Awesome news!

It's my day off tomorrow!  *Hand flail*  Sorry to everyone who felt like that piece of awesome news was anti-climactic, but for me it really is very exciting after working for six days, especially when today was all sorts of annoying at The Job.  *Vexed Brenna is vexed.*  Mason and I went out to dinner at Bonanza though when I got home from work and all of the tasty food in my belly was a fabulous cure for all of that horrible vexation.

So yes, Mondays are my free day so tomorrow I'm going to lay around my house in my pjs like a bum for the morning before heading off in the afternoon to a) volunteer at the library!, and b) go to yoga!  WHAAAAAT, you're saying?  Brenna is willingly engaging in a class that involves physical exercise?  It is my newest attempt at trying to steer myself away from an untimely end at the hands of diabetes, heart disease, or other gruesome fates people meet when they aren't active enough.  :P  I realize that yoga isn't on the same level at all as going to the gym five days a week or playing sports, but give me a little credit here at least.

I'm actually enjoying the experience though, I find yoga so far to be very relaxing (though surprisingly sweaty.)  Because my right wrist will forever be a tad gimpy from when I broke it this past winter I can't always do all of the positions where weight is put on the hands unfortunately, but the instructors have given me some good workarounds for those instances.  I'm determined to continue going to classes twice a week for at least the two months my Groupon deal entitles me to, and then after that it will depend on my money situation.  I even bought a yoga mat~!  It is pink and has flowers and now I won't have to use the sweaty second-hand rental mats, plus carrying it will make me look hardcore.

Oh god, our house is so dirty.  So so dirty.  >_<  Another result of being employed again, the dishes in the sink tend to pile up... for like, an entire week.  (Also on the to-do list tomorrow, before volunteering and yoga, though perhaps after laying around in pjs.)  We have officially run out of all plates, utensils, and appropriately sized tupperware.  We are horrible slobs.  When I scrounge around in the mountainous pile of dishes capsizing over in our sink for a half-decently clean fork to eat with, I can even feel the cat staring at me shamefully.

Almost two months worth of reading to catch up on!  D:  I may just recap the first half of them now and do the rest later, we'll see how I'm feeling as I go.

• Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
  Set in South Africa, a middle-aged divorced English professor is discovered to be having a sexual relationship with one of his students.  Instead of apologizing and trying to save his job, he leaves his career and city to stay with his daughter out on a remote farm she owns, attempting to reconcile a strained father-daughter relationship that is tested even more so when they are victims of horrible violence.  The story wasn't really what I expected at all, ending up being much more about the relationship between him and his daughter than the aftermath of the scandal at all like I was expecting.  It was a slow, tolling read at times, with too much of what I like to call "flowery" literary writing (he is an English professor after all.)  Meh.  2/5

• Unbearable Lightness by Portia de Rossi
  Model and actress Portia de Rossi's self-written unflinchingly honest and complex personal memoir recounting her public rise to fame while privately battling anorexia and coming to terms with her closeted sexual identity.  This was a great book, I finished it within 24 hours of picking it up from the library.  Portia is a wonderful writer, and the skill and truth in which she delves into the emotions and behaviors of individuals suffering from eating disorders is at times all together inspiring, amusing, and occasionally shocking.  If you like autobiographies, this is a good one; if you don't, then I'd still recommend it to you anyway.  5/5

• The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1) by Stephen King
  The first book in King's well known and highly praised Dark Tower series, set in world that combines sci-fi, fantasty, horror, and western elements; introducing the character of Roland Deschain, the last gunslinger, as he pursues an evil nemesis known as the man in black.  I had high hopes for this one... but I'm sorry, it was just too weird.  That's all I can really say about it.  By the end of the book I still didn't fully understand what was going on or who the characters were or what they were trying to do.  Maybe it's all explained more in the following books?  I don't know, but I can't honestly say I'm motivated to read further on in the series to find out at this point.  2/5

• The Clan of the Cave Bear (Earth's Children, #1) by Jean M. Auel
  Set over 35,000 years ago, 5-year-old Ayla finds herself suddenly orphaned and homeless after her family is killed in an earthquake.  She ends up being taken in by a clan of Neanderthals, a tribe of people both very ideologically and physically different from her own, and as she grows up her presence in the clan is the start of a brutal and dangerous power struggle.  Very enjoyable story IMO.  Interesting characters and fascinating settings and cultures were explored through out.  Being set in the Ice Age it goes without saying that females have little to no social status or rights in this book, a fact that the author repeatedly bludgeons into the readers head to the point of making any woman cringe; however, it serves an important purpose in Ayla's coming-of-age story.  I highly recommend this one.  4/5

• Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
  A popular high school English class novel about a mentally disabled man named Charlie Gordon who becomes a genius through a experimental operation.  The writing style of the book is interesting in that it's written entirely from Charlie's point of view and so the first third of the story is a maze of grammatical errors and spelling mistakes and somewhat confusing trains of thought, all of which slowly corrects and reorients itself as the story progresses and the effects of the operation set in.  The book was originally set in the 60's and so there's a lot of very derogatory terms and treatment directed towards disabled individuals here, so readers beware.  Overall, it was all right.  Mostly, I found the story just very sad.  3/5

• Beauty: A Retelling of the Story of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley
  I love this book!  As I said in an earlier post, Beauty is a retelling of the classic Beauty and the Beast tale, one that I greatly enjoyed when I checked it out repeatedly from my junior high library and still enjoy now.  It contains the perfect amount of magic and romance (but not the corny, make-me-heave kind in your typical romance novel) paired with what I believe is a great take on the Belle a.k.a. Beauty character.  If not for the somewhat lukewarm exposition-filled wrap up at the ending this novel would have earned a five star rating in my books, but even despite that it's a strong 4/5.

That's all for now.  There's still five more books waiting to have some quick summaries and reviews written up for them but I'll include them on a later blog entry.  (You see?  This is what happens when I procrastinate.  The list grows too long and tedious to tackle in one single post.  I must stop being so lazy and post them as I finish reading each book.)

Another con of being back to working full time again: less time to read.  :c  The kitty and I had a good little ritual going where each morning after breakfast I'd read for an hour or two while he cuddled on my lap.  Now Iroh meows sadly as he watches me walk out the door each morning and I try to squeeze in a few pages any chance I get on my breaks at work.  Let me tell you, the break room at work is sadly lacking cuddly cats.  *Sigh*

Sorry for the tardiness in honeymoon blog posting, the return to real life has sort of gotten in the way of my blogging.  *Sad face*  In any event, quick honeymoon cruise recap!

• Friday, May 13th: We discover that our flight leaves six hours earlier than we originally thought it did!  Panic!  Frantic running around!  (Apologies to Mike who housesat for us while we were away, even though I didn't end up having time to clean as much as I wanted to or tidy the bunny room.)  We spend most of the day sitting in airports and airplanes and more airports and airplanes.  Then when we arrived in Miami we ended up being evacuated from the airport because of a bomb scare.  Collapsing into bed that night was the best thing ever.
• Saturday, May 14th: Cruise time!  Met up with the rest of the gang to taxi it down to the port and board the fantastic Carnival Liberty!  *Flash flash sparkle sparkle*  We spent most of remainder of the day exploring the ship and reacquainting ourselves with the smorgasbord of free buffet food that we would be gorging ourselves with for the duration of the trip.
• Sunday, May 15th: Our first port, Half Moon Cay.  The epitome of classic white beach and blue water Caribbean island paradise.  The island is actually owned by Carnival, so literally the only people there were the people from our cruise ship which was cool.  Copious amounts of beach laying, ocean frolicking, and squealing was had -- the squealing a direct result from our first excursion, swimming with stingrays!  OMG.  They're huge!  And awesome!  And terrifying!  Every time one brushed my leg or swam underneath me I squealed with exhiliarating fear into my snorkel mask which sounded a little like "*Muffled scream* *Bubble bubble bubble*".
• Monday, May 16th: Sea day.  As much as I love days at port and going on excursions, I really like the days at sea.  So relaxing.  I spent the entire day sleeping, and reading, and eating, and sleeping and eating some more.  Also, mini golf!  FYI, trying to mini golf on the top of a ship in the middle of the ocean in the ripping wind is very difficult.
• Tuesday, May 17th: St. Thomas.  Shopping, yay!  I scored a new fake Prada purse (pretteh!) that I love from the flea market.  Then in the afternoon we went snuba-ing -- basically like diving but with a snorkel mask attached to a long air hose.  Very cool, except I didn't have enough weight in my belt to actually sink at all, so our very nice diving guide pulled me down by the hand and pretty much dragged me along the bottom of the bay bed.  Wait, did I say nice diving guide?  I meant horribly mean and cruel!  He scared the crap out of me with a fake shark set up along the bottom of the water that I had been convinced earlier was very real.  Yes, I'm just that gullible some times.  =_=;
• Wednesday, May 18th: San Juan.  We went on a tour excursion of the rainforest, which was actually much more enjoyable than I thought it would be.  It's gorgeous up there -- super hot, but very pretty.  Surprisingly little to no bugs either, apparently the altitude and temperature is too high for them...?  (Obviously we need to relocate Edmonton to the top of a mountain so I can stop worrying about spiders and bees.)  I have to admit that despite the good time I had, my respect for the people of San Juan went down a few points when our tour guide proudly proclaimed that the number one sport on the island is cock fighting.  Seriously?  That's sick.  Dear San Juanians: please take up an actual sport like soccer or baseball that doesn't entertain the masses at the expense of innocent animals.  :P
• Thursday, May 19th: Grand Turk.  My first time kayaking!  It wasn't as difficult as everyone made it sound, it wasn't until the last stretch on our way back to the dock that my arms started to feel the strain of it, and mostly just in my shoulders.  It was a lot of fun actually, and the kayak had a plexiglass bottom so we could watch all of the little jellyfish swim amid the reeds below the boat.  The only part I could have done without was when the guide dragged us all out of the boats and up onto a sandy, incredibly hot hill to talk endlessly about the tress and the shrubs and the eco-whatnot.  Oh god, the sun burn!  D:  More kayaking, less eco safari!  My legs were a hideously mottled red finger painting of PAIN.
• Friday, May 20th: Sea day.  More sleeping!  More reading!  More eating!  (I had to make the eating especially count this day as it was our last day on the ship and my last chance to gorge.  Oh food, I miss you so much!)  We also spent some time down at the casino and Mason introduced me to a game even better than slot machines -- video poker!  Well sort of, you're not really playing against any other people or even virtual players, but it's horribly addicting and we played Jacks or Better for an hour and a half and won $12.  :3  *Cackles maniacally over their big twelve dollar payout while actual serious gamblers look down on them with disdain.*
• Saturday, May 21st: Arrive back in Miami and must debark the ship and make the long flight back home.  *Epic sad face*

Coming back home after a vacation is always bitter sweet.  I miss the cruise ship terribly and its maid service and towel animals and balconies over the ocean and wonderful amount of free already-prepared food.  But on the other hand, I was glad to get home to Iroh and Toby (though I doubt they missed us very much once they realized that Mike now provided their food for them.  How easily they forget me.)  I was also relieved to finally have taps running cold water.  I don't know why, but the staterooms on the cruise ship have no cold running water.  The best you could ever get was sort of a luke warm temperature, it drove me nuts.  At times I was tempted to steal ice and cold drinking water from the lido deck buffet just to brush my teeth.

So yes, it's back to real life now.  *Sigh*  This is amplified by the fact that I have finally, after more than a year of freedom, returned to working full time.  Yes, you read correctly.  Brenna is no longer an unemployed bum (sadly, might I add.)  I started work at (insert name of major automotive/hardware/houseware department store here, which I will thus refer to as "The Job" so as to avoid any potential complications if my blog is Googled) this past week -- it's not glamourous by any stretch of the imagination and I'm not wild about being in the land of retail again, but it's a job and it's paying me money and it means I can stop doing the web contract work that I loathe so much.  I've been hired on as sort of a multi-department monkey -- I help with stocking on the floor, and I'm being trained as a cashier next week, and I also do morning deposits some times and will eventually be trained for customer service.

So far deposits are my favorite thing to do, mostly because it's quiet, solitary work off in the cash office for the whole of the morning, away from the noise of the store and all of the customers.  My biggest gripe so far, apart from the fact that it's shift work and I forgot how much I hate not having a steady weekly schedule followed by a customary two-day weekend, is the complete lack of any sort of training I've received so far.  I was fully trained for the deposit part of my job, but as far as my afternoons so far spent entirely out on the floor stocking and helping customers, I've received absolutely ZERO training.  I mean it, nothing. I was given a price gun and assigned a pallet of stock and that's it. It's been five days and I still don't know the procedure (if there even is any) for locating or dropping off stock in the warehouse, I get customers coming up to me every five minutes asking me questions that I don't even know the most basic answers to, and I spend most of my time bumbling around trying to find other employees who can answer questions for me and the customers I'm trying to help and just generally looking and feeling like an idiot.  I've never worked somewhere where I feel so completely frustrated and unprepared.  Will someone please instruct me on how to do my job?

I miss the cruise ship.  :c

So I managed to score my first and only interview so far in the ever-elusive job hunt, a full-time position at a local bookstore that I was super excited about and received a lot of great, positive feedback for from the interviewer -- but I finally got word back from them tonight and it turns out I didn't get in.  It was a really crummy day of stress and anxiety and waiting, and no dice.

It's depressing more so that I was really wanted this job.  I think it would have been a great fit for me and something I could have enjoyed and been good at, and I was still beat out by someone better.  It's pretty discouraging, especially when independant bookshop positions like that are already few and far between.  *Slumps sadly in chair while she stuffs her face with handfuls of comforting chocolate chips*

C'est la vie though, right?

Anyway, on to other things, still book related but less depressing -- that whole concept where I post recaps of the books I've recently finished sort of fell by the wayside, huh?  *Sweatdrop*  Bad Brenna.  Note to self: do better.

Well, the good news is that I've definitely finished a few books since the last time I posted in September (so SO much fail.)  The bad news is that I no longer remember all of them in detail so the reviews are going to be shamefully short this time around (which, depending who you are, may actually be a blessing if you don't usually enjoy reading my never-ending book ramblings.  Well poo to you.  The books don't want you reading them anyway.  They shun you!  That's right, you've just been paperbackhanded. HA.  Get it?  HA!  HA!)

Anyway.  Here's a very quick recap and rating of my last six months of reading material -- the awesome, the ho hum, and the agonizingly awful.

• The Fourth Hand by John Irving
  I just finished this one yesterday, and I almost didn't finish it at all.  A television reporter gets his hand bitten off by a lion while on assignment and through a series of following events sets out (somewhat half-heartedly) to change his life for the better.  Very boring plot accompanied by equally unrelatable and unlikable characters, and be forewarned that the way the author tends to write every one of his female characters will make even non-diehard feminists cringe.  1/5

• Catopolis by Janet Deaver-Pack
  A collection of cat-themed short stories by different authors.  This has been my backup reader for in between books or when I've had nothing else to read, mostly because very few of the stories in it were good enough to keep me going for more than a couple minutes at a time.  Lots of the same recurring themes in each -- magical cats, cats using doting humans as servants, lots of reference to the Goddess Bast, yada yada.  Part of the problem for me is that short stories are simply never long enough to ever feel fully developed for me.  :P  2/5
  
  
• The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
  The tale of The Odyssey, only told from the viewpoint of Penelope; toted for being another one of Margaret Atwood's apparently more feministy works.  (I've only ever read one other of her novels, so I can't really comment all that.)  The book was okay, I guess.  It was entertaining enough and had some funny bits, but lost me a little near the end.  I was a little worried going into it since I'd never read The Odyssey, but it turns out you don't really need to for this version of the story.  3/5

• The Boof Thief by Markus Zusak
  This one was a very good read.  Set during Nazi Germany, it follows the life of a young foster girl who gains an appreciation for pinching books from here and there, in addition to helping hide a Jewish man in her family's basement.  Did I mention that the entire novel is narrated by Death?  The Grim Reaper in this book reminds me vaguely of Terry Pratchett's version, though obviously less hilarious at times and sadly lacking the bacon-greased apron and cats curling around his ankles.  An interesting story style too.  Highly recommended.  4/5
  
  
• Where the Heart Is by Billie Letts
  A pregnant 17-year-old girl is dumped at a Wal-Mart by her asshole of a boyfriend and with the help from some kind strangers-turned-friends she builds a life for herself in the small Oklahoma town.  Meh.  I'm ashamed to admit that for whatever reason, any story set in the south tends to immediately turn me off.  It's stupid, I know, there's just something that I instinctively find boring about them.  This was a pretty slow read at times, and I swear the names for half the characters in this book made me physically cringe at times.  2/5
  
  
• The Fionavar Tapestry: books 1 - 3 by Guy Gavriel Kay
  This trilogy was my Secret Santa assignment for book club.  Five college students from Toronto are transported away to the mystic world of Fionavar, where each has a destiny and role to play in the upcoming war.  The first half of book one, The Summer Tree, was, let's face it, not great.  The concept that I had to finish another two-and-a-half books worth of what I initially was beginning to think was a badly written fanfiction was not thrilling.  But I'll tell you, the last half of that first book really started to pick up and by the time I started The Wandering Fire and then The Darkest Road I was hooked!  I especially enjoyed the way the whole Authurian triangle was woven in to the story, and in places there were some really heart-wrenching scenes.  I wasn't huge at first on the author's Tolkein-esque writing style, but you just sort of get used to it after a while.  But yes, overall, surprisingly enjoyable.  3/5 for book 1; 4/5 for books 2 & 3
  
  
• Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult
  Another classic cookie-cutter Jodi Picoult story that I can't really explain why I am such a fan of.  They're the same thing again and again, but they always lure me in!  ^^;  This time around it's about a family torn apart by the molestation of their five-year-old son, the ensuing legal drama, and without fail twist ending.  I don't know what it is about Picoult's writing, but I just really enjoy it.  The subject matter is particularly disturbing and hard to read at time in this one, but still a very enjoyable book.  4/5
  
  
• Dog Boy by Eva Hornung
  A story set in late twentieth-century Moscow, about an abandoned boy who's taken in and raised by a pack of feral dogs.  (Think The Jungle Book and Tarzan, but set in Russia and replace the crazy apes with dogs.)  I'm a sucker for tales like this involving the unique relationships that can develop between people and animals; mix in a bit of your classic survival against the odds plot and you've immediately secured my rapt attention.  A very interesting and at times emotional read if you're an animal lover.  4/5
  
  
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
  I would imagine everyone's probably familiar with this story about the last lone man trying to survive in a world where a horrible disease has turned everyone else into rabid, blood-hungry vamps.  As a big fan of the movie rendition already, I went into the book very optimistic, but pre-warned that it differed from it's Hollywood counterpart.  Verdict?  To be honest I enjoyed the movie more.  The book tended to drag in some places, especially when Neville becomes obsessed with the whole scientific aspect of the plague; Will Smith definitely delivered a fuller, action-packed, horrorific romp than this original telling.  3/5
  
  
• Geisha: A Life by Mineko Iwasaki
  A personal memoir from a real world former geisha, exploring the truth of the world and traditions surrounding the geisha profession in Japan.  I've always found the Japanese culture fascinating, and it was interesting comparing this biography to popular fictional accounts like Memoirs of a Geisha -- the author repeatedly debunks the Western perception of geisha as prostitutes and popular concepts like patrons bidding for a young geisha's virginity.  For a non-fiction memoir it was an enjoyable enough read, though obviously lacking the emotional drama that kept me riveted in Memoirs of a Geisha.  3/5
  
  
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Car
  Another book club pick, this science fiction story about child geniuses being recruited to train as galactic soldiers to fight against a hostile alien race fell drastically flat for me.  I'm not a huge sci-fi fan as it usually stands, but I found this novel really boring and repetitious, with unrealistic characters that were impossible to relate to or feel anything towards.  The concept was there, but the execution was poor in my opinion.  Bah.  2/5
  
  
• The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror by Christopher Moore
  I've been trying to get my hands on a copy of this book for a year or so now, but it's always out of stock at most book stores (I finally just buckled and ordered it off Amazon.)  Staying true to Moore's typical bizarre and hilarious plots, this one is set during Christmas in the little town of Pine Cove when things start to take a turn for the crazy after a little boy watches good ol' Saint Nick take a shovel to the head; and when an inept angel from on high bungles up the kid's Christmas wish to have Santa come back from the dead, chaos and flesh-eating zombies predictably arise.  Not as awesome as some of the author's other work, but still laughs and deep-bellied gufaws all around.  4/5
  
  
• The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
  The first Hunger Games book was selected for our book club, and I have to admit that I went into it a little skeptical, all hoity-toity and "What's that?  A YA novel?  Poo poo to that, I say!" because a little part of my brain can't help but automatically equate any young adult novel these days to Twilight.  :P  However, that's the part where I'm stupid.  The Hunger Games is really good.  So good that I immediately proceeded to read the next two books in the trilogy, Catching Fire and Mockingjay.  The trilogy is set in the post-apocolyptic, slightly futuristic nation of Panem, which used to be North America.  All twelve districts of Panem are overseen by the Capitol and every year one young boy and girl are selected from each to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death broadcast live on TV.  The trilogy centers around sixteen-year-old Katness Everdeen when she volunteers to take her little sister's place in the games.  It's an awesome series, I highly recommend it.  4/5
  
  
• The Way of Shadows by Brent Weeks
  The first book in a fantasy trilogy about a poor street kid named Azoth from the slums who apprentices himself to the most renown and dangerous assassin in the city, Durzo Blint; turning his back on his old life, he has to embrace a new identity and name as he learns to cultivate a flair for death.  The story sort of flip-flopped between being really entertaining and really dull.  It sort of feels like you're thrown head first into the author's world without warning -- lots of terms and slang are never really explained fully, and it doesn't help that the plot is a convoluted tangle of characters, politics, and scheming that are hard to all keep straight.  I still haven't decided yet whether I'll be delving into the rest of the series or not.  3/5
  
  
• Let the Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist
  I picked this book up after seeing previews for the newest movie rendition of the same title, and trust me, this is one of those cases where the book is infinitely better than the movie.  It takes place in Sweden where a young bullied boy named Oskar happens to befriend the neighbor that moves in beside him -- a little girl, who unknowingly to Oskar, just happens to be a vampire.  (Only without all that prissy sparkling and much more blood.)  If you're a fan of (real) vampire stories, this is a good pick with a unique twist on the monstrous legends.  Be warned though that there's some pretty disturbing and gruesome content here as well, and it's not just restricted to the bloodsucking fiends.  4/5
  
  
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
  A penniless young man lucks out during the Great Depression and finds a job with a traveling circus where he falls in love with the lead star of the equestrian act (which puts him in a dangerous position considering who her husband is) and forms a bond with the circus' newest attraction, Rosie the elephant.  To be honest I can't remember a lot of details from this book, but I do remember that I enjoyed reading it.  Apparently they're making a movie out of it which, like most movie adaptations, will probably take a good story and rip it all to shreds.  4/5
  
  
• Bloodsucking Fiends by Christopher Moore
  Another quirky Christopher Moore concoction about a woman who wakes up in a dirty alley dumpster with a sudden hankering for a good bite.  (Ha ha, I see that pun you just made there, ho ho.)  That's right, she's a vampire!  And the moment she walks through those sliding doors, a certain grocery night clerk's life will never be the same.  Like all Moore's stuff, this is a great book to pick up if you're gunning for a funny read.  (Honestly, there's not much by him that I don't thoroughly enjoy.)  4/5
  
  
• The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
  When the narrator of this story, a drugged-up, morally ambiguous porn star, gets into a life-changing car crash in the opening chapter he suffers from horrific burns over most of his body and the end of his former life and livelihood.  Lying in the hospital burn ward, he meets a bizarre and compelling woman who insists that they were once lovers in a past life he has no memory of.  Over the course of his recovery, she spins the tale of the man he used to be.  This was am enjoyable enough book that jumps around in time a bit; a little slow in some parts, but really engrossing at other times.  Some of my favorite chapters admittedly didn't even have anything to do with the plot itself, but were sections where the book went into detail about the narrator's recovery process and burn treatment (because for some reason I'm weirdly interested in stuff like that.)  3/5
  
  
• Carnivores of Light and Darkness by Alan Dean Foster
  Ugh, I'm sorry but I couldn't finish this one.  This was actually my second attempt at making it through this book and I just can't.  It's apparently the first in a series about a herdsman from an isolated tribe that makes a promise to a dying man he never knew to rescue a woman he has never met.  He proceeds to set out on this bizarre quest and that's where the story gets a little intolerable.  It's weird, the only thing I can compare it to is an early morning cartoon -- the story is a never ending repetition of the same thing: tribesman walks a bit, he stumbles upon someone who needs his help, he solves the problem or defeats the antagonist of the day, and then moves on again.  Ta da!  *Repeat over and over*  It's as if the author didn't have any actual plot to fill up the book with so he substituted it instead for a bunch of mini guess-the-moral-of-the-day shorts that don't actually do anything to help move the story along at all.  Blaaaaah.  1/5

There.  Whew.  I'm definitely going to try to keep on top of this better in the future so as to avoid another two dozen book pileup.  :P  I should probably go to bed now so I can wake up tomorrow and once again continue the job hunt.  Blarg.  =_=

Mood: Mmmm... cake...

Tonight was my first St. Albert Library volunteer shift upstairs shelving magazines. I know that sounds really very "big deal, so what", but it was very exciting. When you've previously spent all your time working on the main floor sorting paperbacks and DVDs the second floor feels like a significant promotion for some reason. (It's where all the big boy books live! First the hardcovers... THEN THE WORLD, MUH HA HA HA! Yeah, I don't know.) I also spoke to the volunteer coordinator regarding if there were any job openings coming down the pipeline, and apparently they may have a casual page position opening up some time soon that current volunteers will get first crack at. The hours wouldn't even really qualify as part-time, but it's still the most positive news I've received yet in my job hunt and getting in just a couple of paid hours here and there would at least put me in the running finally for when a more substantial position opens up.

This past week I've been doing some pro bono work designing a site for a LAN party startup company Mason and I are helping out with, and it's the first time I've actually enjoyed doing web design in almost two years. This is probably directly related to the fact that: a) I have 100% free reign over the whole thing and am not dealing with frustrating clients, and b) the design is centered around one particularly rad velociraptor motif. Everyone knows it's a proven fact that raptors make everything more awesome!

Other than that, I've been spending a lot of time arranging appointments for wedding related to-do's and passing any spare moment anxiously awaiting more RSVPs to come in. It's taking an excruciatingly slow time. Everyone should have received their invite by now! Why do I only have 54 replies so far? T-T Let's go, people! Don't you know there are very important seating charts to be mapped out?!

Finally, since it's become increasingly clear that my chances of scoring an entry-level library job without a proper education is not very high, I may or may not be applying back to school this fall for the Library and Information Technology program. At the very least it's been taken under serious consideration and I'm planning on attending another information session at Grant MacEwan later this month to ask some questions and smooth out some details. It's kind of exciting but also very daunting at the same time... :x More info on that once I know more.

And now... to eat cake.

Mood: A little less pathetic.

Well, sort of. Kinda. Not really.

My cast came off a couple of weeks ago, so I'm significantly less gimpy than I was last time I posted, but not 100% gimp free yet. While it's great that I can finally do things like write and type properly again, and use two hands for tasks like washing dishes and cooking, my wrist still has a ways to go. I have about half the movement and strength in my right wrist as I used to so it can only do so much still, and some times I accidentally put too much weight on it or jar it in some awkward way and that causes all kinds of not pleasant sensations. Currently I'm going to physio twice a week and it's definitely helped, but I was hoping to have had better progress by now. We'll see how it goes.

So we're half way through January now and I'm starting to take the time to do yet another revision of my resume and cover letter to format it for non-library related inquiries. These past months have been incredibly disappointing on the library job front. I suppose I was naive to think that it would be easy to eventually get in as an entry level page, but I never thought it would be this discouraging. Where I used to be optimistic and excited any time I applied for a new position, I'm now frustrated and anxious, and it's hard to keep a positive attitude now while I'm expanding my search into other areas and fields of work once more. Depending on our financial situation after the wedding, I may need to bite the bullet and enroll in some more schooling. The priority now though is to find something at least temporary until then.

On a more upbeat note, I was thrilled to read last week that the family-owned Paradise Pets store in St. Albert has taken a giant leap forward and made the decision to stop selling dogs and cats from breeders. Instead they're partnering with various rescue organizations in the Edmonton area to use their storefront to adopt out animals in need. It is such a positive step in the right direction and I'm immensely proud of them for taking the initiative to do so. I can only hope that some of the bigger pet store chains will see the value in this move and make the same change. It's positive media attention for the pet stores, it helps ease the burden of the rescue organizations, and it makes healthy adoptable animals more accessible and promoted to prospective pet owners. Everyone wins. (Well, except the breeders but I don't much care about them.)

Also, I've never been so excited for movie documentaries! National Geographic's The Last Lions is coming out in February and it looks beautiful. PLUS, it's narrated by Jeremy Irons! My brain just exploded with awesome! XD In addition to National Geographic's production, there's also Kevin Richardson's project, White Lion: Love is a Journey I want to see; as well as DisneyNature's African Cats. It's a good year for lions~