Books Read in 2009

So this is a first in a series of New Year posts I spontaneously decided to... um... plan. I shall first do a general re-cap of books, then perhaps a couple more entries specifically about the books and why I rated them what I did. Then, I want to do another entry or two about what I did in 2009 and what I want to do in 2010. This will probably end with the resolution to "blog more." ;-)

So, I am stealing Natalie's format and rating system this year:

5-I REALLY liked it!
4-Also very, very good
3-Good
2-Okay, but not necessarily worth the time
1-Wouldn't recommend it

Now, just because I rate something a 5, 4, or 3, doesn't mean I didn't like it. I just had to be positively addicted to the book for it to get a 5 and/or just keep singing its praises after I finish reading it; for it to get a 4 it still has to be a very excellent book I would most certainly recommend, and for it to get a 3 I would still recommend it, but I'm not jumping up and down excited about it, nor will I really find much to say about why you should read it, other than that it was definitely good. As for 2... it goes for books that were, in general, interesting enough, but I was eager to just get them over with and if anybody asked me if they should read it, I would say probably not, unless you're really interested in _____. As for 1: IT SUCKED. Hands down, don't read it. I'll tell you why, too, if you really want to know. Just don't read it. Please.

So, here we go. I read 21 more books than I did last year! Each year I am going to try and increase the number of books I read. Hopefully. *drinks to more reading* Mmm... Martinelli's.

January

1. How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of Your Doctor by Robert S. Mendelsohn - 5
2. The Mystery of Iniquity by Michael Rood - 1
3. Let me be a Woman by Elizabeth Elliot - 4

February

4. For Young Women Only by Shaunti Christine Feldhahn and Lisa Ann Rice - 3
5. For Young Men Only by Jeff Feldhahn - 3
6. For Women Only by Shaunti Christine Feldhahn - 3
7. Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis - 5

March

8. Everybody's Guide to Homeopathic Medicines by M.D. Stephen Cummings and Dana Ullman - 4
9. Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto - 5

April

10. Not Even a Hint by Joshua Harris - 3
11. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens - 5
12. Persuasion by Jane Austen - 4
13. Authentic Beauty by Leslie Ludy - 3

May

14. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies "by Jane Austen" and some IDIOT - 1
15. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle - 3
16. Writing Life Stories by Bill Roorbach - 4
17. Living the Cross Centered Life by C. J. Mahaney - 4

June

18. Across the River and Through the Trees by Ernest Hemingway - 4
19. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen - 4
20. Whatever Happened to Justice? By Richard Maybury - 5
21. Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose - 5

July

22. Every Young Woman's Battle by Shannon Ethridge - 3
23. The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 3
24. The Complete Guide to Homeopathy by Andrew Lockie - 3
25. The Dependent Gene by David S. Moore - 4

August

26. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux - 5+++!!!!!!!!!
27. No Plot? No Problem! By Chris Baty - 3
28. House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker - 2 (I hate to say it, but I just didn't like it that much!)
29. The Lost Virtue of Happiness by Klaus Issler and J. P. Moreland - 2

September

30. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley - 4
31. Kiss by Ted Dekker and Erin Heely - 4
32. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini - 5
33. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield - 5
34. Keeping a Journal You Love by Sheila Bender - 3
35. Human by Robert Winston - 2

October

36. The Kingdom of Strange by Shula Klinger - 3
37. The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen - 3
38. Story by Robert McKee - 5

November

39. "The Weight of Glory" and Other Addresses by C. S. Lewis - 4
40. "The Earthquake in Chile" and "The Marquise of O-" by Heinrich von Kleist - 3

December

41. Are You Liberal, Conservative, or Confused? By Richard Maybury - 5
42. A Long Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott - 4
43. College Without Highschool by Blake Boles - 4
44. When God Writes Your Life Story by Eric and Leslie Ludy - 3

Feel free to ask any questions about these books that you want! I will hopefully elaborate on them soon. :)

~Jessica

Today I....

....am going to to a post about what I did today, because I would like to blog, and with blogging usually comes deep and philosophical thoughts in their own time. So, ladies and gentlemen, a Monday in the Life of Jessica:

Today I woke up. The sun was not shining. I feel like I have written those two sentences before, side-by-side. Hmm. This probably means that this is how I start every day....moving on....

I did yoga, worked out some, made tea, grabbed a leftover biscuit, and read one of my favorite Richard Maybury books, "Are You Liberal? Conservative? Or Confused?" It is a brilliant book, as Maybury is a brilliant man. You should read it. Enough said.

After this, I went into my room, finished Esther, started Job, read some in Isaiah and some in Matthew. This completed, I set to work plotting my story out more. Man, I have seriously never planned this much before for anything. But this book must come to fruition. Therefore, someone must write it. And writing anything good requires sufficient planning. So, I must plan like crazy. I love my logic.

I ate breakfast and read a chapter in "How Should We Then Live?", which is another excellent book (not by Richard Maybury, but by Francis A. Schaeffer) that you should read.

After this, I did the dishes, folded laundry, cleaned my room (funny how I actually have a floor, walls, and furniture now), and thought about what to make for dinner. I settled on a dish called something like "wild mushrooms running rampant through a creamy forest of chicken and noodles." Yum.

I then settled down to read ANOTHER great book called "Story" by Robert McKee. You should read it IF you are interested in any medium of storytelling. It will change your life forever and all of your stories will increase in greatness by at least a tenfold!! =D This caused me to do more story planning as well.

Eventually, I stopped this and started to work for my dad. I answered e-mails, etc. for a while.....during which, my parents went on a walk and my siblings decided to throw a techno dance party in the living room in their absence.....

After working for some time, I looked up chord sheets for piano, printed them out, and went into the kitchen to make my chosen meal, only to find out I had been bumped by my mother, who insisted that the pork chops must be cooked at that very moment or they would go bad; that they were for dinner and I would either have to prepare my dish later and not-for-dinner, or make it another day.

"Well," I thought to myself (in an 'aloud' kind of way), "gee, mom, this is your night out with your yoga class, and my only night in this week: we're going to grandma's house tomorrow night, Wednesday is Radical, Thursday is either improv or Kara is coming over, Friday's the fair, Saturday's the improv show..." and I began to wonder what person in their right mind would schedule so much to do! But that is off-topic. The point is, I was bumped from making dinner.

I made it anyway, after everything else was done and everyone else had eaten the pork chops. WOE IS ME!!!!! Well, I ate the mushroom-chicken-noodle thing, and I thought it was quite tasty, if I do say so myself. And chicken is so much better for you than pork. And mushrooms are just so awesome. So there.

Between getting bumped and making my meal, I practiced piano. Okay...well.....sort of. I started off all nice and dedicated-ish, playing Ben Folds' "The Luckiest" like I was supposed to, and then suddenly I wanted to work on a composition I have been thinking about for a while. So that was my piano practice, until I got up for a moment and a certain dad and littlest brother turned on the TV (to watch while they eat their pork chops).

I cleaned up, read some more in "Story," attempted to upload pictures to Facebook (failing presently; must have something to do with blogging). And here I am now.

Well! That was most fascinating, I am sure. I even threw in some drama and self-pity to make it interesting.

Reflections on today:

1. What I have learned: It is very easy to be productive if you set your mind to it. It is also very easy to get distracted and forget to set your mind to something.

2. Best thing about today: Getting 1,000 brainstorms for my story.

3. Worst thing about today: Ummm....probably that I am staying up late right now and I will be very tired/groggy/falling-asleep-on-my-book-ish tomorrow.

4. If I could change one thing about today: I would go to bed. Now.

Fine. That settles it. I think I shall do more of these, though. At least so I can remember what life was like before it got hectic for the next 2 months...then I can get back to this life in January, right? Wouldn't trade it for the world...

~Jessica

Morals and Ideals

DISCLAIMER – I know it’s not that late, but I am pretty much brain-dead. If nothing makes sense and/or I don’t stick to what the thesis probably should have been, that is why.

Everyone has their own personal morals that are based, more or less, on their personal worldview. Worldview, I am sure we all know, is developed by what a person is exposed to in life and how they react to it. The oh-so-valid source of Wikipedia states, “[Worldview] refers to the framework of ideas and beliefs through which an individual interprets the world and interacts with it,” and “describes a consistent (to a varying degree) and integral sense of existence and provides a framework for generating, sustaining, and applying knowledge.”

That said, it is to be expected that everyone’s morals are going to differ at least a little from everyone else’s. And, to an extent, I believe that each person’s morals are probably good for that person. I do not feel like that should include sexual immorality or homosexuality, but those are my morals, right? Here we go stepping into that multiple truths thing again, which needn’t be explained again or further.

But, now, I wonder...are some or all of my own morals actual morals, or are they ideals? Would some change depending on the situation?

I wrote an entry about a year and a half ago with similar questions in mind: http://jblog08.blogspot.com/2008/03/compromise-or-contingent.html. And here they pop up again, all out of the blue. I believe it is nice to know that I am not the only me who has struggled with it...I mean, I am glad to know I have struggled with it before. Now, that may sound a little strange, or perhaps even a lot. But the thing is, I had completely forgotten about having ever gone through this before. So to know that it is a weak area that I have worked through before gives me hope that it can be worked through again, hopefully more efficiently (so it does not happen again-again). Also, going back and reading that is already helping me dig deeper into this whole thing.

Like I was saying, morals or ideals?

Ideals are not set in stone, morals probably are. But what do I base morals off of? Ideals!

What morals and all other forms of conduct should be based off of is what the Holy Spirit tells you to do. We are not under the law anymore, so if you are a follower of Christ, you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then tells us what is right and wrong for us, if we truly seek God, right? So...that is one of the reasons why I say that everyone’s morals are a little different. As far as Christians go, anyway.

But ideals are put in place by me, for myself. But, I have to wonder, are my ideals based on morals? As in, are they good ideals that should be upheld?

Take the concept of saving the first kiss for marriage. Nowhere in the Bible does it say, “thou shalt not kisseth thine wife before thou hast taken her as so.” Saving the kiss is a personal choice. Is it a biblical moral? No; it’s not based off of the Bible. Is it a personal moral? I guess that is what you would call it.

But is it an ideal; something possible only in certain situations?

I know some of you are saying yes, and some no. Maybe some of you are momentarily confused like me.

There comes at least one time in every person’s life where they must logically talk themselves out of something they desire greatly. I guess, anyway, what do I know? I’m not even 19 yet.

All I mean to say, in short, is that I am extremely disappointed in myself, because obviously I can talk the talk until I am told I might be required to walk the walk. And I am scared, frankly. I can justify myself with all of this ideals and morals business, but at the end of the day it all comes down to this: what is right and what I long for are two completely different things.

There are only two options – either justify what I long for as being right and just go ahead and do it, or long for something right instead. And you know the latter is what I should do. The decision is so hard; my heart feels ripped in two because of the opposing directions it wants to take.

I just feel so awful right now. Please forgive me for being so hard on myself at this moment, but I really must. All these years I’ve held these ideals and morals. I don’t care how pointless or illogical they are – they are mine and I’ve basically sworn to stand by them, not wishing to make any more mistakes than necessary, especially since I made so many early on. And now, here is God saying “Jessica, have a go at this situation...put your restraint to good practice. I know you can do this!” And here I am saying “Wow, God! This is amazing!! You mean I’m supposed to resist? That’s crazy talk, this is too good to be true!”

I know somewhere or another in the Bible it says that God will not let us be tempted beyond what we can bear. So I know I can get through this, I just know it, right? Yes, yes, yes. Will do, Cap’n. Aye, sir!

But it is and will continue to be so easy to give in. Just like it is so easy to jerk the steering wheel a bit to the left on a two-lane road into oncoming traffic. I could do it any time, on purpose, if I impulsively felt like it. And at any second, I could give in to an overwhelming temptation to forgo all my morals and head straight into something else.

I know that if I uphold my morals AND my moralistic ideals, God will bless me in one way or another. I’m not looking for God’s blessing, though; I just know that it will happen. If I don’t uphold my honor...I know the consequences, suffice to say. I often want to ignore the consequences, but I can’t for very long. Especially if they start happening to me.

However, I would like to end on a happy note, so I will make some general comments about life these days other than trying to think straight:

I was recently accepted to a novel writing camp/retreat/intensive thing! I will be leaving all ye North Carolinians behind and going to Oregon for a month to sit in a beach cottage and write a book. It will be in November, so “beach cottage” does not necessarily mean “lovely warm days strolling the beach and feeling the wind in my hair.” It is very unfortunate. However, it’s still the beach...“so much scope for the imagination.” So, yes, I will come back with pages and pages of unrefined bookness and hopefully only a mild case of carpel tunnel syndrome. Wish me luck (and pray for me not to miss my planes!!!!!!!)

My swim team went undefeated its second summer in a row! Counting our last four meets that we won 3 summers ago, we are now 16-0. I didn’t think it could get any better than one undefeated season. And it was my last year on the team, too! I don’t like getting old. But at least it was a good season to get old. :)

I read The Phantom of the Opera! Now, that isn’t exactly wowie-zowie news, but I am really excited because it is now my new favorite book. I don’t have favorite books that often...those kinds of books I have to love aaaaaaaalllllllllll the way through and must crave to read them morning to night and while I am asleep...and I must hate when the end comes much too soon. This book met all the criteria of a favorite book. And now I really, REALLY want to go live out my Phantom of the Opera fantasies even more than I already did ever since I saw it for the first time when I was 12. You all know I’ve always wanted to live in Raleigh Memorial Auditorium....

That said, I am going to bed! Goodnight!

~Jessica

The Finch Family

Once upon a time there was a family whose name was Finch.

Mrs. Finch was exceedingly fond of large hats, particularly the kinds with extravagant plumes in them. The bigger the hat and the bigger the plume was all the better for her. She was always on the lookout for hats, plumes, and hats with plumes which surpassed the ones she already owned in size. Her biggest fear was that someone in the world owned a hat and plume bigger than her biggest one, and that she would be put to terrible shame by this person, whoever it might be.

Mr. Finch appreciated bow ties, but only white ones with black polka dots, or black ones with white polka dots. You may think that there is not much variety in only liking bowties of those natures, which would make Mr. Finch rather boring in his like of bowties; but in fact there are many, many different types of black bowties with white polka dots and white bow ties with black polka dots.

Greta Finch was the eldest girl and the eldest child in the immediate Finch family. She had straight dark brown hair down to her thighs and light green eyes which always seemed to be focused elsewhere from the present. She appreciated two things: books, and reading them. If she was not reading, she was arranging her immense book collection or else deeply considering matters of books rather than paying attention to any sort of reality, except how reality pertained to books. That said, she was not the dreamy sort at all: to the contrary she was much more mournful of her situation in life and how it was not much like princess so-and-so who lived in such-and-such large castle and was married by prince whoever to carry on a life of bliss.

Edward Finch was very tall and was not much more than skin and bones. He possessed an affinity for being up and on top of things, and was frequently worrying whatever females were about by climbing all climbable anythings. He was a quiet lad who mostly kept to himself, though ate everything in sight and when he was not he was always wishing there was something in sight to be eaten.

Evelyn Finch had long, blonde, wavy hair and big dark brown eyes. She was always dressed all in black or very dark grey with a simple bow or two in her hair. She was an asker of accusing questions as well as a desirer of all she set her deep eyes on. Evelyn collected many, many different things. In fact, she had a collection of what must have been everything except for hats, plumes, bowties, and books. Her favorite collection was her sixteen jars of bacteria cultures, which she kept and fed as if they were her own pets.

Victor Finch wore very big, round glasses and liked to believe he was the number one most reliable source of all that there was to know in the world. If someone instructed him, he would rebuke the instructor and tell him otherwise, though what he assumed to be the truth was often a quite absurdly drawn conclusion. However, if he was able to find that the encyclopedia said otherwise (which he only consulted once a conversation had been had where he was not sure of something which he had just stated as fact, particularly if the person he stated it to disagreed), then he would slowly but surely wrap his head around the new idea and adopt it as his own and soon declare that he never thought otherwise.

The Finch family lived in a modest home right in the very middle of Fanghorn Avenue. The downstairs consisted of a parlor, kitchen, dining room, powder room, and a small cupboard for the placement of articles of warmth from the cold in the winter, which was located in the passage. Upstairs (the steps leading to and from which located next-door to the aforementioned cupboard), were four bedrooms. One for Mr. and Mrs. Finch, one for Greta and Evelyn, one for Edward and Victor, and one for guests when guests came, but otherwise for collection overflow on behalf of Mr. Finch, Mrs. Finch, Greta, and Evelyn (all of whom would have rather kept all of each collection in his or her room, but ran out of space). Edward and Victor, wanting to share in the equal subdivision of the spare room, collected odds and ends precisely for the purpose of storing when no guests were around. Edward, without giving much thought to it, collected many ounces of dust lying around the house (causing Mrs. Finch to keep her sanity in check in the most mundane respects of furniture dusting), and Victor had the clever idea of cutting out encyclopedia articles which he thought he might read in the future when he got around to it, (of course, Mr. Finch was not of the knowledge of this defacement) and putting them in spare jars which Evelyn discarded when any particular culture grew too big for it. This resulted in Victor not wanting to actually read the articles because to pull them back out again would render the entire time reading a time spent smelling nothing short of the most awful stench in the world, which was impossible to wash out of the jars. There was also a bathroom up stairs which everyone shared, though everyone complained considerably of everyone else taking much too long in the bathroom doing various and sundry preparations and primpings which were necessary to the party concerned with doing preparations and primpings, but were absolutely ridiculous to all who were affected by not being able to use the bathroom at the time they wished to.

All in all the Finch family lived their lives in the same way as you might live yours or I might live mine: with the sense that they are just simply living day by day as is best known to them, without giving much thought over to any sort of comparison with other families or other ways of life which may or may not be considered more normal or more abnormal. Did not the Finch family have friends? Surely. Did they spend time outside their home? Almost certainly. But those are other stories for other times.

What I have read....

I took this from Rebecca: books I've read are in bold. I've added an + to the ones I love and a * to the ones I plan on reading...

1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. +Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. +To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell*
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë*
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. +Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. +Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy* 
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck*
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens*
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen*
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. +Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. +Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas*
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. +Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck*
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky*
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding*
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding*
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce*
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens*
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley*
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho*
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot* (I am considering reading it but have not quite made up my mind)
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens*
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Misérables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy*
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray*
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle*
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl 
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker*
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan*
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque*
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King*
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick O'Brian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier*
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest, Ken Kesey*
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch, Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville*
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley*
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway*
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery*
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens*
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Grossmith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. LawrenceLife of Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells*
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White
199. +The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle (of course!!  We still have this book.... :D)
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews

So that is 34.....very deceptive, I actually have read a lot of books.  I just haven't heard of the majority of these titles.  

Some Reflections on 2008

Books I’ve Read (I am pretty sure it is the shortest list I have ever had)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Quest for Love by Elizabeth Elliot
Nicholas Nickelby by Charles Dickens
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
Anne of Green Gables
Anne of Avonlea
Anne of the Island
Anne of Windy Poplars
Anne’s House of Dreams
Anne of Ingleside
Rainbow Valley
Rilla of Ingleside by L. M. Montgomery
When God Writes Your Love Story by Eric and Leslie Ludy
King Lear
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Under the Tuscan Sun by Francine Prose
The Sea Wolf by Jack London
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Patterson
Love, Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Into the Forest by Jean Hegland
Marriage and Family by Robert H. Lauer and Jeanette C. Lauer
Beowulf translated by Seamus Heaney
The Secrets of Songwriting by Susan Tucker
Thr3e by Ted Dekker
Let Me be a Woman by Elizabeth Elliot


Favorite Movie of 2008
I actually didn’t see that many movies, at least ones that were released this year. I kind of liked the Batman movie and the Twilight movie, but nothing really amazing stood out to me.


Favorite Songs Released in 2008
Low – Flo-ri-a ft. T-Pain
4 Minutes – Madonna ft. Justin Timberlake
Viva la Vida – Coldplay
Won’t Go Home Without You – Maroon 5


Favorite Songs that I’ve Listened to in 2008
All the TSO songs
All the Nickel Creek songs
Ben Folds, “The Luckiest”
Sweeny Todd Soundtrack
Evita Soundtrack


New Friends I’ve Met (in person…those who I have not met in person yet, I hope you are on this list at the end of 2009!)
Becca
Scott
Alex
Maryn
Moriah
Natalie


Things I’ve Done
Graduated
Gotten a laptop
Turned 18
Started to take piano more seriously
Discovered a love for composing and not just simple songwriting
Realized I don’t have to get married RIGHT NOW
Gotten more interested in reading my Bible and theology in general
Heard my life calling from afar
Completed an undefeated swimming season

Gone real camping for the first time

Tried my hand at sewing clothes (I have yet to see what the finished product will resemble)
Been more passionate than ever about homeschooling my own kids
Decided college is not for me (“college torture, / college university! / Arts and crafts is all I need, / I’ll take calligraphy / and then I’ll make a fake degree…”)
Played Ultimate Frisbee and really liked it
Won my heat and placed 10th for butterfly at the TSA championships
Started this blog
Decided I’m VERY done bragging about my accomplishments


Best Thing of 2008:
NO MORE SCHOOL!!!!!!!!!!!!! Time to start learning… :)


My thoughts at the beginning of the year:
My GOSH…I am going to graduate and THEN WHAT!?!??!?
And
If I don’t get married to *insert name here* then I don’t know what I will do!

My Thoughts at the end of the year:
You have to take time to listen to what God’s plans for you are. But he will reveal them to you eventually.
And
Right now I have as much chance of marrying ______ or _______ as I do anybody else in the world. So why should I give anybody, especially them, any romantic attention or thought right now? Crushes, no matter how you justify them, are crushes and mean nothing….

~Jessica

Habits are Habits

Before I get on with the rest of the post, here are the songs you guys failed to guess....

3. "Eveline" - Nickel Creek

4. "Tangerine" - Led Zeppelin

5. "Why Can't This Be Love?" - Van Halen

9. "Sweetie" - Josh Rouse

12. "Where the Streets Have no Name" - U2

14. "Our Love" - Amy Grant

15. "Green Finch and Linnet Bird" - Sweeny Todd Soundtrack

17. "Little Green" - Joni Mitchel

19. "Next Year" - Foo Fighters

20. "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)" - Glass Tiger

Okay, on to other matters.

Here is a thought for ya - eating bad is like watching pornography.

YES, that sounds extreme, but it really is a good association, if I do say so myself.  So let's say there is this guy who is 19 or 20 and he is watching pornography.  Not addictively, but not with any plan to stop any time soon either, perhaps he doesn't really think about it.  Then one day, he says, "oh, it is fine now.  It is not going to hurt anything because I am not married.  Once I get married, I will stop so that my relationship with my wife is the center focus and pornography does not hurt anything."  And then suppose I have been eating carelessly, which I often do, often justifying it with the common swimmer-ism "I can eat everything I want to because I burn a days worth of food off in one workout!".  Besides that excuse that is limited to, well, swimmers, I can also think, "Well, I am young now.  When I get married and pregnant I will then eat healthy so my baby gets proper nutrients.  But until then it doesn't matter."

There are two reasons why it does matter.  If you watch porn, it sticks in your mind.  It is there forever, and even if you forget, it will probably come up later.  Bad food stays with you forever, too.  Eventually you get to the point where you cannot digest all the fats, so they are stored, and fat cells as well.  They will come back to haunt you and some things could be harmful to your baby.

The other reason is that by the time you are married/pregnant, you will be addicted and it will be almost impossible to stop, even if you know it is best to.  

That is why it is just as important to be as careful with what I put in my mouth as with what I "put in" my eyes.  My mom thought I was kind of crazy for buying a prepregnancy book today from Barnes and Noble.  "Making plans we don't know about?" my dad asked.  Well, yes and no.  I got it mainly because I am interested in health/pregnancy/midwife stuff and this was the only thing there I really wanted besides a little herbal medicine handbook.  Okay, that is a lie.  I always want to buy the whole bookstore!  But I told myself I wanted to spend my giftcard on health-related books only because I have plenty of novels and animal books already that I haven't even gotten around to reading yet.  That said, besides wanting the book for educational-occupational purposes, I thought it would be a good book to read now so that I can go ahead and change any bad habits I have gotten into now rather than right before I get married.

Just one of those thoughts...

~Jessica   

Le Papier est Fini!

If you haven't noticed, I've had a little obsession with typing/posting in French.  If it's annoying you, I am sorry.  I just really want to learn more French and I don't have time.  So I am just going with what I know.  That means that if something I want to say happens to translate into French in my brain oh-so-magically, then I will say/write it without much of a doubt (except perhaps on the correct pronunciation....)

So I am done with my last research paper for the semester and I am rejoicing, of course.  Yes, doing the Highland Fling and other dances I am famed for.  I haven't blogged a real blog in a long time.  The last time I told you how I was doing was for that "Tag" thing, and that doesn't really count because there was this thing entailed known as "structure."  I don't like structure.  It bothers me.  Organization is not bad, but structure...I won't even go into how it just messes up things.

So things are about to get drastically different.  I have re-thought my life plan for the 7,000th time since last summer.  Not this summer, just last summer.  I am going to stop having getajobaphobia and I am, instead, going to get a job.  I really want to work at either a bookstore or a pet store.  I am working on a write-up on everything about myself, putting my social security number in big print on the cover page, and giving that package to random people I see in stores.  

Next semester I am not going to go to college.  Every time I sign up for a college class I forget all the negative things like sitting in classrooms, being lectured, writing papers, taking tests, being told what to do, and things like that.  For the rest of my life I am vowing not to make that mistake again.  I DO NOT like being told what to do.  I am going to do what I want...and that is...

1)  Study music theory

2) Study creative writing more intensely

3) Read more books

4) Write more (poetry, stories, etc)

5) Compose more (like, music, you know?)

These would be done when I am not working, of course.  And I am going to use my money to either travel the world, buy myself a house (in North Carolina.......), or as my own marriage dowry or something.   Or maybe just...oh, never mind.  

In other general news, we got our piano tuned yesterday.  It's an understatement that I am quite ecstatic.  We haven't had it tuned since we got it 14 years ago...sad.  So now it sounds next to wonderful.  It's an upright, so it will never sound like a grand, but it's pretty pretty!  Also, Saturday I got to go to the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert!  It was ABSOLUTELY AMAZING!!!!!!!!  And that is also an understatement.  I'll be talking about it for the next decade.  :D

I really need to be getting on important things like chores since I haven't done much because I've been working on my paper.  It is a terrible paper.  I will fail the class.  < /low self esteem >  That's okay though!  I really don't care.  I enjoyed it, but what do grades matter when I'm not going to go to college and I am not going to change my mind about going to college???

I will write again soon.  I have to write lots of tiny paper summaries for my classes and study for a couple of finals (ugh...I sound so school-ish...I disgust myself), but I think I will have more time because I don't have to spend so much of it thinking about something I don't want to think about.  Isn't that liberating?  I'm considering re-naming this the Blog of Liberation again!

Anyways, talk to y'all later!

~Jessica

In Which Jessica is Tagged and Also Tags...

Lizzie tagged me!

• Link to the person who tagged you.
  
• Post the rules on your blog.
  
• Write Six Random Things about yourself.
  
• Tag a few other people at the bottom of the post.
  
• Leave comments on their blogs, letting them know they've been tagged!
  
• Let the person who tagged you know when you've written the post.
  

1.  I cannot decide whether I like winter or not.  I don't like it because the weather is cold, harsh, unforgiving, and uncomfortable.  However, I like it because when it's cold I can snuggle up and feel warm and cozy inside, read a book, drink all manner of hot things such as cider, hot chocolate, coffee, and tea...and there's Christmas!  

2.  I have a tendency to get ahead of myself in just about every area of life.  The latest has been a nice little habit of doing google searches for mountain retreats/bed and breakfasts with my honeymoon in mind....not even a particular person.  Just the honeymoon.  

3.  I have recently discovered (like, two days ago) that I play piano VERY EXTREMELY by ear...I was sitting down at the hotel in DC, with my "Alfred's Basic Keyboard Chart" (please don't ask...) (and who is Alfred anyways?) thinking that I could start musically notating a piece I am working on.  I tried to play it on the piece of paper, but I couldn't really remember what keys to press.  I was writing it down, but I have no idea if I'm right or not.  I kept thinking...if only the piece of paper made noise...and I thought I was a "doer" but I guess I'm just a "hearer."  I wonder if there's any hope left for me....

4.  I used to be very much a feminist/tomboy when I was, like, ten or something.  It was one of those embarrassing phases of my childhood, so I'm not quite sure why I'm telling you.  I just thought that boys had all the fun, and why can't girls go do things the boys did?  So I made a point to go against the pressure there was to be a girl and just do what I felt like doing.  While I've basically grown out of rebelling against anything girly, I'm still not an extremely girly person....however, I am NOT a feminist any more....

5.  I can carry cash into a clothing store and come out with it still in my wallet.  But I have to make a point of leaving all my money at home if I am going to the bookstore.  

6.  I have a large collection of countless notebooks that I've filled up over the years...and I keep  most of them in my bottom dresser drawer.  Come to think of it...that is my largest collection...

I'm going to tag Michelle and Chris.

Video of the Week

So, by the time I finally found a version of this scene that played what I actually wanted it to, I can't embed it, because the person-who-put-it-on-there disabled that feature on that particular thing. SO I shall prevail onward ho and simply do like I did in the old days when I just had a link from my blog to youtube. I am going to preface the viewing by saying that I know none of this ever really happened in the books. I guess for a movie, you need more than 11-year-olds playing in a clearing all day to make it exciting. Despite all that, Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story is still a good movie on its own, and this is my favorite scene *sniffle*

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeV-rouLfUI

Video of the Week

Okay, here's another edition of, "you watch these two videos and then watch the actual Video of the Week." Fun, right? But this time, you don't get to cheat. Watch both trailers through and then the spoof trailer. It's even funnier if you've read the book...but I won't make you do that...

Complaining...

Well, I am going to pull a "Lizzie" on you. YOU know what I mean. However, I actually did this firstly for extra credit for my British Literature class I'm taking at Wake Tech, so I'm not just taking my frustration out only on the blogging world. :)

The latest released movie version based on the poem Beowulf is a movie directed by Robert Zemeckis and, though animated, has an ensemble cast of big names with Robin Wright-Penn as Wealthow, Anthony Hopkins as Hrothgar, Angelina Jolie as Grendel’s mom, John Malkovich as Unferth, and Ray Winstone as Beowulf.

Sorry to be cynical right off the bat (hey, at least I'm apologizing...tee hee), but I absolutely hated it. The CGI animation was a cheesy way to portray it; the movie resembled a video game in a bad kind of way. But that doesn’t even begin to touch on why I didn’t like it. The movie wasn’t just a case of “oh, they changed the original story here and there to make it fit within the time slot or whatever.” The creators basically changed the entire story and the characters. I can honestly say that the only similarities I can remember is that there are characters named Beowulf, Hrothgar, Wealthow, Grendel, and Unferth. Perhaps the creators intended to give Beowulf more human-like traits, but seriously. In the real story, Beowulf is a hero. He is admirable in all respects. He isn’t just strong in the body, he is strong in the mind. Therefore he wouldn’t be going off being perverted and sleeping with every good-looking woman/sea beast/dragon he came across. Also, according to the Pagan values at the time, Beowulf would not go around lying his whole life about killing Grendel’s mom. So…he wouldn’t have given in to her seductiveness, he would have killed her and he wouldn’t have to lie about it. But it was the other way around. He lied his whole life about it. What a jerk. Another difference is that, instead of going back home victorious, Beowulf was crowned King in the place of Hrothgar, the latter of whom then goes and jumps off a cliff. That was the point where I decided that everyone in the movie was drinking WAY too much mead and it had gotten to their heads and beyond. Anyways, from there it got pretty complicated, because it turned out that Hrothgar was Grendel’s father, and then Grendel’s mom had another kid who Beowulf fathered, who turned out to be a dragon. You know, if they were siblings, you would think they would look a little more alike, but nothing else in this overrated movie made sense, so why should genetics? So Beowulf, a few years older but nothing close to the 50 years supposed time span (otherwise his side-kick, the supposed-to-be-much-younger-than-Beowulf Wiglaf would probably be needing a walker by then), Beowulf is miserable instead of successful and happy, when the dragon comes attacking, looking for his dad. Well, Beowulf is more guilt-ridden than ever, so he sets out to right his wrongs, but in the process only kills off his son. So, Grendel’s mom prevails forevermore. Also, at the end it looks as if Wiglaf may be tempted to sleep with Grendel’s mom as well. It cuts off right as it looks like he’s either about to follow her or slay her, so we’ll never know. I’d like to think that at least Wiglaf would do the right thing. But, in going with the general theme of the story, he probably does sleep with her, magically some other fowl beast is born (maybe a Balrog or something), which someone must kill, who ends up sleeping with Angelina Jolie again, and the nation just continues in this pattern for all eternity until the whole world dies of stupidity.

All of that to say, I absolutely detested this film and cannot see why everyone said, “Omigosh, it was sooooooooo good!” If I had my way I’d go give the creators a piece of my mind. In the meantime I am currently composing the soundtrack for my own version of Beowulf that will be coming out in a few years to rightfully portray the story this movie so terribly screwed up.

The Ocean-Side Holiday, Part Two

Deja vu...

As we walked up the deck, back towards our condo, we stopped and looked at the
condo next door to ours on the left. It was quiet, but that shouldn’t have been
deceiving. The night before at about two o’clock, we were rudely awakened by the
booming of music, fireworks and various screams and throwing-against-the-wallses.
It was a house full of night owl party animals, right next door to us.
We weren’t even sure why they were staying there. It was our third full day on the beach and we hadn’t really seen them out on the beach at all. We had only seen them on their porch, and every morning they would come out on the deck overlooking the beach while we played football.
Otherwise, hardly a word came from their station, except at night (much to
everyone’s dismay).
Mike and I had gotten rather tired of the partying, and concluded that, if it were to persist tonight, we would wake up early and do our best to be equally as noisy during the day, which was when our neighbors apparently were sleeping.
We walked on and had just reached the safety of our own deck, when two guys came out of our adjoining condo. Neither of them looked much older than Mike. They were scrawny and hairy and both took to walking on the rail of the deck that stretched out from all the condos and overlooked the beach.
A preppy blonde stuck her head out of the house. “Omigod, get down you guys!”
She shrieked, giggling.
“We’re fine!” Responded the hairier one.
“Yeah! Look!” The other one took off his shirt (Mike and I cringed at the abundance of hair and lack of muscles which he proceeded to try to flex) and he threw it at
the girl.
“If you fall I’m SO going to kill you!” The girl chortled, catching the shirt and going back in the house.
The guys ignored us as they jumped off the railing, walked over to some boogie boards leaning against their condo, grabbed them, and ran down to the beach.

That was from that story I'm writing...you see, I've been writing it for about two years now. I started it just before our beach trip two years ago, so this is my third beach trip working on it. It doesn't have a title, so I'll just call it "That Story." Anyways...that was based off of what we were plagued with 2 years ago when we stayed in this same condo. Last year we were fine, and thankful for it. Then...guess what? A big bunch of college students arrived late Friday afternoon in the condo next to ours. I was having serious deja vu, especially when they turned on the music very loud (I recognized almost all the songs mostly by their resounding, sub woofer-afied bass lines), drank, smoked, and partied like there was nobody else around trying to sleep at midnight, or at least concentrate on reading a book.

We were coming back from eating at Jordan's Seafood when some of the people arrived. There were two guys and a girl. One of the guys, once he got in, immediately came out on the beach. It was dusk, and Marck and I were out appreciating our beautiful surroundings. He kind of ruined everything as he whipped out his cellphone, plunked himself down in the sand, and said to his friend, "Hey, man! Guess what I'm doing...having a beer on the beach!"

There was an absence for most of yesterday of nice, clear, salty air as we went from our deck to the beach...all I could smell was tobacco smoke. It was awful.

Last night we concluded they went clubbing or something, because it was actually quiet at their home, till they all came in about 12 or 1 AM, making a bit of a racket. We haven't heard them this morning. Yesterday afternoon they were all down at the beach, set up probably 30 yards from us. Marck and I kept accidentally drifting down to where they were set up. All the girls were in bikinis, and sometimes they would get in the water a little bit, and scream at every wave that came by. It was very funny...Marck and I just had to make fun of them...I think they were too self-absorbed to notice. After all, when Grammy asked them Friday night at 11:45 to please "keep it down to a roar", they barely turned down the music, and certainly didn't turn themselves down. Yeah...pretty self-absorbed. Another reason I'm glad I was homeschooled...I was around my parents enough to learn to be conscientious.

Anyways, despite all there is to complain about, I'm having a great time. I'm about two thirds of the way through Twilight...I'm still liking it! I am a little curious as to what she's going to add to the plot(s) to put in the other three books. I'm just hoping it's not something that wasn't meant to be a series, like Pirates of the Caribbean, that she just adds-on to later, resulting in poorer plots....you see what I mean? I just don't see how this could get to be something that extends beyond the first book, but perhaps it does...

Anyways, I'm off to go play out in the sunshine...

Romantic Ideals

I know this is a long entry (as usual). Please bear with me, as I have something important to address. Well, I think it’s important, anyway.

I’ve been meaning to blog for a while and I haven’t. But that’s a good thing. A couple of days ago I just got really frustrated, and I was going to blog about that frustration, but now things have cooled down on my part and I’m seeing the other side of it—the unfortunate cause of my discontentedness.

You see, I was going to blog about how I think every guy on the planet should be like Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice, and how, not meaning to be a diva, I get quite frustrated when I constantly encounter “men” these days who aren’t chivalrous, or who are but only when their friends are not present to…what? Ridicule them? Is it silly, then, to be a gentleman? I hope not. My rant which was scheduled to be written was much more heated than this little summary, and I really don’t think it’s best that I get into it.

However, I will talk about my thoughts about why I have been sulking in misery for the past…well, ever since Monday or so. The whole speculation that every man in this world should be like Mr. Darcy is derived from lust, I guess you could say. Most guys lust about sex a lot, right? Girls really aren’t so partial to those types of thoughts, but they do have emotional lusts. Our lusts usually involve romance, the type of which that is usually idealized in our lovely chick-flicks we love to watch. I am surely making a generalization, but it is true that in most cases, women love to watch and read romance. It gives us little butterflies inside our stomachs, makes our hearts flutter, makes us sigh about “how sweet” it all is and…as a result…makes us severely discontent.

This is not to say men are not romantic. However, if anybody out there wants some tips on winning ladies over, just read or watch some Jane Austin stuff, and then do what the guys in the movies/books do! It’s really that simple. You see, when men try to write romance, it just doesn’t give girls butterflies. So, in Nicholas Nickleby, Nicholas falls in love with Madeline Bray and…well, somehow they are very shy and get set up by the twins and everything falls into place and perhaps they have one philosophical discussion. Never once during that whole book did I react in the ways I described earlier as the ways women respond to romanticism. Wherefore, while Charles Dickens was romantic enough to include the part where Nicholas courts a girl, he was not romantic enough to write it romantically.

Jane Austen, on the other hand, is very skilled at making sure that a woman’s heart is most certainly palpitating nearly the entirety of a novel, or movie of her novel(s). Why is she? Because, like most women, she idealizes romance. Women have this strange little skill of analyzing situations involving lovers (either themselves or other people which they pretend are themselves), and imagine millions of possibilities of directions that the relationship could go, and the most romantic way for it to get there. I suppose guys don’t really do that, which is sad…but completely OKAY [!!!] because I’ve stopped complaining about guys and how uncivilized and inconsiderate they can be! Anyhooness (just for the record, they can be magnificent and wonderful as well), if guys thought the same way as girls, we’d all probably blow up or something because we’d all think the same thing, and then we’d all be the same and so really, why would we all need to be here? So we’d all blow up and leave one person all alone to…well, enough right now about all my many theories about how everyone will blow up, and what will happen directly thereafter.

Girls and women and ladies, when they idealize romance, wish for it to happen to them. Hence the fantasizing about how romantic encounters might progress (even if those girls know *gulp* quite well that they are not supposed to be thinking about boys or going out with them right now…). This makes them very discontent, and then they don’t realize it when real love stares them right in the face. Like Anne in Anne of Green Gables. She read all the time about nights and fair maidens and the like, and always had her fantasies of a tall, dark, handsome, and possibly rich knight in shining armor to come to Green Gables in a valiant manner and ask her to marry him, and then they would go live in his castle, where she would roam the grounds all day reading and writing. Gosh darn it, don’t we all want that? Anyway, when Gilbert proposes for the first time, she refuses him, saying they cannot possibly be more than friends. Gilbert’s not…well, refer to the description of Anne’s ideal earlier in this paragraph. He’s just not. But Anne finally comes to her senses and they get married and live happily ever after.

Even that’s fiction, and an idealized view of romance. OH BOTHERATION. O spite!

So it seems as if these fictional accounts of romance are forever stuck in my brain, ready for me to refer myself to if I ever want to construct my own ideal love story. Hooray (*waves wilted party favor around in the air*). I just think it’s so sweet (yes, here we go again with the sighing) that Mr. Darcy loved Elizabeth like he does, and still loved her even though she seemed to hate him, and then she started to love him, and then in the new version she goes outside in the beautiful English countryside and stands on the bridge, and it is dawn and she sees Mr. Darcy walking through the wet green grass as the sun begins to pour a couple rays over the layer of mist, and as the beautiful music that lets you know that this is the big romantic scene plays, Mr. Darcy’s long coat flaps behind him in the early morning breeze like a cape, and his shirt is unbuttoned at the top so he is just the vision of the perfect romantic suitor! And, even though he knows they are entirely alone, he stays at a respectful distance and explains and apologizes and re-declares his love and proposes again in the sweetest way where you just get tears in your eyes as he struggles over his timidity and says, “I love…love…I love you, and never wish to be parted from you from this day forward.” You start trembling with excitement because THIS IS IT!!! SHE’S GOING TO SAY YES!!! And then she walks over to him and they don’t even kiss, but instead just stand there as she warms his hands in his and they stare deep into one another’s eyes and you know they both cannot be thinking anything except how happy they are, and the sun spills through between them in what I think it is a really cool shot…*BIG SIGH* Oh-My-Goodness, it is just the most tempting thing to think that falling in love is always like that, and that in order for it to be truly romantic the scenery and costumes has to be exactly as it is in that movie (not the boring black-and-white garden like in the old one), etc, etc, etc.

Well, it’s not. And that’s not to say that falling in love isn’t extremely wonderful, because God made love and romance for a reason. But not everyone, as a matter-of-fact, no one, gets to be a character in a Jane Austen book (unless they are an actor, but that doesn’t count). It is hard not to give into fantasies, because it is not only hindering to the soul, but a very big waste of time. Anyway, God will bring about my own beautiful romance (that He’s written for me already!) when the time is right (please—at least not until after I graduate highschool—can’t…hold…one…more…thing!! *collapses as she realizes that she’s working on a blog instead of working on school*), and I should not even bother myself, distract myself, or anything-else myself with romantic notions till that time is here. Does that mean holding off on my indulgence in romantic movies and books? Possibly. I do enjoy other things, you know. It’s not as if I will be at a real loss. Especially at a loss of things to do. Speaking of which, I really must go now…ta ta!

~Jessica

Mine Eyes...or Whatever

Before moving on to the liberating matters, would anyone mind telling me what the fourth chord in the intro of "Love Song" by Sarah Bareilles-whateverhernameis? I don't think my piano has all the keys hers does-everything else sounds right but that.

And I really like comments, whether you read this entry or not. Especially if you rudely vote on my poll and left. It makes me angry.

Now, lets continue...

I love eyes. I have an obsession with them, I believe. I like drawing them and describing them and looking at them. I was smiling with great googoly-mougally giddiness as I was reading The Sea-Wolf by Jack London and came across this whole paragraph:

The eyes—and it was my destiny to know them well—were large and handsome, wide apart as the true artist’s are wide, sheltering under a heavy brow and arched over by thick black eyebrows. The eyes themselves were of that baffling protean gray which is never twice the same; which runs through many shades and colorings like intershot silk in sunshine; which is gray, dark and light, and greenish-gray, and sometimes of the clear azure of the deep sea. They were eyes that masked the soul with a thousand guises and that sometimes opened, at rare moments, and allowed it to rush up as though it were about to fare forth nakedly into the world on some wonderful adventure—eyes that could brood with the hopeless somberness of leaden skies, that could snap and crackle points of fire like those which sparkle from a whirling sword, that could grow chill as an arctic landscape, and yet again, that could warm and soften and be all a-dance with lovelights, intense and masculine, luring and compelling, which as the same time fascinated and dominate women till they surrender in a gladness of joy and relief and sacrifice.

I really love that paragraph (though I never wish to surrender to eyes in sacrifice or anything, thank you very much). I love eyes (have I mentioned?). One particular person I know has these beautiful, stunning, radiant green eyes. I describe these green eyes in a book I am writing, I didn’t base the character off of the person I know, just the eyes. Here’s how I describe them:

Her heart was, for a moment, filled to the top with admiration for the green eyes, though she was not sure why such a thing would stir up a great bout of emotion in anyone. With the fear that she might melt away in the presence of the eyes, which to her were quite the equivalent of a sweet, mourning Celtic melody, she averted her own quickly.

Not as beautifully detailed as Jack London, but there you have it. I also like to draw eyes… I have a couple in my sketchbook. I’m not very visually artistic though, so they’re not too phenomenal or anything. I’m not visual ANYTHING, gosh darn it. I’m (according to my psychology teacher) kinesthetic-auditory. I learn and remember things by doing and listening, preferably at the same time. It’s so very nice to know that…

Anyway, I must run to class…I suppose we’ll watch Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. That should be fun. Hm…watching movies in Literature class…

~Jessica

The Monday Update, First Edition

Currently Reading:

Fiction: “The Turn of the Screw” by Henry James. I have been thinking all this time that the read of the story has been hard to follow, but I do believe at least half of the problem is that every time I’ve sat down to read it, I end up doing it in a common room of the house or in the car, which is just as common as anywhere else. I’ve barely had any peace and quiet since I’ve started it. Other reasons include it being hard to switch from Dickens to James, regardless if they were from about the same generation and the same area of the world. James writes well enough from a woman’s perspective. However, his particular character that is his main character is a little annoying in that she jumps to conclusions far too quickly and without much evidence. However, I know her conclusions are what is actually going on, only because James would only have her relay these things to the reader if they added to the formulation of the whole story of the ghosts and things like that. But it’s kind of annoying, because the reader (me) doesn’t get to figure anything out for herself (myself). She (I) just have to sit by and read the conclusions which the main character comes up with. Understand what I mean? And, if any one of you out there has ever read this story or anything else by Henry James (this is my first time reading anything of his), please feel free to express your opinion on his writing.
How-To: GRRR. A book about dealing with dog aggression issues, which our family has recently had problems with because we’ve been to busy to remind Nancy what is right and wrong.
Godish Book: Quest for Love by Elizabeth Elliot. It is helping my whole outlook on guys and dating stuff, as did Passion and Purity.

Various and Sundry Media:

Movie(s) recently watched: Nicholas Nickleby, and a tiny bit of the fourth Harry Potter movie.
Favorite Song of Late: “Roundabout” by Yes
Song I would recommend for myself in regards to my current mood if I were a Music Therapist: “Take Me to the Other Side” (or whatever it’s called) by Aerosmith. Or any hard rock by Aerosmith, or Motley Crue. I’ve been in a slump since Thursday, I think, and only hard rock gets me out of slumps.

Life in General:

Best or Most Astounding thing that Happened Last Week: Allison knows…tee-hee. Anything else? Well, I declared myself ruler over Platinum Lane, and everyone else shall now do my bidding.
Random Bible Verse of Great Meaning: “And unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her air is o be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world-how she can please her husband.” 1 Corinthians 7:34. I’m just going to go ahead and take it that Paul means that married women can continue to worship God. He just probably means to say that before marriage, women should be devoted to Christ alone, and not to some other guy some where, and after marriage, wives can devote themselves to their husbands (not before) in a way that honors God. Again, any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated
Meal of the Week: Well, I’ve just been pigging out on chocolate (oh joy) for the past interval-after-the-meet-and-even-before-that-(whoops), so I’d have to say that my meal of the week is a chocolate soufflé with a chocolate shavings salad topped with chocolate syrup dressing, with brownies on the side and chocolate cake-bread. Oh, and for dessert I’ll take a chocolate éclair.
What I am inspired to do now: Hibernate. Please.

~Jessica