Antique design

A for Antique design

A full century is the debate

Some in the arts attempt to halve it

To this alternative asset-loving arm

An antique design is quite a charm.

This post is linked with ABC Wednesday.

Never let me go

Never Let Me Go

  Kazuo Ishiguro

- a novel I am reading for a book club meeting I am attending on the last week of this month. Being 'pop sci-fi thriller' it's not what I normally read but exploring new nooks of genre is nifty. 

Characters of this novel (2005) are children raised in a boarding school in East Sussex, England as clones intended to provide organs for non-clones. A film adaptation of the same title was released in 2010.

Never Let Me Go

Hazel, Delineating Des

 

Baby, never let me go

Kathy sings as she hugs her pillow

Madame watches her and cries

Kathy later asks her why

And Madame replies:

because I see this little girl

A new world she is facing

An efficient but cruel world

But it is emerging

Never let me go

To the old world

The little girl is asking.

This post is linked with ABC Wednesday.

Main course

Write From Karen

For starters, I'd like some milk and whiskey....

A muscle towed my brow upward. "We are talking fine dining, people, and I want you all to go international," I announced to a group of Marketing majors last Sunday. These are what I fancied from their presentation:

1. Red mullet and skordalia (Greek)
2. Salmon sashimi with avocado (Japanese)
3. Braised halibut provencal (French)
4. Chargrilled prawns with lemongrass, tomatoes and coconut (Malaysian)
5. Lamb Steak with tequila and chilli (Mexican)
6. Veal roast with aromatic herbs and potatoes (Italian)
7. Roast mutton with red currant jelly (English)
8. Vermicilli with oyster mushrooms and king prawns (Vietnamese)
9. Somboon crab curry (Thai)
10. Chicken chow mien (Chinese American)
11. Barbecued lamb cutlets with mango and coriander salsa (African)
12. Bulalo (Filipino)
13. Paella vegetarian (Spanish)

Never again will I go to work with an empty stomach.

Megan and Janet host Thursday Thirteen. Click here for more lists.

Bookcase status

One thing I'm trying to control about my reading habit is succumbing to the temptation of buying more books than I can carry in my luggage when it's time to move to a permanent place. The bookcase I got is space-limited, city-ish. My hoarder instinct makes it a major object in my daydreams: ship the contents home when I'm finally through with Bangkok.

header by Samulli; click here for more lists

These are book(s) in my bookcase I read:

...devour more like
1. Harry Potter 1-7 by JK Rowling

passage by passage
2. A Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren

in less than 4 hours
3. Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

to satisfy my curiosity
4. Empty Promises Vol. 7 and other true cases by Ann Rule

to pass the time away
5. Prince Charming: The John F. Kennedy Story by Wendy Leigh

for entertainment
6. The Complete Neurotic by Charles A. Monagan
7. You Don't Say I forgot the author but it's about identifying people who should be credited for famous quotations we know, like some of Shakespeare's lines we think are his but they can actually be traced back to someone else before him
8. Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead but Gutsy Girls Do by Kate White

as insomnia pills
9. Compendiums of Bronte and Austen novels
10. Short Stories from the 19th Century compiled and introduced by David Stuart Davies

because it's necessary and I enjoy them at the same time
11. How to Negotiate Anything with Anyone Anywhere Around the World by Frank L. Acuff; Communication Research Measures edited by Rubin, R.B., Palmgreen, P. & Sypher, H.E.; Anthropology: exploration of human diversity (international edition) by C.P. Kottak

and these are books I'm reviewing for a cousin's 8-year old bookworm son
12. Jesus in Blue Jeans by Laurie Beth Jones
13. Anne Frank's Tales from the Secret Annex by Contact Publishing

Austenuating Jane Austen

Two weeks ago I wrote an essay in a bid for a PhD slot in a university in the southwestern pacific. Just when I was about to send it over, I realized that if I were offered a place, the very topic I built a case on would send me back to Thailand for data-gathering. I didn't fancy that and decided to work on something that will keep me afloat should I face drudgery at some point in the research. Since I have always been a fan of a rector's daughter who was a writing machine at a time when a king's son ruled England, I happily spent hours breezing through massive literature on her. Jane Austen, the name that could launch a thousand nights of delightful observations.

Except for the titles in bold font, I listed them according to how they appear on Literary History. They should help me nail an idea on how to proceed with brainstorming later. If I ever change my mind about the unfinished essay yet again or even abandon PhD for some reason, I know I won't regret the pleasure of this reading experience:

1. Ascarelli, Miriam. "A Feminist Connection: Jane Austen and Mary Wollstonecraft." Persuasions 25 (2004).

2. DeForest, Mary and Eric Johnson. "Computing Latinate Word Usage in Jane Austen's Novels." A description of a computer-aided study developed to identify the use of Latinate language by characters in Jane Austen. Computers and Text (2000).

3. Graham, Peter W. "Born to Diverge: An Evolutionary Perspective on Sibling Personality Development in Austen's Novels." Persuasions 25 (2004).

4. Graves, David Andrew. "Vocabulary Profiles of Letters and Novels of Jane Austen and her Contemporaries." Persuasions 26 (2005).

5. McCawley, Dwight. "Assertion and Aggression in the Novels of Jane Austen." McCawley makes use of the distinction between assertion and aggression from popular books on "assertiveness training" to discuss Austen's characters. Persuasions 11 (1989).

6. Nelles, William. "Omniscience for atheists: or, Jane Austen's infallible narrator." Narrative (2006). On the comparison of the narrator to God.

7. Zunshine, Lisa. "Why Jane Austen was different, and why we may need cognitive science to see it." Style (2007).

8. Ellwood, Gracia Fay. "'Such a Dead Silence:' Cultural Evil, Challenge, Deliberate Evil, and Metanoia in Mansfield Park." Persuasions 24 (2003).

9. Duckworth, W. "Reading Emma: Comic Irony, the Follies of Janeites, and Hermeneutic Mastery." Persuasions 24 (2003).

10. Gilbert, Deirdre E. "'Willy-Nilly' and Other Tales of Male-Tails: Rightful and Wrongful Laws of Landed Property in Northanger Abbey and Beyond." Persuasions 20 (1999).

11. Jones, Susan E. "Thread-cases, Pin-cushions, and Card-racks: Women's Work in the City in Jane Austen's Persuasion." Persuasions 25 (2004).

12. Rytting, Jenny Rebecca. "Jane Austen Meets Carl Jung: Pride, Prejudice, and Personality Theory." Persuasions 22 (2001).

13. Dinkler, Michal Beth. "Speaking of Silence: Speech and Silence as a Subversive Means of Power in Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility." Persuasions 25 (2004).

Megan and Janet host

header by Samulli; click here for more lists

Regency delight and love language

Friday's Fave Five: Regency Period Cake
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Ambience of Banana Leaf
Restaurant dinners continue to be the trend for us this week. Rustic charm has always been a big hit to me and Banana Leaf's got it. Buckets of real wheat, garlic and pumpkin hang adorning the wall. Plus the sweet and sour fish and chicken with cashew nuts and mushroom are a real pleasure.

J Lo Live
This was a gift to me two years ago. Cj is too young to be choosy with scents. He smiles playfully when I spray it on him and I laugh inwardly thinking he is a boy wearing a girl's perfume. This week we both smell the same :)

Cyberbanking
I finally dragged documents and myself down K Bank to register for online financial transactions. Spending only what I earn suits me best as I avoid debts and the convenience of sorting expenses any time of day in familiar surrounding is always welcome.

Music in the air
Whatever happened to the PA system at work? An old song was coming off it this morning. The sound led my eyes to the open gym where members of the ballroom dancing club were practising slow dance steps to You Needed Me. It was an auditory treat to think that this PA normally trumpets off announcements like "those who have INCs in Taxation 101 please proceed to...."

Regency period delight
I browsed sites about Jane Austen, one of my favorite authors, and found this very delightful thing. The post includes instructions on how to create it. Although I'm not baking anytime soon nor am I a huge cake eater, I'm blown by the loveliness of the idea that one day I will come up with this thing of beauty on my table.

Susanne hostsYou can read more faves at Living to Tell the Story

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Mommy Moments: Love Language
Please scroll up for Friday's Fave Five

Based on Chris's Thursday post about love language as described by Gary Chapman, this is how Cj and I communicate our love to each other:

• Words of Affirmation. People need to hear compliments. Simple "thank you" or "you look wonderful today" is important to this people.

Cj always says, "Thank you Mommy" everytime I give him his milk. I also say "I love you, Baby Pooh" constantly, besides affirmative adjectives when he shows me his drawings (eventhough I look like a dinosaur most of the time) or shapes he forms from his blocks.

Once in the Philippines I was curious as to who Cj was playing with outside the house so I went to check. As soon as he noticed me, he stopped playing, put his hand on the back of my legs (that's all he could reach at the age of 2) and addressed his playmates, "My Mommy." At first I didn't realize that he was introducing me to his friends, but when I did, I thought I just experienced one of life's greatest pleasures!

Acts of Service. People receive love through acts of service like fixing the bed, preparing a meal for them or doing a chore for them.

Now that I'm taking care of Cj singlehandedly, I get to do what I never did when a caregiver was around. I would be lying if I said that on top of my official duties outside the home, domestic chores do not tire me. They certainly wear me down but when Cj does what I ask him to do like, "turn off the light, please;" "hand me the spoon, please;" "go to the computer, Ceej and please play a movie," I am thrilled and ready to face another day.

Physical Touch. People need to be hugged, touched, or sit close together.

Cj gets this love in abundance; he responds well.

Receiving Gifts. People need to receive thoughtful, not necessarily expensive, gifts.

Check.

Quality Time. People equate love with spending time with them like listening to them, walking, talking and the likes.

*sigh* As a working single mom quality time seems to be my shortcoming. But I'm working on improving the situation.

Chris hosts

Click here for more love language

Chat snippets

At night when work is done, two old maids chat. These are random snippets from their late night cyber tete-a-tete, which no longer is in this case. This is six weeks worth of observations of the state of things about and around them. Besides disclosures that one is a mama, and the other a medical doctor, most likely you can easily spot giveaways to infer their general philosophy and theorize their old maid status.

Header by Samulli. Megan and Janet have more lists here.

1. My stuttering fingers...

2. I dive feet first... Australia in October ... after suffering and embarrasing myself doing PhD I'd like something lighter like learn how to fly a helicopter and before the luggage joins the cobwebs - PEI: Anne Shirley of Green Gables; Chawton: Jane Austen

3. Happy sabbath, mareng (mareng is slang for matron) ... he probably doesn't know how patrician National Trust staff are

4. You? cry over a guy? no way!... 007 as in James Bond?... and you thought he's in touch with reality....

5. I chatted with Ivan on Facebook. He was looking for you. He said he liked secrets. I told him some things are better left unsaid... I'm glad there's a distance between us.

6. Stolen hours... clueless Florence Nightingale mutants ... a dangerous addiction

7. Neither of us have dates. We could howl at the blue moon during countdown

8. I hope the photos load properly then you can see my Robin Hood's merry men leggings... I didn't have time to buy a camera last night ... we'll just have to bear with my antique camera then

9. My OT was even worse before, 36 hours straight ... I love it here. No deaths, no CPR... would you practise medicine again? I'd love to see you with a steth slung on your neck

10. I miss my lunch hour to get a trim... though I miss my long hair that covered my back acne

11. Little guy discovered the wonders of the mouse... he drew my face on my research notepad, but he misplaced my eyes.... Alright you go lullabye first. I'm watching youtube's Blue Lagoon.

12. I'm getting bookish again; reading at night and doing the sweats... reading a book by a first novelist called Run for Home... I prefer the real book, not the ebook. I just love looking at a filled bookshelf especially if it's mine.

13. Real books have the advantage of readability in the prone, supine, and lateral decubitus position.

Mothering and a New Favorite

Friday's Fave Five: Getting Settled with Mothering

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This week flew by very fast! I mean this fast that I noticed it then I couldn't believe it. Yet it was a TGIF greeting for a co-teacher in the lift this morning. It's perhaps because from Monday to Thursday I was like laundry in a washing machine whirling, soaping, rinsing and finally spinning myself to a blessed Friday while snatching faves along the way:

i. a write-up finally taking shape
It still needs polishing but there it is - 800+ words already and covering almost all points necessary for submission. I strongly suppose Ceejay's full-time stay with me has much to do with its near completion status for I am

ii. getting settled with mothering
Although having to look after Ceejay without a caregiver now (the ex terminated her services) terrified me at first, I am thankful that my struggling efforts to try anyway are turning out okay. I'm sleeping with a baseball bat and there are dinosaurs on the margins of my conference paper; and why is my bathrobe belt now tied to the strap of my purse...? Boys! It helped to have conditioned my mind to be amused, not stressed by all this.

iii. a flower-bordered way
Everyday during lunch break when I rush back to the apartment to check on Cj I have these bougainvillas and hanging purple orchids to look at. This nature display makes for a cheery walk, and a song Mama and her friends used to sing in church long time ago comes alive in my mind, "...in the cool of the day He talks with me, in the rose-bordered way He walks with me...." Somehow it is comforting to me.

iv. Lang and Wise mugs
Things come and go. As I looked into drawers to find replacements of coffee cups that were broken last week, I found my mugs. They depict original paintings; one by Sherri Buck Baldwin called The Herb Wagon and the other by Lowell Herrero called A Family of Felines. Admiring the rustic charm on them was all I did when I was married. They're too beautiful amidst many things that didn't appeal to me. They symbolize what I really want in the long run and I didn't want them used with anything that was the opposite of my dreams and wishes. Now it feels awesome to finally be reunited with a reminder of what makes me happy.

v. our loot from the Filipino store
Being imported, they're naturally expensive but I had a blast shopping! It's wonderful, just wonderful to eat foods from home. Cj loves the cheese spread, Del Monte mango juice and ketchup. I love the entire loot!

Susanne hostsHead over to Living to Tell the Story for more faves

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Mommy Moments: New Favorite
Please scroll up for Friday's Fave Five

Now that Ceejay stays with me full-time, I get to understand his new favorites more clearly. Usually after reviewing and then buying CDs and DVDs I present them to him and just let him choose what he wants to watch and we take it from there. I'm happy he likes Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible. He loves the blowing of horns in Joshua and the Battle of Jericho. I watch it too when I'm not nostril-deep in work.

photosource

He also loves Bugsy and the raining gum balls from Walt Disney Bedtime Stories:

photosource

When I'm preparing his food he loves to 'help.' His new favorite in the kitchen is his new discovery: the knife. His curiosity scares me as he also loves to jump up and down while exploring it. The other day I sliced tomatoes in the bathroom, hid the knife in the tissue box and gave him a plastic alternative from his 4th birthday. The knee situation is from last week when he dived into rough concrete.

When he gets bored with other things he mimics his Baby Einstein art DVD and transforms these into many different shapes over and over:


He tried and liked the mango juice when we were off to a resort town for the new year. We shopped at the Filipino store and Del Monte mango juice is now his new favorite drink: (ouch! imported cans are pricey, Ceej!)

Next week, next month or the next minute we wonder what will our kids be up to. Let's brace ourselves for that.

Chris hosts

more kids' new favorites at The Mommy Journey

The Herb Wagon

Whilst strolling the grounds of St Mary' s church in Scarborough, I was humming "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme..." All I saw though was Anne Bronte's grave in the shadow of Scarborough Castle. Of course Scarborough Fair ended in 1788. Showing up in 2006 was rather late. I didn't get the T-shirt but I got the mug from which I sipped coffee yesterday in the faculty lounge. With Sherri Buck Baldwin's lovely painting on it, moccona has never tasted better.

Sarah J Home Decor

Either you are like me - curious at what's on a painting or fond of herbs for whatever purpose, 'tis sweet of the manufacturer to have contents of the Herb Wagon written in gothic-like font around the mug: (I collect mugs)

1. Lavender, Angelica
2. Lemon Verbena, Ginger Mint
3. Tarragon, Bee Balm
4. Fennel, Lovage
5. Meadowsweet, Chervil
6. Star Anise, Artemisa
7. Marjoram, Chicory
8. Oregano, Sage, Thyme
9. Dill, Saffron, Bay Leaf
10. Sweet Basil, Coriander, Cilantro
11. Parsley, Chives, Garlic
12. Savory, Sweet Cicely, Rosemary
13. Yarrow, Catmint, Sweet Woodruff

Any favorite?

Megan and Janet host

header by Samulli

Something fishy

Seafood was major in my diet during christmas and new year. Foremost was fish. I hopped from one restaurant to another and had them either deep fried with salads or steamed with lime and herbs. Fish was the star feature of the culinary delights I engaged in, but then I'm a regular fish eater.

My

are the fish I ate over the recently concluded holidays. Got anything you like on the list?

1. Silver Pomfret
2. Rabbitfish
3. Black Grouper
4. Sea Bass
6. Australasian Salmon
7. Yellow-fin Tuna
8. Chub Mackerel
9. Nile Tilapia
10. Mediterranean Cod
11. Asian Carp
12. Atlantic Halibut
13. Red-tailed Gourami

Thursday Thirteen is brought to you by Megan and Janet