033.

CLICKEZ-MOI.
CLICKEZ-MOI.
CLICKEZ-MOI.
CLICKEZ-MOI.
CLICKEZ-MOI.

032.

I was so impressed with myself for keeping up with this blog. Hah. Well, here I am three months later, again pondering style and not wanting to clutter up my livejournal with it. So I come crawling back here, hoping that I'll get taken back.

As penance, I come bearing thoughts I had about the movie Holiday Inn, which, being available On Demand and starring the illustrious Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire, as well as being a Christmas-y movie, provided the entertainment for my household last evening. Overall, other than the fact that Bing is awesomer than awesome, the movie wasn't that great, except for this amazing tap number by Fred: Say it with Firecrackers.



The man is a genius. Not only does he dress well (the starry scarf around his neck; those socks!), the way he incorporated firecrackers into the dance routine is dynamite. Here's the full performance on YouTube.

031.

Things I love Thursday Friday!

» Fridays off. Somehow, my class schedule this fall worked out so that I have Fridays absolutely off. Now I can use this day for homework, or working on graduate school applications, or writing. But today I think I'm going to go shopping.

» School starting again. I swear, I'm going to be a perma-student. I love the rush of learning new things; love the feel of the university; love the students and teachers in love with their subjects.

» Crazy ex-hippie professors. My drawing prof falls into this category this fall. She wore all black, with a red&yellow scarf at her neck, hella nerd glasses and combat boots on our first day, and the second thing out of her mouth was "and I hope you all are registered to vote." (Which I am, by the way.) She has a lot of good things to teach, good wisdom. I'm excited to learn from her.

» Chorizo and Kale Soup. Even when it turns out spicier that expected. Yummm. (Funny, Firefox doesn't think chorizo is a word. But I don't think Horizons and Kale soup sounds very appetizing, do you?)

» Chia pets. I don't own one, and probably never will, but knowing they exist in the world makes it a better place.

030.

Monday is my scheduled cheesy tv night, starting with Gossip Girl, and continuing with One Tree Hill if I feel up to it. And sometimes The Hills (haters to the left; I'd rather watch drama on tv than have it in my life, okay?). Since I really don't want to endure the ribbing I know I'd get from my father and brother, I had been using the tv upstairs. Tonight, however, I've been preempted by my mom's love of Dancing with the Stars, and banished to the basement. Surrounded by piles of fabric, faux fur, trinkets--down here, I really get inspired to create things (I've started sewing a pencil skirt for fall; it's going to take forever because I'm completely out of sewing practice, but I don't think I can get a pencil skirt that will fit otherwise). It's nice down here, though I expect a spider to jump out at me any minute.

PS. One Tree Hill is turning into a really bad version of Passions, or some such. Except without a crazy witch and monkey, it's definitely lacking.

029.

Last Saturday's trip to a neighborhood flea market (well, really a grotty old house filled with junk for sale) yielded the best. find. ever. Well, possibly not ever, but still pretty darn awesome nonetheless. I am now the proud owner of a vintage Royal typewriter.

Sure, it reeks that old-dust smell, one of the handles is missing and the roller is cracked, but the glass side panels are intact and it emanates sit-down-and-type-something-brilliant. It looks so pretty sitting on the flowery yellow tablecloth in the dining room. And it's been enticing me to write more (a short story/skeleton novel and a poem--my first in months).

This blog needs more pictures (meaning pictures of my typewriter), which I will get to posthaste. By which I mean as soon as I procure batteries for a camera.

028.

It's been hideously long since I updated, I know. I've been meaning to, but slipped back into the trap that is thinking-it-makes-it-so. Avoiding that trap was the reason I started this blog in the first place...so. There you go.

I think I'm going to follow Gala Darling's lead and celebrate a Things I Love Thursday.



» Good days. Y'know, the ones where even when things go wrong, you have an underlying sense of rightness and joy. The can never come often enough.

» Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Of all the tv shows I never thought I'd enjoy, this show has been amazing. From Joss Whedon's amazing stories (and wit) to the great characters, costumes and actors, this show is a joy to watch. And think about.

» Fancy dinner parties. My friend Biscuit and I have decided to have bi-monthly fancy dress dinners. Our first was tonight, although it was a bit more casual, talking around her 1890's dining table over pasta and salad. Here's to many more dinners like this.

» Summer-turning-into-fall. The leaves are tinged with red, burning bushes are starting to smolder, mornings have that bit of chill: it's almost autumn!

» Reading until one falls asleep. It's such a lovely feeling.

» Bluegrass. For being appropriate for nearly every occasion.

» Natural peanut butter with a touch of honey. Such a delicious snack.

» New York Fashion Week. Even though I'm super-behind on all the shows, I love the excitement that surrounds this week, and all the ideas it brings. I'm most excited for Paris Fashion Week, though, with Alexander McQueen's show.

027.

With all the recent blather about the Republicrat National Conventions, I made the offhand comment tonight that Awesome Dead Presidents were way past rolling in their graves, more toward the dance party side of things. (Or maybe they could be a source of energy?)

I think it would be best for everybody if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson got turned by vampires when they died, and have waited lurking in the shadows these 200-odd years for the government to get so bad that they felt it necessary to step in. Co-president, restorers of the Constitution, generally badass:

Vote Undead Presidential Vigilante Squad 2008.

026.

Yesterday I stopped by the Paper Garden, an adorable shop that sells paper, cards, notebooks and those gorgeous paper cutout chandeliers. Well, used to sell. Apparently they're going out of business, because the top floor was completely empty and everything on the bottom floor was 60% off.

Sad as that may be, I used the opportunity to buy myself some notebooks (and a card for my mother's 50th birthday). One is a tall skinny 2009 planner, with a magnetic clasp and a cover that's patterned after vintage silk jacquard. I've never been one for planners, but this is one I would work on using, just because it's so pretty.

The other is my very first Moleskine. I am dorkily excited about it. Usually when I think about buying one the pricetag turns me away, but this was too good to pass up. I am now Molskine'd up and ready to do some serious writing.

025.

In honor of my 25th post...no, not really. I think it's rad that I made it to 25 without taking a major hiatus and getting bored. Perhaps that's because I refuse to nail down this blog to one topic; tried that once and it didn't work very well.

But without further ado, I've decided to start posting outfits. What I wore today. Because as I read my blogroll, bloggers like Queen Michelle and The Clothes Horse have common threads that run through their clothing. Style, I think it's called. I have yet to discover what mine is, and I think I'll have an easier time of it if I have material to analyze. Which means outfit photos. And I'll be presumptuous enough to put them on the intertubes.



Dress & Belt: stolen from my mom.
Shirt: Forever 21.
Necklace: Nordstrom.
Shoes: Star Ling via Nordstrom.

024.

You know it's a slow day at work when these kinds of thing are twice as funny than they need to be.

Coworker on the phone: I had a tickler in my system to call you...
Reply: Absolutely. I've been thinking about you too.

Other coworker and I: (explode into laughter.)

023.

When I first decided to try the Specific Carbohydrate Diet, I didn't think I could do it. And truly, the first week was really hard--I was hungry and cranky and was never really satisfied. But as time progressed, I got used to eating veggies instead of bread and nuts & honey instead of chocolate. It was easy avoiding pasta and rice--I never much liked them anyway--but the craving for cupcakes or a thick piece of crusty bread spread with butter, those consumed many an evening.

My allotted 30 days expired on Friday. My first swallow as a free eater was a McDonald's milkshake. Yes, it's true. Unfortunately. And the weekend was filled with cake and hamburgers and Grandma's cookies. My eating habits weren't the way I had planned my reintroduction to "normal food," but they worked. I was never so happy for a breakfast comprising mainly of cantaloupe in my life.

While I don't remember a point in the last month where I said to myself "Egads, self, you're feeling rather fit today!", after a weekend of ingesting crap, I could feel it. Today I ate back with the diet (and had cashews with lunch--I have discovered that I can eat nuts now, and it's a beautiful thing) and it's like the universe has realigned. Well, my universe, at least.

This weekend I'm going to make myself bread with whole grain flour and see how that goes. Bread is the one thing I really miss.

022.

Why leggings and I will never be BFF: cold ankles.

021.

I made myself go to church today, to the closest church I could think of that isn't the cool-kids Lutheran church down the hill, which is a church that is really heavy on the modern evangelism and love but light on the heavy theology and meaningful music. So it really isn't my style. The sermons are usually pretty relevant, though.

Anyway, I have a point. At one point in the sermon, the pastor made was talking about an Old Testament king, and said that we all need to be kings in our own lives. As in, we need to be like Josiah, and also take control over our environments to the extent we can. This immediately rubbed me the wrong way, because the pastor is the type of man that I would expect preaching a sermon about having to give over the kingship of our own lives to God because we should give all control over to Him*. And this, directly from the Stphenie Meyer school of world building**, is why I have a problem with so many modern churches. Because in their quest to dumb down messages for the masses, they reach for the easiest metaphor/analogy possible without thinking about how it fits into the grand scheme of things. If you're going to use a king metaphor for more than one concept, at least qualify it, so people don't get confused as to whether you're talking about selfishness or authority.

* The "You should let God drive the car and just sit in the passenger seat" school of Christianity is inane. As a Christian, you shouldn't be that passive. You are the one living your life, not God. God has set up reality, God gave you your journey, God will help you, but you have to live your own life. Therefore, God is the navigator, telling you where it would be helpful to turn, but it is your job to take the wheel and turn the car.

** See the ever-wonderful condensed version here at Fandom Wank if you're confused. Basically, Smeyer contradicts herself in the Twilightverse and obviously hasn't thought about it very much. I think it goes something like "Oh, I didn't plan for that did I? Well, I'll just slip it in anyway, no one's bound to notice. It's just a tiny detail, those don't matter."

020.

Sometimes I get like this, and I hate it. Work all day, come home excited but only watch tv. Don't cook, don't clean, don't create, just sit. It's repugnant.

019.

I caved and bought a fashion magazine today, Marie Claire, even though I told myself I would stop. It's another one with Maggie Gyllenhaal on the cover.

I've been trying to cut my consumption of fashion magazines ever since Elle pissed me off a couple months ago. It was the "body" issue, and the subtext throughout the entire issue was that of "of course you want to look like a model, and lament the fact that you never will". Which is pretty much modus operandi for fashion magazines. But. They ran an (actually pretty intelligent) article by a man who explained that he would rather date real, flawed women instead of perfect models. When I read it, I was really grateful that the magazine took the time to acknowledge that the majority of its readership does not, in fact, look perfect. But later, when I had time to think it over, I realized how pathetic it was for me to be lapping up the one article, just two pages, that the magazine provided. In a sea of thinspiration, the magazine threw out one bone of sanity, and I gobbled it up happily. That's bullshit. If a magazine is going to embrace women of all different shapes and sizes, they better spread it allll over the magazine.

I stopped buying Vogue a long time ago. There's too much of a whiff of the old lady who wears ostentatious furs and the attitude "I know you can't afford this, and will never be able to, but this is how you should be living, you plebe."

Marie Claire started off the entertainment section by giving me a "food pyramid" of my August tv shows. Not suggesting. Not promoting. Telling. I don't take well to being told. Especially by a magazine. (Also, given that the tv I'll watch this month runs more along the lines of Buffy, Firefly and the Olympics, I doubt I'll ever turn on Californication and The Wire.)

Nylon is okay sometimes, but gets a little too vapid and consumeristic for my tastes, not to mention thinking that it's way more indie than it really is. And I still really like Teen Vogue, because it really doesn't try to be more than just a "how to" guide for teens with no money.

I really should have just saved my pennies for an Elle UK. Dang.

018.

Lately I've been thinking about writing. Especially with Breaking Dawn coming out tomorrow, I know I've been thinking (along with half the intertubes) that if SMeyer can get published, so can I. But it's more than that; I've been thinking about writing in little chinks of time at work, or when I'm walking with my mother.

Today I found some notes I took about a story idea. I had no idea I'd been writing that much down, because I've been taking mental notes for the past couple months. I used to be terrified that it couldn't build from a vague idea into a cohesive story and world, but I'm discovering that the more I just let it roll around in my head, the more ideas I'm getting. Now I have concepts I want to research. And that'll spawn even more ideas.

Quantum physics, here I come.

017.

It gives me a weird kind of joy to know that, come Friday, Twilight fans all over the globe will be mispronouncing "Sequim" in their heads when they reach page 9 of Breaking Dawn.

PS. Ugh, I'd forgotten how "Omg seventeen is the perfect age and I don't ever want to mature" these books are. It's annoying.

016.

Ugh, fatigue. It's the fourth day of my new diet, and that's all I feel. Now, I'm at the end of a Remicade cycle, which is always fatigue inducing, so that's one explanation. But even after my breakfast this morning of banana pancakes (yum! banana + egg + a little cinnamon & vanilla), applesauce and provolone cheese, I still feel tired and rundown.

The first two days I could understand it, because I didn't eat as much (oops). I know that I've been working full time, and just came back from camp (and so am still a bit dehydrated and exhausted).

I have noticed a difference in my gums, though. They're 50% healthier, shiny and not puffy at all, and light pink. That's probably because I've stopped eating white sugar and corn syrup.

So, I've made a resolution. I'll stay on this diet for thirty days. If I don't get better, or feel better, or something at the end of those thirty days, I will re-introduce whole grains (I think refined grains and sugars are probably a bad idea regardless). I just finished Michael Pollan's In Defense of Food, and one of the things he claims is that the genes of people who come from different areas are adapted to the traditional foods of those areas. Europeans are some of the lucky few who have been eating grains for a long time, so I may be able to tolerate whole grains without totally upsetting the balance of bacteria/yeast in my gut (I'm mostly French/British Isles).

Also, Michal Pollan talked about the balance between Omega-3 (from plants) and Omega-6 (from grains) fatty acids. And, in short super-reductionated science, Omega-3s fight inflammation while Omega-6s cause it. The SCD might help bring back my ratio of the two into optimal levels.

So. If this fatigue clears up, I'll consider staying on the diet. If not, good riddance.

015.

Started the diet today with pretty much no planning. In retrospect, this may or may not have been the best idea. It was good that I didn't plan, because I didn't have any time to talk myself out of it, or procrastinate while I stocked up the perfect pantry. It was bad, because I really don't have that many legal foods to snack on, and any pantry basics (like almond flour, honey and natural peanut butter) that might aid in making food I still need to acquire.

In a fit of irony, my work chose this day to feed a training session roast beef, gravy and mashed potatoes (currently the bane of my existence, I love them so much). There were, of course, leftovers. Very fragrant, yummy-smelling leftovers. Also, cookies.

But! I discovered today that beans are legal, and so is squash. And I think having restrictions to what I can eat (carbs are at least half my diet as of yesterday) will propel me to more adventurous eating. Hello, mushrooms.

I went to the grocery store on my lunch break to find some food, and I never really realized how many processed products there are with sugar. Or corn syrup. It's everywhere. Even in plain ol' beef jerky.

Excuse me while I go to the store for some beans to make refried beans. Mmm. I am determined to figure out some sort of tortilla substitute. I will not go years without quesadillas or enchiladas.

014.

The time has come to bite the bullet. Or, shall I say, to stop biting corn. And wheat. And sugar.

This might be a long story to tell. I'll start in the middle. My senior year in high school, my gastroenterologist was threatening me with surgery if I couldn't get my Crohn's disease cleared up (this sounds like somehow the Crohn's was my fault, but it isn't, I assure you). In an attempt to avoid surgery (which I did, just in case anyone is worrying), my mother found this book called Breaking the Vicious Cycle, which evangelizes the Specific Carbohydrate Diet as a way of curing Crohn's (and Ulcerative Colitis, and some other things, including autism) without drugs or surgery. The specific part about carbohydrates is that you can't eat them. No complex carbs allowed. That means no grains, no potatoes, no rice or corn, no refined sugar. Back then, it seemed an impossible task to me, and I'd rather feel sick than have to give up foods. I ended up finding ProBiotics, which got me into a mini-remission and into the good health I have today. Mostly.

Fast forward to a month ago, when I started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma (am now reading In Defense of Food, never fear). The prolificance of corn in the modern diet, if what Michal Pollan writes is accurate, is rather scary. I wanted to label everything CORN, instead of Spaghetti-Os or Fruit Roll Ups or whatever. Then I started thinking. If undigested chains of complex carbohydrates are making bad bacteria thrive in our guts (as according to BTVC), and corn is a complex carbohydrate, it stands that if we as a society (and me as a person) are eating mass amounts of corn-infused food, we have a huge imbalance of flora in our guts. And our current diet isn't helping at all.

So, with the coming together of two unrelated books (and also some hella infections, yay for having next-to-no immune system), I decided it's time to try the Specific Carbohydrate diet.

I'm a bit scared, not gonna lie. I'm trying not to think about all the tasty wheat-based products I love, or mashed potatoes. I baked my last cupcakes this weekend, and had my last quesadilla tonight. Tomorrow I'm picking up almond flour and yogurt starter.

SCD here I come.

013.

There is nothing that will inspire more fear in me than the words 'graduate school.' Seriously. Every time I think about applying, or even taking the GREs, or even considering what I should study, my heart starts beating faster, I get super-nervous and I can't shake the feeling that I'll never get in.

The stupidest part is I know that I'm the type of student that should go to grad school no questions asked. High school was a breeze, I'm one of the best students at my college, top academic scholarship, double majoring blah blah blah. Hell, I'm one of the Honors program director's favorite students. I eat school for breakfast. But I can't shake the feeling that I'm not prepared for grad school; I'll never get in; I won't be prepared for the classes; I'm just an amateur and am not sophisticated/worldly/well-read/fluent in three languages enough.

But this is what I need to do. I am worth grad school. I will pwn grad school.

Right? Right.

012.

Look at the different ways people deal with their insecurities. Some people become loud, boisterous, as if if they can point out their own flaws first, or create superficial new ones, they win (because people won't see their real flaws). Some people withdraw, almost refuse to give the world any foothold to see insecurities. And yet, each method isn't enough, can't mask the pain (which eventually manifests in bulimia and cutting).

I've decided to start a center for cultural refugees. Come if you've decided to shun the ideologies of consumerism, nutritionism, of dualism and sterotypeism. Come if the superficiality of the world hurts more than the reasons for it. Come if you want to have a real conversation with someone, if you want to live a life without clocks, if you want to spend time with God and not feel like you're drowning. Come if you've ever thought there's a better way, or a better place, or a better life. Just come.

011.

I am always amazed at how exhilerating and exhausting one week can be.

More to come when I'm hydrated and unpacked.

010.

As I've said before, I've been watching a lot of Buffy the Vampire Slayer recently (well, if "a lot" means "when I'm not reading or dead tired from work"). It always seemed a little odd to me that Buffy had time to go to school, do enough homework to pass her classes, perform her slayer duties, hang out with her friends at the Bronze, see Angel and sleep. Willow also, she does more homework than Buffy, but still has a boyfriend, goes to the Bronze, practices her witchcraft, all sorts of stuff.

Granted, this is a television show, and specific episodes are only a snapshot of the fictional lives of these characters, but I've never been able to figure out how they can do so much. Maybe it's because they never watch tv. Maybe it's because it's television and they never have to clean or eat or shower, except when it feeds the script. Maybe they just have energy I'll never have.

It's funny that it takes watching a tv show about people who don't watch television to make you think about how much else you could be doing.

009.

Last Wednesday I bought a pair of shoes (the Berlin by Star Ling). I am so excited; they're my first pair of 'grown up' shoes, and I think they're a good investment. The leather is so soft, and I love the cut of the heel strap--it's so sensual (for lack of a better word).

When I realized I have never walked with them on hard ground, I started wondering if they're a soft heel or hard. Most people wear rubber-soled shoes everyday (especially on a college campus), so their footprints, while noticeable, are not as pronounced as Foley artists make them seem in movies. Hard-soled heels, however, can make an incredible racket (especially in a tunnel or between to tall buildings when the sound reverberates). Whenever I wear my boots I can just feel everyone staring, wondering why that girl is calling attention to herself through sound. (Consequently, I never wear those boots when I know I'll be walking alone at night.)

Sometimes the uniformity (and utter lack of ability to think of anything but) in the way people dress astounds me.

008.

I just started reading The Omnivore's Dilemma, inspired by a passing comment from photographer D on Thursday. While I've only read to page 71, Michael Pollan's point has already wormed its way into my head (and I don't think it's going anywhere).

Perhaps the reason this book has so much influence on me is that I just returned from two days on a farm. I never grew up around agriculture (except for the occasional season of hay across the street), and being able to see the enormous amount of love and passion that goes into even a small farm makes my heart break for the farmers in Iowa who futilely grow corn for the rest of us (or at least for the system).

To see such down-to-earth and lovely people exploited for the gains of whoever ('cause it's definitely not the nutritional gains of the final consumer) sets me on edge. Grr.

007.

At the farm, in the midst of the most gorgeous garden, is a Japanese maple. It is thirty years old, and one of the most magnificent trees I've ever seen.

The two days I spent on the farm did more to diminish four years of worrying than any amount of logic. You see, I have been terrified of aging. I know that with age comes wisdom (hopefully), but the thought of losing my memory or being betrayed by my body again, becoming as helpless (or even more so) as a child again...it scares me. But that farm, it wouldn't be what it is without the time it's been established. The garden wouldn't be as lush, or the people as calm (all the rough edges worn away).

Even my mentors, the writer S and the photographer D, hada friendship and camaraderie and one-ness that only comes with time (and a deep compatibility). I hope to achieve that level of rapport with someone someday.

I learned this week that time isn't an enemy. It isn't a thief. Time simply is, and is required for many of the qualities I admire in people.

006.

On returning from a visit to the largest blueberry farm in Oregon, I feel strangely creative, like if I don't do start a project, it'll come oozing out of my pores and get my life all sticky. I learned so much these past two days about myself, about farming and blueberries and farmers, about photography and questions and writing. Learning like this always inspires something in me.

But there was another factor, the away-ness of the farm. The house was a little island amidst blueberry fields, with the most splendid garden I've seen in person and a little pond ringed with yellow irises. There were three swans and a signet, a heron, a bluejay, so many reminders of a world so much bigger and more perfect than myself. And the people, they were so calm, even though the busiest 6 weeks of their year is right around the corner; grounded, I think they learn from their farm and their fruit.

I am inspired by people who genuinely love their work, who take no bullshit, who connect with what is truly real and intransitory. My mind is spinning.

005.

It always makes sense in theory, but the idea of getting inspiration for the way one dresses from a book or movie always baffles me in practice. Well, it did. Now I understand it.

Take, for instance, the season two finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Drusilla, Spike and Angel are all wearing black and red (oooh, how very vampire of them). And Buffy always wears cross necklaces, as any Slayer should.

I found my own cross necklace (which I previously would never wear because I hate the connotations it has with girls who wear them but don't act Christlike) and started wearing it because fandom is cool. I bought a red dress at Nordstrom Rack the other day, and wore that with the cross and black tights. Voila, instant outfit inspiration. And it didn't feel costumey or dorky or forced.

I suppose it's like watching Gossip Girl and wearing a headband, only applied to more clothing.

004.

End of quarter exhaustion is a curious thing, especially when it is coupled with a huge relief as one turns in a final project.

Sometimes, I feel like a marionette and the only thing holding me up are my strings to heaven.

003.

Inspired by the last of Dr Krug's class, I started going through all my old school notebooks and making a list of all the books in the margins (whenever a professor mentions a book that sounds interesting and isn't part of the curriculum, I write it down for possible future perusal). I've gotten an entire front-and-back in my journal so far, and it's only the first notebook.

Krug wanted to make sure his point hit home, and asked us to make a list of 100 books (and 100 pieces of music, 50 artists, 20 philosophers) that we think we need to know, and read those. He's big into reading; every class was essentially him telling us that we need to think for ourselves (which is probably why so many people think he's crazy). He is crazy, but in a very good way. Honestly, his class struck the balance between kick-in-the-pants (read! get involved! seek alternative sources!) and new things. He genuinely cares about us, and I think that helped his message a lot.

He definitely inspired me to step up my game. I only wish the rest of the class listened.

002.

I caught a few minutes of the MTV movie awards last night, right as they were awarding Johnny Depp the "Most Comic Performance" award. He looked so bemused, and remarked on stage that he was not a funny person. I can't help but wonder what was going through his head...he's not a very MTV kind of person. The juxtaposition between my perception of Depp (intellectual, fanciful, deep) and MTV (and all MTVers nursing crushes on a smexy pirate) is really quite odd.

001.

After blog hopping at least three times in the past fortnight, I think I've finally settled on a name and concept. The inspiration for the title I will keep to myself for now (sharing my poetry is not something I do willingly anymore). My goal for this blog is to get myself to write about anything, write to improve, to learn, to be. I want to be be able to look back and read the little quirks in my days, how my thoughts have changed and how I have changed myself.

This past two weeks has seen me devouring more than my share of books. This excites me, as I got burned up during my last literature course (8 Victorian novels in a little less than three months), and refused to read anything more substantial than Twilight for four months. Then, over spring break, I read three books (Breaking the Vicious Cycle, The Neverending Story & The Sound and the Fury). So I set my hat for Dune, which I had been attempting to read for the last year (woe, I am shamed). Read it. Finished the last half at a remarkable clip, I might add.

The problem with finishing an amazing book is that it leaves a huge void in one's life. Almost the minute I put it down, I was itching for another book to read, one that could capture my imagination as much as Dune did. So that night, when I found PDF copies of the Twilight sequels, the inevitable occurred. I read those two books in five days, on top of classes, two part-time jobs and a giant Illustrator project. And then I couldn't get them out of my head (even though the end of Eclipse pissed me off so bad, I wanted to burn the book...but that's a story for another time). Because I wanted to shake off the horrible sparkly vampire infestation, I read That Extra Half Inch (informative and entertaining) and The Next Thing on my List (only mildly inspiring & totally forgettable) over the next two days. It didn't help. But I read a remarkable amount of books considering my workload.

And it makes me happy.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go read Sunshine by Robin McKinley.