Some Old Books I Finished This Week

The Warrior Woman, by Maxine Hong Kingston

Kingston's Tripmaster Monkey is one of my favorite books ever. The Warrior Woman is pretty amazing as well. A classic, for what I hear :) - I love how Kingston mixes up family stories with traditional Chinese legends and mythology. After all, don't we all do that, regardless what culture we belong to? If you're a story teller and like to include cultural elements in your narrative, it's pretty convenient to belong to a culture as rich and exotic as that of China. Otherwise, make stuff up, like Kingston admits to doing at times. After all, like she complains to her mom in the last chapter of the book, "I don't know what's real and what are just stories!" But then, who cares, right?

A Study in Scarlet, by Sir Arthur Connan Doyle

After getting over myself and deciding that Sherlock Holmes is real literature (after reading dozens of young adults and children books, my standards have lower considerably), I started reading the Holmes cannon, starting with the first story, which is one of the four novels in the Holmes series. The rest forty or fifty something are short stories.

My first surprise was to find out how similar Doyle's and Robert Downey Jr.'s Holmes are. It's true that Sherlock Holmes never fought giant French guys or was an action hero, but he was a boxer, and somewhat of an irreverent slacker. Watson was lazy too, according to his own words.

My second surprise: this book trashes Mormons like no other. It actually reminded me of a silent movie I saw a while ago in which Mormon missionaries went to other states and countries with the purpose of kidnapping women to turn them into sister wives. Doyle goes after the Danite Band, a sort of army that protected Mormon settlements against random attacks, and which, according to Mormon history, didn't even exist anymore once they moved to Salt Lake, which is where Doyle locates them. Second, he goes after Brigham Young pretty viciously, making him a grumpy, cunning dictator who forces people into joining the church and marrying as many wives as possible. One of my favorite passages of the book:

"Brother Ferrier," he said, taking a seat, and eyeing the farmer keenly from under his light-coloured eyelashes, "the true believers have been good friends to you. We picked you up when you were starving in the desert, we shared our food with you, led you safe to the Chosen Valley, gave you a goodly share of land, and allowed you to wax rich under our protection. Is not this so?"

"It is so," answered John Ferrier.

"In return for all this we asked but one condition: that was, that you should embrace the true faith, and conform in every way to its usages. This you promised to do, and this, if common report says truly, you have neglected."

"And how have I neglected it?" asked Ferrier, throwing out his hands in expostulation. "Have I not given to the common fund? Have I not attended at the Temple? Have I not——?"

"Where are your wives?" asked Young, looking round him. "Call them in, that I may greet them."

The book is one of those historical fiction/detective (obviously) stories with a conspiracy twist. An early DaVinci Code of sorts, with as little investment on research and everyhing.

My Ghettified Google Voice Phone Mic and Speaker

Last week I couldn't find my phone, and I was hoping it was at home. I tried to call Meg to see if it was there, but since I didn't have my phone, I tried using my Google Voice, but I didn't have a microphone, so I still couldn't. I then saw my fake antique phone on top of my classroom cabinets and thought "How cool would it be to have an old phone receiver as my Google Voice mic/speaker, all in one?"

If you don't know Google Voice, well, it's pretty awesome. You can make free calls and text messages from your computer, and even get an unique phone number for free. I set it up to get messages from my students. They will never know my number again. Last time I made that mistake I ended up having to call the cops.

First step: I went to eBay and found a little computer mic with a female plug at the end, where you can hook up headphones. That way, I could gut an old phone and put a mic at one end and the mic at the other.

Step two: Go to Savers and find a crappy old phone. Wash (very important after shopping at Savers) and empty it out and unscrew the lid thingies (the old phones with round lid thingies are easy to open. No idea about the newer phones with square ones).

Step three: Tape both headphones to the speaker side of the phone receiver. I used good mics to make sure I'll be able to hear! Screw back on.

Step four: Plug the headphone to the mic. Tape the mic to the inside edge of the other end of the receiver. I would have taped it to the lid, but the mic was too wide for that, and it wouldn't have closed.

Important! Stuff the inside of the phone receiver with cotton, or you will be speaking in your own ear, which is pretty annoying.

Screw lid thingy back, plug phone.

Cost:

Mic: $1.89 (including shipping)
Crappy old phone: $2.99

Total: $4.88 (not including headphones)

If you want good sound, you should get a nicer mic and maybe use a little speaker instead of headphones for the ear piece. My cheap receiver doesn't sound great, but it looks pretty cool.

The Boy's Walking

Books I Read...

I've been posting books there in the side of the page as a way to see how many books I read in a given year. I was surprised to see how many had accumulated at the end of the year, and that helped me get motivated to read even more. The reviews I write are not about the book (you can read that on Amazon, or barnesandnoble.com), but my reaction to it. A basic, couple of lines, response. It's extremely subjective (especially if you've read some of my politics books' reviews, you know what I mean), but oh well, it's my blog! And nobody reads it anyway, so what's the big deal, right? But I've decided that if it's not a 25 page book for first grade readers, I might include the reviews in the body of the blog, otherwise I'll update this once a year, and that's pretty pathetic.

So, here's my response to the last book I've read.




Kira Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata. YA (272 pp.).

A couple of years ago, a student kept telling me that we should read this book as a class. So I was glad to have found it at overdrive.com. It's a cute book, and the historic part of it doesn't seem forced, as in Esperanza Rising, but the sister part of the narrative, well, I saw that coming from the first chapter, so it felt that the author dragged it too much. The rest of the book is a built up to that, so it didn't work for me, but I see how it might have worked for a kid.

Best Fail Blog Post Ever

I lost 22 pounds!

I'm following Tim Feriss' Four Hour Body diet (very similar to the Atkin's diet, for what I hear) and lost 21 pounds in 7 weeks! I would have lost more and faster, but there's this thing in the diet where you can eat anything you want one time a week, and that sets me back three days, usually, but by Saturday morning, I'm in average 2 pounds lighter than the Saturday before.

It was way hard the first few days, and for the first couple of weeks I craved sugar really, really bad, but I learned to cope with it by having gum (Extra came up with a line of "Dessert Delights" sugar free gum that is awesome!), a sip of Diet Coke or Coke Zero (I like the latter better), and some cafeine free green tea or mate with a little Splenda. After a while the craving is really not that bad anymore. Besides, the fact that I can eat all the meat and eggs I want sold me into it. I find that after my "cheat day," I look forward to going back to my diet!

I would probably also lose weight faster and more effectively if I did the exercises that the book recommends, but it's so cold outside that I don't want to go to the garage to do them, so I might make more progress in the summer. I thought 20 pounds would be the final goal, but I see now that I'm probably just half way through!

My weight loss chart from caloriecount.about.com:

By the way, in this diet, you don't need to count calories. Basically, eat all the meat, beans, eggs, and vegetables you want. Stay away from carbs (bread, tortillas, pasta) and sugar (including fruits and fruit juice) except on your one cheat day. That's it. I paid $10 to find that out. Oh well, it was cheaper than the shovel of money I thew in my gym for a 20th of the result.

1st Birthday Party

Thanks, everyone! It was an awesome party!

Gabe's Almost Walking!

Last 10 seconds of the video. That's when he gives his first three steps.

Constants vs. Ups and downs:

My Math teacher gave me a writing prompt. How dare she, right? Anyway, I was annoyed at the beginning, but when I started writing, I actually had fun and went way beyond the one paragraph that she asked for. Albeit nerdy sounding, I kind of liked what I came up with:

Recently I’ve tried to refinance my house, because interests went down. Unfortunately, along with interests, the value of the home went down as well. It was just four years ago that home prices were soaring. Buying 10 years ago and selling five or six years later would have given us a large profit just by sitting on the house. Also, I recently learned that my employer is not paying for my retirement anymore.

Engrish!!

I swear I'm not making fun of these guys. After all, I wrote like this or even worse when I moved here. It's just that, as an English teacher, I find it so fascinating!

Answer to an email asking about the stats of an item I bought on eBay:

As a rule, it will take 3-5 days to arrive.
Pls wait for more time with patient.
Pls feel free to contact us if there is anything we can assist.

Happy a nice day
Sibyl

The "Sibyl" just kills me.