This is a really powerful and emotional story about some very troubled teenagers. Main character, Lindsey Sloan, is the "gifted coordinator" at Randolph-Lowen High School. She specializes in teaching the gifted and especially bright students in their small Alabama county, and surrounding counties. She's a trusted and favoured teacher and always sees the best in her students. Until Detective Jace Nolan arrives.
Jace has been sent to investigate a series of three fires that were set to black churches in the area. His team "up north" has put together a profile of the perpetrators, which they believe to be young, white, particularly intelligent males, since they've left no trace of their crimes. Jace is convinced that the culprits are among Lindsey's students, and while the fires have stopped, he believes it's only a matter of time before the individuals strike again, seeking the adrenaline high the fires gave them.
Lindsey absolutely refuses to believe that any of her students could be involved in these crimes. Even after her students make a big deal about her and the detective spending time together, and then she finds a rattlesnake in her home. Jace deduces that the very act proves that the ones who started the fires are in her class, and they think that because she's been seen with him, they think she knows something and is ratting them out to the police. Lindsey still won't believe it, although she's convinced the rattler didn't just crawl into her laundry hamper, despite what her neighbours have to say. But when someone locks her in the ticket booth at the football game and sets the booth on fire (from which Jace rescues her), she can't help but think Jace may be right, even if she can't fathom any of her students wanting to harm her.
In the meantime, the case is developing into an epidemic of suicides, starting with a young girl. One of Lindsey's students, Andrea Moore was quiet and sweet and kept to herself, and Lindsey was probably the last person she spoke to before taking her own life. When they find out that she had a history of depression and cutting, Lindsey and one of the school counselors, Shannon, are beside themselves wondering why they hadn't known and how they could have helped her. It's later on discovered that someone set up a fake profile for Andrea on a social networking site, making obscene posts supposedly written by Andrea about her sexual acts. This prompted cruel rumours and e-mails which eventually drove Andrea to her fate. The following days are hard on everyone, students and staff alike, and the counselors fear that the attention will bring about a copycat suicide - some kid thinking that they'd like the same attention and love Andrea's getting postmortem. When Lindsey discovers the next suicide victim a week later, they believe their fears have come true. Tim Harrison is the last person Lindsey would have thought would commit suicide, and nobody can figure out why, until Jace does some investigating and finds out that Tim, too, was the victim of cruel rumours and vicious e-mails in the days leading up to his death. Rumours that he was gay, which he was, but nobody knew.
Things start to spiral when the school principal is found dead, supposedly suicide, in Shannon's house. The coroner soon discovers that it was murder, however. Deciding that things have gotten way out of hand, and having been scared thinking it was her friend who was dead, Lindsey concedes that it's possible one of her students might be involved, and Shannon finally goes to the police with the hunch she's had since Jace first started the investigation.
The story climaxes with a very intense and eerily real Columbine situation, where 3 students from the gifted program come to school early bearing guns and explosives and taking Lindsey hostage, killing administration staff, first response officers, and one other student before Jace and the police force take down 2 of them and rescue Lindsey. These teens were responsible for starting the rumours about the other two, and while they hadn't made them commit suicide, it was the intended goal. Shannon had been their intended victim, but they ended up having to kill the principal when he showed up at her house and surprised them. They had had a whole list of victims, mostly in Lindsey's program, who they had intended to kill in the shooting, but got off schedule, and things ended the way they did.
Of course, there's a passionate love story going on between Jace and Lindsey, which at times feels a bit corny, but has a sweet enough ending. :)
Overall story rating: 10/10
Recommendation: 18+ for language and mature content
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Vocabulary: Week 4
Oh my! We are 4, almost 5, weeks into 2011 already!! Time sure flies...
I will admit that I didn't have much luck using curmudgeon, conflagration, or Coptic in the last week. However, I have read conflagration twice in the last 24 hours and had a renewed understanding of the word. And curmudgeon has become a bit of a family joke. I will probably never actually use Coptic in a normal sentence, but at least I know what it means. :)
The word for this week, January 23, which I did just choose last night, is:
I will admit that I didn't have much luck using curmudgeon, conflagration, or Coptic in the last week. However, I have read conflagration twice in the last 24 hours and had a renewed understanding of the word. And curmudgeon has become a bit of a family joke. I will probably never actually use Coptic in a normal sentence, but at least I know what it means. :)
The word for this week, January 23, which I did just choose last night, is:
"Frisson: a brief moment of emotional excitement: shudder, thrill."And yes, it is pronounced with a French accent. ;)
Monday, January 24, 2011
Book Review: Eye of the Beholder by Merline Lovelace
This was a very interesting military novel. The main character, Miranda "Randi" Morgan is a USAF Captain, C-130 Hercules pilot, and single mom. She's been serving in the 137th Air Lift Wing based out of Oklahoma since the birth of her son, Spencer. She was deployed to Afghanistan for 6 months, along with her best friend and ex-lover Captain Tyler Keane. During a dangerous mission, Ty got hit and had to land his craft in an abandoned Soviet base. Once landed, he and his crew were fired at from all angles. He called for help, but Randi knew the help wouldn't be there fast enough, so she landed her plane to rescue Ty and his crew. Once his crew was on board, Ty radioed in to have the backups detonate his load of munitions so that the enemy wouldn't be able to use them. He then headed for Randi's plane, but was shot, which threw him off the runway where he disrupted a landmine. Randi immediately took her plane and both crews to safety. Unfortunately, she was the only one who saw or heard the landmine, and now Ty's father, Sam Keane, has made a case against her for leaving his son to die in a foreign country.
Randi and her sisters, Sarah and Melissa, grew up with their grandparents on the family ranch where Randi now lives with her son. She also runs the numerous family businesses and rents out land to hunters and farmers. Interestingly, there are a number of runestones to be found in Oklahoma, and one of them is on the Morgan property. Sam Keane makes a significant donation of $10,000,000 to the University of Oklahoma to research these runes, but only if Miranda Morgan agrees to let them investigate the stone on her property. The handsome Dr. Pete Engstrom, UO physics professor and one of two developers of this new technology, shows up on Randi's doorstep the afternoon of Ty's funeral. She eventually consents to let him and his team onto her property.
They all know that Sam Keane has an ulterior motive for dating these runestones, and Pete threatens to stop the project if he finds out that Sam is using him to hurt anyone, especially Randi.
An intense love story pursues between Randi and Pete. Randi goes thru military investigations and ends up hiring Pete to examine a piece of her aircraft against a piece of fuselage known to have been damaged by a landmine. His results are close enough to prove that a landmine did go off near Randi's craft, which validates her story about Ty.
Before the investigation is complete, Sam tries to get custody of Randi's son on the basis that Randi and Ty had an affair shortly before she became pregnant and divorced her husband, thus opening the possibility that Spencer is Ty's son, and for abandonment during her months overseas. Randi refuses to have her son's DNA tested, as she believes it doesn't matter who Spencer's father is, and it's up to him to find out when he's old enough to make that decision. Pete shuts down his project after learning of this new development between Sam and Randi because Sam is so obviously trying to ruin Randi's life at every turn.
A twist is thrown in when Pete's lab assistant and co-developer, Anne Gillette, tries to kill Randi once and then tries to kill Randi, Pete, and Absol the dog, because Randi keeps getting in the way of the project and fame Anne feels she deserves.
In the end, they discover an ancient grave close to the runestone on the Morgan property, which they believe to be a Viking grave. Randi's charges are dismissed after Pete's findings, and she offers to let Sam be a part of Spencer's life, as a grandfather, whether they are blood-related or not. And Randi and Pete admit their love for one another and hint at spending the rest of their lives together.
The end!
Overall story rating: 8/10
Recommendation: 18+ for language and some mature content
Randi and her sisters, Sarah and Melissa, grew up with their grandparents on the family ranch where Randi now lives with her son. She also runs the numerous family businesses and rents out land to hunters and farmers. Interestingly, there are a number of runestones to be found in Oklahoma, and one of them is on the Morgan property. Sam Keane makes a significant donation of $10,000,000 to the University of Oklahoma to research these runes, but only if Miranda Morgan agrees to let them investigate the stone on her property. The handsome Dr. Pete Engstrom, UO physics professor and one of two developers of this new technology, shows up on Randi's doorstep the afternoon of Ty's funeral. She eventually consents to let him and his team onto her property.
They all know that Sam Keane has an ulterior motive for dating these runestones, and Pete threatens to stop the project if he finds out that Sam is using him to hurt anyone, especially Randi.
An intense love story pursues between Randi and Pete. Randi goes thru military investigations and ends up hiring Pete to examine a piece of her aircraft against a piece of fuselage known to have been damaged by a landmine. His results are close enough to prove that a landmine did go off near Randi's craft, which validates her story about Ty.
Before the investigation is complete, Sam tries to get custody of Randi's son on the basis that Randi and Ty had an affair shortly before she became pregnant and divorced her husband, thus opening the possibility that Spencer is Ty's son, and for abandonment during her months overseas. Randi refuses to have her son's DNA tested, as she believes it doesn't matter who Spencer's father is, and it's up to him to find out when he's old enough to make that decision. Pete shuts down his project after learning of this new development between Sam and Randi because Sam is so obviously trying to ruin Randi's life at every turn.
A twist is thrown in when Pete's lab assistant and co-developer, Anne Gillette, tries to kill Randi once and then tries to kill Randi, Pete, and Absol the dog, because Randi keeps getting in the way of the project and fame Anne feels she deserves.
In the end, they discover an ancient grave close to the runestone on the Morgan property, which they believe to be a Viking grave. Randi's charges are dismissed after Pete's findings, and she offers to let Sam be a part of Spencer's life, as a grandfather, whether they are blood-related or not. And Randi and Pete admit their love for one another and hint at spending the rest of their lives together.
The end!
Overall story rating: 8/10
Recommendation: 18+ for language and some mature content
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Book Review: Fly Away Home - Jennifer Weiner
The story is based around the family of an American senator, Richard Woodruff. Each chapter is written in the voice of one of 3 characters: his devoted wife, Sylvie; their older, serious doctor daughter, Diana; and their younger, hippie-wild-child, recovering addict daughter, Lizzie. It is also divided into 3 parts.
In part 1, you hear from each of these 3 women, who flash back and forth from what is currently happening (as each of them processes the public announcement of Richard's infidelity), and something that happened in the character's past. In this way, you learn about each of their backgrounds while the main story is still going on. You learn about how Sylvie and Richard met. You find out right away that Diana is cheating on her husband, then hear of the serious relationship that led up to her meeting her husband, and the mindset in which she chose to marry him, and how she came to be cheating on him. You learn that Diana has always resented her younger sister's beauty and charm, and felt the need to overcompensate in everything she did in order to be noticed by her parents. She also feels burdened to have to constantly clean up her younger sister's messes. Then you learn that Lizzie has always felt inferior because of Diana's good marks, and turned to drugs (and photography) because she felt invisible in her family and wanted to keep herself apart from them.
In the present, you see Sylvie dealing with the fact that her husband has cheated on her, and see her going through the motions of deciding what the next steps will be. You see Diana falling apart over being stuck in a loveless marriage and having an affair. You see Lizzie falling in love with the sweetest, most wholesome guy - but not completely, because she fears that if he finds out she's an addict, he'll hate her and leave her.
In part 2, Sylvie has left Richard and is living at her family's vacation home in Connecticut, cleaning and making the house her own, learning to cook, and meeting up with an old love interest from her teenage years. Diana's affair is taking over her life. She feels that having this secret life is actually making her a better person because she devotes all her time away from her lover to her son and her husband and keeping their home. Lizzie has been living with her sister since she was released from rehab, taking care of her nephew Milo. Then one day she tries a spin class and is in such pain that she takes 2 Advil PM, just to be able to sleep, even though her counselors told her not to take any drugs at all. She has a severe reaction to the drug, and her sister accuses her of using again and putting her son in danger, and tells her to leave immediately. So Lizzie goes back to her parents' apartment, where she finds her father in a mess. Sylvie took care of everything for Richard, and he has no idea how to take care of himself. So Lizzie steps up to the plate, taking care of her father and herself, and finally feeling like she's needed.
Then Lizzie finds out she's pregnant. She thinks she should tell Jeff, her boyfriend, but she's afraid. She goes back to tell him, but only manages to admit to him that she's a recovering addict, then can't bear to tell him the rest for fear of what he'll think. So she runs to her sister's house, where she discovers Diana with her lover. After an embarrassing confrontation, Lizzie returns to her parents' apartment, leaving Diana in fear that she will be ratted out, as she knows that Lizzie would love to turn the tables and not be the family screw-up for once. But Lizzie keeps her secret, as she's got one of her own. Through these chapters, it's also mentioned that Lizzie was sexually abused by a neighbour boy when she was 12 years old. She told Diana, who had told her parents, but she never says what her parents did about it.
Sylvie admits to her new-old friend, Tim, after he tells her why he and his wife divorced, what she and her husband did about Lizzie's abuse. Nothing. At the time, they claimed they were doing what was best for Lizzie, not putting her through having to make a statement and go through trial if they were to call the police and press charges. Instead, Richard spoke to the boy's father, the boy wrote an apology, and the father made a very generous donation to Richard's next campaign... The reality was that they hadn't wanted to make Richard look bad or ruin his chances in the campaign, and that was how Sylvie's life had always been - Richard first, everything for and about Richard. Sylvie realizes that it's time she reconnected with her daughters and try to make up for the mistakes she made in the past. Because, after all, even grown girls still need their mother.
In part 3, Diana's lover sees her with her family (he knew she was married, but she never told him about her son) and breaks it off. She is completely depressed, and ends up making an almost fatal mis-prescription at the hospital which results in a paid leave. She's lost her love, her job, and she doesn't love her husband. She decides that she will tell Gary (her husband) she wants a divorce.
Lizzie thinks she might be having a miscarriage, so rushes to the doctor, who tells her she should be on moderate bed rest. Her father's away doing political things, her mother's in Connecticut, her sister doesn't want to see her, and she doesn't think that calling her boyfriend, who she hasn't spoken to since she last saw him and admitted to being an addict, to tell him she's pregnant and needs help would be a good idea. She has no one to call, no idea what to do, when suddenly, Sylvie calls and asks her to join her at the vacation house in Connecticut for a while. It's the perfect plan, except for the whole pregnant and bed rest bit. So Lizzie comes up with an elaborate "I fell and hurt my back" story for her mom.
Diana finally confronts Gary to tell him that she doesn't love him, she had an affair, and she thinks she wants a divorce. It doesn't go at all like she had planned, and she ends up calling her mom because she can't call anyone else. Sylvie invites Diana and her family to come up for a few weeks. Diana immediately packs bags for her and her son, writes Gary a note, picks Milo up from school, and they spend the night at a hotel before arriving at the vacation house in Connecticut early the next morning. For the next few weeks, Lizzie does nothing but eat and sleep and watch movies in bed, while Diana does nothing but run and sleep. Diana loses a ridiculous amount of weight while Lizzie seems to be gaining, and Sylvie just doesn't know what to do with either of them. Eventually, Diana gets a grip and starts homeschooling Milo and takes him home to see his dad for a weekend. Lizzie discreetly visits a local doctor who tells her she doesn't need to be on bed rest anymore and that she needs to be doing getting some exercise, so she starts walking into town to her AA meetings. One day on her way to town, there stands Jeff. They have lunch and he eventually persuades her to tell him what she's been hiding. He's surprised when he hears she's pregnant, but completely supportive. She's still not sure she can trust him, tho. She ends up taking him home with her and Sylvie gives him a room at the house and invites him to stay for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving turns out to be a humorous experience for eveyone. Grandma Selma (Sylvie's mom) arrives and immediately takes note of Diana's depression and Lizzie's growing midsection. Gary arrives, making for an awkward time for Diana. Sylvie tells her mother she's been seeing Tim, which takes everyone by surprise. Tim had been hanging around, but the girls had no idea they were seeing each other, just thought they were friends. So then Lizzie shamefacedly admits that she invited her father, thinking it would be a good surprise. So Tim arrives, with dessert, and Sylvie decides to serve the meal whether Richard is there or not. Not long into the meal, Grandma Selma asks Diana if she's getting a divorce, and then turns to Lizzie and Jeff to exclaim "I hope you two are getting married before the baby comes!" The whole group quiets then erupts in confusion. Then Richard arrives. With dessert, from Tim's grocery store. Awkward? He's then introduced to Tim, and greets everyone else, then sits down to eat and asks what's new. The whole table erupts in laughter, and young Milo sums it up quite nicely. "'Aunt Lizzie has a baby in her tummy from...' He paused, pointing at Jeff, having momentarily forgotten his name. 'That guy. ... My mom and dad are having grown-up problems, but Bubbe says nobody dies of divorce. ... I saved the best for last! We got a Wii! Can you believe it?'"
Kids say the darndest things. :)
After the Thanksgiving fiasco, the girls move back to Diana's house together. Gary gets an apartment down the street. Jeff and Lizzie set up a nursery. Then Diana and Lizzie go to meet the woman their father had the affair with. She's not much older than them, and under different circumstances, Lizzie imagines she would have been a very good friend. It was a meeting they both needed for the closure.
In the end, Richard and Sylvie decide to give their relationship a second chance. Richard says he's going to get out of politics. Sylvie tells him she wants to stay in Connecticut. So they plan to let things fall and see what happens.
The End. :)
Overall story rating: 5/10
Recommendation: no
In part 1, you hear from each of these 3 women, who flash back and forth from what is currently happening (as each of them processes the public announcement of Richard's infidelity), and something that happened in the character's past. In this way, you learn about each of their backgrounds while the main story is still going on. You learn about how Sylvie and Richard met. You find out right away that Diana is cheating on her husband, then hear of the serious relationship that led up to her meeting her husband, and the mindset in which she chose to marry him, and how she came to be cheating on him. You learn that Diana has always resented her younger sister's beauty and charm, and felt the need to overcompensate in everything she did in order to be noticed by her parents. She also feels burdened to have to constantly clean up her younger sister's messes. Then you learn that Lizzie has always felt inferior because of Diana's good marks, and turned to drugs (and photography) because she felt invisible in her family and wanted to keep herself apart from them.
In the present, you see Sylvie dealing with the fact that her husband has cheated on her, and see her going through the motions of deciding what the next steps will be. You see Diana falling apart over being stuck in a loveless marriage and having an affair. You see Lizzie falling in love with the sweetest, most wholesome guy - but not completely, because she fears that if he finds out she's an addict, he'll hate her and leave her.
In part 2, Sylvie has left Richard and is living at her family's vacation home in Connecticut, cleaning and making the house her own, learning to cook, and meeting up with an old love interest from her teenage years. Diana's affair is taking over her life. She feels that having this secret life is actually making her a better person because she devotes all her time away from her lover to her son and her husband and keeping their home. Lizzie has been living with her sister since she was released from rehab, taking care of her nephew Milo. Then one day she tries a spin class and is in such pain that she takes 2 Advil PM, just to be able to sleep, even though her counselors told her not to take any drugs at all. She has a severe reaction to the drug, and her sister accuses her of using again and putting her son in danger, and tells her to leave immediately. So Lizzie goes back to her parents' apartment, where she finds her father in a mess. Sylvie took care of everything for Richard, and he has no idea how to take care of himself. So Lizzie steps up to the plate, taking care of her father and herself, and finally feeling like she's needed.
Then Lizzie finds out she's pregnant. She thinks she should tell Jeff, her boyfriend, but she's afraid. She goes back to tell him, but only manages to admit to him that she's a recovering addict, then can't bear to tell him the rest for fear of what he'll think. So she runs to her sister's house, where she discovers Diana with her lover. After an embarrassing confrontation, Lizzie returns to her parents' apartment, leaving Diana in fear that she will be ratted out, as she knows that Lizzie would love to turn the tables and not be the family screw-up for once. But Lizzie keeps her secret, as she's got one of her own. Through these chapters, it's also mentioned that Lizzie was sexually abused by a neighbour boy when she was 12 years old. She told Diana, who had told her parents, but she never says what her parents did about it.
Sylvie admits to her new-old friend, Tim, after he tells her why he and his wife divorced, what she and her husband did about Lizzie's abuse. Nothing. At the time, they claimed they were doing what was best for Lizzie, not putting her through having to make a statement and go through trial if they were to call the police and press charges. Instead, Richard spoke to the boy's father, the boy wrote an apology, and the father made a very generous donation to Richard's next campaign... The reality was that they hadn't wanted to make Richard look bad or ruin his chances in the campaign, and that was how Sylvie's life had always been - Richard first, everything for and about Richard. Sylvie realizes that it's time she reconnected with her daughters and try to make up for the mistakes she made in the past. Because, after all, even grown girls still need their mother.
In part 3, Diana's lover sees her with her family (he knew she was married, but she never told him about her son) and breaks it off. She is completely depressed, and ends up making an almost fatal mis-prescription at the hospital which results in a paid leave. She's lost her love, her job, and she doesn't love her husband. She decides that she will tell Gary (her husband) she wants a divorce.
Lizzie thinks she might be having a miscarriage, so rushes to the doctor, who tells her she should be on moderate bed rest. Her father's away doing political things, her mother's in Connecticut, her sister doesn't want to see her, and she doesn't think that calling her boyfriend, who she hasn't spoken to since she last saw him and admitted to being an addict, to tell him she's pregnant and needs help would be a good idea. She has no one to call, no idea what to do, when suddenly, Sylvie calls and asks her to join her at the vacation house in Connecticut for a while. It's the perfect plan, except for the whole pregnant and bed rest bit. So Lizzie comes up with an elaborate "I fell and hurt my back" story for her mom.
Diana finally confronts Gary to tell him that she doesn't love him, she had an affair, and she thinks she wants a divorce. It doesn't go at all like she had planned, and she ends up calling her mom because she can't call anyone else. Sylvie invites Diana and her family to come up for a few weeks. Diana immediately packs bags for her and her son, writes Gary a note, picks Milo up from school, and they spend the night at a hotel before arriving at the vacation house in Connecticut early the next morning. For the next few weeks, Lizzie does nothing but eat and sleep and watch movies in bed, while Diana does nothing but run and sleep. Diana loses a ridiculous amount of weight while Lizzie seems to be gaining, and Sylvie just doesn't know what to do with either of them. Eventually, Diana gets a grip and starts homeschooling Milo and takes him home to see his dad for a weekend. Lizzie discreetly visits a local doctor who tells her she doesn't need to be on bed rest anymore and that she needs to be doing getting some exercise, so she starts walking into town to her AA meetings. One day on her way to town, there stands Jeff. They have lunch and he eventually persuades her to tell him what she's been hiding. He's surprised when he hears she's pregnant, but completely supportive. She's still not sure she can trust him, tho. She ends up taking him home with her and Sylvie gives him a room at the house and invites him to stay for Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving turns out to be a humorous experience for eveyone. Grandma Selma (Sylvie's mom) arrives and immediately takes note of Diana's depression and Lizzie's growing midsection. Gary arrives, making for an awkward time for Diana. Sylvie tells her mother she's been seeing Tim, which takes everyone by surprise. Tim had been hanging around, but the girls had no idea they were seeing each other, just thought they were friends. So then Lizzie shamefacedly admits that she invited her father, thinking it would be a good surprise. So Tim arrives, with dessert, and Sylvie decides to serve the meal whether Richard is there or not. Not long into the meal, Grandma Selma asks Diana if she's getting a divorce, and then turns to Lizzie and Jeff to exclaim "I hope you two are getting married before the baby comes!" The whole group quiets then erupts in confusion. Then Richard arrives. With dessert, from Tim's grocery store. Awkward? He's then introduced to Tim, and greets everyone else, then sits down to eat and asks what's new. The whole table erupts in laughter, and young Milo sums it up quite nicely. "'Aunt Lizzie has a baby in her tummy from...' He paused, pointing at Jeff, having momentarily forgotten his name. 'That guy. ... My mom and dad are having grown-up problems, but Bubbe says nobody dies of divorce. ... I saved the best for last! We got a Wii! Can you believe it?'"
Kids say the darndest things. :)
After the Thanksgiving fiasco, the girls move back to Diana's house together. Gary gets an apartment down the street. Jeff and Lizzie set up a nursery. Then Diana and Lizzie go to meet the woman their father had the affair with. She's not much older than them, and under different circumstances, Lizzie imagines she would have been a very good friend. It was a meeting they both needed for the closure.
In the end, Richard and Sylvie decide to give their relationship a second chance. Richard says he's going to get out of politics. Sylvie tells him she wants to stay in Connecticut. So they plan to let things fall and see what happens.
The End. :)
Overall story rating: 5/10
Recommendation: no
Monday, January 17, 2011
C-words
Another part of my Resolutions for 2011, which I've decided to integrate into this blog, is that I intend to learn a new word every week. By this, I mean that every week, if I haven't heard an interesting word, I will choose a word which I do not know, or am unsure of, the definition. I will write down the definition of that word here, and then try to use it in it's proper context the following week to exercise my new knowledge and commit it to memory. I am hopeful that this will help me to broaden my vocabulary and also to gain a better understanding of my own language and the words I use and read.
The word for this week (January 16) is:
Since I forgot to choose words the last couple weeks, I will also attempt to learn two other words this week. Coincidentally, they all start with "c"....
For January 2:
The word for this week (January 16) is:
"Coptic (noun): an Afro-Asiatic language descended from ancient Egyptian and used as the liturgical language of the Coptic church.
Coptic (adjective): of or relating to the Copts, their liturgical language, or their church."(I used both definitions as I'm not sure how I might use it in a normal sentence this week...)
Since I forgot to choose words the last couple weeks, I will also attempt to learn two other words this week. Coincidentally, they all start with "c"....
For January 2:
"Conflagration (noun) 1: fire; especially, a large disastrous fire. 2: conflict, war."For January 9:
"Curmudgeon (noun) 1: archaic: miser. 2: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man."So, there you have it. The three C-words I randomly chose for my word-of-the-week exercise. I will check in next week with how well I'm doing at using my new words.
Monday, January 3, 2011
New Blog: January 2011
So here we are, in 2011! As part of my New Year's Resolutions, I've decided to start a blog documenting the books I read over the course of the year. Last year, I read at least 36 books (that I had written down), and I have at least 36 more on my list for this year.
So, one of my "resolutions," if you can call it that, is to read all of the books on the list (as well as any others that might cross my path) in the next 362 days. However, that's not where the resolution ends. I can fly through books, no problem. The issue comes when trying to remember what a certain book was about. So, the other part of the resolution is to write a blog post reviewing each book after I've read it. Which will also hopefully help me to keep track of all the books I've read! I plan on checking them off the list as well, so between the blog and the list, I should be able to keep track of everything. :)
My plan, I think, is to write the blog post as I'm reading the book, so the finished post will have covered days, weeks, maybe even months, if I'm not that into it. At present, I'm reading 2 books: Fly Away Home, a novel by Jennifer Weiner, and Hot Apple Cider, a conglomeration* of 44 short stories by 30 Canadian authors. I will create 2 separate blog posts for these books.
Comments are welcomed. Please note that I have a tendency to spoil, so if I mention a book that you haven't read or finished yet, please don't read the review, because I'll probably give away the ending! Sorry. Unless you don't care, then read away!
*Conglomerate: to gather into a mass or coherent whole. - www.merriam-webster.com
So, one of my "resolutions," if you can call it that, is to read all of the books on the list (as well as any others that might cross my path) in the next 362 days. However, that's not where the resolution ends. I can fly through books, no problem. The issue comes when trying to remember what a certain book was about. So, the other part of the resolution is to write a blog post reviewing each book after I've read it. Which will also hopefully help me to keep track of all the books I've read! I plan on checking them off the list as well, so between the blog and the list, I should be able to keep track of everything. :)
My plan, I think, is to write the blog post as I'm reading the book, so the finished post will have covered days, weeks, maybe even months, if I'm not that into it. At present, I'm reading 2 books: Fly Away Home, a novel by Jennifer Weiner, and Hot Apple Cider, a conglomeration* of 44 short stories by 30 Canadian authors. I will create 2 separate blog posts for these books.
Comments are welcomed. Please note that I have a tendency to spoil, so if I mention a book that you haven't read or finished yet, please don't read the review, because I'll probably give away the ending! Sorry. Unless you don't care, then read away!
*Conglomerate: to gather into a mass or coherent whole. - www.merriam-webster.com
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