Catching up on life, my first five books of 2009!
This last week was truly draining. I worked until after 8:00 p.m. a couple of nights and I was running around so much that I'm not even completely sure what I actually accomplished at work. My brain is starting to feel a bit like swiss cheese where things just seem to fall through and disappear into the ether. I answered my phone at work at one point with an "uhhhh" as my mind had totally blanked on my name to say hello. Thank goodness it was a colleague who could laugh it off with me.
Part of all the craziness is me trying to do two "extracurricular" activities at work. First, my friend who I have been trying to help get hired. The Federal government hiring process is lengthy, frustrating and covered in red tape. I spent a couple hours with various people in the hiring process and in human resources trying to push it through. It was important because without someone to push these things through they don't happen. But it was quite the time sucker. And second, I'm giving a two hour presentation on Congress, a kind of US government 101 lesson to our Leadership Development Program in two weeks. I'm a graduate of the program myself and I feel a lot of pressure to get it right.
Not to mention I understand the legislative process but actually giving a presentation on it and making it engaging and interesting? That takes a whole lot more effort. Thank goodness for Wikipedia and Schoolhouse Rock!. They are my lifesavers at the moment. That and a couple of tutorials on how to create a Jeopardy style game in Powerpoint and a very good and succinct book called Congress for Dummies.
As a result of too much brain power use during the week I seem to spend most of my weekends recovering. Quite a bit of sleeping in and then reading or watching TV most of the day. It doesn't make me feel very productive but I'm too tired to muster up much more energy than that. Today I'm going to try and get a few more things accomplished. Though the thought of going out and running errands already seems exhausting. We'll see how I do. I have gotten a pretty good start on my reading this year! I read five books in January:
#1 Princess in the Spotlight by Meg Cabot
This is the second in The Princess Diaries series of books. I originally liked the style of storytelling with this series, and how representative of popular culture the books are. And although I like Mia as a character, she seems to be largely surrounded by family and friends who are either dumb, inconsiderate, or oblivious. My interest in the series was beginning to wane at this point, but I did have the next one in my stack to read, so I gave the third book a try to see if I would find them redeeming to continue with the rest of the series.
#2 Princess in Love by Meg Cabot
The third book in the series. Although I enjoyed the eventual romantic payoff I found the rest of the book too trying to take. Mia's so-called best friend is anything but and even Mia herself has an amazing lack of depth. I know she's supposed to be a teenager but I can't ever remember thinking as shallow as she does when I was a teenager. I guess that answers my question that I've outgrown some of the young adult fiction that's out there. I won't be reading anymore of this series, not with dozens of other books in my stacks to read.
#3 Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
I think the best way to describe this book is "brave." It's an autobiographical journal of sorts in which writer Elizabeth Gilbert went on a year long journey of self discovery in Italy, India and Indonesia. Her journey is incredibly honest, moving and humorous. It starts off with her realization one night that as a married woman living in suburbia that she no longer wanted to be a mother, didn't want to be married and didn't want the house in the suburbs. And it took courage for her to realize that for her own personal mental and emotional health that she needed to get away from her life. And she made a number of missteps along the way, a bad relationship choice and hurting some people. But the way in which she handled the mistakes, the way she shouldered them and moved through and past them was inspiring. We could all be so lucky to have such a journey in our lives.
#4 Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T. Davies
I borrowed this from cookie2697 and was shocked at how long it was (500+ pages) and also the style of the writing. It was told in a series of e-mails over the course of more than a year during the production of the fourth season of Doctor Who. It was very interesting to read how Davies approaches writing his stories and coming up with the ideas for the series and characters. Again, it was fascinating to read his honesty about his life and the series. He acknowledges that he's quite a dysfunctional person and it comes across in the way he writes. The procrastination and bad habits, the self doubt and how judgmental he is of his own work. Reading about how the fourth season came about was very interesting, especially about how it could have all been very different if Donna hadn't come on board and if Billie Piper hadn't come back for as many episodes as she did. It made me feel lucky to get what we did. I also enjoyed the format of the book. There were a lot of pictures from the series and from that year. Also large portions of several of the scripts that really showed how the scripts evolve over time. A very interesting read if you like Doctor Who and want an inside view of the series and the man behind the series.
#5 The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig
This is the second book in the series by Lauren Willig. I enjoy these books so much! They are billed as historical fictions of sorts and while it may be heavy on the fiction, the characters really keep it all alive. And the era of spies in England and France during Napoleon's rule is rife with material. This book centered around the falling in love of two characters introduced in the last book and brought front and center in this book. And I'm a sucker for stories in which long time friends finally see the light and fall in love. I also found myself anxious to get back to the present day story of Eloise (who is the historian doing research on 19th century spies) and Colin, her quasi antagonist and possible romantic interest. I have the next two books in the series and I'm trying to decide if I want to continue on with them or try something else for a bit.
Choices, choices. It is nice to have too many books to choose from and read! And now, back to laundry and trying to be productive on the last day of the weekend before another busy week.
Part of all the craziness is me trying to do two "extracurricular" activities at work. First, my friend who I have been trying to help get hired. The Federal government hiring process is lengthy, frustrating and covered in red tape. I spent a couple hours with various people in the hiring process and in human resources trying to push it through. It was important because without someone to push these things through they don't happen. But it was quite the time sucker. And second, I'm giving a two hour presentation on Congress, a kind of US government 101 lesson to our Leadership Development Program in two weeks. I'm a graduate of the program myself and I feel a lot of pressure to get it right.
Not to mention I understand the legislative process but actually giving a presentation on it and making it engaging and interesting? That takes a whole lot more effort. Thank goodness for Wikipedia and Schoolhouse Rock!. They are my lifesavers at the moment. That and a couple of tutorials on how to create a Jeopardy style game in Powerpoint and a very good and succinct book called Congress for Dummies.
As a result of too much brain power use during the week I seem to spend most of my weekends recovering. Quite a bit of sleeping in and then reading or watching TV most of the day. It doesn't make me feel very productive but I'm too tired to muster up much more energy than that. Today I'm going to try and get a few more things accomplished. Though the thought of going out and running errands already seems exhausting. We'll see how I do. I have gotten a pretty good start on my reading this year! I read five books in January:
#1 Princess in the Spotlight by Meg Cabot
This is the second in The Princess Diaries series of books. I originally liked the style of storytelling with this series, and how representative of popular culture the books are. And although I like Mia as a character, she seems to be largely surrounded by family and friends who are either dumb, inconsiderate, or oblivious. My interest in the series was beginning to wane at this point, but I did have the next one in my stack to read, so I gave the third book a try to see if I would find them redeeming to continue with the rest of the series.
#2 Princess in Love by Meg Cabot
The third book in the series. Although I enjoyed the eventual romantic payoff I found the rest of the book too trying to take. Mia's so-called best friend is anything but and even Mia herself has an amazing lack of depth. I know she's supposed to be a teenager but I can't ever remember thinking as shallow as she does when I was a teenager. I guess that answers my question that I've outgrown some of the young adult fiction that's out there. I won't be reading anymore of this series, not with dozens of other books in my stacks to read.
#3 Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
I think the best way to describe this book is "brave." It's an autobiographical journal of sorts in which writer Elizabeth Gilbert went on a year long journey of self discovery in Italy, India and Indonesia. Her journey is incredibly honest, moving and humorous. It starts off with her realization one night that as a married woman living in suburbia that she no longer wanted to be a mother, didn't want to be married and didn't want the house in the suburbs. And it took courage for her to realize that for her own personal mental and emotional health that she needed to get away from her life. And she made a number of missteps along the way, a bad relationship choice and hurting some people. But the way in which she handled the mistakes, the way she shouldered them and moved through and past them was inspiring. We could all be so lucky to have such a journey in our lives.
#4 Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale by Russell T. Davies
I borrowed this from cookie2697 and was shocked at how long it was (500+ pages) and also the style of the writing. It was told in a series of e-mails over the course of more than a year during the production of the fourth season of Doctor Who. It was very interesting to read how Davies approaches writing his stories and coming up with the ideas for the series and characters. Again, it was fascinating to read his honesty about his life and the series. He acknowledges that he's quite a dysfunctional person and it comes across in the way he writes. The procrastination and bad habits, the self doubt and how judgmental he is of his own work. Reading about how the fourth season came about was very interesting, especially about how it could have all been very different if Donna hadn't come on board and if Billie Piper hadn't come back for as many episodes as she did. It made me feel lucky to get what we did. I also enjoyed the format of the book. There were a lot of pictures from the series and from that year. Also large portions of several of the scripts that really showed how the scripts evolve over time. A very interesting read if you like Doctor Who and want an inside view of the series and the man behind the series.
#5 The Masque of the Black Tulip by Lauren Willig
This is the second book in the series by Lauren Willig. I enjoy these books so much! They are billed as historical fictions of sorts and while it may be heavy on the fiction, the characters really keep it all alive. And the era of spies in England and France during Napoleon's rule is rife with material. This book centered around the falling in love of two characters introduced in the last book and brought front and center in this book. And I'm a sucker for stories in which long time friends finally see the light and fall in love. I also found myself anxious to get back to the present day story of Eloise (who is the historian doing research on 19th century spies) and Colin, her quasi antagonist and possible romantic interest. I have the next two books in the series and I'm trying to decide if I want to continue on with them or try something else for a bit.
Choices, choices. It is nice to have too many books to choose from and read! And now, back to laundry and trying to be productive on the last day of the weekend before another busy week.