT publish a comment would be:

1) If it were spam. I do have one spammer who is persistent, or else several spammers who spam with the same thing (on my main blog, not this one). The spammer(s) in question don't even comment in English, by the way.

2) If it were something that looks like a personal note to me, especially if an e-mail addy is included. I've only had one of those, though.

3) If it were very rude, insulting, or offensive. But, I haven't had any like that yet.

Hopefully comments will be up and working again soon! Hopefully.

"New Moon"

Guess what? I just finished reading New Moon by Stephanie Meyer today. This post is written more for someone who has already read the book or at least knows the general plot, so...

SPOILER ALERT

I don't really like Edward, but I have to say, this one was a page turner. The few times I looked at the clock yesterday I was like "Whoa, did that much time seriously just pass? What happened?" Oh, wait, maybe I found it such a page turner because Edward wasn't in it for the most part.

I couldn't help but compare Edward with Jacob, and asked myself these two questions:

1) When Victoria is after Bella and there's a question of where she will stay while the hunt is on, would Edward have allowed her to make the decision for herself, or would he have chosen for her?

2) When Bella decides to risk her own life to save a vampire Jake doesn't try to stop her, even though he makes it clear that is very opposed to the idea. If the situation were somehow switched around, and Bella wanted to risk her life to save a werewolf, would Edward allow her to?

Based on my memory of the book Twilight, I'm pretty sure that the answer to these two questions is a resounding no.

You know, I think Jake is better for Bella than Edward, and I kept hoping that they would get together. Jake allows her to make her own decisions, whereas Edward makes the decisions and expects her to do as he says. Take, for example, the end of Twilight when that one vampire wants Bella's blood. Unless my memory fails me, Edward tells Bella what she will do without ever asking her thoughts on the matter, let alone seeing if she has any ideas of her own.

There was another question I was considering as I read the book, that I know other people have asked: Is Bella a good role model? I'm pretty sure that the answer to that one is a resounding no, for the following reasons:

1) From my reading of the book, it seemed to be saying that if you really love someone you won't be able to go about your daily life properly for months if they leave you. I'm not saying that it should be easy to go back to normal if you lose someone you love, but Bella isn't a good role model here.

2) When she discovered that she could hear Edward's voice in her head if she put herself in dangerous situations, she actively seeks out danger. This is not healthy behavior, and at least Bella knows that, but it makes her a bad role model.

I admit, I do plan to read the next book in the series. I'm hoping Jacob is in it. But then again, with Edward around, I think Bella will be hanging out with the vampires rather than the werewolves, so I doubt that Jake will have a major part in the next book.

Friday, April 2, 2010

Big issues in children's lit

I've been through one class, and have another left to go today. The class I already had is English - fiction. As I said in another post it's with the English professor I had last term, so I already know him. Even so, I was quite surprised that he brought a Dr. Seuss book with him to our very first class. He read us "The Sneetches." You know, it's really amazing the things that are in Dr. Seuss' stories! They're really simple, and yet they can deal with really huge issues. There were a few issues that were pointed out in "The Sneetches," but what really stood out to me in that story is that it handled racism. It never used that word - but it still dealt with it. When I pointed that out, the professor pointed out the year it was published; 1961. Hmm...

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This was first posted on my blog A College Girl's Days on 1/5/09

Thursday, April 1, 2010

Too many books, too little time!

Too many books, too little time!!!

Here's what I'm sort of reading right now, or what all I was reading anyways...

Abhorsen by Garth Nix

I like to listen to audio books as I go to sleep, and this is the one I've been listening to. It's slow going since I keep falling asleep, but whatever.

By the way, it doesn't put me to sleep because it's boring. It puts me to sleep because it gives me one thing to focus my mind on, rather than letting my mind go in 100 different directions at once at 100 miles per hour.

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin

I was reading this, but I don't think I am anymore. It's a good book, but the main character is a little hard to understand (to say the least) and my mindset recently has been pretty scatter brained so...I don't think this is what I need to be reading right now. I picked up another book, and I don't think I'm coming back to this one soon.

But I will read it again, once I'm not so scatter brained!

Emma by Jane Austen

Ok, so I have Kindle for free on my iPhone, and I discovered that I could get the complete works of Jane Austen for a mere $3.something. I thought that was a great deal, so I bought them!

I started reading Emma nearly a week ago, and am about 1/3 of the way through it.

New Moon by Stephanie Meyer

I decided to read this book because I want to know what all is going on.

I put a hold on it at my local library and it came in today. So, I'm not technically reading it at the time that I am writing this, but I will be pretty soon.

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By the way, this doesn't even include what I'm reading for school. Actually, as I get past the first week of term, I probably will stop reading so much.

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