Harry Potter: Final Predictions

So Snape is really good, and Harry may or may not be a horcrux. But what else is going to happen in Deathly Hallows?

Basically, Harry has to go and hunt down the horcruxes, destroy them, and then kill Voldemort. There are supposed to be 6 horcruxes. Harry destroyed the first one, Riddle's diary, and Dumbledore took care of Gaunt's ring. That leaves four which Dumbledore has theorized include the following:
Horcrux #3: Slytherin's Locket
Horcrux #4: Hufflepuff's cup
Horcrux #5: Something of Ravenclaw's or Gryffindor's
Horcrux #6: Nagini the snake

Of course this list may not be quite correct. For example, the first one, Slytherin's locket, may have already been destroyed. The mysterious RAB may have already done some of Harry's work for him, as indicated in the note he left in the fake horcrux:

"To the Dark Lord:
I know I will be dead long before you read this
but I want you to know that it was I who discovered your secret.
I have stolen the real Horcrux and intend to destroy it as soon as I can.
I face death in the hope that when you meet your match, you will be mortal once more.
RAB" (HBP 569)

The identity of RAB is almost certainly Regulus Black, Sirius' younger brother who was a Death Eater. According to Sirius, Regulus "got in so far, then panicked about what he was being asked to do and tried to back out. Well, you don't just hand in your resignation to Voldemort. It's a lifetime of service or death" (OOTP 104). Lupin remembers that "Sirius's brother Regulus only managed a few days" (HBP 103) before he was killed. So were those few days enough to steal the horcrux and destroy it? Assuming, of course, that RAB is actually dead. No one ever says whether they saw Regulus' body, or if he just disappeared. In any case, I suspect that Harry will find the locket at 12 Grimmauld Place. One of the objects found in the cabinet they were cleaning out there was "a heavy locket none of them could open" (OOTP 108) and Slytherin's locket is described as "a heavy gold locket" (HBP 196).

I have also wondered about the last horcrux, supposedly Nagini the snake. Dumbledore thinks that this may be where Voldemort has recently chosen to hide the last seventh of his soul since he failed to create the last horcrux on the night of Harry's death... or did he? If you buy into the Harry-is-a-horcrux theory, then does that mean Nagini is actually the seventh horcrux, and Voldemort's soul has been divided into eight? Or was Dumbledore mistaken and is Nagini not a horcrux at all? Another thing to consider is that Voldemort knows that one of his horcruxes has been destroyed. Dumbledore tells Harry that "When Voldemort discovered that the diary had been mutilated and robbed of all its powers, I am told that his anger was terrible to behold" (HBP 474). For Voldemort, the idea of having his soul divided into the magical number seven was very important. So, if he knew that now there were only six pieces of his soul left, would he then try to create another horcrux? Or would that still be considered dividing it into pieces of eight, even if one piece was destroyed, and therefore less magical? There may yet be some changes to the list of horcruxes.

As for where Harry will go, I mentioned that the locket will most likely be found in 12 Grimmauld Place, the house which Harry now owns. Harry has also mentioned that he will be going to Godric's Hollow, the place where his parents last home was. I have often wondered about the name, Godric's Hollow, Godric Gryffindor. And we don't know much about Harry's father's family, other than that they were pure-bloods. Could Harry be the heir of Gryffindor? It would kind of make sense, that the heir of Slytherin and the heir of Gryffindor have a final showdown, so many centuries after the first rift between their houses occurred.

And of course Harry will go back to Hogwarts. He has said that he won't, and maybe he won't go back for classes, but I think at least one of the horcruxes will be hidden there. Dumbledore has remarked that "Voldemort was, I believe, more attached to this school than he has ever been to a person. Hogwarts was where he had been happiest; the first and only place he had felt at home....the castle is a stronghold of ancient magic. Undoubtedly Voldemort had penetrated many more of its secrets than most of the students who pass through the place, but he may have felt that there were still mysteries to unravel, stores of magic to tap" (HBP 403).

There is another possible hiding place that I thought of, though I got it from looking off of one of the cover illustrations for the new book, so it's kind of cheating. In the picture, Ron, Hermione and Harry are tumbling through a circular opening into what looks like a mound of treasure. Could Voldemort have hidden one of his horcruxes in a vault in Gringott's? It sounds horribly obvious, but there it is.

So we know Ron and Hermione will be accompanying Harry, but who else will make an appearance in the book? Obviously, Luna will be back. And Ginny as well. I think Harry made a mistake in breaking up with her at the end of Book 6, because they love each other, and that is Harry's strength. He shouldn't be trying to distance himself from his friends, even if his intention is to protect them. And of course, Neville, who will have a huge role to play. He is, of course, the other boy to whom the prophecy may have referred to at one point, causing some people to speculate that he really is the chosen one and it will be him that has to kill Voldemort in the end. I don't know about that, but I do think that a confrontation between Neville and Bellatrix Lestrange is inevitable. He will avenge the torture of his parents, or die trying. Another character who may possibly return is Victor Krum. If he does, I foresee a potential love triangle between Ron, Hermione and Victor, which may finally force some feelings out into the open.

And what of Sirius? He's supposed to be dead, and Dumbledore has told Harry several times that there is no spell that can bring back the dead... but the purpose of the mysterious archway into which Sirius fell has never been explained. I think there's a possibility that we will see Sirius again. And Dumbledore? Once again, I have to say that I do think Snape really did kill him. But I also note that Dumbledore has been strongly associated with the phoenix throughout. When the phoenix dies, it bursts into flames, and is then reborn again from the ashes. At Dumbledore's funeral, his casket is engulfed in flames. I'm not saying that there'll be a baby Dumbledore wandering around in Book 7, but I think maybe, in some form, we will hear from him again. [and I must put in a little note here to thank my Dad who pointed out to me the association between Dumbledore and the phoenix]. And even if Dumbledore doesn't come back, there's always his brother. Moody points him out in a picture of the Order of the Phoenix: "That's Dumbledore's brother Aberforth, only time I ever met him, strange bloke" (OOTP 158). If Aberforth is still alive, and strange bloke or not, if he's even half as talented as his brother, he may be able to help Harry out in some way.

And the bad guys? Cuz they'll be there as well. Harry's old nemesis Draco Malfoy will be back again. I think that he will redeem himself and end up saving Harry's life or something. And I think Draco will also survive. He'll be one of the ones to carry on after the final battle's done. Severus Snape will also have an important role to play. Harry's going to try and kill him, but I think Severus may end up saving Harry as well. I also think Snape is going probably going to be one of the ones to kick it. Harry will finally hear his story and find out that Snape is on his side, and then Snape's going to die. And then there's also Peter Pettigrew. He's going to have an important role to play, possibly in the final battle. In Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry decides to spare Pettigrew's life. Dumbledore says, "Pettigrew owes his life to you. You have sent Voldemort a deputy who is in your debt. When one wizard saves another wizard's life, it creates a certain bond between them... and I'm much mistaken if Voldemort wants his servant in the debt of Harry Potter. This is magic at its deepest, its most impenetrable, Harry. But trust me... the time may come when you will be very glad you saved Pettigrew's life" (POA 311). So I think that Pettigrew may also end up dying for Harry, to make up for the fact that he betrayed Harry's father.

So, what about the final battle? How will it all end? Will Harry die?

Right from the beginning, before we even know about the prophecy, Harry's fate is already looking grim. In the first book, when Harry encounters Voldemort in the Forbidden Forest, Firenze the centaur intervenes and saves Harry's life. Firenze is then rebuked by the other centaurs: "Remember Firenze, we are sworn not to set ourselves against the heavens. Have we not read what is to come in the movements of the planets?" (PS 187). Then when Firenze leaves Harry, he says to him "Good luck, Harry Potter...The planets have been read wrongly before now, even by centaurs. I hope this is one of those times." (189). It's possible the centaurs have merely read what the prophecy says, that Harry will one day have to face Voldemort. But they're not sounding very hopeful, are they? Harry himself says later on, "Bane thinks Firenze should have let Voldemort kill me...I suppose that's written in the stars as well" (190). So what do the centaurs see? Can they see Harry's death? If so, is it possible, as Firenze says, that they may be wrong?

The prophecy isn't much help either. It says "either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives". Now that doesn't necessarily mean that Harry will die, but it doesn't mean he'll live either. Either must die, so one of them's got to. But it doesn't say anything about one of them surviving for sure.

If you believe that Harry's a horcrux, then his chances of survival go down even further. One thing that we know for sure is that all the horcruxes must be destroyed before someone kills Voldemort. If he is killed and even one horcrux still exists, then it will be the same thing all over again as the night he tried to kill Harry. So, let's look at the possible scenarios:
Scenario #1: Harry realizes he's a horcrux and decides to kill himself, or has someone else kill him. Then someone else will have to finish off Voldemort for him. The most popular contender for this position is Neville Longbottom, as he is the other boy who could have been the chosen one. I personally don't think this will work. First of all, Neville could have been the chosen one, but he wasn't "marked" as Harry was. Harry is the chosen one, and it's GOT to be him and Voldemort in the end. Nothing else makes sense.
Scenario #2: Harry and Voldemort kill each other at exactly the same time, so Voldemort and his final horcrux are both destroyed. It's possible, but I think it's pretty unlikely.
Scenario #3: Harry realizes he's a horcrux, but someone figures out a way to destroy the bit of Voldemort's soul without killing Harry. This one I like pretty well. Though when you look at what's happened to the other horcruxes, I'm thinking it's going to be difficult to destroy the soul without also destroying the vessel. Riddles diary got pierced with the fang of a basilisk. And I don't know what Dumbledore did to Gaunt's ring, but it ended up with a huge crack down the middle. Still, it's possible, and this way Harry still gets to face Voldemort in the end.

And how will Harry get rid of Voldemort? Voldemort is the most powerful wizard on earth now that Dumbledore's gone. Dumbledore himself says that "Without his Horcruxes, Voldemort will be a mortal man with a maimed and diminished soul. Never forget, though, that while his soul may be damaged beyond repair, his brain and his magical power remain intact. It will take uncommon skill and power to kill a wizard like Voldemort, even without his Horcruxes" (HBP 475). Harry is fairly talented, especially in Defence Against the Dark Arts, but he can't hope to defeat Voldemort in a regular wizard's duel. Dumbledore has said to Harry again and again that it will be his ability to love, his ability to feel emotion that will help him the most. Dumbledore tells Harry that "the fact that you can feel pain like this is your greatest strength" (OOTP 726). At one point, Dumbledore mentions something about a special room in the Department of Mysteries: "There is a room in the Department of Mysteries that is kept locked at all times. It contains a force that is at once more wonderful and more terrible than death, than human intelligence, than the forces of nature. It is also, perhaps, the most mysterious of the many subjects for study that reside there. It is the power held within that room that you possess in such quantities and which Voldemort has not at all. That power took you to save Sirius tonight. That power also saved you from posession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests. In the end, it mattered not that you could not close your mind. It was your heart that saved you." (OOTP 743). When Harry and the others were in the Department of Mysteries and they were in the room with the revolving doors, there was one door that none of them could open. Could this be the mysterious locked room, the one that holds the power of love? And if so, will Harry be able to somehow use this force against Voldemort? Something else which may come to play an important role is the fact that Harry's blood now runs through Voldemort's veins. When Harry tells Dumbledore that Voldemort said "my blood would make him stronger than if he'd used someone else's...He said the protection my - my mother left in me - he'd have it, too. And he was right - he could touch me without hurting himself, he touched my face. For a fleeting instant, Harry thought he saw a gleam of something like triumph in Dumbledore's eyes."(GOF 604) What the significance of this is, I cannot say.

And I also cannot say if Harry will survive. Even if he's not a horcrux, there's no guarantee. And if he doesn't, I won't necessarily mind, as long as she does it right. I've read children's books before where one of the main characters dies, most recently Ptolemy's Gate. And in that one it was excruciatingly sad, but at the same time, it was inevitable and felt, somehow, right. In any case, I'm sure I will cry, even if Harry doesn't die, cuz it will all be over.

So, those are my last predictions. Anyone else?

Is Harry a Horcrux?

I've really gone back and forth on this question. And I think it's because I'm a little bit biased, simply because if Harry is a Horcrux, I really hate what it does to his chances of survival. And I do want Harry to live. But whether or not I want Harry to be a Horcrux is completely beside the point. So let's take a look at the facts, shall we?

It all comes down to the night that Voldemort tried to kill Harry. Harry's mother dies trying to protect Harry, and in Voldemort's words: "My curse was deflected by the woman's foolish sacrifice, and it rebounded upon me." (GOF 566) Harry is left with a small scar on his forehead, but is otherwise unharmed. The scar, however, has proved to be much more than skin deep. It serves as a link between Harry and Lord Voldemort, a link that has never been satisfactorily explained.

From the beginning, Harry could sense through the scar when Lord Voldemort was near. Eventually the scar also began to hurt when Voldemort was angry. Dumbledore tells Harry "It is my belief that your scar hurts both when Lord Voldemort is near you, and when he is feeling a particularly strong surge of hatred.... Because you and he are connected by the curse that failed. That is no ordinary scar" (GOF 521). No ordinary scar indeed. The connection becomes even deeper after the Dark Lord regains his body, and in Order of the Phoenix, Harry begins to sense a range of emotions from the Dark Lord, as well as sharing Voldemort's thoughts and visions. Snape tells Harry that "The curse that failed to kill you seems to have forged some kind of connection between you and the Dark Lord... when your mind is most relaxed and vulnerable - when you are asleep, for instance - you are sharing the Dark Lord's thoughts and emotions" (OOTP 469). Perhaps the most disturbing instance of this occurs when Harry witnesses the attempted murder of Arthur Weasley. He sees the attack as if he himself were the snake biting Mr. Weasley.
Snape has an explanation for this as well: "You seem to have visited the snake's mind because that was where the Dark Lord was at that particular moment... He was possessing the snake at the time and so you dreamed you were inside it, too" (OOTP 470). Later on in Dumbledore's office, Harry experiences a disturbing urge to attack Dumbledore: "At once, Harry's scar burned white-hot, as though the old wound had burst open again - and unbidden, unwanted, but terrifyingly strong, there rose within Harry a hatred so powerful he felt, for that instant, he would like nothing better than to strike - to bite - to sink his fangs into the man before him -" (OOTP 419). Harry later says "it was like something rose up inside me, like there's a snake inside me" (OOTP 425). Is there something inside Harry, some evil thing fighting to get out?

It would definitely seem to support the Horcrux theory. Except that in Half-Blood Prince, the scar abruptly stops hurting and Harry can no longer sense anything from Voldemort. Dumbledore explains that "Lord Voldemort has finally realised the dangerous access to his thoughts and feelings you have been enjoying. It appears that he is now emplying Occlumency against you" (HBP 61). If the thoughts and feelings had been coming from within Harry, from a piece of Voldemort's soul, then Voldemort employing Occlumency wouldn't stop them. So there's no evidence to support that Harry has a horcrux inside him. And if you really want to believe that, then I suggest you stop reading here. Because that's not the end of the story.

While the emotions Harry was feeling were coming from outside himself, it is the connection between him and Lord Voldemort itself that is allowing those emotions to reach him. When Dumbledore is talking to Harry about the Horcruxes, one possibility he suggests is that Nagini the snake is a horcrux. He bases this on the fact that the snake's behaviour is rather strange and that Voldemort "seems to have an unusual amount of control over her, even for a Parselmouth" (HBP 473). This seems to suggest that the Horcrux would create a connection between Voldemort and the snake that would allow him to control her more. Sound familiar?

The other part we're forgetting is that Harry is not just experiencing Voldemort's thoughts and emotions. He has also inherited some of his abilities. In second year, Harry discovers that he is a parselmouth. He can talk to snakes, an ability that Voldemort was well-known for. Harry wonders why he has this ability in common with Voldemort in this telling conversation with Dumbledore:

"You can speak Parseltongue, Harry, because Lord Voldemort - who is the last remaining descendant of Salazar Slytherin - can speak Parseltongue. Unless I'm much mistaken, he transferred some of his own powers to you the night he gave you that scar. Not something he intended to do, I'm sure..."
"Voldemort put a bit of himself in me?" Harry said, thunderstruck.
"It certainly seems so." (COS 245)

Voldemort put a bit of himself in me... Sounds like a horcrux to me. It is one thing to have a connection to someone else's mind, it is quite another to transfer your in-born abilities to them.

So let's, for now, assume that Harry is a Horcrux. How did it happen? As Dumbledore indicates above, Voldemort surely did not intend to make Harry a Horcrux. But he did intend to make one that night: "if my calculations are correct, Voldemort was still at least one Horcrux short of his goal of six when he entered your parents' house with the intention of killing you....I am sure that he was intending to make his final Horcrux with your death" (HBP 473). So how is a Horcrux actually made? Slughorn explains to Riddle that "Killing rips the soul apart. The wizard intent upon creating a Horcrux would use the damage to his advantage: he would encase the torn portion...There is a spell" (HBP 465). So to create a Horcrux, one must first kill someone, then encase the torn part of the soul inside an object using a spell. Without knowing more about the spell, it's really hard to say if the procedure could have happened by accident. Is the spell something that you set up ahead of time, and then at the moment of killing set into motion? And then there is the larger glitch in this little theory: to set up a Horcrux, you have to kill. Dumbledore thinks that Voldemort was going to use Harry's death, NOT the death of his mother or father, to create the final Horcrux. But Harry didn't die that night. No death = No Horcrux. Or is it possible that merely the intent of killing Harry was enough to rip Voldemort's soul? Again, without knowing more about how the spell works, it's hard to say.

Another question to consider here is why doesn't Voldemort realise that Harry is a Horcrux? He obviously doesn't know that Harry is a Horcrux because he keeps trying to do him in, and surely he wouldn't do that if he knew. We do know that Voldemort cannot sense Horcruxes after they have been separated from his body. Harry asks Dumbledore that exact question:

"Does Voldemort know when a Horcrux is destroyed sir? Can he feel it?"
"I believe not. I believe that Voldemort is now so immersed in evil, and these crucial parts of himself have been detached for so long, he does not feel as we do." (HBP 474)

But would Voldemort feel it when a Horcrux has been newly created? Would he not feel his soul being torn and sealed away? Would he not realise that the spell had been performed? One could argue that in the shock of the rebounding curse and him losing his body, Voldemort could have overlooked the fact that another piece of his soul was missing. Or perhaps he realised it was missing, but thought the spell had gone as planned and went into the intended object, and not Harry. Or maybe he does realise that Harry's a horcrux and is simply willing to sacrifice a bit of his soul in order to be rid of his prophesied nemesis.

Another question to consider is if a piece of Voldemort's soul could actually reside comfortably in Harry's body. In Order of the Phoenix Voldemort takes possesion of Harry's body. But he cannot remain because Harry begins to think of the people he loves. As Dumbledore says, "That power [to love] also saved you from posession by Voldemort, because he could not bear to reside in a body so full of the force he detests." (OOTP 743). If Voldemort couldn't stand to stay in Harry's body, then how could a piece of his soul?

In Order of the Phoenix, after Harry has the dream about the snake attacking Mr. Weasley, there is an odd little scene where Dumbledore consults some of his instruments. We don't hear the question Dumbledore asks, but a serpent made of smoke appears:

"Naturally, naturally," murmured Dumbledore apparently to himself, still observing the stream of smoke without the slightest sign of surprise. "But in essence divided?"
Harry could make neither head nor tail of this question. The smoke serpent, however, split itself instantly into two snakes, both coiling and undulating in the dark air. With a look of grim satisfaction, Dubledore gave the instrument another gentle tap with his wand: the clinking noise slowed and died and the smoke serpents grew faint, became a formless haze and vanished." (OOTP 416)

I really wish that I understood this part better, because I think it's key to understanding the nature of Harry's connection with Voldemort. Two serpents, in essence divided. Does Dumbledore mean that Harry and Voldemort are divided, even though they were sharing the mind of the snake? Or does he mean that Voldemort is divided, one part of his soul in his own body, the other residing in Harry's? Does it support or contradict the theory of Harry as a Horcrux?

Which brings me to my next question: If Harry is a Horcrux, then why doesn't Dumbledore tell him? Surely Dumbledore would know. After the snake attack on Mr. Weasley, Mrs. Weasley remarks that "Dumbledore seems almost to have been waiting for Harry to see something like this" (OOTP 434). Dumbledore seems to understand what the connection between Harry and Voldemort means. But he never mentions the possibility that Harry is a Horcrux. And after the end of Order of the Phoenix he said he was done protecting Harry. But maybe he has his reasons. Maybe it's not about protecting Harry, but just realising that this is something that Harry needs to find out on his own and come to accept.

So, final word. Is Harry a Horcrux? Well, there are some fairly large holes in the theory, as I have pointed out above. And yet there is strong evidence that would support it. The connection between Harry and Voldemort has never been adequately explained otherwise. But I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced. What do you all think?

I was hoping for X-rated

Well, hell. Maybe I need to start swearing a bit more.

Pirates

I just saw Pirates of the Caribbean 3. And I think I liked it. I'm not going to give anything away for those who haven't seen it yet. But I have heard from some people that it was completely over the top, overdone, and about 2 hours too long. And I don't think it was. It did have its ridiculous moments (I rolled my eyes at least twice), and there was so much double-crossing it was hard to keep track of who was on what side at any given time (though it was still doable, unlike the first Mission Impossible, where after the movie I just sat there saying, "huh?"), and the ending was kind of sad. And I didn't really think that Captain Jack Sparrow was as charming this time around. But oh my god I love Orlando Bloom. I thought last movie Johnny Depp kind of overshadowed him, but gorgeous Will Turner was back and better than ever this time. Anyway, I liked the movie (though it still can't compare to the first Pirates). And it's left me feeling a bit odd. I feel a bit sad and let down, but I also have a fierce urge to begin work on an epic novel about backstabbing pirates. And I have an odd craving for rum. I hate rum.

Yo ho ho.

Warning: Extreme Cuteness Ahead!

So my mom and dad got a new puppy. They're hoping that the new pup will encourage our very old Husky to stick around home. She's been running to the neighbours to hang out with their dog, so she would probably like a little companionship.

The puppy is eight weeks old, female, and half border-cross collie and half labrador. She looks more like a lab than a collie right now, being mostly black and short haired. She has a bit of white on her paws, chest, and a tiny little soul patch on her chin.

She's very cute, very sweet... and a little bad. She likes to nip feet and hands, but she is only a puppy so hopefully with a little training that will stop when she's older. It's cute now, but... (oooh. I said I'd stop with the ellipses, didn't I? Okay, no more.)

After due consideration, my sister and I decided to name her Mokey, after my favourite fraggle. Without further ado, here's some photos of our little pup:









Okay, everybody say it with me: Aaaaawwwwwwwwww!

Now for more animal cuteness. My sister's cat Nan has an interesting relationship with his food. He loves it. But he doesn't just love it, he loves it. Please note that in this video, he is not getting a treat, those are his regular everyday kibbles, and we did not starve him beforehand. This is the way he eats all the time. Notice the way he caresses the side of the food dish:

book meme

So, for a nice little break, here's a neat little book list I got off of Digital Diamonds.

Bold the ones you've read:

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Avonlea (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible (God) - Can I please argue with the author here?
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela's Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She's Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller's Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones' Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte's Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard's First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

31/100

What's your score??

Fun Game, Not Hard

Okay, so here's where I jump on the bandwagon, and post my own IMDB Keyword movie quiz. Except, unlike some people I know, I'm not going to post obscure keywords which hardly have anything to do with the movie. You people should be able to get all of these easily. Provided you've seen the movies. Some of these are perhaps less well known. So here they are, in no particular order, some of my faves of all time:

1. Blood Splatter, Bride, Vengeance, Female Assassin, Shot In The Head - Kill Bill
2. Catholicism, Vigilante, Irish - Boondock Saints
3. Female Bonding, Southern U.S., Cannibalism, Trial, Train - Fried Green Tomatoes
4. Sexual Harassment, Femme Fatale, Manipulation - Disclosure
5. Wish Fulfillment, Escher Stairway, Goblin - Labyrinth
6. Pirate, Music, Boy Meets Girl - The Pirate Movie
7. Revenge, Marooned, Outer Space, Terraforming, Wrath - Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan
8. Spell, Sister Sister Relationship, Eyes Different Colour - Practical Magic
9. Dance Lesson, Abortion, Forbidden Love - Dirty Dancing
10. Future, Eugenics, Romance, Blood Test, Mistaken Identity - Gattaca

I have acquired myself a minion.

Every Thursday until the end of May I have a student coming to the library for a work experience program. He's in Grade 12, he's very intellectual, kinda geeky, a little weird. He writes odd little poems during his coffee breaks and wants to be a film director. Needless to say we get along great because we are similarly out of touch with reality.

Anyway, here's my problem: I don't know what to have him do. I've had him job shadow just about everyone. He's also done some weeding for me, some shifting of books for the pages, he's been with L a couple of times shifting gov docs and pulling old periodicals. But I don't think he's having a very good time. Cuz those jobs are boring, and I want to give him a better experience at the library. Something that might inspire him so that, if he doesn't become the next Steven Spielberg, he might consider a job at the library instead. He's just so smart and artistic, and here I have him pulling books off the shelf. Surely there is somewhere his talents could be put to better use??

Of course my other problem is that I am a *tiny* bit of a perfectionist/control freak, and I hate to delegate simply because I never believe that anyone else will do as good a job as I would have done.

So does anybody have any suggestions of any projects or jobs that my little minion could do that would befit his talents and at the same time not cause my punctilious personality pain?

dot-dot-dot

Has anyone ever noticed how much I use ellipses? They are everywhere in my writing. I have recently decided that this is a bad thing so I have attempted to curtail my use of them. But I'm finding it really difficult, and I think I know why.

Basically, my love of the ellipsis is intrinsically connected to my personality. I don't know if anyone has ever done any Myers-Briggs or any other type of personality test, but I am a perceiver, as opposed to a judger. Which means I don't really like making decisions or committing to anything. Don't ask me to decide what I'm doing for my vacation this summer. Hell, don't even ask me to decide what I'm doing this weekend. Because I like to keep my options open. And, even if I've made plans, expect them to change with little or no notice. Which, admittedly, drives some people crazy. Because while I am fairly flexible, and can roll with the punches, I've noticed that some people get a little thrown off if something gets changed at the last moment.

Which brings me back to the punctuation. Because what else is an ellipsis but a refusal to commit to a sentence? It is an incomplete thought, the beginning of an idea... but ultimately it has refused to finish itself. It will not be locked into one static meaning but instead remains like a wound-up spring, just waiting to explode its meaning all over the page (or screen in this case). And the beauty of an ellipsis is that there are usually several, and sometimes many, potential meanings stuffed into those three little dots. And when I use the dots, I could mean any one of those things.

And that brings me to the problem with ellipses. Because while I think that being flexible is good, there are some things that you shouldn't be flexible about. When I use the ellipses, I don't have to choose the endings to my thoughts. I don't have to commit myself. I don't have to take a stand, or make my true intentions or feelings known. Because once you put that period at the end of your sentence, that's it. You've made your decision. No more wishy-washy fence-sitting. You've picked your statement, and now you have to stick with it. Defend it, or else admit you were wrong.

So, while it is somewhat scary for me, I figure that at the very least I should be able to commit to a sentence. No more ellipses (or at least none without a very good reason). We will not discuss my tendencies towards claustrophobia or the absolute feeling of panic I have gotten in the past when someone starts talking about marriage or buying a house.

One thing at a time. Period.

Goodbye Glasses

So I got Lasik Eye Surgery done on Monday.

This may seem a bit out of the blue, but I've really been thinking about it for awhile. It started about a year ago when I started having trouble with my contact lenses. I went in for a routine check up and I saw a new eye doctor since the one I usually go to was booked up solid. And this new doctor she took a look at my eyes and said that they obviously weren't getting enough oxygen. There were apparently a lot of extra blood vessels, which means that the eye was compensating by increasing the blood flow to it. My eyes felt just fine, but hey, the doc knows best. So she gave me a sample of a new contact lens that was supposed to allow more oxygen to reach the eye.

However, I was back again a couple of weeks later because the new contact lenses were awful. My old ones I could wear up to 18 hours a day and they'd be all right, but the new ones, after just 8 hours, were getting so filmy and gunky that I could hardly see out of them. My new eye doctor looked at my eyes and said, "Well, they are obviously getting more oxygen. They look a lot better." Well, really, that's great, and I'm happy for my eyes. But I can't see.

So then she gave me a new set of trial lenses. And they were definitely an improvement on the old ones, but still not as good as the ones I had in the first place. I didn't want to go back and try yet another pair of lenses, but I wanted to be able to see. So I just started wearing my glasses again. But I didn't want to do that forever either, so...

Surgery it was. And I'm glad I did it. It's really, really quite amazing. I had the surgery on Monday morning. The whole procedure took about 15 minutes. The actually "laser" part of the procedure only takes a few seconds on each eye. 41 seconds on my left and 38 seconds on my right to be specific. Then they make you go straight home, or in my case, to a hotel, and lay down with your eyes closed for four hours. (I listened to Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett on CD, thanks Ash it was great, looking forward to Wintersmith).

And you're supposed to take lots of eye drops, both antibacterial and lubricating, and above all DO NOT RUB YOUR EYES!!!!! (And it really was written like that in my post-op instructions, five exclamation marks and all).

24 hours after my surgery, I could see almost as clearly as I could with my glasses, and was pronounced fit to drive home. Amazing, eh?

So now I am one of those people who don't wear glasses or contact lenses. I'm not really sure how it feels yet, because my eyes are still healing, so they feel dry and scratchy a lot of the time, like I've left my contact lenses in for way too long. And my vision is supposed to continue to fluctuate for the next two weeks. But when that's over, I think it will sink in and be really cool.

One thing that I kind of slightly regret is that it's quite possible that I'll have absolutely no reason to wear glasses again (at least until I'm fifty and have to start wearing reading glasses). And sometimes it was cool to have that option. Cuz some glasses just look really cool. And I also liked to wear them when I wanted to appear intelligent or serious. So, maybe I'll have to get a pair of glasses with either plain glass lenses, or really weak lenses (depending on how good my vision finally ends up being) just to have a pair of glasses to wear when I want them.

But, for right now, I can't afford them. Because the surgery was really, really expensive. But so, so worth it.

Signs of Spring...

I was at my parents' this weekend, and it was absolutely beautiful. After the horrid Winter That Wouldn't End, Spring finally made an appearance. Of course, as I type this, it is once again snowing outside... but I have confidence that this snow will be short-lived. I always love it when Spring comes. For some reason, I always feel happy for no reason, other than that I can finally go outside sans boots and parka, and I don't have to plug my car in every night just so it will start in the morning.

Spring can be a particularly spectacular sight at my family's farm. I am always amazed when the landscape can go from this:


To this:


Here are some other lovely Spring-y water-y pics:








Bridge? What Bridge?

Censorship Alive and Well

Well, I know this has been blogged to death, but I just had to put my two cents in. This year's Newbery Medal winner is The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron. It is also the latest book to be targeted by censors. Why? Because of the word "scrotum". Which, in the book, refers to the place a dog got bitten by a snake. People are upset because they feel the word will cause children to ask inappropriate questions. Well, geez. That's what kids do. And if they don't know what a scrotum is by the time they're eight years old, they damn well should. There's nothing wrong with telling kids the proper name for body parts. It's not like the book actually discusses sex. It's on a dog for goodness sake! I cannot even fully express my disbelief and horror at the librarians who are refusing to stock the book because of ONE WORD. It's not even a bad word at that. Thankfully, as far as I know, this stupidity has been confined to south of the border. If anyone knows of any Canadian instances of censorship, feel free to correct me.

Don't tell me I've nothing to do...

Wow. Yeah. So I guess I haven't posted in a while. But you know, I really can't spend all my time thinking up witty and interesting things to say on the Internet. I have a life, you know. And there are so many other, more important things that require my attention. Like trying to fool my cat into thinking my dirty sock is actually a large, purple mouse. Or watching reruns of Friends and Family Guy that I have already seen five times. Or attempting, for the fifteenth time, to finish my Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets computer game (it is really hard to find the last two bronze wizard cards). So you see, I've been very busy and I have a very good excuse for being such an intermittent blogger.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I'm sure everybody knows that the title for the final book was announced in December: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Oooooohhhhh. Doesn't that sound deliciously... deadly? Will she or won't she? Is Harry going to survive the final onslaught, or will the Deathly Hallows be his doom? Actually, I am working on a piece which I hope will be ready to post sometime soon about my predictions for the final book. There is, as of yet, no official news of a release date for the book. Many people are predicting July 7th of this year (the seventh book being released on 07/07/07 would have a kind of symmetry to it), but considering that the 5th Harry Potter movie is due to be released that same month, I doubt that will be the case.

Speaking of movies based on books, can you believe how crazy the movie industry is going over movies based on children's books? Just before Christmas there was Eragon and Charlotte's Web, How to Eat Fried Worms was before that, and coming up is Bridge to Terabithia. Bridge to Terabithia is a Disney production and I will be interested to see what they do with it. The novel is a frequent target of censors and appears on the American Library Association list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000 at number nine. I wonder if Disney will stay true to the book, or change it into another one of its sanitized, happily-ever-after atrocities. The movie will be released on February 16th, so we shall see.

Anyway, I'd better go. I think I hear Harry calling.

Happy New Year

So, here's a good New Year's story.

First of all, I should explain that my parents were in Australia for six weeks and did not get back until December 15th. Because they were going to be away until just before Christmas, they asked my sister to get a tree for them. Now, my parents' living room goes all the way up through the second floor (think loft), so the ceiling is actually close to 20 feet high. So my sister asked for a "tall tree". So the guy at the tree lot gave her "a really good deal" on a tall tree, since not too many people have the room in their house for one and he didn't think he was going to sell it. And, bonus, this tree was a wild tree all the way from the mountains. So, she hauled her tree home, and it was only when we got it home that we realized what "tall tree" meant.

The tree was actually somewhere around 10 to 11 feet tall. Now, as I said before, that's not a problem with regards to the ceiling, but recall that trees are cone-shaped, and an increase in height means an increase in the size of the base. We were dealing with one massive tree. Now, we usually have fairly tall trees (usually in the realm of 8 or 9 feet tall) so we already owned a fairly heavy-duty tree stand. Well this tree was so big and heavy that we couldn't get it to stand up. It fell over twice (luckily before it was decorated). Finally, Dad had to weld extra long legs onto the stand in order to hold the tree up. After that, it seemed to be well-balanced and supported, and once decorated, it was actually quite nice. Really, one of the nicest trees we ever had, I think. What do you think?

Before I go on, I should also mention that my sister brought home her two kittens, who are, as kittens are wont to be, very cute and mischievous, and who also developed an unhealthy fascination with the Christmas Tree. We also have a very old, very large dog named Fuzzy. She's part Husky part St. Bernard, deaf as a post, almost blind, and possibly going a bit batty as well (mom found her barking at the book case the other day for no apparent reason). The kittens were also fascinated with the dog. The dog was not quite so enamoured of them. The whole situation was a recipe for disaster, and I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Now picture this: We were sitting at home in the basement watching a movie on New Year's Eve, it is just past midnight (happy 2007!) when there was a deafening crash from above, followed by the sound of claws scrabbling on the floor and running feet. We ran upstairs, and I'm sure you can guess what we found.

The big, beautiful tree had tipped completely over and was lying on the floor amidst needles, water and broken glass. Yuck! K and I were not looking forward to cleaning it up. But it had to be done, so the first thing we did was stand the tree back up again. And who should emerge from underneath? Fuzzy! A little bit shaken (after all, how often does a 10 foot tree fall on you?) but otherwise unharmed and waiting patiently to be rescued.

Luckily, the damage was not as bad as it first looked. There were about 10 broken balls, but if a large furry dog had not been there to break the tree's fall, I imagine we would have lost many more.

Now, it would seem, given the fact that we caught Fuzzy red-handed underneath the tree that she would be the primary suspect. However, you must remember the sound of running feet that was heard directly after the incident. It obviously wasn't Fuzzy as she was trapped under the tree at the time. Which brings me to K's kittens. They, of course, were nowhere to be seen when we went upstairs to investigate the crime scene. They wandered in a few minutes later and stared at Fuzzy with wide eyes as if to say "Oooooh. Look what you did." Although we have our suspicions, there were, alas, no security cameras and no other physical evidence to tie them to the scene. The cats, of course, aren't talking. So we'll never know for sure exactly what transpired.

So, I was up until 3 am on New Year's Eve cleaning up bits of tree and broken glass. Not a particularly auspicious beginning to the year, but I have faith. 2007 is the year of the Violette. I can feel it. In any case, it's got to be better than last year which, apart from the 6 weeks I spent in Europe (which I will admit was pretty darn awesome), this past year totally sucked. Was, in fact, the suckiest year ever. So, here's to 2007. Don't let me down.

Don't judge a book...

Something happened in the library today that made the newest Unshelved Strip very relevant. A patron wanted Washington Irving's "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow". The only copy we had was in the children's section. It was the full text, not an abridged version, but the patron refused to take it home. Because it was in the children's section and he was not a child. It's amazing how people's perception of something will change depending on what label you slap on it.

Survey...

Okay, y'all know I've been bitching about work lately. Well, I've got a question for the blogosphere:

1) Are children's librarians usually considered to be part of management?

2) Do children's librarians usually manage their own staff?

If anyone has any experience to offer me, especially if you work in a smaller city (Ash? This might be one you could answer) that would be great. I'm trying to figure out if my job really sucks or not.

Grrrrrr.....

Work is driving me crazy. I came home today and felt like punching someone. I'm supposed to be doing eighteen different things and I have time for none of them. I do stuff all day, and I feel like nothing gets done. I have no budget, thanks to the previous librarian who kindly spent it all for me in June. I ask people to do stuff and it doesn't get done. I am understaffed, underpaid, and under stress.

I will not get any more specific than that, cuz really, bitching about work on your blog is not a good idea. But suffice to say, I'm not having the best time right now.

There. I'm done complaining. Maybe I'll have something more intelligent or enlightening to say later. Maybe. Some day.

My Beef with Vegetarians

The other day I received a book about vegetarianism called "Why are people vegetarians?" for my children's non-fiction section. I did not order it, the previous librarian did, and it was so one-sided and full of crap that I really didn't want to put it on the shelves. But as I am a librarian who is whole-heartedly anti-censorship, I put it on the shelf. I am now searching for another book to offer an opposing viewpoint. The search does not go well. So, in the meantime, here are some of my opposing viewpoints.

Vegetarianism is kind of 'in' right now. It's the cool thing to do. But I am not, nor will I ever be, a vegetarian. But many people are, and they become vegetarians for various reasons, most of which, in my humble opinion, are completely illogical and silly.

Reason #1: Being a Vegetarian is more healthy

Okay, first of all, humans are omnivores. That means that we eat both animals and plants. We have biologically evolved in this way. Meat is not some foreign substance that we are invading our bodies with. We're supposed to eat it. When most people think of vegetarians, they think of lots of vegetables, fruits, and other good, healthy non-meat foods. But let's say all I ate was potato chips and pop-tarts. Am I a vegetarian? Yup. Am I healthy? Not so much. It is true that many vegetarian diets are healthier than the average western nation diet, but it is not because they don't eat meat. Rather it is because of what they do eat (fruits and veggies). They're just healthy in general. The key here, people, is balance. If you took someone who ate a healthy diet including all those fruits and vegetables AND meat, and compared them to someone who ate a healthy vegetarian diet, there would be little to no difference. In fact, I'm betting the meat-eater has a slightly better chance of being more healthy. As someone who perpetually struggles with an iron deficiency, I know where I'd be if I tried to be a vegetarian. Yes, you can get enough iron without meat, but it is way more difficult. So, in conclusion, a healthy diet is a healthy diet, whether you eat meat or not. Period.

Reason #2: I don't like the way meat tastes

This one I actually think is somewhat legitimate. It's a personal taste thing. You don't like it, you don't like it. I don't like coconut or green peppers. That doesn't mean that I'm weird, it's just the way I am. However, I would like to point out that beef, pork, chicken and fish are all very different in texture and flavour. I find it difficult to believe that someone doesn't like the taste of any of them. I think that at least some vegetarians who use this reason are really fooling themselves. It's not the taste that gets you, it's the fact that you associate the taste with killing poor innocent creatures and that is what turns your appetite off. That doesn't mean that it's impossible for someone to really and truly dislike the taste of all types of meat. But be honest about your reasons. Which brings me to my next point:

Reason #3: Killing Animals is Cruel

This also has some legitimacy in my opinion. Some. First of all, I would like to point out, perhaps unnecessarily, that killing animals is natural. Animals do it to each other all the time. Cats catch mice, wolves catch deer, bigger fish eat smaller fish. And people are animals. We have our place in the food chain too. If people stopped eating animals, I would argue that there would be some serious ecological consequences. Populations of animals depend on the food chain to keep them in balance. If you eliminate a predator, then the population of the prey explodes. The fact that humans have taken over the territory and therefore severely reduced the population of many natural large predators does not help. So what's more cruel: letting some hunters make deer sausage out of a few does, or watching them slowly starve to death over winter? Also, if humans stopped eating animals, we would be condemning many billions of domesticated creatures to death and possible extinction. There is one reason to keep these animals around: lunch. Otherwise there is no economical reason to keep them. Now, you might keep some cows around for milk (but vegans won't do the dairy thing), chickens for eggs (except some vegetarians won't eat them either), and sheep for wool, but your populations will be severly reduced. We could release them into the wild. But most of these animals are so domesticated that they couldn't survive in the wild. These animals depend on us. I would also like to ask the question of just where we draw the line between what we will kill, and what we won't kill. So, plants are okay. And we don't have problems killing viruses and bacteria. Other single-celled organisms? Well, we can't see them. How about a worm? Or a bug? When's the last time you swatted a mosquitoe? Set any mousetraps lately? Oh, but those are pests, right? Well, an out-of-control rabbit population could be considered pests too. Wouldn't it be better to chow down on some rabbit stew rather than just poison them all and burn the carcasses? But rabbits are cute and furry you say?

Well, I agree. It's difficult to want to kill and eat something like a bunny or a deer. Or even a cow (although anyone who says cows are cute, I say you have NEVER actually had to deal with one). I don't think this is a logical response, but it is an emotional one. I admit the thought of someone killing, skinning and eating my Avery cat is absolutely horrifying to me. And let's be honest, in some cultures that happens. And despite what I said before about humans being animals and it being natural for animals to kill other animals, humans are also not JUST animals. We have a gift called critical thinking. We can think about our actions and choose to do or not do something. We are not a slave to our instincts. And we can therefore choose not to kill and eat animals. I think it is a purely emotional response, and not based on any logical reasoning, and as I said before, if everyone chose this route, I think we would be in trouble, but if you can't bear the thought of a fuzzy creature dying for your dinner, then I respect your decision. And lucky for you, we live in a society where food is plentiful enough that you can actually choose what you eat. Good luck with that when western society comes crashing down around your ears and you're back to hunting and gathering off the land.

There are also those who state the additional reason that many domesticated animals, like cows, are kept in very bad conditions. Dark, dirty, over-crowded feedlots where they can't even turn around and they suffer horribly, etc. I don't know how legitimate these claims are, I've never been to a feedlot, though I suspect they are not even close to as bad as rabid animal rights activists would have us believe. But, I do agree that animals shouldn't be kept in those conditions, if those conditions exist. However, there are alternatives other than swearing off meat completely. There is such a thing as free-range beef. These cows are raised on pasture in wide open spaces. Not kept in a barn and fed grain. So if you would like to eat "happy" meat, then you will simply have to search a little harder for it. It does exist. Money makes the world go round. If there are people willing to buy it, then more will become available.

Reason #4: Vegetarianism is better for the environment

This is by far the stupidest reason I have heard yet. Proponents of this argument cite the fact that animals such as cows, sheep and goats are major producers of methane gas, a contributor to the greenhouse effect and global warming. Yes, this is true. Do you know what else produces a ton of methane? Wetlands, swamps and bogs. Do you hear environmentalists running around saying "Drain the swamps!"? No. Because wetlands are a natural contributor to global warming (i.e. not man-made) and getting rid of them would cause much more harm to the environment than it would save. How about we focus on UN-natural producers of methane like petroleum drilling, coal mining, and landfills, hmmmm? But, you might argue, cows are kept by humans for food, and are therefore man-made, not natural. However, let us not forget that these cows were in fact at one point wild and roaming free over the earth. And cows produce methane no matter if they're in the wild or in a barn. There are an estimated 1.3 billion cows in the world right now. However, back in the day before Europeans arrived in the Americas, there was another methane-producing animal roaming at will over the plains of North America: the bison. There was an estimated 50 million of them. Now there are only about 200,000 left. So, before the interferance of humans, the earth supported a large number of methane-producing grazing animals. Was the world-wide total 1.3 billion? Probably not that high, but still. Cows were on earth producing methane long before humans got organized enough to domesticate them.

Another environmental argument that people use is that cows use up land that could otherwise grow food to feed all the starving people in the world. There are several things wrong with this statement. First of all, there is no global food shortage. That's right people. We could feed the world right now. It's not a production problem, it's a distribution problem. Western nations have too much (we're all getting fat) and developing nations don't have enough. Secondly, most of the land that cattle graze on, i.e. natural grass and pasture land, is unsuitable for other agricultural production. It's rugged and dry and if you tried to cultivate it, you would ruin it. Also, natural grassland evolved with grazers, and it needs animals grazing on it to keep it healthy.

So, in conclusion, unless you are absolutely psychologically unable to reconcile yourself to killing an animal, or you really don't like the taste of any meat, then you have no excuse for being a vegetarian. Get a Life, Eat a Steak. Take that you stupid book.

The Perks of being a Children's Librarian...

One of my most favourite, favourite things about being a librarian is that I am surrounded by books all day. Good books. Especially Teen Lit, which I really, really love. So I've been reading up a storm.

The Raintree Rebellion - Janet McNaughton

This is the sequel to The Secret Under My Skin which those of you who were in Anna's Children's Lit class will be familiar with as the book everybody (except me) hated. I mentioned The Raintree Rebellion a few months ago and said, rather defiantly, that I was going to read it, and I was going to like it, so there. Well, I'm not done the book yet, so I hate to pass premature judgement, but I gotta say, I don't think it's a good book. The premise is good; a dystopic, technophobic future set in Canada. But McNaughton just doesn't pull it off. Let's compare it to reading something like Philip Pullman's Golden Compass Trilogy. Reading The Golden Compass is like eating expensive chocolate truffles. Like the small, solid, round truffle, the plot is tight, compact; everything has a purpose and works toward enhancing the story. Yet every single tiny molecule of the truffle is bursting with sweet, chocolatey flavour, and you want to savour every single morsel. In contrast, The Raintree Rebellion is kind of like eating overdone steak. The cook has done a very good job coating the outside with a tasty barbecue sauce, so it's not completely unpalatable, but man oh man do you ever have to chew a lot to get it down.

Despite the fact that I did enjoy reading The Secret Under My Skin and subsequently defended it in class, I never denied that there were flaws; these same flaws continue to exist in Rebellion - only this time around I can't be as forgiving.

First of all, the world in the 24th century, as described by McNaughton, is kind of mixed up. They are technophobic, and yet they have inexplicably integrated various frivolous technologies into their lives such as walls that can change colour, and a ceiling that mimics the sky outside (total Harry Potter rip-off BTW). They all keep saying that it's such a mystery what happened during the technocaust, but Blay is only 18. She was two when it happened. That's only 16 years. We're not talking 50 or 100 years. There should be many, many people around who remember what happened. You also find out in the sequel that the Technocaust only happened in North America. So they ask places like Australia and South Africa to send them news reports to help them piece together what happened. Huh? The whole reason the Technocaust happened is because the world was an ecological disaster and people blamed technology for making it that way. The Ozone layer affects the entire earth people, so how come good old Australia managed to hang onto democracy and didn't descend into chaos? The first book was like this too; it was like she would be writing along and then all of a sudden remember, oh yeah, this is the future, let's throw in a bit of inexplicable, useless technology. Oh yeah, this is supposed to be a dystopic future, let's throw in some sort of description of the degredation of society. It's patchy at best, and I don't think the book hangs together very well. We're left with too many Whys?

She also has a tendency to overexplain some things. And I think she is perhaps trying to make up for the fact that parts of it are indeed hard to understand, but she explains the wrong things to you. Finally, I have a little bit of a problem with characterization in this one. And this is maybe why I forgave the first one its flaws, but couldn't forgive this one: I liked Blay as a character, but in this book she's angry all of a sudden, and I was like, "Huh?" Blay was just not the type of person to get or stay angry at someone.

Anyway, all in all, I think we can say skip this one. It's not worth it.

I have however, done some really good reading too.

Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine.

I'd never seen the movie or read the book, so when I came across it on the shelf, I just had to have a go. And coincidently, the day after I finished reading it, the movie was on TBS, so I got to do both. And the book isn't as goofy as the movie. The movie makes fun of itself quite a bit, there is a lot of parody, etc. The book takes itself more seriously, but it is equally good, if not better, in its own way. It is a re-telling of the Cinderella story, complete with evil stepmother and stepsisters, a handsome prince, glass slippers, and a masked ball, and a couple of fairy godmothers, but the funny thing is that I didn't realize this until near the end when it became painfully obvious, so it really is quite a different story than the original Cinderella. I really recommend this, even if you have already seen the movie.

Dairy Queen - Catherine Gilbert Murdock

This was so good. It is set on a dairy farm in Wisconsin and it is about a girl who, over the course of the summer, ends up training the rival school's snobby football quarterback. She ends up liking the football quarterback guy, and has so much fun training, that she decides she wants to go out for her own school's (all-male) football team. Will the quarterback like her back? Will her school let her play? And if they do, how can she play against the guy that she likes? I'm not going to answer these questions because you should read the book. I just thought that the whole setting - small, rural community; rival towns; schools that are absolutely obsessed with football - oh yeah. I lived it. And every once in awhile, it's good to go back.

MeMe

This fun meme is from Ash.

Look at the list of books below. Bold the ones you've read, italicize the ones you might read, cross out the ones you won't, underline the ones on your book shelf, and place parentheses around the ones you've never even heard of.

The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

The Catcher in the Rye - J.D. Salinger: Maybe, someday.

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - Douglas Adams: I've heard good things about this one.

The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald

To Kill A Mockingbird - Harper Lee: The movie's good too.

The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger: I'm not sure if I should bold this one or not, because I've only read half. But the half I read was really good and I would've finished had my sister not stolen it back from me. I will finish one day.

His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J.K. Rowling

Life of Pi - Yann Martel: Um, not sure what I should do with this one. I've skimmed it and read the beginning and ending. Which I know doesn't do it justice. But now that I've read the ending, I probably won't read it all.

Animal Farm: A Fairy Story - George Orwell

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller

The Hobbit - J.R. R. Tolkien

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon: I've read the first chapter of this, and it sounded really good. I will finish it sometime.

Lord of the Flies - William Golding

1984 - George Orwell

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Heard of it. Sounds boring.

Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

(The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini)

The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold: Mom said it was good.

Slaughterhouse 5 - Kurt Vonnegut

Angels and Demons - Dan Brown

Fight Club - Chuck Palahniuk Never seen the movie, no desire to read the book.

(Neuromancer - William Gibson)

(Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson)

(The Secret History - Donna Tartt)

A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess: Weird abstract books give me headaches.

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - C. S. Lewis

(Middlesex - Jeffrey Eugenides)

(Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell)

The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien

Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

Good Omens - Terry Pratchett, Neil Gaiman: They are good authors and I've read other books by them, so I will have to check this one out sometime.

(Atonement - Ian McEwan)

(The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zagon)

The Old Man and the Sea - Ernest Hemingway

The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Dune - Frank Herbert

So there you have it. I've read a lot of them, but I must confess that several of them were forced on me by University Professors, and while I am glad that I have read them and think that they have enriched my mind, I probably would have never picked them up on my own.

My Life, or a reasonable facsimile thereof...

Well, where do I start?

My beast is dead. He is in the shop again, and I am very upset. It is really hard to get around in a small prairie city when you have no transportation. It takes me 40 minutes to walk to work. The bus system here is a joke. And not a very funny one at that. It is the same thing that was wrong the last time. And this time it is not my fault, just a faulty part. But unfortunately, I chose to go the cheap route last time and got a used part, which means NO WARRANTY. So now I have to get another one, and it will cost me just as much money (if not more, since I will probably get a brand new part having learned my lesson about used parts).

I am crazy-busy at work. I just had my first story time today, and it went fine, except I forgot the last two lines to a song, and so I just made something up, and it didn't rhyme, and it didn't even have the correct number of syllables, but give me a break, people. I'm just barely clinging to sanity here.

I also had my first go at weeding the children's fiction collection. The whole children's section needs weeding badly. So I'm getting pages to pull books that haven't circulated in the last four years. Then I go through them. I have discovered that I am perhaps not a very good weeder. Books gain my sympathy way too easily. I'm only too willing to give them a second chance. I'm always thinking, "but you are a good book! Why has no one ever tried you out?? You poor thing. Let me take you home and we'll have a good cuddle in front of the fire with a cup of hot chocolate." It's hard to remember that they are all good books. That's why they were purchased in the first place. But some of them have to go. In the end, my discard pile was at least twice as high as the pile that was going back on the shelf. So that's something. I dunno. Do you think I'm being ruthless enough? It is so hard to condemn a book that is only six years old, is attractive, and interesting, but for some reason has never circulated. Not once. I think we need a foster books program. To give unwanted and unloved books a home. All they need is a chance to prove themselves, and you will find out what good books they can be.

Yes, I know, another post and no France. I promise, I will write about my trip to Europe, in exhaustive detail. If it takes me until Christmas, I shall prevail. But until then, think of me, wish me luck, and consider becoming a foster book parent.

I love Paris...

So, on to more about Paris. First I'd like to talk a little bit about where K and I stayed, because we really got lucky in that regard I think. You see, K and I did not make any plans about where we were going to stay, so we were kind of flying by the seat of our pants you might say. But K got there a few days ahead of me along with a few other friends who had been in Ethiopia with her, and one of them knew of a cheap hotel called L'hôtel de l'Espérance. So that's where they stayed, and also where we stayed for the first couple of days. And I think it is in a really good place. It's just off Rue Daguerre, which is a small street off of Avenue Du Général Leclerc in the south part of the city. Avenue Du Général Leclerc is a fairly busy street with lots of shops, including an Internet café and a French-language movie theatre. Rue Daguerre is a little side street with lots of small shops and cafés, including a laundromat. And it also has a market every day with tons of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, bread and cheese. Plus, it is super close to a major metro stop: Denfert-Rochereau. In short, it is a fabulous location to explore the city from. We later moved to another hotel which was a few blocks further down Rue Daguerre. This was Hotel Télémaque, and it was pretty nice. It was only few more Euros than Hôtel de L'Espérance (about 54 Euros a night for a double bed and en suite shower and toilet), but it was cleaner and nicer, it was never full (probably because it was a bit more off the beaten path). Plus breakfast was included (nothing fancy, just a baguette with some butter and jam and your choice of hot chocolate or coffee, but still!). So, moral of the story, if you ever go to Paris, and you are looking for a cheap but decent place to stay, I highly recommend that hotel and that location.

Okay, on to our Paris trip. One of the first places we went to was Jardin du Luxembourg. It used to be some royal residence, but now the Palais du Luxembourg is the seat of the French senate, and the gardens are open to the public as a park. This beautiful and large public park was just north not too far from where we stayed. K and I walked there and had lunch a few times. It's got some beautiful fountains, and rows and rows of trees clipped into squares. It's tricky though, because some of the grass you can sit on, and some of the grass is forbidden as K found out (she was kicked off several lawns).


Jardin du Luxembourg

K liked these turtle fountains

Today we're taking a break from France to answer a meme posted by Ash.

1. FIRST NAME? Violette

2. ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE? Actually, my real name is after someone, a character in a book, but if I told you which book, it would give away my real name. And then I'd have to kill you.

3. WHEN DID YOU LAST CRY? I honestly don't remember. Not to give you the impression that I never cry. I do, and I'm sure I have sometime in the past month, but I don't remember when or why.

4. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWRITING? Yes, it's very loopy and neat and I get compliments on it all the time. But I worked hard to get it like that. When I was in elementary school, all the other girls had neat handwriting, and I was all jealous because mine was only marginally more legible than some of the boys.

5. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE LUNCH MEAT? Pastrami, black forest ham... lunch meat is good in general if it's on a sandwich with mayo, lettuce, tomatoe and cheese.

6. KIDS? Two cats.

7. IF YOU WERE ANOTHER PERSON WOULD YOU BE FRIENDS WITH YOU? I totally would. Then I'd have someone to play supernintendo with.

8. DO YOU HAVE A JOURNAL? Off and on since I was a kid. Right now my journal is my blog.

9. DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT? Yes, I sometimes have quite the caustic wit.

10. DO YOU STILL HAVE YOUR TONSILS? Yes.

11. WOULD YOU BUNGEE JUMP? I don't know. Maybe, if I had someone with me who tried really hard to convince me. I'd probably like it once I did it.

12. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE CEREAL? Right now it's Oatmeal Crisp the three berry flavour.

13. DO YOU UNTIE YOUR SHOES WHEN YOU TAKE THEM OFF? Yes.

14. DO YOU THINK YOU ARE STRONG? Physically not so much, mentally I like to think so.

15. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM? I love ice cream in general. I don't know if I have a favourite, though I tend to gravitate towards caramel and butterscoth flavours.

16. SHOE SIZE? 9

17. RED OR PINK? Red.

18. WHAT IS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE THING ABOUT YOURSELF? I have an annoying habit of not finishing what I start.

19. WHO DO YOU MISS THE MOST? Friends who don't live near me anymore.

20. DO YOU WANT EVERYONE TO SEND THIS BACK TO YOU? I really don't care.

21. WHAT COLOR OF PANTS AND SHOES ARE YOU WEARING RIGHT NOW? Jean shorts, no shoes, just very dirty feet (from jumping on the trampoline).

22. WHO IS YOUR FAVORITE WRITER/BOOK/MOVIE (at the moment, anyway)? Okay, I definitely stress AT THE MOMENT: Writer: Libba Bray; Book: Rebel Angels; Movie: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. (I too like Holly Black, and Valiant is on my list of books to read, so maybe fav writer/book will change again soon. I loved Tithe. Such a gritty, urban faerie tale.)

23, WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO RIGHT NOW? The sound of the wind sighing through the trees outside my window.

24. IF YOU WERE A CRAYON WHAT COLOR WOULD YOU BE? Violet (duh)

25. WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SMELLS? Books, baking, rain

26. WHO WAS THE LAST PERSON YOU SPOKE ON THE PHONE WITH? Grandpa.

27. THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE YOU ARE ATTRACTED TO? I'm not sure. Some combination of looks and personality. I don't think it's any one thing.

28. DO YOU LIKE THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU? Yes, Ash is a lovely person.

29. FAVORITE DRINK? Chocolate Milk or Iced Tea.

30. FAVORITE SPORT? I'm not really a sport person, but I'd have to pick the only sport that I have ever enjoyed playing and been good at: Inner Tube Water Polo.

31. HAIR COLOR? Brown.

32. EYE COLOR? Blue.

33. DO YOU WEAR CONTACTS? Yes. But I'm annoyed with both my glasses and contact lenses right now and am saving up for eye surgery.

34. FAVORITE FOOD? Normally I would say pizza, but I'm kind of sick of it right now. I think maybe zucchini pie.

35. SCARY MOVIES OR HAPPY ENDING? Happy endings. Scary movies always seem like a good idea at the time, but the aftermath (i.e. me not being able to sleep with the lights off for a week) is just too costly.

36. LAST MOVIE YOU WATCHED? Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. (I saw it twice: once in London and once back home in Saskatchewan. Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in the same movie? That never gets old.)

37. COLOR OF SHIRT YOU ARE WEARING? Blue and white stripes

38. WINTER OR SUMMER? They both have their merits. Over all though, I think I prefer Summer. I hate driving in the winter.

39. HUGS OR KISSES? Hugs, but it does depend on who's giving them out.

40. FAVORITE DESSERT? Ooh. Sex in a pan is good. I also like cheesecake.

41. WHO IS MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND? Don't know, don't care.

42. LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND? See above.

43. WHAT BOOKS ARE YOU READING? Rebel Angels, by Libba Bray. It's really good YA lit for girls, about magic and set in Victorian England. Rebel Angels is the sequel, the first is called A Great and Terrible Beauty. They're good, and I just found out that they're supposed to be made into a movie. Is it just me or is there a lot of teen/children's fiction being made into movies? How to Eat Fried Worms is coming out like, this week or something. Come on people, let them read the books! They're always so much better anyway.

44. WHAT IS ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? I don't have one.

45. FAVORITE SOUNDS? Wind in the trees, my cat talking to me.

46. WHAT DID YOU WATCH ON TV LAST NIGHT? I didn't watch TV last night.

47. ROLLING STONES OR BEATLES? Beatles. I have never gotten the big deal about the Stones.

48. THE FURTHEST YOU'VE BEEN FROM HOME? Ummmm. I think that would be New Zealand.

49. DO YOU HAVE A SPECIAL TALENT? I have many special talents.

50. WHEN AND WHERE WERE YOU BORN? Swift Current, Saskatchewan, 1980.

Welcome to Paris

So Monday, June 5th, I arrived in France. I had told K that I would meet her at the hotel by 11 am that morning, but (as I have already said) my plane was late. Then it took forever (despite the extremely lax customs and immigration) to find my way out of the airport to the subway. Once there, I got on the wrong train, (not wrong exactly, went in the right direction, but did not go all the way to the stop I wanted) so I had to switch trains. Then I went one stop too far for the hotel and had to walk several extra blocks. With all my baggage. So needless to say, when I finally got to the hotel I just basically collapsed. The only significant thing that I got accomplished that day was a shower. Although K did manage to get me up to go for a little walk around that evening. Which actually turned into quite a big walk. We walked across the Seine to the Louvre and then back across again to the Eiffel Tower. My feet were complaining when we got back to the hotel around midnight (something which I was to get used to in the days ahead).


The Seine River (I don't know the people in the photo, they were just some random people who happened to get in my shot)


K on the Paris streets at night. We stopped for an ice cream sundae at a little café near here. You can see the Eiffel Tower in the background.

Where have you been?

Well, here is just a short post for those of you who have been waiting in agony for me to write something, anything, about my trip to Europe... I have once again been a bad little blogger. What can I say? I'm naturally lazy. I think I was a sloth in my previous life. And I'm afraid you will have to wait longer. Because I have NEWS.

I am now the new children's librarian at the library (the library that is in the place where I was working before, and therefore am still working). So. I just started the job this week. And I have discovered that children's librarians are very busy. It is difficult to find time to actually get any work done in between mopping up ferret feces, bandaging nasty skipping rope wounds, and rescuing endangered leopard frogs from deranged six year olds.

So, I think I will like the job (aside from the incidences mentioned above, but these things just come with the territory). I am not sure if this is what I want forever, but I think it is a very good thing for now. Just enough responsibility to make me feel terrified, but not enough to actually cause an anxiety attack.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. SH (who was temporarily filling in for the children's librarian) has informed me that the other women who work at the library can be very clannish and difficult, especially the ones who've been there for 15 years or more. That they'd rather see you fall on your face than help you out. She said that my predecessor, who was children's librarian for 4 years, said that she went home crying every night for the first month she worked here. So that is concerning, but I have to say I am not all that surprised. I noticed that sort of atmosphere in my practicum in Edmonton. And someone suggested to me that it is just what happens when you have a group of women working together (there is only one guy on the library staff). So what do you think? When women work together, do we naturally all become bitchy? Why? What does that say about women and/or society?

Anyway, just something to ponder. À la prochaine mes amis!

I'm Baa-aack

That's right folks. I'm back in the country. Which is a feat more amazing than it sounds (more on this later). The trip was good, but exhausting. I think next time I do a trip like this one, I will make it shorter. The six weeks were great, but when you are always moving around, trying to book plane or bus tickets to the next city, trying to set up accomodation, etc. it gets to you after awhile. Not to mention the fact that by the time we got to London in week six, K and I kind of had an attitude like, "Oh, another church/castle/monument. Big whoop." We couldn't work up a lot of enthusiasm.

I will, hopefully, over the next few weeks be telling our story and showing some pictures. The pictures will be somewhat hit and miss because K lost her camera. We were at the Royal Show (an agricultural show in England, probably the biggest one there is) and her camera disappeared. It is quite likely that K set it down somewhere to taste something or try something on and then just forgot it. Or it could have been stolen. Either way, it's gone. So anyway, that's too bad, but we also had my camera so it wasn't a complete tragedy.

Now I would like to share with you the frustrating journey I had trying to get back to Canada (Beware this is a long story and will probably make you not want to fly):

First of all, K and I did not fly back together. She went on a trip to Ethiopia with one of her ag classes, and then just met me in Paris on her way back. Because her flight was being paid for by the university, she had to come back the way she went, so she had to fly back to Paris, and then fly from there to Canada. I did not have that problem, so I flew out of Heathrow. Now, I'm sure my travel agent knew what she was doing, but when I got to Heathrow I couldn't help noticing that there was an Air Canada flight direct from Heathrow to Calgary flying the same morning. I was not booked on that flight. Instead, I was booked to go from London to LA and then from LA to Calgary. A much longer flight with the added annoyance of having to go through US customs. But as I said, I'm sure there's a very good reason I was not on that flight.

So, I got on the plane at Heathrow, which unfortunately took off almost an hour late. This was a little bit upsetting for me, because my connection in LA was fairly tight (only about 2.5 hours between flights, now reduced to 1.5 hours) and we had to collect our bags and go through US customs in LA. I was flying United Airlines, and I can't say for sure that it was the airline's fault, but I flew them on the way to Paris as well and every single one of my flights took off an hour late. On the way there I had lots of time to make my connection in Chicago, so I didn't really care, but that is still a bad record. You'd think ONE flight could take off on time.

Anyway, I got to LA, and made it through customs all right, and there was still an hour before my plane was to take off. But I still had to re-check my baggage. It was tagged all the way through to Calgary, so I just had to place it on the baggage re-check conveyor belt. Except that no one was there and the belt was not running, and everyone's baggage was just sitting around, and I thought "Are my bags going to make it to the plane in time?" I was in terminal 6, and my plane took off from terminal 2. I considered hauling my bags to the correct terminal and checking them in there anyway, but just then an airport employee came up to me and said, "If you're making a connection just leave your bags there. They will transfer them to your plane." Okay lady, you obviously know what you're talking about, you work here, and the inner workings of airports are mysterious to me.

So I leave my bags, walk to terminal two, and get to my gate with time to spare. Yay! So we all get on the plane, the plane takes off and I am happy. Last flight. Then, about twenty minutes into the flight, the flight attendent announces that there is something wrong with the plane and we are going to turn around and go back to LA. NNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

I have been to LAX many times, and it is like an old friend, but I was nonetheless extremely unhappy to hear that I would be seeing it again so soon. And before y'all freak out, the flight attendant added that we were going back because the windscreen had cracked, and while it did not pose an immediate safety problem, we couldn't fly all the way to Calgary with it like that. So back we went. Our flight was cancelled, and there were no more flights to Calgary that night. So they said that they would put us up in the Holiday Inn for the night. I got re-booked on a flight that left at 7:20 the next morning. So inconvenient, but not horrible. And, by the way, you can collect your baggage at Carrousel 2.

My bags were not there. I went back upstairs to the ticket counter. They said to go back downstairs to the baggage office. I went there. She asked if I'd been upstairs to the ticket counter (yes and they told me to come down here you twit!) No one seemed overly sympathetic or very eager to help. She said she'd check to see if they had my bags. They did not. She said that United had obviously not transferred them to this terminal yet. They were still somewhere in terminal 6. At this point I cursed the airport employee who had told me to leave my bags there. I KNEW I should've taken them with me. So they never made it onto my plane, indeed never even made it to the correct terminal, and if I had made it to Calgary, it would have been sans baggage. Well, if they were still in terminal 6, could she contact United there and see if they had them. "No, they won't know where they are."

So my bags are somewhere in LA airport. I know because I saw them. But no one else knows where they are. They are in some sort of limbo, neither here nor there. As I have said, the inner workings of airports are mysterious to me. But after this, every time I get off a flight and my baggage has actually made it with me, I will consider it a miracle. So, the lady at the baggage office thought that they would probably turn up in time for my flight tomorrow, and they would read the tags and realize that flight was cancelled and send them on the first flight to Calgary, which would be my flight. But there was nothing else I could do. I just had to get on my flight and HOPE that my bags showed up. So off I went to my lovely room at the Holiday Inn, sans jammies and toothbrush.

This story does have a happy ending though. I arrived in Calgary at 11:15 am the next morning (on time even!) and yes, my bags did show up. I really didn't expect them to at that point, so it was a nice surprise. And they both had RUSH! tags attached to them. So I'm glad that someone actually made an effort to get my bags to me as quickly as possible. But needless to say, I'm a bit sick of flying right now. I think I'll stay on the ground for a while.

And now I will leave you with a few observations about the French:

1) French customs is a joke. Maybe I am just used to the US (although the customs in the UK gave me quite a working over as well!) but I was shocked. We got to Paris, I handed the guy my passport and that little card they always make you fill out. And he stamped my passport and gave it back to me. He didn't say one word. He didn't even ask me how long I was staying. And K, who was coming from Ethiopia, got the same treatement. Stamp, boom, you're in. We don't care how long you're here or why you're here or anything. I think customs can be kind of over the top sometimes, but that was ridiculously lax.

2) The French like pink toilet paper. It was everywhere. And that's never made sense to me. It's toilet paper people. You wipe you ass and flush it down the toilet. Who cares what colour it is?

3) The stop signs in France say "Stop". Not "Arrêt". "Stop". I thought this was really weird since here in Canada the French are so protective of their language, and they would throw a fit if one of their stop signs said "STOP" instead of "Arrêt". But I guess in France they're a little bit more secure and so don't mind if their stop signs are in English.

4) The French are breeding an army that, in 18 years when they reach maturity, will take over the world. That's right people. We'll all be eating cheese and croissants and drinking wine. At least that is the conclusion K and I came to after being in Paris. There are pregnant women everywhere. We didn't keep count, but they were everywhere you looked. And when we were in London, which is a bigger city, we didn't see any. So it's just the French. Any other theories on why this might be?

Anyway, I'm glad to be back. I think I just go away so I can come back and appreciate Canada more than ever.

X-Men: The Last Stand

I did not like this movie. Or, rather, I thought it was only okay.

Now to get down to the nitty gritty. I am about to give away details of the movie which may spoil your enjoyment of it, so I suggest you not read any farther if you have yet to see the movie.

1) Rogue. She was hardly in it. Rogue is and always has been my favourite X-man. And she wasn't even in the final battle scene! Why not? Because she was standing in line to get "cured".

2) They "cured" Magneto. That was how they stopped him. But the whole point of the movie, and why Magneto was mad, is that most mutants don't think that there is anything wrong with them. They don't need to be "cured". Now, you might say that they should at least make the cure available for people like Rogue, whose mutation is not extremely useful and in fact, only causes her pain. She can't touch anyone without sucking the life force out of them. So for her, the cure is probably a good thing. However, what made the mutants mad, is that the government was using the cure as a weapon. Not against all mutants mind you, but just outlaw mutants (like Magneto and his gang). But I don't think that is an acceptable use of it. Find other ways to contain criminal mutants, but using the cure on them as a weapon is a horrible violation of human rights. It's changing their fundamental nature, changing who they are. That would be like changing someone's eye colour, or hair colour, or something, permanently, just because they're a criminal. And I don't think you have a right to do that. And the X-Men didn't think using the cure as a weapon was good either. Beast resigned over it. BUT then they go and use the cure on Magneto. That, in my opinion, was the lowest thing they could've done. I couldn't believe it. I thought that would have been beneath the X-Men. They're supposed to be noble, you know? Not "the ends justify the means" kind of people.

3) In general I found the movie kind of lacked focus. For a movie that ended up claiming the lives of three X-Men, I thought it lacked a bit of punch.

Now, it wasn't a total loss. I liked a few things about it. For example, I thought the scene where Mystique got shot with a dart and got cured was very powerful. And then Magneto just abandoned her, despite how loyal she was to him.

I also like the part where Kitty is on her own trying to save the young boy mutant from Juggernaut. She can dash through walls and sink through floors and stuff. And despite the fact that she looks about twelve, I thought she did very well.

I also liked the scene where Wolverine told Jean he loved her and then knifed her in the stomach with his claws. That was a gooder. Although that was another thing that I thought was a bit fuzzy in the movie: the whole Jean Grey/Phoenix alternate personality stuff. I know that people who read the comics probably have a good grip on the concept, but I've never read the comics and so found it a bit hard to understand.

I also like the very last scene: Magneto, now just regular human, a very broken-looking, sad old man, is playing chess in the park. With a metal chess set. He is looking intently at the board, and stretches out a finger toward a piece. And the piece moves, very slightly. And then that's the end of the film. Oooohh. Looks like the cure isn't as permanent as they thought.

Anyway, go and see it, but don't expect to be blown away. I personally liked the second one much better. I think it's been the best out of the three.

Kitties!

Here is a picture of my darling furballs. Aren't they sweet? In this photo they have both stuffed themselves into the kitty bed, which was really only made for one kitty.

Sadly Sick

I am once again not feeling so good. Some sort of virus. I have been at home in bed for the past two days, and even now it feels like there are daggers in my throat every time I swallow. I have, for some reason, had a bad run this year. But I was due. I hadn't been really sick in a long time. It is bad timing too. I am trying to finish up as much work as I can at my job before I have to go, as well as plan a six week trip to Europe. I needed those two days. Oh well.

I finished another book on the weekend: Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception. This is the most recent installment in the Artemis Fowl series. I don't know if Eoin Colfer is done with it or not, but I have to say that I found this last one only lukewarm.

It seemed to me that Opal, the deranged evil genius pixie, was defeated a little too easily. The trick that finally got her was clever (I didn't see it coming in any case), but it just seemed to be over way too fast. Also, I kind of feel like Colfer has chickened out a bit on Artemis Fowl. As you will know from previous posts, Artemis was originally written as a 14-year-old evil genius in his own right, only relunctantly cooperating with the faeries when it served his own purposes. He was gradually warming up to them and beginning to trust them, but in this last one, I think Artemis totally lost his edge. He actually turned kind of harmless and has become a bit sentimental about the faerie folk. At the end of the novel he decides to reconcile his evil genius with his new-found conscience by becoming a sort of modern day Robin Hood: Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor. Bleccchh. I wasn't sure how I felt about the anti-hero, but now that he's been lost, I must admit that I would like him back. So, only 3 purple horsies out of 5 for this last one. Come on Mr. Colfer, I know you can do better than that.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy: Highly Recommended

Warning: Spoiler Alert!
Please don't read any further if you have not read the trilogy, if you are planning on reading the trilogy, and if you'd actually like to enjoy the trilogy.

I've just finished the last in the series, Ptolemy's Gate.

I cried.

It was really good.

I think this series actually got better as it went along. This last one had a bit of a different tone to it than the other ones. Bartimaeus was less sarcastic, and the deeper side to his character was revealed. I was complaining in my previous post about what a little twerp Nathaniel was, but he actually pulled it out at the last and thoroughly redeemed himself. That is what is perhaps most amazing about this book. At the beginning, the three main characters hate eachother. But by the end, Kitty and Nathaniel are basically in love, and Bartimaeus has formed a special bond with both of the humans. I just didn't see how they were going to work it out before the end, but they did, and their characters seemed to evolve quite naturally.

The ending impressed me. Stroud could have made it into a happy ending. And I think Stroud has enough talent that he could've made a happy ending that didn't seem unnatural or forced. But he didn't. Like I said, I cried at the end. Sure, order is restored in the world, but the three characters, who had grown to love eachother, are parted forever. I mean, Stroud wasn't kidding when he said it was a trilogy. I honestly don't see how he can continue on with the series. You can't come back from the dead. Well, you can, but I've always thought that was a rather tacky way of continuing a series. In any case, although I felt the ending to the series was appropriate, I'm sad that there won't be more. I was really enjoying the world, and I felt like I was just barely brushing the surface. There is a lot of potential in that world, a lot of questions that were never fully explored.

In any case, I really enjoyed the series and I'm sad to come back to my own world where beings such as Bartimaeus only exist in books.

The Anti-Hero

I have lately read a couple of books with interesting protagonists. They're interesting because you really don't like them.

Take the Artemis Fowl series: it's really a strange sort of series because the protagonist, Artemis, is a criminal. Now, I know that just because someone is a criminal, that doesn't make him a bad character. Vigilantes like Batman and Robin Hood abound in literature. Sure, technically they're on the wrong side of the law, but we know that they have good hearts and are totally honourable.

But Artemis has absolutely no scruples. He is extremely clever and devious, you have to admire that, but he is also extremely unlikable. I'm not used to reading books like this, and it felt weird. I sort of wanted him to win, but sort of didn't.

I have also just finished reading the second book in the Bartimaeus series. The protagonist in that series is Nathaniel. Nathaniel is an extremely talented young magician, but he is so self-centred and egotistical that you just want to smack him silly. His continual grasping for power (no matter what the cost to others) is absolutely disgusting. And it gets worse in the second book. In the first one he actually had some redeeming moments. So I'm eager to read the third one because at this point I don't know if the author can redeem Nathaniel or not. Maybe he'll just toss him over a cliff in the end.

So I'm not sure how I feel about the anti-hero. But it's a different reading experience anyway.

Désastre! Part Deux

So I phoned a branch today. I had sent out a form for branches to fill in and this branch had failed to send her form in, and I wanted to know why. She said she hadn't realized she was supposed to fill it in and didn't know where it was. I was like, "Jesus Christ, don't you ever read your e-mail?!" I had just e-mailed them all about it last week and told them where it was and that I needed it to be filled in.

But I was quite polite about it, and after I hung up, I decided to check and make sure that I had actually sent the e-mail.

Oh.




Shit.



I had sent the e-mail. To every single branch but hers. Not only that, but every single time that I sent out a group e-mail to the branches for the entire 7.5 months I've been here, I have not sent it to her branch.

Why? Because way back, when I first started, I created an e-mail group called "branches" that I could just click when I wanted to e-mail everybody, instead of having to enter in twenty e-mail addresses one at a time. And for some reason, her e-mail did not get included.

Oops is an understatement.

No Freaking Wonder she always seems out of the loop.

........

In other news, Janet McNaughton has written a sequel to her science fiction novel The Secret Under My Skin called The Raintree Rebellion. This is for all my dear readers who took Anna's Children's Lit class and absolutely HATED The Secret Under My Skin. Well, I actually liked it, and I think I'll check out the sequel. It looks even more interesting than the first one. And that was my biggest complaint about the end of the first one: It was kind of a let down, and felt a bit incomplete. I didn't know there was a sequel coming!

Another piece of my childhood...

Does the name Jonathan Brandis sound familiar to anyone?

I just recently bought The Neverending Story II. I was 9 when it came out in theatres, and I remembered that I liked it. So I bought it kind of for nostalgia's sake. It is not as good as some of those other fabulous films of my childhood such as Willow or Labyrinth (my sister, my cousin and I were obsessed with the latter... except we always thought that David Bowie's pants were too tight).

Still, The Neverending Story II was pretty good, probably made better because every once in awhile I would see something and remember how it felt to see it as a nine-year-old. And I remembered the actor most of all. I was curious as to who it was, so I checked out the credits: Jonathan Brandis.

Hmmmmm. That name totally sounded familiar. So I checked him out online. Ah, yes. The Jonathan Brandis of Seaquest DSV fame, with those blue, blue eyes... blue enough to rival Jared Leto. I was thirteen when Seaquest debuted, and although I never watched it, I did buy all those Teen Magazines that gushed about all the cute stars of the day. So that's how I know Jonathan Brandis. His face was plastered all over the covers of the magazines I was reading. So whatever happened to our blue-eyed boy?

He's dead. Killed himself in 2003. 27 years old.

This may not come as a shock to anybody. Maybe I'm the only person in the whole world who did not know that Jonathan Brandis was dead. (Maybe I'm the only one who cares?) But it totally shocked me. And I feel a little bit like a part of my childhood is dead. I'll never watch The Neverending Story again without thinking about it.

                       "and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death"

Nice Feet

Yesterday I went to the spa.

Way back in February, as a thank you for doing the staff workshop, I got a gift certificate for a half-day package at the spa. So yesterday I finally went. The half-day package includes a manicure, a pedicure, lunch and a facial. I'd never had a pedicure or a facial before, and only one manicure before, so it was totally new to me.

I think next time I will skip the facial. It was okay, but they put some kind of mint exfoliant on my face that really burned, and then when I left my face just felt all yucky and greasy. Plus my forehead feels like it might break out now.

The manicure was okay, although I was yelled at for peeling off my cuticles. The pedicure was good, and I was told I had nice feet. I have always thought my feet were nice, but it is good to hear from someone else.

Too bad I don't know any foot fetishists.

Conflicted

Oh god oh god oh god.

I have just turned down a job. It was a good job. It paid well and it was what I wanted to do. But it wasn't in Saskatchewan. And I wanted to stay here.

Have I just made a huge mistake?

Why oh WHY is it so difficult? I feel like I'm being torn in two: What I love to do isn't corresponding very well with where I want to live.

I feel like I'm going to throw up.