syrenatricksy

Note to self: oh, yeah, I do dislike earthquakes. They make me feel nauseous. Nauseated. Whichever is grammatically correct.

But all is well in this trembling household (this quake didn't even make Eliza upset beforehand, which earthquakes usually do).

Summer teaching. It's eating up all of my time. I've been teaching a class for two weeks now, and haven't touched my dissertation in all that time. The class will end in another month, but I am feeling mopey as I look at my stack of unfinished grading, the diss work I need to do, and an article that needs extensive revisions (on that note, hello to Kalypso, the engaged editrix!).

I am hoping that the rest of you are enjoying your summer more than I am. But when I start heading off to Orange County beaches, please feel free to envy me!

[This is more than a tad embarrassing ... !]

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read (as in the book is bought and sitting on my shelf).
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
4) Strike out the ones you thought SUCKED.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (I've read chunks, just not as much as I should)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (most of the poetry, all of the plays)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Um, this is one of 33, above)
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (If I knew how, I would strike through this)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy (I read some in an MA class years ago)
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones' Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I read a little bit in high school)
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert (I read some of it in high school. Hated it.)
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

You people are smart and well read; perhaps yous guys might have some suggestions to help me out. I'm trying to come up with novels, short stories, novellas, movies, plays, or poems that deal with the concept of reality. Examples would include The Matrix, Fight Club, Tom Stoppard's play The Real Thing, and Salvador Placencia's novel People of Paper (the author is a character in a kind of magical realist story). Anything where reality is a theme or focus, and if the text in question looks at the relationship of fiction to reality, so much the better.

I particularly need stuff from the early 20th century to about 1980 or so -- later stuff is much easier for me to come by. You modernists might be able to help me out more than others!

Thanks in advance to anyone who has any ideas -- and all ideas are muchly appreciated!

Oooh -- you can change the external manifestation of my soul! I mean, really, the power that my friends have over me is quite shocking ...

I've stolen this from Dame Droiture and Salient73, and I quite like it. If you feel so inclined, act upon it!

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want - good, bad, neutral, random, or whatever. When you've finished, post this paragraph on your blog and be surprised about what people remember.

The "cheap" grade of gas out here is now $3.33/gallon. Those of you in mid-America: I am sooooooo jealous right now!

A lot of my LJ friends seem to be having some bumpy patches right now, and so I thought that I'd reveal my secret identity to you all. Let me know how I can use my powers to help you ... and don't tell anyone who I really am, okay?

<td align="center"> You are The Blue Phantom.
(Your alter-ego is Syrena Tricksy)


Your super-hero ability:

Fight anything at 23 times the speed of a normal human

'What is your superhero ability?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

This is not good news, as I'm rather hoping to get a lot of work done over the next few weeks ... oh wait, I lost my thought ... and it doesn't seem to be coming back ...

<td align="center"> Syrena's Amazing Mental Ability ...




You can go hours on end without a single thought - think of it like holding your breath ... but holding your.. um.. brain

(Remember ... with great power comes great responsibility!)

'What is your Amazing Mental Ability?' at QuizGalaxy.com</td>

Hello my dears! I hope that everyone is enjoying a wonderful weekend (and that those of you in north Texas are recovering from the existential shock of seeing snow in April -- that is, indeed, a wonder).

I was wondering if anyone saw Grindhouse this weekend. I did, and am interested to hear what people thought of it. My extremely short version of my opinion is that Deathproof was way better than Planet Terror, but then I'm not a fan of the gross-out stuff.

Any opinions?

Bear me in mind, won't you ... ?

	Syrena Tricksy was the first person to successfully mate with a bear.
	... afterward, Syrena Tricksy became an ideal and disappeared.
	'How will you be remembered in history books?' at QuizGalaxy.com

Hey, this is a shout-out for my NY friends. Is anyone planning on going to the NYPL before May 6th? If so, would anyone be able to get me a brochure from the exhibit "A Rakish History of Men's Wear" and mail it to me? I would reiumburse for postage, of course.

Any takers would also receive vast quantities of my love!

Hey, I just heard a radio ad on my way home from the grocery store. It seems that tomorrow (March 15), from 10:00 to noon, Starbucks is giving every customer a free tall drip coffee. The traditional caveat of "participating stores only" was invoked, so it might not work at everyone's corner Starbucks.

But it's worth a try, yes?

Many, many congratulations to now-Dr. Bradley!

I just looked at the calendar. It's seven years to the day since I took my Eliza home. She's the first dog I've had who has been mine, not my family's. And though she has been a shared-custody dog for about a year and a half now, she is mine (and has been since that day seven years ago -- and I am hers). She's laying in a sunbeam right now, looking out of the window, and I am happy to say that she's almost as energetic now as she was then.

She does sleep more than she did seven years ago, though. I suppose I've changed quite a bit in that time, too -- I got a second master's degree, I moved to California, I got engaged, I got unengaged, I started doing Pilates, I taught an unhealthy amount of composition classes, I saw dolphins swimming in the ocean, I spent as much time as possible at the Huntington, I made friends with some amazing people, I lost weight, I became closer friends with my sister, I got two back-to-back years of fellowships, I moved right by the beach, I experienced my one-and-only migraine, I learned how to deal with my lack-of-academic-pedigree issues, I lost my last living grandparent, I got to see Disneyland decked out for Christmas, I swam in the ocean with Sagansmommy and Shamela, and I've been more happy than sad. And, of course, I've met a lot of people on LJ!

What have the last seven years brought you guys?

Tri-Lamb Material 86 % Nerd, 39% Geek, 60% Dork

For The Record: A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia. A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one. A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions. You scored better than half in Nerd and Dork, earning you the coveted title of: Tri-Lamb Material. The classic, "80's" nerd, you are what most people think of when they think "nerd," largely due to 80's movies like Revenge of the Nerds and TV shows like Head of the Class. You're exceptionally bright and smart, and partly because of that have never quite fit in with your peers or social groups. Perhaps you've realized, or will someday, that it is possible to retain all of the things that you like about being brilliant and still make peace with the social cliques around you. Or maybe you won't--it's really not necessary. As the brothers of Lambda Lambda Lambda discovered, you're fine just the way you are and can take pride in that. I mean, who wants to be like Ogre, right!? Congratulations! Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in any of the following: Buffy the Vampire Slayer Professional Wrestling Love & Sexuality America/Politics Thanks Again! -- THE NERD? GEEK? OR DORK? TEST

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 94% on nerdiness You scored higher than 60% on geekosity You scored higher than 95% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I really should be working -- and I just looked up some call numbers of library books, so this is really just a break from work -- but I'm so excited to have an internet life again that I'm feeling playful.

So my question for everyone is an old, old one, but I think that many people change their answers to this one as time passes. My question? What 5 albums would you want to be stranded with on a desert island? And yes, I realize that in the time of iTunes, "album" is fast becoming an outdated concept; that's part of what I like about this question now.