#178 - let the obsession begin..

i guess i put it off long enough. i'd heard about it and read about it, but i was not ready. or i thought it was silly. but i knew i would become a victim. what the hell am i talking about? ...TWILIGHT! two of my friends had read it, k*spice and nure nezumi. so of course i had to read it. i cannot remember when i had the conversation with my friend about the book but she brought it to me on sunday, i didn't start it that night because i had a feeling i would like it and had to get up early the next morning. i needed to sleep. monday morning i started reading it on my way to work, continued during my lunch break, on the way home from work, heading to the coffee shop, at the coffee shop, on the way home, and at home until i finished it that night. i could not put it down for long. i don't even know what the big draw was. i liked the writing, plot, characters, and of course freakin VAMPIRES!!!

it's basically a high school romance with vampires, i guess. i have always liked but never obsessed about vampires, bram stoker's dracula is one of my favorites but was written long ago. twilight is set in a small town in washington where it rains a lot and is very green. the main character, bella, is a new girl in town who is painfully clumsy. i guess i relate to her in a lot of ways. not to give a lot away but her love interest is a vampire named edward. he is perfect, fluid, talented, amazingly beautiful and did i mention he's a vampire?!

i read the harry potter books in this obsessive fashion and i couldn't put da vinci code down when i started it. i get hooked into books pretty easily i guess. i am a few chapters into new moon (second book of twilight series) but don't want to read it too fast because then i'll be halfway done and in no time i will have no more twilight to read. that makes me sad but i cannot help but just take it all in at once. it's really good!

just one more thing - the movie. i wonder if i should wait until i read them all to watch it. it's playing right now at the kennedy school for $3. how can i resist? i want to know if it's like i pictured. i don't want to be disappointed but i hear it's good as well. i will probably see it next week because i'm just not that good at waiting patiently. i am sure i could get someone to watch it with me but i wouldn't mind going alone too. i feel like i'm always behind the trends. people were reading this last year and seeing the movie when it came out, etc. well at least i am reading it and i will see it soon. better late than never.

#177 - wicked

i just went to see the musical WICKED at keller auditorium in portland. it was awesome! WICKED is based on the novel of the same name, by gregory maguire. it tells the story of the wicked witch of the west from wizard of oz, before and how she became wicked. it's a very creative and interesting idea and gives me a new appreciation for the movie.i read the book maybe 6 months ago, when i learned that the musical was coming to portland. although it's not for everyone, i really enjoyed it. the book is very dark and i wondered how they would make it okay for family audiences. so when i saw it the other day i learned - they changed it a lot. the general plot and story was the same but there were many important changes from the book that i won't go into. i am still trying to figure out if i am okay with those changes. before i went to see WICKED i listened to the soundtrack endlessly and really enjoy all the lyrics and melodies. watching it finally i was able to tie together the songs and it was pretty fun. the acting was awesome as well, i really enjoyed watching the actors.in the original production, idina menzel (RENT) was the main character elphaba. that was one of the draws of WICKED for me, being a huge RENT fan and knowing her voice. although she was not in the traveling group that i saw, she is on the soundtrack.

if you have a chance to go see WICKED, do it! it's a fun musical and story. the costumes were pretty awesome too. i'd totally recommend the book if you are into dark stories that put a twist on what you think you know. it totally gives you empathy into wickedness and you know why she wanted those damn ruby slippers!

#175 - reading books

i like reading books. right now i am on the lookout for books to put on "the list". i also have a list for movies, it's a long one. i've been reading a lot of random things, i read obama's first book and it was real good so i want to read the other one. right now i'm reading "junky" by william s. burroughs, it's about a heroin addict. not something i relate to very much but it's interesting.

so why am i reading all these books? basically, i have a big test coming up. whenever i have big important things to do (like studying) i tend to find other more important things to do. i am reading my own books, getting my hands on whatever other books i can (friend's books) and even reading books i've already read. i enjoy reading and will start any book once or twice to see if i can get into it. if i read a few chapters, 20-30 pages and do not get into it, i usually put it down. and then there are those other books i pick up and read it without putting it down at all, not even to sleep. (harry potter!)

last year i had a list of 50 books to read. i think i read about five of them since i made the list. i got kind of tired of the classics and wanted to read different things, eventually i totally forgot about the list. for instance, i tried a few times to read "ulysses" by james joyce. it is at the top of many top 100 book lists. i just could not get into it. i will try again later.

so basically i want some suggestions for books. my friend is giving me a stack of her books, which includes some on my list of 50. also one she recommends is "a thousand splendid suns" by khaled hosseini who also wrote "kite runner" which i think i liked. i maybe didn't like the ending but i hear this new one is better.

anyway, my posts lately have been pretty lame. no pictures, nothing that interesting, nothing too in-depth or thought provoking. maybe when i'm done with this term. i am having my last school test ever...in 11 days. it's about pregnancy/OB stuff and GI. not really my strongest subjects but i will do my best. i will be "studying hard" the next 11 days....or reading.

#61 - goals

okay so i am not a vegetarian. i just like salami too much. i decided that if i want it i should eat it. life is short! so one night while i was trying to decide what to make for lunches and going over my credit card statements, i realized i was spending too much money. i was living over and above my means. i am not a very flashy person but i spend lots of money.

"we are consumers. we're the bi-products of a lifestyle obsession." -fight club

it's as simple as that. consume, consume, consume. whether it is new clothes, music, food or drink, i consume. i've decided i need to stop that so much. so i made goals. goals for february include a budget, work goals, food, exercise, books and sleep. these may seem a lot but they actually go well together.

budget
let's just say i was relying too much on my credit card the past few months. i've put together a simple budget where the main things:

• $200 - groceries (it may seem like a lot but i love to cook and eat so this is essential)
• $100 - going out (for drinks and food! this will be hard)
• $50 - misc stuff (if i can't afford it this month i'll have to save and wait)
• $100 - central america (been saving that much a month for my trip!
• $400 - rent and bills (why?!)

so a total of $850 in expenses. i could live on less easily but i love to eat and go out so i think this is justified. i won't mention what i spent on groceries and going out this past month...

work
i want to work a lot this month so that i can afford to save and eat well. i'm trying to work 4 shifts a week, which comes out to about 16 for the month. i worked exactly 16 this month. hopefully i can squeeze some extra shifts into this short month.

food
i've included a list of foods to eat every day: oatmeal, flax, 2 L water, salad, 2 other veggies, 2 proteins, 2 fruits, 1 yogurt, OJ, another whole grain, and seaweed. although it might get quite monotonous, it is healthy and can be interesting if i plan ahead. so basically i'll just check these off everyday.

exercise

• dodgeball - games on thursday and pickup on friday/tuesday
• cardio - 30 minutes of interval training every other day
• weights - lift every other day and include plyometrics every week
• rock climb - 30 minutes a week on tread wall

i love working out so this shouldn't be a problem.

books
to read 4 books this month, that's one a week. in order to reach my goal of 50 this year, i gotta do it! i created a little blog for this one called brandizzle reads. the reading is going slow right now, only read 3 this month so i'm gonna kick it up a notch for february.

sleep
i've realized i'm highly sleep deprived by my procrastination and general insomniac lifestyle. i've been sleeping past midnight and waking at 5 am everyday and that is not good. so my new goals are 6 hours on work days and 8 hours on non-workdays. it will be good for me. plus i'll spend less time online.

photography
almost forgot about this one. i started this project called brandizzle 365 where i will be taking and posting a photo everyday for a year. seems like a lofty goal. so far i have already failed because i was too tired to post at the end of the day. i think that's forgivable. i still took a ton of pictures that day. photography is my one form of art that i enjoy and so i am not only trying to get better at it, i am doing it consistently!

so those are my goals. i will look back at the end of february and see if i am successful. i made a chart so i can monitor my progress and will be dedicated to this. it takes 21 days to make/break a habit so if i can do it this month then i can for an extended period of time following. goals are good and i think these are SMART goals.

#55 - reading books

since i was in school pretty much all year i think i only read a few novels (in '07). i can't even remember what i read besides the new harry potter book and where the red fern grows. i thoroughly enjoyed both but read the second just to see if i still really liked it. it was my favorite book way back in the day. i cried like a baby when i finished it this summer. it was still great, but sad. i was sitting by a pool in molokai with sunglasses on. my mom was reading next to me and i finished. she was very quiet then said "are you crying?" it was funny cause i told myself i wouldn't cry. it was just so sad.


from 7th grade to the end of high school i really didn't enjoy reading because we had to analyze the hell out of every book we read. huck finn, great gatsby, scarlet letter, night...usually i didn't really get the deeper meaning and used cliff's notes a lot to do my papers. i don't like to analyze books. i don't really care what the deeper meaning is, or the metaphors. i enjoy a good story. i also enjoy learning about random things and reading cookbooks. ever since college ended i've been a library fanatic. i'll spend hours in there browsing the bookshelves and looking for interesting things to read. right now i've got a dozen books on building green and/or small houses. i'm really interested in housing design, especially environmentally friendly houses. i tend to not read those all the way through though, they are more a reference than anything. i just haven't had time to read a novel with school in the way.

so i decided since i'm not in school i want to read. my goal is 50 books this year. of course i will have one class next term and one during summer. then i start up full time again. but i think i can do it. i spent quite a bit of time looking up popular and classic books to read and came up with a list of 50. it is not all-inclusive at all and will probably change as the year goes on but i think it's a good list. i later found a nice list at the library of 100 fiction classics, 21 were on my list and i read 9 others. the thing about reading is you can read constantly and never read everything out there.

#14 - kurt vonnegut

i'm not sure where i've been and what i've been reading but it hasn't been kurt vonnegut. i did read one book, galapagos, which was pretty awesome but it never extended beyond that. why didn't i pick up the next one and read on, what was i doing?! i was definitely missing out.

three separate guys i know love kurt vonnegut. he is their favorite author. i've never had a favorite author. i guess i'm not well read but still yet i should have a favorite...besides jk rowling cause that's just juvenile. i do like dave eggers but i'm not sure if its because a heartbreaking work was great for me to read. i liked chuck palahniuk's fight club but i saw the movie first, and i read a few of his other books. i enjoyed it but it wasn't mind blowing or even categorizable as a favorite. i like a lot of nonfiction (workout books, cookbooks, nutrition, architecture, house building/design, green design, sustainability) but never really the whole way through in detail. i have a few favorite books but reading other books by the same author didn't really excite me.

now at the insistence of a good friend i am reading cat's cradle. it's awesomely ridiculous, i love it. i know it will end soon and for that i am nervous because i generally don't like endings. maybe that's why i don't read novels. hmm. a couple interesting quotes from the book:

"a pissant is somebody who thinks he's so damn smart, he never can keep his mouth shut. no matter what anybody says, he's got to argue with it."

okay it's not the most substantial quote but so true for people in my class. why do they have the need to speak up in class? to prove how smart they are? we are all in the same nursing class so obviously we're smart enough to be here but they must always open their mouths. a better one:

"maturity", Bokonon tells us, "is a bitter disappointment for which no remedy exists, unless laughter can be said to remedy anything."

ha!
after i finish cat's cradle i'll start on slaughterhouse-five since i've got that on loan from my friend. i like that it's easy to read, funny, interesting, and different.

"what is god? what is love?"