I'm sorry...

That I have once again become a terrible blogger. I just haven't had too much "good stuff" to blog about. To be honest, things aren't so great right now in a few areas, but it's something that I will probably hold off on mentioning until they are more of a sure thing. Well, I'll probably end up coming back to delete this entry (or at least this portion), since I try to keep this blog "bummer-free"... but I just wanted to clear my head...

Well, in happier news, my best friend Ariadna is home from Russia earlier than planned. I think everyone, even her, is happy about the earlier arrival. It's really great to have her home :)

Another bit of good news, so far I've been keeping up with my huge school course load, even my body feels semi-recovered from my Aerobic training class on Thursday. The first two days after, I wasn't able to raise my left arm, LOL. I think she gives us a harder workout on Thursday (everyday it's a new routine, designed for "muscular confusion"), because we have more time to recuperate before the next class.

Hope everyone had a nice Saturday, and are now relaxing and enjoying your Sunday! I'm sorry again for being a bummer, I really do try to keep it out of my blog, but sometimes just feel pretty overtaken by it.

Am trying...

Not to panic. Really, I've gone through this every semester when my classes first begin. I receive a syllabus from each instructor, see all the thousands of projects, papers, research essays planned, and my heart begins to race. I panic.

I'm feeling it even more this semester, because two of my courses are online, which I have never attempted. Not to mention one of them is a Biology course (the other is an English course, which I feel slightly better about). I have a large course load this semester because I must have a certain amount of units to transfer. Usually, students would still be able to transfer if they were a few units short of being a Junior, but California's campuses are incredibly impacted, and most are not even accepting Freshman this year.

So, I am trying *not* to panic so much over my courses and tell myself it will all work itself out in the end. I am reading my Biology teacher's good reviews on "Rate My Professor" almost the way someone would obsessively rub a worry stone or squeeze a stress ball. And obviously, I'm blogging about it to vent as well...

In other news...

After a few failed attempts, we finally went to see Avatar, in 3D. I don't know about where you guys live, but it is still selling like crazy here. We went with my mom and step-dad, and we weren't even able to sit with them. Frankly, we were lucky to find seats at all!



I have to say that the 3D was almost too much for me for the first hour or so. I remember thinking the same thing when I saw Coraline in 3D, except since Coraline was much shorter than Avatar, I had problems with it almost through the whole movie.

Wow, what can I say? Avatar was beautiful. It was just amazing to look at everything in that movie, and I'm really glad we went and saw it in the theater! I've heard people say that they thought the storyline was lacking, but I was pretty happy with it. I do agree that it was long (I think around two and a half hours), but I just really liked it.

Hope everyone had a nice weekend, especially to those who had a lovely three-day weekend!

Book Review: The Good Earth by Pearl Buck

Pearl Buck's classic... The Good Earth

Review from Bookreporter.com - Original FOUND HERE.

"The earth lay rich and dark and fell apart lightly under the points of their hoes. Sometimes they turned up a bit of brick, a splinter of wood. It was nothing. Some time, in some age, bodies of men and women had been buried there, houses had stood there, had fallen, and gone back into the earth. So would also their house, some time, return into the earth, their bodies also. Each had his turn at this earth. They worked on, moving together --- together --- producing the fruit of this earth --- speechless in their movement together."

The simple raw imagery of THE GOOD EARTH won Pearl S. Buck the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1932. Its poignant portrayal of a poor farmer's life and his bond with the land is as relevant to our own ancestral roots as it is to rural China. Wang Lung, the central figure around which the entire narrative revolves, is a man of many complexities depicted by his relationships with his wife, his father, his children and his village. His land is precious, its value equating to his own self-worth. Although steeped in the ancient traditions, he reflects certain enlightened thinking at times that may be more for the author's emphasis of injustices than a true depiction of the average Chinese peasant in the early 1900s.

Wang Lung's story begins as a young man seeking a wife to cook, clean and bear his children. O-lan, a slave's slave from a wealthy household, comes to live and share his life in the subservient fashion that traditions dictate. Initially their marriage brings satisfaction to both, although for vastly different reasons. Wang Lung has a sense of fulfillment in having such a wise and competent woman to raise his children and maintain his home. And even though women are still considered "slaves" by their men, O-lan has found a better life than she's ever known; she is well-cared for and Wang Lung is kind. Together they bring five children into the world and work their thriving farm.

But just as the life of a peasant is harsh, so are the traditions that mold marriage and family. Women are little more than chattel, necessary for procreation and to serve the household needs. A girl child is an unwelcome birth and can even bring shame to families unable to produce a boy. During hard times young girls were often sold into slavery or worse. For all the compassion that Pearl Buck feels for these people and the beauty she finds in their simple lives, her outrage at the conditions of the women is apparent. Although Wang Lung's thoughts are a bit more liberal than we might expect, he still maintains his distance, displaying neither open affection nor love for the woman who shares his life.

". . . she was like a faithful, speechless serving maid, who is only a serving maid and nothing more. And it was not meet that he should say to her, 'Why do you not speak?' It should be enough that she fulfilled her duty."

"Sometimes, working over the clods in the fields, he would fall to pondering about her. What had she seen in those hundred courts? What had been her life, that life she never shared with him? He could make nothing of it. And then he was ashamed of his own curiosity and of his interest in her. She was, after all, only a woman."

As the years pass, Wang Lung's family suffers abject poverty and famine but their strength of character sustains them through stark conditions that we would find inconceivable. Reduced to begging in the city, Wang Lung steadfastly refuses to sell his land. Then as China experiences the first rumblings of revolution, the cycle of prosperity returns and Wang Lung eventually becomes the wealthy landowner that he once envied and despised. But his evolution from a proud hardworking peasant to the decadent life of an idle lord is disheartening. Pearl Buck eloquently portrays the sad disintegration of this man and his family as they become alienated from the land and the noble values it imparted.

--- Reviewed by Ann Bruns

My Review:

Almost anything about the plot of this book has already been summarized very well in the above review. Aside from the summary of the book, I would like to simply give my recommendation for this book, and the message that it carries.

I know that when many people hear the word "classic", many may shy away thinking that it might be dull or even difficult to read. However, this book is a "quick read", and flows smoothly. It reads as easily as books written by more modern authors, and is absolutely fascinating and at times, shocking.

Personally, I am absolutely fascinated with Pre-revolutionary China (and just finished a history class on traditional East Asia) so I knew this book would be one that I would enjoy.

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think?

Also, while I was looking for pictures of the book for this post, I noticed that there is a movie as well, does anyone know if it's any good?

Welcome!

I just wanted to take a moment to welcome some new readers that I've gained recently!!!

I'm so happy to have you guys!

I hope everyone is doing well, I'm going to try and come up with some ideas for posts this week... since it's my last week off before school. I was thinking about also doing a book review somewhere in there since I read a couple over my break... "The Good Earth" by Pearl Buck, and "Like Water for Chocolate" by Laura Esquivel. Would you be interested in either of those? Or even both? (I would highly recommend both of these books, so I'd be happy to do either).

(Side note... does anyone know how to underline titles in your post? I used to be able to by hitting Ctrl U... but now some little window pops up when I do that)

I always worry that the reviews are super boring, but I love to read, and love to talk about what I read, so I just started doing those...

Anyways, hope everyone had a wonderful weekend... one more week off and then I'm back to the daily grind (school) myself. And to be honest, I couldn't be happier. I'm sure I'll regret saying that in a few weeks, but being home all the time just doesn't make me feel good...

Does anyone...

Ever just get lost out there in YouTube land? I'll sometimes click on something that someone else posted on Facebook, or sent me the link to... or I'll see that my favorite makeup guru has posted a new video... and then I end up clicking on a side video.... then another...

And, well, you get the idea.

Yesterday I stumbled on Failblog on YouTube... and could not stop watching the train wrecks. Like I've said before though... I'm pretty easily amused.



Terrifying.







Even funnier considering the lyrics...


And of course there's this one, LOL




Yeah, that's all I've got guys. LOL, I'm going to try and work on some more creative ideas to get my blog going again!

Speaking of which.... anyone have some ideas?? LOL, I'm clearly desperate!!

An Update, and Some Pictures

Hello All,

Well I know I'm a little more than late on this one, but I hope everyone had a wonderful New Years Eve. Ours was very quiet, we just went out to dinner and came home.

Also, since it's been that long, I hope everyone also had a wonderful holiday! Our Christmas was... pretty good. Everyone was absolutely spoiled, as usual. It was fun, though this year felt a little... different to me. I don't know if it was from the stress of finals and not being able to shop early (though who am I kidding, I never shop early...), but I just felt like everything was so rushed this year, and though I know this is going to sound corny, I'm just going to say it.

Christmas lacked that *magic* this year for me.

I don't know if it's because I've just been feeling pretty down or if I'm just getting "old", I don't know. I will say though, that I will absolutely NOT procrastinate so much on my holiday shopping next year, especially since, as crazy as finals felt this year, they will surely be crazier when I am at an actual university, and not just community college.

Why am I having deja vu saying those words? Oh... that's right, I said the exact same thing in this very blog LAST YEAR. So we'll have to see if I link back to this very post next year, which will be truly sad.

Well, enough of the rambling... here are some pictures of our Christmas...

Christmas Eve at my Grandpa's...







Christmas morning at Mom's...





And then at Dad's...

How we all pretty much felt at the end of the day...


And here are a few New Years pics...