Aren't thunderstorms beautiful?!
I adore the sight of them just as much as I love the cracking noise of thunders and the sound of raindrops on my windowsill. So calming, so whimsical, as it was a symphony of the sky...
May 24, 2010
“Writing is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.”— Graham Greene
Image is from www.weheartit.com.
I hate Sundays...
I do know that it's Monday already but because I'm home this weekend and going back to the dorm tomorrow, plus it's bank holiday today it soooo feels like Sunday... I detest Sunday from the buttom of my heart, especially Sunday afternoons. Because it means that it's the end of the weekend, and they are unbearably long and depressing. Not to mention that there is that extra pressure on you that Monday will be here in a few hours. It's also the beginning of a new week, and I wasted yet another long weekend, did nothing useful, and I still have so much to do, so many tasks unticked on my to do list...
Let's Play!
So here's a game I bumped into:
- Go to Google image search.- Type in your answer to each question.- Choose a picture from the first page.- Use this website (http://bighugelabs.com/flickr/mosaic.php) to make your collage.
I thought I would give it a shot and play a little bit...
QUESTIONS:
1. What is your name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What is your hometown?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. What is your favorite movie?
6. What is your favorite drink?
7. What is your dream vacation?
8. What is your favorite dessert?
9. What is one word to describe you?
10. How are you feeling right now?
11. What do you love most in the world?
12. What do you want to be when you grow up?
Things That Make Me Happy - Taking a long hot bath
"There must be quite a few things that a hot bath won't cure, but I don't know many of them." Sylvia Plath
...and neither do I know. I love taking long hot baths, especially since I rarely get to do it for I live in a dorm where I take showers. I go home only once or twice a month but then I take over the bathroom for a good couple of hours, bring the current issue of Marie Claire or the book I'm reading in with me and just enjoy myself, the water, and the peace and quiet. Boy, do I love it!
May 15, 2010
Just a quote...
“Don’t try to be different. Just be good. To be good is different enough.”
Image is from weheartit.com.
Image is from weheartit.com.
May 9, 2010
Things That Make Me Happy - Being on the Road (surprize, surprize)
"I was beginning to get the bug like Dean. He was simply a youth tremendously excited with life, and though he was a con-man, he was only conning because he wanted so much to live and to get involved with people who would otherwise pay no attention to him." - Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Ch. 1
Book of the Week: On the Road
"They danced down the streets like dingledodies, and I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interest me, because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn..."
This week I've been reading Jack Kerouac's classic, On the Road. Man, am I loving it!
A couple of weeks ago we discussed Allen Ginsberg's poetry in American Poetry class; naturally, we talked about the Beat Generation in detail. Of course, Kerouac's name came up too, since along with Ginsberg's Howl, On the Road is essential for those who want to get familiar with the Beat Generation. This put the bug into my ear, and I started thinking about reading it... Then I went to the library, and it was there, on the shelf, right in front of my eyes, whispering my name and begging me to take it off the shelf, lend it and read it already... So I did lend it, and started it in the very same evening. I read it aloud, just to myself, and immediately fell in love with the book, it's catching style, the way Kerouac writes about being on the road. Gosh, I want to do that too! I want to hitchhike my way through the US, or at least Europe. (Have nice plans, don't I?) Man, I wish I had the balls to do that! I'm dying to gain all that experience such a roadtrip gives you, I would love to get to know all those people, all of them being so different and fascinating. I am dying to travel, to be on the road, and see the world. I wish I could do that! ...And then I would write about it. I feel like I need new experiences that I could write about.
So, I'm reading On the Road, I'm about halfway into it, and I find it beautiful. It is like the most beautiful and mesmerizing thing I have ever read, words felt like magic on my lips when I uttered them. Believe it or not, I was actually pretty surprized to find myself not only liking but loving Kerouac, his style, and adventures, because I have already tried him last summer, and didn't like what he wrote at all. I started reading Maggy Cassidy about a year ago, but I struggled with it, I even put it down after about thirty pages because I just couldn't get used to his peculiar style, and that crazy, zigzagging way he wrote annoyed the heck out of me. Still, I gave Kerouac another chance, and started reading The Vanity of Duluoz, but I cannot honestly say that I enjoyed it. There were parts in that novel that entertained me, I liked the atmosphere he created, but most of the time I thought it was too much, over the top, a kind of showing off, and again, his peculiar style annoyed me. Yet, I fought myself through the novel, thinking "I cannot NOT like Jack Kerouac! Everyone loves him, that man was a genious, I must grow fond of him!". Nevertheless, I was reliefed when I was finally done with it. Still, On the Road remained on my reading list, because it's such a classic that I thought of it as a must-read regardless of my liking or disliking of Kerouac.
So I'm happy to be reading On the Road, and not only because I can tick off another book on my ever-growing list when I'm done with it, but because I actually love it. I guess this coming summer I shall give yet another chance to Kerouac's other works...
Bright Lights, Big City
...and here is another kind of book review, this one is of Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City. I read it right after I finished Gilbert's Eat Pray Love, and thought it would be a quick and easy read, that I would be done with it in no time. Then I got started, and my first impression was that it's rather strange. In fact, I found it hard to get used to Inerney's unique style and such a narrative I had never come across before. I even considered putting it off and not bothering with finishing it at all, thinking that maybe it simply wasn't my cup of tea.
But then somehow I managed to get used to this special syle as well as to the fact that Bright Lights, Big City is written in present tense, second person narrative. I probably had never read anything written in second person ("You are not the kind of guy who would be at a place like this at this time of the morning. But here you are, and you cannot say that the terrain is entirely unfamiliar, although the details are fuzzy."/1/), so I guess that's why I had problems understanding the story at first, getting the setting, and the narrator's point of view. However, a few pages later it all cleared up; in fact, I slowly grew fond of the story, and by the end I was in love with it.
The novel is about a 26 year old Ivy League-educated young man, and up-and-coming, aspiring writer with high hopes who seemingly lives the American dream: he lives in New York City, has a beautiful, blond, model wife, and works for a prestigious magazine. However, the truth is that he's a mess; in fact, he is having the crisis of his life, because his wife has dumped him, he hates his job (Verifying facts... it's got nothing to do with writing of any kind.), he gets fired, and he cannot write...Still, his main issue is not all these, but that he cannot deal with the loss of his mother who had died of cancer. He's trying to run away from his problems by going from parties to parties from dusk till dawn, getting drunk, and taking all kinds of drugs in all kinds of bathrooms with all kinds of women... He's generally lost in the Big City, just wondering around aimlessly, trying to hide, but there's got to be a point when he faces his issues. ("You know you will have to face her sooner or later, so it might as well be later. Much later." /83/) I don't want to give away all of the story, so let me just say that there is, indeed, light at end of the tunnel, just like Esther Greendwood finds the light by the end of Bell Jar. (Which is by the way quite my favorite novel by my undoubtedly favorite author, Sylvia Plath. I found some similarites between these two novels, so that's why I'm mentioning Bell Jar here.)
So Jay McInerney has managed to completely mesmerize me by the end of Brights Lights, Big City, for I fell in love with his style, the New York City atmosphere he can paint so wonderfully, and once again I got to peek into the private lives of the High-and-Mighty. Most importantly, the reason why I love and appreciate this book so much is because it raises such a vital question that most of the twentysomething, just-out-of-college, aspiring young-adults have to face at some point of their lives: will I remain only a high hope with a bright future that I could have had, or am I gonna be able to live up to the high expectations? Am I gonna be able to make it and stand still in the Big City, make all my dreams come true, and move up from aspiring to hotshot?
Am I?
Are you?
May 5, 2010
Things That Make Me Happy - Spring Showers
"After a heavy rainfall, poems titled RAIN pour in from across the nation." - Sylvia Plath once wrote, so I won't be yet another one who pours her heart out and writes an ode to rain. I'm only gonna say that I admire spring showers and thunderstorms, and I love the scent of rain just as much as I love the knocking sound of raindrops on my windowsill.
All images are from http://weheartit.com/.
May 4, 2010
A Kind of Book Review: Eat Pray Love
I haven't been writing much about my readings lately; still, for some reason I feel like I should, after all, I am just as much of a bookaholic/bookworm as I am of a scriboholic. Nevertheless, I've just realized that I haven't managed to read as much as I had planned to in the past month, and it's probably because I've been busy with some other stuff... Do you remember, that a little over 5 weeks ago Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love was the book of the week, and I was about halfway through it when I wrote about it. Well, it took me some time to read it, I even put it aside for a few days and read something else, but in the end I did manage to complete it. I'm happy to report that all in all and mosty I enjoyed it; however, I do have some controversial feelings about the book.
Eat Pray Love is basically about a thirtysomething writer living in New York, who, after a failed marriage, a tantalizing divorce, and a painful breakup, decides to take off for a year and spend four months in Italy, four months in India, and four months in Indonesia in order to find herself and her peace of mind. I always enjoy novels written in first person narrative, so no wonder I liked this one too, especially since Gilbert's style is fairly entertaining, for she's a great storyteller, and she simply makes you want to turn to the next page. I adored the way she wrote about Italy, the Italians, their beautiful language and mouthwatering food in the first section of the book, for it made me yearn for going to Italy, see the places she visited, meet the people she met, and eat traditional Italian food. Boy, it even made me want to learn Italian! But then I can't say that I enjoyed the second part, which is set in Indonesia where she lives in a temple of some sort, spends her time either meditating or scrubbing temple floors while looking for her religion. ("That's me in the corner, in other words. That's me in the spotlight. Choosing my religion."/279/ I love this allusion, by the way.) As I'm not into this kind of meditational (?) and religious stuff as deep as she writes about it, this part failed to interest me, and at some point I even found myself skipping pages... But then the third part, the one set on the exotic island of Bali got good again, I enjoyed reading about Indonesian people, their way of life and thinking; and I especially loved the character of the odd but so cute old medicine man, Ketut Liyer.
In the end I thought of Eat Pray Love as a really well-written, wise book, that could pass as a self-help book just as much as a highly entertaining memoir. The reason why it could not sweep me off my feet is probably because right now I'm not in such a phase of my life when I feel like I need help. Maybe I'm too young to read it, since I haven't been through a bad marriage or a painful divorce, and these days I feel like everything is all right with me and around me and my life is going into the right direction. ( I do know that I should not write so self-confidently! But I guess I'm yet to lose that intimidating self-assurance the youth have, for I still believe that everything will turn out the way I want it to be.)
Still, Elizabeth Gilbert is a pretty fine and wise writer with a fairly entertaining style, so no wonder I grew interested in her and planning to read her other works. As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago I found her first novel, Stern Men in a second-hand book shop and bought it on the spot. (Haven't gotten around it yet though, I will probably read it over the summer.)
Finally, here is a quote from Eat Pray Love, I completely agree with it. I used to have a soulmate once, and he did exactly the same thing to me. So I guess I should thank Elizabeth Gilbert for putting these thoughts and feelings down to paper so clearly. (By the way it also proves this theory of mine that friends are only periodic and no friendship lasts forever.)
"People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that's what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life.
A true soul mate is probably the most important person you'll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then leave.
A soul mates purpose is to shake you up, tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light can get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you have to transform your life, then introduce you to your spiritual master..."
Image was found here.
Things That Make Me Happy - Tea
Have you got any tips what other kind of teas I should try? Don't hesitate, let me know!
All images are from http://weheartit.com/.
All images are from http://weheartit.com/.
May 1, 2010
Things That Make Me Happy - Typewriters
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