Little Bee

A quick book review of Little Bee by Chris Cleave.

3/5 stars. Liked it and recommend it.

The book starts with a Nigerian girl in a British detention center. Although not given asylum or refugee status, she's released. She makes her way to the home of the only person she knows, a woman whose own life has left her - albeit in a different sense - also seeking refuge.

Honest. Heartbreaking survival. Real.

Here's the NYTimes review.

Snippet

Things I've thought about or done in the last few days --

Heard Heraldo Munoz speak (U.S. Ambassador to Chile) about inequality in Latin America.

Realized winter is in full force because my leg hair swings in the breeze. Why shave in winter, what with pants and leggings galore?

Had a fantastic hill run that left me breathless and almost too tired to make it back to school.

Sat outside in 72 degree weather.

Had a scrumptious Valentine's Day meal replete with wine, bread, homemade pea pesto, eggplant lasagna, kale, homemade cream puff pastries and - best of all - my favoritest girls, KS and GC. Couldn't have asked for better dates!

Finished reading Hygiene and the Assasin. Not sure I loved this disturbing, morbid tale. Unique, at least. Now I'm reading Little Bee.

Searched 5 grocery stores in Denver for 7-grain mix. To no avail. Date bread will have to wait until I can resume the search. I don't understand, though, because I've made this bread before in Denver ... which means I found the 7-grain mix somewhere. Riddle me this.

Here's heading into the weekend!

Living the Dream

Today has been such a good day, so far!

Went for a run around City Park. I'm not fast, but I feel less out of breath and am slowly inching to longer runs. Given that my first run was a 10 min jog 4 weeks ago, I'm psyched!

I studied at a cafe for a bit then got to take some friends (and the baby formerly known as smudge!) to the airport. I love playing with that little baby! He laughs when I come in the room and then proceeds to pull out my curls. I stop him before he puts my hair in his mouth, though. A-dorable!

I forgot to mention: I am done with 2 of my classes! I just have 2 little papers, left. Hard to believe.

Okay, are you ready for the indulgence? I bought a book today. A novel! Wait, maybe I should say, "The Federal Loan Division of the U.S. Government bought a book today." (Oooh, bookstores are so dangerous. You can dress me up but you can't take me anywhere! Now I remember why I don't let myself go into any bookstore ... except occassionally to Goodwill's back section with 10 cent used books.) I just ... it was ... I just love books! And, this is embarrassing, I bought it because of its cover (G'ah! I totally judged a book by its cover. ) It was minimalist, outdoorsy and winter-looking. Small. Written by someone from Massachusetts. Had a shiny little "Pulitzer Prize Winner" sticker. I couldn't resist. Behold the little gem:


As I had heard nothing of it before buying it on a whim, I checked out the review. I'm saving it as my snuggle-up-with-a-good-book on Thanksgiving.


P.S. Even the Indonesian government remembered the Jews, unlike Colorado, apparently.

No excuses...

...just results.

I have been a terrible bloggie-er this month. It's tough with the traveling, moving, starting school, homework, trying to work out. Okay. Enough excuses. Without further delay:

My classes seem pretty good so far. I am trying to do extra (as in, "outside," not "additional") work like finding and applying for fellowships, a MA thesis, writing my own recommendation from my summer internship, and writing a case note to be published. I like to do as much work up-front and as early as possible in the semester if I can. I hate the sprint and rush to do everything at the end of the semester. I try to avoid that at all costs. I'm not sure I'm doing a good job, though, because all these extra things keep popping up.

I'm also in the middle of moving. Literally. I moved most of my things, but realized there were substantial/numerous issues with my newly-signed-lease apartment. I didn't want to finish moving my stuff and a natural gas smell made me nervous even to sleep there. So, my things are in my new apartment but my bed and ME (sleeping) are in the old apartment. I have to shower at the gym and eat out because I don't even have a shower curtain or any kitchenware in the kitchen. I can't even read in bed because there is only a light in the kitchen and in the bathroom, not the studio room. I basically get up early and leave for the day. I stay out as late as possible and literally go to bed the second I get home. It's all very unsettling and I wish things would be resolved quickly.

Some good things going on? Um. Um. Um. I'm reading Cradle of Gold written by my dear friend, Chris Heaney. I love the book, love reading the products of his hard work, and I love knowing my friend better.

Library of Congress

Nerd Alert:

Yesterday I went to the Library of Congress for a tour organized by work. We also got the special tour, the tour of the law library of congress. It was so cool! We saw a whole bunch of rare books from the law library including one of Ben Franklin's printings of the Constitution. A copy of the Constitution in Dutch. A copy of the Constitution in Cherokee. The language of Cherokee Indians was actually made up and written specifically for being able to write the Constitution. The sounds have no relation to the written words. The words stand for syllables. And, the words are a mix of Cyrillic and Germanic written forms. The rare collections part of the law library also has a whole section of international texts on rule of law. How cool! I am going to make an appointment to go back and see it. I touched books from the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s. Oooo. Aaaah.

From there, we went to the regular Library of Congress tour. Pretty cool, too (almost as cool as the law library). The building itself is beautiful with stained glass, sculpture and meaningful art. The statue figurines are all studying various things. One of the ceilings had the three most prized professions written in various stones -- Medicine, Theology, and - you guessed it -- law. I thought that was pretty cool. Body, Mind, and how those two (body + mind = person) relate to others. We also saw the first map that ever had the label 'America' on our big ol' mass of land. Apparently, the 'brary bought it for $10 million. That's right. 12 pieces of paper for $10 million. They also have Thomas Jefferson's personal library collection. Actually, it's most of the collection but not all because some of it got burned back during the civil revolution. He had a huge philosophy and law section. Hurrah!

The guide said there were over a hundred names of famous academics, intellectuals, important people, etc. written in the walls/ceilings, but that only 1 of them was a woman. What made me ever angrier was that the tour guide (an old man) didn't even bother to tell us the woman's name or what she did! The irony! Telling us how in the olden days people didn't respect women as intellectuals or leaders, but then not telling us about the rare one that they did revere! I was going to ask, but another girl on our tour interrupted him and asked first.

I wish I could spend many, many days in there.

I like books. Books are my friends. :)

Speaking of, right now I'm reading Armageddon by Leon Uris. He's one of my favorite authors. I just love his stories, I love learning (his books are mainly creative non-fiction/historical fiction). I love that he writes about Jews. I love that his books are epic. What are you reading, besides my bloggie ;) ?

B'more

Went to Baltimore today to visit a friend who I haven't seen in years. So good to see her, and fun to explore Baltimore a little. We went to lunch at Golden West and ate delicious food. We saw her cute apartment and went to this awesome place called "Book Thing." It's basically like an entire used bookstore, but they are free! It was awesome. I got:

Baudelaire, Les Fleurs du Mal et autres poemes
Uris, Armageddon
L'Engle, The Irrational Season
some book on U.S. policy in Latin America

free, people, FREE.

We unfortunately got a flat tire and had to wait for AAA to help us out. I ended up taking Amtrak back to D.C., which took a wee bit of time and I didn't get back early enough to go to the gym, as planned. Darn it!

I heard this conversation on the train:

Old Man: Are you a student?
Girl: Yes!
Old Man: I'm a teacher.
Girl: Really? Where?
Old Man: Princeton.
Girl: COOL! That's, like, awesome!