Book Review: The Stranger Beside Me by Anne Rule

March 26, 2007

A couple of months ago, my boyfriend David and I decided to start our own little book club of sorts and recommend books we had read to each other. We would then read them and discuss. The book I recommended to him was The Hot Zone by Richard Preston, the true story of a near-outbreak of an ebola-type virus in the U.S. When I suggested it, I forgot that he’s one of those types of people who take on or become paranoid about all of the symptoms that he reads about or comes into contact with. For example, the other day I had some side-effects from the bird flu vaccine and when I described them to him the first thing…
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Posted in: books & reading, book reviews, books & reading

Lofty Aspirations

March 24, 2007

My family is very sports-oriented. One of the manifestations of this is that each year we are involved in fantasy teams and pools and such. For as long as I can remember my dad and my uncle have picked the NFL games, and when my brothers were old enough they joined in. Being the only girl, I wanted to be involved too. So when fantasy leagues started becoming popular, our family decided to create a private fantasy baseball league for ourselves and I jumped in. The way it worked was that whoever won the NCAA tournament that year got first draft pick in fantasy baseball. Well, we did that for a couple of years and then I WON. After that,…
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Posted in: personal, conversations, personal, me, personal

Bird Flu Phase One

March 22, 2007

So I got a lot of grief from some people for enrolling in the bird flu vaccination study. People were telling me that it was stupid for me to put myself at risk, no matter how small, of getting the bird flu. Well, I wasn’t worried. And today, I got vaccinated. I found out that there is absolutely NO risk of me contracting the bird flu because the virus they inject you with is killed. So that should put all the worriers at ease. I was nervous about the whole ordeal because I knew I would have to get two injections and have my blood drawn. When they took my blood pressure beforehand, it was a little high. My blood…
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Posted in: health, personal, me

My Spring Reading List

March 21, 2007

Well, here it is, my reading intentions for this spring! I have started a couple of them, and many of the rest are books that I’ve had for awhile but haven’t read. This is a little intimidating, but I guess that’s why it’s a challenge! Nonfiction: Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule The Secret Life of Houdini by William Kalush and Larry Sloman Fiction: The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol Christian: Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner Journey of Desire by John Eldredge A few of these books have quite a lot of pages within their covers, and on top of book club books I’m not sure…
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Posted in: books & reading

In Which I Discuss School and Give You Something Funny To Read

March 20, 2007

Last night I had a dream in which I was having a conversation, in Spanish no less, with a hybrid of a puppy and a goat. In the same dream I was also applying to graduate school. I personally think that if I am able to have a Spanish conversation with a puppygoat then I should be able to get into grad school. I am not sure exactly what this dream means, but I tend to lean towards the interpretation that it shows how I am losing my mind due to school. If I ever go a few days without posting, it is a safe bet that I am overwhelmed with schoolwork. I was so happy this morning after the…
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Posted in: personal