Under the Skin

"There's enough love in that single penny to see you through anything life throws your way." I'm a completist.  This is a word that was coined by one of my coworkers specifically designed for me. One of the things that this entails is that I have to finish a book once I start it.  I'm also a 0-8.  When I was a national conference for hemophilia camps (I'm a camp director of a hemophilia camp for those who didn't know), a keynote speaker taught us numerical way of categorizing people, and it was learned that I was a 0-8.  This made the other people who I knew at the conference laugh, because all of his jokes about 0-8s were the epitome of me.  Part of being a 0-8 is that I can only read one book at a time.  0-8s are obsessed with order and linearity.  And it's true.  I can't start a book, until the last one before it is done.  Luckily these aspects gave me motivation to finish this book, because just when I started reading this book, my tur...

I make no secret of the fact that, for me, Christmas is not a holiday.  It's a lifestyle.  I love Christmas.  A lot.  But just because I love Christmas, isn't a good reason for liking everything about Christmas.  One part of Christmas I don't like?  The Little Drummer Boy .  It's an awful song.  I don't know why so many people like it. Or least, I didn't know.  I have spent many years collecting versions I like to determine what was wrong with most versions.  With our four case studies, I have learned the key to a good rendition of The Little Drummer Boy . Exhibit A:  Bob Seger version. This version of The Little Drummer Boy is completely tolerable, and even a little likeable at times (in the right place at the right moment).   Pay no attention to the pictures, because that movie is another thing that makes The Little Drummer Boy awful. Exhibit B:  Manheim Steamroller version. I actually like this ve...

Today, I was reading about the life of Sir Walter Scott.  Why? It's a long story.  But, I learned something about him that made me really like the guy.  I didn't have lots of feelings about him.  The only thing I've read that he wrote was Ivanhoe , which I like well enough.  But I didn't have feelings one way or the other.  I, however, learned that I like the guy. Sir Walter Scott, as well as being an author and finding the Crown Jewels that had been hidden by Oliver Cromwell (I learned a lot of kick-butt things about this man), he owned all financial responsibility in a printing company called Ballantyne Printing.  In the 1825 Banking Crisis, the printing company collapsed, and he was in serious debt and lost all he had.  Many people told him he should declare bankruptcy.  His fans offered to just pay the debt off for him.  Even the king offered to settle the debt for him.  However, Sir Walter Scott, in true Scottish fashion, sa...

Goose Girl:  “Ani felt a stirring, a hope, a winged thing waking up in her chest and brushing her heart with it's feathers.”  Enna Burning: "It was strange and beautiful how drstruction and life were bound together in fire, and she marveled that she had never thought of it before...She remembered that people cry for beauty and pain, and seeing both together was almost unbearable." River Secrets:  "'Bayern's Own? You're just a child.' Razo looked up to the sky.  'I'm not a child. I'm just short.'" (There were so many great quotes from this book, but as a 5'1'' person, I had to include it.  I feel your pain, RAzo.  I thought I had it hard trying to convince people I'm a lab scientist with  my height.  Can't imagine trying to convince them I was basically the Bayern equivalent of a SEAL or a Knight of the Round Table.)      Forest Born:  " “..giving into despair was like eating poisonous berries to...

“'We are not the people who made this world, Lukas, but it's up to us to survive it. You need to understand that.' 'We can't control where we are right now,' he mumbled, 'just what we do going forward.'" I told you that we had a lot of books that I needed to finish the series before I could review it.  Well, here's one: Wool.  Thanks to my cousin-in-law (which is not a word, but really should be), Chris, for this recommendation. They have always been told that the world outside is toxic.  And because of that, God created the sky, the earth, the outside, and the silo.  The silo is meant to keep them all safe.  But what about this world that the stories say existed before?  Was it really just fairy-tales and bedtime stories?  Or did those people really live?  Don't ask too many questions, because curiosity is dangerous.  And never, ever, say that you want to go to the outside.  Or you may just get your wish. The Wool series (also...

We all know about C.S. Lewis and his Christian allegories. Many people, but not quite as many people, know that Tolkien included them as well, even if not quite as overt. Generally, Lewis was spot-on with his allegories and references and analogies.  But there is one allegory that Lewis missed. And that, in my view, is the allegory of Satan. In The Chronicles of Narnia , there are many allegories for Satan.  The White Witch.  The Emerald Witch.  Tash. But they all have something in common.  All of the Satan allegories have no motivation.  They are simply evil, and that's all you ever need know.  Why are they evil?  It doesn't matter. They just are. And they aren't even of Narnia.  They come from somewhere else.    The White Witch comes from Charn (as far from being Narnia as Earth is).  The Emerald Witch's origins are disputed.  Tash comes from who knows where--the depths of Hell probably.  However, Tolkien a...

“This business of friendship was a curious thing, almost as difficult to learn as the busuness of acting. Sometimes you were expected to tell the truth, to express your thoughts and your feelings, and then other times what was wanted was a lie, a bit of disguise.”  We are in the throes of Nanowrimo.  I am working on my Nanowrimo in another window.  But I haven't gotten my writing juices going yet today, I don't think. So, it's a little slow-going at the moment, but hopefully writing this post will help get my fingers typing.   I am a little behind from the last few days of not writing, but its not as far behind as I have been in my fairly extensive Nanowrimo history, and I can easily fix it with just a few hundred extra words in the next few days.  In order to finish Nanowrimo, you have to write 1667 words each day.  The funny thing is that 1500 words is about when your mind gets going and you can start to be able to really pump out the words....

In 1982, my mother received a master's degree in civil engineering.  When I was little, I don't think I realized all the implications of that.  Sure, I thought it was cool, but in my mind it was no more cool than my dad having a master's in physics.  Then when I was older, I started to think about it.  Women didn't get master's degrees in engineering in 1982.  Now that I'm in my twenties, I have happened upon an interesting realization: my mother was a feminist. Not in the normal way.  My mother is shy, quiet, and would really rather just be left to her own devices.  She does not take her sense of self-worth from outside herself and she honestly couldn't care less what anyone thinks of her.  People say that they don't care, but for my mom, it's actually true. But my mother is a feminist in that she will do what she wants to do. To summarize a description of my mom from one of her sisters, "Amy was always the smart one.  And you could never ...

To quote the uncyclopedia’s entry on the medical lab scientist the nurse is the lab scientist’s “arch-nemesis.” This seems rather strange, seeing as we actually work hand-in-hand a lot, and we are both concerned for the patient. However, nurses hate us. And in turn, we are bitter towards nurses. This isn’t to say that there aren’t good nurses. Actually, in my experience, there are two types of nurses: 1) those who as you watch their expertise, skill and abilities, you are in awe of them. They are perfect superheroes to be frank. 2) Those who you watch and say, “If I am passed out on the floor, can you please leave me there? I think I have a better chance of survival if you leave me alone.”   There doesn’t seem to be much middle ground. But I get it. A main part of a nurse’s job is to take care of the patient’s pain management and managing their anxieties. And our main job is to figure out what is wrong with them, and patient comfort be darned. That is...

"How will ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?--AY"  Well, Fault in Our Stars wasn't bad, so how about some more John Green.  And because I can hear the responses to that phrase, yes, I am band-wagonning.  Why is that a bad thing?  I'm sorry I never happened upon John Green books until 8 months before the movie came out. Isn't part of the point of a movie to bring exposure to an author? For our next foray into John Green books, I read his first book, Looking for Alaska .  By the way, I learned that my copy of the book just cut off part of the cover, and that is smoke from a candle on the front.  I thought it was a cigarette, which would also fit, because they do a lot of smoking. Miles Halter is heading off to boarding school by his own choice.  Friendless and uneventful, he's ready to leave behind his high school and find something new.  He wants to seek for, as Rabelais puts it, the Great Perhaps.  And he may find it at ...

“I would say that I was without faith, but no one is truly faithless; they just have faith in the wrong things: fear and defeat.”  Maybe this streak of book reviews is indicative that nothing is happening in my life, and that may be very well true.  But so be it. On Halloween, I read three Richard Paul Evans books.  Yes, Richard Paul Evans.  The king of fuzzy  Christmas novels and schmulzy romance. And yes, three.  Most of his books take place in Salt Lake City, and it's kind of fun to know all of the locations of his story and be able to say, "I know that place."  Promise Me even took place in Holladay.  And I love Christmas.  Even fuzzy-wuzzy Christmas stuff.  So, I enjoyed my Halloween. Beth Cardall has a humble, but wonderful life with her husband, Marc, and their daughter, Charlotte.  Or at least she thinks she does.  But when her husband reveals infidelity and his imminent death, and their daughter falls sick...