Currently,

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

This week: 172 pages
Last week: 160 pages
Semester total: 806 pages
 
"Prisoners at the bar, have you anything to say in your defence?" (41). - And Then There Were None
"Seven people looked at each other and could find no words to say" (132). - And Then There Were None
"No more Indian trick to-night. I've seen to that..." (163). - And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None offers very little in terms of inventive and beautiful language. However, it does have a bit of foreshadowing and a spot of irony in there, so that's why I chose these particular quotes. I like the last one the most because it's said by one of my favorite characters in the book promptly before (s)he is murdered (slight spoiler). A bit of foreshadowing, a bit of irony. Can't go wrong with that.  

I am a bad reader.

It's official. I am the world's worst reader. It's not that I can't comprehend or interpret what I read; I'm actually pretty good at that. I'm just terrible at reading for pleasure. The current outstanding books I have (currently) are A Long Way Gone, Columbine, and And Then There Were None, and as soon as I pick up a new book, I forget all about the old ones. It's a problem.

So! Here's a solution. I'm going to finish And Then There Were None first. Because I need to remember the plot to make the trailer. Also, I'm getting close to my favorite of the murders. Then, I'll move on to A Long Way Gone because I've left poor Ishmael stranded in the jungles of Sierra Leone for long enough. And then I'll end with Columbine and move on to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Because my mom actually has that right now. And I've been meaning to read it anyways, so it must be fate.

And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie

Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;

One choked his little self and then there were nine.

Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;

One overslept himself and then there were eight.

Eight little Indian boys travelling in Devon;

One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.

Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;

One chopped himself in half and then there were six.

Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;

A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.

Five little Indian boys going in for law;

One got in Chancery and then there were four.

Four little Indian boys going out to sea;

A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.

Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;

A big bear hugged one and then there were two.

Two Little Indian boys sitting in the sun;

One got frizzled up and then there was one.

One little Indian boy left all alone;

He went out and hanged himself and then there were none.

And Then There Were None is among my top ten favorite school-assigned books and probably among my top fifty favorite books in general. I read it in the 6th grade at the tail-end of my mystery novel reading phase, and I loved it. Also, immediately following the completion of And Then There Were None, the 6th grade ALPHA kids went on an overnight trip to Stone Lab, a branch of some college in Ohio, where we all hung out and dissected living-ish fish. Stone Lab is on an island. An island that is eerily similar to the one in And Then There Were None. With similar places. Including a particularly gruesome wood-chopping area. Needless to say, Agatha Christie's delightfully creative plotline and my experience at Stone Lab cemented And Then There Were None permanently in my head and heart.

Agatha Christie is the most well-published author in modern times (though, I guess she's not really modern but whatever; she lived in the last century). The only books that sell better than her are Shakespeare's and the Bible (according to the back of my copy of And Then There Were None). I'm pretty sure J. K. Rowling has surpassed her by now but still. Up until Harry Potter, Agatha Christie was number three. High five, Agatha Christie.

It's pretty easy to see why Christie was such a successful writer. While And Then There Were None is not a particularly challenging read, the plot is very engaging, and the ending is both clever and satisfying. It's difficult to describe a mystery novel in full detail without giving away too much, so I provide you with this bare bones summary of the plot:

Eight people are invited to go to Indian Island, a mysterious place that is rumored to have been purchased by either an eccentric millionaire or a film star. They are all invited under different pretenses. Some are hired. Some are asked to join a long-forgotten friend for a holiday. One comes with murder on his/her mind. The eight guests (who range from an elderly judge to a nanny/secretary to a general to a doctor and everything in between) are met by the two hired servants Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. The owner of Indian Island is absent. Soon after coming to the island, there is a slew of murders, and the island's occupants soon realize that there is a murderer among them. As they are killed one by one, they realize that their deaths resemble a poem tacked to their walls. Can they find the murderer before they all die?

Basically, I love this kind of stuff. I love a good murder mystery. And I also love those psychological books where a group of people are separated from society, and their humanity slowly deteriorates. Good stuff, man.

I'm really excited to put this in movie trailer form. I think it'll turn out pretty cool.

Also, if you read / have read this book, you should also see the movie. There are like ten million adaptations for this movie, but the one I saw was the 1945 film, And Then There Were None. I saw the black and white film, and I think the 1945 film is the only one old enough to have been shot in black and white. Fun fact, And Then There Were None was my first black and white film (unless you count that steamboat Mickey thing, which I don't). Anyways, it's a pretty good movie, if memory serves me correctly. Though that may not be the case because my 6th grade sensibilities thought pretty much everything was a good movie.

Currently,

Columbine, David Cullen
Battle Royale, Koushun Takami

This week: 160 pages
Last week: 102 pages
Semester total: 634 pages

"If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die" (54). - A Long Way Gone

“To say he was unfriendly would be the biggest understatement since the captain of the Hindenberg said, ‘I smell gas’” (61). - Bossypants

"So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: 'Is this person in between me and what I want to do?' If the answer is no, ignore it and move on" (144). - Bossypants

The first quote is my favorite. I think it's really powerful, and it's just so gosh-darned thought-provoking. It also offers hope. Because as long as you're alive, something good is coming.

The following quotes tied for second and are from the immortal Miss Tina Fey. I like my second sentence because it's a great balance between humor and literary devices such as hyperbole and allusion. I like the third sentence because I think it's genuinely good advice. There's really no point in dealing with someone unless that person is integral to what you want in life. 

Battle Royale and a little bit of Columbine

So I've been reading Columbine quite a bit recently. It's pretty cool. There's a nonlinear progression, and the book skips from topic to topic, leaving you curious about the full details of the event. It's really effective in making the book just frustrating enough that you want to read a little more.

What a tease.

Anyways, since I've already discussed Columbine, and honestly, the following chapters are just more and more clarification on the initial chapters, I'm gonna touch on Koushun Takami's Battle Royale. Now, I'd heard of this book numerous times. And I was told that it was very interesting. And it is. But in a far more gruesome way than I'd thought.
First off, I think it's worth mentioning that Battle Royale was originally written in Japanese and then later translated into English. Thus, when you read it, it's written in perfect English, but some of the cultural differences may throw you for a loop. Also, everyone has a Japanese name. There are 42 students and probably around 50 characters introduced in the first couple of chapters. Can you differentiate between Yukie Utsumi, Yoji Kuramoto, Haruka Tanizawa, Tadakatsu Hatagami, and the rest of their classmates? Me neither. I mean, I'm starting to get the hang of it, and I have a feeling that it'll get easier as more and more people die, and there are less names to remember. But still. It's pretty challenging.
Now that that's settled, Battle Royale is considerably different from the books I've read this year. For one, it's fiction. Second, it's kind of a sci-fi, alternate universe type of thing. Which is something I don't typically read.
Anyways. Battle Royale takes place in an alternate reality Japan in which a lot of the Asian countries have united under one isolationist government. The government keeps a vice grip on its citizens, banning decadent things such as rock music and Andy Warhol. Shuya Nanahara is a junior high schooler who is going on a class trip with 41 of his fellow students. However, after a trip in a sleeping gas-filled bus, Shuya and his classmates wake up in a strange classroom with metal rings around their necks. They are told they are to be a part of the Program, a simulation run by the government in which a class is placed in an isolated area, and the students must kill each other until only one is left standing. The country's dictator claims that the Program exists to protect the nation, but Shuya and his classmates are horrified at the idea of killing each other.
I think I'll stop summarizing there just in case you want to read the book yourself. There are quite a few spoilers within the first chapter.
Anyways, Battle Royale strikes me as a very Lord of the Flies-y book. In fact, Lord of the Flies is mentioned on the back cover of Battle Royale. I'm not sure if I like it yet; some parts of the book are just too gruesome. But I do like a good survivor book. And Battle Royale happens to be one of the most notable books in Japanese literature. So I feel like I should give it a shot. I dunno. I'm gonna have to read some more Bossypants to balance this out.
I'd recommend Battle Royale if you like those kind of darkness of mankind, surviving in extreme situation things. But if you don't have a strong stomach, do not read this book. It will disappoint you.


Also, two notable things about this book.
1.) The "About the Translator" section says this: "Yuji Oniki is a writer and translator."
Gee. Thanks. Did not even consider that. How insightful!
2.) A quote in the beginning of the book reads like this: "A student is not a tangerine." - Kinpachi Sakamoto, Third Year Class B, Kinpachi Sensei
Yes. A student is not a tangerine because a student is a zengerine.
Badum-chh!

It's late. I'll stop making punny jokes.

Claims of the Day

Here are my claims of choice in no particular order.

• JimmehFTW - The painting's gritty texture, balanced use of space, selective use of colour, and dark tone leave the viewer a sense of depressing realization leading to a climactic finish. 
• Doctor Von Brown  - In Gene Kelly's "Good Morning" [an elegantly exquisite setting and excitingly exuberant style is] conveyed [through the delicate, and brisk attire and the frantic yet hysterical emotion of the actors.] 
• The Average Life of a Teenage Bookworm - In this flash mob by Todrick Hall, the mischievous and adventurous expressions, jubilant sounds, and bustling moves, show the explosive creativity and confident energy of the dancers. 
• Bud in the Garden - Leonid Afremov's vibrant use of color, flowing appearance, and realistic, silky texture illustrates a feeling of whimsical relaxation and majestic euphoria. 
• Intrusion of the Soul - In the album art for United Paper People's Kisschasy, the foreboding colors, overwhelming space, and perilous actions reflect a sense of destructive loneliness and irrational wonder.

I really enjoyed JimmehFTW's and The Average Life of a Teenage Bookworm's claims. For JimmehFTW, I liked the words he used. "Gritty" and "depressing realization" are really strong words, and they efficiently convey the author's thoughts. For The Average Life of a Teenage Bookworm, I love the words "jubilant" and "bustling" as well as the phrase "explosive creativity." I would never have described creativity as "explosive," but it works very well.

Intrusion of the Soul's album art is my favorite artifact. It's such a cool picture, and I kind of want to get the album now. Really badly.

Description Exercise: Todrick Hall's "I Wanna Be On Glee"

Todrick Hall, a former American Idol contestant best known for his Beyonce "End of Time" video and his McDonald's Drive Thru song, wants to be on Glee, Fox's hit show about the dramatic lives of some Glee Club members. 

Lyrics

• Clever
• Parodistic
• Sarcastic

Instrumental 

• Assertive beats
• Lush
• Gospel-like
• Vivacious

Choreography

• Emphatic 
• Snappy 
• Effervescent
• Allusive

Attire

• Youthful
• Trendy
• Coordinated

Video / Picture

• Vibrant
• Playful
• Focused
• Sweeping

CLAIM

In Todrick Hall's "I Wanna Be On Glee," Hall's plea to Glee creator Ryan Murphy shows Hall's inventiveness and artistic talents through the music video's cleverly parodistic lyrics, assertive instrumentals, and effervescent choreography.

Poet of the Month - James Merrill

I mentioned in a previous post that "Charles on Fire" by James Merrill is my favorite poem. Therefore, he gets to be my poet of the month. Dundundundaaah.
So I looked at some of his poems. And some are quite nice and others were not as appealing. But I liked "The Black Swan." I think it's interesting, a living question. It's something that's intangible, sad, and beautiful. But the great thing about it is even if you don't "get it," you can just sit back and let the words wash over you. 

The Black Swan

Black on flat water past the jonquil lawns

       Riding, the black swan draws

A private chaos warbling in its wake,

Assuming, like a fourth dimension, splendor   

That calls the child with white ideas of swans   

       Nearer to that green lake

    Where every paradox means wonder.

Though the black swan’s arched neck is like   

       A question-mark on the lake,

The swan outlaws all possible questioning:   

A thing in itself, like love, like submarine   

Disaster, or the first sound when we wake;

       And the swan-song it sings

    Is the huge silence of the swan.

Illusion: the black swan knows how to break   

       Through expectation, beak

Aimed now at its own breast, now at its image,   

And move across our lives, if the lake is life,   

And by the gentlest turning of its neck

       Transform, in time, time’s damage;

    To less than a black plume, time’s grief.

Enchanter: the black swan has learned to enter   

       Sorrow’s lost secret center

Where like a maypole separate tragedies

Are wound about a tower of ribbons, and where   

The central hollowness is that pure winter

       That does not change but is

    Always brilliant ice and air.

Always the black swan moves on the lake; always

       The blond child stands to gaze   

As the tall emblem pivots and rides out

To the opposite side, always. The child upon   

The bank, hands full of difficult marvels, stays

       Forever to cry aloud

    In anguish: I love the black swan.

Currently,

Columbine, David Cullen

This week: 102 pages
Last week: 127 pages
Semester total: 474 pages

Sentences of the Week: 

"Columbine quickly overshadowed the war" (52).
"The public couldn't wait that long. The media wasn't about to. They speculated" (67).
"Perhaps now America would wake up to the dimensions of this challenge, if it could happen in a place like Littleton" (93).

I liked the first quote because it shows two things. The first was that Americans will always care about domestic issues as opposed to international issues. The second was that the magnitude of the Columbine attack
I liked the second quote because it showed that many of the greatest misunderstandings of the world are the result of impatience.
My favorite quote this week is probably the last one, an excerpt from President Clinton's speech about Columbine. "...if it could happen in a place like Littleton," it could easily happen to a place like Fort Wayne. And that's what affected me most when reading Columbine. Columbine High School is just too similar to Homestead High School for me to be comfortable.

Columbine - Dave Cullen

I don't know if everyone does this, but whenever I read a book, I like to picture the setting and characters in my head. When I read Columbine, I picture Homestead. 

The similarities between the two are eerie and a little unnerving. Suburban. Around 2,000 students. Affluent neighborhood. Despite the brown brick building with green glass on the cover of the book, I saw the white halls of Homestead. 

Columbine is a detailed account of the Columbine Massacre, the deadliest high school shooting in America. But Columbine's not just a police report. It's a story. It follows the lives of the killers, the victims, and the witnesses and leads up to the shooting. It fleshes out people, not just characters, and it's a lot different from just watching it on television. On television, these people are faces. You don't know anything about them. They're distant. One of the successes in Columbine is convincing the reader that Eric Harris, one of the shooters, could've been the kid who served you pizza and Dylan Klebold, the other shooter, could've been your prom date. 

When reading Columbine, it's difficult not to put yourself into the incident. I found myself thinking about where I would be at around 11:19 (for reference, I'd be in the art room), what I'd do once the shootings began (sit around oblivious for a while, drawing), what I'd do once I was aware of the shootings (hide in a cupboard or climb out the waist-level windows), and whether or not I'd survive (probably because the majority of deaths happened in areas with lots of students). I then thought about everyone I knew with A lunch. They would've been the likely targets. I thought about which of my friends would likely be in the library (where a lot of people were attacked by the shooters). I thought about the actual victims at Columbine I thought about my parents' reactions. Would they try to call me? Would I call back? Or would that be too dangerous? Would I be bused to a safe place and frantically search for my parents? Would they find me? 

But the biggest question in my mind, and what I imagine was in the minds of everyone who read this, was why? Eric and Dylan led reasonably good lives. They had friends, they weren't outcasts, they were smart, they had futures. So why? Honestly, I'm not really sure yet. Because I have to stop reading and do other homework. But nonetheless. 

There was a lot of mystery surrounding Columbine. And thanks to our instant gratification-based society, we had to know who, how many, and why immediately after (and during) the massacre. To satisfy this need, there was false information. Suddenly, there were hundreds of shooters with an array of personal problems that ranged from playing violent videogames to being Goth to being the victims of bullying. 

I really can't wait to pick up this book again. It is engaging. It is informative. I really want to know why Columbine happened and how it affected the community afterwards. 

Homestuck - Andrew Hussie

So I don't know if this is even applicable to the reading blog. Because it's sort of a book. Kind of. If you consider online graphic novels with the occasional Flash movie cut-scenes books, then yes. I suppose this is a book.

Homestuck is a webcomic on the website MS Paint Adventures. It's sort of organized in a play format with acts and an intermission. Except this is a colossal, mega play with thousands of pages and seven acts (but not really because it's unfinished). I've read a little over 3000 pages at this point. Which is slightly ridiculous. But moving on. The set-up of Homestuck sort of looks like a choose-your-own-adventure game, but you're only ever given one choice. Thus defeating the purpose of the choose-your-own-adventure format.

Anyways, it's hard to explain. But basically it's just super cool and also has really great soundtracks. Except, now it's gaining in popularity, so my hipster senses are getting very angry at the webcomic becoming more mainstream (which I acknowledge on a conscious level as being absolute crap, but I can't help it).


Okay, so explaining the plot of Homestuck is quite possibly the most difficult thing in the world. The plot is filled with time-travel and paradoxes and, more often than not, doesn't even follow the main plot line, but instead goes into charming but completely confusing offshoots. If Homestuck had a literary cousin, that literary cousin would be Catch-22. You don't start putting the pieces together until about halfway in. And it makes it really hard to fully explain the scope of the webcomic without giving away vital plot information.
But I'll try to touch on the key elements of the plot without giving away too much. So, the first character you're introduced to is John Egbert, screen name ectoBiologist. He's the hero of the story. Kind of. It is his birthday, and he has just received a copy of a new game called Sburb. But not really because it is intercepted by his dad. The nefarious cretin! Mischief ensues and pretty soon, meteors come falling from the sky. With the help of his three best friends (who are introduced later), he must... do something that has yet to be explained.
Like I said, really confusing.

The overlapping and seemingly unconnected plotlines are, at times, a pain in the rear. But once they start connecting to each other, and you get your "Ah-ha!" moment, it's a lot easier to read through. The four main characters are charming (one's an idiot; one's a sort-of-goth; one's a hipster; and one has narcolepsy). The eventual supporting cast is equally as fun (and perhaps better). The graphics are pretty good. The music is superb. And the writing is absolute gold. Chock-full of humor and vocabulary-enhancing goodies (such as mendicant, abscond, peregrine, echelon, aplomb, and other words I only wish I knew).

Try it if you have time and patience. Try it with an open mind. If not, you're just going to end up irritated.
Also, this is largely a fantasy, adventure, comedy thing. There's virtually no romance or drama or any other genre. Look elsewhere for that nonsense.

Currently,

Bossypants, Tina Fey
The Princess Bride, William Goldman
A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah

This week: 127 pages
Last week: 117 pages
Semester Total: 372 pages


Sentences of the Week:


"This was one of the consequences of civil war. People stopped trusting each other, and everyone became an enemy" (37).
"If you are alive, there is hope for a better day and something good to happen. If there is nothing good left in the destiny of a person, he or she will die" (54).
"Our innocence had been replaced by fear and we had become monsters" (55).

I thought all of the quotes were pretty powerful. They talk about things like the consequences of war, the nature of living, and the loss of innocence. Which is pretty profound.
My favorite of the three has to be the second one. I think it's a great way to think about life. There's always something better around the corner. Unless you die. Then you're just kind of at the end.

The final installment of Bossypants and A Long Way Gone

Parting is always bittersweet. It's okay, Tina. Control your tears. We'll meet again some other time.
The third act of Bossypants (which really isn't the third act at all because Bossypants, like many other nonfiction books, isn't divided into acts; therefore, when I say "the third act," I truly mean "the third time I picked up this book") centers around Tina Fey and her family (specifically her daughter, Alice). She talks about breastfeeding, a labor of love that she endured for 72 hours; spending Christmases with the in-laws; things she wants for her daughter (in the form of a prayer); and the possibility of her having a second child. She ends by saying that "everything will be fine" no matter if Alice remains an only child or if she (Tina) decides to have another child (275).
Bossypants ends the way it started. With humor. And for that, I am eternally grateful because Fey could've easily screwed over a perfectly good book with the sappy Hollywood finish. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Bossypants. It was a quick and interesting read with large print, generous margins, and frequent photographs. Just kidding, I was genuinely more interested in the contact than I was in meeting homework requirements. I would recommend this to anyone. While the content is directed more towards women, I think men could learn something and be entertained by the book as well. I mean, what man doesn't want to talk about female puberty and breastfeeding?
Oh, and for the record, after looking up Tina Fey on Wikipedia, I would like to say three things.
1.) Tina Fey did indeed have a second child (a girl named Penelope) in August 2011.
2.) Tina Fey's husband, Jeff, is much shorter than she is. Though I'm not sure if he actually is shorter or if Tina's just wearing some really extreme heels.
3.) Tina Fey is getting a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame this year. Snaps for Tina Fey.

Anyways, after indulging in Bossypants, I felt like I should read something heavier. Something with more sustenance. So I picked up A Long Way Gone by Ishmael Beah. It has a lovely cover (I love the photography and the composition of it). Because, I'll admit, a large part in whether or not I'll read a book is the cover.
So A Long Way Gone  is a memoir written about Ishmael Beah's experience growing up in Sierra Leone in the midst of a rebellion. A twelve year-old Beah must leave his family, survive living in a war-torn area, and forgive himself for his mistakes. While many books in literature tried to tackle the loss of humanity and innocence (I'm looking at you Lord of the Flies and Heart of Darkness), I think A Long Way Gone is even more powerful because I found myself finishing a chapter and stopping to remind myself that this really happened. Beah's first-person narrative is really strong. It is simple, and it's almost journalistic.
When reading A Long Way Gone, I was reminded of The Rape of Nanking, which is an excellent book about the historical incident, the Rape of Nanjing (which is my family's hometown). Don't read it if you don't have a strong stomach (it literally gave me nightmares and made me feel physically ill after I read it).
But enough drawing connections. Back to the book. So far, Beah has been separated from his mother and father and is later separated from his brother. He has encountered the rebels multiple times, and each time they are inhumane and armed with heavy artillery. He stays in the forest for a while and then runs into a group of boys. He joins them, and wherever they go, people are wary of them and either watch them constantly or run away from them. One of the most moving passages in A Long Way Gone, at least in my opinion, is a passage when the boys reach an abandoned city. There is only an old man left awaiting his death. He invites the boys to eat dinner with him. When asked for his name, he asks to be remembered only as the old man the boys had met on their way to a safer city. He doesn't want them to waste a memory for his name. As the boys leave, Beah looks back to see the old man sitting on his porch. He is not afraid for his own life. Rather, he is afraid for the lives of the seven boys. It made me wonder how long it takes for a person to come to terms with their own mortality. Do some people never come to terms with their mortality? What has to happen before you come to terms with your mortality?
A Long Way Gone provides a stark contrast to Fey's Bossypants. It's much more narrative-driven and deals with a darker subject matter. I find it equally enjoyable but in a much different way.

The Princess Bride - William Goldman

So through some act of divine intervention (by which I mean I was perusing my old books to find a suitable passage for an AP Comp assignment), I picked up my copy of The Princess Bride. I got this about 4 years ago during the summer after my 7th grade year. I read it for a Creative Writing summer class. And it was pretty good but definitely not one of my favorite books ever.
So I browsed through it (again, looking for a passage for AP Comp), and I realized that William Goldman's a pretty good writer. Heck, he's kind of witty even.
And that's how I started re-reading The Princess Bride. 


Before I get into the fun details of The Princess Bride, let me just say that you've probably heard of it in some way shape or form. "Hello. My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die." Ring any bells? Giant monster rats. Poisoned chalices. The usual. Well, if you've never read the book, chances are, you've seen the movie. Which, if memory serves me correctly, wasn't that bad. Although, I watched it when I was 8, and back then, nothing was bad.


Anyways, I'm still trekking through the exposition. And Goldman has just introduced The Princess Bride as a "classic tale of true love and high adventure" written by one S. Morgenstern. So we're taken through a short prologue about Goldman's life (I'll admit it; I skimmed this part because it does not have true love or high adventure), and we finally get to the good stuff.
So Goldman/Morgenstern introduces Buttercup. Our female protagonist. She's really pretty. In fact, she's so pretty, that she's maybe in the top 20 prettiest women in the world. But only based on potential. She gets prettier with age. Anyways, she has this farm boy. She calls him, fittingly enough, Farm Boy. She orders him around, and he replies with, "As you wish." Buttercup and family are visited by a Countess who happens to have much interest in Farm Boy. This makes Buttercup incredibly jealous and realize her love for Farm Boy (who's real name is Westley). And as it turns out, he loves her back. Yay. Rejoice. But not for too long, because Westley is leaving for America to seek his fortune. That is. Until the ship he's on is attacked by pirates. Thinking Westley is dead, Buttercup swears to never love again.

Though the beginning to The Princess Bride is almost romantic to a fault, I do enjoy William Goldman's references to the list of the most beautiful women in the world and Buttercup's ascension to the top of this list. And okay, I also kind of like the cheesy, lovey-dovey lines (reference: "...if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches" (54)). I mean, they're dopey, but this is also one of the greatest romances of all time. So you can afford to be a little dopey.

Anyways, looking forward to reading a book that I haven't read in years. Maybe I'll appreciate it more this time around.

Currently,

Bossypants, Tina Fey 

This week: 117 pages

Last week: 128 pages
Semester Total: 245 pages

(In my defense, a large chunk of my free time is no longer spent on Facebook; it is spent on sleeping. Which I believe is a worthwhile endeavor. Even if it does cut into my limited reading time. But now I'm just making excuses for myself.) 

Sentences of the Week:

"...the women I know in comedy are all good daughters, good citizens, mild-mannered college graduates. Maybe we women gravitate toward comedy because it is a socially acceptable way to break rules and a release from our daily life" (138). - Bossypants

"So my unsolicited advice to women in the workplace is this. When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: 'Is this person in between me and what I want to do?' If the answer is no, ignore it and move on" (144). - Bossypants

"...I would carry around a very specific form of physical anxiety that feels kind of like my heart shrinking up like a raisin" (201). - Bossypants

I liked the first quote because I think it's an interesting take on women in comedy. The funniest women I know are nothing like the big-mouthed, loud women on MadTV. They're soft-spoken and more reminiscent of Michael Cera than of Eddie Murphy (unfortunately, I can't think of very many female comedians people would recognize). 

I liked the second quote because it really confirmed for me that Bossypants is indeed at least a little bit a self-help book for women in the workplace. But I ignored this and moved on. 

The last quote is possibly my favorite because I know that exact feeling. I get it whenever I check my grades on Powerschool, whenever I take a big test, and whenever I have to make a really difficult jump on a really excellent videogame. 

A Cactus for your Friday

I actually really like cacti. Mostly because I suck at growing things.
I have two very detailed memories of my kindergarten class. The first was when we learned to chew gum properly. The second was when we planted bean sprouts for science. My classmates and I were instructed to created a deep thumbprint in the dirt, put our sprout seeds in the thumbprint, cover with dirt, and water a little bit every day. While everyone else's bean sprouts eventually poked their little sprout-y heads out of the dirt, mine did nothing. So when we took our sprouts home, everyone had baby vegetation, and I had a pot of dirt.
Therefore, I really like cacti. I've had three, and I've only killed one (to my credit, I left it alone for a month when I went to China, so if I was there, maybe it wouldn't have died). My policy is that if you can easily kill it, don't raise it. Leave it to the zoo or something and take pictures. The only exception to this rule is human babies. You can't find them in zoos. So just be extra careful when you're raising those.
But anyways, here's a cactus for your Friday. The first of many (hopefully).

More Bossypants (by the forever lovely Miss Tina Fey)!

So I read some more Bossypants. How exciting. I'm trying to ration it into portions because it's really good, and I want it to last forever. Also, it's a nonfiction book, so unlike reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, it's not like I'm ripping through the book thinking, "I need to know the end! Is Tina a horcrux? Does she die at the end?" No. I know for a fact that Tina Fey does not die at the end. However, I remain uncertain as to whether or not she is a horcrux. This requires further investigation.

I decided that doing a plot summary of each chapter, while fun, was far too time-consuming, so I'll give you the quick and dirty version of what happened in the second half of Tina Fey's book. Here, we find Tina Fey finally joining the ranks of the legendary SNL show. She is barely hired. Later, she goes on to write a pilot for 30 Rock. The show is almost not broadcasted but makes it on national television (thank you, Alec Baldwin). Being a part of 30 Rock, Fey spends a lot of time teetering between "Acting on SNL" stress levels and "Coal Mining in the U.S." stress levels. Her stress culminates into a three-ring circus of stress when she (successfully) juggles getting Oprah on 30 Rock, being Sarah Palin on SNL, and planning her daughter's Peter Pan-themed birthday party. The final chapter I read was about how Tina Fey portrayed Sarah Palin on SNL.
Also, it's worth mentioning that there are two chapters smushed between SNL and 30 Rock. They are "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" and "Dear Internet." "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" is a step-by-step guide to doing a good photoshoot with a little blurb about Photoshop at the end (for the record, Tina Fey is pro-Photoshop, particularly when it comes to eliminating her shark eyes). "Dear Internet" is a series of fan letters and Fey's responses. Fan mail topics include fixing Tina Fey's hideous scar; Tina Fey being an ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll; Tina Fey ruining SNL; Tina Fey being sexually harassed; and Tina Fey being ugly despite her plastic surgery. As predicted, Miss Fey responds with class and poise and the occasional f-bomb.

Tina Fey does not disappoint. Even though this part of her book made me realize that Bossypants is part self-help book (something that I will never admit because I can legitimately get away with passing it off as an autobiography which sounds cooler than a self-help book), I still really enjoyed it. I don't know if you've picked up on this, but I happen to really enjoy Tina Fey's humor, and I'm making it my business to meet her before one of us dies.