What Remains of My Day

Christmas is over, and my mother has returned home. With her has left what small feeling of Christmas I had this year. As time always tells, you never know what you have until it has left your heart, your side, your mind, or your life.

I am slacking, I feel, in my reading. Although I have a whole week and a half before school starts again, I fear that I may lose good reading time just pondering the little things. I do plan to get to the beach to just sit in front of the water, no matter how cold it may be there. My own little trip to see what my Remains of the Day has to bring.
Suffice to say, I have made no further progress in the novel.

Illumination

Everything is Illuminated is finished. Finally. It only took me about six months to read it, but there was some work and some school that interrupted it. It truly was one of the most innovative books I have ever read, purely in structure alone. Now, with 2 1/2 weeks left before my final term begins, I am starting Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. This novel won the Booker Prize when it was published back in 1989; apparently I have an affinity for Booker Prize winning books (i.e. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood).

38 books down, 963 to go

You Give a Girl a Book (and some free time)

It has come to my knowledge that the list that I have originally posted is from the 2006 edition of the 1001 Books You Should Read, and now the book has been edited a total of three additional times: 2008, 2010, and now 2012. I have found a list that has compiled all four editions of the books, for a complete number of 1,305 books. I may actually add it to the "Books" page, once I am done editing it. Point being, the list is definitely not about the 1,001 books that are magically deemed worthy by editors, but the continual addition/revision of what is out there. The list pushes my personal boundaries of what I would normally choose to read; because let's face it, we all get comfortable with the stories we know, and the cultures from which they originate.

One Last Term

I have sincerely neglected my writing.

But now, due to a series of somewhat unfortunate events, I have begun to write again; and with more ferocity. Hopefully this time, I won't abandon my 'saving grace' for as long. Beginning in January, I will be 3 months towards the end of my degree. After 4 1/2 years of hard work, sleepless nights, tears, nightmares, and the best times of my life, college will be coming to an end. Well at least for now...

Few and Far (and a Woolf) Between

This term is by far my busiest in a while. 16 hours of school. 30 hours of work a week. Some days never end, and some days make me resent that I love books.

Thus far, I have reread A Tale of Two Cities, read Heart of Darkness and also To the Lighthouse. That's just for one class. Another has consisted of A Pagan Place, The Dubliners, countless Irish poems and fictional short stories.

School Woes

So, here I am again. Writing, late at night, after having taken a few months off. Luckily, I have not been doing nothing. I have been attending to my school work.

This school work entails reading excerpts from Derrida, Lacan, Saussure, Oates, Ozick and so many more from there. I have written at least 1000 words each week - I have been left wanting for a normal book for once. Every time I think I have some free time, I realize there is something I have forgotten, or need to better, or clean, or eat, maybe sleep, work. The end of the term is only two weeks away - I cannot wait to finish Everything is Illuminated. I have had my fill of literary theory.

Why has my love of books betrayed me and subjected me to this torture of an English degree? Damn you theory.