What was your favourite part about returning to school?
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Blogging, Education, Memories
The NaBloPoMo prompt for today:
What was your favourite part about returning to school?
That’s not an easy question. It wasn’t cool to acknowledge being happy to return to school each year, of course, so while I was glad, I didn’t really acknowledge it to myself. As a result, it is more difficult to access those memories.
Even though I knew there would be endless amounts of review each year, I was always excited about the possibility of learning something new. After we left Gadsden, I was able to look forward to school library access, too. (The elementary school I attended in Alabama didn’t even have a library, and back then, the Gwinnett County Public Library wasn’t the award winning facility that it is now.)
I also had a secret hope that maybe this would be the year when I would meet someone like me. Someone else who didn’t fit in. Someone who preferred books to most people, who either didn’t go to church or was only there because his or her parents forced the issue, who would be willing to discuss the questions brought up by all the contradictions in the Bible and various church’s teachings (and how preachers and other church leaders actually lived). Someone who didn’t think it was bad to be intelligent, maybe even someone who would admit to daydreaming and making up new stories about people they’d read about, or completely new stories of their own. The kind of people you didn’t run into just because your parents bought houses in the same neighborhood, or went to the same church, or worked for the same company.
I did meet someone who became a dear friend in the first week of my Junior year, on the bus, in fact. She even lived in my neighborhood! I continue to be amazed by the fact that I said something to her first, as she’s far more extroverted than I have ever been. Dorothea is a treasure, and I will always be thankful for meeting her.
Tags: Friends, Libraries, NaBloPoMo, Reading, school
Book Review: Night’s Edge
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Book Reviews, Reading
Night’s Edge by Maggie Shayne
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
“Dancers in the Dark” by Charlaine Harris is set in the same universe as the Southern Vampire/Sookie Stackhouse stories, but with none of the incredibly annoying characters. How refreshing! Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Barbara Hambly, Charlaine Harris, Maggie Shayne, Night's Edge, Reading
Maybe It Isn’t the Flu
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Family, Fun, Health, Reading, Relationships
Katie seems to be feeling a bit better. She slept through most of the day, and just got up a few minutes ago (right at the end of my and Sam’s date) feeling like she could eat something. Solid food, even! That’s progress. Since she didn’t have any antivirals, I don’t think this was really the flu. She should still be much sicker if it was. I’m not at all unhappy about that. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Books, brain fog, date night, Katie, library, Reading, Sam
An Update Instead of a Book Review!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health
I looked back at my recent entries and realized that it’s been a really long time since I posted much of anything substantive. I’m coming out of a long period of being nearly zombiefied thanks to one of my medications. I didn’t realize that was happening, as I’d been on that drug for years without that problem. Apparently, the problem was a combination of my dosage being increased last fall and interaction with other meds. Unfortunately, I found this out because of an irresponsible doctor who refused to see me as scheduled when I was due for refills, and wouldn’t give me refills without seeing me. Crashing off the maximum dose caused insomnia and seizures.
Yes, seizures. Something I have never experienced before, and I really didn’t need to add yet another square to my personal Symptoms Bingo Card. I fell right out of the bed during one bad seizure last week. We have a captain’s bed designed for a water mattress, but have a regular mattress and box springs on top, so the whole thing is much higher than most beds. I have to use a stepstool to get in and out of bed. So falling out was much more painful than falling out of most beds. Hitting my foreheard on the wheelchair and whacked my chin but good on the lapdesk didn’t help. I have no idea what I hit with my right forearm, but it still looks like a person bit me. My left arm has funky bruising and a cut, both knees are bruised and carpet burned, and my torso is also bruised and sore. Lots of fun! Now my chin is actually black, making me want to wash my face every time I see a mirror. I’ve never been able to feel the swelling in a bruise as distinctly as this one, either.
I’ve seen a new doctor, who switched me to a better medication. It’s helping to slow down the seizures, but I’m still having some. I’m still sleeping a lot less than I was, which is good. What isn’t good is that I’m having trouble sleeping well, period. Hopefully that will go away soon.
Social Security is still messing around with my case and hasn’t paid out a dime yet, or sent me a Medicare card. If you ever have trouble with the SSA, don’t even bother trying to find anyone to take responsibility for straightening anything out. Just go straight to your Senator or Representative’s office. I’d been trying to get a straight answer from somebody, anybody, in the whole organization for about a month without luck. Less than 48 hours after contacting a Senator’s office, I got a message that my file is at the Baltimore payment office, that they have all the information they need to pay out the claim, and that we should see money very soon now.
I was really hoping to get the Medicare thing started in time to maybe have a powered mobility device before Dragon Con, which would let me go and enjoy the con for the first time in years. The last time I went, we rented a scooter, so if the money comes through before the con I suppose we might try that again.
In more fun news, we finished watching Torchwood: Children of Earth last night. Talk about depressing! Gwen and Rhys were the only ones who came out of that as heroes. And now I read that there’s going to be a fourth season? Who the heck will be in it?
I’ve slowed down on reading books, partially because I can actually do some other things for a change. The house is slowly improving! I’m hoping we can even entertain again before long.
I haven’t been keeping up with most people’s LiveJournals or anything else, so if there’s something I should have seen, I’d appreciate a poke in the comments here.
Tags: Health, medications, Reading, seizures, Torchwood
Review: The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, edited by Trisha Telep
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Reading
The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance by Trisha Telep
My review
rating: 4 of 5 stars
I’m extremely surprised by how much I enjoyed this anthology! I picked it up intending to just read the stories by authors I know I like—Kelley Armstrong, Ilona Andrews, Carrie Vaughn, Holly Lisle, Jeaniene Frost, Maria V. Snyder. I had never heard of some of the other authors. A few names I remembered seeing in other anthologies and not enjoying their work.
I did, however, deliberately put myself in a tolerant mindset: this is a book of romance stories. It wouldn’t be fair to judge them as anything else.
That worked rather better than it has in the past. I still got a little annoyed at having so much of each story dedicated to couples (and all het/mono couples, at that!) rather than some intriguing world ideas, but managed to stay on track.
In the end, I only skipped one story—I just don’t like the Weather Wardens stuff at all. I found a couple of others substandard, but all in all, Telep chose very well. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys paranormal romance (maybe even those who usually stick to just romance), and most urban fantasy fans.
Tags: Carrie Vaughn, Holly Lisle, Ilona Andrews, Jeaniene Frost, Kelley Armstrong, Maria V. Snyder, Reading, The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance, Trisha Telep
Miscellany
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Links
I lost track of who originally linked to what, so I can’t credit them properly. But thank you to whoever they all were, anyway!
Filed under “another reason I’m proud to be a homeschooler”: California court rules that private school can oust lesbian students. I do understand that it’s a private religious school, and that their denomination doesn’t approve of homosexuality. On the other hand, the girls’ parents chose to send them to that school, not the girls themselves. And demanding that everybody in the school be heterosexual makes every bit as much sense as demanding that they all be right-handed! (It also sounds like the school went WAY the hell overboard in interpreting the “evidence.”)
Can I get an “Amen”?! Ending Weight Bias: The Easiest Way to Tackle Obesity in America
This is news? Readers build vivid mental simulations of narrative situations, brain scans suggest
Not Good News: Mercury found in kids’ foods — and in pretty much anything else that contains HFCS. I’m confident of my ability to kick the soda habit, but totally avoiding HFCS pretty much means avoiding all processed foods. GAH!
This is so cool! Implants Tap the Thinking Brain
No surprise to me, at least: Watch out. The Internet will cut you
Reality check: Sorry, you don’t have a 200 IQ
Another no-brainer: Video Games May Hinder Relationships
Tags: Civil Rights, discrimination, Education, GLBT, HFCS, Homeschooling, IQ, mercury, neurology, obesity, Reading, Relationships, technology, video games
Books & Cute Photo
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Geekery, Reading
Totally unrelated to anything else: Squee! (Thanks, AMQ!)
For some odd reason, I got this weird notion about tracking down as many of the books I’ve read as possible. No, I don’t know why.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Andre Norton, anthologies, Avalon, Books, Darkover, Deborah J. Ross, Deborah Wheeler, Diana L. Paxson, Gadsden Public Library, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Reading, Robert Heinlein, Spider Robinson, Sword & Sorceress
Book Joy! And Stuff
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Art, Health, Reading
I’m so tickled! In the last two weeks, I’ve found not one, but two books that Sam and I have wanted for ages at good prices on eBay!
First, I’ve been looking for
Seeing Red: The Rapture of Redheads by Howard Schatz for years and years. Seriously, it has to be at least five years since Sam first mentioned that he’d love to have it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and the only thing I found for the longest time were used copies for $150 or more. It’s a gorgeous book, but that’s far more than I could pay for it.
I had the book on my wish list at Half.com, which is part of eBay, but for some reason I also set up an eBay search a few months back, and finally got found a copy going for $35.1 I didn’t happen to see the email until a day later, and by then the seller had dropped the price further for some reason. It was more than I pay for most books, but after five years, it was more than worth it. We received it in the mail earlier this week, and it is just a beautiful as any new copy.
That gave me an idea, so I set up a search for another book I’ve wanted for a while, but couldn’t afford. John C. Lowe’s tome Your Guide to Metabolic Health came out in 2003, and I haven’t ever found it in stock anywhere. It must have gone out of stock quickly, because Amazon has only ever had used copies that I’ve seen. And again, they were always pricey—$180 was the price I’d seen most recently.2
Today, eBay came through again! The “buy it now” price was very reasonable, so Sam encouraged me to go ahead and get it instead of chancing the auction route.
Dr. Lowe has also written another book that’s specifically about the metabolic treatment of fibromyalgia, but it runs over $500. Apparently, that one is intended for physicians, rather than laypeople. I have an eBay search going, but I’m fairly certain the book I bought today has the information I need in it. From what I’ve heard, it’s mainly about fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.3
I’m busily reading my ARC of Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! It’s good stuff.
1 For what it’s worth, Half.com still shows only the higher prices. Weird.
2 It’s available more cheaply now, but I still got a deal.
3 Aha—the publisher actually sells the latest version of that one for $99.95. Why would anybody pay the used price? Why do the used sellers think they can demand so much?
Tags: Books, eBay, Howard Schatz, John C. Lowe, Reading, search going, shopping, USD
Bookcase Bedroom!
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Home, Reading
I suppose it could be called a Bookcase Tree, because of its iasic deisngn. It wouldn’t be the best choice of design for sleeping quarters for a claustrophone lke me, and procratinators wpuld find it even harder to quit reading and go to sleep. I would love to have this for a little one
Tags: Books, Design, house porn, library, Reading
Brief Update and Review of Witch Way to Murder
Posted by Cyn | Filed under Health, Music, Reading
I’ve been doing so much reading because I’ve been sick and unable to do much else. We did get the girl to her doctor, so we know there’s no strep around here. The doctor wouldn’t rule out mono, but wouldn’t test for it either. (I don’t really like this woman, and we usually try to go when the nicer physician is there.) She said that since they don’t do anything but treat the symptoms if it is mono, and the contagion period would have been 60–90 days ago, she doesn’t see any reason to run a test.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Abby, CFS, FMS, mononucleosis, Mysteries, Ophelia, Reading, Shirley Damsgaard