The April Roundup

Hello Bloggers, Readers, and casual Internet-Goers!! I'm back once more to discuss my embarrassingly compulsive hobby, which you obligingly listen to every month. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you just skip these posts. Hmm.

I started the month with The King's Fifth, by Scott O'Dell. I suppose you could call this a sequel of sorts to the novel Zia, which I read last month. It involves a few of the same characters, namely Zia herself, but it is telling the story of a young cartographer by the name of Esteban de Sandoval, who travels with a group of Spaniards searching for mythical treasure of ancient Native Americans. It's compelling in its simplicity, you see the motives of the other men and you know what they will do to get what they want. The interesting part is watching Esteban's character evolve to a point where he begins to make decisions he wouldn't have at the beginning.

Happy Birthday to the Bard

Hello Blogosphere!! Welcome to another instance of I should have posted this yesterday.

To provide a little context to this post, I love writing in iambic pentameter. I'm a terrible poet, (though it doesn't stop me from trying) but I have a fascination with this form of verse. Perhaps it is simply because it was Shakespeare's preferred style, but I believe there's something beyond that. I love the way it reads and the way it sounds when read out loud. How at first glance it would look like normal prose or dialogue, but there's a distinct undercurrent of rhythm beneath the words. I love it.
  So, I write a lot of it. And probably not well at all.
So last night, (being Shakespeare's 450th birthday anniversary) I was thinking about the way I write it and the feeble way in which writers can attempt to emulate Shakespeare, but are always sure to fail quite miserably. It kind of made me laugh, because I think we can get so caught up in imitating an author or a distinct style, that we lose all originality that was ever ours. So this is what came out of it, a humble attempt to make fun of myself. Again.

(I don't really have a good name for this post)

Good Morning!! This has been a pretty great week. I'm still sick and that's no fun, but I've been reading great books, spent a lot of time with friends, and went to training for my new job!! Of course, being sick is not optimal, but it's ruined enough of my weeks this year, and I am stubbornly refusing it any more x)

Being a Christian at Easter-time means a lot of things. This is, to me, the most meaningful celebration of the year, because it represents the time that, not only did Jesus come alive again, but the way was paved for my eventual spiritual birth as well. It's a time to ponder the fact that if Jesus did not die, sacrificing all, nothing about my life would be the same. So it follows that this would be a time of rejoicing in my life, as well as a time of sorrow and realization of the great torture that was borne for me. Kinda puts you in the mood.
  My pastor has been preaching for the last few Sunday evenings on the events leading up to the Cross. On the 6th, his topic was the Garden of Gethsemane and Jesus's trial before Pilate, which I have heard and read for myself countless times. But something about the trial really came alive for me that night. I could envision it as I have never been able to before. These were real men, real words spoken. When I got home, I had to write it down before I forgot. This is what I'm presenting before you today. It may not be any good - actually, it's probably not. But it'll give you an idea of what was going on in my head, as far as I could express it with words.

The March Roundup

Hey guys!! Today - errr, tonight rather - I once again put before you my humble reading list from the past month. I'm sorry that it's coming at you late, as usual. I've been (and still am) abominably sick the past week, and haven't been thinking about posting a bit, quite honestly. It's a wonder this post is here at all. But I did have the mental concentration to start NaPoWriMo on the right day.(namely, yesterday) It's the same as NaNoWriMo, for those of you more familiar with that, except it requires you to write one poem every day, rather than a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. Now I am probably the worst poet in the world, which means none of those poems will ever make it to this blog. But, I did feel like it was good practice, and writing verse often puts me into the right sort of pensive mood for writing. So I said to myself, "Why not?" Also Caitlyn's doing it, and she's posting her work, so check it out!! She's already a fairly established poet, and much, much, MUCH better at it than I.

Anyways, I read surprisingly fewer books this month than I have the two previous months, so it was by a very small margin that I actually stayed on course for the rest of the year. And the books? Here they are.

I Don't Want Adventure

I don't want adventure. I need it. I love my life of figures and equations, where each number fits into its place with no drama or fuss. It is safe. I am content.

But that is not life. Life is mad and uncertain, where hearts are broken and spirits are enthralled by the pure, intoxicating joy of living. Where you are not a figure or a number, and you may never know for certain if you are the solution or the problem. Where you take risks and mostly fail, but get up again because you can't help yourself. Where you are never in control and don't always like the plot-twists. But you learn. You learn to love deeply and wildly, to be angry briefly and to forgive freely. To find joy in the sunrises and shooting stars, and peace in the gentle rhythms of rain. To emote freely and to speak without reservation or fear. To accept that memories will always last, even the painful ones.

A life of adventure isn't easy. But the alternative isn't living at all, merely existing. And I can't promise to always be okay, but I refuse to look back and see that I only lived in the black and white, when I could have been living in the rainbow.



~Margaret

The Longest Day

I know the thought going through your mind right now. This is either a long and boring critique of a well-known war film, or she's trying to be funny by making a reference to ancient pop culture that applies to something in her own repertoire of experience. I am glad to inform you that this post falls under the latter option, and that whether or not you wish to hear, you are about to learn of my run-in with what I like to call: The Very Long Day. Rather impressive, isn't it?

I'm going to recount my experience with the use of italics, because it's more dramatic.

March 18, 2014. 4:39a.m.
I stumble out of bed, half-awake and bleary-eyed, with my coordination skills still asleep. After some hasty make-up application, I climbed into the car with Faith, Claire, and my parents, who were looking remarkably awake for it not being morning. It was a little after 5:00. 

5:45a.m.
We arrive at the hospital. After an unremarkable elevator ride, we walked down a corridor to stand before double doors, locked. Dad picked up the phone on the wall and said, with all the calm of past experience, "Stephaney Carpenter is here to have a baby." 

The February Roundup

I actually didn't realise until just now that I had promised to do this post on the last day of February instead of the first day of March. Which (1. Makes a lot more sense than the way I thought it was and (2. Makes me two days late with this post, instead of just one. Not that that seems to affect me much.

It's kind of ironic, actually. I ended up reading exactly the same amount of books this month as I did last month. Which I guess is kinda impressive, because February has WAY less days than January. Like, three less days.
  Speaking of which, if someone was borne on the 29th of February in a leap year, what day is their birthday on on all the other years?

  Anyways. This month has been insane, and only partly because I read way too many books and my computer has all but prepared itself for cremation. Fortunately, some of the craziness is genuinely exciting at the same time as being intimidating and scary. (We just started the process to adopt a child from China!! Well, my parents did;) In fact, there's been so much going on that I am surprised I found time to read at all. Which, you know, explains why I ended up reading a ton. #LOGIC