Oh wow, here's the list of VistaVision Films and it includes "The Trouble With Harry,"  "Funny Face," "North by Northwest" and a whole list of films that used it for special effects ("The Abyss," "Star Wars," "The Dark Knight,"...wow.  I'm sticking with digital (too cheap and broke for film, plus I like the look of HD), but WOW: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VistaVision_films

For the first case, I ran (it's a ten-minute walk) under the rain (which caught me halfway there), only arrive soaking wet and find myself in an empty classroom. Apparently, I was the only one not informed that the teacher wasn't going to be able to make it to class that day.  My luck has left me to die, it seems. I was torn between going back home, as the rain had stopped, or waiting for the next class. I picked the latter, seeing as the weather can be so treacherous as to make rain seem unlikely in a minute, while at the next, it's storming like it never has. It wasn't the case yesterday (Friday), but I wasn't going to take any chances, so I stayed.

Waiting for the next class was less painful, as I met with some friends and talked the hours away. It's funny that, at the end, I was in the same place, talking with a diffent bunch of people. The 8:00 p.m. class started late, as it usually does, and only three of us showed up. On top of that, the classroom was locked, so we had to sit outside. As I knew that the day couldn't get much worse, I sat there until the end of what was a long talk not related to graphic design. It was fun, though. I like being in conversations about things I know about rather than just nodding and agreeing with others just for the sake of nodding and agreeing, and not being left out.

So, while that last part was enjoyable, it would've been more enjoyable to stay in bed the whole afternoon, after not getting much sleep the night before and having to go to that place in the morning.

I still have those illustrations to finish. I've not worked on them, but I have it already planned. Finish two today (Saturday), two more tomorrow, and the last one on Monday. I can take care of the layout and everything else when not working on them. Unfortunately, the class that didn't happen yesterday means that I'll be having to go to college at least once the week after next, something that ruins what would be the first week of a month-long vacation.

With this weekend being a long one, and not having anything else to do (other than the illustrations), I can catch up on my reading. The book I'm reading now (this one) is one that I'll need to start over. I began reading it last week and I've yet to get to page 35. It's more complex and less narrative than the last one I read (Frankenstein), there aren't chapter divisions, so I'm often wondering where I left off and going back a page or two to see what I'm reading about. So, the weekend goes to working, reading and sleeping.

And so it begins ... happy weekend.

A 2007 study of more than 105,000 students in Maryland’s Prince George’s County, where African Americans made up about 65 percent of the enrollment, showed that black male pupils performed comparably to boys and girls of all races on first- and second-grade standardized math and reading test. But by fourth grade, African American boys experienced a sharp decline in their scores. More recent national studies have shown similar findings: In 2008, fourth-grade reading scores of African American boys lagged behind those of all other groups at the same grade level, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. It’s sobering to think that any group of kids as young as eight or nine years old can lose interest in school. But a number of experts have been making this observation about black boys for more than two decades. (Although the performance of black girls also declines around the same age, the dip isn’t nearly as pronounced and is often recouped in later years, researchers say.)

"I first saw the drop-off syndrome when I started working in school development back in the late sixties," says Dr. James Comer, director of the Yale Child Studies Center and an educator who has been in the forefront of black child development and school reform for nearly 30 years. "It was especially noticeable among students from low-income families, boys in particular." Why do boys flounder more? "Around third and fourth grade, there’s a shift in the way teachers instruct kids," says Harry Morgan, an early childhood development professor at the State University of West Georgia who has also spent over 29 years training teachers and conducting research on classroom behavior and learning styles. "In the earlier years, teachers encourage social interaction," he says, "but by the fourth grade, classrooms become more of a static, lecturing environment."

This change in teaching approach, from an informal, learning-by-doing style to the more structured, sit-down-and-listen setup, is toughest on male students, who tend to be more active than girls in the elementary grades. And for black boys, a teacher’s reactions to these high energy levels may be compounded by racism. "There’s often an undercurrent of fear or tension between black male students and many white teachers, and even some black ones," says Morgan, who served as one of the early developers of Project Head Start in 1965. "This fear can be triggered over something as minor as a black boy walking around the room. On some subliminal level, the teacher is afraid to have even a very young black male defy the simplest rule. She’s afraid his defiance will escalate."

Since some teachers are likely to resent a student who doesn’t seem able to sit still and cooperate, a troubled relationship can easily develop; the child might be perceived as a troublemaker or a slow learner, for instance. By fourth grade, this child may have already given up on school, especially if he hasn’t yet learned to read, according to Spencer Holland, an educational psychologist in Washington, D.C. In one of the largest studies of black male students ever conducted, New Orleans public schools found that while eight out of ten black parents believed their sons expected to go to college, only four out of ten teach. When it comes to expectations of black boys, some African American parents believe that stereotypes creep into many teachers’ perceptions. Last year, Keith Jenkins was a newcomer at a public elementary school in an Atlanta suburb. For the first few weeks, Keith, a large ten-year-old with a baby face and a disarming smile, would stay late to help his math teacher. "I want to be an engineer or a podiatrist," Keith would tell him. The instructor always seemed to reply obliquely before changing the subject: "Why don’t you go out for sports?" he’d ask.

"Keith kept complaining to me that the teacher only wanted to talk about football," says his mother, Debra. Over time, the teacher’s continued dismissal of Keith’s real interests upset the boy. "It’s like he doesn’t want me to be smart or something," he would tell his mother unhappily. "Like I should be playing sports because I am black." [Fearing reprisal, Debra wouldn’t reveal the name of Keith’s teacher, who may have been unaware of the effect his remarks had on Keith.]

Soon Keith no longer stayed after school, and in a few months, the normally sunny-natured child began telling his mom that he had to lose 30 pounds. "I’m too big," Keith would tell his mom. "If I’m skinny, they won’t pressure me to play. I can just be myself." A lot of teachers, his mother believes, hold fast to certain assumptions about how black male students are supposed to behave. "If they have a kid who doesn’t fit into their stereotype, they put that kid down," she says.

 What does the future hold for African American boys who are struggling in our nation’s classrooms? Without help from caring adults at home, in the community, and in the schools, those black boys may never be able to rediscover their sense of wonder about learning-indeed, their sense of hope. When that happens, the entire nation loses: "School failure can lead to life failure-including dependency and crime and all the things we don’t want to have to pay for as a society," says James Comer of the Yale Child Studies Center. By recognizing these possibilities, we’re also acknowledging the responsibility we share to bridge the racial gulf that divides our country. No doubt our children are smart enough, resilient enough, and openhearted enough to meet the challenge. The question is, are we?

For more information or if you need help for your child here are some helpful websites:

www.readingrockets.com

www.readingtokids.org

www.LetsGoLearn.com

Reading: Still reading 'The Shack'. Absolutely heart-rending.

Thinking: Thank God for 3 day weekends.

Enjoying: The nagging wife :-D

How to Annoy Me: Get an attitude with me for absolutely no reason first thing in the morning.

How to Charm Me: Offer to stay on IM if I need someone safe to talk to.

Quote of the Day: Ultimately the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation. - Oscar Wilde

From their list I have copied the ones I have read, or ones that I own and are waiting to be read (marked TBR on my list) or the one's MissN has read and we own (which means I might read them some day...)
(Thanks to rooruu - I copied your post!  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that...)

The New Classics: Books

The 100 Best Reads from 1983-2008

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006) (C and I both loved it - it was a bookclub choice)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000) (MissN has read - she has all the HP's)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001) (TBR - started it.  I have the movie too)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997) (TBR)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988 )  (TBR)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998 ) (we have both books and the movies)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000) (TBR) (I loved "The Golden Compass" movie)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998 )
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001) (TBR)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993) (TBR)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987) (TBR)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003) (TBR) (I gave this to C last Christmas, knowing that if he didn't enjoy it, I would!)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003) (MIssN has read)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989) (Loved the movie too)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994) (Can I boast and say I have a signed copy?)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998 ) (MissN has read)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987) (TBR)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991) (TBR)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)

My favourites were

The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)

Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)

The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)

I guess what all the TBR's tell me is I don't need to buy ANY books for a VERY LONG time!

The list also gives me some ideas for bookclub - it's my choice next month.

At the moment, I am reading an old classic- The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1855).  I loved Barchester Towers, and enjoyed the BBC series Barchester Chronicles (with a young Alan Rickman!) which was an adaptation of both books, so now I am enjoying The Warden.

What are you reading?

What do you plan reading next?

I stopped reading for pleasure when I was in medical school. It was four long years of academic text only. I didn't have the time or energy to keep up with my passion. I had to focus on taking tests every week and studying for multiple classes at the same time. I didn't even realize the transition. It just happened. I guess I was just too absorbed trying to survive being a medical student.

When I finally finished residency and became an attending physician, I was able to get back to reading for fun. I've never been able to read at home, for one reason or another. So I now read on the train. Two or three years ago, my commmute was about  1 1/2 hours which gave me plenty of time to read. That's three hours of reading a day. I was usually able to get through a book in about three or four days. Now my commute is twenty minutes. I'm able to get through a book anywhere from one to two weeks. Besides vying for a space to hold on and doing a balancing act with my book, I get completely absorbed in reading. It evens makes my commute seem to go faster.

My father has always commuted into the city. He never seems to get bothered by it. I think I take after him. I like the transition from going from home to work and vice versa. The commute is not only a transition ride, but it gives me time for myself that I'm not otherwise able to get. Even though I work in Manhattan, I made a conscious decision to live outside so that I can have a boundary between work and my personal life. I'm glad I'm able to use the train ride as a boundary as well as keeping up with my passion for reading.

As the media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing. Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,” he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I do all my reading on the web not so much because the way I read has changed, i.e. I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I THINK has changed?”

Bruce Friedman, who blogs regularly about the use of computers in medicine, also has described how the Internet has altered his mental habits. “I now have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article on the web or in print,” he wrote earlier this year. A pathologist who has long been on the faculty of the University of Michigan Medical School, Friedman elaborated on his comment in a telephone conversation with me. His thinking, he said, has taken on a “staccato” quality, reflecting the way he quickly scans short passages of text from many sources online. “I can’t read War and Peace anymore,” he admitted. “I’ve lost the ability to do that. Even a blog post of more than three or four paragraphs is too much to absorb. I skim it.”

If I remember right, the classic, How to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren suggests at least five different ways to read a book, depending upon how much you want or need to get out of the material. But we don't need to complicate things that much. Everyone's heard of skimming, right? I simply don't understand why all these can't people skim things on the World Wide Web and deeply read the stuff they want to digest further. Is there only one gear on their mental transmission?

Reading is not a passive activity. If you read well you make countless decisions about what to take in deeply and what to skim over lightly. The Web, with all those links built into it, practically demands skimming. You read a blog. It refers you to another blog and eventually you get back to the original article that's worth reading all the way through. I suspect the only site for which I don't do this at least every once in a while is the New York Times. That's because so much of what's out there isn't worth my time. The Times always is so I know in advance to read it differently. If this process fundamentally changes the way you think, you're not thinking hard enough.

So is this really the kind of thing that Marshall McLuhan had in mind [Wasn't he talking about TV? Is that really applicable here?], or maybe we have a situation like this at hand:

Here's my list:

#1. My drink of choice is COLD Pepsi - No ice.

#2. I love children's art.

#3. I display my children's artwork on a wall in my office.

#4. I volunteer two mornings a month in the Art room at my kid's school.

#5. The Art teacher wishes I had my teaching degree because I would have been a better sub then some of the subs she had last year!

#6. The Art teacher is one of my best friends!

#7. The Art teacher's dd is the youngest person I know that is fighting Breast Cancer at the age of 22.  She was diagnosed two years ago, was in remission but the cancer came back last October.

#8. I volunteer at least 15 hours a week during the school year, between my kids' school and the community work I do.

#9. I LOVE kindergarten.  I volunteered in kindergarten at least 2 hours a week last year and will again this year and I don't even have a kindergartener anymore!

#10. My eldest is 14 years old and a freshmen this fall.

#11. He has a girlfriend named Danika.

#12. He volunteers at the zoo every summer.  He just finished a two week stint on the Z-team for a total of 40 hours.

#13. He is happy to be home after spending two weeks at a friend's house that was closer to the zoo and was a great help as I didn't have to drive him there and pick him up every day.

#14. My eldest daughter is a photography diva and a jr, girl scout.

#15. She is also an amazing baker! You have got to try her peanut butter chocolate chip cookies!

#16. She also reads incessentaly.

#17. She is 10 and a half (that half is IMPORTANT) and entering the 5th grade.

#18. My third child, my 9 year old son, is my favorite 9 year old in the world!

#19. He is my athlete.  He plays soccer, golf, and basketball.

#20. He is also a Cub Scout.

#21. He will be entering 4th grade in 3 1/2 weeks.

#22. He plays a MEAN guitar on Guitar Hero!

#23. He has beautiful blue eyes and gorgeous blond hair!

#24. My baby is 7 1/2 years old and in 2nd grade.

#25. She is a bundle of uncontrollable energy and sometimes can be VERY bossy.

#26. and that bossiness does not endear her to her siblings some days!

#27. But she is a little cutie and a brownie girl scout.

#28. We are all avid readers!

#29. We have have so many books in this house that we've been accused of owning a small library!

#30. My library card is the most used card in my wallet.

#31. I've had a library card since I was 6 years old.

#32. My children get their first library cards on their 5th birthdays.

#34. I hate folding laundry.

#35. I love to try new recipes!

#36. unfortunately my children are not all that keen on trying new foods and meals.

#37. I LOVE cheesecake - any kind.  My favorite tho is Carmel Apple Cheescake.

#38. I fell in love with the property we built our home on because of the mature trees, lilac bushes and apple trees.  It helped a lot that it was a real steal financially too!

#39. I love dogs - we have a pug named Shadow who is approaching her 10th birthday.

#40. Shadow is my hero and my youngest daughter's best friend.

#41. Ask me someday about WHY Shadow is my hero.

#42. I don't like cats - we have an American short hair named Meepo who is roughly 3 years old.

#43. He is my husband's cat.

#44. But WHO cleans the litter box when it's needed?

#45. My favorite flowers are lilies of any sort.  Thus the header on this blog.  Those are my tiger lilies.

#46. I love the theatre and acting.  I don't do much of it anymore but I do love helping out with the productions at my kids' schools.

#47. I LOVE Grey's Anatomy.

#48. I watch religiously even in the off season!

#49. I'm the eldest of 6 children.

#50. I have 2 sisters

#51. and 3 brothers.

#52. I also have 5 foster siblings.  2 boys and 3 girls.  All of these foster siblings are also my cousins.

#53. I haven't worked outside my home in 13+ years.

#54. I'm applying for jobs at the elementary school my children attend.

#55. I've been scrapbooking for over 15 years.

#56. I talk to my eldest sister almost everyday.

#57. She is a "gypsy" so to speak.  She works for a company that travels around the country fixing storm damage to cars, vans, trucks and such.

#58. I talk to my baby brother at least once a week.

#59. He is 13 years younger then me.

#60.  I talk to my mom and dad almost everyday.

#61. I LOVE chocolate.

#62. Especially DeBrand's Chocolate.

#63. I graduated college 17 years ago with a degree in Communications and a minor in English.

#64.  I SHOULD have gotten my teaching degree.

#65.  I know quite a bit of Sign language. I taught myself.

#66.  I don't know ANY other foreign language.  It wasn't required when I was in highschool.

#67. However, from growing up in the midst of a big Finnish community I can cuss in Finn if I wanted too.

#68. I homeschooled my eldest child from preschool through 2nd grade.

#69. None of my children had any preschool before kindergarten, beyond what I did at home with them.

#70. I'm extremely thrifty.  Okay I'm cheap.  I revel in the challenge to find the best deals!

#71. Oh more pets - We also have two gerbils named Judy and Annie after two of my eldest daughters favorite book characters, Judy Moody and Annie in the Magic Treehouse Series.

#72. I've picked 15 zucchini of my 6 plants so far this summer!

#73. My tomatoes have not produced anything ripe yet.

#74. My husband brought me home roses last night.  For no reason whatsoever.

#75. My hubby won't believe this but he truly is the best thing that's ever happened to me.

#76. I have trouble sleeping alone.

#77. On those nights I tend to sit up either on the computer or scrapbooking.

#78. I think my dog has fleas.  ---YUCK!!!

#79. I've only been consistently blogging for about a week.

#80. I LOVE making the gifts we give.  I feel it's so much more personal.

#81. My grandmother, rest her soul, picked out my wedding dress.

#82. I was devastated when she died, knowing that my children would not get to meet their great grandmother.

#83. I don't like cleaning.  I do it but I don't like it.  Ah to hire a housekeeper!

#84. I love working outside tho.  I love mowing the lawn and taking care of the gardens and trees.

#85. I love birds - especially birds of prey like hawks, eagles, and owls.

#86. I would rather wear mittens then gloves.

#87. The only jewelry I wear all the time are my wedding and engagement rings.

#88.  I have a 3 ring zippered binder that my kids call "Mom's Brain."

#89. It has a calendar, and a separate section for each of my children as well as sections for the kindergarten literacy program that I'm in charge of at school.  If it doesn't get put on the calendar in my "brain" it doesn't happen.

#90. I love playing games with my family.

#91.  I hate visiting the doctor.

#92. I hate going to the dentist

#93. I love genealogy and that's what excited me about scrapbooking to begin with.

#94. My aunt has traced my mom's side of the family back to President Nixon, and back to Europe.

#95. I love listening to church congregations sing from hymnals - especially the old hymns.

#96. My computer desk top is a disaster zone.

#97. My scrapping corner however is quite neat and tidy.

#98. I love fresh veggies right out of the garden - especially sweet corn and zucchini.

#99. I love strawberries and apples picked fresh.

#100. I believe the true hero of The Lord of the Rings is Sam - Not Frodo.

#101. Right now I have 112 items checked out from the public library!

Okay I should stop now - I could go on, but I did say just 101 random things, not 201.

Blessings,

Garsy

+Bon Iver's Daytrotter session. As if there isn't enough beauty in the tracks of For Emma, these versions are heartbreaking, stunning and haunting all at once. Songs you want to hold on to forever and escape too quickly. So you listen to them, again and again, until you think maybe you are numb. And then there is a note, a noise, a break in the guitar, something in his voice, and you close your eyes and it overtakes you with all the force it did the first time.

+Katy Perry:

Yes, okay, there are countless things wrong with this song/video. Yes it probably would be considered a guilty pleasure/bad pop singalong song. Yes I find the lyrics irritating and immature and shallow, as Katy makes it appear that kissing a girl is such a twisted, fucked, taboo thing to do (and one that she only did when totally wasted and thinking about pleasing her boyfriend...) and that irks me quite a lot. Yes she is a scene bitch who is really not that talented at all--but it's a catchy song, one that would be fun and easy to dance to, sexy in a really contrived matter, and I just really like the video because it's a half assed attempt at fourties, pinup glamour, even such a weak imitation is rather fun.

+iCiNG-Gala's blog is completely inspirational, edgy, modern, sexy, fun, and brilliant on so many levels. I'm probably going to steal her Things I Love Thursdays idea and after reading quite a few of her blog posts I am determined to make my blog/life more aesthetically pleasing and delightfully fun.

BEEP…BEEP…BEEP…

Luigi Manco had made three laps of the store. Checking his pulse each time. And each time passing the heart monitor. To see if it was vacant. It was not. The same little man, Melvin Philips, sat there. His arm in the embrace of the monitor. There were a pile of small papers, print outs from the monitor, piling up in his lap.

Melvin Philips was an odd sort of fellow. He had been born on February 29 and only counted his age by the number of birthdays that had passed. He was almost 50 before he stepped into a bar. With false identification. Never got his driver’s license. Hadn’t dated because he thought all the women he met were too old for him. Did a lot of research on cougars. Mean cats. Eat you alive. Melvin’s whole life was built on this peculiar decision about his birthday. Odd that no one set him straight.

Luigi stopped in front of the heart monitor. He wanted to set Melvin straight.

“When do you think you’ll be finished?” Luigi asked. Better to start off polite. You can leave the brass knuckles until all else fails.

Melvin looked up proudly. “I was here first.” Melvin felt a little like the first men on the moon. He remembered Neil Armstrong stepping off the space ship onto the moon. And making his famous speech. Melvin thought the speech was superfluous. Didn’t even sit back in an easy chair and have a cigar. Melvin felt that if you were someplace first, it was yours. Why hadn’t they named the moon after Armstrong? They could have called it, Neil.

Luigi nodded humbly. Better to start your voice nice and low. Quiet. You can always blow your enemy away when all else fails.

“I know that, sir. I wasn’t trying to rush you.”

“Of course you were,” Melvin responded. A small smile slithered across Melvin’s tiny lips. They’d once been larger. But he had sliced them half off when he had attempted to shave a moustache. He didn’t want to look old for his age.

Luigi looked at the little man. Was he a midget? Or just short? Luigi himself was no giant but could have passed off as one next to Melvin.

“No, sir,” Luigi responded remembering his classes at the heart rehabilitation centre where they were taught to let things go. Go with the flow, nurse Henderson preached. So Luigi practiced to relax, not to get bent out of shape over every little thing in life. Smell the roses, nurse Henderson proclaimed. My that woman like to proclaim.

“I was not trying to rush you, sir. It’s just that I have to get back to my restaurant and I thought it might be a good idea to see how the old ticker was doing. You see, I had a heart attack last fall and I’m trying to keep a handle on it.”

The monitor began to squeeze on the little man’s arm. Melvin winced. It looked like the machine might crush Melvin’s limb.

“That is very wise,” Melvin said. Tears welled up in his eyes. “Did you have open heart surgery?”

Luigi shook his head. “I had an angio-plasty. They put this stint in my valve.”

Melvin looked confused. “What’s a stint?”

Luigi explained the intricacies of his heart attack and his rehabilitation. As he did the monitor released Melvin’s arm. Melvin smiled a sigh. A moment later the machine released its finding. A small piece of paper slipped out and fell into Melvin’s lap.

“So how does it look?” Luigi asked.

Melvin picked up the piece of paper.

“Same as last time.”

“Well, there you go,” Luigi said.

The little man hit the button on the machine. Once again the monitor squeezed Melvin’s arm. Once again Melvin winced.

Luigi’s face grew red.

“Why did you do that?” His voice had begun to climb that ladder. That ladder toward anger. Light headedness. Pain in his shoulder. Difficulty in breathing.

“Do what?” Melvin asked, his face in obvious pain. He was losing feeling in his fingers.

“Push that button.” Luigi’s face was turning red. “You knew it was my turn.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yes, it was.”

“I was here first.”

“But you were finished.”

Melvin looked at Luigi. The smile had left his face. Melvin’s arm was beginning to swell.

“I don’t think so.” The grip of the machine was beginning to subside. Melvin sighed.

Luigi stared at the little man. He considered going for his throat. Relax, a little voice in his head kept whispering. Another voice in Luigi’s head responded. Don’t tell me to fucking relax!

“You’re not really sure why you’re here, are you?” Luigi asked.

“What!”

“Do you have high blood pressure?” Luigi asked.

The little man shook his head.

“Do you have any history of heart disease in your family?”

Once again the little man shook his head.

“Do you have any heart problems?”

“No,” the little man confessed. “I’m too young.”

“Then why are you using this heart monitor?” Luigi asked, the veins in his face ready to explode.

Melvin looked down at the ground. He was thinking. Then he looked up at Luigi.

“Because,” he said, “it’s free.”

Familiar with the name "Francis O'Neill"? The current wave of interest in Celtic music owes him a great debt -- he's the person who collected and published the music for thousands of Celtic tunes, making them available to musicians all over the world.

O'Neill was born in 1848 in Ireland. When he was 16, he emigrated to the United States. During his life, he was a rancher, a teacher, a Chicago policeman, and fathered ten children. He also played the flute!

O'Neill (also known as "Chief O'Neill") loved Celtic music. At that time, the music was passed down tune at a time from one musician to another. Little had been written transcribed in written form.

O'Neill did not read music -- he played by ear -- but he became convinced of the value of saving Celtic tunes for prosperity by transcribing them into musical notation for future generations. With the help of a fiddling seargeant in the Chicago police department who did read music, he managed to do so. He would play the tunes he had learned from other musicians; the sergeant would transcribe them into musical notation.

By the time O'Neill died in 1936, he had collected and transcribed nearly 3,500 tunes -- many of them dating back hundreds and hundreds of years!

He eventually published eight books -- including the now classic "The Music of Ireland". This book is still easily available in most bookstores. This book alone provides notation for 1,850 tunes! (Note: You can find these transcriptions for free at http://www.freesheetmusic.net !)

Noel Rice offers this comment that illustrates O'Neill's contribution: "He recalled reading about some boys who would sit at the feet of an old musician, thinking they were learning the music the way generations before them had. "And this old man," he said, "was playing these lovely Irish tunes right out of O'Neill's book."

About The Author Joey Robichaux rides the Road Warrior circuit and has been playing some sort of musical instrument for the past way-too-many years! He also maintains the Free Sheet Music website at http://www.freesheetmusic.net that offers thousands of free sheet music downloads.

Today's Chapter:

Garnett/Edmonds: 1.25

Maude: 1.28

Well, here we go . . . the end of Book 1.  Show of hands?  (Or comments.)  Who's still here?  My sceptical wife is convinced that a lot of people will have dropped off . . .

Which I'm inclined to believe could be a possibility as well.  So we started with about a dozen.  Who's still here?

Anyway, this last chapter, despite its apparently simplicity, actually has a lot going on under the surface.  It's quite masterfully put together.  And quite sad . . . It starts with a very simple statement: "Prince Andrei was leaving the following evening."  But what a lot is contained in that statement.

He's not just going on a business trip.  He's going to war.  War means he may not come back.  So, in all the conversations that ensue, the unsaid reality is that this could be the last they see of Andrei.

It comes through in Marya's fervent religious sentiments and her giving him the icon.

It comes through in the discussion with his father - who is still unable to get the words, "I love you" out of his mouth.

But the shadow of death hangs over a couple of other people as well: to some extent, old Prince Bolkonsky is in his older years, and may pass away.  But there is also the fear (whether rational or not) of Princess Lise, that she will die giving birth to her child.

All of this floating around - and only Marya seems to be the person to be able to give a proper goodbye.  Andrei barely says a word to his wife.  And his father ends the chapter (and Book I) with the door slam that is the expression of his sorrow.

Also, as a side note, you may have noticed Andrei's impatience with Mademoiselle Bourienne for showing an interest in him.  Even though nothing happened, did this remind him of the St Petersburg society, and the affair that may or may not have been happening between Hippolyte and Lise?  Either way, it seems his disgust with the vast majority of humanity is well and truly ensconced.

So the questions that remain are: Will Andrei find on the battlefield what he cannot find in Russian aristocratic society?

Will the shadow of death fall?

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the end of Book 1.  Hope you've enjoyed the journey so far.  I'll be back later in the day to blog about 2.1!  Exciting, eh?

The best thing is - in Book 2, everyone has the same chapter numbers!  If that's not a cause for celebration, I don't know what is.

This antisocial, aberrant behaviour has served me well in the past, and the new psychiatrist seemed to approve of the tactic, so here are some of the better titles I've come across:

• Barondes, Samuel H., Mood Genes: Hunting for Origins of Mania and Depression
• Fawcett, Jan; Golden, Bernard; and Rosenfeld, Nancy, New Hope for people with Bipolar Disorder, 2nd edition.
• Mondimore, Francis Mark, Bipolar Disorder: A Guide for Patients and Families
• Ratey, John J., A User's Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain

Never tell a manic he can't read more than one book at a time.

Ain't learnin' fun?

When I mention I'm writing a book, I'm usually confronted with similar questions. Or a raised eyebrow and a healthy amount of skepticism.

It usually goes something like this:

"What have you been up to lately?"
"Well, besides the usual, I'm writing a book."

There's a lot of responses one can receive after saying they've started writing a book.
Here's a few of the more common ones:

A. "Who isn't?"
The cynical response. This is implying that all people have given writing a try at some point in their lives and have already failed miserably or, if they haven't yet, inevitably will fail.

B. "Oh. What's it called?"
Ah! Either we have some genuine interest here, or they're casually asking---much the same way one would ask about how the weather is or how a sports team is doing ... and could actually care less about the title or the story that lays behind it.

But 'What's it called?' is a tough question to answer if you're not prepared for it. It took me a lot of composting, writing, and moments of inspiration to finally realize what the title of my book was actually supposed to be.

I guess next time I'll come up with a 'working title'; a tentative title just like what films have during production. Because I felt like an idiot not knowing the title of my own book. But eventually I knew. And I graduated to the next part of the conversation, which sometimes they'll just skip straight to:

C. "So, what's it about?"
A weighted question...
If I'm too expositional, their eyes will glaze over---guaranteed.
If I say stuff like:
It's about mankind's struggle to believe in a world full of empirical data.
or
It's about being dragged by fate into the world's torrid whirlwinds.
or
It's about the shades of grey between good and evil.
or
It's about surrendering trust to find true love.
or
It's about achieving a goal you never intended to chase, but will cost you everything in the end.
then I end up sounding like another Barton Fink, complete with delusions of grandeur.
So I tend to say "A high fantasy about a thief." I try to keep it simple and let them take the bait. You know.... To learn more if they wish.
At that point, the conversation usually moves on to another topic. :P
But if they ever did ask any additional questions, I'd be glad to answer them!
*hint hint*

In our personal quests to conquer the novel, the questions only get harder from there. But unlike the casual masses, us writers are genuinely interested in what we are writing (hopefully!) and we want all the expositional details and tidbits that will help us dig into the meat and bones of our stories.

There comes a day when we know we're ready to answer those tough questions. That's when we're done composting/free writing and ready to create scenes!

Prev: The 5th Ring: Seven Rays | Next: ????

by 6pm i owned 699, as i bought another 2 on sale today.

the exclusive books sales are bad for me. this was my third visit.

127 of my books are "reference" type books. of the remaining 572 on my list (i loooove lists) i have read 32%. i set myself a target of reaching 38% by the end of 2008, but since i started it i have bought more than i have read.

but since i haven't had a tv for 6 months, or even watched tv for a year now, i have been reading so much more than before. and i am loving it (almost as much as my lists).

and i have been in my "new" house for a year yesterday :)

when does it stop being my "new" house then...

I knew my friend D was in a book club and I secretely wanted to be a part of it.  I didn't really know anyone in the group, but I wanted to join anyway.  The organizer of the club insisted that there were only eight members at all times, to make the book discussion manageable.  I'm pretty sure that if it was an "Anyone can Join" sort of thing I wouldn't have been interested in the slightest; but the exclusivity peaked my interest.  Clubs that anyone can join are like Participant ribbons in sports: I know, because I have an impressive collection of Participant ribbons.  When I was a kid I loved to start "clubs" and we'd make secret passwords and code names for each other and we would never let the neighborhood boys join.  Being somewhat of an artist, I loved making ID cards for the club members. 

Who? Me?!

One day, a spot opened up in Book Club, and they invited me to join!  I felt like Charlie Brown when he got an invitation to Violet's party, except this time it wasn't a mistake.  I accepted the invite and suddenly I was penning in monthly book club meetings to an otherwise barren calendar. 

The meetings were so much fun that the scheduled two hours often turned into four.  I'd be out until 11 PM on a Tuesday night.  The conversations were stimulating, the appetizers were awesome, and the company was marvelous.  The combination of personalities meshed really well.  One month it was discovered that two of the book club members were expecting babies (I was one of them) and a Book Shower was thrown for our future readers.  Everyone had an open mind, no one talked on top of each other, and the process for choosing next month's book was more democratic than a small town election.  But for me, it wasn't meant to last forever.

The Downward Spiral

One month three of the eight girls moved out of state.  It was like a freak accident for it to happen at the same time.  One went to Wisconsin, one to Texas, and one to California.  We'd miss them of course, and we even kept them in the book club e-mail loop for a really long time, but the race to fill the three open spots began.

It was difficult to find readers or club-joining wanna-bes like me, apparently, because soon it was decided that everyone should just start asking people to join.  The gals started inviting people from other groups, from the grocery store, from the school board.  Some people tried to join but didn't stick with it for more than one or two meetings.  Turnover started happening really fast.  Sooner or later, with so many invitations happening, there were suddenly ten girls in the book club and something, something was off about the combination of personalities.  Half the girls in the club didn't finish their book during the month, so the discussion ceased being interesting or stimulating.  People who didn't read the book couldn't stay on topic, so the five people trying to talk about Chapter Five got sucked into a conversation about random crap like Halloween costumes or someone's relatives.  Appetizers became a crapshoot...one month the well-to-do host would offer Brie, wine, and a fruit platter; the next month we'd be chomping down beenie-weenies and drinking three dollar wine out of plastic cups.  You never knew whether or not you should have dinner beforehand.  Myself, I grew up po', so I am not above eating a beenie-weenie with my fingers...but some of the gals seemed to be, and the tension level at meetings started growing. 

Losing the Magic

The book club discussions really went downhill.  With so many people not finishing, or even starting, the book, yet attempting to discuss, getting off track was a given.  But when one person derailed the conversation, everyone else jumped too.  So it's hard to blame one person.  And the quality of the conversation was seriously going downhill too.  During our Secret Life of Bees discussion, one of the newer gals make a comment about some of the characters... "those people are good at sports because of all the running around the jungle their ancestors had to do."  And she was serious, because she was raised that way.  It was awful.  Everyone in the room freaked out and some girls even started shouting over each other about what a terrible comment that was. 

One day I got an email from the organizer.  It was very polite.  It went something like this:

Hey M,

Book club meetings are really getting out of control.  S, in particular, seems to be causing a lot of the problems.  You seem to be really good friends with S.  Please talk to her and ask her if she would either read the books or stay on track. 

Thanks, The Organizer.

I did that thing where you scrunch up your face in confusion.  S didn't seem to that much be a problem.  She derailed conversations but so did everyone else.  And she wasn't even the one who had the ignorant comment during the Secret Life of Bees discussion.  And sure, I was friends with S...but not friendly enough to tactfully say "Hey, the Organizer thinks you have a big mouth, so please keep it shut it at meetings."  I didn't want to do Organizer dirty work if I wasn't the Organizer.  What to do, what to do...

Mean Librarians

I didn't say anything to S about her "behavior."  How could I?  She didn't even realize that she and the Organizer were clashing.  So the downward spiral continued.  Meetings weren't as fun anymore.  Instead of staying until 11 PM, everyone was out the door by nine. 

Then it was decided that we'd be getting our books off of the local library Book Club Selection list.  Many libraries have this...it's a collection of books that you can check out in a large quantity.  The problem is that there are only so many books to choose from on the library list.  But with ten people, this was the easiest course of action because not everyone wanted to pay for the book. 

The Organizer checked out the books and they were passed out to everyone at the meetings.  And here is where the really stupid, petty, ridiculous behavior began.  People still weren't reading the books like they were supposed to.  And now since we were getting the books off of a list, I didn't feel invested in the selection anymore.  I became one of those gals who didn't want to even start the book.  Because some of us chose not to read the book, we started to skip the meetings.  If we skipped the meeting, then we didn't get the book back to the Organizer on time.  So I did what I thought I should...I quit taking the books I didn't want to read because I knew that I wouldn't get them back to the Organizer in time.  The very Type A Organizer wanted the books back a couple of days ahead of time so she could account for all of them and get them back to the library.  This should have been okay...but then people started delivering the books to me, my house, my car.  No!  I don't want that book!  Take it away, I said.  But no.  

Suddenly I really, really didn't want to be part of Book Club anymore.  I had a harder time working up the desire to get to the meetings.  Once I missed a meeting and therefore didn't get the book back in time.  The next day I got a cold email from The Organizer, insisting that the books get returned to her ASAP.  We did not have the option of returning them to the library even though it would be more convenient.  I felt so bad about not returning the book on time, that one morning I got up extra early so I could run to Organizer's house and drop the book off.  Since it was six AM, I left it on her driveway in the newspaper bag.  I didn't figure she'd want me to ring the bell.  I got a "Geez, thanks" email.  Organizer had been pretty friendly to me at this point, but suddenly I felt like I must be on the shit list.  Then I heard that the Organizer was freaking out because of potential library fines.  Since they were all checked out under her name, this was acceptable.  However...

Organizer started sending out dramatic e-mails to the Book Club, stating that the librarian gave her a good talking to about getting the books late.  She said that the librarians were calling her and leaving mean messages on the phone because S still didn't get her book back to the library. 

A few days later, The Organizer singled a few of the late returners and demanded that they get the books to her right now because they were five days overdue.  And she was still very upset because she continued to get mean messages from the librarians.  You must get the books to me, she scolded, because they absolutely have to be returned as a set, no exceptions!  You cannot, I repeat cannot, return these books directly to the library!

Then I got another email, addressed just to me, from the Organizer.  It went something like...

M,

PLEASE tell S to return the book to me.  I'm getting nasty messages from the library and the books are now five days overdue.  I'm going to have to pay the overdue fines.  Thanks,

The Organizer.

I called S.  Don't ask my why I was still getting asked to do Organizer type dirty work.  It was a little insulting, actually.  S felt horrible about the situation.  The Organizer didn't realize this, but S would rather crumple up and die than inconvenience another human being.  It's true.  Hell, I didn't feel nearly as bad as S did about my late book.  I figured that if there was a fine imposed on anyone because of me, I would be more than happy to pay it.  Also, I thought, if this was getting to be such a problem for the Book Club, how about we not do the Book Club Selection?  No one was holding a gun to the Organizer's head saying "Check out ten books at a time, or else."  Personally if I didn't want to be responsible for someone else's book returning skills, I wouldn't take them on.  I tell those lousy, non-returning book club members (like me) to go get their own books. 

Here's the clincher.  S worked for the library district in Colorado Springs for ten years.  Though the "Mean Librarian" was now working in the next county over, S had worked with her and pretty much everyone in that library at one time.  So S gave her a call to apologize and offer to pay the total fines wrought on The Organizer.  The librarian typed in some info onto the computer.

"Oh, that set's not due for another two days," the librarian told S.  "Don't worry about it."

"Oh, good," S said. 

"Oh, and if you're late we're not going to fine for the whole set," the librarian said.  "Just return it when you can."

"But don't they have to be returned as a set?" S asked.

"It's more convenient that way, but it's not a big deal.  That's what bar codes are for," the librarian said. 

They went on to have a half-hour conversation.  S, who worked for a library for a decade, later pointed out some obvious things to me.  Librarians don't call people to remind them that books are late, and in the event they ever did, they certainly wouldn't yell and demand that the books are returned.  They sometimes send out form reminders via email or snail mail, and they don't send them until you are several days overdue.  If librarians had to make phone calls to every person with a late book, they would never get off the phone.  Besides, libraries make their money off of book fines.  They want you to be late. 

I was totally deflated to learn this.  The Organizer had been using some seriously passive-aggressive techniques to get grown women to return the books a week ahead of time.  I can be pretty type A myself, but dammit, that's extreme.  S

S sent the Organizer a note.  She mentioned that she was just going to return the book to the library so she wouldn't have to worry about it.  The Organizer sent S a note.  It had plenty of ALL CAPS shouting.  S sent the whole thread to me.  All I can say is, ouch!  Still, S returned the book directly to the library anyway, and the world did not stop turning.  However, the Organizer gave her the boot from Book Club, which suited S just fine. 

Sometimes It's Okay to be a Quitter!

Later that day, the Organizer sent out an email to the remaining book club girls that said something like:

"Ladies...This is just a reminder to please use common courtesy and return the books on time." 

It was longer and more condescending than that, but for me, it was the last straw.  I will be damned if I have a peer speak to me like they are my mommy.  Especially, especially when I know that we've been eating some serious BS lately.  Not to mention, I already have a mother to nag me about common courtesy, kthxbye. 

So I replied and was short and to the point. 

Please take me off this list.  I do not wish to participate in Book Club anymore. 

And sadly, it was true.  My glory days of being a Book Club member were over.  And I was glad about it.  A weight was off my shoulders.  Though from time to time, I miss the Beanie Weenies and the Brie. 

What have we learned from this incident?  For me, it was a reminder that no matter how old we get, cliques and cattiness will always reign supreme in the Wide World of Womanhood.  And seventh grade attitudes persist long after the smell of notebook paper and scented ink have disappeared into the lockers of our memories. 

But the good news is that we no longer have to stay until the bell rings.

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you started but did not finish.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Highlight the ones you still want to read but just have not had a chance yet!
5) "Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 or less and force books upon them" - REALLY!????

1. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
2. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
3. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
5. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
6. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
8. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
9. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
10. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
12. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
13. His Dark Materials (trilogy) - Philip Pullman
14. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
15. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
16. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
17. Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger
18. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
19. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (Do abbreviated versions count?)
21. Chronicles of Narnia - C.S. Lewis
22. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – C.S. Lewis
23. Winnie the Pooh - A.A. Milne
24. Animal Farm - George Orwell
25. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
26. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
27. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
28. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
29. Charlotte’s Web - E.B. White
30. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
31. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
32. Complete Works of Shakespeare
33. Ulysses - James Joyce
34. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
35. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
36. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
37. The Bible
38. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
39. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
40. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
41. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
42. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
45. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
46. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
47. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
48. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
49. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
50. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
51. Little Women - Louisa M. Alcott
52. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
53. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
54. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
55. Middlemarch - George Eliot
56. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
57. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
58. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
59. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
60. Emma - Jane Austen
61. Persuasion - Jane Austen
62. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
63. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
64. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
65. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
66. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
67. Anne of Green Gables – L.M. Montgomery
68. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
69. Atonement - Ian McEwan
70. Dune - Frank Herbert
71. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
72. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
73. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
74. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
75. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
76. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
77. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
78. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
79. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
80. Bridget Jones’ Diary - Helen Fielding
81. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
82. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
83. Dracula - Bram Stoker
84. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
85. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
86. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
87. Germinal - Emile Zola
88. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
89. Possession - A.S. Byatt
90. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
91. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
92. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
93. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
94. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
95. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom No idea what this is about, but the title - hmmmm :)
96. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
97. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
98. Watership Down – Richard Adams
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
100. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

My Current Read - The Killing Club by Marcie Walsh.

It's this murder mystery about this bunch of 30 yr olds who in high school had a club where they wrote down ingenious ways to kill people! and now those murders are happening... but to them!

I actually got the book as a gift, and didn't think i would enjoy it... but was pleasantly surprised.. it's pretty well written with a fast narrative!!

I am sitting in the apartment, next to an open window, and yet miniscule beads of perspiration are forming upon my brow as quickly as I angrily swipe them away. This is has put me in quite an ornery mood. The heat always does, as Le Parisien can attest to... He's seen me fanning away ineffectually, eyebrows knotted in frustration, while I pored over a set of the Law of the European Union notes. Not the best way to prepare for finals, I can tell you that...

It took me a while to get myself to sit in front of my VAIO, which seems to be giving out record amounts of heat, to the point where I am too annoyed to even rest my hands on the palmrest. Honestly, sometimes I feel like putting an icecube on it to cool it down. The only thing that stops me from doing so is the fact that I have a very pretty white laptop, and I want to keep it that way, and not sputtering from an electric malfunction from a misguided and ill-thought-through idea...

Besides the heat, what was keeping me away from blogging today was one of my purchases, a novel by Penny Vincenzi, Into Temptation, which was the final installment of her Spoils of Time trilogy. I had stumbled upon the second book, Something Dangerous, a number of years ago during an idle browse through Kinokuniya. I have to admit, the first reason I picked up the book was its cover, which had two beautiful, svelte brunette ladies, somewhat out of focus, dressed in the decadent frocks of the 1920s, against a sleek navy blue background. But I quickly became drawn into the heady world of the Lyttons publishing dynasty and the stories in the family. I have been hooked ever since. After finishing the book, I remember talking to Scribe about it, and how she was so thoughtful that she bought me the first of the series, No Angel, for my birthday. Now, several years later, I am finally picking up the final part of the trilogy, and I find myself being drawn deeper and deeper into the book.

I started reading it last night, and found myself struggling to pull away to go to bed. But I did, and I didn't pick it up again until four in the afternoon today, having spent the morning filling out another three training contract application forms. It was an immensely satisfying way of spending the afternoon, accompanied with soft music playing in the background. I only put it down at 8.45, having read it non-stop till I finished Part I. It's been quite a while since I've picked a book up for pleasure, having been pre-occupied with legal texts from the beginning of last September. Any time I had for leisure, I spent it watching TV shows on my computer. It felt nice to get back into the groove of simply picking up a good book. I find it hard to pin Vincenzi down as to what kind of author she is. Her writing is definitely superior to that of any chick-lit novelist, but somehow, I don't think people regard her as a literary genius. Whatever her pedigree (having written for Vogue, Tatler et al), I enjoy reading her books, and don't really care what anyone thinks of that. Having sold millions of copies of her books, I think she must be doing at least something right.

#1 EastEnders: For the uninitiated, this is a flagship drama on BBC One set in the fictituous Albert Square in London. You're probably thinking "What the jumping jackhammers am I missing out on?" Well, not much. I consider EastEnders to be one of the worst television programmes ever made. It's an embarrassment that this and Big Brother are even part of British cultural history. EastEnders been the same thing for at least five years: quasi-public storylines written by a team of 40-year-olds, containing far-fetched "comedy" moments, stereotypes of children and obese people, one-liners with another "next big male/female soap crush" thrown in every couple of months for good measure.

And when they do have a taboo-breaking or "edge-of-your-seat" storyline (child abuse/racism/knife crime/being held hostage), they get complaints from people. Now I don't want to seem at all biased, but I'm pretty sure these people have other things to do at that time of night, like buy Bratz DVD's for their daughters or cry uncontrollably whilst listening to Evanescence's "My Immortal".

There's a brilliant line on the EastEnders article of the Wikipedia spoof website 'Uncyclopedia', which I think says "EastEnders is intended to keep the unintelligent amused for 30 minutes, while the intelligent try to repair the damage of that day". It's quite possibly the most cutting edge piece-of-text I've read in my life. It's funny and completely true.

The saddest thing with EastEnders, is that children seem to watch it (see the Newsround website). It's partly down to the fact that British children have few programmes of their own due to lost revenue in advertising. As well as EastEnders, children are being subjected to foreign programmes that barely reflect their own society, simply because the programmes are cheaper. I don't wish to "rant" about this matter at all, in fact, I consider it a serious one which needs to be addressed by more people. I wouldn't want my own children growing up with American accents and saying words like 'zucchini'. Here's the website for people who want to know more: http://www.savekidstv.org.uk/ .

#2 facebook: OK, now, people I know and some whom I'm related to use this social-networking site. I don't wish to criticise them, but I simply don't see the point of 'facebook'. It's MySpace with clickable links that lead to nowhere, and pictures of alcohol-related drinks. It shows your friends everything you do, for instance, '9:45pm Tom has edited his Interests', if I want to tell my friends I've just edited my Interests, I'll give them a call or write them a letter. In fact, I may have a homing pigeon in my outhouse. There's no rush, is there?

#3 The inability to unsubscribe from the 'Showcase Cinemas' newsletter: I don't live in Reading anymore!

With the exception of hot and stuffy tube rides, I find London a really nice city to catch a bus in and an even nicer city to walk in.

I like the days when I have French classes. I get the walk and the bus ride.

I love it more in summer when you step out and the sky is still light. It was a hot day today. To step out into some fresh air was pretty special.  I listened to Metro Area and walked to Oxford Street for the bus.

When buses are packed and stuffy, I disappear in to my books. Commuting is good because it gives you time to read. When i am not commuting, I take months to finish reading a book. But commuting when it's busy gives you a chance to disappear into the pages of your books.

I love sitting on the left-hand side of the bus. I always sit upstairs on double-decker buses. The best spot is the front left-hand seat. This is the prime seat for seeing things. The massive windows provide the best views. I love that it's a completely different perspective for being so high up. Being just a little over the standard rate for petite, I am not used to seeing things from up there. But I like being that high. I have always like looking out, looking down and just thinking, wow.

So really, for 90p, being on a bus and going over one of the many bridges in London is one of the best things this city offers.