I’m currently sitting at gate 11(the best gate because it’s like three feet away from security; gate 32 is the worst) at the San Jose airport, which does NOT have free wi-fi, thankyouverymuch, sir sitting next to me, waiting for my flight to start boarding. I’m a little over an hour early for the flight, which is sort of cutting it a little close for my comfort, but thankfully there was NO ONE in line at security, which is good because I had to Opt Out because FUCK if I’m putting myself through a body scanner. NOT HAPPENING.

And my personal pat down was … sort of anticlimactic. I expected some sort of drama or surliness or perhaps just them finding my tiiiiiiiiny biltong knife on my keyring, because, OOPS, I was halfway to the light rail station before I remembered that I had it. But no. She was friendly, I was friendly. She complimented my hair and didn’t search my bags, and in less than a minute or two, I was on my way.

Anyways, I’m normally super anal about getting to the airport early, and would have been panicking and stressing at the prospect of only arriving an hour-ish before my flight, thanks to that one weekend where I missed four flights and was sort of scarred for life. I wanted to get here around 2 for my 4 pm flight, but I went to the gym after I got off work and just didn’t have enough time after that to shower and pack (what? I knew WHAT I was going to pack; I just hadn’t actually PACKED it yet) AND make the train that would get me here at 2.

Man, once my bags were packed, though, and I saw how freaking HEAVY they are, I considered just calling a cab and making it easy on myself. But I don’t have any cash, and I’m not actually sure how much money is in my bank account, and besides, taking the light rail and then the bus was FREE. Y’all know how much I like FREE. I’m pretty proud of myself managing to lug all my shit the 15 minutes to the light rail stop without crying or falling over, but a few minutes in, I did have the thought that perhaps I should have asked someone for a ride.

Oh well, I’m here now, and coming home, not only will Feller pick me up at the airport, my bags will be three pounds of coffee and two tins of tea lighter, not to mention all the knitted goods I plan on leaving in Tucson, which will also reduce my return load.

Am I in any way prepared for this trip? NOPE. I am pondering what I will pack, which means debating HOW MUCH I’ll pack. Like, Imma be gone for a week, maybe I should check a bag? But I don’t WANNNNNNNNA check a bag! But how much makeup and shoes can you fit into your carryon? I think it’ll just take some creative finagling of the “overhead compartment bag, under the seat bag and purse” rule. But, SERIOUSLY? You gonna make all your shit fit into what the flight attendants will allow you to carry onto the plane? Like, REALLY?

And that’s where I start downsizing the amount of makeup and shoes I would normally pack for a week long trip that involves going to church on Sunday, an occasion for which I like to dress up. I think Imma leave my heels at home this time. I will take two pairs of jeans, because, really? I’ll be gone a week; I need to at least PRETEND to wear more than one pair of pants ever. (Feller was SHOCKED and SCANDALIZED that I would pack three pairs of jeans for our six week trip to Cape Town and the UK. “But … you can just WASH them!”)

I might need to pack before I pack just to make sure I can actually fit everything I want into my various bags. Also, I should determine whether I can carry more stuff easily in my GIANT laptop traveling bag or if I should borrow Feller’s backpack. And what purse do I want to bring? The heavy one that holds a lot of stuff? Or the one that doesn’t weigh five pounds when empty?

And HOW THE HECK am I getting to the airport? My flight leaves at 4 pm, so Feller can’t take me because his job is PRETTY STRICT about 9-5, and fuck if I’m paying for my car to sit five minutes from our house for a week. I’m thinking bus, but again, HOW MUCH SHIT AM I TAKING?! Because lugging all that on public transit doesn’t sound fun to me. But I might be too cheap to take a cab. DILEMMAS.

Oh, and is my present for BFF’s baby shower ready? NOPE. I mean, I guess I have until Sunday afternoon, but let’s not wait until the LAST POSSIBLE second, shall we?

There’s just so much to do in the next few days, and I’d like to hit the gym before I go, hopefully for my 3 times a week goal, but that depends on when the TV delivery guys get here, I think. Sometime between 1-6. Wonderful. And guess who’s been fighting a cold the past three days and, thus, utterly useless for anything that isn’t NAPPING? ME. That would be me. Doesn’t my immune system know that I have BETTER things to do?

I guess now, while waiting for the TV, would be a good time to be productive.

Anyways, I’m done with work at 1030 tomorrow morning, and after that, it’s chart filling out time! My resolutions range from firm, precise things, such as gym and running three times a week and having a weekly game night with Feller, to more nebulous ideas, like “make time for music”, as I adore listening to it but haven’t been, and “be a better girlfriend.”

I also want to spend this year focusing on friendships and new experiences and meeting people. I want to spend my time doing more interesting, fun things than just sitting around watching tv all the time. I want to finish lingering knitting projects and work on my spinning. I’m going to blog regularly and send mail to friends and family.

I’m going to be a better student and a better housekeeper and stay on top of the dishes by washing them as we use them. Imagine that! It’s FASTER that way. And easier. And my kitchen stays CLEAN.

I’m going to find little ways to make my life easier and better and more full.

Borrowed from http://www.happiness-project.com/

If I’ve seen you in real life in the past week or so, no doubt I’ve babbled about The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin. This book is her account of spending one year changing her life by not changing her life. She’s a pretty normal lady with a great family and a job she loves, and she wants to know if she can become happier by making small adjustments to her everyday life, and, oh hey! It works!

She breaks her “Happiness Project” into twelve (one for every month!) different aspects of life in which she would like to create greater happiness, and she has three or four resolutions to accompany each area of focus, building on the resolutions from the previous month. Additionally, the entire book is filled with quotes from the extensive happiness research she’s done, and I have NO IDEA where she found the time to read all the books she cites, because DAMN.

Some of her resolutions, like going to bed earlier and clearing clutter, are (seemingly) simple but really draining when it doesn’t happen. She provides some universal Truths about happiness that are simple and things that most people probably already know, but sometimes, I just need someone to state the obvious. Several of the chapters deal with her relationships with other people and how to get the most happiness flowing in those relationships. She reminded me how important it is to show up and be present in people’s lives and how much my own attitude affects other people’s.

Really, I love the way this book got me to thinking. I have an AWESOME life. I have a wonderful boyfriend who I adore, a job I enjoy and that allows me to focus my energy on school, and I am so blessed. But, of course, there are areas for improvement, and I really appreciated some of Rubin’s suggestions and tips and ideas for making my great life EVEN BETTER. So, as I was reading, and in this past week since I’ve finished the book, I’ve thought about what resolutions I can make that will help me become a happier, More Awesome person. I have a whole list of resolutions and one time goals for my Awesomeness Project. I want to spend the year aiming to create more happiness, and thus, More Awesome, in my life. My resolutions range from silly personal things, like flossing every day, to things that will help me be a better girlfriend and friend. And in the next day or two, I’ll have a fancy chart on which to write out all these resolutions and gold star stickers to reward myself when I do a good job. Because one way to create more happiness is by not relying on other people to give me a pat on the back.

Anyways. Ascendant is about killer unicorns and the superpowered, virginal, female descendents of Alexander the Great who hunt them. It’s the sequel to Rampant, which is also good and necessary for understanding wtf is going on in Ascendant.

I read Rampant a little over two years ago, and I enjoyed it. It was a fun read, but I didn’t LOVE it or anything. It’s entertaining. Peterfreund has this great version of unicorns that we don’t ever see, and the main character Astrid is kind of a badass. Plus there’s an awesome karkadaan (a giant unicorn) who totally saves the day and steals the show. Rampant is, more than anything, I think, an action adventure story. It’s all about Astrid and the other hunters dealing with the Reemergence of unicorns, which were thought to be extinct, so there are lots scenes of hunting training and then actual hunts, and that’s all cool and fun, but Ascendant really takes it to the next level.

Ascendant starts a three months after the events at the end of Rampant and deals with Astrid coming to terms with her distaste for killing unicorns. She tries to find an alternative use for her hunting powers that will help people without requiring her to kill unicorns on a regular basis, not to mention a job that doesn’t end in the possibility of death every time she goes out. She ends up with a cushy gig that she loves and that allows her to becoming familiar with a herd of captive unicorns. And she slowly begins to understand them more and more, realizing that she has to find a way to protect people from unicorns and unicorns from people.

Then tragedy strikes, and her entire world unravels. And this is where the book really REALLY grabbed me. I was enjoying everything up to this, but the ordeals Astrid goes through and the decisions she makes along the way turn this into a poignant story about finding oneself and doing the right thing.

I don’t want to give anything else away, so I’ll just say that while Ascendant is the FIRST book I have finished in 2012, there is a very good chance it will also become one of the BEST books I read in 2012. I loved it, and I just bought it from Amazon, in hardback, so I can have a matched set (also, I sort of feel like awesome, favorite books deserve a spot on my physical book shelf rather than just on my Kindle book shelf; like the physicality of the hardback book makes it more meaningful. Plus, the hard copy was cheaper than the ebook).

(Image borrowed from www.dianapeterfreund.com)

The school semester wrapped up really nicely. At the beginning of the semester, I thought I might try for straight A’s, but then I got LAAAAAAZY. And I also forgot until a couple of weeks before classes ended that the Library & Information Sciences school has an annoyingly effed up grading scale, so in order to even get a grade high enough to get credit for the classes, I needed an 88%, which is really, REALLY HIGH, guys. So then I spent two weeks worrying about whether or not I participated enough in the online discussions, which by the way, are UTTER bullshit, and then came the final projects. As I told one of my friends, my intention was to three quarter ass my three final projects, and I think I managed that pretty successfully. One of the assignments was WAAAAY too short (all three actually, but I think it only mattered in one case), which I am pretty sure brought my grade down significantly. I didn’t look at the teacher’s comments on the paper because once classes were over, I pretty much stopped going online for anything significant amount of time. All this to say, really, that I ended up with a B and B+ in my two classes this semester, which is exactly what I needed to not ever have to take either of these classes again. Mission accomplished! On to next semester, which holds another required course and a class all about GRAPHIC NOVELS. AWESOME.

I’m not super into making resolutions for the new year, but it is such a good time for reflection and thinking about how one wants to improve oneself. In 2012, I’ve only got three Ways in which to Be More Awesome. Or at least, I’ve only thought about three things on which I want to focus.

1. I am only reading books already on my Goodreads “to read” list. I rarely get to mark books off that list because I get so distracted by all the other shiny, happy books at the library, and I really would like to whittle it down some. Of course, since deciding this, I have been frantically adding ALL THE BOOKS to my To Read list, you know, just in case. And so it has doubled in length in the past few weeks from 250-ish books to 500-ish. Just trying to keep my options open. Though, now that we’re four days into the year, and I’m already thinking about how I’ll break my To Read List Rule, this is going to be more of a guideline than a firm rule. My focus is more intentional reading rather than just picking up random books; that strategy has often worked for me, but, for this year at least, I don’t want random books to take away from the books that I KNOW I want to read. Does that make any sense?

Additionally, Feller gave me a Kindle Touch for Christmas (!!! love it), and I’ve been scouring Amazon for cheap ass books that I might want to read. I have added about 40 books to my Kindle since Christmas, and the most I’ve paid for any of them is five bucks. Most were ninety nine cents, so I’ve got about half a year’s worth of reading just sitting my Kindle waiting for me. And once I decide how I’m using various gift cards, I’ll probably have a few more books.

2. I am super getting serious, for realz, seriously, about getting in shape. I always say I hate to put a number on it, but then I just end up slacking off and getting nowhere, so here it is, officially, I am going to run three times a week. Feller and I are going to the gym together three times a week. I would also like to take at least three fitness classes at the gym per week, but I’m a bit more flexible on that. Ultimately, I want to lose forty pounds. I remember being at that weight for about five minutes in 2007, and it was nice.

3. Imma start going to church again. I haven’t in ages, and I miss it.

4. I just thought of another thing! Number four is knitting goals: I am going to knit at least one pair of socks, of real socks, not just the baby practice socks, from Cat Bordhi’s sock book. I am going to start working on my sock yarn leftover blanket, either this beekeeper quilt or this mitered squares blanket. I am going to finish that damn Medallion Travel Bag.

5. Oh also, I’m TOTALLY going to write more often.

So, there we go. 2011 was an awesome year. Feller and I went on a great vacation, I quit a job I hated, got a job I love, started school AGAIN. I’m hella looking forward to 2012. I really think it can only bring even better and brighter things.
]]> http://beingadilettante.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/2011-wrap-up/feed/ 1 amysjoy http://beingadilettante.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/the-night-circus/ http://beingadilettante.wordpress.com/2011/11/08/the-night-circus/#comments Tue, 08 Nov 2011 22:20:10 +0000 amysjoy http://beingadilettante.wordpress.com/?p=881 ]]>
It all started when I’d been seeing things about Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus on the internet, and I’m not entirely sure I knew anything more about it than it had something to do with a night circus, the cover was awesome, and I lot of people I know were interested in it. Then BookTrib hosted a giveaway for a chance to win The Night Circus, and I entered, not really expecting much because I am not one of Those People who regularly wins contests and giveaways, so imagine my surprise when I received an email from BookTrib telling me that I HAD won! For a book I really wanted! Yay books! For free!

Then began the waiting. And the waiting. And the WAITING. To be fair, I only waited for the book about four or five weeks, which is not really that long of a time to wait for book which you are getting for FREE, but DANG, it felt like FOR-EV-ER. Finally, finally, FINALLY, it came on a UPS truck, in a fairly mangled package, and I immediately reported it’s arrival to the internet. Unfortunately, I still had about six library books sitting on my shelf that I needed to finish before reading anything I owned. So it sat on my dining room table, looking lovely and immensely readable. I will admit, having this book sit staring at me day after day gave me a pretty good incentive for finish all my library books. I read like a person possessed! Until I finished the Pirate Captain’s Daughter on Friday, the last of all my library books, and I allowed myself to pick up The Night Circus. I’m so glad I did.

Wow.

I LOVE this book. Strictly speaking, I do believe this book is considered Adult Fiction, but it has major Young Adult crossover appeal (and I would almost certainly include it in a YA collection were I in charge of such things). It’s magical. Set at the turn of the 20th century-ish, this is a story about a challenge between two magicians in which their proteges try to out do each other in a game of skill, and the setting for the game is Le Cique des Reves, the Circus of Dreams, which arrives unannounced at each destination and is only open from sunset to sunrise. The story is comprised of short second person descriptions of the circus from the perspective of an attendee, chapters about the magician’s challenge and the players, and chapters set several years later which describe a boy named Bailey’s experiences with the circus. By the end of the novel the chapters about the challenge and the chapters about Bailey have come together to create a really rich, full story.

I love the story in this book, for sure, but I also adore the language Morgenstern uses. It’s no secret that books with lovely, descriptive tones really appeal to me, which is the main reason why I enjoyed Atonement and East of Eden so much, despite not much happening in either book, and this book has that same tonal quality in additional to an intriguing plot. Morgenstern really manages to create a dreamlike, magical aura throughout the entire novel, while never veering off into a descriptive wonderland where the reader is left with beautifully worded settings and characteristics but no story, no MEAT, to go along with it. She creates a world in which I truly wish I lived; a circus which I long to visit.

I can’t recommend this book highly enough for anyone interested in magicians or circuses or the late 1800′s or beautiful prose or romance or precocious twins or kittens. I really do think there’s something in this book that will appeal to just about anyone, and I highly encourage everyone to check it out.

Feller, on the other hand, LOVES camping. He’s been trying to get me to go camping with him since we started dating, but he didn’t have any definite camping plans until a friend of his invited us to go with them on a big group camping trip this weekend. And because I couldn’t think of any terribly convincing reasons NOT to go, and because he wanted to go SO BAD, camping we went.

And it was fun. It was nice to get away from the house and all the accompanying distractions: internet, Netflix, video games, and I really, really liked the campfires and the smores and the drinking and the sitting around all of Saturday afternoon knitting. Unfortunately, the elevation got to me a little bit, and I had some trouble breathing, plus I was FREAKING EXHAUSTED despite not having done much of anything at all, and that made me a little grumpy.

Then there were the usual camping irritations: the packing and the tent and the driving six hours each way to get there and the screaming children (Lady, I understand that you’re tired, and I’m sorry you didn’t get any sleep last night because your two year old is a screamer, but at a communal campground, surrounded by strangers who are trying to sleep, is not an appropriate time to let her cry it out. I mean, REALLY.) and HOLY SHIT THE YELLOW JACKETS.

We did, thankfully, start out the actual camping on a high note when we discovered that the campground had honest to God actual TOILETS that FLUSH with SINKS and SOAP. No showers, but at least I didn’t have to deal with a nasty ass portapottie or a hole in the ground.

This of course means a Costco run, which I hate but have, blessedly, been mostly excused from since I’m dating the most sainted man ever who doesn’t necessarily mind going to the store. However, I made the mistake last week of mentioning my willingness to hit Costco myself since I need kitty litter. I didn’t end up going last week, and now Feller is holding me to that promise of going alone. Apparently, he is also suffering from some shopping fatigue.

I also need to get myself and all our bags and bags of recyclables down to the recycling place because Trader Joe’s bags full of glass and plastic bottles and cans are taking over our kitchen a little. At least I’ll have a few dollars in my pocket for my trouble, but not nearly as much as I think I should be getting for how much saving the earth we’re doing.

On the upside, I have been quite diligent about getting my hiney to the library every day after work and finishing a module or two before heading home. It’s turning into quite the nice habit, and, at least for now, I’m still getting home before Feller so I can take care off my chores and just relax and enjoy spending time with him when he arrives.

Of course, I have been SLIGHTLY less diligent about some other things: the basket of clean, unfolded laundry sitting in the middle of our bedroom floor for example. I’ll probably fold it tonight, just in time for there to be MORE clean laundry to fold on Sunday.

Also, I continue to be INFINITELY thankful for the he cooks/I clean arrangement Feller and I have. I love not having to worry about feeding myself in the evenings. It’s the best ever, and I eat a lot less pizza because of it.

Anyways, despite not being quite as productive as I would like, I am feeling pretty good about this class. I’ve finished two modules out of nine, and I still have about five weeks to finish everything, though I would ideally be done by the time classes start next week, which means I need to complete one module per day from now until then. This is doable, though Imma aim for more modules per day; I try to maintain a fairly firm “no homework on the weekends” policy.

One of the first assignments for this class was to set up and post a blog, which, cool! I’ve already done that! But after debating it for about ten minutes, I decided to not use this blog for class. I don’t feel like I write anything TOO questionable, but the fact that I had to debate it told me that it was probably best to keep school and personal blogs separate, so you can find me blogging about school related stuff at The Library School Chronicles. This isn’t to say I won’t be talking about school here too, obviously, but that will be strict school only, with whatever blogging assignments I may be assigned.

Okay, I really truly need to stop procrastinating right now and get back to work. I’ve got some articles to read and a module or two to get through before I wanna leave for home.