Summer Reads

You guys are awesome.  I knew I could count on my friends to be better than a google search for blog topics.  Feel free to keep the questions coming, I'll answer as many as I get to.

First question: What are you reading for fun right now. 

Ah yes, the summer read.  I so anticipated reading for fun, more and more as finals rolled on.  Here are a few things I've been going through, summer goals, as it is:

Man's Search for Meaning, Victor Frankl.
Yeah, just a little light readting, right?  Actually, compared to the textbooks of the past semester, it was. And it has been sitting on my list since starting the Master's program. My professors keep quoting it and citing it and assigning chapters from it, but its been a shamefully long time since I've read it in its entirety, so it was the first thing I picked up.  It only took me a morning, and it was a good way to ease back out of academic stuff. Though provoking and easier to ge through that "Adult Psychopathology and Diagnosis".

Beethoven As I Knew Him, Anton Schindler
I found it on a library sale bookshelf during finals week, and couldn't resist.  This was one I frequently referenced and heard about in my undergrad, but never read in its entirety due to time constraints.  I figured since my academic reading brain was in shape and my music brain was being starved, this could round things out a bit.  And it did.  It felt good to be back in familiar territory.

No Toil Nor Labor Fear, James B. Allen
Its the biography of William Clayton (the guy who wrote Come Come Ye Saints) that I borrowed from a friend months ago and got really into but then school took over.  Fascinating read.  The writing isn't my favorite style, but its not bad, just not mine.  The information, though, is pretty awesome.

A Century of Singing, J. Spencer Cornwall
Yet another library booksale find.  History of the MoTab.  I figured it would be good info.  Also fascinating, although I recognize its really geared for an audience as specifically obsessed with the choir as me.  So, you know, not a very broad spectrum of people.  But I'm enjoying it.

But Nancy, you may say, These are all so dry and history-ish and academic-y still, even if they reflect your interests and obsessions, they aren't "fun".

No, I'll admit.  Not "fun" at all.  Which is why my summer reading goals are different than my summer fun reading. 

My summer fun reading can be summed up with one author: Terry Pratchett. 

Actually, that's not entirely true, since my first read is called "good omens" and it was co-written by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.  Which reminds me how much I love Neil Gaiman, so I'll probably read a bit of his stuff too. 

Now if you know me and you know Terry Pratchett, you may be surprised to learn that I haven't read all of his stuff yet.  Believe you me, its been on the list, its just that I haven't gotten there yet.  And if you don't know Terry Pratchett, think of a sort of Douglas Adams wit with fantasy instead of sci-fi.  If you don't know Douglas Adams, I'm afraid I can't help you.  Also, how are we friends?

And that, my friends, is my summer reading list. 

Stay tuned!

An All-Request Summer

Classes ended.  I passed everything.  Even the reallllly hard class I was worried about.  And I had about a week to kind of recover.  Then this week I have some how ended up working nearly full time. 

Interesting things are happening.  And I have no idea what to say about that.  I tried looking up "blog challenges" for writing ideas so I could just stick to a formula and answer questions instead, but while I was looking at other people's ideas, I had a new thought.  How about if I'm going to answer questions, I answer your questions?  You, the 4 people who read this, you must have random questions for me.  They could be thoughtful, strange, funny, whatever.  And I reserve the rights of selecting and interpreting questions.  Is this dangerous? I don't know, that's why I'm reserving my rights.  I would like to do at least a post a week, but that means I need questions from people.  So put them in the comments and we'll see what we come up with.  We'll work out the kinks as it goes along.  Yes? Yes.  I'll do my first request-post this weekend. Ready, set, go.

PS. Ummm. Please have fun.  And please respond.  I will be oh so sad if I don't get to post at all this summer.

Stream of conscious....

I had a roommate that hated stream of conscious writing because she felt that there was no skill or organization in it, but I think I value it for just that reason. Especially right now. My brain is a little fried from all the organizing and structuring and such. And yet I still want to write a bit. So forget the organizing, but I can't neglect spelling and punctuation. that suffers enough in blogging, even my own. I just sent off my last final of the semester, and school year for that matter, and while my brain is tired I realized that I loved writing it and would do another in a heartbeat, well, given a day or two of rest I would. I also realized I loved learning all the things I learned and feel like I am pretty much getting the grade I deserve for the work I did. And now that its all done I have to go to work in about an hour. Which will be fine because I am going to take a book along and read for fun! About music, actually, since I feel like music is what is suffering in the face of studying something other than music. Also, my old voice teacher started back to choir last night after a long absence and I'm thinking I want to see about doing lessons with her for the summer. Although money will be the big question since technically I'm only subbing at work and so I am at the mercy of the scheduling bitch. yes i said it but this is stream of conscious writing so I'm not apologizing for it. I don't know that the woman who does scheduling actually is that in real life, but when she has power like in scheduling she likes to make it known that she is in charge and everyone else must bow and beg and grovel at her feet. Also because scheduling is hard. So maybe its not so much her as it is the nature of the beast in general. I'm sure whomever does the scheduling ends up being nasty, but either way, my ability to purchase groceries and pay for utilities is dependant on her. Also I'm looking for another summer job and some volunteer stuff in the counseling field, mostly so I can have the experience but also for the money. And I got a new phone! It is fancy and I got it for free and my plan rate didn't increase with the smart one because we were able to switch out some data for some unused minutes so I may have told the At&T guy that I loved him when he figured that out. Its kind of great to walk out of a store with a new cool gadget and not pay a cent.... only i had to sign my life away on another two years with AT&T but I've been with them for so long and every time I look at switching I don't see anything that's really a better deal..And tonight my friend Kim and I are going to the Mozart Requiem, and who knows if she actually wanted to go see it but I did and she is just so pleasant and agreeable that she didn't say anything about it being overdone or boring. Which is good because I believe that the classics are classics for a reason and You simply cannot criticize Mendelssohn's voice leading I don't care how respected of a musician you are! That happened and I was so offended I had to use my new found counseling skills to calm myself down. And tomorrow I'm going to spend the day watching season two of downton Abbey and eating thin mints and making cookies for the neighbor guy who mowed the lawn this week but I'll do all that AFTER I go get a pedicure with Kim. At some point I need to clean the house too because it is beyond disgusting and I can't even describe some of the grossness that the roommate leaves around here. I already cleaned up stuff in the bathroom that no one should have to deal with and may I add that if the garbage is overflowing WHY DONT YOU TAKE IT OUT? Especially if you are the person using it for your, uhhh... personal needs. I cleaned up an entire extra bag's worth of garbage off the FLOOR from around the trash... GROSS. Next up is the kitchen where she left a stick of butter out on the dryer (yes, the washer/dryer are in the kitchen and double as counter tops, we make do with the space we have) but she left the stick of butter just sitting on top of the dryer without a plate or anything and THEN SHE USED THE DRYER. What do you think that did to the stick of butter? and do you think she cleaned it up? of course not. SO there's a whole lot of stuff like that around the house that needs to be addressed and then I have to figure out where and when I'm going visiting this summer since there is a family reunion in Denver and my sister is coming home from her mission in just a few weeks and that's all very exciting. also, i would like to finish a few sewing projects and maybe even rearrange the furniture. Wait, no. I won't rearrange furniture. Oh my gosh, what am I going to do with all this time?

Things I just don't get:

1. Food that looks like other food. Like cake that looks like a hamburger or mashed potatoes that look like cake. Actually, cake tends to be a frequent perpetrator/victim of this trend. I just saw cupcakes on pinterest that were made to look like little pies. They used m&ms to look like fruit filling and frosting to look like a lattice top. The thing is, all of these are yummy, and they even go together, but how about if you want something to look like pie, you make pie, and if you want to eat a cupcake, you eat a cupcake?

2. Collections of quotes by people who have no claim on wisdom, but since their famous and said something succinctly, it must be truth! Again, pinterest is full of this stuff. Its like the phrase "forgive and forget". Just because it is alliterative doesn't make it true! In fact, if you read in the bible, we are never ever once told to forgive and forget. We are commanded to remember and we are told that the Lord will forget our sins if we repent, but nowhere are the words "forgive and forget" stated. Still people insist its true because they've heard it so many times, they believe it must be somewhere in the annals of truth. Guess what. Its not. And George Clooney is not a politician. He is an attractive man, but he made his fame on looks and his ability to memorize lines that someone else wrote. He has no claim on "smart". And Coco Chanel was a rich lady, not a philosopher. Even worse are the memes that don't cite anyone, but if they are cleverly worded, they are repeated as if they reflect doctrine. THINK, people, think!

3. Bullies. No, not just bullies, grown up bullies. I know that children learn bullying from the people (grownups and peers) around them. They do it out of insecurity and they do it because it is a learned behavior. That's not a justification, its just a vision of their path. But adults who are bullies? Sure we all have insecurities, but at some point on our path we have encountered people who are kind, and we have liked those people because they make us feel good and validate us. So why don't we try acting like the nice people in our lives instead of continuing to posture for superiority by being cruel to others. I mean honestly, the tantrums, the eye-rolling, and the insults I have seen coming from one grown-up to another in the past few weeks are simply shameful. This probably deserves its own post. But let's just see if we can't know ourselves well enough to understand why we are lashing out at those around us, and then see if we can be honest and kind instead of mean, manipulative, or playing games in order to get desired results.

I'm seriously so tired of mean people.

LIES!

False: If you dish up a single brownie onto a plate and then walk away to eat it properly with a fork instead of eating brownies directly from the pan, you won't eat the whole pan in one afternoon.

True: If you dish up a single brownie onto a plate and then walk away to eat it properly with a fork instead of eating brownies directly from the pan, you will have to wait for a commercial break during the reruns of Hawaii Five-0 in order to walk 8 steps into the kitchen and get more brownies.

Which I suppose burns a few more calories than bringing the pan directly into the living room like usual.

A bit Dorky, but this seems like the place and time

One of my professors is made of pure awesome. I'm not kidding, I totally have one of those elementary school teacher crushes. Not like the one I had on 6th grade Mr Fleischaker, who was dreamy and had lovely blue eyes. No this is the "I wanna be just like Miss Laura when I grow up" kind of a crush. Where teacher can do no wrong and I'll bend over backwards to get all my work done and hope and pray that she likes it, and if she doesn't its because I have failed her and I need to try harder next time. I want an A in her class, not because I want to get all As and have an amazing GPA, but because I want her to like me, to think I'm smart, and to be pleased with every bit of homework. Did you ever have a teacher like that? I bet your teacher wasn't as awseome as mine. She works with torture victimes and refugees, she specializes in working with children. She does theatre and sings with the Symphony chorus. But she also played basketball at Duke. That's a big deal. And she's so nice. She corrects people all the time, but you can't help but feel all warm and fuzzy when she does. She doesn't own stuff falsly (like the woman who once "apologized" to me because I made her mad. Heh. Fake apology.) but she tells you when you are wrong and then shows you how to fix it. Sometimes she calls me smart and compliments my writing, and I go around feeling like the whole world is a better place. Other times (like today) she turns in a rough draft back to me with pages of corrections and says "this is a C- paper. You can do better." And so I fix it, and then I feel a little like I could be made of awesome someday too.

Anyways. I noticed her picture on the school website today, and so I clicked on it (I told you, total school-crush) and there's a video of her talking about the psych program. Its an ad, but if you want to see the bestest teacher in the world, you can watch her.



See how she just makes you feel like you can accomplish anything?

Smile.

It's getting time for another list. It needs to be a positive list. I found a list I wrote when I was at BYU full of things I wanted to do. I was pleasantly surprised that I had accomplished all but one, and that one thing is to get a master's degree. Since that is in the works, I figure I should start coming up with a new list. But I'm in the middle of finals and a lot of writing, and Easter concerts and a few other stressors. So instead of making a list full of new expectations and hopes, I'm making a list of little things that are pretty much guaranteed to make me smile.

I have no idea how long it will end up being...

1. Lemon Merengue Pie
2. The Eiffel Tower
3. People speaking French
4. Music by Gilbert and Sullivan
5. Those running hugs you get from toddlers that nearly knock you over
6. Eyeore
7. an unexpected text message
8. Fried Chicken and Waffles (with lots of syrup)
9. Cute shoes
10. Fresh Strawberries
11. M&M's
12. Cookie Monster
13. Anything Monster related actually,
14. And I suppose anything cookie related as well.
15. Birds
16. The crackling sound a new book makes when you open it for the first time.
17. Queen of the Night Tulips
18. A REAL game of Scrabble
19. Choclate milkshakes
20. Fresh tomatoes
21. a new hat
22. Bright umbrellas on rainy days
23. Googly eyes
24. Clever wordplay
25. Penguins (who are also birds, but they are special kinds of birds)
26. Harry Potter stuff
27. Jokes about Schrodinger's cat
28. Thin Mints
29. Chuck Norris jokes
30. Ruby Slippers
31. Snuffleupagus
32. Neil Diamond
33. The Y on the mountain
34. Tuna sandwiches on homemade bread with a giant glass of lemonade.
35. Captain Picard
36. Soft Kitty
37. Pianos
38. Anything written by C.S. Lewis
39. Le Petit Prince
40. The Planetarium
41. Teddy Bears
42. Hot cocoa

Well now. I think 42 is as good a place to stop as any. It's by no means comprehensive. or prioritized. And there isn't nearly as much food on there as I thought there would be. :) Now. What would you add? Or how would your list look? You don't have to agree with me on every point. But I bet we have more than a few in common.