Random

A College Entrance Essay #TBT

2014 09-03 A Long Time AgoI think it’s hilarious that I discovered this on Wednesday so this post just happens to be on a Thursday. I guess we’ll just say this is my first, and probably last, #throwbackthursday.

While cleaning up my computer’s hard drive I re-discovered a folder titled “HS.” I knew immediately what that was, but not what was in it. When I opened the folder I found only a few files, mostly college application related, and it made me feel so old and thus the photo.

I feel like the application process was so long ago, as long ago as the photo on the left, taken in 1988 a month before my fourth birthday. In reality, high school graduation was only eleven years ago and the photo on the right is from some time during my senior year.  I was so baby-faced! And I guess still am when I shave and have had a haircut recently—I was carded for a lottery ticket in the last six months! But that’s not what this is about. this is about what I found.

Click here to read the essay and my thoughts on it now!

2014 Challenges, Books

Book 272: The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s Tale #1) – Margaret Atwood

[Check out my review of Margaret Atwood’s much awaited seque, The Testaments, here.]

I can’t believe it’s been over five years since I last read this incredible novel. But thinking about it as I write this I’m not too surprised. I last read this while working on a paper for my MA and that paper didn’t go well, because I apparently didn’t “understand how to apply gender theory” and I was given the opportunity to completely re-write the paper.

I was incredibly pissed at the insult, because that’s how I took it, and I spent a lot of time rewriting the paper in such a way as to insult my professors and the program. In no uncertain terms I stated that gender theory does not preempt every other theory and that scholars needed to be incredibly careful of over-stepping their bounds. I did eventually receive a passing grade and they invited back to pursue a PhD (I declined), but it left a sour taste in my mouth.

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Books

Book 270: Who Murdered Chaucer? – Jones, Yeager, Dolan, Fletcher & Dor

I know I say this often, but what a fascinating read, but what’s most exciting is that this is a work of nonfiction. I don’t generally read a lot of nonfiction, but after reading about this on a site ages ago (at least a year ago) and having just finished A Burnable Book, I knew this was a great time to read it. Needless to say I absolutely plan on finding a full biography of Chaucer.

Who Murdered Chaucer? focuses on the last 20(ish) years of Chaucer’s life, but more so on the political climate, which is vital to interpreting Chaucer’s writings and why so few survived, I found. And come on, the man lived 150 years before and is considered the father of English poetry, why does Shakespeare get all the credit? I mean sure Shakespeare wrote A LOT, but just this next paragraph should make you want to learn more about Geoffrey Chaucer.

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Book Group, Books

Book 254: Amistad – David Pesci

This is one of those books that make me glad that I participate in my local library’s book group! I would never have gone out of my way to read this book and I surprisingly enjoyed it. I’ve done like I did with Dances with Wolves and broken down this post into the book and movie sections. I don’t think I will add a book group recap unless something really bad happens like with Dances with Wolves.

The Book
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised anymore that I’m enjoying the books selected for book group. They’ve broadened my reading and helped me to branch out, not just because of the styles and subjects I never would’ve read, but because the film adaptations are older and they are really interesting!

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Books

Book 238: The House of Hades (The Heroes of Olympus #4) – Rick Riordan

In this, the penultimate novel of The Heroes of Olympus, Rick Riordan sets the scene for a HUGE finale in the last and final book. I’ve had my name on the wait list for this book since I finished The Mark of Athena back in February or whenever the library first let me add my name to the list and I will do the same thing with the final installment, The Blood of Olympus.

This book picks up right where The Mark of Athena left off and keeps filling up details and providing more and more tension before everything snaps between Gaea and the demigods and gods. To be fair the series could end with this book and I wouldn’t be mad as there was a pretty succinct ending to this novel versus many of the other cliff hangers I’ve read before like that at the end of the last novel. This one although much sadder, the characters and readers of the series are growing up, was much more encapsulated.

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