So Many Books... - July 14th, 2009

11:26 pm - Randomness(es)

Overheard in the street in Dun Laoghaire today: 'Today was a crap day; it just kept randomly raining!'

The idea that today's intermittent showers were more random than usual kind of tickled me. (I bet I wasn't the only person who felt they were anything other than random, as the heavens opened literally seconds before I got off the train in Blackrock, with a 10 to 15 minute walk to the hospital to collect my mother ahead of me.)

Meanwhile, I got what just might be the cutest iPod station (speakers & charger - is this what they're called?) ever.



...having read this article in Utne Reader about why we spend more when we feel sad. I'm still not entirely sure it's saying anything much, except in the ending, about how kids need to be taught from a young age that generosity and altruism make you feel better in the long run than self-centredness. (I feel fairly okay about the purchase nonetheless, as all three of us use this all the time, especially Chief Dish-Washer Younger Daughter, and my listening to audiobooks while cleaning kitchen definitely leads to a cleaner kitchen for everyone.)

Finished Justina Chen Headley's Nothing But the Truth (and a few white lies) last night, and was more than a bit disappointed by the end. I loved the voice for the first bit - very funny confused half Taiwanese half white kid living in a small town outside Seattle, where she feels 'stuck on some infinite teeter-tottter: too-white, too-Asian'. But by the end I felt it had gone in a direction that was much less enjoyable, with a relentlessness to the smart-cracks and a slightly unpleasant it's all about the sexiness (of being smart, hapa, 'exotic') line rather than a meaningful exploration of how race and cultures can clash and potentially be resolved in an individual way. And there was a nasty dose of unnecessary fattist jibes from time-to-time which was annoying. Good stuff too though, and enough about the pleasures of maths camp to awaken one of my periodic longings to study maths again.