The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln

The semester has come to an end! Finals week was... interesting, to say the least! My poetry class had a reading at the end of the semester. It was my first reading, which was completely nerve-wracking but wonderful as well. The audience (and the poets) laughed, cried and journeyed to strange lands. The wonderful Sarah came along to cheer me on. Apparently, she almost literally cheered me on. Thank you again for not doing that! ;)

After finishing a paper that night I came down with the stomach flu and was in bed for two days. (Note to self: research immunity boosters for next semester. I think I was sick with one thing or another for a majority of Fall!) Next came work and then, my Jewish History final papers, one of which was on the book The Memoirs of Gluckel of Hameln. I read the book in one night so that I could write my paper and I have to say that reading the book in so short a period of time did not do justice to the book. It was extremely interesting to read a first-hand account of what life was like at this time and it was actually quite easy to read. But it was a bit much to read in one night! I would like to read it again, more slowly, reading a book at a time. This particular quote stood out to me because it represents Gluckel's outlook on life throughout the book and is one of those "putting things into perspective" quotes that really hit me:

“Even if our sages say « it is better not to be born, » meaning that men have so much to endure in this sinful world, still I thank and praise my Creator that He made me according to His will and beg Him to take me under His holy charge.”

So, coming up this week I promise I will write about one of my favorite photographer's and I'll start working on some book and movie reviews.

TV Shows, Books, Music

Where has the time gone? My family did a lot more on Thanksgiving than I thought we would. I didn't work on any homework that day, which is really unusual for me! I just finished up the second to last module in my geography course (one to go, yippee!) and thought I'd pop in for a few quick updates.

♥ TV: My dad expressed an interest in Bones so I pulled out my S1 DVD's. We watched the entire season in a weekend. No, I'm not kidding! We watched a few episodes each day, until the last day of the weekend. My mom was out of town, so my dad made one of his delicious homemade pizzas and we watched the rest of the season. I don't need to do that again for awhile, but it was a lot of fun!

♥ Cold: I was struck down by a bad cold. It hit Tuesday, I lost my voice on Wednesday, and now I'm finally starting to get better, but still feel like crap. I will feel better next week though, whether this cold wants to leave or not!

♥ Books: Being sick does have some perks. I focused on the homework that was most pressing (meaning, due this week), but the rest of the time, if I wasn't at work, school or sleeping, I was reading. I picked up This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen. I borrowed it from a friend probably about a year ago (if not longer) and I wanted to read it since she'll be in town the next few weeks. Now I'm on a Sarah Dessen kick, so I reread This Listen. I love her stories! Even though she writes about teenagers in high school I feel like adults (especially adults in their 20's) can still relate because the situations that her characters face are situations that we can face.

♥ Holidays: The holiday season has arrived! I've already made my lists of books and movies to read and watch. And those who know me know that for me the holiday season doesn't start until I listen to Harry Connick Jr's Christmas music. So, the Friday after Thanksgiving I put in my first HCJ Christmas CD of the season. I thought I'd share some of his music with all of you today!

This is the first song that I listen to every year.


A great video of HCJ singing with this daughter.


And one last song.


♥ Remind me to share one of my favorite photographers with you one day this week. He's absolutely fantastic and I'm sure you'll love him!

Yogurt & Book Banning

I love plain Greek yogurt. Throw in some fresh fruit and I'm good to go for breakfast, lunch or dinner. (And, apparently it's one of the Best Healthy Foods You Aren't Eating.) So when I was wandering through the grocery store one day and discovered Greek yogurt with chocolate my eyes instantly lit up! See, I also have a thing for ice cream. I try not to eat it often because it's an overload of dairy, fat and calories but... it sure is good! So when I saw Greek yogurt with chocolate I thought that maybe this could be an acceptable replacement for ice cream and bought the pack of four cartons, which is the only way it came.

I took one bite and passed it off to my mom, who took one bite and passed it off to my dad. Who loaded it up with peanut butter. And then with even more peanut butter. And after topping it off with a little more peanut butter thought it was acceptable and finished the carton. (He likes mixing peanut butter with different things after reading an article about a local Lebanese restaurant owner who makes his own--delicious, I might add--hummus for his restaurant. He is now in process of making hummus mixes--such as hummus and guacamole--after mixing hummus and peanut butter in an attempt to get his daughter to eat it.) Now we have three cartons sitting in our refrigerator, waiting to be eaten.

So, tell me your stories! Is there a food you once bought thinking it would be healthier substitute for a bad food? Was it as good as you expected or did it completely flop?

In other news, people who know me are aware that I am not a fan of banning books. Take a look at this list. I am often shocked when I look through lists of banned books to see exactly what people are banning. Some of the books banned include the only classics that actually interested me when I was assigned to read them in high school as well as other books that just confuse me. Why was The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway banned? Could it possibly be for putting students to sleep when forced to read it?

Over the weekend the YA literary world was outraged when a man in Missouri requested that the book Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson should be banned from a school district, along with Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut and Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. I won't go into too much detail here because others have discussed this topic much better than I could. Instead, I will direct you to Laurie Halse Anderson's blog on the topic. In this post she gives many links to some of the discussion that has taken place about the attempted banning of her book, including links to the original complaints made the man trying to ban the books.

This weekend I'm off work and I haven't been feeling well so I'm planning to spend the weekend in, drinking lots of tea and water and resting in an attempt to get better before I get really sick. This means plenty of time for reading! I'm hoping that, along with homework, I will finish reading Speak and will be able to get through at least half, if not finish, Twenty Boy Summer. Look for more on those two books in the near future!

I also feel like I should add one of the more interesting Hemingway books to my reading list for the weekend after that comment above. I do like Hemingway, just not The Old Man and the Sea.

Quotes from The Diving Pool

Quotes from The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa. I copied them down this morning.

"Her lips were like two maggots that never stopped wriggling, and I found myself wanting to squash them between my fingers."

- - -

"He would come down from the diving board and return to the Light House, where his muscles would warm and soften like silk floss, and then he would soak up all the things that set my nerves on edge—Naoki’s raspy voice, the scraps of food flung about by the children, my mother’s endless chattering. It seemed strange that he could be so good when life had treated him so badly: a father who ran off when he was born and a mother who had abandoned him for the bottle. I prayed desperately to be bathed in his kindness."

- - -

"I was sure that Jun would dive into only pure water, and I wanted his dive into to me to be perfect. I wanted him to enter with no splash at all.

Once we’d finished talking about that morning so many years before, we couldn’t think of anything else to say. The sound of time flowing between us became the sound of the water trickling quietly from the faucet until dawn."

- - -

I'm going to a one year old's birthday party tonight, which actually should be a lot of fun as all of my coworkers will be there. It is rumored that my former boss will be showing up and, most of all, I'm excited to see the one year old's mother (and him, of course, he's a cutie!).

But someone needs to remind me that I need to start reviewing French grammar! Tutoring starts on Tuesday and I'd like to be able to tell him that I actually do know a little bit of French!

The Diving Pool: Three Novellas, by Yoko Ogawa

I decided to take a break from studies to post a book review.



As with Hotel Iris, Ogawa highlights three quiet girls. In the title (and first) story, a high school girl obsessed with her foster brother watches him during his diving practices while looking for ways to release the frustration she feels at being the only child of parents who own an orphanage. In the second story, Pregnancy Diary, a young woman writes about her older sister's pregnancy in a diary. The final story, Dormitory, follows the story of a woman who returns to the dormitory she stayed in throughout college and befriends the manager.

Ogawa is an interesting writer because she introduces these shy, quiet characters and begins to spin a story that is somewhat disturbing. She provides her readers with great character studies. Following along with Hotel Iris, the writing itself is absolutely beautiful. Particularly in the first (and most disturbing) story, there were some gorgeous quotes. I haven't copied them down yet so I don't have any to share with you today, but maybe soon.

(Book cover taken from bn.com.)

Fall Is Here... And So Are New Beginnings

Swimming lessons began on Monday. I love these days! ... talking to my sister while my niece and nephew splash around in the pool. Afterward I stayed at my sister's for awhile to watch my niece and nephew while my sister and brother-in-law were at a business meeting. My nephew fell asleep on the way home and slept through the night. My niece and I did our homework together. When she was finished with hers we played with beads and then told stories over a dinner of Lebanese food. Once dinner was over we read another "Jack and Annie" book -- a Magic Tree House book -- before bed. I love spending time with my niece! She's a sweet, creative girl who says the cutest things. Highlight of the night: "My parents go to bed at 8:30, that's why I go to bed at 8."

Television shows are starting their new seasons. What shows are you watching? Last week The Vampire Diaries started and this week I watched the season premieres of Gossip Girl (will probably be dropping this one), Life Unexpected (I ♥ Baze), and Parenthood (I ♥ Lauren Graham).

Next week will be the premieres of Dancing With the Stars, The Event, Hawaii Five-0, Running Wilde, Bones, Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice (might be dropping this one now that my favorite character is gone). I know, I know, I watch too much TV! But hey, I have to find some way to procrastinate doing my homework, right?

Actually, I've been doing well with staying on top of my homework this semester. Maybe this is a new beginning too?

Hotel Iris, by Yoko Ogawa

Ogawa (The Housekeeper and the Professor) explores the power of words to allure and destroy in this haiku-like fable of love contorted into obsession. One rainy evening, Mari, a downtrodden 17-year-old who helps her demanding mother run a seedy seaside hotel, overhears a middle-aged male guest ordering an offended prostitute to be silent. In the days that follow, every word—both spoken and conveyed in surreptitious letters—from this man, a hack translator who may have killed his wife, gradually and inexorably leads Mari to submit to his every sadistic desire. Ogawa’s relentlessly spare prose captures both Mari’s yearning for her lost father and the translator’s bipolar oscillation between insecure tenderness and meticulously modulated rage. As this savage novel drives to its inevitable conclusion, Mari’s world collapses around her in both a terrifying bang and a pitiful whimper. (Cover photograph and summary from Barnes & Noble.com.)

Hotel Iris, to me, is a novel of contrasts. There is the contrast of the named versus the unnamed characters, the spoken word versus the written word, and who can share more freely, those who can speak verbally or those who are mute. In this novel, Ogawa illustrates that the reader can come to know the characters referred to only by their titles better than the characters whose actual names are known and that the written word can be more honest and freely given than the spoken word. I felt that the amount of described bondage scenes overshadowed the rest of the novel. It's not that these scenes were incredibly descriptive, it's just that the reader knew this was happening and didn't need as much as detail as was given each time. But the beauty of the writing made this book well worth reading; I found myself anxious to read more as I was soaking up the gorgeous descriptions.

He shook his head, and I felt his every tremor through my cheek as I leaned against his shoulder. Coming through his bones, his voice sounded clearer and calmer, as though it were welling up from the depths. (Pg. 89)

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Lately, I have been reading and watching books, movies and TV shows of the fantasy, supernatural and sci-fi genres. This is partly because my friend and I have been watching the first seasons of Moonlight and Sanctuary. But, like my friend Sarah says, "I'm a normal person. Why would I want to watch shows about normal people?"

Outside of watching Moonlight and Sanctuary I have started rereading the Harry Potter series. I also began the Percy Jackson & The Olympian series.

I read the first book, The Lightning Thief and last night, I watched the movie adaptation of the book. It was interesting to read the book and watch the movie so close together because the differences between the two were made that much more apparent. And differences there were! I have to say that I greatly enjoyed the movie--probably more than the book--because it was, I felt, more exciting. However, if one goes into the film looking for a good representation of the book, they will be disappointed, as it was quite different. It's one of the movies that, when you watch it, you need to separate it from the book. They took the idea and some of the great plot points and changed the story, made it their own.

I have to say that I really enjoyed the cast! Kevin McKidd as Poseidon, Uma Thurman as Medusa, Pierce Brosnan as Chiron. There were some surprises, though. I imagined Percy's mom much differently. I had envisioned someone who looked more like Michelle Pfeiffer or Nicole Kidman. Percy, Annabeth and Luke looked different than expected as well.

Overall, it was a fun book to read though I thought the movie was a little more exciting. I'm looking forward to moving on the series and hoping for more Percy Jackson movies to come.

Mantra for Murder

One of my guilty pleasures is a good cozy mystery. I love the themed series’ that combine an interest of the reader, romance and a good murder mystery. One of my favorite cozy mystery series’ is one that I discovered with the first book about a year ago, the Mantra for Murder mystery series by Diana Killian. This series takes place inside of a yoga studio.

It begins with Corpse Pose, which brings the main character AJ to the yoga studio where aunt was found murdered. Soon, she finds herself investigating the murder alongside her mother.

In the second book Dial Om for Murder, AJ is pulled into a new investigation when she finds the body of one of her yoga students and high-profile clients.

The third and most recent book, Murder on the Eightfold Path, follows AJ’s investigation of the murder of her mother’s boyfriend, whom she found murdered in her mother’s garden.

The Mantra for Murder series is one of the best cozy mystery series’ that I’ve read. Killian focuses on the mystery, but gives each of the quirky characters storylines and traits that makes them jump off the page and into the readers’ hearts.

So, prepare a cup of tea, pick up the first book and read. Just make sure you have your yoga mat handy for the yoga breaks you bound are to take!