Oh man, oh man, oh man!!!

I'm totally swamped with the work load they are just pouring endlessly on top of all the teachers at the academy. Though, it is a relieve that we finally hired a new teacher so we are actually getting less hours this month, phew! But since we are changing the whole curriculum and getting a whole new students, there's a lot of work to be done. Consulting so many students, about three times a month. It's so overwhelming that I'm going crazy trying to figure out what day it is and when it was the last time I checked my email and went online to write something on my blog..

I still have to figure out the application that I need to fill out sometime soon.. and the test I need to take...
Damn!
I need to figure out something soon or I am going to go cuckoo!

"In the Company of the Courtesan" by Sarah Dunant

Title: In the Company of the Courtesan
Author: Sarah Dunant
Publisher: Random House (Hardcover)
Page: 371

My Rating: 5

Finally finished reading this wonderful book! After reading her other book "The Birth of Venus" I knew this would be another wonderful story and yes, it turned out to be right. It was fantastic, I absolutely loved it!

It's a story taking place in 16th century (Renaissance), first in Rome then to Venice... this was an intriguing book since I haven't read any book, well at least to my knowledge, on courtesans. I think I have seen movies but that also could be a mix-up. Anyhow, loved how the story was outlined. I loved the two main characters though I have to say I loved the narrator much more. It had it's twist and turns.

A partnership that does go so well like needle and string, however they do have their ups and downs. And La Draga a very interesting character in the novel, it would have been very different without her part.

The language that is used in the book is somewhat confusing since sometimes it's a bit to modern and somewhat vulgar at times and it does make me wonder if they really did use such language back in those days.

However, all in all, it was an excellent book and I did love the story that she laid out for us to picture in our minds.

I'm actually thinking of getting her other books, I think it's the private investigator Hannah Wolfe series. We'll see about that.


Some excerpt from the book
"... the more successful they are, the greater the danger: for, once life is comfortable, there is nothing to fear, nothing to fight for. Which means in turn that there is nothing to look forward to. Which, in a strange way, can make one think more keenly of death and yearn for some way of standing out against it, some hunge for an extravagance of feeling bigger even than death itself."

"... all fever has exhilaration inside its delirium, and fire consumes more than it warms. In the end there will be only ashes..."

"It is not what you might find there that scares you. You are too clever to enjoy the contempt that is shown toward you here and your appetite is, I think, too big to be agraid of new things. No. I think it is the sadness of who you would leave behind that stops you."

October 14th Meeting!

Book : "In the Company of the Courtesan" by Sarah Dunant
Attendees : Liz, Kasia, Susan, Aaron, Catherine, Karen, Maggie, & moi

We had an excellent meeting yesterday, even though there were people that didn't finish the book completely.
4 new members(Aaron, Catherine, Karen, & Maggie) joined us on that day and our discussions were very dynamic, also thanks to Liz reading out the discussion questions. Since this book was our last book we also decided upon our next few books and couple of dates to go along with it.

The books we've decided on for our next meeting, which will be held on November 4th, is "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer. The next meeting after that will be on November 25th and the book we'll be discussing is "The Master and Margarita" by Mikhail Bulgakov. And the book after that is "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini. We haven't come up with a date for this book yet, but it will be sometime early December.

After the discussion we went down to Kyobo bookstore, did some book shopping and went to grab something to eat at Dos Tacos. It was a wonderful meeting and I hope everyone will show up on the next as well!

a day at "What the Book"

October 3rd, 2007
I met up with Liz to have lunch at Buddha's Belly and after we satisfied our appetite we headed for 'What the Book'. Now, since I forgot to organize my books and sort out the ones that I didn't want and bring in for the trade.. I just went up and put our new ad up on the board!!! Whoopy! Doesn't it look great? Well, had to shift some ads around since the original ad was just a piece of paper from my notepad and it didn't take as much space as this one.. but it looked good..
Anyhow, you all should have seen the original. It was printed out on a glossy paper so it looked all professional. Hehe~
Well, So there it is.. whoever is interested in the club will hopefully see it and have the courage and enough interest to contact.

Delicious Library~!!!

I have finally completed uploading my books on the computer. Yuppie!!!!
Yes, I bought this program called the 'Delicious Library' and scanned the bar codes of all the books I own.. (well, almost all of it) and organized it. It's just so superduper!
It really makes my work a whole lot easier... I had catalogued all the books that I owned on an excel file and somehow it got erased some while back. I was planning to do that again but since it was so time consuming I had to wait till I actually had the time to organize it.. now, I don't even have to bother but just scan the book and voila! it's already done!
Thank goodness for whoever thought of this the first time!

Back to WORK!

Yikes!!!
My second day back to work.. and I'm so swamped!!!
They still weren't able to hire new teachers so we're the ones who take the burden.
It felt so great to be able to have the whole week to do things that I wanted to do and not care about the work.. but all that's done with and now it's time to get back to work..

Lots of work actually..
Damn.. these contact lenses are really bugging me.
It's giving me a major headache and I didn't bring my case and glasses with me.. =(

4 AM!!!

and I'm still awake..
yup... I just can't seem to get to bed early..
seriously, how can I change this around so that I'll actually sleep a little earlier and get some more sleep.
Good thing it's a holiday tomorrow.. and good thing I have this whole week off to try change my time table around..

ok Really got to go and get some sleep...

being awake won't change anything!

"In Their Shoes" Challenge

I got to know about this challenge called "In Their Shoes" through Bybee. It starts beginning of next year until the end of that year and the challenge is to make a list of books related to memoirs, biographies and autobiographies and read it.

It's something different to do.
And it's also a good thing since I don't read that much biographies unless it's absolutely necessary.
So I've been thinking about what to read.. which ones to choose.. Because I'm not a fast reader even though I'd definitely love to be one I think it's safe to choose between 5~10 books..

Here are some that I'm thinking of... (for now)
1. "Song of Survival" by Hellen Colijn
2."Jane Austen: Her Life and Letters" by William and Richard Austen-Leigh
3."Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert
4. "A Beautiful Mind:The Life of Mathematical Genius and Nobel Laureate John Nash" by Sylvia Nasar
5. "Maria: My Own Story" by Maria von Trapp

I also want to read something on Audrey Hepburn but I can't choose which book to read... any suggestion?