The Great Book Challenge of 2009

Ok people. It's time to get serious. I spent 2008 collecting books faster than I could read them. It's time for that to end. I have vowed that I will not buy any more books until i've read all of the ones I already have. So behold- the great book challenge of 2009.

Below is the list of books i will be reading, in no particular order:

Guns, Germs and Steel- Jared Diamond
The Stranger- Albert Camus
Education's End (Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life)- Anthony Kronman
The God Delusion- Richard Dawkins
The Lost Continent- Bill Bryson
The Tao of Pooh- Benjamin Hoff
On Writing- Stephen King
The Boleyn Inheritance- Philippa Gregory (lent to me by my waxer, the greatest waxer ever)
Unaccustomed Earth- Jhumpa Lahiri
The Tales of the Beedle Bard- J.K. Rowling
Outliers (The Story of Success)- Malcolm Gladwell
The Vagina Monologues- Eve Enlser
The Audacity of Hope- Barack Obama
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lenox- Maggie O'Farrell
How I Learned to Cook (& Other Writings on Complex Mother Daughter Relationships)- Margo Perin
Special Topics in Calamity Physics- Marisha Pessl
Rescuing Patty Hearst (Memories from a Decade Gone Mad)- Virginia Holman
Loving Frank- Nancy Horan
The Killer Angels- Michael Shaara

Altogether, there are 19 books on this list. I'm hoping to get them all read by the summer, cause frankly- I don't think i'll be able to avoid buying books much past that. I've also decided I am allowed to borrow books, if i'm desperate for one in particular.
I think the first book i'm going to start- tonight, probably- will be Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell. After the Twilight drama, i think i need some non-fiction. Plus, I love his other stuff.

Wish my luck, my friends. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, Leo

When I was younger, I was in love with Leonardo DiCaprio. Full on, thirteen year old love- which probably started before I was thirteen and definitely lasted longer than that. I saw Romeo and Juliet multiple times in the theater, Titanic even more. Once or twice I even threw him a birthday party- which consisted of my dragging my friends over to my house to watch some of him movies and revel in his wonderfulness. (btw his birthday is November 11th, veteran's day).
He was not my first love, just the most influential during my formative years. I was always a fan of dramatic love, for many reasons. I'm a girl- and not to make drastic generalizations here, but i'm a romantic. I want to believe in a deeper kind of love. Which brings me to my point.

I am someone who feels things....strongly. I've had this trait described as: opinionated, argumentative, feisty, 'overdramatic'/drama queen, and bitch. I prefer the term....passionate. I feel most alive when i'm feeling things deeply, or discussing them or fighting about them, etc. I'm not always right, god knows, but then it's not really about that, is it? The point is that this is a trait I actually like about myself, maybe even one of my favorites. When I die i'd like at least one person to be able to remember me as someone who felt passionately about life (certain parts of it, at least). And I realized something recently. I was afraid I had lost my passion.

Time went on, I stopped having birthday parties for Leonardo, and now only faintly nod my hat to him on Nov. 11th. I became more aware of his hit-or-miss acting, moved onto other celebrity crushes, attempted to find my own dramatic lover- failing miserably, and life just kind of kept moving. See, i'm at a place right now that's actually pretty good. I am happy- I don't feel any inkling of the depression that crept up on me a year or two ago. I'm relaxed, I have a good job, good friends, a good life- and even some semblance of a life plan (when i'm not panicking about it). But I think I let the passion go by the wayside. I noticed, or rather failed to notice, any real sense of inspiration. No 'pep in my step', you could say. Again, not depression, just a complacency with life and where i'm at. Normal people would be ok with this. It's safe to say i'm not always normal.

After Christmas I started reading the Twilight series. I know, I have mentioned this before. I quickly became obsessed, aquired all four books and read them til all hours of the night- going on fewer hours of sleep and spending all my free time in this make-believe world. And truthfully, it scared the crap out of me. I felt like I was thirteen again, and I feared I was regressing- but why? I was afraid to finish the series because I didn't want to miss the characters, but I also didn't want to let myself keep reading, because I realize that an obsession this intense is ridiculous. But is it? I went back to my therapist to get a grip on reality, and hear a dose of "you're being whiny and ridiculous and too hard on yourself". I talked about how I realized I was afraid I had lost this passion in my life, because these books brought it back so strongly. I kind of forgot what it was like to feel like that about something. And once I realized that's what it was, just my previously unchanneled passion finally regaining some ground in my subconcious (ok, and consciousness), I felt better about the whole thing. Frankly, it was a relief to realize I never lost that ability to feel so deeply. I think that in adjusting to my new job, where I hear so many feelings during the course of a day, I've been learning to compartmentalize as a defense mechanism (no one likes to bring their work home). I just forgot which compartment I left my own stuff in, and they collected dust for a little while. It appears I've found the key and re-opened that drawer, cause i'm now feeling everything a little bit more strongly. Nothing too outrageous, just a little jolt. And it feels much better. I was able to realize that i'm kind of bored at work- and I need to find things to make my life feel more like my life. I want to take this writing class through Temple (kind of like the architecture class I took last summer), and I'd like to start going out on dates again, although with whom is still a mystery (since Bob the pharmacist is MIA).

Also, I finished the Twilight series tonight. And it was good. I don't feel sad, because the series ended well. I didn't cry, like when Harry Potter ended, cause let's face it the Twilight books are no Harry Potter. And besides, I have piles of other books to get started on, and hopefully they'll continue to keep me interested and make me feel things, both good and bad. Cause that's what books and movies-all things entertainment- are supposed to do. And until I have more of my own passionate love stories and intellectual challenges, they'll have to do.

But it all comes back to Leonardo DiCaprio. Last weekend, he was at the Golden Globes with Kate Winslet. He lost, but she won- twice. She thanked him in her second speech, and I got all choked up (as did they), because damn, he is still quite good looking- and they seem to be genuine friends. And isn't it always nice when that happens? I saw Revolutionary Road today- the movie they are currently in together. It was depressing, but well done. He overacted at parts, but he still cries the same, and he is still fairly good at emoting. Kate Winslet was amazing, as per usual, but it was him I went to see. To say hello to my old crush, and wish him a belated happy birthday. Thanks for the memories, Leo.

Ok. We're seven days into the new year. I've already painted one wall in my apartment (its an accent wall, i'm not just being lazy), had one major freak out, talked myself out of said freak out, corrected my posture three times, and have become completely obsessed with the Twilight series (but bought no new books!). I'm kind of tired.

Here is my accent wall- i love it:

Good color, right? It's jalepeno red. Very warm and inviting.

And alright so Twilight? I don't know what happened... I saw the movie and got curious. The writing is not stellar, but I got drawn into the story, and find myself having to ration out the chapters so I don't finish the book before getting the next one (wink wink Kim- bring me the next one friday!) in any event- my obsession probably has to do with my lack of real life at the moment. but it's only seven days in- there's still time for me to salvage 2009. I think- so far, so good! or so ok at least.

Holiday Edition

Happy New Year!

So i've been in hibernation the past few days/weeks/whatever, but i'm back now. Welcome to my life in 2009!

But first- the holidays.... I went home to Long Island for Christmas, where I spent time with family and friends and Bing (Crosby...cause it ain't christmas without Bing, in my opinion). Want to see some pictures?Ok so this is how we do christmas- the family comes over to my mom's house for dinner, followed by presents at Auntie Mo's. This was 'recession christmas', although you can't really tell from all the presents under the tree. But we have a big family, so sadly, they're not all for me.

This is Auntie Mo and Larry- I think you get a pretty good idea of what they're like.....


And this is Arielle and Ben, wearing their cheese apparell, given as a gift by Kim- student at the University of Wisconsin. The enthusiasm arielle showed when opening this gift was unparalleled. seriously. Some of my favorite gifts were LL Bean fleece-lined slipper booties, which i basically don't take off inside the house, a really cool old camera to add to my collection of old cameras, and some books (which are always appreciated).

Now we move on to friends...Friday after christmas, I met Celine in the city for lunch, which was awesome, since we haven't seen each other in two years! Sadly I didn't take any pictures, but it was fun catching up and she gave me 3 amazing mixes for xmas.
Friday night I went out with the boys (plus victoria) from high school. We saw Gran Torino and had dinner at Chili's, just like the old days. It had definitely been too long since we all hung out. To commemorate, we took a picture- similar to the one we all have framed from three (?) years ago. Here- take a look.
So Todd's eye's are closed in the picture on the left. And he and Victoria's dog (lily) is eating his face in the one on the right. But Matt and Marc are in back, and Victoria is the girl who's not me. We're quite the gang.




So I headed back to Philly and begrudingly had to work this past week for two and a half days. But then had a glorious four and a half days off, for which I went into my mini-hibernation to ride out the New Year. I've never been one for New Year's eve- too much expectation. So i spent my night laying low, listening to music, reading, pondering my resolutions and the year to come.
Here's what I came up with:
2009 will be the year I improve my posture, hopefully try my hand at driving a stick shift, control my frivolous spending (aka acknowledge the recession), and finally- try and control my compulsive book-buying. I have 3 stacks of books marked 'to read', and its about time i stopped adding to the piles. So i'm gonna do my best to widdle down the 'to read' into the 'have read' before indulging my vice of buying any more books.

I'm staying away from the traditional 'i'm going to go to the gym and lose 20 lbs' resolutions, as that would never work. But I am going to continue trying to live more healthy, and figure out my life. It's a work in progress, obviously. Lucky for you- you get a front row seat.

Escape from Bangkok

Ok, so i've technically been home for a while now. But what can I say, these things take time. And i've been busy readjusting and working and getting ready for the holidays. But here it is!

As some of you may or may not know, about a month ago I went with my mother on a vacation to Thailand- land of smiles (I believe that's the slogan, I didn't make it up or anything). We spent two weeks being driven around the beautiful country, eating delicious food and praying at buddist temples (ok maybe we didn't actually pray, but we saw A LOT of temples). Our guides for most of the trip were my mom's friend Abe and his wife, Anong. Anong is thai, and therefore speaks the language and was able to help us out with everything from ordering at restaurants to bargaining at the markets. We enjoyed a wonderful two weeks....

However, upon our arrival in Bangkok, we were greeted with the beginning of the protests by the PAD (a people's democracy party) against the government- specifically the prime minister. See, a few years ago, Thailand was under the thumb of a wee dictator, Thaksin. He was exiled a few years ago, and the country is now run by his brother in law, who apparently, is not very popular. The PAD feel that the country was continuing to be run by Thaksin through this puppet leader, and staged a sit-in to protest and try and force the Prime Minister to resign. Unfortunately for any travelers in Thailand, they decided to 'sit-in' at the airport.... we flew into Bangkok threw the domestic airport, since we were already in the country. At this point the international airport had already been closed for a day. The day after we got there, the domestic airport closed down as well.

At first we decided to ignore it. Everyone kept telling us things would die down and the airports would reopen in no time, allowing us to leave on time- on Friday November 28th (the day after thanksgiving). We toured around the city, and outside the city, and had an overall great time (pictures to come....) However each day we heard the same thing "still closed...i'm sure it'll be cleared up by tomorrow". Yeah, we were only supposed to be in Bangkok for 3 days. On thanksgiving night I said a prayer that there would be a coup (which we were told there would be, a 'nonviolent' one though, don't worry) and for us to be able to pack up on time. We hoped and prayed and planned for things to go smoothly. Unfortunately, that wasn't in the cards. We woke up friday morning to a continued standoff and both airports still closed.

After being informed of this, still in my luxurious bed at our gorgeous hotel, i promptly threw a fit. An all out toddler sized tantrum, with flailing limbs and whining- to my gracious mother, who wanted nothing more than to be able to leave just like I did. We had been scheduled to fly that night on an 11:30pm flight to Tokyo, and catch our connection back to New York Saturday morning. I looked at my mother at some point that morning (over our stupidly large breakfast?) an said "we need to get to Tokyo", like, now. And that was it. My mom, my wonderful mother, got on the horn to her travel agent- Peggy. A goddess of a travel agent, really. They debated our options. There are 2 other airports in Thailand that fly internationally, one in the North/West and one in the South, 7 and 11 hours away, respectively. Neither of them had flights to Tokyo. Neither of them had available flights anywhere, as apparently we were way behind on the 'fleeing Bangkok' idea. Peggy could, however, get us a flight out of Cambodia that evening- in the right direction. Cambodia? How far away was that? Are we even allowed into Cambodia? this is kind of what it was like friday morning. My mom told me to start packing, just in case we found a solution. She then went off to talk to our tour guide, Tom (Abe and Anong didn't accompany us to Bangkok) in the lobby of the hotel. It turns out, the border of Cambodia is three hours from Bangkok, and you need a visa to get in. Luckily, visas were supposedly easy to get. Our guide and driver agreed to drive us to the border and help us get across and to the airport (another 3 hour drive). We packed up our things and hightailed it out of there. We were off on an adventure!

Of course, my mother thought we were going to die in a ditch somewhere in Cambodia, but I had faith in our plan.

So, we left our hotel at 11:15am. Our flight out of Cambodia (Siem Reap) was at 9:15pm. we had exactly 10 hours to get there. We got to the border in 3 hours, as promised. We then looked for a place to buy a visa. It turns out, right near the border there's a big market- and inside is a travel agency which happens to sell visas and helps people cross into Cambodia. How convenient. We bought some visas, which I thought might be like pieces of paper we were supposed to hand to someone cause it looked sketchy like that- but no they were real visas that got placed into our passports and everything. At this point we had to leave Tom our tour guide, as he wasn't allowed to cross the border with us. Relations between Thailand and Cambodia aren't hostile, per se, but they're not exactly buddy-buddy. So Tom helped us hire one of the agents to walk with us across the border and get us to a van on the other side, which we paid to take us to the airport. Of course we only paid half before hand, to help ensure they wouldn't dick us over and kill us in Cambodia (for mom's sanity). The guy, who never actually told us his name, was nice. He walked with us to the border, as our luggage was loaded into an ox cart and hauled across by another nameless guy (i'm not kidding- see photo for proof!)So, we stood on line in the immigration building to leave Thailand. They stamped our passport, as we officially exited the country, to meet our agent on the other side (he had some kind of pass so he could pass over the border multiple times a day without trouble). Then we entered 'No Man's Land". Most borders have this- the small plot of land technically in between two countries. Yeah, this one was depressing. I put my camera away because honestly, I was trying to fit in and avoid being mugged or anything else that may happen in a No Man's Land. The only building there was a large casino- and it looked like if you went in you'd have to fight (or win) your way back out. Uh Uh. Not me. I stood outside.

Now, the line to get into Cambodia, for those of you who may one day go on this route, is three hours long. There's only one guy working in the immigration kiosk. We did not have time for that, as it was already after 3, and mom was starting to stress again about getting to the airport on time (flight in T-minus 6 hours). The travel agent suggested we bribe a Cambodian policeman to stamp our passports in five minutes and enable us to bypass the immigration line. We, of course, readily agreed. Mom handed over 1000 Baht (about $30) and the agent took our passports into this hut and handed them to the police officer. I saw him from outside. The unsettling part was when he came back out without our passports. "umm where's my passport" I asked him. "oh the policeman has it" he responded. "yeah, so where's the policeman? I'd like my passport back". "he's going to meet us on the other side of this courtyard in five minutes". SAY WHAT. Now we're two American's hanging out in no man's land outside a casino in between two not so very friendly countries. Days after the Mumbai attacks (for those of you who missed that- British and American tourists were targeted. As were some jews. We're 2 for 2 on that one). I was not about to be relaxed about missing my passport. So i walked, alongside the luggage oxcart, basically shitting myself having images of working my life away in the sad casino, until the guy came running back over with our passports in hand. Never in my life was I so grateful to have a passport.

After that we just kind of strolled over the border. One guy almost asked to see my passport, but when he saw I was walking w/ the travel agent, didn't even bother asking. It was weird. I felt a little guilty walking past the long line of people waiting to get their passports stamped, but honestly- not that guilty. they could bribe a policeman too if they had thought of it.

So the agent tells us to get on a bus. At which point mom freaks out again cause we've hired a private van. But he assures us we have to take the bus to the van. And we'll only be on it for 10 minutes. Ok. Fine. I can handle that. It's an old rickety bus, holding at least 30 people and all their luggage INSIDE the bus, not on the bottom or on the roof. So it was crowded. And they wouldn't let us open the windows. So, minimal torture basically. And we had to wait for them to fill the bus up, so this bus driver could make some money on the trip. Apparenty most of the people were taking this bus (with no air or bathroom) to the airport we were going to, but it would take them almost twice as long (supposedly). We didn't ask a lot of questions, except for where the hell our van was.
But the ride was only 10 or 15 minutes, as promised. Down a bumpy dirt road to an abandoned building- which was the 'bus station'. We got off, made sure all the correct luggage was with us, and waited for our van. It was here we met a Canadian born doctor who was living in Phom Phen working at a clinic with 10,000 orphans. He was nice, and talked to us about Cambodian culture.

Then our van arrived, with the nicest couple ever. The driver spoke almost perfect english, much better than we heard in Thailand, and though his wife didn't speak any english, she brought a cooler with water for us. Neither of us really ate or drank all day though, cause we knew there was gonna be no stopping for the bathroom (and cause mom was too stressed to eat). So it's now 4pm. The driver says its a 3 hour ride to the airport, Siem Reap. Mom of course is cautious, but I have a feeling we're not going to die in a ditches today. And three hours is plenty of time to make our flight. So we settled into the van, and off we went. Straight shot down "National Highway #5"- aka- the biggest and bumpiest dirt road you've ever seen.

In Cambodia, everyone drives in the middle of the road. When someone is coming the other way, you honk and get to your own side, then return to the middle. When you want to pass someone, you honk a lot, pass them, then return to the middle. It's kind of crazy, but it works.

I had my face pressed up against the glass for most of the trip, because I was so fascinated by what I saw all around me. Cambodia is very different from Thailand. As the Canadian doctor told us, "it was bombed back to the stone age- how do you expect it to look?". It's still very third world-ish. Dirt road, wherever there was an attempt to modernize there were detour signs cause the road wasn't finished. So ever five minutes we were dipping into the shoulder. People on all sides were fishing, with nets or rods or whatever they had. 85% of the people I saw were not wearing shoes. The cows seemed more domesticated, tied up in the front yards of the houses on the roads. and the houses were definitely run down and made of more primitive materials. There were large cement buildings, but they were mostly deserted. People lived along the road in huts, which didn't appear to have much electricity. As the sun went down, I noticed that there seemed to be one light to a house, and it was in a family area where the families were sitting to have dinner. No tvs, no lights on upstairs. This was also very different from Thailand, where no matter what kind of shack you lived in you had a sattelite dish parked outside. This was definitely something else.

At one point during this ride, when mom seemed to realize things were going ok- she looked at me and said "we should be in a movie". And i thought- 'you mean this isn't one? i thought we were getting punk'd'. But I was glad she was calming down. When Moo is stressed, everyone is stressed.

We pulled up to the airport around 7, and our sweet van driver stayed outside to make sure our flight was ok and we had checked in. I'm telling you- nicest guy ever. We got stuck in the check-in line behind a large group of italian tourists, but at that point it was like "well, we're in Cambodia, and we made our flight- so we can't ask for much else". When we got into the gate area- for your information there were only 2 gates in the whole place- mom went straight to the little massage parlor they had- and got a 30 minute foot massage. Which by this point, was just enough time before boarding the plane. I decided to peruse the magazine racks and buy a croissant from the cafe (after not eating since breakfast i wasn't being too picky).

We eventually got on the plane, which left reasonably on time, and landed in Hanoi, Vietnam around 10:40pm. That's right- we hightailed it to Hanoi! We had a 2 hour layover before our flight to Tokyo, which we spent on the internet in the buisness class lounge (once we could find it- Hanoi is not the most organized of places in the middle of the night) and then got on our flight to Tokyo. At this point I was so exhausted from driving all day that I slept for most of the 4 1/2 hour flight. Japan is also two hours ahead of Thailand/Cambodia/Vietnam. So we arrived in Tokyo just before 7:30am saturday morning. I was still exhausted, but we had made it to Tokyo in time for our original flight home. Mom and I were the first people in the lounge, where I promptly passed out in my comfy pj-like clothes. Eye mask included. When I woke up a few hours later, I was surrounded by business men in suits and ladies dressed to impress. Oops. No one told me i'd have to look pretty after 24 hours of travel with one flight left to go. I went and bought lip gloss in the duty free shop.

And then we boarded our plane, JAL flight 6 to JFK New York. When the plane took off, I looked at my mother in some shock and awe and said "I can't believe we really made this plane. You got us to Tokyo". She just smiled. Cause that's what Evelyn does.

Eleven hours later we touched down at JFK. We basically sped through immigration, and when the guy said "welcome back" i said "you don't know the half of it". After 36 hours of traveling, we made it home, on time, with all our luggage. It was a thanksgiving miracle. Well, in any event I certainly did have something to be thankful for. And let's just say it'll be a while before I go on another long trip like that again....But you know, what's a trip to Asia without some political turmoil and border corruption?






*postscript- the airports in Bangkok were closed for a whole week, reopening the tuesday or wednesday after we got back to New York. However, due to the damage done while the demonstrators were there, it took longer for flights to begin leaving on schedule. We don't even know how long we would have been stuck there had we not left on our journey when we did.

**pps- even though my mom thought we were going to die in a ditch in Cambodia for most of the day, her orchestrating our escape and getting us to Tokyo in time for our original connecting flight- is one of the reasons she rocks. That's just how we roll in our family....

Sunday Night, and not any Blues in sight

I'm the type of person who has the sunday night blues. not really 'blues' in that i'm sad or anything. i just feel kind of anxious about the week. will i get to sleep? did i get everything done i needed to get done this weekend? what's coming up this week? it's not my most proud feature, but hey, there it is.
however, tonight i am not really feel very blue. i'm just tired. overtired, probably. i took the psychology gre on saturday- which i'd been studying for for two months straight. and today i went to an open house at chestnut hill college. another thing to cross off my list. the only thing standing in the way of me and thailand now is 2 applications, the essays for those applications, packing, oh, and about 20 clients. but it's getting closer!
i did something today i hadn't done in a while. well, two things actually. the first is i went for a drive. to a new place, to look around. well, technically chestnut hill isn't 'new'. but it is cute, and i hadn't been there in a while. and it made me feel good to get out and just drive for a little while.
the second thing was revisit some old music. i bit the bullet today and sat down to write my application essay. i figured it was about time, since you know, the application is going out this week. i put on Radiohead- the Bends. possibly one of my top 5 all time favorite albums. I was a latecomer to radiohead, only being introduced to them formally senior year of college. but let me tell you, this album got me through the entire spring semester of my senior year. i probably wouldn't have written a thesis without radiohead. so here i was- writersblock, a deadline- i went to my old friends. and it worked! i blared 'fake plastic trees' and words started flowing. what can i say, some things don't change. be thankful for small miracles.

Call of Duty

and no, i'm not talking about the video game. I couldn't sleep last night because I was so nervous about the election. I'm not taking anything for granted, and I can't read any more articles. Last night, I went to bed genuinely scared about what would happen today. Would people chicken out once they were alone in the voting booth? Is the Bradley effect a reality? How could we possibly deal if McCain won?
And I woke up- excited. Bubbly. Like a kid on the first day of school (well, if you were a dorky kid like me). I couldn't wait to vote!!! Seriously- I was so excited. I voted four years ago, but wasn't really excited about it. This time, I wanted to sit outside the polls all day and just watch people vote. That's how excited I am.
On my way to work the line to vote came out of the pizza shop (yes, i vote in a pizza shop) and went halfway down the block. at 8am! So I went on to work because I couldn't be late for my early clients. My kind and caring bosses at work let us go half an hour early today to get back home to vote- so when I did get to my pizza shop- the line was gone! It was fate! I stepped into the booth and kissed my Obama vote up to God, pressed the button, and smiled with glee. I get to vote. I get to make a difference. Sure, i'm one person. You're one person. We're all only one person. But together, we really can change the world. And tonight, fingers crossed, we will win.
I may stay up all night to witness the change I want actually happen. If Obama wins, I will be really proud of our country. I will get to tell my children and grandchildren that I participated in the election of the first African American President. And that I supported him 150%. I don't know if people really understand what a big deal that is. yes, we as a country have come a long way since slavery. But the civil rights movement was only 40-50 years ago. In our parent's lifetimes there was inequality and segregation and discrimination. And tonight Barack Obama will hopefully become the leader of our nation. This is huge. Really huge.
And I could not be more proud to be a part of it.