Updates

April Recap 2017

It’s starting to finally feel like Spring has arrived in New England! Of course I say that and it’s 50°F (10°C) today, so I guess it really is just New England spring. Either way it’s nice to see the sun again, I’ve been able to start walking in the mornings a couple of days a week.

In addition to actually having time to take care of myself physically, walking, I’ve had time to take care of myself mentally and been able to read books again! And you know why? It’s because I started my new job midway through the month. My body was actually in shock the last couple of weeks going from 50-60+ hours a week to working a normal 9-5/40 hour a week really did a number on me. Thankfully I’m adjusting, it also doesn’t hurt I have my own office to decorate (see photo at the very end).

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Culture Corner

Culture Corner – January 2015

2015 01-04 License Plate GameI can’t believe it’s been four months since I last did a Culture Corner (September 2014), but the blog wasn’t lacking for culture! With the end of my 30×30 list we got to visit the Somerville Museum, finish touring the MFA with my friend Caroline and I finally attend the Boston Symphony Orchestra again. But since then, I’ve done a lot of travelling and visited quite a few museums.

One of the big things I’ve never talked about as a cultural experience is travelling. I generally focus on what I do when I get there, but driving from Boston to North Carolina and then flying from North Carolina to Omaha, Nebraska and then back to Boston really made me think about the culture of travelling.  I won’t go into it in this post, but I think I’ll probably write about it when I attempt to revive Now Entering Adulthood in the coming weeks. What I AM going to write briefly about and show lots of pictures of are my whirlwind trips in December to DC and North Carolina and my January trip to Omaha! And then throw in a few pictures of my most recent MFA visits.

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Updates

September 2013 Recap

I honestly thought doing monthly recaps might make the year go buy significantly slower, but boy was I wrong. Every time I go to write one of these my first thought is holy hell where did _______ go? And this month’s post is no different. I’m trying to figure out where summer and September went and what I’m going to do knowing October, November and December are going to be even busier!

2013 09-19 Finally Reading RowlingOn the reading front, I had a fun month. I didn’t read a single challenge book and don’t feel any guilt at all. I read what I wanted when I wanted and thoroughly enjoyed it, including FINALLY getting around to reading Rowling’s The Cuckoo’s Calling. (Which was great and I can’t wait until another is released!) I read a total of ten books and two short stories. Of those SEVEN were from the library and three were galleys. I think my favorite read of the month was Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake triology: Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood, and MaddAddam. I went and saw Ms. Atwood speak and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I’ll recap that in this month’s Culture Corner. The trilogy and hearing her speak once again reminded me how much I love her and I think I’m going to make an effort to finish reading her other novels I haven’t read yet.

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Books

Book 224: Seating Arrangements – Maggie Shipstead

For a book that has this much hype I expected it to have a lot more impact upon completion. Perhaps I just didn’t understand it and the impact’s subtlety was lost on me. I will say re-reading the last line again increased the impact, but I honestly thought the denouement would be much more dramatic and or conclusive rather than sort of wishy-washy-ing its way to a finale.

Don’t get me wrong, this was not a bad book, it was incredibly well written and the number of lines that made me laugh out loud or that I had to re-read because of how beautiful written they were far outnumbered the issues I had with the book. What got me though is how little action there was in the book. It felt almost like a set of actions stuck on repeat. and that just didn’t do it for me. Thankfully the writing was so great that it pushed the story forward, but I’m still not sure about most of the hype for the book.

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