coexistapart's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- fair is kind of an imprecise concept I finished Admission I can't deny the book was great; anything that is 450 pages and I plow through in three days (I am very slow reader--the last 160 pages took me roughly four hours) is worth noting. That said, the general departure from the first section of the book means it's not my new best book of the year by and large. The title is a bit of a double pun--initially you think it should be admissions, as in that is Portia's profession as a application reader. But then on the other hand you come to understand that it is both her life's admission (articulation of truths) as well as those of her 17 year-old applicants. So next up I've got Acedia & Me Oddly enough, I guess the genre I am reading is fairly predictable because when you click on the Amazon link for Admission, nearly all of the books in the "Customers Also Bought" ticker are either on my list or on my radar: Columbine, The Help, Olive Kitteridge; I have read Abraham Verghese, and am familiar with the success of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and the idea behind The Girls from Ames. Even if I do not use it for anything else, which I clearly do, my Blackberry has become the greatest thing that every existed in so far as I have a memo regarding all the books and authors I am currently interested in reading. Flipping through the Bestseller section in a newspaper while in an airport? Even if there is only one book I see, I do not have to fish out a scrap of paper I will probably lose, or put it into my agenda, which I will never have on hand when I am at the library; instead I have a memo with titles and ideas from books, magazines, review articles, blogs I have read, displays I have seen, and mentions I have heard. It's great, truly. Worth mentioning is the fact that in writing that paragraph rife with commas, I recall that I loved the writing style of Admission because she uses both commas, semi-colons, and dashes just about as much as I do--although probably with more precision. In other news, I spent about half an hour last night finally removing the dumb ringback from my phone; no news yet as to whether it will fix the general volume on my phone. The circles I had to jump through, just to make sure that Verizon did not continue to bill us an extra $1 per month were a bit insane; but I suppose that is how they drive you off, over the idea that it's just not worth your time. Also, my financial management company just uploaded a new user interface. The old website was not bad, but just kind of basic--which, in my experience, a lot of Canadian bank's websites are; they just do not want graphic or security problems for people who are still on dialup. But MDM's site is wonderful, and it also has made readily available my history since 2005. I was able to go through and actually add up all of the cash I had taken out, instead of just shooting in the dark-- 18,000 April 2009 6,200 November 2008 3,000 December 2007 3,500 August 2006 Rather than being appaled, I thought this was really instructive. Good the first year, a little bit concerned about my expenditures in the second year (although 17,000 when I did not have a job, is kind of laughable) so I stuck to my guns in 2008 and made sure I did not spend anything, let it all bounce back. This year has not been great, clearly, with more to come out to finish paying my tuition, but Big will also give me about 15,000 of that back. All in all I have spent roughly 1/4 in five years, which at the present rate (which is clearly not desirable) means I could make the money last 16 years; or, if as is expected, I do not intend to use the money at all once I am out of school and have a real income, to actually contribute back, means I could easily enjoy life, and still come out relatively ahead in terms of life. I just need to remember, in the near future, not to go back to having expenses legitimized by a certain someone. Ahem. As if I would trust those ideas under normal circumstances..... We are going away this weekend. I have said this before. I am beyond excited; I cannot believe it has been 2 MONTHS since we were in HI. Seriously, that first week back in Toronto was rough. Since I have been back though I have been slowly packing up, ordering things here and there, and just generally trying to stay out of trouble by reading, going to the gym, and sitting outside. But they've got a water park in the desert, I am going to take pictures of cacti, and there is an In'N'Out burger maybe, oh, 5 minutes away? United Bloor Services has started hounding me to come back in, now that I am apparently ok. Currently I am working on roughly 100 33s I need to list to sell, as well as the baby girl clothing I bought at the garage sale given that Juanita had a boy. 8:45 a.m. - 2009-06-17 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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