Rant: So Over Reality

I am done, completely sick and tired of reality tv. I don't care if people can dance, or sing, or throw stuff at other people. I don't want to watch people lose weight whilst forced to stand on a stage in front of all of America in less than I wear to the gym. I don't want to watch rich people be mean to each other. I don't want to watch people with no talent be ridiculed on national television. I don't want to watch people try to deal with their eight million kids, I don't want to watch a nanny try to wrangle other people's misbehaving kids, I don't want to see people trying to have kids, or having kids, or, ew. I don't want to see wives from completely different families swapped. There's a reason they're with who they're with. I don't want to see girls going crazy, losing control of their faculties completely, because they are getting married. This makes me worry for the future of America.

I also don't want to see any more idiots do stupid stuff like pretend to send their kid aloft in an air balloon shaped like a flying saucer or crash White House state dinners because they think it will give them a shot at getting on a reality tv show. I don't want to see my former governor on a desert island. I don't want to see anyone on tv on a desert island, unless I'm watching Castaway.

I know I'm ranting, and that people will most likely disagree with me, but I am over reality tv. I was never hugely into it but these state department dinner crashers are the last straw. Enough. I want tv that is scripted, with actors, who have hair and makeup artists, and an agent, and talent. I want entertainment to be entertaining again.

Glee

I have a new favorite show, finally, and I just had to share. Now, if you're not a fan of gratuitous song and dance numbers, Glee probably isn't your bag, but if you are, this is the show for you. I love the goody-goody Jewish girl, the dumb but well-meaning jock, the bitchy popular girl who gets what she has coming, the sweet guy in a wheelchair, etc. But the characters I really love are Emma Pillsbury and Mr. Schuster. You know you're old when you identify more with the teachers than with the students. I love Emma Pillsbury because she's quiet and awkward and really OCD. I can relate. Also? Her clothes are freaking fabulous. Apparently most of them are from J. Crew, a store I only wish I could afford. And Mr. Schuster is adorable. He's so goodhearted and really wants what's best for the kids. He needs to ditch that shrill and conniving wife of his, for real, but that's a different story.

Here's my favorite song so far this season. I just love this version. The sentiment in this song and the episode in which it airs are so sweet.

Books in the Queue, Books in Review

I finished Three Cups of Tea in record time and I'm thinking about re-reading it in a couple of weeks. It has been a long time since I've been this blown away by a book. It was an amazing read. Utterly amazing. I highly recommend it to everyone, just everyone.

Now, I usually shy away from books that are too current-events-y to me. That's the only way I can think to describe this genre but you know, sometimes I just don't want to read about a boy in the middle east who had to go into the army at age 7 when his house blew up, his parents were killed, and his brother's legs were blown off, or whatever. You get the gist. I mean jeez, I like to read fiction, this is supposed to be something interesting that I do for fun. So, no I did not read A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah. I prefer to read about peace, or at least topics more serene than war and its aftermath. So it was with apprehension that I picked up Three Cups of Tea. I was totally prepared to put it right back down again.

The book, which is co-written by Greg Mortenson and journalist David Oliver Relin, is about Mortenson's serendipitous stumble into a small village in northern Pakistan, where the villagers took care of this fatigued mountain climber and showed him their way of life. Mortenson learned that the children did not have a school, or the $1 a day it would take to pay a teacher, so the children were trying to learn by teaching themselves and scratching out math in the dirt with sticks. Doesn't that just break your heart? Mortenson vowed to return to the United States and raise money to build a school for the village. This book is the story of how he did that.

One thing that I really liked about the book was how straightforward and hardworking Mortenson is. I found that really inspiring. The book also makes very clear, through actions and results, that bombing and intimidation are not the way to end the conflicts in the middle east. We need to educate people so that they have the tools to make a living and raise a family. Otherwise working for the army is their only way out. If they have nothing to live for or look forward to, then they are willing to die for their country. There is a saying that goes something like "the most dangerous man is the one with nothing to lose." That is soundly illustrated in this story. One individual in the book notes that "I request America to look into our hearts and see that the great majority of us are not terrorists, but good and simple people. Our land is stricken with poverty because we are without education."

This book also offers some insight into Islam, which I'd like to pass along here. It says "Most people who practice the true teachings of Islam, even conservative mullahs, believe in peace and justice, not in terror. Just as the Torah and Bible teach concern for those in distress, the Koran instructs all Muslims to make caring for widows, orphans, and refugees a priority." That seems so similar to Christian beliefs that I have to wonder if the difference isn't mainly in a name, a location. How can we disagree with that sentiment?

Another point that I want to draw attention to is a line from a moderate, educated Muslim named Bashir. He says that "Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years." He goes on to say that "Osama is not a product of Pakistan or Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance."

Now, the book is not doom and gloom, indeed it is the opposite. Greg Mortenson is not discouraged by hardships, he figures out a way to soldier on and keep making a difference. This is inspiring in the most sincere way. I love President Obama, but I think Greg Mortenson would be a more deserving recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. This man is an amazing force.

30 Days Hath September

April, June, and November. Which means that for the first time ever I have successfully posted for 30 days in a row! I completed NaBloPoMo and it feels so good. I didn't write an Amazing Post of Interesting Substance every day but I did write a lot more than I had been before November rolled around. I've also been exploring new ways to write and maybe even get paid for it. K passed my resume around in his company and I'm going to be doing freelance work for them starting in January. That'll help monetarily and it'll diversify my resume a bit from the all academia, all the time experience that I currently have. I've also found a short story contest that I'm trying to put something together for. I'm pretty sure I won't win, seeing as how I've never even written a short story before, but it is a deadline and I must produce something out of the ether. Should be interesting.

I'm kind of feeling at a loss for things to blog about, or things that I want to post, so I might be a little quiet for a few days. I'm 3/4 of the way through Three Cups of Tea so I'll talk about that soon. D brought me a Richard Feynman book called What Do You Care What Other People Think that he really wants me to read so that might be next on the list. I'm skeptical, since Feynman is a physicist and I don't do The Science, but D has promised that this book is interesting.

I'm also planning on doing some picture-heavy posts soon since I branched out majorly in my Black Friday purchases. I got some beautiful brown boots and some retro-inspired shoes from Nine West that I'm excited to wear soon. I also bought my first pair of skinny jeans ever AND skinny cords as well. I haven't owned cords since about seventh grade and these pants are so comfy! And cute, I hope. I also got a shirt dress and a wide brown belt to match; both are pieces I've never considered before. And a short sleeved, emerald green sweater from Banana Republic, because I wouldn't want to change too much, too soon.

Books in the Queue, Books in Review

While I was at my parent's house over Thanksgiving, I reread American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld. American Wife is a fictionalized but fairly accurate portrait of Laura Bush's life. I'm under the impression that Sittenfeld changed just enough details to call it fiction and avoid being sued.

The first time I read this book, I liked it, and it made me feel a bit more sympathetic to Laura Bush. The second time I read it I also liked it but now I feel less sympathetic to Laura Bush. Sittenfeld is a great writer, there's no question about that, but all three of her books (Man of My Dreams, Prep, and American Wife) have main female characters who are just total pushovers who watch their life happen before their eyes. This pisses me off to no end. I find myself wanting to reach into the book, shake these women into action, and then see what happens. Instead the women do nothing; they just let life pass them by. I would wonder if this is indicative of how Sittenfeld is in real life but her biography leads me to believe otherwise. So, I really don't know.

Right, so, American Wife. I liked the early part of this 500ish page book better than the later part, the part where she is actually first lady. The book pretty much spans the man character Alice's life from childhood through age 60. The thing about Sittenfeld's books is that they are mainly comprised of the main female character's interior dialogue. There isn't necessarily a lot of action and many times the reader might be left wanting something to happen in the story and instead the main character just narrates how a situation could have gone differently. This is interesting, and Sittenfeld navigates it very skillfully, but don't pick up this book if you like a lot of action. You're going to be reading, as my boyfriend puts it, a lot about feelings.

The main character, Alice, grows up in a small town in the midwest and leads a fairly quiet life as an elementary school librarian until she meets Charlie Blackwell, the son of a prominent and very wealthy Republican family. I really enjoyed reading about Alice's upbringing and her relationship with her parents and paternal grandmother. Sittenfeld accurately captures the nuances of the thoughts of a teenage girl, which is part of the reason this section of the book works so well. I also loved that the grownup Alice is rational and independent, if not terribly exciting. When she meets Charlie it is so interesting to see how different her life is from him. We have a family friend who married into a large and wealthy political family and Texas and throughout this part of the book especially I found myself wondering if this is how she felt when she met his family and realized just what she was getting herself into.

Alice marries Charlie Blackwell (ie George Bush) and loves him in spite or maybe because of his youthful and lighthearted personality, or something like that. In my book that's an ok reason to marry someone but I do NOT think that when the imp you have married becomes president and leads the nation into the most expensive (and in my opinion, stupidest) military offensive in history that you should sit by and smile like a robot, all the while explaining to people that you don't talk to your husband about politics (and by the way, Laura Bush was a registered Democrat before she married George). Impishness and lightheartedness are not an excuse for nor should they be mistaken for reckless immaturity, which is what I think Sittenfeld allows Alice Blackwell to do with regards to her husband, who happens to be the leader of the free world. I don't know if this is supposed to make the reader sympathetic to Alice (cough cough Laura Bush cough) or if it is supposed to offer her an "out" or a different explanation for her inaction or what, but I don't think it is an acceptable excuse. Ahem, sorry to get all political on y'all. Anyway.

The book was solid, as are all of Sittenfeld's books. It is also a serious tome, about 500 pages, so if you have, say, a transatlantic flight coming up soon I recommend picking it up. I have the hardcover version but I think it might be out in paperback now. It is a light and interesting read but doesn't feel like fluff. This book is a page turner and I'd recommend it to anyone regardless of political affiliation.

Next up: Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David O. Relin. Disclaimer: I have already started this book and maybe reading about poor children in Pakistan who just want to be able to go to school, learn, and live in peace has made me more sensitive to this whole war thing at the moment.

Secret Confession

This is a peek inside my bathroom counter. I have no more secrets, people.

Secret Confession

Secret Confession: I still love doing goofy touristy stuff in Chicago, like taking pictures of the art in Millennium Park.