"It's raining and I've grown to hate this town"

or something like that. I can't remember the exact quote. It's from a song that someone put on a mix tape for me back in college. Archers of Loaf maybe. No, that's not the band. I'll have to dig up the tape to find out, I can't remember. Anyways. I finished The Ring on Saturday. It's a good book, a little creepy. Not as terrifying as I thought it was going to be. A good read, for sure. I enjoyed it. I decided I didn't really want to read Cold Mountain or The English Patient just yet and went to the library to find a new book. Of course, I didn't have my booklist on me and I could only remember a few authors off the top of my head. I couldn't find anything and came across "The Kitchen God's Wife" by Amy Tan. I remember reading a bit of her in high school and liking it, so I picked this one up. Well, that and I was sick of looking around for a book in the library. I kept thinking "Just pick one, there are so many books here and there's got to be a few you'd like, just grab one!". But, I couldn't just grab one. I looked at a few covers, but nothing jumped out at me. Anyways, I started this one and am enjoying it. I'm going to have to print out another copy of my booklist and find one to put on hold at my library, when I'm about halway through this one. I've got about another week or so to decide what book or books should be next. I think I'll request 2, so that I have a back-up.

I suppose I should type a little about The Ring. Well, let's see. I like the idea a lot. Getting even with society and unleashing a sort of virus that you can infect people with. Intriguing idea, especially since it's not really a sickness. And there is an out, but you have to infect someone else to get your out. Or you can live life to the fullest for the week you have and die a terrifying death. I liked all the red herrings. Since I'd already seen the Japanese movie, I kinda knew what was going to happen, but the book was a bit different so things weren't exactly the same. I guess that's why it wasn't as scary for me. Although, there were a few things that were definitely Not in the movie. Lots of twists.

So far, I'm enjoying The Kitchen God's Wife. It's coming together as a nice story set in the Bay Area, which I really like. All the street names are nice and familiar to me! :)

Well, work is calling to me...

The Joys of Reading

Well, last night a friend came over and gave me more books as a belated birthday present. So, I actually own my own copy of "Kafka on the Shore". Yay! And she's read it too, so I finally got to discuss that book with someone. We actually came up with a lot of theories and conclusions of what we think happened. So, that was really cool. Made me realize why it's my favorite Murakami book. Just so much involved without being too convoluded. And you get to come up with your own theories of what you think may have been going on. It helps that I've read all the rest of his books too, because I really kept going back to "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". There seem to be a few common elements with the two. I like that.

Anyways, I was having a really hard time getting into "Cold Mountain", so I've decided to read the other book I received last night...drum role please..."Ring". It's that thriller/horror story. This is the book that the Japanese and American movies, "The Ring" is based on. So, I'm trying to prepare myself to be scared and jumpy!

It's going to be creepy. More to come.

It's All Politics

I finished "When We Were Orphans" yesterday. Last night I started "Cold Mountain", one of my birthday presents. Yes, I am a nerd, I like books. One of the best birthday presents was books and I also got a giftcard to Borders. Both are good presents for me!

So, onto "When We Were Orphans". It was a good story. Very well written. A bit of a detective story. It's also a very political story of Shanghai and the settlement that Englad set up there. Lots of corrupt people and how corruption just tends to expand and expand. Somehow this family was brought into the corruption and because of a few careless words and whatnot, this boy lost his parents. You find out in the end what happened to them, but it takes this guy years to figure it out and the twist is really great. He's also trying to get to the bottom of everything while in the middle of the war between China and Japan that also takes place in Shanghai around the settlement where he grew up. I liked the naivete of this guy and his dealings with the corrupt and the hierarchy of English society. Even when he thinks he has a grip of the happenings surrounding him, you can tell that he's living in the past too much. So much so, that he misses a lot of the important details happening around him during the present. Most of it is told from his point of view many years later, so he can see all his mistakes and how he really had no grasp of what was going on when he was going through it all. Very interesting. From what I've learned, perspective is everything. A few weeks, months, years later we see things we would never have even dreamed of. Best to learn from all this and try to take it with you, not to dwell on what you could've or should've done. Most of the time we are faced with similar situations throughout life. I guess the best thing is to try and do things differently, so that the same results are not always achieved.

Well, that's all I got for now. I hope "Cold Mountain" is good.

Satan's Little Helper

I finished The Devil Wears Prada last night. It was a great book. Really good read. As I suspected, a lot of it hit really close to home for me. I'm not going to give away the ending at all, but I'll say that I was really pleased. The funny thing is I realized as I was reading it, that most people reading are going to see it as purely fiction and think that there is no way that anyone would ever treat their assistant in that manner. Although, I know first-hand that this is not the case. There were a few instances in the book that I actually thought that her experience was better than mine. And a few times that I actually felt lucky. I don't know it's really a toss-up. I was more lucky in the respect that my co-worker, who helped train me and was with me day-to-day was very nice, understanding and even sympathized with me. She even commented on how nobody had ever addressed my boss like I did, when I got really frustrated with him. I had only a few outbursts and were probably at times that didn't even really call for it. But, truthfully the times that he was really, really awful to me, I was so dumbfounded that he even treated me that way, it took awhile to even process that anyone would treat me that way.

There are a few stories I like to tell of that time, because it really shows how much of a bastard he is. One of the toppers of the list is the time that my nice co-worker was out for the day. So, they even hired a temp for the day to help me out with the phones and filing (I would never have been able to do it all on my own). Well, in the morning ( I was always the first one there), once the temp got in, I started showing him how to use the phones. My boss came in and was in a bad mood and wanted me in his office immediately, even though I wasn't even done putting together his call-sheet or showing the temp really anything. I tried to warn him that me going in there, meant that his phone would be unattended for the time I wasn't at my desk, but he really paid me no attention. I went into his office and he started rattling off more people to add to his phone list and other things he wanted to me to take care of before lunch. I frantically was writing it all down on my notepad and since he had stopped talking, I thought he was done with me. So, I got up to run out and set to my tasks, answer his phones that were ringing frantically, and somehow show the temp how everything worked. As I jumped up, he started screaming at me (yes, his office doors were open & yes, the temp got to hear all of this over the incessant ringing of his phones) that he wasn't done yet and I wasn't allowed to leave his office until he excused me and told me he was done. Then (now here's the clencher) he actually yelled at me, "Who pays your bills?!?" This is where I became dumbfounded. Whose boss yells that at them?? I mean, really. I didn't say anything, so he kept saying it, until I said, "Um, you, I guess." Anyways, after a full lecture of how he pays me and I need to listen better and pay attention and wait for him to dismiss me, I finally got to leave his office.

That poor temp though. The look on his face was a mixture of sympathy, disgust and utter fear. Not sure how I was able to compose myself after that. It was on a Friday and the more I thought about it over the weekend, the more I really, really wanted to bring in my credit card statements, student loan and everything else I needed to pay off, on Monday. I would've marched into my boss' office and said, "Since you pay my bills, you might as well pay them all in full" and then set them all on his desk. I never did that, but it would've been nice.

Anyways, that's my story for the day. I've now started to read, When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. I'll let you know how it is.