So you may have noticed that I haven't been the most consistent about posting these past few months. But really, it makes sense right? I'm starting a big new endeavor in a new place and as much as we used to think we were going to just be lazing around enjoying bonbons after sending the children off to bed early, adulthood in reality is much more busy than that. In my case, that meme talking about trying to juggle all my responsibilities, have a social life, and stay sane above the picture of Nuka (Kovu's older half-brother from The Lion King 2) right after he got blasted out of the grass fire is relatively accurate. Things are always busy around the holidays, and that's okay, but it's also much more work to try and juggle everything when there are dinners and get-togethers you want to enjoy with friends. Add in university and it's a perfect storm.
That being said, I may be busy but these last few weeks have been really fun as well. Introducing my flatmates to a Salzano Thanksgiving and attending two other Thanksgiving dinners throughout the week, it has been a good week in terms of food and friendship. It's amazing to me that it is already December, and I haven't gotten nearly as much writing (both for the PhD, my novels, and my blog) as I wanted, but overall things have been relatively productive. I'm making progress on my reading goal (which is higher right now than it has ever been and likely will ever be), I've submitted an abstract for my first conference of my PhD, the class I'm a TA for is close to finishing up, and I've purchased some yarn (AKA wool) for my Purim costume next year. So I'm busy, but with good things. I do think I'm going to need to do at least some work on my PhD over the winter break, but hopefully it won't be too strenuous. I feel as though I should be writing more today, but I don't have much else to say on this topic, other than to apologize for the inconsistencies, and to say I hope I'll do better over the next few weeks and during next term. Otherwise, I should probably get back to those responsibilities I'm juggling. ;) Happy Reading!
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Well, I made it. I'm here. My suitcases are unpacked, and I'm remembering how expensive (time and money-wise) it is to set yourself up somewhere new. But I'm mostly set up, though I'm still trying to find a foldable grocery trolley and an air drying rack for laundry. Those things I may just get from Amazon though... I'm going to be making knishes this week, a double batch so that one I can eat/freeze and one I can share with my flatmates. It is definitely a work in progress: getting set up, finding my way around, dealing with homesickness. And I'm quite sure that won't stop being the case. However, for now, I'm at a reasonable spot considering I've been here less than a week.
Of course, I'm a little out of it today because I've contracted a cold. The post-nasal drip started yesterday evening and has continued through today. As such, my honey and lemon-juice stores have taken a hit. My hope is that because I don't have things to do for my course/job until Thursday of this week, I can take today and tomorrow to rest and nip everything in the bud. Thankfully tea is plentiful here in the UK. ;) But you all don't want to hear about my body's inability to maintain its immune system after a 9 hour flight followed by a 2 hour flight followed by 4 jetlagged days (and 4 nights of not so great sleep because of it). You probably want some pictures, right? Well, never fear! I haven't taken a whole lot yet, but below are the pictures of my adventure so far. I'll be adding a page for photos on the site as well, so you can see them all regardless of whether you can find this post again. Also of note, once I officially start my PhD, I'll also add a page that contains my posts specifically about my programme, so keep an eye out for that in early October. Happy Reading! Yes, I know, I missed the last two weeks. But it's been hectic and life sometimes gets in the way...Also, sometimes I'd just rather be reading. I'm going to try and keep this week's blog short, because you may also hear from me again before next Sunday/Monday. Although I make no promises ;).
The majority of you who read my blog regularly know that I'm going to be moving soon, and already completed a move in August. In August, I moved from the DC Metro area to Colorado to spend 6 weeks with my family before the next big move: Scotland. I'm going to Scotland to pursue a doctorate in library and information science (though the actual degree I earn will be called a PhD in Computing). This degree, this journey, is something I've been working towards for about 4 years now. And now that it's finally here, it's hard to deal with. I'm excited, and nervous, and sad. Terrified is pretty high up there too. And the hope is that I can come back and visit often if I get a part-time job while I'm there, but those little doubts are still niggling the back of my mind that I won't get a part-time job, or at least not a "good" one where I can take a week or more off outside of term time and come visit family. So, yeah. It's amazing and scary all wrapped into one. And while I know sometimes people see religion/spirituality as a crutch, why does it matter if it's a crutch that keeps me alive? Because one of the things that's keeping me going is the thought that things happen for a reason and if G-d really didn't want me to go, then I wouldn't be going. I wouldn't have gotten in in the first place, or my Visa wouldn't have been approved, or my tickets wouldn't be bought, or I'd be sick or dying or something (yes, I exaggerate but I've come to the conclusion that in this type of situation it's a family trait). The point is, in a few short hours (okay, 5 hours), I'll be boarding a plane to Paris, which will lead to me boarding a plan to Edinburgh, which will lead to me getting to accommodations and spending the first night of my next three years at a doctorate degree. Here I go! Happy Reading! I know, I know, I'm super late this week...And not necessarily because I've been horrendously busy, though I have been busy. But the reason for my lateness is more than just not being able to find the time. I fully admit to being a procrastinator, and that is mostly what has been happening to the blog post this week. Not procrastinating by simply saying "Oh, I'll get to it later," but more of a "I'd rather do this/I need to do this more/first" and then suddenly I could be trying to write this post late at night when I'm mostly incoherent or I can try again the next day. The latter option has happened three times so far this week so hopefully this fourth attempt will be the charm. Or maybe I'll be like Cousin Vinny and the sixth attempt will be the charm (it's a movie, it's hilarious, you should all watch it and let me know what you think). Anyway, there has been quite a bit going on for me this week, mostly revolving around moving myself across an ocean. Depending on your point of view, it's either worse than it sounds or not entirely as bad as it sounds. But it isn't a walk in the park (unless you're talking hiking, then it may be).
Similar to how it was when I just moved across the country, there are a lot of little, "every day" things that need to be taken care of when you attempt to move across oceans and national borders. For example, credit/debit cards all need to be informed that you're traveling, even when just buying the plane tickets for international travel. It was literally a whole fiasco that took about an hour to try and purchase (not find, just purchase) the plane tickets because my bank was being very diligent in making sure there was no fraud. This is a wonderful thing. Except for when it isn't because it takes four or five phone calls to make sure I actually get the tickets and I'm worrying the whole time that either the plane will fill up and I'll have to find another flight or the prices will skyrocket because the website data is saying "there's a lot of people interested, you can probably jack up prices" even though it's just one person trying to figure out why the stupid flights "may no longer be available" when there were still at least 40 seats left five minutes ago when she finally got the bank on the phone to let them know it is her trying to purchase plane tickets from European companies. Another thing to think about, the different luggage/carry-on restrictions that exist for airlines from other countries. They aren't always more restrictive than national airlines, but in my case, some of them are which means I'm actually going to have to purchase a new carry-on bag. Not a huge deal, but that's still something I have to do before I leave. Also, an update in electronics. This, for me, is more because I'm embarking on a PhD and a seven year old computer that has Windows 7 (which will be discontinued come next year) is not necessarily the best idea. But I have to make sure that new computer will be able to handle the electric system in the UK. Along with making sure my phone and e-reader can handle it as well. Plus, actually purchasing (or finding my parents' old version) electric-plug-adapters/converters. Apparently the UK and Ireland use different ones than the rest of Europe, and if I'm going to be travelling across Europe, and potentially other places too for conferences, I'm going to need a converter kit that is more than just the UK. Not to mention unlocking my phone and figuring out which company I want to go with for a UK mobile phone plan. I'm thinking at this moment that a pay-as-I-go plan is going to be what happens, but I've still got research to do. Thankfully, I've already got my Visa hammered out. And where I'm going to be living. And I have a very limited part-time job as a Teaching Assistant, so I'll at least have some food money that isn't coming out of my savings until I can find a 15 hr/week job for the rest of my living expenses. But I still have a lot to do and it is daunting. That being said, I still have a little time left, so I can take it small chunks at a time and still have opportunities to hang out with family and crochet a baby blanket for a friend that I should have started last month (I told you all I was a procrastinator ;P ). Anyway. If you have advice, encouragement, or even just words of commiseration, let me know in the comments. And if you have any reading suggestions, let me know. I always love adding to my TBR pile. Happy Reading! Well, I'm posting a day late again. Although this seems to happen so frequently maybe I should just accept that I'll probably be posting on Mondays now? We'll see. Anywho (no that's not a typo, just another colloquialism I have sometimes), on to the post! Which will probably be relatively short. Maybe. We'll see.
I'm going to start off by saying I severely miscalculated packing time and cleaning time for my apartment. As such, I may not get my full deposit back but at this point all I can say is "Oh, well" because I made it to Colorado in one piece. Sure, not all my luggage did because I had no scale and was 5 and 6 pounds over the limit respectively on my checked bags. And yes, I'm pretty sure I accidentally tossed at least one nice mug in the trash as I was frantically trying to make my apartment appear mostly clean. But I made it! And I got to sleep all day Saturday and Sunday. I didn't, actually. I mostly read and watched movies with my family, but that's close enough to sleeping, right? ;) Now, my safe arrival aside, I'm definitely going to have to get better at packing before attempting the trip to Scotland. I'll also be getting rid of quite a bit, I think. And resigning myself to the horrendously expensive costs of shipping some things internationally. Some things I won't bother with, such as my yarn collection. I'll be able to get supplies in the UK. I'm not going to be bringing more books than what will take up my plane ride. And I'm drastically reducing my wardrobe, especially since mid-80s seems to be the hottest Edinburgh has gotten this year. Of course, climate change is a thing, so that could change, but in that situation I'll just buy stuff while I'm there. Overall, my takeaways from my most recent move are going to be very helpful for my next move. Yay! What's your least favorite part about moving? Is there such a thing as a favorite part? Let me know in the comments! Happy Reading! These past few days most of the world has been dealing with a heat wave. And what a heat wave it has been. As someone who prefers cold to heat (not that I don't get cold easily, but I'd rather bundle up than have to deal with social codes regarding how much I can take off; not to mention it's easier to add more layers and become somewhat comfortable, but I digress), the temperatures lately have been what I imagine the classic Christian version of hell looks like. Because I'm sorry, there's no way hell has dry heat, no matter how many fires are burning. Humidity would make the whole thing that much worse, which means the traditional Christian version of hell is likely to have a boatload of humidifiers working overtime to keep up with all the fire. And I digress again. With temperatures in the high nineties and dew points in the seventies, it's not at all comfortable to venture outside for anything. Which is why it's the perfect weather to stay in and read. ;)
Which is why I finished four books over this weekend...This does not mean I also got everything else I needed to do this weekend done. The opposite in fact. I should have been packing up boxes. But reading! And I had the perfect excuse too! It's too hot and muggy and gross outside to do something productive outside or do errands, so I might as well stay in and read. Of course, this is going to make the coming week when I actually have to get everything but two suitcases worth of my apartment packed up and shipped out that much more stressful and void of reading. And when I'm freaking out about packing, and writing my sort of poetry performance for a Moishe House event, and writing my speech for my work, I will most definitely be kicking myself in the butt. But right now, I'm just happy that I've been able to read the books that I have this weekend. They were quick and easy reads, but definitely enjoyable. And barring one, Purity in Death by J.D. Robb, they didn't bring to mind the steaming heat outside. So today's post is sort of just a testament to the fact that as a bookworm, I can find an excuse to sit down and read a book in pretty much any weather. Be it rainy, windy, snowy, or sunny, it's always the perfect day to read something. And that concludes today's post, because today I just enjoyed being myself and reading a good book. Happy reading! Edit: I just saw the following picture on my FaceBook feed, and I believe it pretty much encapsulates this post... There are lot's of different types of readers out there. And about as many different types of categorizing them as there are stars in the sky. Genre, style, author, number of books read at a time, when they read, why they read, etc. But today's post is going to focus on a specific type of reader (though it can overlap a bit with the why they read and number of books read at a time categories).This reader is often on a spectrum, though it is usually skewed one way or the other with maybe a hint of mid-line. And that type is, drum-roll please, the re-reader. Now as I said, this isn't exactly clear cut. My style in this category definitely isn't exactly one or the other, but it tends towards one type, which is sort of the point. I get a lot of people mentioning re-reading books, which I understand. Every so often there's a series that I love so much I know I'm going to want to re-read them. Books by Sarah J. Maas and Diana Gabaldon come to mind. But I don't re-read most books that I come across. I'll read a book, like say, The Hobbit, and think it's a great book and really enjoy it. But I'm not going to re-read it. While the number of books I'll re-read is still growing (that happens when you read a large number of books a year) I feel like it isn't as high as some people I know, which is why I consider it a style of reader. Either you love to re-read or you don't. In my case, re-reading is often directly tied to whether I purchase books. If I think I'm going to re-read it, or if I find myself re-reading it, I might decide to purchase it and add it to my library. Otherwise, I'll get it from the library. Because while there's many a bookworm meme out there complaining about Marie Kondo (remember, she said ideally have less than 30 books), I get her point. Now, I haven't watched her show or read her book, so I might be missing something, but I believe her point was that books can cause a great deal of clutter and unless you care about the books as more than just a symbol of status you should get rid of them if you want a clean house. Or, you know, you could invest in more bookshelves, but that can be expensive and not exactly feasible if you already have a lot and are still overloaded. Owning books for the sake of owning books isn't necessarily a good thing. But if you're using those books over and over and over and you take notes and find the little gems that pop out at you every time you read it again, then yeah. Keep that book in your collection. Which brings me back to the reader. And whether you re-read or not. I tend not to. There are some books that I do re-read. And a whole lot more that I don't. If someone wants to discuss them with me I'll probably re-read them. Or if I'm in the right mood and all the other books I want to read are unavailable at the library for some reason I might pick up something for a second time, but on the whole I am not a re-reader. This does not mean I don't have a large collection of books. I do. Most of them were free ones that i picked up at conferences. Which is great, except I'm moving and I know that most of them are not going to be ones that I want to keep enough to move them with me. Which means I have some hefty reading to do before I leave. And potentially some giving away before I've read them but keeping the titles/authors so that I can read them eventually. I feel like my point got a little lost up there though, so here it is. I don't re-read that often. But I know some friends that do. Most of the time it's because of similar reasons to me (most people I know don't re-read books that they don't like) but I feel like sometimes the threshold for deciding to re-read books is different for each individual. So you might have one person who re-reads way more books than someone else because that threshold for "liking enough to want to re-read" is lower. Where do you think you fall on this spectrum? Are you an avid re-reader or is your threshold pretty high? Let me know in the comments. Happy Reading! Today's post will be super short because I'm at a conference for work and am totally wiped by the end of the day. Also, I'm leaving tomorrow and still have to pack everything up into my bag. Thankfully, I have a little bit of time in between the Rock and Roll Aerobics class and my first session to finish the packing portion of my day. But, since I'm at this conference, I figured today's post would be a "Day in the Life" about my conference so far.
I'm pretty sure most of you who are reading this blog know I'm a writer of more than just blogs. I've currently got three stories in the works: a steampunk-esque re-telling of Snow White, historical romance, and a high fantasy. Now, the historical romance is in draft number two, but the other two stories I'm still working on. And one of the reasons for this is that I get writers block and derail my story. And by derail my story, I mean that in an effort to at least keep writing I write boring and strange things. Rather than using broad strokes to at least get to the next tunnel, I pull out a microscope and start analyzing mineral content in the tunnel I'm currently in. What's even worse is I realize this is something I do, but haven't yet figured out how to stop that habit.
I've been trying to work on my high fantasy novel this weekend, and came to the realization that about 15 pages of work (minimum) need to be re-written or cut out entirely. I'm likely going to have to go through major re-writes of the entire book, but right now all I want to do is finish a first draft so that I at least have something to go off of for the re-write. I have hopes for this story. I know where I want it to go, but I don't know how to get it there. And while some days I can call myself a writer with the knowledge that that is what I am most days I wonder if I really can call myself a writer. I see and read all these amazing books and worry that I can't even finish this story even though I know what I want to happen, so how could I ever publish it? I worry that when I tell my friends about this book I'm writing and my goals for it it's really all just a lie because how can I say that my writing is good enough to get where I want it to go? Now intellectually, logically, I know that I can write well and that the more I write the better I will get. There are books, podcasts, shows, etc., that can all help me increase my skills. And practice makes better (the best paper is the published paper, the perfect one never gets there). But sometimes it can be hard to remember that. I believe in what I have to say through my writing. I think it's important. And to some extent, regardless of whether someone actually purchases a book I published (though that would be one of the most amazing things in my life) it would be enough to get a book through the process. To know I've made it that far. So I've taken those 15 pages out, saved them in a blooper document in case there's some piece of dialogue I ever want to use somewhere else, and have decided that I'm going to write a minimum of 100 words per day (whether it is planning for the rest of the book or continuing where I left off the day before). I'm going to give myself rewards (i.e., stickers or something similar) for when I do so. And hopefully by August I'll have a first draft and can start tearing it all apart. It will take a lot more work, but I can do this. Thanks for reading my self-pep-talk. If you ever need any encouragement for anything let me know and I'll write a pep-talk for you too. Happy Reading! Though I've made this statement before and not followed through, I think today's post is going to be short. This is partly because I have to finish reading (and start formulating discussion questions for) a bookclub book. And this bookclub is this coming Wednesday (i.e., in three days). And I haven't finished the book yet.
Now, you may be thinking You have time, though or Three days, with one being a holiday? You can do that or Dang girl, why did you procrastinate? I don't know why I wrote "Dang girl." My only excuse is I've been re-watching some episodes of Parks and Recreation and Donna's voice was in my head as I wrote it out. Anyway. My response to all of the above statements/questions is this: I started reading this book two weeks ago, it is 538 pages long, and I'm only on page 356. Now, I've also been reading other books during this time. So there's been some procrastination going on. But this is also a super dense book that isn't reading easily for me, which brings us back to the title of this post. I like book clubs because they help get me out of my comfort zone when it comes to reading. I get to read new genres, authors, and styles, which is really awesome since my personality is very much "If it ain't broke don't fix it" when it comes to branching out of activities. Sometimes. Sometimes I'm adventurous. But usually I stick to what I know I like. So book clubs help me experience new things that I might come to enjoy I just didn't know it before. They also keep me reading even when it's a book I'd otherwise put down. Most of the time I finish books I otherwise wouldn't. Sometimes even the "deadline" and pressure of a book club can't get me through a book. Which brings me to this book. I'm less than 200 pages from the end and I have three days left. Thankfully, one is a holiday. Unfortunately, I also have afternoon/evening plans on said holiday, so it may not be as productive in terms of this book as I want it to be. On the bright side, an organization already created discussion questions for this book, which means I don't necessarily need to write my own. However, the book club itself is somewhat temporary and the reason it started was quite specific, which means I'll need to create at least some questions regarding that topic. All of which means I'll be using this evening and as much time as I can spare tomorrow reading, hopefully finishing, and then creating questions for Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness. And this finally brings me back to the title of this blog post. In some cases, this particular book might be a good book club book. But not for me. This particular book is incredibly dense and is not easy to read. Since I've got a pretty hefty amount of stress in my life at the moment already, this does not make for a good book club book. At least not a monthly book club. But hey, at least we're all reading it and can discuss something over snacks when we get together. Even if it's less about content and more about other things. Do you have books you wish you'd read in a book club because it would have forced you to finish? What about books you wish you'd never chosen for a book club (if you've ever been part of one)? Do you think your answers would change based on life events? Let me know in the comments. Happy Reading! |
AuthorThe author is a librarian who reads "too much" (is there such a thing?) and talks just as much. As an aspiring author she gets bogged down by grammar rules when she just wants to forget them to make a sentence flow, but never seems to be able to. She appreciates thoughtful comments and constructive criticism, but internet trolls beware, she's read enough fantasy novels to know how to defeat the monsters. Archives
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