not Much to Say

Dear Reader

As anyone reading this silly experiment will know, I recently decided to write a blog once a week. So there I am on Monday, slouching in my chair (a rare occasion few people have ever seen), glaring at the my laptop screen (which is a much more common sight), realising that I had not much to say. Aside from my daily routine, in truth, it has been a rather uneventful week as compared to the extreme hub-bub of the last month. Not that I believe anyone would take even the most mediocre interest in this unextraordinarly ordinary life of mine...

After an undramatic return to university, the only thing marking out Monday in any significance was the fact that I started reading Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire ---->;. It's the sequel to one of my all time favourites from some years ago now, Wicked: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West <---- . Want to know a Secret: I'm extremely desprate to go watch the musical version playing at the Apollo, but I have yet to find some who would willingly go with me. 

Anyway, back to the sequel. I actually didn't know there was a sequel until a few weeks ago, which is actually really quite daft because it's mentioned on the back of my edition of Wicked, right there under Gregory Maguire's face. Who would have thought to look there? So, having borrowed a copy from my local library (I didn't initially think of looking for a sequel there either) I am now about half-way through the novel, doing most of my reading on the tube.

Which reminds me, something I read this morning on the tube had me giggling (and consequently being stared at by about 50 other cramped Londoners): "By force of personality, by dint of their vicious beauty and untamed ways, children tromp into the world ready to disfigure it". I'm not sure why I find that so funny, because I generally find children the epitome of adorable innocence, like many other maternal ninnies. Maybe, because I agree in a disagreeing sort of way; espeacially when Maguire says "Dying in order to live, that sort of thing". I guess there are just some paradoxes in this world that must be agreed with in a disagreeing manner. But paradoxical juxtapositions are a disscussion for another time, another blog. 

For now I must go and have lunch in my favourite campus cafe: Peabody's

Nida

   

Prone to Panic

Dear Reader,

In recent weeks it has crept to my attention that, for some inexplicable reason, I seem to have paltry panic attacks over all the wrong things. Now if I were a good and righteous person (ahem that some people mistakenly think I am ahem) I would have be panicking about significant things: like my dreaded end-of-year exams that are just 'round the corner, or the state of our Ummah, or the condition of those starving on a global scale, not to mention the availability of precious resources and endangered wildlife for my grandchildren or any other such noble causes.

But instead when I panic it's over a clean white shirt fallen off the laundry line and into the flower bed, or missing my train station or milk boiling over onto the stove or not being able to finish a book before sunrise (yes that really did happen). The rest of the time I'm as calm as a cucumber. Actually scratch that last line, it's far too cheesy. Not that I've ever seen a cucumber panic on a chopping board. Come to think of it, I've never seen any vegetable in that state. Okay, now I'm babbling nonsense.

Hazard a guess at what I've been doing when I should have been panicking about my exams. Go on it's not that hard. .............. Yes, that's right, I've been reading. And not even anything particularly productive or enlightening either. What has had me addicted for the past few months? you might ask. Well, with cheeks burning red with embarrassment I admit that I've been reading grossly-icky-mushy guilty-pleasure-y Regency Romances by Julia Quinn.

It began back in December after a particularly boring lecture in Lecture Theatre G (one of the two lecture theatres that always does a great job of sending me to sleep). A good friends of mine, who also shares my passion for Jane Austen, enthusiastically ... forcefully (yes that more like the word I'm looking for) suggested that I read the Bridgerton Family Series. ------->

I wasn't too keen when I picked up my first Julia Quinn. I didn't want to like it and I was only really reading it for my friend's sake ... at first. Yet after finishing the first one I had to read another and then another. Next thing I know I've read seventeen books by Julia Quinn and spent God-knows how many hours doing it. It's not the ridiculously obscenely flagrant romance that occurs in the books that has me hooked. But rather Quinn's hilariously superb portrayal of these imperfect humans and their relationships with families - especially their siblings. Having two brothers has made it especially easy to relate to Eloise and Daphne Bridgerton as well as Olivia Bevelstoke. Furthermore, the heroes of her novels always seem to have a certain vulnerability and it is always intriguing to see how they over come it.

<---- The last Julia Quinn book that I read was What Happens in London (though I much prefer the UK covers). And now I absolutely cannot wait to read Ten Things I Love About You. Lucky for me my birthday is in July, a few days after it's release date, and I plan to convince one of my brothers to buy it for me as a gift - they're both quite hopeless when it comes to presents. But, on the hole, my favourite of all Julia Quinns is Romancing Mr. Bridgteron, and anyone who know me well will know why I like Penelope Feathering so much.

Which reminds me. In my last blog I completely forgot to mention something of vital importance. The inspiration for my style of blogging was in fact Lady Whistledown. And I firmly believe that if she were real and lived in the 21st century, she would have been a blogging sensation.

Anyway, that's all for now. I can smell the chicken-corn soap and home-made garlic bread calling to me, calling me down stairs, waiting to be devoured. It cannot be resisted.

We'll meet again when I can pry my face away from books and panic

Nida

Here goes Nothing!

Dear Reader, whoever you may be...

I have a confession. I never thought of my self to be the type of person who blogs and, to be honest, I have never really been interested in reading blogs or blogging either. So why am I wasting your time?

Well, it all began with my brothers - as much in my life does. I have two (quite an unremarkable number) one older and one younger than myself; being stuck in the middle has not been easy. Both of them had been loitering around my bedroom door comparing the size of their muscles - typical male behaviour, the details of which I'm sure you would not want to know. Anyway, having no other book addicts in my house, I am constantly trying to engage my brothers in some even marginally intellectual conversation.

On that particular day, I was trying to enlighten them to the joys of reading through my own enthusiasm for the book I had just finished. I can't exactly remember which book it was; suffice to say that this happened quite a few months ago and I have probably read over 25 books since then. Anyway, as usual I was babbling on and on and on and on and (you get the idea) just searching, hoping, praying for a reaction on my brothers' semi-listening faces when, about half way through, my elder brother's demeanour changed and he began jumping monkeyly up and down, unable to physically contain his idea (I assure you, dear reader, that is a very common sight within my fidgety household). That is when he suggested that I should start a blog saying that, and I quote, "yeh man, and you'll probably be really wicked at it. It's jus your sorta thing." I'm 99.9999% sure that he only said it to save his ears from future torture; i.e. if I were torturing the web with my opinions and thoughts then I won't be torturing him into sitting and listening attentively to is only sister. After all, there is only so much torture a person can commit in one day.

At first the idea didn't sit with me too well, after all I'm not much of a conformist and prefer to do things in my own uniquely-Nida way. Not that that makes me stand out in a crowd, I just happen to be the sort of person who blends into the background, observing all, yet going unnoticed. Wow, if I didn't know any better that sounds almost espionage-y - not that that is an actual word but, you know, poetic licence and all...

Anyway, so the idea of blogging had infected me like HIV, lying dormant in my brain for so many months. It was not until this evening, when I had finally got around to watching Julie and Julia, that the virus burst forth and vitiated my limbs into action. Of course, being a pragmatist, I know that I will never achieve the fame and recognition that Julie Powell did, but I figured: what have I got to lose. The worst that can happen is that no one will read this. Well, I'm expecting that anyway. In the words of Tolkien "I gave hope to the Dunedain, I have kept no hope for myself."

So that is why here I am, at 11:40pm, blogging about ... well, blogging.

Another confession: I actually have no idea what I'm supposed to be doing. So if anyone actually reads this, please let me know if I have done something wrong, or even something right.

Well, until next time ... whenever that may be.

Nida