Almost there! August-Literacy 8

August was a light reading month for the Literacy challenge. I was house sitting a majority of that month, and out of town for a large portion of the time I was not house sitting.  This means that I was not often reading, and when I was, I was reading what was at hand.

I got three read in August (but one I had to leave at the house I was sitting, so it did not get to join the photo op).

 

We will start with the book that you do not see.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney

This is one of those books that I have heard about for a long time, have intended to read, but never managed to get in my hands. I had always figured that because I have siblings 7 and 9 years younger than myself, I would just be able to snag it whenever they brought it home, but either they did not bring it home, or I was away at college at the time(dang, I never considered what a problem college would be).  Diary of a Wimpy kid is a very easy book to read, as it is a graphic novel. It is somewhat entertaining, watching the character deal with the mishaps of life as they happen to a middle schooler.  It is honest, in that sometimes the main character can be a little bit of a jerk, as we all can be, but rarely admit it to our journals. With all of that said, it is a book written specifically for children.  It did not give me the desire to read the next book.  There are some children's books that are written to be read by everybody, books that can snag anyone's interest.  This book is written just for children.  Good for Jeff Kinney, convincing boys to read more, making them look smarter with a book in their hand. Maybe it will encourage boys to branch out to more challenging material, but knowing my brothers, probably not.  If you have an 8-12 year old who needs something to read, this might be a good one for them(though I think that The Magic Tree House series probably has more literacy value to it).  For the adults out there, it's probably not worth your time, though I did not begrudge it my own time.  I enjoyed it for the silly, brainlessness I needed at the time.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

This book is a vacuum book. When you pick it up, it sucks you in.  You can't stop reading it, even if you want to.  It also has some disturbing scenes in it.  In the beginning, a 9th grader gets raped and murdered, and that scene is written in suggestive detail.  The remainder of the book is spent with the dead 9th grader, watching the world's response to losing her and trying to break the barrier between the two worlds to get her murderer caught.  The book is very interesting, and I might have liked it very much, if the author had not chosen to include the main character in a wild hare of a scene near the end of the book that swung the book into the category of "trying too hard to be teenage smut."  That's right, it threw sex into the story where there was no justification, and where honestly, it would probably be considered a stupid move by anyone but a teenager who has been told by countless books and movies how romantic sex is, and that no love story is complete without it.  That part was just plain weird.  That ploy, really, it ruined the book for me. It went from a "halfway decent book that would be a good read to suggest to people" book to a "don't bother" book for me. Had that one chapter had been completely removed from the book, it would still be a great book. It is not even just because there was sex, but the pure stupidity of that scene, which I can't even explain properly to you without spoiling the book for those of you who still intend to read it.  In conclusion, unfortunately, this book gets no reading suggestion from me, though I am glad I finally read it. In the end, it just was not a great book. It was shallow. I would like to add a little warning for certain parents of teenagers and teenagers: This book really has a lot of sex in it, not just the one scene that ruined the book.  It has a lot of disturbing elements, and a lot of scenes using "bad days" as legitimate excuses for really bad decisions, and it has a tendency to normalize casual sex.  Be careful about trusting books for your teenagers just because they come from the "Young Adult" section of the library. There are many untrustworthy books in that section hiding under the guise of literature.


The American Girl Kaya Series by Janet Beeler Shaw

In all technicality, yes, there are six books, and I would have counted them as such when I was 7-12, but as a 25 year old, it just seems wrong.  I would like to toss in an interesting fact about this series before we get into details: This series was written by the same author who wrote the Kirsten series. That may explain why I appreciated Kaya as much as I did. This series is about a Nez Perce girl during the decade before the declaration of independence was signed, which is also before her specific tribe has any visual contact with Europeans, though there are stories and rumors about the white skinned people, and her grandmother, as a girl, survived a small pox epidemic that raced through the different tribes at the first sound of the Europeans arrival. I really enjoyed this story, and I know that had this series been written when I was still in their target ages, it probably would have been one of my favorite American Girl collections, rivaling with Felicity of course.  Really that is an obvious choice, both girls have horses.  Felicity was a redhead, so of course there was an immediate bond there.  Kaya is Native American.  There are two things I have always known for sure about my heritage: Irish and Native American.  Sure, Kaya is Nez Perce, and my heritage claims Chickasaw and Cherokee, but I am pretty sure I would not have held that against Kaya when I was younger.  I like to keep up on the American girls(at least the historic ones), even though I have long outgrown them.  I have gotten behind on a few series, but Kaya is one I have been wanting to read for a long time and this is why: When I was in their target age range, I remember my constant question was, "Why don't they have a Native American girl?"  It seemed wrong to me to have a genre called "American Girl" and not have a collection about one of the first American girls.  Now, on to the series. I really appreciated these books. The stories were catching enough to make me want to pick up the next book.  True to American Girl, the stories were mainly about Kaya learning to be responsible, caring and patient.  Unlike many of the other American Girl characters, Nez Perce girls were expected to take on many family responsibilities at Kaya's age. I like that, while each book has its own climax and conclusion, there is also a larger story running through the series, with its climax and conclusion in the sixth book.  In book one, pardon me for ruining part of it, Kaya does something irresponsible that earns every child in the village a switching, and Kaya winds up with the disgraceful nickname "Magpie." Through the entire series, you see her trying to outgrow both the incident and the nickname, and eventually she learns to appreciate the lessons she learns through the torment of her nickname. In the second book, Kaya and her blind sister and Kaya's horse get kidnapped by a raiding party from another tribe.  Kaya manages to get away in following books, but the escape could not accommodate her sister's blindness, and they agree it is best so that Kaya can get help. Through the series, there is the constant task of trying to find her sister again.  I really enjoyed the educations tidbits that were slipped into the story, as well as the "Peek into the past" history segment found in the back of every American Girl book.  In conclusion of my opinion of this series, I believe it is the only thing I read that month that I thoroughly enjoyed.  I would recommend it to any adult brave enough to read a children's book, and all little girls who can be convinced to read it.  Yes, I do suggest these books.

And the conclusion of this Literacy blog means that for now, I am finally caught up in my literacy blogs!  Small happy dance moment inserted :::here:::

Thanks for reading.

9 things for the 9th day of the 9th month

Yes, I missed this segment a lot in recent months, but why waste time focusing on failures of the past.

1. My parents get to go sailing this weekend...without me.  So I'm just going to spend time with their children, and probably eat all their ice cream.

2. Junior high started up this week, on its new day at its earlier hour. As the blog explained, it was a little intimidating, but turned out alright for a first try.

3. I still need a new vehicle, as my once trusty vehicle feels more and more shaky as time wears on, and I am tried ofputting a hose in the coolant tank once a week.

4. I am so excited Chuck (the NBC TV show) is coming back again, but I am so sad it is waiting until OCTOBER to do it!

5. I got to go to Disneyland with my sister, and it was a lot of fun.

6. I have noticed that as Fall cools off, every year, I feel the need to start making things (such as sewing, knitting, whatnot). I think that's weird.

7. This particular blog is really overloading this week unfairly, compared to the blog count of other weeks. I can't really control when the day number matches the month number, but the unevenness of it sort of bothers me. And it bothers me that it bothers me.  (P.S. 9 is a really big number when it comes to sharing thoughts)

8. I still really want to go to Haiti to visit my friend, Liline. I just can't seem to work out the details just yet, and I am not willing to travel in a recently wrecked, third world country, all by my redheaded, nonintimidating, obvious foreign self.  If you would to come with me and be intimidating, let me know. ;-)

And finally,

9. I, by fortunate association of people, random availability, brief disappointment, and quite a bit of luck and manuevering, somehow landed a SoCal Select season pass to Disneyland, which means, I can go on most weekdays that are not school holidays through May 2012, and 5 days in June 2012. This stroke of luck has benefited me quite well so far(For instance: thing #5). Thanks Morgan!


Whew! I made it to 9.  October 10th, November 11th, and December 12th are going to be so hard!

Same words, different tune...

This year I am volunteering with the Junior High youth group again. This is starting my 5th year there. Some of it feels very much the same, the kids, the games, the format. This year, however is so very different because I'm co-leading it this year. Holy cow! How did that happen?

I'm lucky, because I get a new co-leader I already know and enjoy. I think that we are going to have a really great time this year. Wednesday night was our first night of the year.  It felt so weird, first: it was on Wednesday. Previously, it had been on Tuesday, a night when very few people are there. Wednesday night, wow... so many different people: all of AWANAs, choir, high school. All of a sudden, we had to share the property. That was strange. Also, being in a different room, with a different recreational area really messed with the habitual portion of my mind. The absolute weirdest part was calling the shots... all of them. My co-leader and I are calling all of the shots, all night, every night. I feel like I have come full circle, from being the hyper junior higher, to being the energetic youth volunteer, and now, much like the woman who was in charge when both my co-leader were in junior high, we're running it. Cool. I think we can do this. Like writing with my left hand, this year's first night felt both familiar and clumsy all at once.

The pleasant surprise, and pay off for changing nights, is that we had twice as many students as we expected, which means: 4! Don't laugh. Four students rather than two makes playing games, and having discussions so much less work, and so much more fun. I feel like the games we tried backfired amazingly, but the kids were good sports, and so that went decently well.  Next week we'll have a better idea of where to go with that. We did introductions, the leaders shared testimonies, and the kids seemed opened to just talking with us and each other. This seems like a good start. We knew it would be a small group this year, and we were hoping to get them started on a closer group more like a Bible study group rather than the more distant spread out youth group, which only works with lots of kids who will make their own small groups. The way the discussion went was encouraging to me. Next week, we are going to have to get the lessons in motion, and see if we can keep that small group discussion style rolling. Please, feel free to pray for me, my fellow leader, the kids, and the group as a whole. We've got a whole new adventure ahead of us.

In conclusion, I'm tired, excited, hungry, and glad to be getting back to my Tuesda--er... Wednesday night schedule.

July-Literacy Challenge 7

Time to catch up again!

These are the books I finished in July.  This time, all 3 books were new to me.  I don't begrudge this self imposed literacy challenge, but sometimes, much like homework, it is difficult to get around to writing the report.  Here we go!

Madness by Jossy Chako

This book is written by a missionary to India. He also is Indian. I came by his book because I had an amazing opportunity to hear him speak at a missions conference. It was an amazing presentation. In the book he tells about how he moved away to Australia as a young man, and ended up marrying an Australian. She persuaded him totake her to India for their honeymoon.  Jossy grew up in an area that was mainly Christian, and he was well provided for. The India he saw on his honeymoon was completely different, and though he never saw himself being the "missionary type" he realized his heart was aching for the people in his country.  Jossy also realized that there were many Indian pastors already reaching out to India on their own, with no training or support, and he saw his opportunity.  This story tells about his childhood, as well about what it took for him to start an organization. What impacted me the most in this book is the amount of faith of the different people in his life. Their faith and fervor for the Lord can easily put me to shame.  Also, I was struck by the oppressing darkness so many people live in.  They live in a world where demons possession is an obvious problem. That is a scary thought to me, to see the devil so blatantly at work, but then maybe I see the devil blatantly at work often, and explain it away so I can comfortably ignore him. The thing about having such an oppressing darkness, having the devil running so rampant is that these missionaries see amazing works of God. It takes a lot of faith to stand up in the midst of such intimidating darkness, and God meets them where and how they need Him.  It was an interesting book. I would not say that it is a must read. It is informative for anyone who wants to know about missionaries, and about India, as well as about starting a non-profit organization.  I definitely would not stop anyone from reading it.  It is not the best book I have ever read, but I also really appreciated it, and I don't think it was meant to be a best seller.  An added perk, is that it is a thin book, so it does not require a lot of commitment to finish it.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

This is a typical English literature novel. Depending on my mood, I like those.  It was sometimes hard for me to get through, but in the end I did.  I go back an forth on whether I liked it.  It is about a young woman who marries an older widower.  When she moves onto his estate, she struggles in living under her husband's late wife's (Rebecca) shadow, and there is something strange going on with the staff and the mansion. Many times the main character feels as though she is being haunted, and there just seems to be a sinister, unwelcome spirit about the place, and especially the house manger.  Much of the book is about watching this young woman transition from a silly school girl with a silly inferiority complex very gradually become assertive, desperate woman.  I found it frustrating to sit inside the main character's head, when I just wanted to give her a good shake, tell her to be a big girl and start handling her problems, as they obviously weren't going away.  Part of this frustration, however is what kept me reading.  It's a little on the mystery side, as it slowly reveals hints about the darkness of the estate.  When it ended, and even still, I range between "That was a stupid book" and "I really liked thinking through that book."   You should know that, when it comes to English literature, I dislike it more often than I like it. The fact that it intrigued me at all is a compliment. My roommate enjoys this book thoroughly.  So, if you are the sort who thoroughly enjoys Victorian era English literature, with all of its rambling details, then by all means, you will enjoy it.  If not, then I probably would not recommend this book to you.

Loser by Jerry Spinelli.

This book was written at about a 5th-7th grade level. It is about the child who was doomed from the start to never fit in: uncoordinated, weird name, off-kilter interests, a strange tic, with passion for weird sounding words and a desire to shout them.  He is earnest and goodhearted, but somehow always manages to be misunderstood by even the adults in his life. He never seems to figure it out.  As I read the book, I truly enjoyed each scene and chapter as a well written narrative. It starts with "the loser" at the beginning of kindergarten, before he or any of the other children realize he is a loser, but really, it was only a matter of time.  As he and the children grow up, they slowly start to realize what he is: an outcast. Most of the time, our main character is so oblivious, he doesn't even notice that it should bother him to be an outcast.  The book is almost like peeking into the daily lives of children from kindergarten through seventh grade. The anecdotes are quite enjoyable.  The plot, on the other hand, I have turmoil over. The upfront plot is abnormal. It is linear, with little climax and no story arch. It it's like climbing a mountain half way, and stopping. At the end of all the anecdotes, you feel like you have learned nothing.  This book is tricky, though. It feels as though it has two plots, the story telling one, with all the anecdotes that don't add up to much, and the underlying plot that sneakily interweaves a slow paradigm shift in both "The Loser" and the kids who make up his community, caused by the sheer unyielding, unphased weirdness of the main character, and the fact that he, though weird, friendless, and an outcast, never understands that he should dislike who he is and his social position within the class.  Because of the sneaky, second plot line, I will have to conclude that, yes, I liked  The Loser.

And those, my friends, are the three books that filled July.  Coming soon, the books of August!

I'll be there...

(Quick warning: In order to find photos for this post, I had to dig through my old honest-to-goodness-real-film photos from my childhood point and shoot cameras.. there is only so much quality one can expect from an 8-16 year old with a 35mm and a questionable quality of scanner!)

I really won on the day they were handing out grannies.

 My Granny has many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. She was the kind of grandmother who could halt a displeasing behavior with a few curt words, but still manage to make a grandchild feel extremely, securely loved and like a uniquely special individual. She played our silly games(even though she disliked most of them), watched our age-level movies, and read our grade level books, and generally valued our personhood at whatever age we were, which allowed us a level of closeness that other people might not achieve with grandparents.


The same curiosity and independence that were the bane of her cooking abilities formed the random escapades she invited us along that formed of our now cherished memories. I say all this just to preface what an important and special role Granny has held in my life. She died in July of 2008, and while occasionally I regret that I could not steal more time with her, I also feel privileged- as the daughter of her fifth and youngest child- to have been able to know Granny for as long as I did. I am grateful for the time I got, and as she knows Jesus, I am glad she is finally with him.

I am at peace about Granny going to be with Jesus. Some days though, I miss her more than others. There are some situations that spike an automatic desire to go visit Granny: 

Coming across a bag of Lays sour cream and onion flavored potato chips tucked away in a corner. Sitting down to a pile of of books, or perusing a used bookstore. Driving to the coast. Taking a stroll on a lovely day through a park or particularly forested area. Settling down to a cup of tea, or soup. Finding an excitingly strange foreign film, or watching a great book-based movie.

It is during these moments that I catch myself mentally loading up the car to go to Arroyo Grande and looking forward to a lunch at the Back Door Deli.

I remember several years ago, when my two youngest siblings were in those years of annoying car trips. We often drove to the coast as a family, spending the weekend with Granny and Grandad. While Melody and James were between the ages of 4 and 10, the ever present question was "Are we there yet? How much longer?"

They asked this so many times that Mom came up with an auto-response that soon became so traditional that even after they outgrew that stage, someone would always ask the annoying question just to hear the response before we got there.

"We'll be there when we see Granny waiting for us on the front porch waving."

Granny often did that. When she knew we were getting close, she would go stand on the front porch and wait for us to arrive. It became a joke those times when she wasn't there on the porch that even after we were there, we weren't really there until we saw Granny.

Sometimes, I drive past her old home, and there is a quiet pang of loss, knowing that she wouldn't be waiting for me there, if I stopped by. Granny's house was always a sanctuary: leave all bullies, worries, and stresses on the freeway, they couldn't come through Granny's door. Recently, during one of those pangs, I reminded myself what a relief it is that she is in heaven, fully well, unrestricted and rejoicing with Jesus.

I love Jesus, too. There is a certain amount of comfort I take in knowing that not only will I be able to bask in the presence of my savior, I'll get to see Granny again. Somehow, knowing that my once tangible Granny is there in Heaven makes my Jesus, who I have never physically hugged, feel even more tangible in those times when I really need a hug. 

Even during the difficult times, I can keep moving forward, because eventually, I'll get to go to my real sanctuary. It is striking to me how similar life is to the drive I so frequently used to make to Arroyo Grande: long, steep, and twisting, sometimes exhausting, other times it isn't all that bad, occasionally fun, occasionally boring, filled with glimpses of breathtaking beauty and unexpected dangers, some days it goes by quickly, others it drags on forever, but in the end, it is well worth the trip. There are phases in my life when the trip is so long, so foggy and dark, so scary, and exhausting that I hear my soul wearily nagging God with that annoying question. 


But I already know.

I'll be there when I can see Granny waiting for me on the front porch waving.
 And this time, Jesus will be standing right next to her.

Until then, I'll keep traveling, and usually, I'll enjoy that traveling.

However, when I do finally get there, I want a hug from both.

Blocked.

Blocked.

Block.  Like legos, and wood, and childrens toys.  Blocked like a doorway. Like road construction.

Blocked forcefully into a wall. Hockey players call it checked. Check. Cheque. Czech...123 testing, testing.

Blocked. B Locked. Be locked.  Ideas will be locked up when you want them most.

Blocked. Locked. Hocked. Walked. Knocked. Rocked. Talked. Clocked. Mocked.

Inspiration mocks, sauntering around me in a steady walk, while gazing at the clock...something something hocked, knocked... blahblahblah.blocked.

Rhyming doesn't make it art. Fart. Smart. Tart. Cart. Chart. Heart.

Four chambers.

Two, if you're a fish.

They're friends, not food. Draw one in the sand, stick it on your bumper and you're a Christian. Put legs on it and you're a macroevolutionist. Symbols. They represent something big, and can reduce us to something as small as they are. Classified.

Organized.  Put into a box. Fox. Socks. Rocks. Locks.

Locked box.  Box locked. It all comes back to blocked.

Writer's block.  It happens sometimes. If you were hoping to get something out of this post, too bad...it's blocked.

My wild nerd happy weekends

You may ask yourself, in your spare thoughts, what exactly does a jobless 20-something do on a weekend?  Well, usually, very little. In fact, my weekends look an awful lot like weekdays, and occasionally this causes me to be puzzled as to why the post office is closed for no apparent reason.  Not this month, though!  Thanks to family and friends, and I had quite an adventurous month of weekends.

Two weekends ago I went with my friend Laura (I left the synonym cousin in Hawaii...just to keep things from getting confused) to hang out with one of my brothers.  We went to the aquarium, which I truly enjoy, every time.  The deep sea exhibit was open again, and they had sea turtles and sun fish! And they were huge!  There is something about an aquarium that brings at the dancing, hopping, squealing 5 year old out of me.  In one of the larger tanks, there were murres ( a bird that looks similar to a penguin, but can fly, and is NOT a penguin...but try explaining that to every person who walks by a tank without reading the conveniently placed placards) diving in and darting around the water like they were flying, teasing the fish and nibbling for scraps after feeding time.  They left little silver trails of bubbles in their wake.  Watching all those trails of bubbles is probably what kept me standing there overly long.  

We also explored the nearby shops and considered attempting a laser room.  The laser room is set up like in the spy movies, and for a few dollars you can attempt to stealth your way past the lasers up to 3 times. Instead, we went home, and played cards late into the night.  The next day, my cousin dropped by for a visit, so of course, we had to teach her the game from the night before, because some of us (mainly, me) had lost the night before, in a way that could have been referred to as a massacre(my tallied points from the 3rd round still couldn't beat their tallied points from the second round).  My cousin played on my team, and helped me win some dignity back before it was time to hit the road.

Then the most recent weekend, I drove up and met my friend, Rachel, who was in San Francisco for a weekend. This is where you might be getting your hopes up that the theme of my trips might change, but you might also be rather disappointed in that.

We had a great time of it.  The first day we went to the California academy of sciences. (And this would be where your hopes for a less nerdy report might plummet)  There was sooooooo much there to absorb.  I just feel the need to state this: they have rolling, grassy hills for their roof.  Yep, it's true. Where a roof should be, instead there is what appears, at first, to be a nice little dog park. Minus dogs.  It is all in the effort to lower energy use, as well as lower pollution caused by roofing materials in rain water.  Personally, I just thought it was cool, until I read that the job that required the most man hours for keeping it in good order is weeding. Count me out!  Unless I can have a weedy roof, there will be no garden on my roof.  Then inside the building there was a ginormous bio-dome filled with a rain forest.  I'm serious: humidity, plants, trees, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, butterflies, and less pleasant bugs.  Thankfully, the unpleasant ones were kept on their side of the glass. I got to see piranhas and electric eels .on.the.same.day! Who is jealous now?

The next day we went to the Exploratorium.  Wow!  They only charge $15 an adult, and I think the reason it is so cheap is that they think it is a children's museum.  They are so very mistaken, which is probably why they kept letting in all these little kids who kept cutting me in line while I waited for my turn to play with the never-ending slinky conveyor belt.  All of those weird science experiments Mom rarely let us do(mainly because we lacked such wonderful resources), Bill Nye style, are stored in this very building.  I got to play with dry ice, and make water float, and vibrate cornstarch, and beat a drum to make the platform underneath me vibrate, and make smoke signals, and drink from a musical drinking fountain, and then from a toilet, and sit in a giant chair, and see my reflection in a giant bubble, and play with lasers, and switch my ears, and run out of time and leave before I finished.  Ah, well, it just gives me a reason to nerd out another weekend I guess.  I just want to say, if you're nerdy like me, you're in San Francisco and you see an ad for the exploratorium, and it looks too childish... do it anyway!  I would tell you to bring a child along so you don't look out of place, but then you'd have to take turns with the kid.  Besides, I saw plenty of other childless adults impatiently waiting for their turns, too.  Take it from me, don't let the people with offspring have all the fun.  And in between, Rachel and I enjoyed some shopping, some Indian food, some TLC shows, and the fact that we could get so excited about nerdy things without the person we came with pretending they didn't know us.

So maybe my weekends are more nerd-happy than they are wild, but hey, I did say I drank out a toilet, didn't I?

It tasted better than Rosedale water, that's for sure!

Thanks for reading.