Hitorikiri no Book Club: The Story of Land and Sea

My husband loves his coworkers.

He works at Barnes & Noble, which is pretty awesome (despite the minimum wage......), and we've made a friend in one of his coworkers, an English major who loves books as much as we do.

She invited me to participate in a year-long Reading Challenge, the gist of which is reading 40 books in a year that fit into particular categories. Details are here: https://www.popsugar.com/entertainment/Reading-Challenge-2018-44138581

I have finished one book, and expect to get to about 12. Setting the bar low. (I'm pretty sure my husband and I spend more time with our coworkers than each other, aside from sleeping, which there is never enough of.)

My first book was:

The Story of Land and Sea, by Katy Simpson Smith.

I don't know quite what to say about it. I picked it because it was languishing on my shelf about eye level from my bed, it had the word "sea" in it, and I originally bought it on clearance and felt guilty about spending money on a book I hadn't yet read.

It's set in the 1700's, just after - and during - the Revolutionary War, which I found very interesting, as I haven't read many novels in that era that weren't focused on Important People or Important Events (hello, endless books about Alexander Hamilton). The war was a faint background for the real story about normal people, full of drama and tragedy. It was a good book, and well written, I think, but so, so depressing. It left me with a vague impression of what it was trying to say, but also confusion - who IS this story about??

I will say that it knocked out the "about death or grief" category in the challenge.

My next book is Chocolat: "Made into a movie you've seen". Quite the change. I analyzed the movie Chocolat for a college class, so I'm enjoying reading the original.

Anyone have any future recommendations? :-)

A hui hou!

Happy New Year!

It's 2018, and I finally remembered that I had a blog. Some of the intense things of 2017 have died down (getting married, husband moving in, death in the family), and I am excited for what the new year holds!

As long as it's not another missile warning.

Things I am doing at the moment:

-Planning a late wedding reception for family: Our wedding was last-minute for serious reasons, which was good, as we were able to celebrate with ALL of our immediate family, and I am terrible at planning. We are planning a visit home to celebrate with the rest of my family. (And possibly a flood of cousins on the husband's side)

-Adventuring in cooking with allergies: husband developed an intolerance for eggs, our go-to food, and I am experimenting with cutting out inflammatory and/or acidic foods and not nearly passing out from a protein deficiency. On the bright side, I can drink more coffee!

-Volunteering: I volunteer at an animal rescue, and recently passed my one-year mark! Although I don't have much time, I love being able to care for the animals and share my farm skills (goats and chickens), which many of our volunteers don't have. We have been struggling with some behavioral and handling issues in the animals, but things are looking up!

-One month exercise challenge: As a teacher, I sit for most of my day. Even as a singing teacher, I tower over my students, and sitting helps me be at their level. I had a lot of stiffness and pain in my hip, and exercising has helped a lot.

-Continuing in my hula halau: my halau's style is incredibly different from what I was used to while I was dancing and performing in California. We are learning a beautiful slow 'auana song, and I'm slowly starting to remember my hula sisters' names!

-Trying to speak more Hawaiian: for the obvious hula reasons, but also because my housemate teaches at a Hawaiian charter school and is trying to learn herself. And because I can.

-Studying Japanese: I am awaiting the results of my JLPT N2 test that I took in December. 2 is the second-highest level, with a focus on business and formal language, none of which I use very often in my current job. I loved studying, but we'll see if it was enough for me to pass. Meanwhile, I am continuing to study and keep ahead of my super-smart students!

-2018 Reading Challenge: As the husband works for a bookstore, books are accumulating in our house faster than we can read them. My friend (and his coworker), a literature major, invited me to join her in a 40-book reading challenge for the whole year. So far, husband is beating me, because he cheats.


That's way more than I realized! We are definitely keeping busy!

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!