Back to School

 

Well, I officially survived my first week back to school. Clint gave me flowers and took me out to dinner to celebrate! Notice the lovely earrings I am wearing that my sister gave me for my birthday. Thanks, Megan! The shirt was a birthday gift from Clint.

We had a fun night; Clint took me to Rodizio Grill and then we stopped by a friend's crepe party. The problem with this fun night was that we were both running a 5k early the next morning. Despite our meat engorged stomachs and despite the fact that my quads were impaired due to a Thursday boot-camp workout with the team--we both survived! We celebrated our survival by further gorging ourselves Saturday night on junju from Lunaberry downtown. Yum!

Sweat, Blood, and Brains

Folks, I have been remiss in my blogging duties. This is too bad because I suspect that I'm going to get a lot worse (school starts tomorrow). Well, without further ado, I bring to you the Great Urban Race!








The Great Urban Race is this awesome scavenger hunt race that I did downtown. You must race as a team, so I called up my old running buddy Mike. We did YMCA with strangers, pumped up a bike tire, drank carrot juice, did lunges, peeled potatoes and did a lot of other stuff around downtown.

There was a lot of sweat because the race started at NOON. Hence the camelbaks in the picture. Don't be jealous of my hardcore hat and fanny pack. Mike was.

There was blood because I got a bad papercut in Ken Sanders bookstore completing a challenge.

There was brains because we had enough brains and speed to garner 9th place!

Other August happenings thus far include going to girls camp



hiking Ensign Peak for the first time



hiking to Cecret Lake with the miamaids



and other fun. I feel surprisingly chill considering school starts tomorrow. I suppose the real test is whether I can get to sleep tonight!

The Jazz Age

I want to go to a Jazz age lawn party and do the Charleston in the park! Maybe if I went I could be like these beautiful people...




You can see more pictures from this and learn more here.

Bollywood

Lately Clint and I have been on a Bollywood kick. We've seen the following movies:

Rocket Singh
Some movie in which the protagonist is in love with Alisha
Wake up Sid
Jab We Met
Love Aaj Kal
Kismet connection
Like Stars on Earth

I'm not quite sure why we're into these movies lately. I think it's because they're just so different. Also we like to make fun of the randomly inserted music videos complete with wind machines.

I hate shopping

I hate shopping so much. I know I have mentioned this before, but it's true. At the end-of-year English department party, I praised a colleague's shoes and mentioned it was my goal to find decent work shoes/clothes over the summer. Clint laughed and said I wouldn't buy any shoes out of my own free will. He was right. Today is my last free day of the summer. Work starts Monday, and tomorrow I have a long race. And have I bought shoes? No. I told myself I was going to go shopping today, but I find myself irrationally irritated. Why? Because Clint forced me to buy some polos at Izod earlier this summer. One of the smalls fit fine, so we bought a few other smalls. When I tried those smalls on at home they seemed very baggy and unflattering around the midsection. So I made a shopping date with a friend and we trekked up to the outlets. Well, Izod didn't have them in extra small, so I had to special order them. And now that they have arrived I have discovered that the sleeves are strangely tight. Why is this happening to me? I always get conned into buying things that don't fit right--and things hardly ever fit right in general. Sigh. I always have a stash of things that I've never worn and never get around to returning.

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

I finally read it. It seems everyone’s been raving about it for a few years. Verdict: good. I knew it had to be with all that raving. The whole book is told in letter format which takes a little bit of effort at first, but then you get lost in the voice and the story, and the letter format won’t bother you at all. Speaking of the voice—I liked it. Somehow the book reminds me a bit of The Help. The voices aren't the same at all—but I suppose both books are funny and have a strong sense of voice.



I also liked learning some historical facts about WWII. I do have to say that some parts of the book are serious because of the WWII content. However, I would still call it a light-hearted “easy read.”

Though I liked the voice and sense of history, I think my favorite aspect of the book was the motif of the significance of literature. I loved hearing what the different characters said about the books they loved and what the literary society meant to them. Some lovely stuff here, folks.



I do have one objection, however. I didn’t like the end as well as the beginning. Somehow at the end the book sort of shifted tone a bit. I think this is related to the dual authorship. After the manuscript was sold, Shaffer’s cancer caused her to hand over the project to her niece. Sources say the niece finished the book. I don’t know if this means she literally wrote the end or if she just did substantive edits, but I suspect she really did write the end because she is listed as a coauthor. Also I noticed the shift in tone before I even knew the book was co-authored. The niece, Annie Borrows, is a published children's author which I think may be why I didn’t like the tone shift. The end of the book became…a bit cheesy. The end felt more like a romance novel than what the book started out as. The element of romance was always there subtly, but it was just handled differently somehow in the end.





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