Long-awaited entry of re-evaluation!
So my plan for this entry is to track where I am and what my plan is with each item.
My #1 goal when I read in Darren Hardy's Compound Effect I needed to have a goal to make a meaningful change in my life is to control these random sick days, hopefully shrinking them to one every ten years, so that I can play more oboe, hopefully successfully auditioning for the Immaculata Symphony in the fall of this year. So in order to fight these random sicknesses rather than spending the rest of my life in bed I want to use what energy I have effectively to bring about adventures and other fun things with certain friends in particular. This means I am interested in economics. Also, I spent an hour this evening on the ellipticycle set to the heaviest resistance I could manage so I wouldn't just be playing around with that.
That book is due on the 18th, about two weeks from now. There are 172 pages, and I'm on 67. (This is the laborious part.) 105 by 14... 8 pages a day will do it. I want to finish this one first and foremost, as it seems useful. Therefore I may go with 10.
Other stuff from the Library I haven't finished:
A HERO OF OUR TIME / Mikhail Lermontov.
This book the friend I visited told me to read in Russian. I found where to read it online, but the reason I brought this English translation along to his apartment was to productively use the forever-and-a-half bus wait time. I think it's helpful to read it first in English so that my faulty Russian vocabulary gets a boost.
I'm over halfway done!
Tournament of shadows : the great game and the race for empire in Central Asia / Karl E. Meyer & Shareen Blair Brysac.
I probably should have brought this for the wait and not the above one, since I don't really understand enough about central Asia to really touch Lermontov, and this helps that lack considerably. Oh well, I want to read Lermy since he's such a big name in Russian literature. The back-knowledge is frustrating, but I wouldn't look into it if Lermy didn't mention anything.
I'm about a third of the way through.
Empty mansions : the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune / Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
My mother likes this book more than I do, it's about the incredibly wealthy class in New York City. OK, I made it to Chapter 9 of 14, I'm not happy with pushing on, tomorrow is my big Library day, до свидания!
Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions / Dan Ariely.
This book has a figurative hand in making me so curious about economics. Honestly, I had to make a decision between focusing on Chinese History or Macro-economics, and I wanted some international bite to my words, so I decided to drop the latter and come back later.
It is due on the 18th like the other so 14 is the divisor... 254 - 38... 216... about 16 pages a day!
Son / by Lois Lowry.
My mother just gave me the "I think you'd do best as a nun" spiel again, regardless of my atheistic commitments: whatever I've done sexually. Anyway, in this book, the MC is also named Claire. She gets selected to be a birthmother in the dystopic society Lowry's painted in the Giver and the other two. My consort Matt concludes from what I've told him about it that the method is artificial insemination, but I report it is not detailed, probably so it is appropriate for the YA crowd. I don't want to point fingers and suggest what might be concocting in that Russian mathematician brain, but yesterday's visit implied that he wants badly to displace Oğuz's position in my affections.
This book is due tomorrow, but as I'm on page 200 of 393 I'm opting to renew tomorrow, so I'll calculate pages better at that point.
Current unfinished library books done! Not discussing the eight I have on hold which I'm picking up tomorrow... Now for everything else. From tomorrow, the number of days from the end of the year is 271.
Graves' Greek Myths: (666 - 74) / 271... 3 will manage! It's basically just going through the classical collection of mythological people. It's interesting from an archaeological standpoint, Greek history.
Verne's Sevel Novels: (1196 - 288) / 271... 4 will be faster than 3. This is the Journey to the Center of the Earth. Chapter titles: An Electric Storm, Calm Philosophic Discussions, up to the point of The Liedenbrock Museum of Geology.
Dickens' Hard Times: (378 - 15) / 271... 2! ^_^ I'm going to go from Chapter 5 to 6 (an extra page) so I don't get confused - reading this number of books at once confuses you quickly and easily.
Dickens' Bleak House: (1011 - 30) / 271... yikes. This may be a next year proposition. Oh, but that rounds up to 4, so possibly not!
Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask: (712 - 340) / 271 ... 2 is fine. Mother really wants me to read this one before watching the movie with her. It is an interesting story, but I think my French history is lacking to fully understand what's happening.
Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns: (419 - 140) / 271 ... close to one, but two will afford me more context. I've been reading a number of Islamic books under the table to give me more context to understand what's going on. It is just another religious system, a rather feisty one.
Dan Brown's Deception Point: (451 - 39) / 271 ... This is closer to two than Hosseini! I like the story, but I know clearly that my mother hates Dan Brown, so I'm cautious to brandish it all around.
H.P. Lovecraft's Great Tales of Horror: (600 - 48) / 271 ... I'd better go with 3 rather than 2, even if it is almost exactly 2. The chapter break isn't until 4 anyway, and I much prefer to stop reading books on chapter breaks so that it's easier to get back in and out of the action.
Martin Sixsmith's Putin's Oil: (311 - 36) / 271 ... my father doesn't like this one. It's close to a page a day, but I'd better go with 2 to be safe, and to get it done twice as fast.
(Tired yet? I have energy from tea, which I find a more sustainable energy source than coffee, but I'd better not argue with anyone who NEEDS THEIR COFFEE since those people scare me.)
Tom Jones' Henry Fielding: (864 - 58) / 271 ... 3 is better than 2.9xyz. I'm planning to go until Book II anyway, which is 6 pages away.
Cicero's On The Good Life: (371 - 48) / 271 ... close to 1, but I'm going with 4 anyway since Cicero is my most ancient boyfriend. (I had a poster of him in my locker with a kiss-mark lipsticked onto his forehead for quite a few semesters)
Cicero's How to Win an Election: (99 - 26) / 271 ... this is obvious, isn't it. I essentially don't need to read this for a long time and still could get it done by the end of the year. I am so fond of Cicero, though! His hefty circumlocutions have probably affected me.
Cossé's A Corner of the Veil: (271 - 41) / 271 ... strange! I could get away with a page a day here. I think mother'd be happiest I'm reading it, though.
Chekhov's Warn No. 6 and Other Stories: (371 - 120) / 271 ... almost a page. I like reading Chekhov in Russian even if I lose most of what he's saying, as it just sounds pretty.
London's Call of the Wild: (272 - 34) / 271 ... less than a page than the book just before! I read to page 58 while talking about this stuff since it's easy. I have little to report. Wolves are beautiful creatures.
Michael Crichton's The Lost World: (393 - 37) / 271 ... 1.31&c. Two will do. I really like this writer - my first book by him was The Andromeda Strain, which is quite an alarming tale.
Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone: (545 - 27) / 271 ...closer to two than the one right before! It's interesting to see Ethiopian fiction. But it's more than that, there are power struggles... I'm starting to black out, but I got five other books from last Chester County Book Fair!
Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: (389 - 40) / 271 ... 1.28&c. Two, then! But the chapter break isn't for 10 so this will most likely be delayed.
Tom Clancy's Executive Orders: (1359 - 75) / 271 ...closer to five! The next break isn't for 7 pages, though. I grew up adoring Clancy, but recently had issues with his depiction of Russia. Three more.
John Case's The First Hoseman: (373 - 21) / 271 ... 1.29&c. Two. I think I am getting sleepy now, which is probably good for you, since I can only think of Griboyedov, Turgenev and Wells which I'm reading online, the only one of which I haven't a plan being Griboyedov, besides the last two physical books I have. (Who can disagree with something called Woe From Wit?)
Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle: (288 - 20) / 271 ... a little less than one, so I'll go with the chapter break, 6 pages. This book is traumatic, so I've been poky with it.
Lastly,* I have Chicken Soup for the College Soul: (345 - 55) / 271 ... it says a little more than one, but I've been postponing this book since it just makes you feel better, nothing like Dostoevsky, so I think it's easy and put it off. While I'm thinking of it, I'll read two, to make sure I can take the weekend off since I have all the other stuff.
That last story was a little entertaining: it was a list of when a guy called home. It basically detailed relationship problems, with a request for money recurring, then at the end the last reason he called was "When I just wanted to tell [my parents] I loved them".
Happy delayed April Fools!
I just ended up talking about literature here, but I meant to detail how I'm going to Rite-Aid once a week to measure my vital signs such as BMI, blood pressure, and pulse - this way I don't have to live at the doctor's office. (I already do, but for other issues such as seizures and allergic reactions to the seizure medication - this is the safest one, after trying four - first, third and fourth I was more allergic to, the second made me terrorise nurses with a creepy phone call, though I was honestly just trying to report bad reactions to the medication and request a change, rather than calling the suicide hot line, which would open up a different can of worms! After all, I identified the problem was the drug and not actual inclinations to call the whole thing I have going off. After all, I have at least three more countries I want to visit! They made me recite after them that next time I'd call 911 or a couple of suicide hot lines, which I already had in my phone from WCU.)
Last time I went to that Rite-Aid was just before I got on the bus to meet my friend for lunch at the China King off Route 352, I think. (After he requested the first thing on the menu, I got something the same price, though I said that I wanted something about double that price - concluding that I can always get it next time. The boy's face lit up, even though I didn't imply next time was definitely going to be with him, my sister likes Chinese cuisine! Possibly, though - it seems so much like he may be jealous over all the attention I'm paying Oğuz Eray, though seriously that person is even further away than Cong!) I was by myself so had just walked about a mile and a half. My pulse was 129, blood pressure three digits over two, and I weighed 140 lbs, which is more than last time.
My #1 goal when I read in Darren Hardy's Compound Effect I needed to have a goal to make a meaningful change in my life is to control these random sick days, hopefully shrinking them to one every ten years, so that I can play more oboe, hopefully successfully auditioning for the Immaculata Symphony in the fall of this year. So in order to fight these random sicknesses rather than spending the rest of my life in bed I want to use what energy I have effectively to bring about adventures and other fun things with certain friends in particular. This means I am interested in economics. Also, I spent an hour this evening on the ellipticycle set to the heaviest resistance I could manage so I wouldn't just be playing around with that.
That book is due on the 18th, about two weeks from now. There are 172 pages, and I'm on 67. (This is the laborious part.) 105 by 14... 8 pages a day will do it. I want to finish this one first and foremost, as it seems useful. Therefore I may go with 10.
Other stuff from the Library I haven't finished:
A HERO OF OUR TIME / Mikhail Lermontov.
This book the friend I visited told me to read in Russian. I found where to read it online, but the reason I brought this English translation along to his apartment was to productively use the forever-and-a-half bus wait time. I think it's helpful to read it first in English so that my faulty Russian vocabulary gets a boost.
I'm over halfway done!
Tournament of shadows : the great game and the race for empire in Central Asia / Karl E. Meyer & Shareen Blair Brysac.
I probably should have brought this for the wait and not the above one, since I don't really understand enough about central Asia to really touch Lermontov, and this helps that lack considerably. Oh well, I want to read Lermy since he's such a big name in Russian literature. The back-knowledge is frustrating, but I wouldn't look into it if Lermy didn't mention anything.
I'm about a third of the way through.
Empty mansions : the mysterious life of Huguette Clark and the spending of a great American fortune / Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell, Jr.
My mother likes this book more than I do, it's about the incredibly wealthy class in New York City. OK, I made it to Chapter 9 of 14, I'm not happy with pushing on, tomorrow is my big Library day, до свидания!
Predictably irrational : the hidden forces that shape our decisions / Dan Ariely.
This book has a figurative hand in making me so curious about economics. Honestly, I had to make a decision between focusing on Chinese History or Macro-economics, and I wanted some international bite to my words, so I decided to drop the latter and come back later.
It is due on the 18th like the other so 14 is the divisor... 254 - 38... 216... about 16 pages a day!
Son / by Lois Lowry.
My mother just gave me the "I think you'd do best as a nun" spiel again, regardless of my atheistic commitments: whatever I've done sexually. Anyway, in this book, the MC is also named Claire. She gets selected to be a birthmother in the dystopic society Lowry's painted in the Giver and the other two. My consort Matt concludes from what I've told him about it that the method is artificial insemination, but I report it is not detailed, probably so it is appropriate for the YA crowd. I don't want to point fingers and suggest what might be concocting in that Russian mathematician brain, but yesterday's visit implied that he wants badly to displace Oğuz's position in my affections.
This book is due tomorrow, but as I'm on page 200 of 393 I'm opting to renew tomorrow, so I'll calculate pages better at that point.
Current unfinished library books done! Not discussing the eight I have on hold which I'm picking up tomorrow... Now for everything else. From tomorrow, the number of days from the end of the year is 271.
Graves' Greek Myths: (666 - 74) / 271... 3 will manage! It's basically just going through the classical collection of mythological people. It's interesting from an archaeological standpoint, Greek history.
Verne's Sevel Novels: (1196 - 288) / 271... 4 will be faster than 3. This is the Journey to the Center of the Earth. Chapter titles: An Electric Storm, Calm Philosophic Discussions, up to the point of The Liedenbrock Museum of Geology.
Dickens' Hard Times: (378 - 15) / 271... 2! ^_^ I'm going to go from Chapter 5 to 6 (an extra page) so I don't get confused - reading this number of books at once confuses you quickly and easily.
Dickens' Bleak House: (1011 - 30) / 271... yikes. This may be a next year proposition. Oh, but that rounds up to 4, so possibly not!
Dumas' The Man in the Iron Mask: (712 - 340) / 271 ... 2 is fine. Mother really wants me to read this one before watching the movie with her. It is an interesting story, but I think my French history is lacking to fully understand what's happening.
Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns: (419 - 140) / 271 ... close to one, but two will afford me more context. I've been reading a number of Islamic books under the table to give me more context to understand what's going on. It is just another religious system, a rather feisty one.
Dan Brown's Deception Point: (451 - 39) / 271 ... This is closer to two than Hosseini! I like the story, but I know clearly that my mother hates Dan Brown, so I'm cautious to brandish it all around.
H.P. Lovecraft's Great Tales of Horror: (600 - 48) / 271 ... I'd better go with 3 rather than 2, even if it is almost exactly 2. The chapter break isn't until 4 anyway, and I much prefer to stop reading books on chapter breaks so that it's easier to get back in and out of the action.
Martin Sixsmith's Putin's Oil: (311 - 36) / 271 ... my father doesn't like this one. It's close to a page a day, but I'd better go with 2 to be safe, and to get it done twice as fast.
(Tired yet? I have energy from tea, which I find a more sustainable energy source than coffee, but I'd better not argue with anyone who NEEDS THEIR COFFEE since those people scare me.)
Tom Jones' Henry Fielding: (864 - 58) / 271 ... 3 is better than 2.9xyz. I'm planning to go until Book II anyway, which is 6 pages away.
Cicero's On The Good Life: (371 - 48) / 271 ... close to 1, but I'm going with 4 anyway since Cicero is my most ancient boyfriend. (I had a poster of him in my locker with a kiss-mark lipsticked onto his forehead for quite a few semesters)
Cicero's How to Win an Election: (99 - 26) / 271 ... this is obvious, isn't it. I essentially don't need to read this for a long time and still could get it done by the end of the year. I am so fond of Cicero, though! His hefty circumlocutions have probably affected me.
Cossé's A Corner of the Veil: (271 - 41) / 271 ... strange! I could get away with a page a day here. I think mother'd be happiest I'm reading it, though.
Chekhov's Warn No. 6 and Other Stories: (371 - 120) / 271 ... almost a page. I like reading Chekhov in Russian even if I lose most of what he's saying, as it just sounds pretty.
London's Call of the Wild: (272 - 34) / 271 ... less than a page than the book just before! I read to page 58 while talking about this stuff since it's easy. I have little to report. Wolves are beautiful creatures.
Michael Crichton's The Lost World: (393 - 37) / 271 ... 1.31&c. Two will do. I really like this writer - my first book by him was The Andromeda Strain, which is quite an alarming tale.
Abraham Verghese's Cutting for Stone: (545 - 27) / 271 ...closer to two than the one right before! It's interesting to see Ethiopian fiction. But it's more than that, there are power struggles... I'm starting to black out, but I got five other books from last Chester County Book Fair!
Jane Austen's Mansfield Park: (389 - 40) / 271 ... 1.28&c. Two, then! But the chapter break isn't for 10 so this will most likely be delayed.
Tom Clancy's Executive Orders: (1359 - 75) / 271 ...closer to five! The next break isn't for 7 pages, though. I grew up adoring Clancy, but recently had issues with his depiction of Russia. Three more.
John Case's The First Hoseman: (373 - 21) / 271 ... 1.29&c. Two. I think I am getting sleepy now, which is probably good for you, since I can only think of Griboyedov, Turgenev and Wells which I'm reading online, the only one of which I haven't a plan being Griboyedov, besides the last two physical books I have. (Who can disagree with something called Woe From Wit?)
Jeannette Walls' The Glass Castle: (288 - 20) / 271 ... a little less than one, so I'll go with the chapter break, 6 pages. This book is traumatic, so I've been poky with it.
Lastly,* I have Chicken Soup for the College Soul: (345 - 55) / 271 ... it says a little more than one, but I've been postponing this book since it just makes you feel better, nothing like Dostoevsky, so I think it's easy and put it off. While I'm thinking of it, I'll read two, to make sure I can take the weekend off since I have all the other stuff.
That last story was a little entertaining: it was a list of when a guy called home. It basically detailed relationship problems, with a request for money recurring, then at the end the last reason he called was "When I just wanted to tell [my parents] I loved them".
Happy delayed April Fools!
I just ended up talking about literature here, but I meant to detail how I'm going to Rite-Aid once a week to measure my vital signs such as BMI, blood pressure, and pulse - this way I don't have to live at the doctor's office. (I already do, but for other issues such as seizures and allergic reactions to the seizure medication - this is the safest one, after trying four - first, third and fourth I was more allergic to, the second made me terrorise nurses with a creepy phone call, though I was honestly just trying to report bad reactions to the medication and request a change, rather than calling the suicide hot line, which would open up a different can of worms! After all, I identified the problem was the drug and not actual inclinations to call the whole thing I have going off. After all, I have at least three more countries I want to visit! They made me recite after them that next time I'd call 911 or a couple of suicide hot lines, which I already had in my phone from WCU.)
Last time I went to that Rite-Aid was just before I got on the bus to meet my friend for lunch at the China King off Route 352, I think. (After he requested the first thing on the menu, I got something the same price, though I said that I wanted something about double that price - concluding that I can always get it next time. The boy's face lit up, even though I didn't imply next time was definitely going to be with him, my sister likes Chinese cuisine! Possibly, though - it seems so much like he may be jealous over all the attention I'm paying Oğuz Eray, though seriously that person is even further away than Cong!) I was by myself so had just walked about a mile and a half. My pulse was 129, blood pressure three digits over two, and I weighed 140 lbs, which is more than last time.