20.5.12

Book Update

I've kinda only read one full book since I last updated this list. I had been so sick I couldn't even bring myself to read.  I have never been that sick before.


I just started two new books: Interpreter of Maladies and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  Anna Karenina and Joan of Arc are in Georgia. 


The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan (January) 
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (January) 
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread) (February) 
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy* (February/March) 
Dubliners by James Joyce 
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce 
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller 
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott 
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play) 
The Misanthrope by Moliere (play) (March) 
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer 
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway 
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck 
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald 
The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread) (February) 
1984 by George Orwell (reread) 
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread) 
Nickel and Dimed (March)
My Name is Asher Lev  by Chaim Potok (April) 
Joan of Arc by Mark Twain* (March)

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith * (May)
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri * (May)

*Currently reading 

5.4.12

Just Complaining.

Why am I still sick?! Stupid doctors not calling me with my test results and not returning any of my calls. Stupid going back to work full-time at the beginning of the week and not being strong enough to handle it so totally relapsing and having a constant fever alleviated only when I take Tylenol as often as I'm allowed. Stupid having a virus but not actually knowing whether or not it's mono because the doctors won't call back. Stupid having a virus that has to go away on its own and all I can do is treat the symptoms. Stupid not being able to work for the last two weeks and a good portion of this week. Stupid still being sick and unable to take decent care of myself, my husband, and my home. Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid.

11.3.12

A Book Update

The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan (January)
Life of Pi by Yann Martel (January)
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread) (February)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy* (February/March)
Dubliners by James Joyce
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play)
The Misanthrope by Moliere (play) (March)
Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread) (February)
1984 by George Orwell (reread)
The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread)
Nickel and Dimed (March)

*Currently reading

(I think that's everything so far.)

21.2.12

Who I've Wanted to Be

Here is a list of careers I've considered throughout the years:

Elementary School:
  • Pediatrician- Not only did I know I wanted to be a doctor, I knew what kind of doctor I wanted to be. It was also the only doctor I'd really had much interaction with at the time.
  • Writer- I missed my third grade yearbook class picture because I was spending recess in the cafeteria writing a ghost story. At the time when I found out, I was sad because I wasn't in the picture. But now I just think that's how it was supposed to be.

Middle School:
  • Any kind of doctor- Medical school was always one of my plans. A career as a doctor was something planted in my mind when I was very young. It's also an idea I occasionally entertain now but usually just as one of those, "What if I had done this..." thoughts.

High School:
  • Psychiatrist- After my first hospitalization my freshman year of high school, I got a really cool psychiatrist from Russia. I can't remember her name because I could never pronounce it correctly. I was still leaning towards a medical degree at this point.
  • Clinical Psychologist- I decided I liked the person I talked to more than the person who prescribed me my drugs so this career looked a little more attractive.
  • Graphic Designer- I like when things look nice. I like designing things to make them look nice. In high school I had a penchant for making mix CDs and then designing CD covers and actually drawing on the CDs themselves. I like words and I like pictures. I also like when they are aesthetically combined. Well-designed posters and restaurant menus make me happy.
  • Art Therapist- I took an art class my senior year and loved it. We went over the very basics for the first month and then we were given free reign of the school's art supplies. There were a total of four people in that class so we would all be working on different projects and still getting the individual attention we needed. (I remember at one point my friend was doing a watercolor, I was working on an acrylic painting, another kid was doing a very detailed pencil drawing, while the fourth person was doing a stained glass piece.) I knew I would never be good enough at making art to make any kind of career out of it but I thought I could somehow share that therapeutic effect art has with others.

And now I'm just going to list the ones I'd considered while in college without explanations because I'm lazy.

College:
  • Clinical Psychologist
  • Marriage and Family Therapist
  • Social Worker
  • Elementary School Librarian
  • Big City Librarian (official title?)
  • Elementary School Teacher
  • University Professor
  • Researcher
  • School Counselor

Post-Graduation:
  • Librarian- I love books. I love them with a rather large portion of my heart. I had an awesome school librarian while I was in elementary and middle school. She knew I was enthusiastic about books and was enthusiastic about that fact. She would get new books and set them aside for me without putting them up on the shelf because she wanted me to read them first. She would let me check out more books than the allowed limit and I could check out books that weren't supposed to be checked out (like classroom collections for assigned readings.) I could also keep books longer than we were usually supposed to. She liked me and I liked her and she set an amazing example of the kind of librarian that should exist in all libraries. Basically, I've wanted to be that librarian for someone else. Books can change lives and good librarians catalyze that process.
  • High School English Teacher- I like books and I like writing. I want others to like them also. Similar to my librarian friend, my high school English teachers were really great. One of them didn't think my essays were always that great and that discouraged me but I don't hold that against him anymore.
  • Pharmacist- Medications have interested me since my psychiatrist first told me how Prozac and other SSRIs work. Whenever I get a new medication, I thoroughly read their little information papers and then often look them up online to read more about them. This is not just for safety- I'm also just really curious. When I overdosed in May 2008, I didn't tell the nurse what medications I had taken (excedrin, benadryl, nyquil gelcaps), instead I told her the exact number of milligrams I had consumed of aspirin, dextromethorphan, acetaminophen, caffeine, diphenhydramine, and doxylamine succinate. <--Probably a bad example of my interest in pharmacy. Anyway, the way drugs work has always interested me. Also, I didn't do too poorly in my science classes.
  • Stay-at-home mom- I realize that it's kind of weird that I'd never really considered this option seriously until fairly recently, especially having been raised in a church that emphasizes the importance of the mother in the home. I just always thought I'd have some kind of full-time job for the rest of my life until I retired. It wasn't until I met Brenden and we talked about getting married and having a family that I realized that this could potentially be an option. Growing up, I never calculated getting married and having a family into my educational and career pursuits. Basically, since I was child I just assumed I would get a bachelor's degree and then a MD or a PhD. And THEN I'd get married and have kids. My mom worked full-time and all of my friends' mothers worked full-time. It made sense to me. Still having trouble reconciling this option with my lifetime's worth of ideas of how things were supposed to be.

Also, right now I just really, really, really want to be in graduate school. Unfortunately, I haven't decided what career path I want to take and we don't have the money for me to just take classes because I want to. Lamesauce.

6.2.12

Thought

If I'd left on a mission when I had been planning/hoping to, I would be coming back this month.

Not sure how I feel about that in particular.

But in general I feel very sad right now and I don't know why.

1.2.12

2012 Reads

Heidi's post about her January reads reminded me that I needed to write down my booklist for this year. I had scribbled titles of books and authors on a piece of scrap paper at work about a week and a half ago as an effort to take a tiny break from entering names and diagnoses and payments and insurance information, etc. I've been adding to this list as I sit at work and think about books I'd rather be reading at that moment.

Here's my list at this point:
  • The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
  • Life of Pi by Yann Martel
  • Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel (reread)*
  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
  • Dubliners by James Joyce
  • A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
  • Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
  • Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
  • The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde (play)
  • The Misanthrope by Moliere (play)
  • Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer
  • For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck
  • This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • The Stranger by Albert Camus (reread)
  • 1984 by George Orwell (reread)
  • The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger (reread)
*Currently reading

Like Heidi, I've also been aiming at reading about two books a month but some books may take longer than others (e.g., Anna Karenina vs. The Catcher in the Rye) so I'll have to space them out accordingly. Several of these books have been on my "To Read" list for years now (I bought my current copy of Anna Karenina as a freshman in high school and just never read it, but it was one of the books I shoved in my suitcase when I packed for Hurricane Ike) so I really just want to buckle down and read them. I know they're good books. It's just that other good books have often gotten in the way. The four rereads listed on here are all books I read in high school and I just want to read again. I LOOOOVED The Stranger when I read it the summer before sophomore year (that summer I did the summer readings for both high schools on the island which my friends thought was both totally unnecessary and totally nerdy; I didn't care, I loved it). I read it twice that year and then forgot about it until freshman year of college when I got to read The Plague by Albert Camus for some class (I can't even remember which class it was-- I think it was maybe History of Psych?) and I loved that book too. My rereads are at the bottom of this list (except Prozac Nation) because I should read the other books first, though I WILL read The Stranger again even if I don't get around to everything on this list for some reason like other good books getting in the way.

Other things I would like to read this year but won't put on the above list because I don't feel like I need to commit to them as much:
  • The Collected Poems by Sylvia Plath
  • 50 poems by e.e. cummings
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (I think I've read this book about once a year since I first read it in high school. This is one of my favorite books of all time.)
  • Anything by Amy Tan because she is becoming one of my favorite authors
  • And maybe a few Newbery Award winners for some light reading. It's kind of an unwritten goal of mine to read all of the past Newbery Award winners and then just keep up with them as they come out each year. I thoroughly enjoy children's literature.
Please feel free to recommend other books for me to read this year (there are still about seven spots open, if I plan on doing at least two a month) or to simply add to my neverending list of books to read in this lifetime.

26.1.12

"Life has become struggling to catch a single thought versus wondering if anything is going on in my head."

I have no idea where this quote is from. I found it in an old journal of mine and thought it still applied today. 

24.1.12

2.23.06 vs. 1.24.12

This is from a post in my livejournal dated February 23, 2006.  Present day answers italicized and in brackets. Asterisks indicate answers that are no longer true.
                                                        
Four jobs I’ve had...
1. ice cream person! [Children's Department Summer Temp at Rosenberg Library]
2. babysitter [Teaching Assistant for three different college courses]
3. -- [Research Assistant for the Flourishing Families Project]
4. being lazy (the pay was horrible) [Some Assistant Person in the Small Practice Department at Pettigrew Medical Business Services. I don't actually know my official title.]

Four movies I can watch over and over...
1. Ten Things I Hate About You
2. Pirates of the Caribbean* [The Hours. Not really sure why Pirates was ever on this list.]
3. Mulan
4. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King* [Dead Poets Society. I kinda need to watch all of the LOTR movies together, not just one over and over.]

Four books I can read over and over...
1. Second Helpings* [The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath]
2. The Perks of Being a Wallflower
3. Any Harry Potter book* [The Hours by Michael Cunningham. At the time, the seventh Harry Potter book hadn't come out yet. I can't read that book over and over. The fifth book is kinda annoying too; Harry is just so whiny.]
4. White Oleander

Four places I’ve lived...
1. Galveston, Texas
2. Galveston, Texas [Provo, Utah]
3. Galveston, Texas [Seattle, Washington]
4. Galveston, Texas [Athens, Georgia]

Four TV shows I love...
1. I [Parks and Recreation]
2. don't [Modern Family]
3. like [The Mentalist]
4. TV [--]
[This sentiment is still true to an extent.]

Four places I’ve vacationed...
1. Hawaii [Cruise to Mexico]
2. Philippines [Texas]
3. California [Florida]
4. Utah [Illinois]

Four favorite foods...
1. Eggrolls
2. Pancit
3. Spaghetti
4. Lasagna* [Pad Thai]

Four Websites I visit daily...
1. livejournal* [Blogger]
2. gmail
3. yahoo mail* [Facebook]
4. flickr* [--]
[I visit Pinterest and Hulu regularly but not daily. Still, it's obvious I really just use the internet to waste time.]

Four places I’d rather be right now...
1. with Edward* [In graduate school studying literature or art history or psychology. P.S. Edward was my boyfriend at the time.]
2. outside* [Texas!]
3. Hawaii
4. not O'Connell

20.1.12

Snapshots of Life This Week (This Post is for Carly)

The type of stuff normally shared on many blogs:

- I accomplished so much this week! Even though I've been busy working eight hours a day at my brand new job (which is going great, by the way), I pulled out my sewing machine and finally did a few little sewing projects I've been meaning to do. I finished them and they look great. Not too shabby for a beginner.
- I have THE BEST husband in the world. This week he made dinner every night and made me breakfast before work even though he didn't have class until 11am and could've slept in. And it was all delicious! He's so thoughtful. I bring home the bacon and he makes breakfast burritos with it.
- I finished another book last week, The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan. I read her book The Joy Luck Club the summer I was in Seattle. I fell in love with her writing style, the imagery and feelings she creates, and her descriptions of life in China and of life in America as a second generation Chinese-American. The Joy Luck Club really struck a familiar chord with me whereas The Kitchen God's Wife tore at my heart. It was one of those books that just made me think about how grateful I am for the blessings in my life. I started reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I've been meaning to read it since high school and just haven't done it. I saw it at Goodwill for $1 in great condition and bought it. I got such a good deal! It was basically brand new! It's a really good book so far. I just finished reading Part One.
- I love my coworkers. They are so sweet and helpful. And my supervisor keeps telling me how blessed they are to have me at the job. She's been impressed by how quickly I've learned and told me I've been the answer to their prayers. (They've gotten incredibly behind on their stuff and I've been helping them catch up.) I really enjoy having my own office. I still need to decorate it!


The type of stuff people normally leave out:

- My sewing stuff is everywhere. I left my sewing machine on our dining table for the entire week which means we've been eating around it. The table is small as it is. Imagine a big sewing machine on top of a tiny table with two people trying to eat around it. It doesn't work too well.
- We ran out of dishes this week. We have enough place settings for twelve people and yet we ran out of our bowls halfway through the week, all of our spoons (small and big), almost all of our pots and pans, and only had a few plates left before we finally did the dishes today. We had dirty dishes piled in the sink and across countertops. It was lovely. Also, I didn't do the dishes. Brenden did. He always does. I simply refuse to do the dishes. This okay because Brenden refuses to do the laundry.
- I've been reading so much lately because I was sick all last week and had no energy to do anything after coming home from work. I got used to not doing anything after coming home from work and now I just catch up on old episodes of Parks and Recreation and eat junk food while dishes pile up in the sink.
- Work has been going well but the initial novelty (its redeeming factor) is gone and I am so bored. I print things and prepare claims to be sent to insurance companies and do data entry all day long. I have little interaction with others since I have my own office. And there's this annoying buzzing noise emitted from the ceiling light that somehow seems to get louder throughout the day (most likely my imagination.) Also, my office is near the kitchen so from 11:45am to about 1:30pm I hear a lot of foot traffic and smell a lot of smells.
- Brenden came home late the other day and I couldn't get a hold of him at all beforehand. I was being completely rational and thought he was dead. And then thought that I would be incriminated for his murder because I was home alone and there was no one with me as a witness of me not murdering my husband. So I kept calling him from the house phone every few minutes. I think I ended up leaving about 10 messages. And then when I finally got a hold of him and realized that he'd previously told me about the thing he'd been doing that evening I was still upset not entirely at him but just in general. Even so, I yelled for a good twenty minutes, not necessarily at Brenden, just yelling to get the built up stress and frustration out. I ended up feeling horrible anyway and my throat was in pain. The most repeated sentence out of my mouth was "I AM SO MAD!" I just kept saying that over and over again. It was awesome. Just ask Brenden.

All of this stuff is true and actually happened this week or the end of last week. The good stuff and the bad stuff. I'm just tired of blog posts where I can't relate to the author because their life seems perfect. Although perhaps because of how much I sometimes share, people probably still can't relate to me because I'm crazy.

19.1.12

/Old Journal Entries/







Some of my old journal entries from college freshman and sophomore/junior years (sophomore/junior was one year and I can't figure out if it should be my sophomore year or my junior year.) Testing out our new scanner.