grad school
23 Jan 2012

2012: week three

January 15 – January 21

Sunday: Boyfriend wanted to go out to a bar in the 5 degree weather. Convinced him to stay home and play video games instead. Win.

Monday: Fact-checked book reviews, mailed packages to reviewers, pulled books on a shelf, and let a friend take me out to Olive Garden for unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks!

Tuesday: Came in second place at pub trivia! Our gracious (and smarter than us) teammates allowed us to keep the winnings (25 dollars at the bar)

Wednesday: Decided to go to the gym after my internship, which entailed a long, painful T ride that involved waiting for 20 minutes in a station with an unattractive girl with a cold singing country hits over a microphone.

Thursday: My boss returned from her sabbatical and took me out to lunch!

Friday: Worked late, came home late, skipped the gym, cleaned, packed, ran stupid errands, made plans to go….

Saturday: … to New York for the day, to celebrate our anniversary! Left on the 7 a.m. bus, got back into town just after midnight.

Reading:

Listening to:

 

books
23 Jan 2012

seven little things about books

1. The 2012 ALA Youth Media Awards are announced this morning at 8:30 EST. I have two extra-special reasons to be excited about this.

2. Reason #1: My adviser/head of my MA program is on the Caldecott committee for this round

3. Reason #2: Tomorrow is my internship day; certainly there should be some buzz around the office!

4. After almost a year’s worth of buzz, I finally got my hot little hands on Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs, and then proceeded not to read it for like, two months.

But after hearing one of my professors rave about it last week at her annual “best of the year” book talk, I decided I should kick things into gear; Lance and I took a little anniversary trip into Manhattan on Saturday and I took this book (and ONLY this book) with me to read on the four-hour bus ride.

So far, I am glad I did! I am loving the obscenely artful literary allusions, especially: she pulls from many children’s books without naming titles, relying on your kidlit smarts to catch them. Ursu gives you the impression that the heroine – eleven-year-old Hazel – exists in a world where fiction bleeds over into life just a bit. And I think most longtime readers would find this a familiar concept.

 

5. Today is the first official day of the semester. I am taking two book related classes this semester, my last semester:

  • Young Adult Literature (the library edition)
  • Information Sources for Children (lookin’ at nonfiction books!)

 

6. There is one thought that gives me a great deal of comfort when I am feeling stressed:

No matter what happens when you graduate in May, Jessica, one thing will happen for certain:

you will be able to read whatever you want whenever you want

for the rest of your life!

7. This will give me comfort when I am soon forced to return all the I-didn’t-get-time-to-read-you books to the library.

Goodbye, friends! We will meet again someday!

 

 

lance romance
22 Jan 2012

Love Letter 2012

Dear Lance,

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Thanks for eight great years, my love.

Seems like a long time, but I think we’re still lookin’ good.

Happy anniversary!

Yours and yours and yours,

Jessica

 

books
19 Jan 2012

A Child Called “It”

Can we talk for a minute about this book?

Actually, talking about this book is the last thing I want to do. The first thing I want to do? Throw it across the room. Dig a hole and bury it. Bring it back to the library. Any one of those.

This is a Syllabus Book. I understand why it is a Syllabus Book – I worked at a public library’s youth department for a few years, and this title was EXTREMELY popular with the 5th and 6th grad crowd. But I am just not sure I’m going to be able to make it through.

A Child Called “It” is a memoir of a victim of extreme child abuse. I think there is some controversy as to whether or not this book is truthful – see: this really long article from the New York Times – but I don’t even really care about that. Fiction or non-fiction, this book is horrifically graphic.

Today, reading while standing on the bus, I had to put the book down because I feared that I might vomit/pass out/generally become incapacitated. I sat in the first seat I could find and had to skip pages. There is only one other book that I have ever had to stop reading due to utter revulsion: the story “Guts” from Chuck Pahlaniuk’s Haunted, a story that according to Wikipedia has caused over 70 people to faint during public readings.

Maybe this is supposed to be an uplifting tale of overcoming challenges. Maybe because it’s “memoir” – some tangible version of a real person’s life – then that means it is worthwhile to exist, because all people’s stories are worthwhile.

Or maybe it’s torture porn. Something else I couldn’t finish because it had me feeling sick and weird in the exact same way? The movie Hostel.

Maybe I will get some insights on why kids like this book once we talk about it in class, but right now I’m finding it hard to believe that ANYONE would like it.

5
boston
17 Jan 2012

beginning of the end

It finally snowed in Boston. Teacher Boyfriend had his first snow delay and is still in bed, snoozing.

Lucky boy. I am awake, trying to re-train myself to rise early so I have a fighting chance at surviving this next semester.

This next semester, which starts next week. (gag)

This next semester, which is my LAST semester. (gag gag)

So much context to think about, to worry about, to get stressed about, but then there’s the whole DOING it part that doesn’t allow for much thinking/stress/worry, lest you get behind.

I’m sure there’s a metaphor for life in there somewhere, but I think I’m just going to ignore it for now, put my boots on, put my head down, and get going.

life maintenance
16 Jan 2012

2012: week two

January 8 – January 14

My dearest, darlingest roommate moved out this week, so this past week was a stupor of Last This and Last That and moving trucks and cleaning and rearranging and feeling mopey.

To soothe myself, I watched many discs of Gilmore Girls while using my expensive new piece of computer equipment… to play Bejeweled.

Also, began my Spring internship. Highlight so far? I have access to a nearly unlimited supply of free, for-keeps audiobooks. Be still my heart.

Reading:

book reviews
15 Jan 2012

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Do you like to do research before you read a book? Do you browse reviews, check out the author’s website, look it up on Goodreads to see what your friends thought about it?

About a year ago, I stopped doing all of that because I am reading for school. There is no negotiation – Jessica, you will read this book whether you like it or not – so I stopped even reading the back of the book. Who cares if anyone likes it, who blurbed it… who cares what the book is even about?

Suprisingly, I have come to enjoy reading books blind. It’s a bit more suspenseful, first of all – when you jump into the first chapter of a book, it’s fun to feel disoriented for those first few chapters and have to slowly make your way to what the book is about. But more notably, I’ve found that I do end up enjoying books that would otherwise scare me off.

See: Maureen Johnson’s The Name of the Star.

  • Set in London (I’m not much of an Anglophile… and those that are tend to to leave me feel alienated? I have issues)
  • Serial killer plotline (Gross. I’m a delicate flower.)
  • First in a series (Standalone fiction is not yet dead, right? Anyone? Anyone!?)
  • Maureen Johnson (I like her books but for some reason I always wish I liked them more… I don’t know)

 

So no, I would not have wanted to read this book. In fact, I was aware of its publication and after seeing the G-word, decided not to seek it out.

But the syllabus strikes again. I opened this book last week without knowing much else other than GHOSTS, but I was surprised how quickly the plot swept me up, how much I liked the characters and the setting, and how the GHOSTS didn’t bother me as much as I assumed they would.

One thing Johnson really does excel at is the kind of understated but complex female heroines that you don’t necessarily feel a great affinity towards, but you like them. You want to be friends with them. You think they are sincerely interesting and cool people. Rory Devereaux is one such heroine. The child of two Louisana professors, Rory is excited to spend a year with her parents on sabbatical in Bristol, England. She chooses to apply to a selective boarding school in London because she can – why not live out the true “England” experience while abroad? – but her arrival to Wexford coincides with a serial killer’s first strike. The killer seems to be recreating the Jack the Ripper killings that took place in the same neighborhood as Rory’s school, but nobody can figure out how the crimes are committed, much less by whom. While Rory tries to make friends, find a little romance, and succeed at school, she also becomes a pseudo-witness to one of these crimes, which eventually pulls her into a web of paranormal crimefighters.

One additional point of praise I might offer this novel before I end this overview: the ending. So how is the ending of a series book supposed to end? It is supposed to entice you into reading the next volume of the series. These overblown cliffhanger endings are why I have grown suspicious of most series titles. I’m sorry, but I get annoyed when a book ends and NONE of the central plot conflicts have been resolved, when the only thing encouraging me to read more is that YOU HAVE LEFT EVERYTHING DELIBERATELY HALF-WRITTEN. That is manipulative. The Name of the Star has a perfectly independent structure that does not require you to keep reading. The book ends not on a “what will happen next?!?!!!!” cliffhanger, but a well-played combination of  a subtle “where will Rory go next?” feeling of honest curiosity combined with a last-page paranormal moment so bizarre and unexplainable that you can’t help but wondering “what COULD happen next?”

So kudos to you, Johnson. You have written a ghost book that this skeptic can get behind with a likeable, complex heroine, complete with a completely commendable ending. Kudos!

grad school
14 Jan 2012

dear roommate

I am sad that you had to leave, and that I hope I didn’t make it too hard for you to go. Or too easy. I was aiming for something in the middle.

Anyway, I could really sit here and think about the reasons I will miss you all day, but here are just a few examples, to help you visualize how much you will be missed:

1. If I accidentally eat too many eggs and run out before I can buy more? No breakfast for me.

2. Never again will the words “So, there’s this lady whose blog I read…” leave my mouth. Really. Never! Who would I say that to, other than you?

3. I am back in the eating-brunch minority. My brunch intake will decrease dramatically. (Side note: why are 2/3 of my first examples breakfast-related? I have issues)

4. Bad things that will probably happen over the next 6 months: my library books will go overdue, I will lock myself out of the apartment more than once, Peach will meow sadly by her food dish during the day, I will have to go to bars with boys by myself.

5. Nobody will call the cops on the downstairs neighbors! Their late-night domestic disputes will go unpunished. Also, with fewer people around the house to eavesdrop, I will surely miss out on some of their choicier dialog, as will you! A highlight from last night’s discussion? “I can’t BELIEVE that I have allowed myself to be manipulated like this… BY A WOMAN!” And from today, “No, YOU’RE A FART-FACE!”

6. Additionally, nobody will believe that these quotes are real, other than you.

 

There are plus sides, too, I suppose. Peach now has her own room. She is currently sleeping in it – laying on a blanket, of course. And I’ve entered a phase of existence that feels much like what I do when I have a break-up: I suddenly realize how much time there is in a day. All the time spent hanging out and telling “so there’s this lady whose blog I read” stories has to go somewhere, I suppose, so I’ve been doing such things as A) going to bed even earlier (didn’t think it was possible, but hey!) B) forcing my boyfriend to have really long discussions about such comfortable topics such as religion (lucky Lance!), and C) going to the gym a lot. Yes, I realize you’ve been gone for like, 2 days, but believe me that all of those things have happened in 48 hours. If I can keep it up, maybe my life/relationship/waistline will be better, once I recover from my loss.

Maybe.

Probably not, but maybe.

But despite all of my bullshit, I hope that your move brings you joy and prosperity, I really do. Please move somewhere awesome so A) you will have a subsequently awesome life B) I can visit you all the time for vacations or C) I can force you to hire me at your library and move in with you against your will.

I really just wanted to tell you, though, how much fun I had these past few years, and that I am deeply worried I will never find another friend quite as awesome as you.

You will be a hard act to follow, so let’s just be friends forever, mkay?

Sincerely yours,

Your Roommate

P.S. Shout out to Faryle who, almost 3 years ago now, made this post possible. Forever grateful that you passed this lady off to me.

life maintenance
09 Jan 2012

2012: week one

January 1 – January 7

  • First week back from Michigan. Jumped right from vacation to working, but feel a little mentally unprepared for the upcoming semester. I feel about three steps behind never quite ready for what’s going to happen next week, tomorrow, later this afternoon. Stuff like “laundry” and “grocery shopping” and “cleaning up” seems incredibly challenging. Hopefully I will snap out of it.
  • A bit on edge. Catch myself clenching my jaw unconsciously. Headaches. A migraine on Thursday.
  • Watching: How I Met Your Mother, season 5
  • Reading:
  • Thinking about:
    • My resume
    • How to slice some $$$ from our grocery budget.
    • My sister and her sick gall bladder/subsequent surgery.
    • How much I will miss my roommate and how and when we will be reunited in the future.
    • Exciting upcoming mail deliveries.
  • Major accomplishments:
    • Beating Zelda Twilight Princess.
    • Going to the gym 3 days in a row.