libri

Well, I am alive.
*insert cheering and canned laughter*


My life is changing. 


My dad is in the hospital recovering from a serious back operation. He is in excruciating pain, so please put him in your prayers. 
I have spent the last several days at home (as usual; hermits hate going to new places) watching my siblings while my mother spent the majority of the day at the hospital. We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 

The Joneses.

which was the perfect action-adventure movie: I loved it. So awesome! And we watched, on a whim, UHF, which is a little known comedy spoof with Weird Al Yankovic in it, which is why we watched it, because we're Weird Al fans. Hilarious movie, but very off kilter and weird. 

So that is life. 

I'm reading some books on education, Benjamin Franklin's autobiography, and rereading Jurassic Park.I just read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.

The Andromeda Strain was pretty good. I liked it.

It was written in a very dry, scientific,  and in some spots slow manner.The end was a bit of a letdown. It is about a germ that comes to Earth from space (hitching a ride on a space capsule) and kills off an entire town. Five men are sent to an underground secret location and they have to figure out how this germ (the Andromeda strain) works, and how to kill it.

The Giver....ugh, it was awful.

 Set in a dystopic futuristic society, where there are no emotions and everything is colorless, it tells about how one boy escapes. The Sameness of the society is intriguing, but not well fleshed out enough to be plausible. I suppose the author thought she was making a case how individuality and being able to make choices keep us human, but it came off as rather uninteresting and depressing. A very bleak book, written simply and sparsely (the writing is better than in The Hunger Games), this book goes on my Depressing Books I hated List, where it can share the space with Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton, which was fantastically written but completely non-relatable to a teenager and absolutely tragic.

Oh, and The Hunger Games? After reading/suffering through all three books in the trilogy I feel entitled to state my opinions.

1. THG should have been a stand-alone book.

2. Catching Fire was the worst. I was confused and annoyed while reading it. 

3. Fangirling over Peeta and Gale misses the entire point of the series.

4. They're very violent. Don't read the second and third book if you are squeamish. However the first book wasn't too bad.

5. Suzanne Collin's characterizations weren't terrific. All three of her main characters could have been fleshed out a lot more, because they came across as flat in some places.

6. This series really shows the sadness and tragedy of war to its victims. In a society that glorifies violence we need to remember this, yet also remember that evil must be stamped out, and we can start in our own souls.

7. The movie looks like it is going to be good. Maybe they can fix the problems the book had.

There's a lot more one could say about THG, but I'm just going to leave it at that. There are many good, in-depth reviews out there. This is not going to be one of them.

Also I recently re-read A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline l'Engle. I love that book! So weird and amazing.

A blog post you should check out:

Hi, I'm Socially Awkward by Jedi~Chick

Spot on.

Bye for now!

~ Diana

be grateful

The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me; to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!


~  Psalms 50:23


I am grateful to God* for many things:


Salvation. Sheep. Family. My few but completely amazing friends. Chickens that go bawk. Labrador retrievers. Hills. My iPod touch. My country. The ocean. Mashed rutabaga. Vanilla ice cream. Church.


Be thankful! And eat lots of turkey!

*Annoying footnote: as opposed to just being thankful to whatever vague and unknown deity is out there, I profess to be thankful to God, who has never given up on humanity. EVER.

ab absurdo, and let's move!!!

Ut ut velit adipiscing in mundum, et ego post haec et latine. Lingua Latina estGRAVIS primo dictum est a Romanis, quia multi doctissimi viri. Multa sunt eiusradicem multis in Latin, Gallica, et Hispanica. Unus pluma in oculis meis, utnemo possit redimere CLAMOR at, si male Latinis pronouce nemo scitRomanos non profertur?

(Not in primis esse virum doctum, immo vel a viro, usus sum valde benevolensquod dico Google Translate to vertere hic quod non possum loqui vel Latinetantum scribere. Proin pati, carissimi lectorem.)

Plus ego studium antiquata frui attrahenti history. Ut natoque id quod Graeci etRomani sub te quae non habet effectum, sed errant. Sed adipiscing mi servatoreliqua fragmenta SANITAS faciam illum dolore historiae libri bona non a C. ad hoc.

Translation: 

So, in order to be unique in the blogging world, I shall post this in Latin. Latin is an estimable language, first spoken by the Romans, and by many learned men since. Many of its words are the root of many words in English, Italian, French, and Spanish. One redeeming feature in my eyes is that no one can yell at you if you pronouce Latin words wrong as no one knows how the Romans pronounced it!

( Not being a particularly learned man, or indeed even a man at all, I used the extremely helpful Google Translate to translate what I say here, as I am not able to speak or write much Latin. Thank you for bearing with me, dear reader.)

Plus, I enjoy the fascinating study of antiquated history. You may be under the impression that what the Greeks and Romans did has no effect on you whatever, but you are wrong. However, in order to preserve the remaining fragments of my limited sanity, I shall refer you to a good history book NOT a textbook to show this.

~~~~~~~

 

Whew! I return to my lingua mater. So, anyway.........I completely forgot what to write, hence the above.

Something to be proud of! <<<<

...NEXT, here are three things on the same subject--Namely, A Call to Action. Put off your Apathy! MOVEIT!!!! Shake off the sluggardness! Just do It. [In the style of John Adams, who as was the fashion in those Times, capitalized many Words in his Writings.]

A Psalm to Life

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe'er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,--act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;--

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait. ~

The Aunt and the Sluggard  by P. G. Wodehouse

"About once a month he would take three days writing a few poems; the other three hundred and twenty-nine days of the year he rested." 

A hilarious short story featuring Jeeves and Bertie concerning a hypocritical poet.

~ ` ~ ` ~ ` ~

"Is this a time for airy persiflage?" [My answer: NO.]

 ~ W.S. Gilbert 

"Just do it."

~ Nike slogan 

[Note #1: Nike was a minor Greek goddess, representing Victory]

And speaking of victory: here is Churchill, from the second World War, making the victory sign. 

[Note #2: W.S. Gilbert's full name was actually William Schwenk Gilbert. Now you know!]

[Note #3: per-si-flage

1. Light good-natured talk; banter.

2. Light or frivolous manner of discussing a subject.]

.......And with that eccentric mix, I must depart. 

Valete, lectores.

[BTW, the reason for my posts starting out on one subject and ending on one completely different is this: for me, inspiration comes WHILE I'm writing]

~ Diana  

grammar lesson: commas

For once here is a nice, ladylike, flowery heading for this post. Speaking of ladylike-ness, I would like to say that my five oldest hens (Mary Lou, a Barred Rock, at left) aren't very ladylike. Oh, sure, I can hear them protesting loudly, but the way they steal food from the little ones and bother/annoy/steal from the roosters is definitely not very ladylike. My hens are more the loud, obnoxious, feminist, lazy, and bossy female type rather than the sweet, unassuming,  gentle, smart and ladylike female type.
Ah, chicken personalities. I love them! I have sweet docile little pullets, fire-brand little hens, a gentlemanly-chivalrous (yet not exactly the brightest bulb!) Silkie rooster, a gangly cockerel, a dumb yet lovable blonde Polish hen, a paranoid Leghorn hen, and a slew of other personalities in my coop.


I have been brainstorming, trying to think of a topic to post about, but have come up blank.....


I believe I will post a short lesson in punctuation, namely, the correct use of the comma, for the benefit of all.


Commas are used to separate thoughts or ideas. 
Example A:
"Because I am going away, you need not bother delivering the milk."


If the sentence can be divided into two sentences, such as this:


"I really need to blow my nose, it's dripping all over the floor!"


Chances are you shouldn't put a comma there, it would be wrong. As demonstrated by my last sentence! This is an unfortunately extremely common mistake I have noticed often in different books and periodicals. It irked me to see the much-loved little comma abused in this way.


 You can either a) place a semi-colon [;] there, or divide it into two sentences.
Example B:

"I really need to blow my nose; it's dripping all over the floor!"

Example C:

"I really need to blow my nose. It's dripping all over the floor!"

 (You can tell I made up the examples!)

Example  D: 

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange blue purple green black yellow socks."

That is wrong. It looks wrong, doesn't it? That, my friends, is why we need commas!

Corrected:

Example E:

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange, blue, purple, green, black, and yellow socks." 

Too many commas:

"Andromeda decided to buy the orange, blue, purple, green, black, and yellow, socks."

That one extra comma can make a difference!

~ Finis. Enough punctuation for now. Next lesson will be on that infamous apostrophe, plurals, and why Bill's cats were fat. 

A handy chart from the New Yorker.

"How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath
To say to me that thou art out of breath? "  ~ Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, the only witty thing Juliet EVER says!

"O, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, 

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers! 

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever lived in the tide of times." ~ Julius Caesar 

Speaking of Caesars, I have two things to say. A) I love ancient Roman history. B) You should try making this Caesar salad; it is delicious, easy to make, and delicious.

"...Parting is such sweet sorrow!" 

~ Diana