Dreams

So, I was never really a big fan of poetry. In fact that for the past 10 or so years, my all-time favorite poem has been this. Anyway, this year I've started reading a bit more, covering the more famous ones, one of which is below:

***

Image Courtesy: www.ideasevolved.com

Anna and the French Kiss By Stephanie Perkins

Overview:

Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.

As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss Anna - and readers - have long awaited?

***

My Thoughts:

I liked the book, it was a very light and breezy read, albeit a little unrealistic. Then again, the main reason I read books is to escape from reality, so that was good! I mean who wouldn't have loved to go to a boarding school in Paris!!
Alas, "If wishes were horses, beggars would ride!"

***

Memorable Lines:

...home isn't a place. It's a person.
Boys turns girls into such idiots.

Why is it that the right people never wind up together? Why are people so afraid to leave a relationship, even if they know it's a bad one?

How many times can our emotions be tied to someone else's - be pulled and stretched and twisted - before they snap? Before they can never be mended again?

There’s only one thing I don’t love about him. Her.

I ask myself, if the worst happened—if I did get knocked up-would I be embarrassed to tell my child who his father was? If the answer is anywhere even remotely close to yes, then there's no way.

And friends don't let other friends make drunken declarations and expect them to act upon them the next day.

Sometimes I think there are only so many opportunities...to be together with someone. And we've both screwed up so many times that we've missed our chance.

It's ridiculous how difficult a question can be when the answer means so much.

Have you ever watched kids
On a merry-go-round?
Or listened to the rain
Slapping on the ground?
 
Ever followed a butterfly’s erratic flight?
Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last.

Do you run through each day
On the fly?
When you ask How are you,
Do you hear the reply?
 
When the day is done,
Do you lie in your bed
With the next hundred chores
Running through your head?

You’d better slow down
Don’t dance so fast
Time is short
The music won’t last.

Ever told your child,
We’ll do it tomorrow?
And in your haste,
Not see his sorrow?
 
Ever lost touch,
Let a good friendship die
Cause you never had time
To call and say,’Hi’ ?

You’d better slow down.
Don’t dance so fast.
Time is short.
The music won’t last.

When you run so fast to get somewhere
You miss half the fun of getting there.
When you worry and hurry through your day,
It is like an unopened gift,
Thrown away.

Life is not a race
Do take it slower
Hear the music
Before the song is over.

***

260386-110514

The Shining By Stephen King

About The Book:

Danny was only five years old but in the words of old Mr Halloran he was a 'shiner', aglow with psychic voltage. When his father became caretaker of the Overlook Hotel his visions grew frighteningly out of control.

As winter closed in and blizzards cut them off, the hotel seemed to develop a life of its own. It was meant to be empty, but who was the lady in Room 217, and who were the masked guests going up and down in the elevator? And why did the hedges shaped like animals seem so alive?

Somewhere, somehow there was an evil force in the hotel - and that too had begun to shine..

***

My Thoughts: 

Loved this book! It was just as horrifying as I imagined it would be when i first picked it up. Off course I couldn't expect any less from Stephen King after Cujo and Carrie! A definite re-read, and am off to watch the movie starring Jack Nicholson now!
Oh, and I just read somewhere that the sequel came out last year, cant wait to read it. More about it here.

The Vow By Kim & Krickitt Carpenter

About the Book:

Life as Kim and Krickitt Carpenter knew it was shattered beyond recognition on November 24, 1993, two months after their marriage, when their Ford Escort was hit from behind by a fast-moving truck. A massive head injury left Krickitt in a coma for weeks. When she finally emerged from the coma, she recognized her parents and everyone else-but she didn't know Kim. She had no idea who he was. The "Krickitt" Kim had married essentially died in the accident. The Vow is the true tale of the reconstruction of two lives and a marriage after an event so shattering that most others would have parted ways long ago. Though it was not easy, and it tested every fiber of who they were, Kim and Krickitt fell in love all over again.

***

My Thoughts:

Again, one of those rare times, when I saw the movie first, and read the book it was based on later. This one was ok, it read more like a diary of the author's daily thoughts and feelings.
I would've also liked to know the story from the POV of the wife though, this book is very one-sided.
Very simply and clearly written.

Easy By Tammara Webber

About The Book:

Rescued by a stranger.
Haunted by a secret
Sometimes, love isn’t easy…

He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior…
The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.
Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth—and find the unexpected power of love.
A groundbreaking novel in the New Adult genre, Easy faces one girl's struggle to regain the trust she's lost, find the inner strength to fight back against an attacker, and accept the peace she finds in the arms of a secretive boy.

My Thoughts: 

Awesome, swoon-worthy book! Loved it when I read it this first time. This happens to me once in a while; when I read a book, I absolutely fall in love with it, and can't stop talking about it. 
And then I start reading it for the second time, and wonder what exactly got my attention the first time! 
Hoping this is not one of those books, that I read when in a certain frame of mind.

Anyway, I really liked the story, the scenes, the dialogue, everything! 

High Fidelity By Nick Hornby

 
About the Book:

Rob is a pop music junkie who runs his own semi-failing record store. His girlfriend, Laura, has just left him for the guy upstairs, and Rob is both miserable and relieved. After all, could he have spent his life with someone who has a bad record collection? Rob seeks refuge in the company of the offbeat clerks at his store, who endlessly review their top five films (Reservoir Dogs...); top five Elvis Costello songs ("Alison"...); top five episodes of Cheers (the one where Woody sang his stupid song to Kelly...). Rob tries dating a singer whose rendition of "Baby, I Love Your Way" makes him cry. But maybe it's just that he's always wanted to sleep with someone who has a record contract. Then he sees Laura again. And Rob begins to think (awful as it sounds) that life as an episode of thirtysomething, with all the kids and marriages and barbecues and k.d. lang CD's that this implies, might not be so bad.

***

My Thoughts:

I liked this book, it was actually a nice and enlightening experience reading about a breakup from a guy's perspective. They pretty much go through the same stuff that girls do, except they don't show it  on the outside, and bury it deep deep down, unless the break-up unhinges them off-course. They they're worse than girls. Or not. Anyway, that's what I took away from this book.

***

Some Lines:

Only people of a certain disposition are frightened of being alone for the rest of their lives at twenty-six.

You can see this everywhere you go: young, middle-class people whose lives are beginning to disappoint them making too much noise in restaurants and clubs and wine bars. 'Look at me! I'm not as boring as you think I am! I know how to have fun!' Tragic. I'm glad I learned to stay home and sulk.

You run the risk of losing anyone who is worth spending time with, unless you are so paranoid about loss that you choose someone unlosable, somebody who could not possibly appeal to anybody else at all.

You spend Christmas at somebody's house, you worry about their operations, you give them hugs and kisses and flowers, you see them in their dressing gown . . . and then, bang, that's it. Gone forever.

It's difficult to explain why or how you can find yourself pulled in two different directions at once, and obviously a certain amount of dreamy irrationality is a prerequisite. But there's a logic to it, too.

Sentimental music has this great way of taking you back somewhere at the same time that it takes you forward, so you feel nostalgic and hopeful all at the same time.

It's brilliant, being depressed; you can behave as badly as you like.

In other words, I'm unhappy because she doesn't want me; if I can convince myself that she does want me a bit, then I'll be OK again, because then I won't want her, and I can get on with looking for someone else.

There are men who call, and men who don't call, and I'd much, much rather be one of the latter. They are proper men, the sort of men that women have in mind when they moan about us. It's a safe, solid, meaningless stereotype: the man who appears not to give a shit, who gets ditched and maybe sits in the pub on his own for a couple of evenings, and then gets on with things; and though next time around he trusts even less than he did, he hasn't made a fool of himself, or frightened anybody, and this week I've done both of those things.

Maybe we all live life at too high a pitch, those of us who absorb emotional things all day, and as a consequence we can never feel merely content: we have to be unhappy, or ecstatically, head-over-heels happy, and those states are difficult to achieve within a stable, solid relationship.

If you stick with a relationship, and your life becomes dependent on that person's life, and then they die, as they are bound to do, unless there are exceptional circumstances, e.g., they are a character from a science fiction novel . . . well, you're up the creek without a paddle, aren't you? It's OK if I die first, I guess, but having to die before someone else dies isn't a necessity that cheers me up much: how do I know when she's going to die? Could be run over by a bus tomorrow, as the saying goes, which means I have to throw myself under a bus today. 'You're going to die, so there's not much point in us carrying on, is there?'

My Top 5 Dream Jobs

Got the idea to do this post from a book I was reading some time back. It's being lying in my drafts for a very long time, so cant really remember which book. So without further ado, I present to you:

My Top 5 Dream Jobs:

 
1. International Travel Show Host/Travel Blogger
Who doesn't want to travel all over the world?? The icing on the cake, I'd get paid for it!!! Some gig like Samantha Brown's maybe?

2. Professional Shopper
Again, getting paid to do what you love and would've done for free!! I guess that is what you'd call a dream job..

3. Librarian/Book Shop Owner/Book Editor/Book Reviewer
Or any other interesting job dealing with the written word.

4. Pastry Chef/Chocolate Tester/Food Critic
Creating world records with something like this maybe:

5. Psychiatrist/Psychologist/Therapist
I like listening to people's stories, and advising/commenting on them. Some may call it gossiping, but I don't think so!

***



Images Courtesy:
http://kellelynn.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/dream_job1.jpg
http://www.curiehs.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=29144&type=u
http://travel.spotcoolstuff.com/shopping/best-chocolate-shops
http://www.psychotherapy.net/humor/8
http://www.condenaststore.com/-sp/Let-s-try-focussing-on-your-posts-that-do-receive-comments-New-Yorker-Cartoon-Prints_i9383731_.htm

Luna

So, I was just reading about the latest Stephen King novels, and one thing led to another and I reached this page on Wikipedia. Reading the below lines had me in splits for quite some time!

Killer whales are intensely social, and boats and people provided the companionship and physical contact that Luna would normally have received from his mother and from other whales. A Canadian federal fisheries officer said in 2003, "I don't think he realizes he's a whale. He thinks he's one of the boys."

And this is Luna:

NOTE: Apparently killer whales are not as deadly as their names suggest!

Image Courtesy: http://www.animalpeoplenews.org/anp/2013/04/30/books-the-lost-whale-the-true-story-of-an-orca-named-luna/

The Hunger Games Trilogy By Suzanne Collins

From the Back Cover:
In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Long ago the districts waged war on the Capitol and were defeated. As part of the surrender terms, each district agreed to send one boy and one girl to appear in an annual televised event called, "The Hunger Games," a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. The terrain, rules, and level of audience participation may change but one thing is constant: kill or be killed.

My Thoughts:

This series was a quick and very entertaining and engrossing read! Loved it from the start to end, and will be a definite re-read. I might even buy the whole set.

I read it quickly over a little less than a week, and although the end was not what I expected, it did not disappoint either. So, worth the time and effort!

A Few Lines:

In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early. You see an elderly person, you want to congratulate them on their longevity, ask the secret of survival. A plump person is envied because they aren’t scraping by like the majority of us.

If there’s a more helpless feeling than trying to reach someone you love who’s trapped underground, I don’t know it.

Closing my eyes doesn’t help. Fire burns brighter in the darkness.

We Were The Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates

 

From the Back Cover:

A New York Times Notable Book and a former Oprah Book Club selection Moving away from the dark tone of her more recent masterpieces, Joyce Carol Oates turns the tale of a family struggling to cope with its fall from grace into a deeply moving and unforgettable account of the vigor of hope and the power of love to prevail over suffering. The Mulvaneys of High Point Farm in Mt. Ephraim, New York, are a large and fortunate clan, blessed with good looks, abundant charisma, and boundless promise. But over the twenty-five year span of this ambitious novel, the Mulvaneys will slide, almost imperceptibly at first, from the pinnacle of happiness, transformed by the vagaries of fate into a scattered collection of lost and lonely souls. It is the youngest son, Judd, now an adult, who attempts to piece together the fragments of the Mulvaneys' former glory, seeking to uncover and understand the secret violation that occasioned the family's tragic downfall. Each of the Mulvaneys endures some form of exile--physical or spiritual--but in the end they find a way to bridge the chasms that have opened up among them, reuniting in the spirit of love and healing. Profoundly cathartic, Oates' acclaimed novel unfolds as if, in the darkness of the human spirit, she has come upon a source of light at its core. Rarely has a writer made such a startling and inspiring statement about the value of hope and compassion.

***

My Thoughts:

So, this was an Oprah's Book Club recommendation, and it was as lengthy and depressing as I expected it to be!So no disappointments there! Liked the way it was written though.

About the plot; I found it very disturbing. I mean, how can a mother banish own child from her house, over something she should not even have been blamed for! How? I know it must be very upsetting to have a child who has gone thorough trauma such as rape and assault, but that is all the more reason to support her, right?

Anyway, it just goes from bad to worse, the story, that is. By the end I was left angry and frustrated, considering all the waste..

***

Memorable Lines:

In a family, what isn't spoken is what you listen for. But the noise of a family is to drown it out.

Strange: how when a light is extinguished, it's immediately as if it has never been. Darkness fills in again, complete.

In that way you recall, suddenly, sharply, in daylight, a trace of a dream of the previous night--but even as you recall it, it begins to fade.

Because nothing between human beings isn’t uncomplicated and there’s no way to speak of human beings without simplifying and misrepresenting them.

Give me the sound, to see
Another world outside that’s full of all the broken things that I made
Just give me a life to bleed
Another world outside that’s full of all the awful things that I made

'Cause we are the last disease
Another broken life that’s full of all the awful things that I made
And we got the eyes to see
Another broken life that’s full of all the awful things that are made.

- Joel Zimmerman, Gerard Way


Image Courtesy: http://www.meetup.com/judaism-124/events/127407582/

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock By T.S. Eliot

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question….
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
(But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!)
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all;
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . . . . .
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old …
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown. *** A poem I read about in this awesome book I'm currently reading. Liked the first two and last tree lines in particular, mostly because they speak about an escape of sorts. Pretentious much? 

Weary Wednesday!!

30th of April, 2014:

So I had a fantastically crappy start to my morning today, and I just need to get it all out!

First off, I saw something that left me speechless, and not in the good way! I was disgusted and I hope to never see such a thing ever again in my life! Think I'm being too dramatic?? Well, you should've been there!
Anyway, I don't wanna dwell too much on it, the sooner I forget it, the better!

I don't usually talk to anyone in the mornings after I've just gotten up, and am getting ready for work, because my tolerance for any kind of nonsense is at its lowest at this time, and that leads me to be rude and mean and say stuff that I wouldn't usually say. Today, as I finished getting ready, there was a loud knock on my room door. Whoever wants to come in usually just knocks and enters without waiting for me to say anything, which is fine with me, since even if I yell "Enter!", nobody hears me!

Anyway, since nobody entered I went out to see who wanted what from me, and that was my mistake! As soon as I stepped into the kitchen, I was greeted with loud noises, people yelling, and as soon as they spotted me, I was bombarded with demands and questions!
"TELL HER NOT TO DIRTY ALL THE VESSELS!!"
"I DIDNT DIRTY THE VESSELS, THEY WERE ALREADY DIRTY!!! TELL HER TO SPEAK PROPERLY!!!"
"YOU DONT TELL ME HOW TO SPEAK!!!"

Aaaaarrgggggg!!!!

It was an argument between a flatmate and the cook! And I was put in the middle of it! They were looking at me to resolve everything! I felt like the mother of two very troublesome kids!
I can only imagine how Ma dealt with us when we were kids! I'm sure we were much much louder and more violent too! She had a lot of patience I must say, because we were fighting a lot of the time. Pa escaped it all luckily! Though I remember this one time at night when we were both fighting and yelling, only Pa was around I think, and I guess it all got too much for him and he just yelled "SHUT UP both of you'll!!". I went speechless with shock, and so did Ba I guess, because we'd never heard him talk like that, and haven't ever since too. Anyway, whatever got results!

Back to the argument, I just made soothing noises and escaped as soon as I could from there. Yelling, nagging and complaining are some of the things I find difficult to tolerate at any time, and early in the morning is the worst!

***

The day got much much better by noon though when I got to know that I'd cleared the lottery and got my application receipt!! So that turned the day around, for the better; although everybody around me was pretty upset once they got to know that I'd got it! So that was a bit of a dampener!

Well you cant have everything!

***

Been obssesing over the below pieces:





Images :
http://www.caratlane.com/jewellery/flutter-bracelet-jt00079-wrp900.html
http://www.caratlane.com/jewellery/prudence-diamond-and-pearl-earrings-je00170-ygp9pe.html