I am writing a paper. Well, two papers but the other doesn’t know it is being written right now so we shall give it a surprise later on – we’ll surprise it into existence! Muahaha. Though I’m not certain why I’m using the royal “we” since I’m the only one who’ll be working on it. -_-
I tend to go a bit crazy during these difficult times when I have to use my head to do much more than cross the road. I have been reading about my research topic for a while now. I have been in the minds of these eminent scholars who are all much more intelligent than me (I wouldn’t be reading their works otherwise, hur) so I sort of have a handle on what my paper is going to do and what it wants to do and well, the words are there in my head. They are just crammed together and there are thesauruses involved and some dictionaries because sometimes I think I know a word but I don’t! Plus it’s academic writing so I need to be careful of the tone and it’s just so darned painful.
Why am I doing grad school when I dislike writing papers this much? We will not mention the T-word. That will appear in August. Anyway, so there has been a lot of:
These are ALL representative of my state of mind during this period. So I will be around sporadically and if you follow me on Twitter, you will see abrupt flashes of activity from me before I simply disappear and an ominous silence appears. I am a bit melodramatic, okay a lot. But I will persist and emerge the true victor of this particular hunger games. There may or may not be some crazy posts in store for you, dear Reader, but you enjoy it, admit it! My mind is a murky place with swashbuckling pirates and Legolas (because he has to live somewhere) and Richard Armitage( because it’s my head and I choose who lives there). But as I was saying, I will persevere and emerge victorious from these gloomy times of severe mental and physical distress.
So the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting affected me a lot. I won’t talk about the shooter because I think enough has been said about him and I’m not that forgiving. What I do think is that we, in this season of family and togetherness, not forget the people and children who have died so horrifically. I feel as strongly about the deaths of these kids as I do about the nameless kids who are killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Darfur, all over the world. And as you remember these children, keep in mind those who don’t get the luxury of funerals or elaborate send offs. Say a prayer both for the families of these children and the children around the world and for yourself that you do not ever have to go through anything like this.
I haven’t done one of these in a loooong time. It is a luxury to be able to plan ahead and talk about it. Because I depend on scheduled posts when school is in session and my reading is often “what I want to read right at this moment,” I don’t usually plan ahead. But it’s break time! Woohoo! And I get to do whatever I want without any demands on my time (we’ll just forget about the insane amount of writing I have to do)! I may not celebrate Christmas but I do love me the break time.
Anyway, so books I plan to read…hmmm….
Words Under the Words – Selected poems by Naomi Shihab Nye
I’ve been wanting to read this for a while and was lucky enough to snag a copy at a library sale.
Shadowlands – Kate Brian
This comes out in January so I need to get it read and reviewed because school restarts on January 2nd for me. Boo.
Undead – Kirsty McKay
This is an unsolicited review book that was sent to me by Scholastic. I’ve read good reviews on it so I shall give it the good try.
The Mad Man’s Daughter – Margaret Shepherd
A 2013 debut, this is a requested review copy from Edelweiss. I’m about 30% in (I think) and so far, it’s interesting.
The Archived – Victoria Schwab
I liked Schwab’s first novel so I requested this one for review. It’s very innovative and so far, I’m liking it.
And that’s all I’m planning to read this week but I’ll be honest. I probably will read something else other than the all the ones I’ve listed here. I have some awesome books out from the library too and well, I may just pick them up if they call to me. I can’t resist the books!
What are you reading this week?
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There was a very horrific shooting in Sandy Hook last Friday and while there has been much talk about the shooter, not much has been said about the victims. That’s why, if you have time, please go to this link and just look at their pictures and remember them, remember that they existed, however briefly. I think we owe it to them to keep them in our memories.
I did not want to post a book review on a Saturday because well, I just didn’t. So I wracked my pretty mind (humor me!) for a topic and then I thought, why not pontificate on reading?! More particularly, on my reading. The way I read and subsequently blog. It’s not that I am not a social person, I am. I like talking to people who have the same hobbies as I do (or obsessions if you are talking about reading) and I like the people whose blogs I read and who I follow on Twitter. I just tend not to say much and be in my own little corner of the world. Which is why I hardly ever do readalongs. Because I read too fast and I finish too early and well, I’m making excuses so ignore me.
Wait, don’t.
We are talking about reading here. There will be pictures!
I prefer physical books. I do have a Kindle and it’s marvelously convenient but I find that it kind of sucks the soul out of reading. But those are debates you have already heard or had so I will not go into them any further. I had a meeting with my thesis supervisor the other day and she asked me about my reading. How it started, whether it was encouraged and what urged me to apply for the program I’m currently doing. It’s kind of an interesting story so I shall share!
In Fiji, they used to (they may still, I’m not really sure) give book prizes at the end of the year in a school wide ceremony to students who came first, second and third in the end of the year exams. So that was all the encouragement I needed to work hard. Anyway in Grade 1, I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was but the one winning the first prize got Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift! And not even the kiddie version! I was flummoxed and more than a little disappointed. Because I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know most of the words and it seemed boring (there were no pictures). This led to some wailing and bitter tears and avowals to come last in the next years exams (I was a kid of extremes, okay?) before my mom got me Great Expectations, the kiddie version! Which had pictures and fitted in the palm of my hand. It had a blue cover and I have no idea where it went.
But I was incensed that there existed a book I couldn’t read. So I started to learn new words and read as much as I could and a monster was born.
One of my uncles was also a teacher (my mom was a teacher too at the primary school I attended) (Fiji’s a small country, okay) and I was in Grade 4 the year he was in charge of buying the book prizes for the prize giving ceremony. He came to my house in the evening and put down a box of books in front of me and said you have the whole night to read this because it needed to be handed in the next morning. And oh my goodness, I spent three quarters of the night reading! With a torch because my mom wouldn’t let me stay up late. I fell asleep in class the next day but it was so worth it.
We had one library in Lautoka City which is where I am from. One measly public library and they only allowed patrons to take out two books at a time. I had a kiddie card and wasn’t allowed to take out anything that was interesting as by the time I reached sixth grade, I had outgrown the baby books. I wanted to read something else. Something that would challenge my intellect more. Or gave more illicit pleasure, anyway. So one day I went to the library and asked the librarian if I could get an adult’s card. She filled out the form easily enough but told me I needed a parent’s signature. This was a problem. I lived some distance from the city on a sugarcane farm and while it wasn’t too far, it also wasn’t a journey we made too frequently. Besides, I wanted to take out books now! So I went outside on the pretext of getting my Dad’s signature and after checking that no one was around, I signed the form. Yes, I’m ashamed to admit that I forged my dad’s signature in order to get books out of the library. Well, not too ashamed. I did get better books.
In high school, we had a pretty miserable collection in the school library. The young librarian (whose brother was a classmate of mine) hated me for some reason and wouldn’t let me read the books I wanted to. This is still in Fiji, by the way. So we would sneak off from the bus station after school on Fridays to the thrift store that carried used books bought from Australia. They were sold for 25c each and we would save money we got for recess everyday and then splurge on the books. It was amazing and it was dangerous as it meant detention if we got caught leaving the bus stop in anything other than a bus to go home. But I was a prefect (hur) and I used my power in ways it wasn’t meant to be used. *cheese*
The books that shaped my formative years were mostly:
Enid Blyton was a favourite author and Dolly Fiction was this Australian series that presented standalone books about Australian teenagers navigating the wild course of adolescence. Living in Fiji, I was highly fascinated by the lifestyles (and romances) of these girls who did not look like me and whose lives were so different from mine.
I also read a lot of romances, both contemporary and historical, simply because they were the kinds of books most readily available and most abundant. When we moved to Canada in 2001 and I saw my first library and found out that I could take out 50 books at one (!!!) time, it was heaven.
Okay, I think I have bored you enough for today. If you have managed to get this point in this highly fascinating recollection of my reading experiences, I salute you. Funnily enough, I intended this post to be a semi- rant about the trends in YA literature that make me want to tear first my hair out and then the hair out of whoever is closest to me at the moment. Tomorrow I am going to post a review on The Hobbit, the movie, because I’m just cool like that. Thank you for reading.
Sorry about the lateness of this post. I’m just kind of devastated about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. When we fail the very children we are meant to be protecting… I just don’t have the words to properly articulate myself. I just know that I can’t blithely go on with my life, doing everyday normal things without taking a moment to mourn those. Much worse happens to children in the world, that is true, but this is very close to home. Too close to home. Please pray or spare a thought for the victims and their families. I don’t know if America is going to wake up and realize that gun control is necessary or not but I do know that these kids and the adults who were looking after them deserved to be more than just statistics.
The article “The Bionic Book Worm” appeared in The Independent on the 25th of September. The following is a response to the opinions expressed in the article.
So Sir Peter Stothard, a privileged white male (this is significant), is the editor of the Times Literary Supplement and a judge of the Man Booker Prize. According to him, the world of literary criticism is in danger because of bloggers who “will leave the industry “worse off” with their uneducated reviews of books they read and then write about. (Of course, some will assert that we do not write reviews, we write blog posts. Damned if we do and damned if we don’t.)
Stothard goes on to say that “[n]ot everyone’s opinion is worth the same.”
My lovely readers, I did not make this up. He is quoted verbatim. So, what we can understand from this article is that book bloggers like you and me? Our opinions count for nothing because whaddya know, we may not all have the same high level of tertiary education that is so necessary for us before we can tell whether we like a book or not. Our opinions have no bearing because we are not all speaking the literary critic’s language. Apparently “I like this book and this is why” has no bearing in the face of “confident criticism.”
Okay, show me hands if you read critical commentaries or book reviews to find out what book to read next? Because I don’t. I depend on people who read books I like. I read for entertainment and sometimes for knowledge. To be intellectually challenged as well as entertained – two main reasons I read. And the kind of literary criticism that Stothard talks about? I’ll be honest with you – they make books that I may want to read sound utterly boring so I avoid them. I want enthusiasm and glee and a sort of fanaticism that is only present in people who have shed all snobbery and elitism to push the books they love on other people. In other words, book bloggers.
This is not to suggest that other people do not read these literary criticisms Stothard is so proud of. They probably do, all 300 of them. Because let’s face it, literary novels may win honors, prizes, medals whatever but the audience? It will always, without fail flock to Twilight or 50 Shades of Gray or whatever novel promises the most entertainment. Which is not to say that I particularly liked any of those novels but these are facts, the numbers will prove my point. Literary novels such as the ones winning the Man Booker Prize do not have as much readership as genre fiction does. Stick with me, I have a point.
You do not see book bloggers making elitist comments saying that literary critics are a dying breed (which they might be) because we are cool like that. We love reading. We love talking about reading. So we may not have the degrees or the so-called qualifications to analyze a book, but we are certainly capable of discerning whether a novel affords enjoyment or not. The best thing about book blogging? The number of voices there are. Not all of us are privileged or white, not all of us have the same education but what we do have in amazing amounts is a love for books and where I come from, that’s all you need.
And of course Stothard is right when saying that not all opinions mean the same thing because his opinion means nothing to me. It makes me angry, yeah, that such an elitist, alarmist comment exists in the first place but honestly? Who cares? He will certainly not venture out into the crowds where bloggers lurk and even if he did, I doubt he’d find much of a warm welcome unless he gives up his hoity toity attitude. Colonialism ended a long time ago – we are no longer under any aegis to think that any race (societal construct though that may be) means more than any other.
Oh and according to Stothard, reading 145 books in one year is “unnatural”. I have read 334 books this year. I read widely and from many different genres. And I am not alone. Many of my fellow book blogger friends have read more than 150 books this year. And many of them read more than one genre – literary or otherwise. If you were to consider from that angle, it would make us book bloggers far more qualified to talk about books than some people I could mention.
This is going to be a new feature at Bibliophilic Monologues about which I will tell you more shortly.
So past Tuesday, I started my grad program at the University of British Columbia which is also the place where I did my undergrad. Woot. I am pursuing an MA in Children’s Literature and considering that this blog is almost wholly dedicated to young adult literature, I think (okay, I made an executive decision) to share these glimpses of my continuing program and the classes I take for it. My MA program is interdisciplinary which basically means that we take courses from a variety of faculties such as English, Creative Writing, Library Science, even Psychology (child psychology). It is very exciting stuff and well, I am ridiculously happy to be in it.
On Tuesday we had both classes and orientation and it was a very full day at the end of which I was teetering from what felt like information overload. Grad school people, as my friend Krystle observed in her entry about it, are very big on being social. The MACL (masters of arts in children’s lit) program is small enough that you get to know everybody and you “fall into friendship” as one of my cohort said. (I love that word, cohort.) There are only 9 incoming students this year and I hope we will all get along really well.
(I am thinking about roping them into making the occasional guest post. We will see, hohoho!)
I am taking four classes this term. They are New Media for Children, Contemporary Children’s Lit, Creative Writing for Children and an independent study where I study translated versions of the same work for children and adults and see what changes there have been made to the children’s version and what this says about children’s literature. New Media for Children is going to be challenging but I have a wonderful professor who makes the three hours pass by very swiftly. Contemp children’s lit – okay, you know how we in the book blogging community use “contemporary” as a subgenre in YA genre to refer to books with realistic themes? That’s not the way they roll in academia. Contemporary children’s literature is all children’s literature published in the last thirty years. What we refer to as “contemporary” they call “realistic fiction.” It makes sense, I guess? I always get tangled up in the distinction though.
I am in the advanced class for creative writing and jeez, you guys, these kids are MFAs, they are strong writers, future novelists and I am intimidated beyond belief. I don’t know how strong or how bad my writing is but I do hope to improve so I guess I am in the right place. I mean, if I am really awful, they’ll tell me how to get better, right? Contemporary Children’s Lit is taught by the MACL chair and she’s absolutely awesome.
As for the general atmosphere in grad school environment, it is competitive, yes, but it is convivial. People are actually glad to see you and there is this sense of camaraderie, of fellowship that I found lacking in my undergrad years. People are passionate about the same things you are and they don’t think you are weird for waxing poetic about that obscure thing you like and your friends don’t get. As for the work load, it is intense but more than that, people expect you to be responsible for the work. You have reached a level in your academic life where your performance, your results depend entirely on you.
It’s thrilling. And a bit scary.
I hope you enjoyed this first glimpse. More as I experience life as a grad student.
So I talked about Ramadan and it would be remiss of me to not post pictures of Eid , right? Well, that’s my justification and there you have it. But Eid is all about food, pretty clothes and family getting together. So since my family is not keen on having their pictures on my book blog, you’ll have to do with my face and some food.
My mother got us up at 6:30 in the morning to make food. So I made a list to help us know what needs to get done. And then I wished I hadn’t because holy smokes, so much to do!
This is a complicated layering of Dalo leaves and a mix of crushed lentils. Which is then steamed and then fried. Vegetarian dish with tamarind chutney in the middle.
More of the same dish (saina) and veggie samosas.
This is called baklolo (or vakalolo) and is a Fijian dish. It has cassava, coconut milk and coconut in. It is steamed wrapped in banana leaves. Delicious!
Cassava and breaded shrimp alternating with plum sauce in the middle for dipping purposes.
I got henna done. It was pretty and every time I saw it, I was reminded of Halloween and pumpkins. Haha.
The requisite fruit platter. I did all of this. Yes damnit, I will be proud of my fruit arranging techniques.
Lamb cutlets. My dad and I had a mini cooking lesson here. Now I know the recipe for it. If you’re curious, please let me know and I shall tell you. Haha.
The sweet food. Well mostly sweet. Two of those in there aren’t sweet.
Oh and me, in my finery:
I was incredibly tired by this time and the open house hadn’t even started.
There were lots more dishes but I was too busy taking care of the guests to snap pictures sadly. I hope you enjoyed the glimpse of this traditional holiday.
So I got gifted a Canon Eos Rebel T3i as a graduation present by my family and this summer I have spent an inordinate amount of time taking pictures. This post is the first of many.
