Callistonian.net

Okay, I suck at reading—apparently. I’ve honestly reached a lifetime low: in two months, two months!, I’ve read only 3 books worth mentioning. In an effort to remedy this vice, I’ve decided to read 5 books this week. I don’t know if my deciding to read books is going to turn into my actually reading them—I know why I haven’t been reading. a) I dislike library books b) I’m stingy and don’t wish to buy books and c) I don’t want to read the books I have/can get for free. Help? :)

In other news, Lene tagged me.

What you have to do in this is the following:

1. List five vices you have, with a description if you want to.
2. Tag five bloggers for this meme.
3. Link back to the blogger who tagged you, and this post if you want to be nice!

Arguing. I really like getting into intense conversations on random things. I like conflict; I like arguing about silly stuff. As long as everything stays playful, I find verbal sparring fun. Sometimes, when I’m tired and haven’t had my fill of quick-witted battles - I take little jabs at my friends… I’m impatient and want to play. :(

The Internet. I often use the Internet in an unproductive manner. ‘fo shame. :(

Ability to do Nothing. This is related to the vice above. I can keep myself amused for an hour or so with nothing at my disposal. I can just sit and think. I also have something of an obsessive personality. So I’m capable of checking my email 20 times in 5 minutes (and thus I’m capable of wasting 5 minutes and of doing nothing). Oh, do I have mail? No? What about now? Now? Let me wait a moment. Now? NO? Still? Maybe it didn’t refresh?

My Pace (マイペース). I work at my own pace and do things when I feel like it. :P (Take note: this is somehow different from procrastination.)

Perfectionist. I’m a perfectionist. This is a vice because I often set high standards, and deal poorly with little failures. Like zomg? What do you mean I didn’t score in the 99.999th percentile? Everyone’s going to be disappointed in me. I can’t face anyone. *sob* T_T

Now, you know what a terrible person I am. :) So I shall tag five people: Chanel, Vera, Kaylee, Rilla, and you (if you’d like to be tagged). ♥

In the past, I was 99.4 percent against re-reading books. Now, I’m not sure where I stand. Part of me is of the opinion that there are so many good books to read - I’ll never get to read them all - so why waste precious time re-reading things (when I’d like to read as many as possible).

Another part of me, the more mature and reasonable part of me, believes that there’s no harm in re-reading fabulous books, especially when I can’t remember their plots. I thought that my memory would serve me well, but it’s not. I can’t remember the books I read 10-12 years ago. I haven’t quite forgotten their basics, but the details are lost on me… I love details; if I can’t remember the details, I might as well not remember anything. And really, what’s the point of reading a lot of books if you don’t remember any of them?

Do you re-read books?

In other news, it looks like Mike Huckabee will win the Republican primary in my state and that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic one. I lose double. :(

Disclaimer: This is a housekeeping entry. It is not an exercise in fine writing. Please, excuse the mess.

In the interest of allowing my readers to learn more about me as a person, rather than me as a blogger, and because I fear nothing, and show everything…ask me a question. Any question you want. - Amanda

I’m following the trend that Amanda began—ask away. Questions and answers will be added to my Ask & Answer page.

two. I will blog about something other than nonsense later. Who’d have thought, right? Suggestions for blog topics or articles are welcome—if there’s anything that you want to hear me go on about, let me know!

three. Also, this layout isn’t quite right. I want to make another one with the same theme of Versailles. Suggestions? Criticisms?

It is harder, sometimes, to review a glorious book—to convey its power and influence without relying on suspicious adjectives. Good books can be slotted, characterized, explained; great books often cannot. I believe Geraldine Brooks’ new novel, March, is a very great book. I believe it breathes new life into the historical fiction genre, the borrowing- a- character- from- the- deep- past phenomenon, the old I- shall- tell- you- a- story- through- letters tradition. I believe it honors the best of the imagination. I give it a hero’s welcome. - Chicago Tribune

The Chicago Tribune puts it best but—yes, I attempted to review March. My review is here.

five. I have an exam on Thursday. Wish me luck!

six. Things of interest:

1. After the taser incident at the university in Florida, the domain donttazemebro.com was registered.
2. The Prehistory of Emoticons

There’s a stack of half-read and never- before- opened books sitting on a shelf in my bedroom. For someone who lists reading as one her hobbies, the stack is a disgrace. Why oh why do I own books purchased in August of 2006 that I still haven’t read? I have my reasons but really—it’s just a disgrace…

Earlier this week, I adventured over to a bookstore in search of something “easy to read.” Most of the lovelies on my shelf do not qualify as “easy reads.” Instead, they can only be tolerated in small servings as they seem to inspire headaches. Several are long and dense non-fiction works of genius. Others are shorter and fictional but written in vague styles saturated with symbols—they dare to employ terms that evade dictionaries.  (You know, I love you – Faulkner). Anyway, I went to the bookstore because I thought that I was dying to read a book and I thought that I wanted the experience to be quick and painless (screw long journeys down streams of conscience and through dark jungles swamped with metaphors!). I returned home empty-handed.

I failed completely in trying to find a brainless read. I didn’t even know where to start. While my mind was screaming, “Be practical! Look for something short! Look for something funny!”, my body subconsciously worked against me.  I knew that the game was over when I ended up starting longingly at James Joyce’s Ulysses with Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead in hand.

In the end, I decided to tackle Geraldine Brook’s March (from my shelf)- I’m so glad that I said “No! No!  No~,” to the bookstore’s meaningless drivel, to the popular stuff pandering to the lowest common denominator (HP? – I jest). March wasn’t a painful read. It was amazing, “teh awesome.” It won the Pulitzer Prize. You know, the Pultizer, that amazing award bestowed only on the most brilliant of books. I don’t know when I became afflicted with the “intellectually simulating = ahh! Omg! Scary. Boring! Confusing!” disease but, I’m recovering—it is a sickness that I loathe to have.

Hopefully, I’ll post a review of March soon. It obviously gets 5 stars… Unfortunately, there’s a group of nitwits on amazon.com who gave it one star. One of them didn’t even read the book…  Enough said.

Here, at least, I think I’ve refrained from typing my university’s name. I’m safe! This silly and somewhat humiliating entry shall be hidden (to a degree) from overzealous google-ers.

I managed to have an adventure of sorts in the law school. I went on a quest for some books and was frustrated at practically every turn.

Problem Number One: finding the floor that the books were on.

First, I shall start by saying that I’ve been to the law library or what I thought was the law library countless times. I pictured it, incorrectly, as a pretty place of two stories inside the law school. In truth, it’s 5-ish disconnected-ish stories of wonder. I never thought of it as a place to get books - just as a sweet somewhere, open late, with a good atmosphere for studying.

But, today, I had to get books and to do that I had to find a floor, the mysterious L1, whose very existence was previously unknown to me. I began my adventure by trooping up to the second floor of the law school. The library’s reading room is there; it’s public look-at-how-beautiful-I-am non-book-heavy show room is there. So from this grand open space (somewhere on the second floor), I took the elevator down two floors to L1. Even though, this elevator stops on the first floor of the law school & even though one can enter the elevator on this floor - one cannot press the L1 button and have it go down to L1 from this floor (>_<). In order to get to L1, one has to either go, first, down the stairs to L2 or ,first, up the stairs to the second floor (not to be confused with L2). From there one can take the elevator up or down to L1. Right - so after I found the respective elevators and figured all of that out, I emerged on L1.

Once on the correct floor, I made it to where my books were a-okay due to my beautiful navigation skills. Nevertheless, I was greeted with this (some sort of strange puzzle-in-a-video-game lever system):

And while one would think that simply turning the lever in a certain direction would be enough to get the shelves to move - that’s not quite it. There are these inconspicuous red things on the shelves’ sides that must be pushed first. However, the red thing on the desired shelf may not allow itself to be pushed in if the red thing on a shelf a few over isn’t and this may throw off those who learn by trial & error and attempt to figure out everything on their own.

At any rate, after I got the shelves to move - no simple task, I assure you - I walked down a terribly narrow aisle with sides that loomed tall and threatening - as if they’d come closing in at any minute and squish me - anyway, once inside and so~ close to the book that I had worked so hard to find, I saw that this desired book was up far too high (despite the label claiming that it was on a “lower shelf”). It’s hard to tell from the photo but those stacks are quite tall.

So, I had to find a ladder.(>_<) Have no fear that once I got the ladder, climbed it, and grabbed my desired book - I also grabbed all of those around it that looked as though they have something to do with what it is that I’m writing about. After wasting such a vast amount of time fighting to get to books - I decided that I was entitled to as much book bounty as I could carry away. ^^;

Blog time = over. Back to work, back to reading about Alexander Hamilton (♥ ♥ ♥)… It’s after 3:00am. Oh dear~