Under the Skin

Once again, I find myself writing a book review.  Maybe later this week, or perhaps next week, I will write something a little more in depth or interesting to people who know my life.  But at the moment, either nothing is coming to mind, or ideas that I had previously are not coming to fruition at my fingertips. One of my coworkers very strongly recommended the Fablehaven series (which I will review, once I read all of the books out).  And that is how I got interested in Brandon Mull.  He is not one of those writers whose writing you just breeze through.  In fact, it will often take me longer to finish a Brandon Mull "middle-reader" than some adult books, and probably all YA.  But they are good. One thing I like about Brandon Mull so much is that he doesn't dumb it down--he makes the emotions things that young readers can relate too (because the POV characters are children themselves), but the language is more complex.  And I firmly believe that ...

It's a new school year, which means that my piano and violin students are getting back into caring.  So, today, I was sight-reading through a bunch of music to find things for my students.  While I was sight-reading around, I found this piece, which I think is so very beautiful that I decided to record it.  Keep in mind...sight-reading.  But, I think you'll get the gist.  It's called "A Little Flower" and was written by some dude named Cornelius Gurlitt.  I'm probably not very refined, because I have no clue who he is, but this was in a book of "classical pieces" that "every piano should have in their repertoire to be a literate pianist."  Apparently.  I just looked him up and found that he was born in 1820. And that he is NOT the Nazi-Art dealer of the same name. 

"We choose to believe in Ma'at.  We create order out of chaos, beauty and meaning out of ugly randomness.  That's what Egypt is all about.  That's why its name, its ren, has endured for millennia.  Don't despair.  Otherwise Chaos wins." More book reviewing! Everyone knows that I love the Percy Jackson series.  One of the reasons that I love it so, however, is that it really respects Greek myths.  Too often, writers give into the temptations to view Greek myths through the lens of  modern theology or thought.  But if we really look into it, they are different.  For example, we like to label certain gods in the Greek pantheon as good or evil, when the Greeks didn't view it that way. They were all good, and they were all evil. To us, gods are superhuman--they are different, separate and better than.  To the Greeks, gods were ultrahuman--they were everything about humanity, just multiplied.  So, instead of transcending hum...

Back to book reviewing!  I was very nervous about this series.  It's a teen scifi adventure, written by Richard Paul Evans.  Remember when I told you about my Richard Paul Evans phase back in October/November?  If you're thinking, "Wait, I thought that he was the king of Christmas romance," you would be correct.  Now you see why I was so nervous about a teen scifi adventure series? But I kept on getting more and more recommendations to read it.  So, I finally gave in and read them. Michael Vey is a normal boy from Meridian, ID. Except for the fact that he can shock people and control lightning and other weird electronic traits.  He soon learns that he is not the only one--all children who were born in the same hospital as him around that time have electric abilities. Some can read minds, or take away pain by electrostimulation, or control EMPs, or such.  And a society known as the Elgen want to take advantage of their abilities, and create ...

I haven't written any blog posts for awhile, because I was in the wilderness.  It was funny.  The other day, a family member was asking me my opinion on all kinds of things that have happened in the past few weeks in the political world. I had to respond with, "I have no idea. I have spent the past few weeks consumed by hemophilia camps." Not that I mind. I love kids, and I love my bleeder girls at camp.  Being director is hard. Did you know that?  But I had a great time, and I had a great staff this year.  Staff really makes or breaks your experience as the director. Then, this year, I doubled my hemophilia camp experience.  Since I live in Utah, the Utah hemophilia camp asked if I wanted to come and help them out this year.  I did.  I don't regret that, and now I have bleeder boys to add to my list of beloved kids.  So, now I love my bleeder boys and my bleeder girls.  I really am defensive of these children.  One day at camp, I...