HIPPIE GNU EAR!

DISCLAIMER: It has already been a new year for ten days, and I recognize that I have been a lazybones about posting. I will do my best to get my act together, starting today.

I feel like my first post of 2008 should consist of lists. I like making lists, and I like reading lists, so, henceforth, you will be reading my lists (AND LIKING IT!). The first list is a list of the lists; the lists follow after the jump.

List I: Selected books I read (and appreciated) in 2007.

List II: A bountiful holiday receiving season.

List III: My 5 most favorite websites.

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List I: Selected books I read (and appreciated) in 2007.

1. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens – I just finished it within the hour and it was quite lovely (give me a break, I started reading it in ’07). Throughout my reading, I was overcome with nostalgia for times I never knew–if only people were so polite and well spoken as they were in Dickens’ time.

2. The Vulnerable Observer by Ruth Behar – This book helped me understand how critical ethnography functions within my own academic life, as well as my daily life. It poignantly grapples with the ethics of anthropology in ways that urge me to reflect on my own purposes, tactics, and the rewards and consequences that follow as I delve into my own research.

3. The Bone People by Keri Hulme – This one really had an impact on me. I didn’t really want to let go of the story after I finished. It’s a tear-jerker, no doubt. It is poetically written prose. I can’t really sum it up very well, other than it’s about the relationships between a cold-hearted independent woman, a gentle and warm-hearted man, and a boy who is as winning as he is destructive (he is also mute).

4. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez – It is an aptly titled book. It’s a quick read at 120 pages, and quite enthralling – difficult to put down. Having read over half a dozen of García Márquez’s books, I was prone to liking it from the start, but it is truly a fantastic tale. I don’t want to give anything away, but read it.

5. The Dot and the Line: A Romance In Lower Mathematics by Norton Juster – This is kind of cheating, because I read this every year… often more than once. It’s a VERY quick read (it’s a picture book). It has not lost any of its value for me, in all of my readings. The Dot and the Line is the origin of my favorite quotation, “There and then he decided not to squander his talents in cheap exhibitionism,” which remains one of the standards by which I live. Another quotation from this book is the origin of my blog’s name! Go find it at the library.

List II: A bountiful holiday receiving season.

The holiday gifting season of 2007 was really good to my kitchen. Some of the gifts my man and I received that will make 2008 a tasty year:

Ice cream maker
Ice cream scoop
Stainless steel mixing bowls
Garlic press/slicer
Dutch oven
Souffle dish
Molcajete
Handheld cheese grater
The Silver Spoon Cookbook
The Moosewood Restaurant New Classics Cookbook
… and a $75 gift certificate to a gourmet cooking supply store

I resolve to put each and every one of these lovely gifts to use as soon as possible. Any recipes to share? Anyone who wants to volunteer as a guinea-pig-taste-tester (I’m no slouch in the kitchen, I’ll have you know)?

List III: My 5 most favorite websites.

I refuse to rank these. They are only in order of which came to mind first, second, and so forth.

a) www.gmail.com – It really is the best email service I’ve ever used. The organization it allows just makes so much sense for my brain style. I love it.

b) www.facebook.com – Being a 20-something, it’s hard not to appreciate it’s value. It is a little scary that the only way I find out about friends/acquaintances getting engaged/married is through the internet, but hey, I like knowing what’s going on in their lives. I use it as much as I use my email, and it gives me lots of joy to be able to display my photographs somewhere.

c) www.dailypuppy.com – Daily Puppy is part of my morning internet routine. A new pup and grown-up-pup are published, get this, DAILY. To look at pictures is not nearly enough to squash my longing for my own pup, but it’ll do… for now.

d) www.smittenkitchen.com – This blog is incredible. Smitten Kitchen makes me drool, almost daily. It’s a cooking blog, but it’s SO MUCH MORE. The photographs really make you want to stick your face right through the computer to take a bite. Deb (the author) does an excellent job of making gourmet recipes accessible for almost anyone. She writes candidly and charmingly about her successes as well as her trials and tribulations. I’m going to keep my eyes peeled for recipes that use some of those new gadgets that are waiting in the pantry.

e) www.emigrantdirect.com – OK, so I’m not great with money. To try to help myself, I started a savings account with an online bank called Emigrant Direct. Their APY is the best in the business: (4.55% as of 1/10/08). Even if I just deposit $10, I feel good knowing I have $10 to fall back on… AND I make some money in the process. Just a little, but a little becomes a lot if I diligently deposit.

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I have a few more lists I’d like to make, but time does not allow. At least I’m back on the map! I’m also planning to do a little re-vamp of the blog itself, to try to freshen it up for the new year. 2008 is gonna be big… I’ll tell you why, sometime soon.

- Emily S.