Slow Month at Work = New Books!

It's been a long time since I've posted as work has kept me pretty busy. Fortunately, I recently had a chance to buy a few more internationally flavored books.* I even finished one!

India
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

South Korea
A Gesture Life by Chang-Rae Lee

Google tells me that there are approximately** 196 countries in the world. I have read 5 novels from 5 different countries so that means I am around 5% through. Progress.


*From a used bookstore. Yay real bookstores! Yay browsing!
** Apparently what constitutes a country is more complicated than one might think.

Project Update

Up next in my global reading adventures are the following:

Peru
In Praise of the Stepmother by Mario Vargas Llosa

Mexico (though admittedly written by a Brit who spent relatively little time there)
The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

Greece
Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernières

There appears to be a Latin American tilt to my choices, probably because I took Spanish last year and realized that I knew very little about the America to the south.

Also, in honor of Alice Munro winning the Nobel Prize for Literature I plan to read some of her short stories (Canada!).

A New Project

For the first time in a very long time, I have time to read whatever I want. In about five weeks I start my new job and once I start I'm not sure if I will have the time or energy to read for fun. So I've decided to take the opportunity to read as much as possible, mostly fiction, from now until then.

About a month ago, I saw this article in the BBC, which describes how a woman read a book from every country in the world in one year. Inspired and extremely jealous, I decided to attempt a modified version. That is, I'd like to read as many books as I can written about or from different countries before I start work. I'm including books that span countries/cultures and I'm trying to emphasize countries that I haven't read much about.

Here's what I've read so far:

North Korea
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

Dominican Republic (and US)
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

Haiti
Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder

I'm definitely accepting recommendations for books about these or any other cultures (preferably fiction), so let me know if you have any suggestions.

 

What I Want Out of My Laptop

What I Want Out of My Laptop:

• Water resistance
• An aggressive reminder to back up my files every week
• Files that give themselves relevant names like "important work file" or "unimportant blurry picture"
• Autosave that just saves the document instead of creating a new, identical autosave version that I don't realize is separate from the other document until days later after making significant changes to the old document
• Non-judgmental tech support
• Add-on warranty that covers liquid damage
• Cup holder

What I Get Out of My Laptop

• Biennial nervous breakdowns
• Cachet 

Word Geek

I've started taking a Spanish language class. It's a nice way to avoid a law school class and get back into languages again. In just a few weeks it's already reignited the geek in me. I was Google Translating the Spanish word "trabajo," and as I typed in the word, the translator automatically detected the language and English translation. It produced the following super exciting results if you're a linguistics/language/regular geek.


I typed in:
t-r-a .......... it said "Italian-detected" meaning "between"
t-r-a-b ....... it said "German-detected" meaning "trot"
t-r-a-b-a .... it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "tether"
t-r-a-b-a-j... it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "worked"
t-r-a-b-a-j-o.. it said "Spanish-detected" meaning "work"

Anywho I just thought it was cool that there could be so many different words in three languages contained in one word.

Horses

Here's a picture I took when I was in Pennsylvania over spring break. We went out into the countryside to pet (and feed) horses. These two were particularly sly and pushed all the other horses out of the way to get to our carrots. I think they might have been sisters, and in my mind I dubbed them Goneril and Regan.

4/8/2012

I saw this as I was returning from a walk by the lake. It made me wonder when it was put up and exactly what kind of disaster had been contemplated when it was created.* It's kind of nice to know it's close by if I ever need it.


*My best three guesses are: (1) Attack by the giant monster that lives in Lake Michigan, (2) Invasion by aliens secretly living on the moon and angry about the whole flag thing, (3) Sudden resurgence of the popularity of Fallout Boy.

The Beginning of Spring in Pictures

The sun shining into my bedroom

Promontory Point - the grass remained green throughout the winter this year

The icy waves have begun to wane.

Spring thaw

The Zoo, or, Chicago in the Winter

Chicago's infamous winter failed to live up to its reputation and we had a lovely sunny week. As such, my long awaited trip to the zoo finally happened. J and I actually ended up going twice because (1) it's free, (2) it's awesome, and (3) we were hoping to see the male lion the second time because we were not able to see him the first time (more on this later).

Other than the adorable new baby gibbon, the coolest thing at the zoo was definitely the conservatory.

Not only was it beautiful, but they kept it heated at like 80 degrees. It was like being transported to an island paradise.

For some reason, there were tiny dinosaurs in the fern room.

One-month old gibbon bothering his dad.

The famous sausage tree.

Mr. Silverback was not a fan of the camera.

Poison dart frog

We got pretty lucky and the animals seemed to come out of their enclosures just as J and I approached. The rhino walked directly toward us, paused, and then turned around and went back in. A seal, submerged underwater, popped its head up just as we walked up and then dipped back down as if to hide from the other onlookers. Obviously someone told them we were coming ahead of time.

Unfortunately, we found out that the male lion, Adelor, passed away a couple of weeks ago. The female lion looked a tad morose.

In non-animal news (yes, I do occasionally have some), I'll be very busy in the coming weeks because I'm going to be published! Unfortunately, it's only in a boring legal journal that few people read. But published is published and I'm just happy for the opportunity.

2/2/2012

The photo a day thing didn't quite work out after all. With nicer days and more work on my plate than usual, my focus has been elsewhere. Here's a photo of a cute new lunch place I found in Wicker Park called Birchwood Kitchen. I had a grilled gruyère sandwich with caramelized onions and spicy mustard. Tasty.

1/23/2012

Walking along the lake.

1/21/2012

We had a bit of a snow storm. Apparently even Lake Michigan gets cold in the winter.

Lake Mich post-snow post-blizzard

Lake Mich post-snow but pre-blizzard

1/18/2012

Chicago Water Tower

1/17/2012

Hung out on Michigan Ave tonight. It was a chilly but dry night and the crunch beneath my boots was salt, not snow. The sparkling lights of the city made me wish I lived downtown.

1/16/2012

To be honest, this one's a bit disappointing. No refinement in the detail. Sigh.

I was walking on campus the other day and saw what I thought were ice sculptures: a stallion, a phoenix, and some other avian species lightly dusted with snow in the middle of a plaza. It couldn't be, I thought to myself, it's a recession! But, alas, I was not in Berkeley anymore. At private schools, recession begets not larger class sizes or staff furloughs, but lovely little unnecessary ice sculptures.

1/15/2012

Printer's Row, downtown Chicago

1/14/2012

I think the cloud formations are created by airplanes as they take off from Midway Airport.

I haven't seen much outside of my apartment and the library these days. I took both of these shots from inside my apartment.

1/12/2012

Sometimes it's nice going to school at Hogwarts

We got hit with our first snowstorm today! I wore my snowboots! Oh man, if I could take a picture of the crunch of my boots in fresh snow, I would!

1/11/2012

Downtown Chi-town by the lake

1/10/2012

Here are three more...

South African vuvuzela; another Instagram picture.

1/8/2012 was the 100th anniversary of the ANC, South Africa's ruling party.

Another fire escape picture, this time with the L train as it whizzes by my apartment.