Ethical Gifts (aka Yolanda's not-so-subtle-hints SCOTT!)

Like most things in a TCK life, Christmas and subsequent emotions are strongly influened by the country I'm in... or rather, the country I'm not in. In North America, I'm plagued by feelings of guilt for all the consumerism and caramel brulee lattes I drink. I feel alienated as people talk of cozy family traditions and I avoid Christmas work parties like the plague. So it's no surprise that I'm Vancouver's friendly neighborhood Grinch (who does actually really like pretty things in pretty paper and bows). In Costa Rica, it's apparent that the guilt that plagues me is pandemic among my acquaintances and so I take on a more gung-ho, let's-make-cookies-and-decorate, tis-the-season attitude and become the one pushing for MORE Christmas-ness. So I've been thinking a lot about what I want to make Christmas about and I've decided I'm totally ok with my split-yuletide-personality-disorder. Perhaps here, cheer and enthusiasm is needed to lift unenthusiastic spirits and perhaps in Canada, I need to be cautious so as not to get sucked in too deep into something that will cost more than my savings.

It seems to be an oft-talked about topic so awareness is obviously growing about the social and environmental pitfalls of Christmas gifts and sundry. The enormous amount of things that are bought for the holidays contribute to sweatshops, entire industries devoted to red and green. For a fascinating read, Santa's Real Workshop: the town in China that makes the world's decorations ) I'm not here to lecture or spread guilt. However, I've tried over the last few years to make an increasing number of my gifts fair trade and often felt the lack of resources or legitimate suggestions. Yes we've all hear about buying a goat for industrious villagers in a far-off continent and, to my frustration, this is usually what people assume I mean when I put "cute fainting goat" on my wish list.

Over the last few years, I've tried really hard to buy sustainably and ethically but there's always that last minute rush to buy a White Elephant gift for a Holiday party or to buy one or two more things for someone just in case they got you something nice. There are invariable trips to Wal-Mart for stocking stuffers and dashes to the mall for hostess gifts. I get that it's very hard to avoid. But what if we challenge ourselves to do the bulk of our shopping early enough to be able to go to local fairs and support local artisans or, if you're buying things online and paying for shipping, perhaps support NGO's whose products are changing the lives of people and providing education, community, emotional support and much more. It is possible to do this without compromising that feeling of opening something pretty on Christmas and making someone happy (instead of the clenched "oh yay...a goat...for someone else...just what I was hoping would be under this wrapping paper).

So here are some fantastic suggestions and if you know of any more, please comment here or on facebook as the ideas could come in useful to other readers. Also, if you have any information that would negate the efficacy of any of the organizations below, please pm because I would like to know!
Click the name of the organization for more information

1. The Megumi Project ,  Onagawa, Japan
   I can personally vouch for this organization as one of the people that I know that is most passionate about helping people in legitimate and caring ways is a part of it (and I love the beautiful products I've received!). The ladies that work here make beautiful scarves from vintage kimono. Check out their story. They have great shipping rates (order by December 10 for the packages to arrive in time for Christmas)
   Also be sure to check out their sister project, Nozomi, which makes gorgeous jewellery from broken shards of pottery. http://nozomiproject.com/

2. Justees T-shirts    Cambodia
    Cool edgy t-shirt designs from Cambodia - I love the designs and the cause! Justees helps men finish their education while making a living.

3. Oxfam
  Oxfam has adorable gifts (check out this cat for your resident cat-lover or these adorable bike chain cuff links for the dapper hipster - we all have at least one on our list) and should you decide to go the "buy a goat" route, it has tongue in cheek cards that you can buy for the recipient that will at least produce a laugh (if not a squeal).

4. Ten Thousand Villages
   For my Canadian friends, I've bought many gifts and Christmas decorations here. Beautiful and warm, these stores are run by MCC and are staffed entirely by volunteers. The gorgeous content is crafted by artisans from around the world who are paid in full even when items go on sale (which they often do which makes it very affordable).

5. Etsy
   If you don't want to support Big Business, consider supporting little business and buying handmade, personalized items. For instance, the booklover (and/or tea lover - usually the same thing) on your list would LOVE one of these book earrings

6. Craft Fairs
If you live in Vancouver or really, any big city or small town (even Vanderhoof) there WILL be at least 2 craft fairs stuffed with crocheted and beaded and candle-d knick knacks. However, scattered among all the rather kitschy or niche items will be loads of unique, handmade jewelry and artisan goodies. So check out a craft fair, feel inspired to do your own or spend your money where it can impact local artists.

Being in an itinerant period of my life (again) my wish list pretty much narrowed to an e-subscription of the Economist and Kobo gift cards this year. However, the beauty of these suggestions is that they will hold true year after year and will provide a lot of room for creativity and personalization and hopefully not add to guilt or annoyance. Get your shopping done early and away from crowds and spend your energy loving your friends and family (and reading by the fire, in cozy socks, with a cat, and lights and a tree, and snow falling outside the window and every other Christmas cliché!)

Again, please comment with your favorite ethical sources for gifts or ideas for how you keep the holidays sustainable!

Why I love ... literature (part 1) by Juniper

                As of tonight I have officially passed the 100,000 word mark in my novel. I have also made a big decision about the narrative this week: this will not be a standalone story. Due to the direction the plot has taken (some of it planned, some of it not) the story has basically no shot of being complete in a single volume. Will I write the 2nd book? I have no idea! That will probably depend on how well book 1 turns out.

                Seeing as how I have just passed this major threshold in my writing, it seems fitting for me to write my post about why I love literature next.

                Luna was accurate in her assessment that my last post was too long (and that was after I cut out a few paragraphs) so I think I'm going to split this one into two parts. Part 1 will highlight my long history with literature, and part 2 will dive into the reasons why I love literature.

                Why I Love Literature Part 1 - A History

                My earliest memories of reading were with my grandma. I was exceptionally privileged to have her teach me how to read. She was a teacher for something just shy of 30 years and, to my knowledge, spent most of that time teaching children how to read and write. When the school I was enrolled in for grade 2 decided I wasn't allowed to attend there days before school started (long story) my parents made an unusual decision. I lived about three blocks away from my grandma, and they decided that I would be homeschooled that year. So every morning when my brother got in the car to attend kindergarten, I would hop on my bike and ride over to my grandparent's place and have 1-on-1 private schooling from a 30 year veteran. We would practice reading, writing, and math until lunch time, she would feed me lunch, and then I would bike home and be done for the day. It was a pretty awesome set-up and by the time grade 3 rolled around and I went back to an actual school I was pretty far ahead of most people in reading ability.

                My first foray into what I will call 'serious reading' (simply meaning I read a lot) happened a couple years later when my grandpa took me to a flea market and I saw a display with a Star Wars book on it. He bought it for me and I think I spent the next few years rarely missing a night where I read at least an hour before bed as well as whenever I could throughout the day. I still have a collection of ~140 Star Wars books in my old room. My aunt Diane also bought me a big box of Hardy Boy's books a little while after that, and I would devour one a night until I had worked my way through most of them.

                Some of my fondest memories of middle and high school were sharing impressions and excitement with friend over the books we had read, or taking their recommendations and giving them mine and then revelling in the wonders discovered within. Two memories stand out to me from that time. First was my friend BJ spoiling what may have been the biggest event in the entire cannon of Star Wars books. He managed to get his hands on the most recent volume first, blasted through it in a sitting or something close, and then sent me a message wherein he poured out his frustration over one of the central characters dying. I still haven't forgiven him for that. The other was my friend Josh sitting behind the couch in the upper floor of the library and reading his favorite book series out loud to whoever would listen. I had already read the series upon his recommendation so I never stuck around long, but how dedicated he was to sharing his love of the story with others always stuck with me.

                It was around this time that I also tried my hand at writing some fiction along with a few of my friends. We had this crazy idea that we would each create a character that lived in the same universe as each other's, except we would all write about the same events from the perspective of our chosen hero. It ended up fizzling out after we continually fought over who got to decide the arc of the plot, but I found the process exhilarating and always wished we would have written more.

                My perspective on literature at that point of time was not at all academic. I read books because I enjoyed them and wanted to read more. I was learning and growing the whole while, but only came to understand those things later and upon reflection. The shift from what I read being 'books' to being 'literature' began to happen in grade 12 in my English and English Literature classes. Even though we had studied all sorts of literature in school for many years at that point, there was something about the critical approach they required us to take in those classes that forced me to think about what I was reading in a different way.

                It was also during that time that I read Hamlet, performed my first meaningful rendition of Shakespeare (a scene from King Lear), and wrote my first poem. Hamlet showed me how much meaning could be contained in one piece of writing. The King Lear performance helped me connect my emotions and personality to what I was reading. The poem allowed me to express myself with clarity and confidence. The poem actually ended up being about how there can be meaning hidden in the different ways we write and speak, which was an epiphany I had while writing the first draft of the poem. Thus, I also learned that the process of writing could teach me things as well.

                I didn't know exactly what I wanted to study when I started university, but I was fairly certain it would be something in the sciences. I had taken as many of them as I could in high school, and even went so far as to take Math 12 in the summer so I could take calculus in grade 12. My grades in math and science were a bit higher than in anything else academic and I found the topics fascinating, so it seemed a logical choice to continue studying in those fields. The university I attended, Trinity Western, required every student to take a wide variety of courses alongside whatever their major was to ensure every student had a comprehensive, well-rounded education. I did what any student who was unsure of their major did and took as many of those general elective classes as I could my first year. By the end of it I had studied math, physics, music, theatre, Biblical studies, English and philosophy. I was feeling pretty set on completing a degree in physics after that - it seemed the most practical and I loved the two classes I took - but at the start of my 2nd year I found out that not only did Trinity not offer a full physics degree but that with the way courses were going to be scheduled I wouldn't even be able to complete a concentration in my 4 years there; not focusing during my first year had cost me that opportunity. After much thought, advice, and research I decided I would complete a general studies degree with a double minor in physics and something else yet decided.

                After 2nd year I had an epiphany: I was tired of generalizing in everything I did and really wanted to finish with some kind of specialized degree. It felt very important to me at the time so I poured over my transcript and tallied up my credits in every discipline I had studied to see if it was possible. It suddenly dawned on me that I had taken a ton of English classes, one in every elective slot where it was an option. I realized that if I loaded my schedule up with mostly English classes the rest of the way I would be able to pull off an English degree. So I did.

                2.5 years later I had it done. Some of the classes had content that I found dry and forgettable - Canadian Literature and Chaucer stand out to me - but many of them were riveting - creative writing, both Shakespeare classes, children's literature, and fantasy literature come first to mind - and I was glad I made the choice I did when I was done. A part of me couldn't believe that I had an English degree after my intentions had been to study in the maths or sciences for so long. Looking back, if Trinity had offered a full physics degree I may well have completed it. Maybe it was destiny or maybe it was just a solid back-up option, but the lessons I learned studying the classics and figuring out how to express my thoughts and feelings with words have proven invaluable to me.

                I wrote a lot of poetry during my university days; it was my main outlet to process my thoughts and emotions. After I graduated the amount I wrote decreased dramatically, but I never stopped thinking about things I wanted to write about. I always knew I would return to it one day, but for a few years I focused more on other things.

                I remember one day when I was working as an EA at the school I graduated from I had a thought that seemed an interesting idea for a novel. I had never really considered writing a novel before - it always seemed like way too much work - but the idea intrigued me so I continued to think about it for the next few months, jotting down any ideas I had for it as I went. As I did so, other ideas came to me and by the time I started teacher's college I had a list of a half-dozen concepts for novels that I felt worth remembering. Life got far too busy after that to think much on them, but in the back of my mind I thought that maybe someday far in the future I might look back at my musings and thoughts and suddenly realize I was older and wiser enough to actually take on the task of writing a novel.

                At the time I imagined I would probably do it when I was old. Yet here I sit, not a month 29 and over 100,000 words into my first novel. How I got to this point ... well, I mostly already explained in a previous post.

                In summary, my history with literature has been fairly typical in some ways, and really odd in other ways. I have by no means been a person who has claimed literature to be his biggest passion, writing to be his life goal, or even reading to be his all time favorite hobby. I have a degree studying it, but only as a rebound when my first choice proved unavailable. But regardless of the path I've taken to study, appreciate, and create literature, there are many reasons why I have come to love it.

                But more on that in my next post.

Why I love video games by Juniper

Why I Love ... Video Games

Since my last blog post felt a bit unfocused and rambly to me, I'm going to try something different for a bit. I'm going to approach my next number of posts (dunno how many) focused around the concept of 'why I love ... ' to reflect on things that have been and are important to me. In a time where I'm focusing my time and efforts on a development of self-discipline and the accomplishment of a big life goal, I think reflecting on some of the things that have shaped me would be both pertinent and constructive.

Before I jump in to my first topic, it's time for a quick update on my novel. I've passed the 84,000 word mark but probably should have broken 90k at this point; it feels like I'm inching ahead discipline wise, having a couple of great writing days and then a couple of duds over and over. I'm anticipating the novel to end up around 150k words, meaning if I can keep a 10k words a week pace (entirely doable) I should be finished the first draft by the end of October. I have multiple editing/rewriting passes planned after that - one for grammar and punctuation, one for tone and flow, one for cohesiveness and consistency - so it won't be done done until sometime in November. Having an actual rough date of completion is, however, huge for me. I could actually finish this thing in the near future. The problem is, as soon as I realized this my brain went into celebration mode and forgot about all the work to come, and my last 2 days have been pathetic writing wise. Oops!

This post is going to cover 'why I love video games'. Why am I starting with this topic? No reason really, other than it's the one I felt like talking about today.

Video games are super polarizing. There are some people - I know many - who view them as at best a waste of time. Some would suggest video games rot your brain, distract you from what is important, harm your health, and are overall the junk food of society. Then there are some people - I know many - who would claim that video games are the apex of quality entertainment, the fastest growing and most important form of art, an irreplaceable source of social interconnectivity and interaction, and a powerful tool for making us all smarter. I agree with everyone!

I've been playing video games basically as far back as I can remember. Early on in life mostly with my cousin Greg, then with my friends at school, and nowadays with people from all over the world (some who I have met in person, but many who I have not). The challenges out there to overcome both by myself and alongside my friends have proven too intriguing to resist, and gaming became what has been my life's biggest hobby.

My love of video games was cemented by my friends. I remember being an awkward, quiet kid in middle school who had mostly made connections with other kids through shared activities (being in the same class, liking the same sports, enjoying wandering around pretending to be Star Wars characters, etc). At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, the dominant shared activity became video games. The excitement of talking about a recent heroic feat or an upcoming new title was bonding, and it gave me a language and a reason to connect with others much more often. As time went on new things came up as the reasons for friendships to form, but if I'm honest I don't know if there is any singular thing I can point to that brought me more friendships and connections than a shared love of video games has. Many of the friendships I formed over gaming have lasted to this day, and a number of people who will likely read this blog are among them.

Challenge. Exploration. Discovery. Connection. These things drew me into video games right from the very beginning and have stuck. I always enjoyed school, I loved to learn, I read books voraciously, I hung out and played with friends whenever I could, but there was something about video games that scratched an itch those other things didn't. I think, more than anything, it was the combination of all of these elements in one place that was so powerful. What books often made obscure and hard to understand, games made vivid and obvious. What adventure reality buried under homework and responsibility, games made accessible. What freedom circumstances tarnished as hurts and confusion piled up around me, games provided with no burdens or expectations. When school was too easy, games provided challenge. When school was too hard, games provided escape. When friends were plentiful, games provided a mutual activity to connect with. When friends were hard to come by, games provided companionship in frequented servers and guilds. Some people find it hard to believe, but I have made genuine and lasting friendships through games I have played. I have helped people through trying times and spoken into the lives of people I have never met but through chat messages. It has been reciprocated as well; there have been friends whose faces I have never seen that have helped me through dark days and nights. In many ways, gaming has been like a multi-tool for me; versatile and useful when the proper component is applied at the right time in the right way.

Another reason gaming has stuck around as my biggest hobby for so long is that I'm generally really good at it, and being good at what you do for fun is nice! I love learning new things and seeing improvements in my understandings and skills; I am also naturally quite competitive. My love of sports stems naturally from these attributes. However, for various reasons (which I may or may not expound upon in a later blog post) sports have been pushed into minor-hobby territory for most of my adult life. Without a lot of sports to satisfy my competitive streak, I turned to video games. The one game that I can claim some level of high-end accomplishment is World of Warcraft. After many years of casually playing I started to take my play more seriously and joined a competitive team. At the beginning my goal was to prove that I could play at a competent enough level to keep up with the team, who were at that time among the top 400 teams in North America. Within a month, I was competing for the top position in the team. Some nights I played well enough to rank in the top 50 players of my class in North America, and a few times I managed top 10. Eventually I had to make a choice: double or triple my time investment and turn what was still a hobby into a veritable part-time job to move up to the next tier or be satisfied with my accomplishments. I chose to be satisfied. Sometimes I look back and wonder if I would have made it to the top; part of my is confident I would have. To this day I still raid from time to time, never more than a few times a week. I still feel the temptation to push myself to the top again, but there are too many other things going on to give that much time to it.

All in all, when I think about what I have done that has pushed my skills past their limits to new heights, raiding is what comes to mind. I have friends who have found a lot of success in music and sports. When people look at what they accomplished it is easy for them to see what their efforts and talents have wrought. Yet most people will never recognize what I was able to accomplish because it was in a video game. There is a side to being a gamer that is difficult to overcome; the stigma attached to it. Video games aren't as healthy as sports are, not as presentable as music or dance, not as tangible as chess. They lack tradition because they are so new. And yet they contain almost all of the elements that make sports, music, and other classic games so interesting, and what makes performing them skillfully have value. I have found value in what I have been able to accomplish in my raiding. Knowledge that I can push my limits. Confidence in being able to accomplish something I once thought would be impossible. Discipline in the repetition and failures involved in making it to the top (or close to the top, in my case). I even learned a lot about leadership and teamwork by being a part of a group of 20 people pushing for the same goal over many months. A treasure trove of valuable lessons that are hidden away from people's perceptions because they view them as 'just a video game'. Fortunately, that does not lessen the personal value they have to me.

With all of this said, I am well aware that gaming can be a vice. I have not been free of that side of it. There have been times where I can look back and say I have been addicted to gaming, where I used it as an escape from life for too long. There have been times where my desire to accomplish a goal or attain an achievement in a game have cost me health and wellness, usually due to me not sleeping enough. There have been people I have hurt by prioritizing a game over them. More often than I'd like to admit I've spent time playing that I should have spent working towards certain things. Sometimes there can be a fine line between using gaming as a way to relax and have some fun and using it as a way to avoid responsibilities or procrastinate. Even this week, there are times where I meant to write or clean or message someone I haven't talked to for a while and then, instead, I spent a bunch of extra time gaming instead simply because it was a lot more fun.

Video games are polarizing, and one of the best examples of that is within my own self! I understand their value; they have enriched my life in many ways, helped me through tough times, inspired me, driven me to push my limits, connected me with others, and entertained me more than almost any other form of media or art. I also understand their vices; they have distracted me from my goals and intentions over and over, harmed my health, and have whisked away months worth of time with little tangible to show for it. At this point in time I'm working through figuring out the place video games have in my life. I no longer need to rely on them for escape or relaxation; I have many other - oftentimes healthier - ways of meeting those needs. I no longer need to rely on the community I find in them for my socialization, although I still have valued friends I spend time with online. I no longer have the excuse 'I have nothing better to do' to justify my playtimes, although I still derive huge amounts of enjoyment out of playing. I don't even need them as an outlet for my competitiveness or drive to improve; writing is proving more than enough of a battle in that arena.

Some people's idea of a perfect holiday is lounging on the beach, drinking Pina Colada's and letting the sound of the waves soothe their troubles away. Other people might instead prefer excitement and challenge, maybe by heading up to the slopes or into the woods. Others yet might prefer just a chunk of unadulterated time with family or friends, caring less about the activities than about spending time together. Each of those things sounds great from time to time, but my quietly-held-secret of a perfect holiday is holing up for a bunch of days in a comfy place with yummy food and losing myself in my favorite virtual worlds without any worries of responsibilities being shirked or people being forgotten. Some people who know I like to do this simply can't understand; to them it looks like an absurd waste of time and opportunity. But some people do understand, a group that luckily includes my wife. She is great at making sure my forays into virtual reality don't stretch on to unhealthy lengths, and has come to learn the value and fun I find in them.

So why do I love video games? Lots of reasons! Should I love video games less? Sometimes, definitely. They can become a vice for me, but the trajectory of my habits and choices points towards me getting better at that all the time. Am I going to stop playing video games? I have no plans to, although I think I should tone back how much time I invest in them and use those hours for, say, writing novels! Would I be better off without them? Some days, yes. But there have been many days that I think they have given me something valuable, whether that be a challenge, a lesson, a friend, a distraction, or even just a bit of fun to make my life a little bit better.

Next post: Why I love literature.              

PS: I may have hurt some family members feelings a couple of posts back by not including them in my recollections of what I had been doing. So just to be safe, I just want to say I've had a wonderful time getting to know all of the following family members better since I came to Costa Rica: Venus, Annie, Burt, Arlene, Calisha, Danica, Evan, Florence, Walter, Gladys, John, Aidan, Sion-Ed, Kai, Eldon, Kenia, Karelia, Donovan, Karina, Daniel, Sam, Jared, Tyler, and Lani. Hopefully there aren't any family members I missed ... nope, I think that list was pretty exhaustive!

Pura Vida by Juniper

The term 'Pura Vida' is, perhaps, the most popular Costa Rican phrase. You see it on a huge proportion of tourist paraphernalia, hear it more often than not in any extended interaction with locals, and see it plastered on signs most anywhere you go. It is a native Costa Rican term for 'pure life', but it can mean much more than that. It symbolizes the local philosophy of life, that being a pure life is one of enjoyment, fun, and an underlying easygoing nature. It means to take life as it comes and to live life fully. Often locals use the term to communicate that life is going good regardless of troubles. It can also mean lots of different - and much simpler things - in conversation such as hello, how are you, or even the equivalent of the Western answer to every inquiry into someone's current state: good!

The constant usage of this simple phrase begs comparison between my home culture and the one where I currently reside. It emphasizes how expectations of what one's life should entail can be so very different simply based upon where you are born. And it's got me thinking a bit.

I do not claim to be an expert on culture or history, so correct me if my thoughts and conclusions on such topics are off the mark. From what I understand, a defining component of Western culture has been the shaping and molding of basically everything it can get its hands on. It sees a tree and thinks 'If I chop that down, what can I use it for?' It sees a new culture and thinks 'What do they have that we want; the rest we'll fix.' It sees a human being and thinks 'What more can they become, and how do we get them there?' It sees the arc of history and thinks 'How much more can we bend it to our ends?' Words that seem to describe Western thought and culture to me are progressive, aggressive, impatient, rational, assertive, objective, and critical. (There are many more, of course, but I'll leave the list like that for the sake of this post).

I do not know nearly so much about Latin American culture or history - I'm slowly learning. There are, however, some general patterns that stand out to me from a purely Costa Rican cultural perspective. The cultural compass isn't pointed towards progress or domination or mastering nature - although that's not to say those things aren't valued or practiced here - but rather towards the appreciation of what we already have and know. It is much more focused on the now than the future. It puts a lot more effort into the subjective layers of life. It does a lot less of the throwing away the good things it knows it has in an attempt to find better than we do in the Western world. I don't know what a Latin American mind thinks when it sees a tree or a new culture or a human being or the arc of history. It's bound to be different, and so it seems I have some learning to do.

The reason I make these comparisons is that, in some ways, I find the conflicting natures of these different cultures a macrocosm of what I and many people I know wrestle with inside. My thoughts on this topic feel a jumble in my head at the moment, so I'm going to try and communicate a few things as succinctly as I can. Below are some questions I find profound that I think stem from this topic and touch on the struggles of many trying to figure out what life should look like to them.

Can living in the moment make one impotent at impacting the future? Can focusing too much on the future render one oblivious to the present?

How much effort should I put into changing the world if the more I push the more unhappy I am? How much contentment is sufficient to say 'I am happy, now what can I do to serve'?

If every tree I chop can be put to good use, how many will be sufficient? The more we hold sacred the less we can change, so what are we willing to sacrifice in the name of progress?

There are many things in me that are broken. Which do I leave behind, which do I live with, and which do I repair?

How much is enough?

Perhaps these struggles arise from growing up in Canada, where different cultural mindsets are genuinely allowed to be explored and people with different - or even conflicting - basic beliefs about what life should be somehow manage to live together peacefully on the whole. Maybe everyone struggles with these things, regardless of how ingrained in one cultural perspective they may appear on the outside.

I have a sneaking suspicion I've fallen into an old habit of posting something online in a state where my thoughts haven't quite reached maturation and thus what I've said is more confusing to follow than it is helpful. If so, then this blog post can serve as a sort of representation of what my brain is like in those long stretches of time where I'm lost in my thoughts and not saying much. Hopefully there's a bit more substance than that though!

Life update time!

Speaking of Pura Vida, I think it is an apt term for my life right now. I've been struggling with some major allergy issues in our place and washing all the curtains and walls hasn't seemed to solve the problem just yet. I've also been wrestling with discipline and distractions, and I'm not yet at the point where I'm super pleased with my progress. And yet I can easily say Pura Vida. I've had a few of the best writing days of my life this month and surpassed 75,000 words in the novel. I got to spend a few days at my first all-inclusive beach resort last week. I got to help butcher an entire Buffalo (took a big group of us about 8 hours) which was interesting! My days are almost entirely stress free. I get time off whenever I want. I have access to tons of fresh, delicious food basically whenever I feel like putting in the effort to get it/make it. I'm getting along great with my inlaws. I have a top notch wife who is super patient and supportive. I have a killer view and really nice weather. And I'm probably forgetting a bunch of other good things.

Oh yeah, and I'm not currently pulling out my hair trying to figure out how to make room-full's of teenagers listen to me and care about what I'm teaching. I do miss teaching, but man it's nice to not be going through the stress of the start of a new school year right now. I feel totally spoiled.

Books #20 thru #33

What with beach travels and Erica visiting, I've been reading at a faster pace than normal and have gotten a bit "backblogged" so will be entering a few more than usual here without any attempt at tying them together in any kind of theme. Hopefully you like lists as much as I do!

#20
At last I've found a book of short stories I enjoy! Normally, short stories either bore me or depress me. They bore me because there's not enough time to really get attached to the characters and I can't seem to get invested. They bore me because they tend to be dark and depressing; how else do you make a short story punchy enough to carry any kind of message. Happy short stories seem to end up in one Chicken Soul book or another.

Changing Planes by Ursula K. LeGuin was fantastic. The premise being that, if trained, when you are bored and frustrated at an airport you can slip between dimensions and travel to other planes. Half travel book, half fantasty novel, the short stories each deal with a different world and approaches each descriptively or historically. Interesting, sad, funny; each world deals with issues very much present on Earth. This is the kind of short story book I'd like to write. I can imagine Ursula lying in bed, dreaming up histories of make-believe planets and those that didn't have potential for a full novel, got into this anthology. This novel was all the more potent since I was reading it on an airplane!

#21
An Uncomplicated Kindness by Miriam Toews was a difficult read for me. The story is told from the perspective of Nomi Nickel, a teenager whose mom and sister have both run away, leaving her and her dad trying to survive and understand what happened. Set in a small, Mennonite town in Manitoba, I thought that it would be very relevant to my perspective and understanding but I found the dark depressing tone and the lack of anything positive in regards to the Mennonite lifestyle rather jarring and at odds with my experience. I've seen a lot of negative things in the Mennonite world but I've also seen a lot of positive things such as the emphasis on family and good food and a holistic, frugal lifestyle that is akin to many hipsters today.

  Things that seemed eerily familiar from her book:
        - the whispers of shunnings that happened or might happen if you don't toe the line
        - the expression "oba yo!" (only understandable by Plat Deutsch speakers)
        - the idea of humility and "only God will judge" contrasted with rampant judgement and critisism of                    individuals and of the whole entire world
        - the use of "silly" as an uncontrolled and negative action (as opposed to "goofy")
        - cult-like leaders
        - the non-aggressive but un-socialized staring, rather like what babies and young children do but                       somehow continuing on to adulthood.

  Things that didn't resonate with me or remind me of my childhood:
       - the rampant drinking, drugs, cynicism (probably because I was seven when we left..would be interested to hear what my older siblings would have to say about this book)
      - the divorce (that just didn't happen!)
      - the ignoring of "worldly clothes". In the culture I grew up on, that was cause of shunning!
      - the tv (although she does mention that it was frowned upon; not cause for shunning however).

#22 Bossypants by Tina Fey
I've been wanting to read Bossypants by Tina Fey for a long time and perhaps the build up is partially to blame for my disappointment but, even though it was a quick entertaining read, I didn't think much of the book and will stick to her screen appearances from now on. Fey skirted away from any juicy content or new revelations, wasn't particularly funny, jumped around in a very organized fashion that made it hard to follow and wasn't at all inspiring.

#23 Strangers by Anita Brookner
I've really enjoyed Anita Brookner's books in the past, notably Hotel du Lac but I was disappointed in Strangers. I liked that it was set from the viewpoint of someone older, socially awkward, and introverted. It was a nice change from the normal young, beautiful protagonist.

#24 The Secret of Platform 13  by Eva Ibbotson
  This was a cute whimsical read full of fun new imaginary creatures, kind of like a modern-day Narnia. Would recommend to any kid or kid-at-heart.

#25 The Best Laid Plans by Terry Fallis
    I LOVED this book. Perhaps a little heavy on the workings of the Canadian parliament for some people, it reminded me of my time working in the political system. I found it funny and nerdy and, surprisingly, touching.

#26  Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
This book was incredibly potent and within a few pages, I was completely hooked! I don't know that I would recommend it for everyone but the personal story of a young child with intersex conditions as well as the family history was fascinating.

#27 Pink Sugar by O. Douglas
   This was an old tattered book on my childhood bookshelf. A sweet story about a world weary woman who is delighted to settle into a small town and make a home for three children whose mother just died. This is exactly the kind of simple book that Scott always makes fun of my reading, since I'm such a city girl who would probably hate this kind of rural utopia, but there is something about this style that brings me back again and again to L. M. Montgomery and Jan Kaaron of the Mitford series and the Irish County Village series by Patrick Taylor. Sometimes, when life is stressful, you don't want your reading to be stressful as well.

#28 Geisha, A Life by Mineko Iwasaki
 Many people have read or seen the movie, Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. The fact that a book about a long-standing and deeply honoured part of Japanese culture was written by a Western man who, in the process, betrayed sources that wished to be anonymous is offensive to many Japanese people. Geisha, A Life is an attempt at telling the true story and is written by one of the most sucessful Geisha of all time. Although perhaps not as entertaining or plot driven as The Life of Geisha, Mineko's telling is more authentic and realistic and therefore, worth reading.

#29, #30, #32 and #33
 I honestly and truly don't consider myself a book snob. I have books in almost every genre that I love and I don't read based on Oprah's list or the New York Times Bestseller list. I love simple books (See #27) and sci fi (#20) and family history (#26) and memoirs (#28) and self-help (#19) and children's books (#16) and random collections of intersting facts (#13) and many more. However, I do believe that some books will make you a better person and will inspire you and challenge you. Other books might not do more for you than a soap opera and I do try to avoid those.

Part of this list was to challenge myself to not read books that I'd be ashamed to post here. But sometimes, when you're at the beach, or when you're sick and you have a Kobo that has free books available you slip into an easy novel that doesn't require much thinking and I fell into this a bit the last week when I was both at the beach and subsequently, sick. So four books on this list, I'm not even going to bother talking about. They were all the same; they all had stereotypical gender roles and sickly happy endings and titles like "Melt with Me" and "Wedding Belles". (If you really want to know, you can head over to my Goodreads account)I'd like to say, I'm not even going to be ashamed...but despite my desire to not be a book snob, I can't help but be a little bit ashamed for wasting my time on these when I know there is much better material out there.

#31 The Perfume Collector by Kathleen Tessaro
  While some might deem this "light summer reading" I really enjoyed The Perfume Collector and, unlike my previous reads,  I'm not ashamed to post it here! Split into two different timelines, it is the story of two women from two different times joined by a mysterious will. Poignant, sad but with a classic touch of flying the coop: a mysterious benefactor sets things in place for one to leave a stagnant position and find freedom, joy and meaning in a new environment. Something I could really relate to and probably something most of us still desire: something more and something better!

Why I am writing a novel by Juniper

Why am I writing a novel? The answer is quite complex. The answer is also partially unclear and may, ultimately, depend on how it goes. I’m going to do my best to overview all of my reasons for doing so in this blog post!

I’ll start with the simplest reason. It’s someone I want to check off on my life’s ‘to do’ list. There are a lot of things I want to accomplish in my life but writing a novel has, for a long time, been near the top of that list. Simple, really. But it leads to another question: why now? Another relatively simple question to answer. Because I can! Yo and I have a lot of flexibility to explore what we want right now. Neither of us have had permanent jobs to tie us down. We don’t have kids. We aren’t wrapped up in advancing our educations. We are lucky enough to have enough money to dare not work for a short period of time. Now, all of these things could change in the near future, but for now we are in the privileged position of having time with which to do whatever we want.

I’ve chosen to use a chunk of mine to finish writing a novel.

Seriously though, why! You are probably asking. I am in full agreement with you. I ask myself why nearly every day, in many forms and ways.

Why are you writing a novel when it’s not going to earn you any money?

Chances are very high that writing will be nothing more than a hobby for me. Not working to write at the moment is a risk. I’m not deluding myself into thinking I’m going to become rich from my writing, although I wouldn’t begrudge that outcome if I’m so fortunate. I’ll likely be back to teaching in January!

Why are you writing a novel when there are more important things you can do with your time? This is one I wrestle with a lot. I know a lot of people who just aren’t that into reading. To them, there may be the odd book that will interest them and be worth their time, but in general reading isn’t as fun, or as entertaining, or as meaningful as all of the other things they do. There is also an argument to be made that in our modern world novels are becoming less and less impactful as we transition further into a world that runs on succinct and efficient information. I, however, am of the opinion that novels are incredibly important, maybe even more so as more and more of our lives are doled out in bite-sized chunks. I have read novels that have shaped who I am and who I want to be, that have lifted me out of dark times, have inspired me to become something better. I have also read plenty that were nothing more than amusing tales to pass the time!

Aren’t you a teacher? I’m pretty sure spending your time doing that will be more important and impactful than being a writer.

Probably! But not for sure. Maybe I’ll be a better writer than I am a teacher. Maybe writing for a while will help me be a better teacher when I come back to it. Maybe I can do both!

Granted, if you are an amazing writer than it’s probably a good idea to write. But are you?

No, I’m not. At least not yet. Will I be? I don’t know. But it’s very important to me to find out. And even if I’m not, there are still stories I want to tell. It would suck to tell them poorly – you’d likely be surprised if you knew how much inner turmoil I experience considering that outcome – but I think I’d rather tell them poorly than not.

That all sounds nice, but are you actually going to follow through with it?

This is the biggest challenge for me at the moment.

For most of my life, I have done well without every really dedicating myself to anything. I love learning new things, and more often than not I am quickly pretty competent at whatever I am learning. This has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that I have had opportunities and successes far more than I deserve. A curse in that I have often not had the weight of necessity driving me to improve.

A big part of me has never minded this all that much as my natural, insatiable curiosity pairs nicely with learning something competently and then quickly moving on to something else. It has also benefitted me professionally, enabling me to get teaching jobs covering all sorts of different fields when I otherwise may not have found a job at all.

I have often thought there has never been anything that I have deeply desired to master for a long period of time. I love watching hockey and would love to play at an NHL level, but knowing the amount of work it would take to become that often left me satisfied with my own capabilities. I love anything to do with space, but the thought of dedicating myself to decades of exhausting work for merely a chance at a single, short trip there helped my endeavours to become an astronaut dissipate.

I mentioned in a previous post the time about 8 years ago when I recorded in a blog my desire to write a novel. That moment was similar to many I have experienced; a sudden desire to accomplish something grand that soon faded away under the watchful gaze of practicality and realism. And yet among all of those grandiose wonderings, the desire to write a novel has resurfaced time and time again. Perhaps because it is a reasonable goal, perhaps because I interact with books a lot more than hockey players or astronauts, or perhaps, just maybe, could it be, because it is something I deeply desire to do?

I lived with and took care of my grandma in the months leading up to her death. When it was clear her time was short, every goodbye was burdened with finality, I suppose much like it would feel like to make the final edits on a transcript before sending it off to a publisher. There was something that compelled me to tell my grandma two things on what ended up being my penultimate farewell. I told her I was going to marry Yolanda and I told her I was going to become a writer.

Why did I tell her those things? Upon much reflection I think I have an answer. Part of it had to with the fact that she taught me to read and write, and I wanted to honor her with the thought that her efforts would amount to something meaningful in my life. But it was more than that, for I had yet to write anything of real import by then. It had to do with my failings.

Committing myself to another person for life was a daunting thought – still is, really. Yet I knew I had found the person I wanted to make that commitment with. I have skirted true commitment most of my life, perhaps most evidently in how often I jump around in what I am learning and practicing at any given time. I think I told my grandma I was going to marry Yo to, in a way, bind myself to my intentions to propose through that promise. Then, even if I succumbed to my own struggles with commitment, I would be unable to fail to do what, deep down, I knew was right because of what I told my grandma that day.

I think I did the same thing with writing. I am immensely hard on myself, quick to criticize and slow to accept self-praise. In most avenues I find it has helped me maintain my character, work ethic and humility. In writing, that nature is a proven adversary. For a long time, my own criticisms and doubts were impregnable, insurmountable barriers between my desire to write and actually writing. Thus, my statement to my grandma will prove to be one of two things: a broken promise foolishly spoken, or a pristine moment of intuition and wisdom whose promise helped propel me beyond my own insecurities to actually accomplish a dream.

Inspirational! So, uh, why are you writing this blog post and not your novel right now?

Ughhhh I know! If I’m honest, there are a number of reasons…

-I lack discipline

-I am still overly critical and doubt myself constantly

-I have unreasonable expectations for how much I can write or how well I can write at this point in time

-I have deeply ingrained habits of taking little breaks far too often that derail my momentum

-I really lack discipline

I don’t know if it’s coincidence or providence or something in between, but the lessons I feel I need to learn at this juncture of my life line up perfectly with my goal to write a novel. I need to be more disciplined. I need to learn to let go of the expectations that hinder me and start to accomplish my goals. I need to build new, healthier, more productive habits and get them to stick. Writing a novel challenges all of those things and, if I’m successful, may do more than any other activity to accomplish those goals in me.

So why am I writing a novel? Because I desperately need to. Will it be great? Will it be readable? Will it be published? Will it satisfy me? Will it lead me on a different path? Will it fulfill my promise?

Right now, it really doesn’t matter. I just know I need to do it.

Scott

The five senses of home

Sight: After basement suites and city apartments, my eyes are feasting on a bounty of sights. Our bedroom looks onto a coffee field bordered by trees and our kitchen looks onto a field of lambs with lush mountains behind them. All around us are stunning vistas of mountains and valleys, green fields and cities and we have a beautiful sunset delivered every night.

The view of our front yard (from the roof)

                                                      

Touch: Touch is a pretty dominant sense for me (as anyone who has ever gone shopping with me knows) but the most familiar, the one that transports me back in time, is the feel of cement and tile under my feet.Growing up in this communal property, there was no need to put on shoes to run over to the neighbourhood friends and family and the idea of shoes was constricting and annoying. So in the summers and any breaks, I was allowed to run wild and barefooted. However, please don't assume that this a quaint tradition of Costa Rican natives. In fact, Tica grandmothers always looked askance whenever they saw my barefeet and I bore a lot of scoffing, horror, and dark predictions of warts, strokes and much more to befall me if I didn't put on some shoes and socks immediately. I did become quite an expert at getting rid of warts (a necessary evil when frolicking barefoot around frogs and other animals) but my feet are otherwise still intact and my favourite thing about my body!

Taste: Naturally, the cornucopia of fruit, Canadian-Tico-Mennnonite feasts laid out by my family and all my childhood favorites create many tastes that make me feel at home. There are two that stand out.
One is manzanas de agua. Literally translated as water apples, this fruit has yet to make the journey north to my knowledge but I miss it constantly. Part pear, part apple and part dragon fruit, this fruit is shaped like an avocado with a snowy white centre and a beautiful, tender fuchsia skin (the only skin of a fruit I will happily eat). It is ever-so-juicy and sweet. One of the earliest memories is picking an enormous pile and stashing them in my playhouse to eat at my leisure.

The tree

                                              

 The second is Tronaditas, a corn chip covered in salt and lemon. By ten I'd perfected the method of eating them which I still do to this day. Step 1: lick all the salt and lemon off and set aside. Step 2: after stacking all the pre-licked chips, place in palm of your hand and mash between both palms. Step 3, eat all the broken bits. Step 4; bite into the dense middle of the stack. Repeat alternating with unlicked chips for variety.
    My obsession is so well known that when I arrive in Costa Rica, my nieces, Calisha and Danica, always have a stash waiting for me (along with adorable handwritten notes). This time, I found them in drawers, behind curtains, in the shower and taped to the ceiling.

                                          

Smell: Smell is probably my least developed sense and the one with the least amount of memories but my favourite smell is eucalyptus and it might be because our property here is riddled with eucaplyptus trees. As a child, I'd pick leaves, tear them and rub them on me to mimic perfume. A few years ago I found a eucalyptus perfume and I will rarely wear another scent.

Hearing: This one is easy. We live on the mountains and are blessed with beautiful winds! The trees close to my parents house sound likes waves. So much so, that I used to have beach or tidal wave nightmares only to wake up realizing it was the trees. I still loved the sound and would always sleep with my window open. On especially wild nights (or, a few doors down where we are living now in a more exposed knoll, EVERY night) the wind howls loudly and fiercely and it is glorious! I can't wait till rainy seasons hits hard and the howling is combined with thunder!

Costa Rica Impressions by Juniper

We have been in Costa Rica for almost a week now. It has, for the most part, been an easier transition that I had thought.

Other than relaxing, our days have been filled with family hang-outs. Somehow we skirted an intimidating gathering of every local family member (what would have been well over 20 people if my math is correct) and settled for almost every family member (it went well). My go-to at family gatherings over the years has been to quickly get wrapped up playing with the kids. This accomplished three things. One, it removes me from the responsibility of having to make small talk with adults for long stretches of time. Two, it buys me big points with the parents for spending so much time with their kids. Three, it’s usually the most fun thing to do! To my chagrin, the children grew up a bit since I last saw them! That, coupled with there simply being so many of them in one place, means playing with an uncle is much further down the totem pole of interesting activities.

And thus, I’ve spent what may well be an order of magnitude more time with my sisters and brothers in law than I have in the past.

But it’s been really great! I feel very comfortable around Yo’s family and they have made me feel exceptionally welcome. I may even go so far as to say I have enjoyed being very social so far. Those of you who know me well may desire to underline, italicize or bold (or, perhaps, all three) the ‘so far’ part of that sentence, but I digress!

My favorite thing about Costa Rica so far is the food. Man have we been spoiled. We have only eaten one dinner at home so far – tonight, in fact – but we ordered in pizza because we had a guest over and weren’t quite ready to host someone for a meal. The majority of our lunches have been with family, but those we’ve had at home have been comprised of fresh mango, papaya, pineapple, banana and oranges thrown together in different combinations. We haven’t yet gone out for breakfast with anyone, mostly due to the fact that we typically get up 3-4 hours after everyone else.

Every meal out has been delicious, although my personal favorite was a couple of nights ago when we joined our landlords (Yo’s sister and brother in law) and some other family for dinner. We had massive, juicy steaks for dinner, quite a number of glasses of wine for dessert, and then another steak for a late night snack. Yep, two steaks in one evening. I didn’t even know that was legal.

My efforts at learning Spanish have not yet arrived. I think they fell out of my luggage somewhere between our 2^nd and 3^rd flights. Hopefully they get here soon, because Luna is getting on my case about not understanding much of anything when we’re out and about.

The biggest challenge of the trip so far is meeting the goals I have placed on myself. My next post will be about said goals and also about how and why I am miserably failing at them.

For now, I am going to enjoy the last of my 5$ box of wine, perhaps pop out and play with the cute puppies that live in our backyard, attempt to understand a few words of what Yo and her friend are chattering away in Spanish about in the next room over and, hopefully, write a few hundred more words in my novel.

~Juniper~

Scott's First Post - In a Nutshell

I haven’t consistently written a blog since 2007. I joined a site called ‘Live Journal’ with some friends back in grade 12 and proceeded to chronicle the awkward struggles of my adolescent mind online for all to see. When I look back and try to reread my posts, I find I can never read more than a dozen or so. It gets uncomfortable and I have to stop. I wrote with a special kind of honesty back then – a desperate, soul searching honesty – that reflected the helplessness and confusion that came with trying to figure out who I was at the time.

At that point in my life I was completely incompetent at forming relationships. I had discovered creative writing earlier that year and had already written a number of poems. Most often, the poems were words and phrases that attempted to describe what I was feeling at the time. What blew my mind then – and still does now, really – was how I often only understood what I was feeling after I had written it down. The advent of online journals/blogs was portentous for me. I thought all I had to do was take these chronicled feelings, paste them to a site and relationships would blossom.

Turns out it worked, although the process was often painful.

My posts were often misinterpreted or misunderstood (both outcomes being completely frustrating at the time, but rereading my posts now were absolutely fair and logical). Fortunately for all teenagers, your peers tend to be roughly as incompetent as you are and thus a community of abstract, esoteric, and desperately reflective bloggers were born! In short, some of those classmates who also used the site became – and still are – some of my best friends, and we have all forgiven each other for what we put each other through in those glorious, awkward days of old.

As relationships began to form and I slowly learned how to communicate in person, my blogging became much more readable and, ironically, gradually dwindled away. I suppose history has shown that much of art (not to imply my blogging was art) comes out of times of extreme emotion, so perhaps that had something to do with it. Or perhaps the ending of my blogging coincided with my friends also stopping; I can’t really remember. What is really important to me is this: I don’t remember what prompted me to write this, but one of my final entries – dated July 29^th, 2006 – was “I think I’m going to write a novel”.  I made a couple more posts after that, mostly to keep my account active, but for all intents and purposes that was my final blog post.

I’m going to cover my motivations behind writing a novel in another post. For now, I simply wish to remember my blogging past and celebrate the fact that the goal I set when I was entirely ignorant of the challenge it would pose may soon be accomplished.

If you’re an old friend reading this, thanks for putting up with me on livejournal! I hope this blog is much more sensible, although I would accept just as meaningful.

If you’re a newer friend reading this, welcome. I hope you find meaning and/or entertainment in what it contains.

I would like to begin this new blogging endeavour with a simple, but personally profound statement.

I think I’m going to finish writing a novel.

#19

I don't read a lot of health books. I have lots of websites that I go to and get most of my nutritional information online but Must Have Been Something I Ate by Peggy Kotsopoulous was a great quick read. Health and lifestyle books are probably the only kinds that the "hey girlfriend" style wouldn't be annoying and it was nicely bullet-pointed and well-organized. She divides the book into various health topics and explains how different vitamins and supplements and nutrients affect that area. Kotsopoulos provides practical tips, points out many common vegetables to use for that particular health issue and explains some lesser known supplements that can be healthful. Her recipes are pretty mediocre but the rest of her information seems well researched and relevant and not as expensive or niche as some health books are. I'm pretty sure none of her recommended foods or supplements require a trek into the Amazon or has a 200$/oz price tag.

My co-worker lent me the book after I complained how much more energy she had than me! The energy chapter had lots of useful advice, some of which I followed. I am now hooked on chlorella, an algae supplement more common in Japan but making headways here. Cancer-fighting and energy and immune system boosting are only a few of its benefits. I can also testify to its efficacy for fighting hangovers when taken before your night out!

Thanks for the recommendation, Katie! May you always be bouncing off walls!

#18

If you are completely antagonistic to organized religion, this may not be the book for you. However, I hope that, even if you disagree with the tenants of Christianity, you could agree that there needs to be a shift towards equality and empowerment of women in Christian (and other religions) relationships and settings. A Year of Biblical Womanhood is a passionate advocate of Christian feminism which I really appreciated. She highlights strong women throughout the Bible who did not fit in the stereotypical roles of their society, who were outcasts or unconventional and who did powerful, society-changing deeds.

The premise of Rachel Held Evans' book is that she will take the commands of "Biblical Womanhood" literally and try to follow the rules as much as possible. This is the part where I feel she falls a little short. She picks and chooses which rules she will follow and it's not entirely cohesive. A.J. Jacobs The Year of Living Biblically is a lot more cohesive, detailed, comprehensive and funny. However, Held-Evans strengths lie in debunking myths about the roles of women in the Bible, passionately championing social justice, exhorting women to support and raise each other up, and mourning the tragedies that have befallen women simply for being women since the dawn of time all the while maintaining respect for the Bible and the love of Jesus and exploring ways to deepen that relationship in a more authentic way.

In short, this book is not for people who want reasons to eschew Christianity but for those who are looking for a more egalitarian, loving, just way of living through the lens of Jesus' teachings.




One wonderful year with this loving, just, patient, egalitarian man. Love you Juniper!

#16 and #17

After the witty banter of Pratchett and the beautiful descriptions of LeGuin, the next two books seemed a bit of a let down. 

Surviving the Applewhites by Stephanie S. Tolan was a cute tale of a delinquent kid coming to live with an offbeat family of artists to be home schooled after being kicked out of every school in the region. It was a good premise for a young reader and an entertaining read but certainly not a classic. I grew up on Enid Blyton (Famous Five, Mallory Towers), C.S. Lewis (Narnia), L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables), Edith Nesbitt (The Railway Children), Astrid Lingred (Pippi Longstocking), Jean Webster (Daddy-Long-Legs),  and other writers that have developed their central characters much better. Take Edmund from Narnia or a myriad of naughty schoolchildren in Enid Blyton's books: the trajectory of unruly, selfish, self-centred troublesome kids to thoughtful and kind and "jolly" (jolly seeming to be a common British value) is represented well and you can see the characters develop and grow. I found Jake Semple a very unrealistic "bad boy" with no real explanation of how is moral character developed except that his bad deeds were ignored so he stopped doing them. I did however, like the character of E.D: the only non-artistic one of the family who often feels left out, misunderstood, and in the midst of chaos created by free thinking family of singers, dancers, hippies, painters, and actors, just longs for order and neatness which she accomplishes through creating lists for herself. It's kind of like being in the middle of a hipster-obsessed city. 

If Surviving the Applewhites had some redeeming factors, The Alto Wore Tweed has none. It's a half Agatha Christie mystery and half Mitford series, with the worst of both. The characters managed to be insipid and exaggerated and undeveloped all at the same time. The flawed hero is egotistical, misogynist and a bit of a womaniser; and the plot was boring. A choir director/detective who tries to write a novel while having a nice, peaceful small town life sounds like a book that would be right up my alley. It was not. The only thing I liked was a politically correct directive from the bishop that dictated that  "all  whole and half notes will from now on be referred to as "pigmentally impoverished," that 50% of all compositions will be made up of "notes of color," and no reference will be made to the stereotype that notes of color move faster and generally jump higher."

The other day on a walk, we stumbled across this delightful, free, community library! I just love the idea!!! 

#13

Home by Bill Bryson

A book about everyday things, Home is a detailed look into the history of items we encounter on a daily basis. Bill Bryson takes a walk through his parsonage in the countryside of England and delves into the past room by room. It is a series of fascinating facts about life in the past, life usually riddled by diseases and discomfort. Home isn't my favourite of Bryson's books. I found the facts unorganized and very loosely held together. He travelled back and forth through time, often referencing historical figures or events he'd mentioned a few chapters and 349 facts ago, rendering it impossible to keep track of the timeline. However, Bryson's strength has always been the intriguing, laughable, shocking or obscure facts that he has dug up and it was hard to not stop and interrupt Scott every other minute to share a new factoid such as:

- the average marriage in the 1700s lasted 10 years, not because of divorce, but because death was so common weather through disease, accident or childbirth.
- until the 1850s, condiment stands for the table where designed for oil, vinegar, salt and pepper, and a shaker whose use has completely faded into history. It's a mysterious missing condiment!
- every species in the animal kingdom can produce in their bodies Vitamin C except for humans and pigs.
- an ounce of corn flakes has more salt than an ounce of salted peanuts
- the architect who designed the interior skeleton of the Statue of Liberty is Alexandre Gustave Eiffel of Eiffel Tower fame.
- for a 150 years, men would shave their heads of comfortable hair to put on stuffy, scratchy, itchy wigs.
- Lobsters, now a luxury food, used to be so prolific that they were fed to prisoners and orphans.

For many more facts to pull out at dinner parties for years to come, read the book :)

#8 and 9#, #11, #12, #14 and #15

I know haven't posted since April but to be fair, in that time, I've had my 30th birthday, been part of  a wedding (and attended events for three different weddings), bought a one-way ticket to Costa Rica, and read 7 books, gone through a few medical crises, and almost gotten laid off to name a few things keeping me busy.

Six of those seven books were The Earthsea Chronicles: a stunningly beautiful series written by Ursula K. Le Guin. Simple and complex, surprising and deeply familiar, far ahead of its time in terms of gender roles and politics, this series blew my mind. I cried more than once and that is the highest praise I can give a book.

My favorite podcast, Stuff Mom Never Told You, (check it out if you are wanting to know anything about the wide, fascinating world of womenhood) did an episode on science fiction and the impact on social justice. I'd never made this connection before. I, and most people I know who love science fiction, read it primarily for the entertainment factor. It's fascinating to become immersed in an entirely new world, either dystopian and dark or fantastical and magical. However, science fiction and fantasy, usually stories about worlds completely different from Earth, can be powerful commentaries on social justice, contain passionate voices for change and present an idea of what a world COULD look like if we move towards a more egalitarian future or what it MIGHT look like if we continue to disregard the needs of our planet and the most marginalized on this planet.

When I read Brave New World in college, it rocked my world. The fact that a book written in 1931 could so accurately pinpoint the dangers of a materialistic world, just starting to really ramp up in Huxley's day, was chilling. 1984 was written in 1949: a few years before the cold war and the widespread fear of communism truly swept the western world. Both of these authors were masters and seeing where current trends could lead and provided important warnings.

Likewise, Ursula K. Le Guin has the power to compose stories that are stunning, mystical, heartbreaking, inspiring and thought-provoking all at once. The Dispossessed, which I read last year, was about twin planets: one living our anarchist ideals, abolishing all forms of government in a society set on brotherhood and cooperation. The other planet was given over to reckless materialism and classism. As one man sets on a journey from one planet to the other and finding himself lost in both, the reader is drawn into the problems and issues of both ideals. In her ground-breaking book, The Left Hand of Darkness, Le Guin explores a genderless world and the affect on this in society, on war and on domestic roles. The fact that this was written in the 60s, in a time of extreme societal upheaval, when the roles of race and class and gender were being strongly challenged, makes the discussion all the more potent.

The Earthsea Chronicles being written originally for young adult readers doesn't detract from the power of her message. Written between 1968 and 2001, the characters transition and grow along with their author and this gives the series depth and beauty. Most books are fairly simple with one or two main protagonists but their subject line is intricate, philosophical and written with beautiful turns of phrases and vivid imagery. Unexpected and powerful, showing the beauty and tenderness in men and the strength and power in women; flipping the dominant races and make white people the savage barbarians, this series makes me want to be a traveller, a mother and a dragon all in one!