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DOOR   ALICE  AT PEACE I've noticed a few days ago that I am at my most thankful lately. I absolutely adore my husband and my son. I am finally living somewhere I love. I am surrounded by old and good friends. I am looking forward to a wonderful new job. I love my new house. I am making tangible progress on the driving thing. I can't imagine my life getting much better than this. PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY  MAKING FACES The trip to Turkey has been quite the growing experience for David. He's learned to go up and down staircases. He's learned to play pee-a-boo. He learned that when you run up and down a room with a metal grate, if you fall, you hurt yourself pretty badly. He discovered playgrounds and slides. He's also started to exhibit a lot more toddler behavior. When you don't give him something he wants, he covers his face and turns his back to you. He crunches up his eyebrows and gives you a look that defines "That's not fair!" He stomps his feet. He throws himself on the floor and complains. He has adopted a variety of faces from "Oh, Come On!" to "You're Mean." Despite the recent behavior, he's still pure joy to be with and poses quite well.  STRAY  REAL ME VS IDEAL ME Many years ago, I wrote an entry about the two-me's. Lately, the idea of the Ideal Self has been on my mind a lot. There have been many occasions where I noticed that my ideas of who I hope to be in a certain situation often get crushed by the real me. The Ideal Me wants to be mature in a situation that might be chaotic and frustrating but the Real Me gets annoyed, acts impatient or irrational. The Ideal Me wants to explain things clearly and without placing blame so we can have a productive conversation and resolve our differences, yet the Real Me gets emotional and can't think clearly. The Ideal Me assumes the best and commits to situations where the Real Me freaks out and makes things unpleasant without meaning to. The Ideal Me is kind and compassionate regardless of how others treat me, but the Real Me gets hurt and angry. The Ideal Me wants to make everyone happy but the Real Me knows that's impossible and often ends up upsetting everyone instead. This has caused numerous problems in my personal life, in my work life, in my friendships and relationships. Most significantly, it has made me feel like I am continuously letting myself down. After countless recent such events, I have realized that it's time to cut myself some slack and to start becoming more realistic about who I am, what I can do and what I'd rather not. With a new job and a growing family, time is quite rare. As I grow older and more responsible, I need to learn to be who I am. I need to learn to graciously decline, even at the cost of upsetting people I love. I know that, otherwise, they will get much more upset when I do something to please them and end up feeling resentful and frustrated. I need to learn that people get over things relatively quickly and those who harbor resentment for not getting their way aren't worth dealing with. I need to learn that there's nothing wrong with the Real Me and that when the Ideal Me starts taking over, I need to pay attention and make sure that the Real Me can deliver the promises the Ideal Me makes. THE ARITHMETIC OF LIFE  I actually read The Arithmetic
of Life before Hardboiled Wonderland but forgot to put it up. Found
this book on the recommendation of the O'Reilly
radar. Within a day, the book went from being around 300,000th on
Amazon's rank to 3,000th. None of the bookstores around Palo Alto
carried it, so I used this occasion to enroll into the Palo Alto library
system and got the book within minutes and read it in hours. I found the
articles interesting and thought-provoking - albeit a bit repetitive.
The writer *really* hates the Congress and makes sure we know it often.
Overall, this book is a great read for those who say math isn't useful
in their daily lives. The articles are short, easy to read, easy to
relate to and even entertaining.
LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA  After having read 100 Years of Solitude in one
day, I was looking forward to reading Love in the Time of Cholera. A good
friend of mine had said that, of the two, this was her favorite and I
enjoyed 100 Years so much that I couldn't imagine how much better it
could get. Maybe that's why, it took me a few years to get the book and
finally start reading it.
I started it in Turkey but I was so tired and sick that I kept having to put it down. When we got home, I took a break to get over jet lag and I finally managed to sit and read a large chunk of it in one sitting, which is when the book got good. Despite its beautiful story, interesting characters and fantastic writing, I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as 100 Years of Solitude. When I finished the book, I did have a wonderful, satisfied feeling, but I wasn't as blown away with this story and I had been with the previous. It wasn't as epic and magical. Still, it was a beautiful story and a beautiful book. THE ULTIMATE GIFT  My sister gave me a Turkish translation of The Ultimate Gift when I was
visiting her. Normally, I don't read these books anymore. Mostly
because I read tons of them at some point in my life and I feel like I
want to take a break from all the advice-giving text. But since she gave
it to me and jet lag was preventing me from reading anything that
requires a lot of attention, I gave it a try. I struggled a lot with the
Turkish translation since it was so obvious that the translator didn't
make any effort to make it sound more Turkish. Some of the phrases were
direct translations and didn't make much sense in Turkish.
The "gifts" were relatively obvious to me but I did like a few of them, especially the idea of the Golden List. Overall, I thought it was an okay read but I don't know that I would have missed much if I hadn't read the book. Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World I truly owe a big thank you to the AskMe crowd for introducing me to this great author. |
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