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Bookspiration: Letters

I just finished reading Dear Mr. You by Mary-Louise Parker.  Its a wonderfully unconventional book of letters she has written to the men from her life: her late grandfather, her doctor, her son, ex-lovers, her father, etc. If you're looking to read something that is completely different from anything you've ever read-try this book. But the reason I'm writing about it is because this book, like every book you read, inspires something within you.  When you finish a book sometimes you want to cry, sometimes you want to laugh, sometimes you just want to sit and relish the moment. This book makes me want to write letters to people from my life. Here's my first one. Dear Not My Father-In-Law: I've been thinking about you a lot lately.  Christmas does that to me, makes me think about people I haven't seen in years.  Maybe its because I've always been to afraid to be more like you, more bold, more brave in the face of people thinking you're doing somethin...

November Goals

Let's get to work...we need to do a little better this month!   1. Get a new job  I have been really missing working a job where I can make a difference. I really want to light a fire under myself to focus on applying and interviewing for a job where I can really affect change.  2. Read 2 books Ideally I want to read one self-help style book and one more fun book.  So we'll see what is calling my name.   3. Work on my knitting I would love to give my mom a scarf for Christmas!  4. Put a dent in my current craft project I'm working on a t-shirt quilt! 5. Keep up the once/week blogging I want to get myself in a habit of keeping this up! I think we'll settle with 5 this month, since I didn't do so hot last month.  

October Goals Wrap-Up

I am once again not please with the results of my monthly goals.  It looks like I'm at less than 30%!  That's not good!  1. Work out at the gym...it WILL happen someday. -Not only did it not happen it looks like I will have to find another way to work out because I will not be getting access to the DSW gym any longer.  2. Get 500 followers on  Twitter ...I'm SOOO close   SUCCESS!!! 3. Complete my latest craft project -Also complete, but I'm not sure I'm happy with it.   4. Clear out my garden plot -Done, the only thing left is a cabbage plant since they don't mind the cold.   5. Set-up an online photography portfolio (I have a Flickr; does anyone have any recommendations they like better?) -I didn't work on this...did anyone have any feedback on whether they would pick something over Flickr? 6. Continue blogging at least once/week -I missed the 3rd week of October, but other than that I did pretty good.   7. Pick my kni...

September Goals

Now that we've got August out of the way. Let's get back down to business and get some goals reached! 1. Go to the gym AND work out (this seems silly...but given the last time I felt it needed to be said) 2. Start practicing my translations again (special thanks to Josh for getting me a bunch of great books in French for our anniversary) 3. Finish 2 books (one self-help book and one for pleasure) 4. Reach 500 followers on Twitter...I WILL get there!  5.  Blog once/week Happy Holiday Weekend! 

August Goals

1. Go to the gym (I will do this someday!) 2. Read (or at least start depending on how bad it is)  50 Shades of Grey.   I picked it up from the library today! 3. Get my professional manicure 4. Reach my 500 Twitter followers goal (I'm so close!) 5. Rearrange the spare bedroom  As you can see I'm really trying to focus on my 101 in 1001 .  I feel like I've neglected it.  So I'm trying to get a move on!  I have just over a year left! 

Books to Read

I was checking out my 101 in 1001 the other day and I realized that I never created my "Books to Read" list like I had mentioned. I had one on my previous blog but it never got updated to this one so here is the list as it currently stands that are in need of reading whether they've been read before or not: 1. "Song of Ice & Fire" Series by George R.R.  Martin Book 1: A Game of Thrones Book 2: A Clash of Kings Book 3: A Storm of Swords Book 4: A Feast of Crows Book 5: A Dance with Dragons Book 6: The Winds of Winter Book 7: A Dream of Spring 2. Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James 3. Every Novel by Jane Austen Sense and Sensibility Pride and Prejudice Mansfield Park Emma Northanger Abbey Persuasion 4. Dante's The Divine Comedy 5. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte 6. L'Etranger by Albert Camus 7. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 8. Homer's Iliad & Odyssey 9. Nineteen-Eighty four by George Orwell 10. The Catcher in the Rye ...

Sci-Fi & Fantasy Books

Recently NPR published the "Top 100 Science Fiction and Fantasy Books" list (Harry Potter not included-he will be part of the children's/young adult list).  And as I was perusing it I realized I had only read a few of the books, but I had seen quite a few of the movies.  As someone who works at a library I think this is a HUGE problem.  So I think this will begin my quest to "catch-up" on all the great literature I have missed. Let's check out what I HAVE read.   1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy 2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 7. Fahrenheit 451 13. Animal Farm (although not since I was in school) 39. War of the Worlds (Again, when I was in school) 40. The Chronicles of Amber (I've read the first 2 of this series) 46. The Silmarillion (attempted, but never finished) 70. The Time Traveler's Wife What I have seen:  1. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy 2. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy 11. The Princess Bride (One of m...

Wordless Wednesday

In lieu of writing about books (I don't really read books about writing anyway) I have posted a picture relating to them. This is a photo of the sculpture in front of the Wilmington Public Library.  I find it to be really charming, yet somehow sad at the same time.  

101 in 1001 take 2 1/2

 So I have been attempting to update my 101 in 1001 list for about a week now because I wanted to complete it before New Years and unfortunately the website seems to have chosen to crash just as I was deciding to take part in this adventure once again.  Therefore, I am going to attempt to get my list of things together here (since I had already written an extensive list on the other website) in time to get started on them by the beginning of 2011.  So here you are.  My list of 101 things to do in 1001 days.   Please note: these do include some things I was working on from my previous list so they may have older dates included.   Note on colors: The fuchsia is the original list.  Purple is complete and blue is in progress.    Jessica's 101 in 1001 Start: January 1st, 2011 End: September 28th, 2013 Personal 1. Keep a written journal (regularly) 2. Blog at least once a week for a month (hopefully forever) Completed my Wordcou...

Booklist

 You will notice in my 101 in 1001 that instead of listing the books that I want to read as separate goals I simply put that I want to read at least one book a month for the year.  So here are some of the ones that have been on my list for awhile.  1. One Ian Fleming Book 2. Silmarillion 3. A Walk to Remember 4. The Notebook 5. The Chronicles of Narnia 6. Mere Christianity 7. Dante's Inferno 8. Paradise Lost 9. The Philip Pullman Trilogy 10. One Libba Bray Book 11. A Tale of Two Cities 12. Reread Pride and Prejudice 13. Reread The Lord of the Rings Trilogy 14. Reread the Harry Potter Series 15. All the French books I bought in France 16. Eat. Pray. Love.

Cosmetic Surgery/Tattoos/Piercings: Self Mutilation or Self Expression?

As a former RA I have unfortunately been met with instances of Self Mutilation more often than a normal person. Because of this when I happened upon a book at the library about it I picked it up hoping that learning more about it will allow me to be better prepared should I come across this ever again in the future. The book, "Self Mutilation" is part of the Opposing Viewpoints Series where the editor brings different articles written by people with, you guessed it, opposing viewpoints, together to compare and contrast ideas about the subject.  And while they talked about the traditional forms of self mutilation of people who cut and burn their own skin the end of the book touched on a much more interesting and controversial topic.  Self Mutilation as Fashion.  Several of the articles listed plastic surgery and even piercings and tattoos as forms of self mutilation.  The following quotes/ideas are from Britist Columnist Melanie Phillips.  Ms. Phill...

The Travels of an Independent Woman

In a bout of depression (see former post) I didn't go to my internship today. I laid around all day (I did not shower, or get dressed, or go out of the apartment) I picked up a book I had bought the other day....and I read the whole thing today. Without Reservations by Alice Steinbach. Part of me really wishes that I would have read this book before my trip to Europe, not for the destinations she went to...but for the insight she provided from the experience of traveling alone. Now granted, I wasn't truly traveling alone I was with 25 other Ohio State University students going to class and goofing off and not learning a bit of french. But in looking back at it I really didn't make the connections one usually would while traveling with other people, so in an essence, I was traveling alone. In the last pages of the book Steinbach quotes another travel writer, Freya Stark, who wrote memoirs as she traveled through the Middle East (during a time when women NEVER traveled alone...
This is a picture I took of Sainte Chappelle in Paris. Not only do I like how its romantic feel goes along with les pensees du Madame Bovary but I also really like this photograph, its an illustration of the best trip of my life. What does everyone think?

Bovarysme

I just finished reading Madame Bovary which has been cited as one of the best modern novels ever written. I was thinking a lot about Emma and about her delusions throughout the novel. She truly suffers from Bovarysme, which was of course named after her. She dreams for something that is completely unattainable, some glamorous life that doesn't exist in real life. However, I think that while Emma's actions in the novel were completely contemptable especially in her treatment of Charles I feel as if everyone has these sorts of delusions in their life. For example, why do romance novels sell thousands of copies of books that are not even a truly good quality: because women love the beautiful idea of true love and passion. Sweetest Day and Valentine's day make intense amounts of money because romanticism and the idea that a woman can be "swept off her feet" and Emma prescribes to this theory throughout the novel looking for a handsome young man who she could be passio...

Tagged

I was going to grab the last novel I read to do for this exercise. But since my GRE book is in my hand why not. Page 123, 5th sentence, and the next 3 after that. Well, since there aren't really sentences on this page, I'll just give the 5th question on the page, haha. 95. The passage state that organic solidarity predominates in societies with relatively high levels of intragroup dissimilarity because A. it enbables individual differences to be minimized B. it causes socities to become more highly specialized, thus aiding industrialization C. individuals who engage in highly specialized activities must rely on others to ensure that their basic needs are met D. these societies are at greater risk of being affected by social stressors E. these societies are more likely to engage in shared activities and values I know you didn't read the passage, but for the record, the answer is C. I'm also supposed to tag 5 people, so if you're reading this, and haven't done i...

Breathtaking

If you haven't heard of Breathtaking by Miss Amber Nichole Metz you should definitely go to your local christian bookstore and buy a copy. It's really a beautiful book and testimony of how she relied on her faith while waiting to receive a double lung transplant. It's really beautiful to hear that people still have this kind of faith, its actually faith, not religion, and there truly is a difference. While I think its a beautiful book it is at the same time, really frustrating to read. I ask myself "why don't I have that kind of faith?" And I try so hard to have that sort of faith and believe that everything happens for a reason and that something greater than myself has everything under control, but that's extremely difficult when you can't feel anything pulling you or anything "speaking" to you. It's so hard to understand how if there is something out there and you try to believe, you feel nothing. I wish I could be as passionate about...

FINALLY

After more time than I ever intended on dedicated to creating the list, blog, and ticker that has accompanied this 101 in 1001 I am finally finished. As you have seen, the bolded items are the categories, and the items that are NOT pink (in this case I believe we'll let them all be purple, because its a nice match, are the items that are finished. Today's one and only item (and the motivation for FINALLY getting this up) is Emma, a great book. I watched the movie with Megan before leaving for France so I knew what was going to happen. Now I'm sitting here dreaming of my own Mr. Knightley, but where I will find him I have no idea. Let me know if you find any men as perfect, graceful, handsome, and amazing as Mr. Knightley for me.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant. A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to tear down, and a time to build. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them; a time to embrace, and a time to be far from embraces. A time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away. A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to be silent, and a time to speak. A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Booklist

Hey guys, I'm writing a list of books that I should read so add suggestions and it'll change as I read or decide I hate said books...lol. Maybe I'll even write some reviews...lol The "IN Death" Series The Gunslinger series...if I don't get fed up with it and throw it out the window Eldest and the rest of the Inheritence Series The Davinci code Angels and Demons The Salmon of Doubt The Chronicles of Narnia The Belgariad Series

Life Lessons

Le Petit Prince: "Il est tres simple: on ne voit bien qu'avec le coeur. L'esstentiel est invisible pour les yeux." It is very simple: you see the good things with the heart. The essentials are invisible to the eyes. "Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as appricoise." You are responsible for what you tame. More later-but they're good to ponder.