School, Books, Music, etc.

     I haven’t been up to much lately. Well, aside from accepting my acceptance to Royal Holloway, University of London for a Masters in Creative Writing (emphasis on Poetry, of course), and the ensuing paperwork and applications for financial lenders and housing and such. It’s a tedious and intimidating process still, even with the peace of mind that I have been accepted somewhere. Aside from school stuff I have also been reading. We just finished reading Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh for the Lit Bit Book Club, and on my own I finished reading The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien and I have now started The Fellowship of the Ring. Can you tell what direction I’m going with that? Haha! I’ve read The Lord of the Rings series before and while I enjoyed the books (and the movies), they make me sad; so I’m making my way slowly through them… very slowly. I am also going to start reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz. I’ve also been sporadically reading books of poetry. And the book club is reading Lila: An Inquiry into Morals by Robert M. Pirsig for the month of May.

     That’s a lot on my “currently reading” list. You’d think I’d have more to show for it here on Lit Bit. I’ve also been listening to a lot of new music. My friend introduced me to some really awesome post-rock bands. A couple of my favorites are Explosions in the Sky and MONO. One of my favorite songs for Explosions in the Sky is called “So Long, Lonesome” and is definitely worth listening to. Beautiful music! One of my favorite MONO songs is “Mere Your Pathetique Light” and I hope you give that one a listen too. This music makes me wish my ice skating days had never ended, because this is the kind of music I wish my coaches had come across for my routines. Anyway… aside from the nostalgia or whatever that longing is, it really is great music and very relaxing for a stressed out brain.

EDIT: I also read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë last month. That was the first time that I made it all the way through that book – and I still don’t get why people like it. Meh. Anne Brontë deserved so much more credit than she got.

 

The Out Campaign

     I have considered myself an atheist for a few years at least now, though up until this point I have not verbalized it to anyone, not even my closest friends who are atheists as well. I’ve simply not been ready to come out and shout to the world what I do or do not believe. In fact even in arguments I have remained generally neutral, not being one to run headlong into confrontation. Yes, I’m a chicken . But some things have happened in my life that have finally pushed me over the threshold and I’ve decided not to be quiet anymore… well, at least not in web country. I’m not quite up to telling my generally catholic parents about this, but I’ll get there eventually. This is a big step for me and I’m happy to finally make it. I’ve been considering it for quite awhile now, but have been hesitant since it is only realistic that fair treatment for all religious beliefs or non-beliefs can’t be entirely trusted. While I certainly hope that people are sensitive enough to respect others’ choices I realize it is not that simple. But ultimately I don’t care anymore how this affects my future, this is how I feel and what I want. And I’m happy to finally be out:

 

What am I thinking…?

     I have been distracted lately. Granted, these have been reasonable distractions, but I still feel a twinge of annoyance when I think how much I have shoved into the closet to focus on other things. Two of those objects in the closet are Lit Bit and the Book Club. While both are still up and running, it is by no means pro-active right now, which also leaves me feeling guilty. (This is where my little rational mind-voice says, “Now, be reasonable! You can’t do everything and finishing school and applying for grad schools takes precedence.”) I’m not sure I agree with this voice. Not that those things aren’t high priority, but it simply makes me sad that I set them higher than the things I want to do, things I started up on my own time. I feel full of contradictions at the moment: I wanted to graduate (with good grades) from NAU and I want to apply to graduate schools as well as keep up with Lit Bit.

     Now I hadn’t intended for this post to be a personal confession of neglect and guilt; in fact it was meant to segue into a book review. I feel I’ve gone too far for that, so I will end this little blab and start a fresh post for the review (because they have been sorely lacking lately :/).

 

It’s About Time

     Whew! My undergraduate career has finally come to an end. On December 12th I completed my last semester as an undergraduate student of Northern Arizona University. Sure, it took me a little longer than I had initially planned, but I don’t regret any of that time. I am so excited about all of this. I am so excited to be done and to be able to now focus on the next step of my academic career. Let me just say though, Holy crap I graduated! Anyway, I just wanted to get that out there. I got to see my family for a few days and some good friends as well. Now I’m in California with my friends Skunkie and Polyvector for the week. Nice. Time off.

     Aside from posting about graduation, I mostly just wanted to post something. I feel like I haven’t really been updating Lit Bit that much lately, but I am hoping to have some more time in the near future (after the near, who knows!). While I’m at it here is the information for the Lit Bit Book Club:
          Discussion: December 15, 2008 8:30P.M. MST (-7 GST)
          About: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
          Where: IRC chat server: chat.zoite.net channel: #lit-bit

Hope to see you all there!

 

October Book-Fest

     So I have been flopping around, trying desperately to decide on a book for the month of October for our Twitter Book Club. There are plenty of choices out there, but I wanted to be conscious of current relativity, cost, availability, all those practical sorts of things. Anyway, I am going to narrow down the options this weekend to three or four books, post them with links, and then give you guys a few days to provide your input on which one you would like to read. I will (hopefully) have the slimmed down list available sometime this evening or early tomorrow. I already have the books in mind, but I want to make a trip to the book store to really get a good look at these texts and then make my decision.

     After a bit of thinking, I figured I might as well put up my top three choices for October right now, and if I need to change them later I will. So here goes:

     Out of Poverty: What Works When Traditional Approaches Fail by Paul Polak
     Ways of Dying: A Novel by Zakes Mda
     Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System by Raj Patel

     So there are the top three contenders. As soon as I make a trip to the book store (once I’m done at work), I will make any adjustments that I find necessary for the shortened list. Meantime, feel free to leave comments on which book you would like to read.