king lear #spoilers

I finished reading King Lear this morning and... wow. What a great ending. The language in that play was complicated as heeeell but act v just REALLY did it for me. Edgar's last lines were solo perfect. He just tied up the moral and overall theme of the play so well. I was reading it and like gasped. I was sitting on the couch with my mom and explained the whole plot to her just so I could read her the final quote in the play. So many characters died, but I'm not surprised at all considering it's Shakespeare. On average characters died per page for like the last 3 pages of the play lol.

Next I want to read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. I've heard that his histories are nowhere near as good as his tragedies and comedies, but I feel like I have to read this one. Plus I like Shakespeare anyway so I really can't go wrong. I'm also reading The Twelve Caesars by Suetonius and it's really interesting. My dad gave me the book and described it as, "the gossip and drama of ancient Rome". I'm reading the english translation, of course, and all I can think the whole time I read it is, "THIS WOULD BE SO MUCH INDIRECT STATEMENT IN LATIN DO I REALLY WANNA TRY TO FIND A LATIN VERSION OF THE TEXT ONLINE?!?!" Just so we're clear, my answer is YES. Hm maybe I'll do that now o: 

too good for you

Art from earlier this year on a night where music was making me a good kind of inspired anxious and i could feel it in my bones. 

i didn't have to work tonight and so i slept for a nice long while then woke up around 6:30 and had a bowl of ice cream for dinner while i did some homework then proceeded to chill. around 9 i saw my girl molly sub tweeting the hell out of her ex on twitter so i picked up some burger king and went to her house. we watched vines for a little over an hour and her mom gave me a slice of cake that I kept dropping out of my mouth because i was laughing so hard. 

i love my friends. i really only have like 2 or 3 close friends but they are just some of the greatest people you could hope to meet. 

i reread of mice and men last week and i cried like a lil bitch. that book never fails to hit home with me. now we're reading catcher in the rye which i read half of many years ago but i can't remember that much about it. i'm very into it  so far. also in my basement i found this book called roman life that's all about ancient roman civilization and like THAT IS MY SHIT it's so interesting. I loaned off my mythology book to Mary because she wanted to read some norse myths (which i actually don't care for but to each her own). i still haven't finished kafka on the shore but i'm nearing the end and i'm so confused and i love it. in latin class we've been reading tales of the house of cadmus, and today we finally got to oedipus rex and i swear that story gets more and more fucked up each time i read it i swear. 

goodnight x

too good for you. 

More Drama Between Grown White Men

Recently I finished reading a book about the discovery of anesthesia. There was a lot more drama involved than I ever thought possible, to be quite honest. Four men are credited with the discovery of it, but back in their days during the early to mid 1880s they called anesthesia "ether". All of the men were from the American Northeast and Southeast. The men were completely grown up when they made their discoveries, and obviously they were all white, because come on, this was a history book I was reading (could I be any more sarcastic?)

At one point or another all of these men had met one another and traded information and ideas, but ultimately they all hated each other. Well, except for the discoverer from Georgia. The other three men wanted the glory of the discovery all for themselves. They did not want to share the money, so they scrambled as fast as they could to get a patent on it. These three men all became extremely depressed and anxious and one of the three committed suicide. That particular man was actually in jail when he ended his own life, because he had spent the remaining days of his life getting high and wandering around the streets of New York City. But one day while under the influence he threw acid on some prostitutes and that landed him in jail, where he spent his final 48 hours.

One of the other men also ended up in New York City in his last weeks. He and his wife were living there, but he was so overwrought by anxiety that every waking moment was torture for him. One day while driving a carriage through Central Park he suffered from a stroke, and he died in the park with his wife by his side. He was buried near Cambridge back in Massachusetts where he was originally from.

The last of the three "crazy" men found the grave of the aforementioned man and went insane in front of it. He started shouting at no one in particular and creating a disturbance so great that other people in the cemetery became concerned and called the police. When the cops arrived he was arrested and put into an asylum, where he spent his remaining few years.

Remember that fourth man who I mentioned in the very beginning of this post? Well, he was the only man who actually ended up leading a happy life. He was not trying to discover anesthesia for the fame or fortune, because he did not want any money from it at all. He just wanted to help his patients. He spent the majority of his life in Georgia with his wife and children. Delivering babies was his favorite thing to do as a doctor, and he actually spent the last few hours of his life delivering a child. Immediately after the baby was born he had a stroke and passed away a bit later. Personally I find it unsafe that a man who was about to have a stroke was delivering a baby, but I guess it's a little bit late for my opinion.

I'd highly recommend you all read the book "We Have Conquered Pain: The Discovery of Anesthesia" by Dennis Brindell Fradin. Even though I've basically spoiled the entire book for you in this post, I still think it's worth a read ;)

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12 Months, 30 Books

I never told any of you, but last year on New Year's Eve I came up with a challenge for myself. The parameters for my challenge were simple: Read 30 new books in the year 2012.  My success is arguable, because while I did read 30 books, not all of them were books I hadn't read before. I just finished reading book #30, and I'm pretty proud of myself. Here is a list (in order, approximately), of the 30 books I read in 2012 (books I've read before will be indicated with a *).

1. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (very, very good)
2. Beach Street Knitting Society and Yarn Club by Gil McNeil (this book was awful)
3. Escape Under the Forever Sky by Eve Yahalem
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever by Jeff Kinney
6. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone* by J.K. Rowling
7. Twilight by Stephanie Meyer (This book was also awful, I think I wrote a post about it when I finished it)
8. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets* by J.K. Rowling
9. Keeping Corner by Kashmira Sheth
10. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban* by J.K. Rowling
11. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (great book)
12. Because of Winn Dixie* by Kate DiCamillo
13.Dave Barry is from Mars and Venus by Dave Barry (a pretty funny read...)
14. The Sixty-Eight Rooms by Marianne Malone
15.Bad Mother by Ayelet Waldman (Surprisingly, I rather liked this one)
16. Comfort Food* by Kate Jacobs (inexplicably one of my favorite novels)
17. Hole in my Life by Jack Gantos (REALLY good)
18. The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane* by Kate Dicamillo (makes me cry)
19. Going Dutch in Beijing* by Mark McCrum (one of my faves)
20. Brida by Paulo Coelho
21. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
22. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
23. Chinese Mythology retold by Claude Helft
24. The Tale of Desperaux by Kate Dicamillo
25. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (The last time I read this was in 5th grade so I counted it as not having read it before since I didn't remember much of the plot)
26. Paper Towns by John Green
27. Animal Farm by George Orwell
28. Lord of the Flies by William Golding
29. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
30. Peanut by Ayun Holiday (this is a pre-published book I checked out from the library, am I allowed to write about it on here???)

That's my list!! I'm sure as the last month of the year winds down, I'll be able to tack a few more books onto my list. I actually did read more than 30 books already, but I don't think that any of the Dear Dumb Diary books I read when I couldn't sleep actually constitute as reading a real book. Another thing I wasn't sure about including was Homestuck/Problem Sleuth.  Both of those involve quite a bit of reading, but since they're comics, I didn't add them on the list.

Doing this 30 book challenge was so much fun! I plan on doing it in 2013 as well. Do you have any suggestions that might make finding 30 new books to read easier for me? ;) 

Am I a Jerk?

As I was walking my dog today, I wondered, "Am I a jerk because I didn't cry when Dobby died in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows?"

Since I am currently rereading all the Harry Potter books, I have been thinking about my favorite characters, and how I reacted when I read their deaths the first time around. When Sirius died, I bawled like a baby, then when Dumbledore died, I sobbed, and I don't really want to talk about when Fred, Lupin, and Tonks all died. But I realized that all of my friends told me that they became emotional wrecks when Hedwig and Dobby died in the seventh book, whereas I didn't shed a tear. Sure, I pretend in front of my friends that I got really upset, and I play along, but inside I know it's not true.

Don't get me wrong, I was distraught when Hedwig and Dobby died, but I didn't cry. Does this make me a jerk? Even though I really liked Hedwig, I just didn't have the emotional attachment to her that I had to Lupin or Dumbledore. And as for Dobby, I was never a huge fan. I liked him in Goblet of Fire, but when he made his first appearance in Chamber of Secrets he just weirded me out. I thought that he was an inconvenience, and that he was sorta creepy.

So, you decide, am I a jerk?

Haiku Monday

Boats are her passion

She denies help from all friends

Refusal to wear a bra.

Happy Haiku Monday

Edit: Oh wow this isn't actually a Haiku. Why did it take me 5 months to realize this?! I still like the poem anyway, I just don't think that our first Haiku Monday was truly a Haiku Monday. Don't you guys feel cheated as well?