Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 183

Today's Daily 5:
  1. Sleeping in a bit (sleep has been more of a challenge again lately, so the days when I can greet the day slowly and a bit later are a blessing)
  2. Doing admin work in my pajamas in bed
  3. wearing a cute hat
  4. Needing to wear less layers of clothing just for the day (thanks for coming, Chinook!)
  5. waiting for the bus in the sun
  6. a great home-made salad with chicken and blue cheese and peppers and almonds and sunflower seeds among other things
  7. a good customer service experience (Disney Movie Club - still trying to sort something out with them regarding a fraudulent charge made to my credit card.  It's hard to get through all the computer prompts to get to talk to a human, but once I did, she was really lovely.)
  8. curly hair day
  9. Vietnamese food at school
  10. reading on the bus
  11. getting home before dark - the days are finally getting a bit longer!
  12. another friend facebooked me a palm tree photo.  (I think I'm going to start printing them all out and come up with a fun way to add text with their locations and then create a palm tree collage for my wall or something!)
  13. wearing my California scarf.  (Ironically, given where I bought it, it's my coziest and warmest scarf!)
  14. finished up my Greek assignments for the week, now I just have to review for the quiz on Friday
  15. sweetly scented candles in my bedroom
Oh, and as a bonus, here's a couple photos of me today, since I was wearing that cute hat and had curly hair and was wearing the California scarf and all. 


Feeling Good

Having days where I feel good physically and emotionally have been a bit of a rarity lately, and are worth celebrating!

So, I'm sitting here waiting for my class to start, having a curly hair day, wearing a cute hat and handmade orange earrings with turquoise butterflies on them, and eating my favorite Vietnamese dish. Hooray for feeling good, and for blogging from my iPhone!


Mini Reviews (Part 3)

Safe People: How to Find Relationships that are Good for You and Avoid Those That Aren't (Dr Henry Cloud & Dr. John Townsend)

I have no idea, honestly, how to sum this book up.  A friend suggested it to me back in September of last year, I resisted, eventually ordered it, and spent several of my late fall bus reading sessions working my way through it.  In the last few weeks I've taken the time to go back through, reading the parts I marked in the fall, and making notes, taking note of what struck me at the time I first read it, and why it struck me then, and how those things were sitting with me now.  It was a relatively easy read, in the sense of being a book that is not technical, but easy to understand and apply.  It was not at all an easy read in that, for me, it spoke deeply, convicting, challenging me, speaking into questions and parts of my life that were very much relevant and helpful.  If you are asking questions about friendships, or other relationships, or have experienced a number of less than healthy ones, I really can't recommend this book enough.  The development of safe, healthy relationships has been something I've struggled with, often choosing profoundly unhealthy and even abusive relationships because I was desperately seeking to be loved and accepted.   The book explored not only what makes a relationship safe or unsafe, but also the reasons that can contribute to choosing unsafe relationships. I found this book to be profoundly helpful as I worked through some difficult relational issues, made some hard decisions, and ultimately believe it has contributed to me moving towards a far more healthy place.  I may have to come back and talk about it at length at some point in the future.



Dreaming in Hindi: Coming Awake in Another Language (Katherine Russell Rich)

To be honest, this book was a disappointment.  It seemed like my dream book - a memoir about travel and learning a new language and culture, while incorporating ideas from linguistics about the process of language acquisition, and exploring the changes on the world stage following 9/11.  (The author, a native New Yorker, landed in India to begin her year of language school, just days before 9/11.)  Everything that I'm theoretically fascinated with, all rolled up into one book.  Unfortunately, it fell short.  It read like a disjointed stream of consciousness, moving back and forth from linguistic theory to personal anecdote, and I felt like there was never anything to grasp on to.  In many ways, it felt aimless, as if it really was a dream, drifting and wandering without ever particularly arriving at a conclusion.  The characters were vague, in fact the author herself seemed vague about the impact of this year on her psyche.  There was no conclusion, no definitive timeline to follow, no way to keep the progression of events straight.  I can't say I'd recommend this one to anyone.