Joint Post for Note to Self Mini-Challenge

Awhile ago, Nymeth of Things Mean a Lot announced a mini-challenge to the ongoing Dewey Challenge:   read something ‘new’ and pair up with another blogger to make it happen.   I eagerly signed up and immediately after, Jessica of The Bluestocking Society signed on thus making us partners for this exercise. We compared our wishlists at goodreads.com and came up with Note to Self by Samara O’Shea.

Dewey’s Books Challenge Website
Nymeth’s Mini-Challenge for March
My First Post on Note To Self
My Review of Note To Self
Jessica’s Review of Note To Self
Jessica’s Interview of Care About Note To Self
HarperCollin’s Official Webpage for Note To Self
Samara O’Shea’s Blog

We decided to interview each other:   her answers to my questions are here and you can go read my answers to her questions over there (which you can get to by clicking here.)     Ready?   Let’s go –  Here’s the oh-so-notable JESSICA!

1.   Do you keep a journal?

Yes.  Yes I do.  I haven’t been very consistent for the last few years, but I’ve always been a journal writer.

2.  What kind – style of actual book, pretty?  moleskine, 3 ring binder?

I tend to go through phases.  Right now I have a large, red blank sketch book for a journal.  It is super thick.  In college I started doodling in my journal and writing sideways and gluing things in – thus the sketch book.  I’m kind of annoyed with the format now and have been considering going to a lined variety with a spiral binding.

3.  What kind – style of writing:   just lists of what happened in a day, random thoughts, poetry, gratitude?

I tend to be a day-in-the-life type of journal writer, but, after reading Note to Self, I’ve been giving myself permission to just write what I feel.  Still, I try to capture important and even mundane events in my life.  I have a record of everyday during the time I was dating my husband.  That day-by-day log is priceless to me now.

Interestingly, I just pulled out all of my journals and noticed that I have my “journals” that go in chronological order and largely recount the events of my life.  Then, I have several smaller “notebooks” that I keep with me for jotting down random things.  These notebooks tend to be a bit more reflective than my journals.

4.  How long have you kept a journal?    Have you kept them all?    Do you ever re-read them?

The first journal I have/remember is one that I started when I was about 10.  The first entry is dated February 22, 1993 and includes the following: “Today I went to school and had an okay day.  Then when I got home I did my homework.  Which was to read chapters 3 & 4 of The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe.  After I finished my homework I colored for a while and then I watched T.V.  Then I got in a fight with my mom.”  Ah, a day in the life of a ten-year-old.

I’ve had a journal in process ever since.  I have kept them all, and I do reread them occasionally.  My middle school/junior high journals are particularly humiliating to read.  But, after reading Note to Self, I like that I can just think of the 13-year-old me as a prior self and learn from that perspective.

5.   Would the reason you started a journal (as a kid) agree with the adult who journals now?   I’m not sure I know how to ask this…    Let me try again.    If you did start a journal as a kid, would the reason that kid started the journal enjoy the results of it now that you’re not that kid anymore?   aaaghhh.  Help.

I think I get what you are asking.  I’m not exactly sure why I started a journal.  I do know that it was partly because my religion emphasizes recordkeeping.  I also just needed a place to get out all of the pre-teen and teen angst.  My journal still fills similar roles in my life.  I want to have a record of my life.  I want to be able to go back and remember things that would otherwise be forgotten.  I also enjoy having a place to vent and pontification and just be.  So, I think that my journal writing has essentially remained the same – though the content is a little more mature.

6.  Would you care to share a passage from an old journal?     Have you heard of the performance art movement where people read their high school entries out loud at an open mike night?    I need to research more but I do know where to look.    I personally wouldn’t do it!

Arg.  I don’t think I could read out loud from some of my journal entries.  It’s too personal.  Print is better.  Here’s a bookish tidbit dated March 29, 2004: “Then we went to Sam Weller’s – the best bookstore ever.  They have zillions of used books.  Grandma and I spent about three hours there.  We had a great time talking about books and exploring the shelves and shelves of books.  I purchased Snow Falling on Cedars, by David Guterson; The Witches of Eastwick, by John Updike; and The Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James.  Grandma found a ton of books – one of which she bought for me.  She bought me Mutant Message Down Under.”

7.  Can you think of an instance where journaling helped you specifically?    (I make pro-con lists for big decisions.)

You know, I can’t think of a time where journaling helped me specifically prior to making a decision.  However, it does help me to go back and read and either cringe from my poor decisions or exult in my good decisions.  I think I learn something retroactively.

8.  Am I asking too many questions?   This might be a huge post!

Not at all!  I love being interviewed.  It makes me feel so notable.

9.   What are the 2 best questions of this list and do you have any more to add for me to consider?

Well, now.  All of the questions are good.  I couldn’t pick just two.  I really couldn’t.  As for another question for your consideration, though, I would like to share my journaling goals.  My favorite thing that O’Shea discussed in Note to Self was the principle of being completely honest in your journal.  I have a hard time with this.  I have a hard time exposing myself like that on paper.  It may stem from the fact that I am a lawyer and tend to use thing people write down against them.  Still, I think that it is important to be honest with myself and to allow myself a space where that happens. That kind of honesty (and a really good hiding place) is the goal for my future journaling endeavors.

10.   What did you hope to gain not only from reading this O’Shea book but from joining this mini-challenge and was it worth it?

I hoped to learn a little something new about journaling from O’Shea.  I really opted into this mini-challenge primarily as an opportunity to collaborate with another blogger.  I loved getting to know you, Care, better.  I definitely think it was worth it!

Jessica’s current collection of journals

Thanks Jessica!    I love that as a 10 year old you were reading The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – a favorite of mine.   AND that you found it noteworthy to mention that you did some coloring that day.    Very good, very good.      The fight with Mom, however…   I wonder what it was about!    and that book list is a good one – I’ve only read the Henry James book;  I will make sure the others are on my tbr.    What did you think of the Mutant book?    I like that it was Grandma who bought it for you?       Your goal sounds like a good one, too.   I don’t think I have a goal – other than to keep at it, attempt to write with legible handwriting and continue to be positive, with emphasis on gratitude journalling.

One more item I want to comment on:   I like your idea to ‘just be’ in your answer to #5.     How energizing it might be if instead of or in addition to our ‘TO DO’ lists, we kept in mind our ‘TO BE” lists!     Today, I intend to be positive, energetic, alert, caring, considerate and respectful.    I like it.  

The Blind Assassin, Part 2 and Weekly Geeks

As I said in post prior: I don’t read reviews immediately before* reading and never after – or not until after I write my own review. Why?   Because I would probably never write a review if I did.

For example, let’s consider Nymeth at Things Mean a Lot.   You can read her review of The Blind Assassin and you’d have everything you need:    just enough of plot outline to know who the characters are, some samples of the beautiful writing, and plenty of curiosity to go get the book forthwith.    She also provides a tremendous resource to click and read other reviews.  And although my review gives just hint of a hint of a plot, and doesn’t tell as much as Nymeth’s, I do think we are in 100% agreement!     (And it’s not like this is supposed to be a competition…)

I did start with Nymeth’s and then went looking for others, just in case.    Which also happens to be the theme of Weekly Geeks this week!     Encouragement to seek out other reviews to books you’ve reviewed AND comment on other blogs and highlighting your own reviews that they might have missed. 

But first, a big shout out to Fyrefly for creating a blog search just for such an occasion and she wants our help to make sure all book review blogs are included.   Click here to check for yours and your favorites and let her know if any are missing.     

Her Google blog search service returned this list of reviews:     Result List for The Blind Assassin  and of these, I now offer  any I found that are not already  at Nymeth’s.

Belle of the Books – she, too, felt that something unknown was ‘missed’ and that the book begs for discussion (is that right?)

and she also points us to a review at Farm Lane Books - another admission of being let down at the end…

Did I miss anyone?

 

Notes from The Blind Assassin

MORE VOCAB
p.16  They’re sitting on a park bench, not to close together;  a maple tree with exhausted leaves above them, cracked dirt under their feet, sere grass around.    SERE - dried-up: (used especially of vegetation) having lost all moisture.

p.36  He’s a large man, Walter – square-edged, like a plinth, with a neck that is not so much a neck as an extra shoulder…   PLINTH - pedestal: an architectural support or base.

p.53  These last two materials could be obtained for next to nothing from the several abattoirs in the vicinity…   ABBATTOIR – slaugherhouse.

p.60  …, the cheese, the fruit, hothouse grapes draped over the etched-glass epergne.   EPERGNE - A large table centerpiece consisting of a frame with extended arms or branches supporting holders.

p.249  On the epicene white and gold desk there’s a radio the size and shape of half a loaf of bread.   EPICENE - Effeminate; unmanly.

INTERESTING QUOTES  (the first two remind me of JOURNALLING)
p.95  At the very least, we want a witness.  We can’t stand the idea of our own voices falling silent finally, like a radio running down.

p.283  The only way you can write the truth is to assume that what you set down will never be read.  Not by any other person, and not even by yourself at some later date.  Otherwise you begin excusing yourself.  You must see the writing as emerging like a long scroll of ink from the index finger of your right hand; you must see your left hand erasing it.   
Impossible, of course.
I pay out my line, I pay out my line, this black thread I’m spinning across the page.

p.308  Lose your temper and you lose the fight.

p.434    An unearned income encourages self-pity in those already prone to it.

 

♦

 

* I don’t like spoilers before reading a book – sometimes I don’t mind spoilers for movies, but I don’t like to open a book and having any expectations or knowing too much.    Especially, and Atwood book!   However, I do wonder if it would matter – she packs a lot of intrigue and suspense just in her writing style that even knowing everything,  I would probably still love the experience.

Review The Blind Assassin, Part 1

Review    The Blind Assassin  by Margaret Atwood, 2000, Winner of the Booker Prize, 521 pages

Family saga, story within a story,  fabulous riches and fearful poverty.    Lying, cheating, sibling rivalry and complicated sibling love.   Science fiction!?!?  (yes, but no), a book about a book?   somewhat.     totally fascinating?   Yes, again.

I really loved this book and yet, I’m only giving it 4 stars because the ending just left me a tiny bit unsatisfied.    I loved reading this book, I enjoyed the character descriptions and the mystery of who was who.   The Blind Assassin is actually the story inside a story which is inside the main story!  - – the book written by the young woman who committed suicide, invented by the young woman’s lover, published post-humously;  ignored at first, hated by some and catapulted to rousing success as the years roll by.      

The main book is narrated by the sister of the young woman while she is elderly and fighting to get this whole story  of her life out on paper on the chance that her granddaughter might want to know of it.    It’s her ‘truth’.    Ah, but is it!?    

I’m thoroughly convinced that I missed a lot of the symbolism and inferred meanings of a lot of this book…  oh well.   (part 2?!)

I am smitten with Atwood.   I think she writes masterfully.   This is my second work of the author’s (I read The Handmaid’s Tale last year.)   I read this for two challenges:   1% of the 1001 BTRBYD (I’m not officially signed up but get excited when I can cross any off that list) and Lu’s Women Author Challenge for March 2009.    This would qualify for the Chunkster Challenge but I’m not officially entered in that, either.

As you know, I don’t read reviews too near the time I start reading – I hate spoilers.   I also haven’t read any reviews that would intimidate me from writing THIS review.    So once I hit publish here, I’ll be off to go read and link and thus make this post a work in progress.

So ends part 1,  and begins part 2…

P.37   Then she hurried off, bum lolloping*, to make sure all was in order.

 

 

 

VOCAB
* lolloping - 1. To move with a bobbing motion.     2. Chiefly British To lounge about; loll.

My Thoughts on Note To Self

I am excited* to share with you my thoughts on journalling.   I love to journal and I wrote my introduction to this month’s reading of the wonderful book here at the beginning of March.  I write to you now in mid-late-March and will write another joint post later when Jessica of The Bluestocking Society and I interview (or something – not really yet decided!) each other on the topic of keeping a journal and what we got out of reading this work by Samara O’Shea.     This is because we paired up over at Nymeth’s when she presented a mini-challenge for the Dewey Challenge.    I also am listing this read as one of my Read-a-Book-by-a-Woman-Author per Lu at Regular Rumination‘s idea to celebrate Women’s History this month.

Isn’t this book precious?   I bought it from bookgirl’s store!     Her blog is here and you can find a link to her etsy shop in the right side bar.      I wanted a pretty place to keep all my bloggable thoughts as I read through Note To Self…

Review  by Samara o’Shea, 2008, 168 pages

Ms.O’Shea presents a book that is much beyond how to journal, but rather WHY to journal.   She is not arguing or trying to convince you to do such but she effectively gives examples of simple ways to ease into such a habit if you so desire.    She inspires the reader by giving terrific examples of famous, admirable or fascinating personalities who have left us journals to study.     This is a fun book.

I loved it.   I love the quotes she begins each chapter with, I love her honesty – she shares amazing excerpts from her own journals (so brave!), I love her ideas and her enthusiasm and the feeling I got that she was talking directly to me; maybe not one of her best friends but perhaps a younger cousin (disregard that I’m probably 15 years older than she is…)

I agreed with many of her suggestions and believe that my style of journalling mirrors hers or follows much of her own personal philosophy of why journalling is ‘cool’.    I do it for self-expression.    I do it because I truly believe that my thought processes can be enhanced;  that these thoughts improve with airing out – let them breathe beyond the confines of my own skull.    Transform those energy blips or synapses of thought into coherent (and not so coherent) sentences strung together somehow somewhere between the brain, as they travel down the arm, flowing into the pen controlled by fingers, scribbles onto paper; ink on paper.     My eyes read it back and either agree – - or decide to cross it out.   or just put it away for later.

I admit it that the advice to be honest with ourselves as we write can be extremely difficult.   I can read words I wrote 5 or 10 years ago and am instantly transported to when I wrote them,  knowing that I held back.    and that’s OK.      (some of those  high school journal entries are also telling in their lack of truth!   and details, darn it.)

I originally challenged Ms O’Shea’s statement that a life-altering journalling experience is difficult.    I must admit that she is likely correct.   I don’t have any great insight from reading something I wrote 10 years ago.  I’m not sure I can see growth or enlightenment.    I haven’t found my purpose and embarked on any new career as she has amazingly done – kudos!     But I won’t quit.    I need the exercise, the process, the dialogue of my self today talking to myself 10 minutes or ten years later.   Not that I think that nor do I make it habit to read my journals from the past.**      I just need to get it out – release the toxic thoughts and remember the beautiful ones.    

I loved this book, can you tell?

I did take more than the usual amount of notes.   I have decided that it is NOT in your best interest to share these.    I will, however, refer back to the questions I asked before I began reading this book:

So, will I learn anything by reading this book?    Oh yes, I’m sure I will.     And, will I argue or agree at the conclusion that not all journal-writing is life-altering and soul enlightening?    Is the question one of purpose?   or results versus process?

My answers are:   Yes – I learned something.     I will agree that not all journal-writing is life-altering but I don’t know if it’s all that important.    I have decided that the question is most definitely – for me – a question of PROCESS.     

Express – don’t repress.

Go read Jessica’s brilliant review, click here for another.   Come back here and leave me a question and Jessica and I will tackle them for the NEXT post.     and thank you.

 

* Not true.   or debatable.     I STRUGGLED with this review.   I edited and edited and chopped and wanted to include more and question what I left in and finally gave up and just hit POST.      I started this post a week ago and am impatient to post!   ugh.     Getting any idea how nuts my journals are?  ha.    

**  I do refer back to my journals for “when-did-that-happen” dates and years.    I can never remember when my first date with my husband was.     I think it is a bad-habit that I don’t ever remember this because those entries are HILARIOUS and it’s fun to re-read them…      I am so very glad I wrote that all down.     Those were exciting times…   (FYI – over 20 years ago already.   How did THAT happen?   crazy!!!!)

Quick Howdy-Do

[updated...   the rest of this post is from 7 am; it's now 4 pm:   I just got back from the bookstore (uh oh) and have found out that Still Alice is a NOVEL!  I thought it was nonfiction.   nevermind?!]

Hey there,

I’m so excited! I just found out about a book club I can join!!!

It’s made up of a few English teachers from the High School and it’s open to anyone, they meet at the school in the afternoon (so probably not any opportunities to share a bottle of wine, which is fine…) and I’m just thrilled.

The next selection is Still Alice by Lisa Genova – anyone read this?    It’s nonfiction, about dealing with the onset of Alzheimer’s.      What I just read about it on the Amazon site isn’t offering up high praise – oh well.    I’m sure it will be fascinating and scary (but not in a sparkly vampire scary kind of scary…)   The book they read last week was Three Cups of Tea – which I really am somewhat glad I missed.    Hmmm, now I’m wondering if this is a nonfiction club…

Not actually my idea of an ideal book which to start in with a new book club but I’m excited anyway.

I need to make some more IRL friends – no offense to all of you lovelies!

P.S.
I am so stunned and happy that so many of you wished me well for my silly finger injury last week.    I felt like Sally Field when she won her Oscar.     Goodness – community or connection, top-tier of book blogs versus parasites* – I think you all are wonderful.   Thank you so very much.   Now let’s all go read something so we can post about later!    deal? 

* If you don’t know the silly controversy about the so-called quality of book blogs and how the not-so-good ones hurt the whole book-blogosphere, don’t worry about it. Silliness, methinks. But we all love the drama just a bit, don’t we? Oh, no – I feel a rant coming on:    I don’t aspire to becoming a top tier book blog and I could have my opinions on which I would vote for if we ever did need such a thing, but I will gladly change my ‘reviews’ to be the more modest ‘thoughts on’ if I ever offend anyone with my lack of ‘quality’. I do not read ARCs, I don’t beg authors nor publishers for free books, and I could care less if 2 people read my blog or 200. I’ll stop now.

I have 2 reviews to write (Note to Self and The Blind Assassin) and I’m half way through Anita Shreve’s A Pilot’s Wife which is my first Shreve book I’ve read…

Review One True Theory of Love

Review  One True Theory of Love by Laura Fitzgerald, 2009 by NAL Trade, 352 pages

So very very cool to read a book-buddy’s name:  Stephanie of The Written Word in the acknowledgements!   and thank you to this same friend for sending the book (I won it in one of her generous giveaways – I can be lucky – just not when using a vegetable peeler…)

Good book!   fun book, light reading, deep thoughts about love and family and what one really wants out of life.  Closure, new beginnings and jumping into life with everything you’ve got.

Four stars  I read this for my challenge to read women authors in March (see Lu’s challenge here).   I’m looking forward to reading Laura Fitzgerald’s other novel, Veil of Roses, also well-received in book blog world.

Read these reviews (I’m still not at top typing speed – ha!)

Books on the Brain

uh – I thought I had read another but I can’t find it…   If you’ve read and reviewed, let me know – I’ll link it up.

Typing Skills Diminished

All sorts of excuses could be listed for what feels like an avoidance of time spent on my PC which translates into boring posts or lack, failure to respond to comments, failure of leaving comments on other blogs, and basic annoying whining.   Be glad you can’t hear me right now.

I was peeling a turnip that was too soft and resisting my efforts and somehow, I shaved off a bit of the tip of a finger and it hurts!   Which means that I’m typing this by hunting and pecking keys which is slow, full of errors requiring correction and so I’m planning on NOT doing more than this post until I get all ten digits to work together in a more painless manner.

I am reading your posts!   and I will be back after this “Hey – it’s Spring!   I’m going outside!”  sabbatical away from the PC.

Enthusiasm

Review  Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman, 2006,  198 pages

I begged the floor to open and swallow me, as I had done so often during this distressful year.  However, it had never yet obeyed.  Why should it start now?

I was inspired to read this after Jessi’s review and in my generously spirited way, I had the idea of sending it on to Nancy because I got to thinking that she likes to read Austen-y books.   [I gave up looking for the post that says just that, sigh.] AND…   I saw it on an endcap at Borders and was itchin’ to buy something.    That was my 2008 modus operandi;  I’m being a bit less impulsive and more frugal in 2009.

There is little more likely to exasperate a person of sense than finding herself tied by affection and habit to an Enthusiast.

I enjoyed this book very much.   HOWEVER, I almost put it off entirely because the very first word was ‘There’.    I can still feel that stern lecture from some teacher back in primary school who after assigning a paragraph to explain who-knows-what  (I was probably the first one done) that beginning ANYTHING with the word ‘there’ showed a lack of critical thinking skills.    I have, ever since, been very conscious to NOT begin any sentence, first in paragraph or otherwise, with this strange word.    I apologize to Ms. Shulman and her editor(s) for thinking so low of you right off the bat.

After relaxing my outrageously critical standards, I began to loosen up and relax with the story of Julie and her wild fun friend Ashleigh.       They are juniors in high school and Ashleigh has caught the Jane Austen bug.    She embarks on an adventure to find her very own Mr. Darcy and falls for the cute and adorable Charles Grandison Parr.   But, of course!   Julia is in love with him first!!!   Which she does not tell Ashleigh about, deferring to her friend out of loyalty.    (I’m not spoiling this, am I?)

Ashleigh greeted him warmly, but I could hardly hear what she said over the pounding in my ears, nor could I choke out more than a monosyllable.   All through the ride home, while Ashleigh and Yolanda eagerly reviewed the afternoon’s events, I sat with my cheek pressed against the cool glass of the window, hardly blinking, hardly breathing.   And the torture repeated itself all night long, first in my memory and then in my dreams, until I half hoped my blushes would set my sheets on fire, ending my misery in one magnificent blaze.

How the girls meet the boys and how they keep in contact with the boys and how they avoid other boys that ‘like’ them when they don’t like them back – oh yes, it’s all teenybopper hi-jinks and drama.    But for the most part, very sweet and decent.    I wouldn’t say the story mirrors Pride & Prejudice exactly, but the class issues are played up, the parental concerns, the mistaken affections, the conflicts of loyalty to oneself and others are delightful rolled into this tale of first love.

I fell asleep that night in a dazzle of happiness.

[I was once voted MOST THOUGHTFUL during my college sorority days;  I was given a charm and wore the bracelet for the month that included all the charms of wonderful characteristics we were encouraged to develop in our personalities.    But I really wanted to be MOST ENTHUSIASTIC...]

I will now be ‘thoughtful’ and enthusiastically send it on to Nancy!   I hope you enjoy it as much as Jessi and I did.

Quote 3/12/09 AND 3/13/09

Oops!  How did yesterday get away from me?    I have a post underway and under construction that includes a review of Enthusiasm by Polly Shulman.

But here’s a quote from Top Model that I wrote down in my journal…

Keep it CUTE or keep it on mute.

It just struck my funny.  and yet, it is certainly something to consider.

OK, but since that was for yesterday, I now need a quote for today.

I’m pondering.                          I just asked my husband to say something profound.                               I got … nothing.

OH!

Another quote that I wrote in my journal was from something outside of a classroom at the high school:

The eye is always caught by the light,

but shadows have more to say.

- Gregory Maquire

Hopefully, I’ll be able to post my review and quote something fun from the book tomorrow.

Giveaway Winner and Quote 03/11/09

Congratulations!   Janet (I’m guessing that she is Mason’s Granny) is the winner of Christine Falls by Benjamin Black per the random number website.

I’ll send an email requesting mailing information…    

Let’s celebrate with a quote:

 

That’s what learning is, after all;  not whether we lose the game, but how we lose and how we’ve changed because of it and what we take away from it that we never had before, to apply to other games.   Losing, in a curious way, is winning.

- Richard Bach, author of Jonathon Livingston Seagull

 

 Have you read Jonathon Livingston Seagull?   I’ve heard of it but don’t know a thing about it…   Anyone, anyone?    I suppose I should do some research…