Liminal Thinking: aka Think Outside the Box!

Boundaries give life structure, which makes us comfortable. But they can also be shifted, rethought, reframed, and reorganized.

Liminal Thinking by Dave Gray

3 stars/5 stars

What’s this about?

Essentially, Liminal Thinking is a new name for an old concept. It revolves around the idea that people live life through a fairly narrow perspective, which is dependent on how we were raised, what we perceive, and what we believe.

All our lives are happening in a shared world, but different people can come away from one situation with an entirely different perspective. We have to talk to one another to expand our understanding of what reality is, and even then, we’ll likely never have all the pieces.

My favourite part of the book discusses how these perspectives are formed, and how an Obvious Thing to me may be completely different to you. Essentially, it comes from the fact that reality is so vast, but our attentions are so specific (that pesky survival necessity), that we miss a lot of information in our environment. We then develop beliefs based on the little things we pay attention to, develop theories, beliefs, and judgements, and they become so ingrained into us that it is now an Obvious Thing.

Nevertheless, we may never change because we’ll defend our beliefs and close our ears and minds to any thoughts that go against it.

elephant

Drawing from Liminal Thinking

For example, Obvious Thing for a blind man in front of the elephant is that the elephant is small and skinny. Obvious Thing for blind man at the side is that the elephant is massive. We are all these Blind Men, but by questioning our beliefs, we can get the whole elephant (picture!).

This book teaches us how to change our perspectives, and consequently our lives. It’s a powerful idea. With it, you’ll deepen your understanding of why you are the way you are, and how you can pick it apart to change into someone else. Someone better.

My thoughts

When I was in school, I got to leave my class every other week for one day to participate in a special program, where the teachers taught us to think outside the box. We essentially got to do brain teasers all day, and often times I would get stumped by a question, only to laugh at how obvious the solution was.

Why was that?

I was way too focused and stuck on trying to use old solutions that worked with old problems, and trying to apply them to new problems.

Similarly, liminal thinking is all about letting go of your habits and beliefs. This is tied to our identity, which most of us will fight tooth and claw to hold onto.

When you are doing everything you can to fulfill an unmet need, and you are not having success or feeling any traction, you look for reasons.

Something must be blocking you.

What could it be?

It’s not about discarding our beliefs completely, but about being willing to question them, try something new, and changing what needs to be changed. This is the hardest part because as you get older, the more inclined you are to become set in your ways.

For instance, I’m trying to be more environmentally conscious as well as minimal, by making conscious decisions about what I buy and what kind of things I need to buy. This is incredibly hard though because I’m used to buying what I want, when I want it. The idea of having to wait, especially with the instant gratification that Amazon provides, was horrible to me. But when I started actually looking at what I threw out, like packaging, I started seeing how much waste I produced just from buying things.

Things that I didn’t even need!

I wasn’t even recycling because my apartment only recycles cardboard, which meant all the metal, glass, and plastic was being dumped down the garbage chute along with the paper I wasn’t bothering to bring out. I know, this is why the planet is dying (I kid, it’s a lot more complicated than that, and if companies could just start caring and implementing the milk man model for all the STUFF we use in our lives, we’d be able to reduce a lot of waste). Basically though, actually think about what you do every day that feels normal and natural.

If you’re a makeup wearing girl like me, you probably use cotton rounds to wipe it off every night, or to apply toners. Do you really need to use cotton rounds every day though? Can you just buy reusable cotton rounds and use those? The answer is yes, but it took me a good 8 years before I even thought about it. I had never thought about the fact that I could just find a reusable alternative.

Anyways, back to the actual REVIEW (got side tracked there), the book has some nice examples of people who made Big Changes by doing things different. There are also exercises at the end for how you can evaluate your life and finally accomplish the Big Goal that you’ve always wanted. This comes in the form of 9 Practices that anyone can incorporate into their life.

Now, do I think there’s some great ideas in all that? Yes, but they’re ones I’ve been taught over and over again in school because you innovate and do great things when you’re able to do something different and are willing to test out ideas, good and bad.

So why not five stars? My issue is that this isn’t a new concept. There’s an explanation for what “liminal” means, essentially being on the threshold of a new perspective, and being willing to step through the door to explore it.

A new way of seeing the world—and yourself—opens the door to change and growth.

I therefore don’t really think this is necessary reading. It’s nice as bit of reinforcement if you’re on a self-help, change-my-life-because-I’m-done-school-and-don’t-know-what-to-do-next journey like I am, but you can get the information anywhere. You’ve probably already heard of all this as well.

Final Thoughts

It’s not easy to change your life. A big part of us will resist and struggle against it, but if you can see a door instead of a wall to Future You, then you can do it.

What are your thoughts? Do you have any goals you’d like to accomplish, but need a shift in perspective to achieve? Let me know down below!

The Financial Diet: When they say beginner, they mean beginner

“Saving money isn’t about depriving yourself. It’s about deciding you love Future You as much as you love Today You.”

The Financial Diet by Chelsea Fagan

3 stars/5stars

Quick Recap:

The Financial Diet: A total beginner’s guide to getting good with money by Chelsea Fagan is a guide to managing your finances by getting a better grip on your lifestyle. The book is divided into seven sections on making a budget, investing, career, food, home, love, and action. Each chapter starts off with some of Fagan’s thoughts on how to save money in relation to the theme, moves on to some tips and tricks, and a couple of interviews from accomplished people. There’s kind of an assumption that you’ve picked up this book because you’re a Hot Mess too. Or at least, the personal stories come off that way, which can get kind of jarring.

“I was once fired at twenty-one from an upscale coffee shop because I called to get out of a shift at 4:45 a.m. still drunk after a David Guetta concert.”

If you do want to start saving the money you earn, and not see it disappear every month to pay off who-knows-what since you’re kind of an impulsive spender and are currently pretending your credit card is fake money (You’ll take care of it later, but You later isn’t someone You-Now really care about), then this is the book for you!

If you’re actually ok with living on your own, I’d say skip this book and check out The Financial Diet videos on Youtube first because the content seems to be essentially the same, just broken up in smaller, easily digestible, videos.

My Thoughts:

The book, to me, is aimed at people who are really just starting their careers and lives independent from their parents.

There was some pretty sound advice here. You need to set a budget, and stick to it. I grew up with a mom who always discussed budgeting and money openly with me, so calculating where my money was always a part of my life. I’d imagine anyone else who has to pay for all their living expenses just has to do this. Our lives are definitely not anything like Confessions of a Shopoholic by Sophie Kinsella (I absolutely adored the book and movie before I actually moved out). You should also learn how to fix things in your home, as it’s not only good, transferable skills, that you’ll need throughout your life, it’ll also save you a ton of money.

The investing and career chapters though? I know absolutely nothing about investing, but unfortunately this being an American based book meant that it doesn’t fully translate to what we have here in Canada. The whole section on career as well was useless for me, unless you do want to get into freelancing or if your career isn’t in a regulated profession. Mine is, so the advice fell pretty flat for me.

I hopped around to a new city, and then a new country, to find a place where my budding professional reputation wasn’t somewhere between “unwieldy but talented” and “legal liability who should be escorted out by security.”

Moving around that much is pretty expensive? No? I would think anyone who’s thinking about money isn’t going to be so reckless with their jobs, since they need it to, you know, SURVIVE.

Anyways, moving along to the entire Food chapter. What was that? For a book on money, it was devoted to recipes and knowing how to cook for yourself. Pretty easy stuff right there, if people don’t prepare and serve you your food, you save money. Because of the lack of advice given in the chapter, it’s consequently is bulked up with some recipes, that while nice, seemed out of place in a book that’s supposed to center around money.

“going out or ordering in is, without exception, a treat”

Since I pretty much fit that demographic that orders out too much, I thought that was sound advice. That’s essentially what this book seems to be, one of those listicle type articles of 10 Things That Changed My Money Habits, except it got stretched out into a whole book because of the interviews and actual lists, with bits of content at the beginning of every chapter.

Final Thoughts

I’m currently absorbing all the tips and tricks on being fiscally responsible, as well as independent, from Youtube, Podcasts, and the millions of self-help articles and books out there. Honestly, since it’s such a small book, I would say check it out if you’re just starting off, since you’ll be done it quickly enough and there’s some nice information there.

I would encourage you, though, to look into other concepts. Like minimalism/low impact living. These concepts will not only (in my humble opinion) make you a more conscious and environmentally friendly person, but they’ll also help you save money. There’s a ton of amazing content creators (lifestyle gurus?) out there that have encouraged me to start my own journey to be aware of what’s in my life. Marie Kondo, who I’m sure everyone has heard of by now, also has a place in this whole conversation of money and the things we own.

Some Recommendations:

Podcasts:
- Millennial Money
- How to Money
- Mo’ Money Podcast
Youtube channels:
- A Small Wardrobe
- Elizabeth Grace
- FemmeHead
- Matt D’Avella
- Pick Up Limes
- Sustainably Vegan
- Sedona Christina

Do you guys have any recommendations for saving money? I’d love to hear from you 🙂

Educated: Started from the bottom, now we’re here, and we wash our hands

“why would she see a doctor when Mother could give her tinctures?”

Educated by Tara Westover

5 stars/5 stars

Quick(ish? Not really) recap:

The book opens to Westover as a child, in the mountains of Idaho, acknowledging that her family is different. Not different, as in they like to extravagantly decorate for Halloween and turn their home into a haunted house, but as in they’ve chosen to homeschool their children and don’t believe in modern medicine.

Somehow this extends to not believing in basic hygiene, where the children aren’t taught to wash their hands after going to the washroom.

“You should always wash your hands after you use the toilet.”

“It can’t be that important,” I said. “We don’t even have soap in the bathroom at home.”

That’s just a little (a lot!!) disturbing, but it’s just the tip of the ice burg with how distorted things get. Horrifyingly, the mother decides to become a midwife and participates in a number of births.

If anyone’s not aware of the history, puerperal fever was a serious illness that occurred to women after giving birth because doctors would go from examining dead bodies to helping women deliver their babies. They wouldn’t properly disinfect their hands and would spread the germs. So, if the author’s mom doesn’t even believe in washing hands after using the washroom, I can only hope that she did wash her hands as a midwife. There’s a reason why health care providers are regulated, and it’s scary to think of all the women who could have seriously been hurt because of her lack of knowledge.

The family also eventually stops reporting the births of their children to the government and four of the seven children don’t have birth certificates. The mother barely remembers Westover’s birthday, and they’ve gotten it narrowed down to sometime in September.

Sometimes I wished Mother would give me the phone so I could explain. “I have a birthday, same as you,” I wanted to tell the voices. “It just changes. Don’t you wish you could change your birthday?”

Now, this is never explicitly discussed in the book, but I think it’s really interesting how on the one hand, we have this American family who actively chooses not to be citizens of the United States, but they easily get proof of it when they decide to. Do the kids have proof of who they are? Not really, but these other Americans (their grandparents I believe) can write affidavits and BOOM. Birth certificate. BOOM. Passport. At the same time, there are countless undocumented immigrants and people who would love to properly and formally become citizens, but they can’t. Now I’m not familiar with the legal process, but it just seems unfair.

As Westover grows up, she learns to question her own beliefs and is able to separate herself from the lessons learned in her upbringing.

Essentially, this is about growing up and believing in your parents, to becoming a fully individualized adult with your own opinions and making a life of your own.

My Thoughts:

There’s a lot of stories told that seem almost impossible.

Miracle 1: One brother accidently sets himself on fire and gets burned, but somehow survives because the mother treats him at home. She still has no background in health care, and even with experience in labour and delivery, there’s no translation of skills there. Burn care is a completely different experience.

“Parts of the leg were livid, red and bloody; others were bleached and dead. Papery ropes of skin wrapped delicately around his thigh and down his calf, like wax dripping from a cheap candle.”

So many things could go wrong, but instead of calling an ambulance, the mom does her weird clicking thing (she literally taps surfaces) to ask he has an infection. They care for the son at home, put on some homemade cream, and boom. Aew weeks later, he’s recovered.

Miracle 2: Another brother has a horrible head injury, literally falls 12 feet, and lives.

“He plunged twelve feet, his body revolving slowly in the air, so that when he struck the concrete wall with its outcropping of rebar, he hit headfirst, then tumbled the last eight feet to the dirt.”

Instead of calling the ambulance immediately, the family lets him rest. Of course, since he’s very much NOT okay, the brother’s condition gets worse, and they eventually do finally (FINALLY) call an ambulance and he get flown in a helicopter to the hospital. I guess it’s all well fine and dandy not to believe in modern medicine until your child almost dies under your watch? Maybe I’m just not super familiar with just how hard human skulls are, and they can take a lot of damage. Anyways, just like the other son, he recovers. He’s not the same, but he recovers.

Miracle 3: Tara Westover gets accepted to university even though she’s had absolutely no education, formal or otherwise, and she attends it with barely any money. (Side note: I call it university because that’s what we call it here in Canada, but it’s actually college.)

“It proves one thing at least,” he said. “Our home school is as good as any public education.”

With dedication, I have no doubt that a really determined and smart person can teach themselves almost anything. But here’s the thing. Two of Westover’s siblings also go on to college, and they too, earn PhD’s (like herself). Westover’s father has a point that obviously something was done right in that family (unless three out of seven kids just happen to be geniuses?). The way it’s described, it would seem all the kids were running wild until one day they decided to go to university, and off they went.

But there’s also a huge segment of time in Westover’s life where she talks about not having enough money for school and having to work. Starting an undergrad is hard for your regular high school graduate, but I can’t imagine someone who didn’t do high school, relearning the basics (like what the holocaust was), and having to work enough to pay for school with no help. Unless the fees were ridiculously low, she had to have more help than a couple hundred bucks from her friend.

Taking a step back from all this, I think the reason why I was engaged with the novel was because of how Westover’s writing pulled me in right away. A part of me wants to believe in miracles, in how anyone can go to university and earn an education, and keep on going in their career because of passion and hard work. I’d also like to believe that a lot of you-could-have-almost-died situations could be treated at home, if you really wanted to (like say the zombie apocalypse actually does happen, I too could treat people successfully).

What helps my suspension of disbelief was Westover’s acknowledgement of how blurry and faded our memories become overtime. Different people remember completely different sequences of events, even when the main issue and result are the same. The gaslighting she endured from her family too shows how distorted any situation can become, even when it recently occurred. The way Westover described it, I felt like I was going crazy alongside her because how could your own family see things completely differently from you?

It’s an inspiring tale of how through hard work, perseverance, and a lot of self-reflection, you can shake off the wrongs from your past, and build your own independent life.

Final Thoughts: TL;DR

So why five stars? Because of the feeling when I finished the book that I had just gone on this incredible journey, through a chaotic childhood, a tough adolescence, and now could finally breathe. I was pulled into Westover’s story from the very beginning. Her complicated relationships with her parents and family are so familiar to me. I could believe that she both loved her parents and could no longer speak to them. I could believe that her family caused so much hardships, even when it all came from a place of love. Maybe not love in the way I would understand it, maybe a toxic love, but I could see why her parents thought they were doing the right thing. Westover managed to pull herself out of it all, and build her own life. It’s inspiring, and really shows how valuable an education is, no matter where you come from.

Reference:

If you want to do some more reading on hand washing and labour/delivery, here’s a good article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK144018/.

February wrap up!

I can’t believe I managed to squeeze in the time to pass my goal of 10 books this month. I chose 10 per month for 2019 because last year I didn’t really set goals other than 100 books for 2018, so I’m trying to stick to a schedule this year. So far so good!

What with how busy the online courses plus full-time work has kept me, I’m glad I didn’t suffer from any nausea on the bus (where I did a ton of reading). I tend to read wherever I can, on breaks at work, while commuting, while cooking, and right before bed.

Anyhoots, here are the lovely books I picked up in February!

Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald: After listening to a podcast by the History Chicks on the Fitzgeralds, specifically Zelda, I just had to check out one of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books. Definitely check out that podcast, it’s amazing and so much fun. I spent all of Christmas working on a 1000 piece puzzle set while listening to a piece on Amelia Earhart. Very exciting stuff. Anyways, Set in the 1920s, Tender is the Night is about a couple and their dreamy trip in Europe. I could definitely see why he’s such a popular author. I don’t think I appreciated his writing when I read his other book the Great Gatsby back in high school. However, even though I was prepared for some misogyny, it was pretty off-putting in the book. Check out my Goodreads review. 3/5 stars

99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne: I picked up 99 Percent Mine by Sally Thorne because I absolutely adored her previous book The Hating Game, so much so that I went ahead and bought another copy to gift to one of my friends. I should have known I wouldn’t like this one though, since I’ve always hated it when the girl likes the guy first, but I thought it would at least be funny! It wasn’t. If this book were a movie I’d be covering my eyes and fast-forwarding during scenes, but hey, maybe it’d be better because then I wouldn’t have to deal with the internal monologue (sarcasm. so. much. sarcasm). I was determined not to pick any book that I couldn’t finish this month, and this one really tested me. But, finish it I did. Check out my Goodreads review. 1/5 stars

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish: Another podcast recommendation, though I can’t remember which one. I think it was Keep It! (hilarious, highly recommended for some pop culture perspectives). Tiffany Haddish just kept being mentioned and I had seen the book being promoted in Indigo that I decided to pick it up. That cover was just too enticing, and it seemed to promise cotton candy and glitter. WRONG. WRONG. Turn back. GPS recalibrating. It wasn’t funny at all, and though her story pulled me in… it’s definitely not the book to read if you’re looking for a light pick-me-up. It was more like ordering a heavy salad at a restaurant because you’re being healthy, and the salad has a couple cranberries for flavour, but you have to look for them because they didn’t give you enough. 3/5 stars

Fierce Fairtyles: Poems and Stories to Stir Your Soul by Nikita Gill: I can’t resist fairy tales and though I normally prefer actual novels, I decided to give this one a try. I’ve seen Nikita Gills writing on Instagram before and the pieces are lovely. This book was no exception. It’s a cute little book that I think would make an excellent gift for any fairy tale twist lover. My Goodreads review. 4/5 stars

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir: Oh boy, I should have left the history lessons back in school. The Second Sex is supposed to be this great feminist text that left me feeling a lot of self-hatred. It’s just this dense treatise on why women’s life sucks, and has always sucked, and reasons why every step of our lives are going to suck. The hate on motherhood as well… coming from a woman who never had kids? I just couldn’t. As someone who can’t wait to have my own children, it was little much. If you don’t want to have kids, don’t, but no need to spew the dislike onto the rest of us. But I picked up her book, so I only have myself to blame. My husband kept asking me why I kept going with this massive book (742 pages! And not with the big font that so many YA novels like to have, I blame Twilight for this trend. Books used to be compact), but I think reading foundational texts can be important. If only to see and appreciate how far we’ve gone. My Goodreads review. 2/5 stars.

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer: Honestly, it’s been less than two weeks since I read Echo North but I can already barely remember it. That’s pretty bad since I only read two novels since then (the rest of the books being biographies and non-fiction books). I essentially got all excited because it seemed to be a Beauty and the Beast-esque kind of book (love me some romance with a bad guy turned good) and instead I got dumped into this confusing world where nothing can be believed. Like, we can apparently sew rooms together with silver spider’s web kind of confusion. My Goodreads review. 2/5 stars.

Reviews to come: Since I wanted to post actual reviews for the rest of the books I read this month, I’m going to just include a little sneak peak 🙂

What’s with the hate for modern medicine? 5/5 stars

41K9AC0g6QL._SX360_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

Adulting isn’t easy, but reading a book on money is. 3/5 stars

Women spies in world war two? Based on a true story? Yes!! 4/5 stars

Questioning your beliefs isn’t a new concept, but it’s good to be reminded that we can change who we are by just doing something different. 3/5 stars

Late to the Friends game, but I’m here now and completely obsessed! Give me the problematic perspectives on it, I’m ready. 4/5 stars

Did you guys read any of these? Thoughts? Comment down below!

Sense and Sensibility: Or, waiting around for the guy you like because what else could women in the 19th century do?

“…Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it. Beyond a competence, it can afford no real satisfaction, as far as mere self is concerned.”

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

3 stars/5 stars

Quick Recap:

The very first chapter opens after the death of Mrs. Dashwood’s husband, who’s entire estate and the majority of his money is to be inherited by his son. There’s some back and forth between him and his wife, but essentially Mrs. Dashwood is the second wife (the previous one passed away) and she has three daughters, none of whom have much claim to the inheritance. Unfair as it may be to modern eyes, that’s how it was at the time and the four women quickly leave to another, much smaller, home.

I just want to take a moment here and actually delve into how ridiculous it is that none of them really have any right to their father’s wealth. Including the wife! Women were completely reliant on the men in their family to do right by them, which is pretty horrifying, but of course this gets passed over pretty quickly because it’s an idyllic Jane Austen novel and there’s matters of the heart to get to.

So, we have the two main characters, one being Marianne, who meets Eligible Bachelor #1. She immediately falls for Willoughby and does all types of “scandalous” things. As in, she’s putting herself in a vulnerable position for gossip, like talking to him alone.

Elinor, the other main character, has a thing with Eligible Bachelor #2, but she’s the sensible one and doesn’t actually communicate with him. This, I find is the most frustrating character trait to come across because the whole time you just want to shake the person and scream “Just do something!!!” Lo and behold, turns out that Edward has already been engaged to another girl for the past four years! Elinor, not being the type for dramatics, pretends to be friends with Edward’s fiancé. There’s lot of heartache, etc. etc. Essentially, a lot of the plot could have been resolved if she just went up to him and had an actual conversation, instead of taking the high road and being nice to everyone else.

So back to Eligible Bachelor #1, he tries to ghost Marianne, but too bad, Marianne is way too invested in the relationship to get the hint. She finally does when he snubs her and sends a letter to her (and all the ones she sent, back).

There’s essentially a lot of holding back tears (Elinor) and sobbing in bed for days (Marianne), and then finally the happy ending(ish?) that everyone wanted.

My Thoughts:

Here’s the thing though. The guys the girls end up with are… meh.

Edward pretty much sucks. Maybe I just didn’t do a deep enough reading of the book, but he never actually made a solid decision. It was Lucy’s maid (Lucy being the ex-fiancé) who spilled the beans. There’s drama and Edward’s mom confronts him and he decides to stick by Lucy because it’s the honorable thing to do. So there’s kind of a backbone there, but he only announced the decision because he was forced to make a choice. Otherwise he would have kept dragging Lucy along. When he finally decides to propose to Elinor, she’s happy, but it’s only because Lucy went and dumped him for his brother. Wow, that’s enough to make a girl feel warm and fuzzy, being second choice?

Marianne, throughout the novel, learns that sense (as in making decisions based on emotions) isn’t always the right decision. While it’s great that she grows up, her “happy ending” was to this older guy she never really liked in the first placed. He’s just the responsible guy to marry, because he’s rich and nice and a solid guy. But her dreams of a happily ever after with a great guy she connects with? Gone. All gone. There’s something really sad about how realistic it was. Hot Guy is bad (the kind of icky bad that you warn your friends about, not hot bad boy who has a heart of gold), Good Guy that was there the whole time is, well, good. Except of course, said Good Guy is also almost 20 years older than her. He’s like 35 and she’s 17? 18? Not exactly the escapist fantasy I was hoping for.

“Brandon is just the kind of man,” said Willoughby one day, when they were talking of him together, “whom every body speaks well of, and nobody cares about; whom all are delighted to see, and nobody remembers to talk to.”

~ Hot Guy talking about Good Guy. Marianne agrees with it, Elinor too, though the latter tells them to stop saying it because he’s respected. I guess I just need to stop looking at this book through a romance novel lens, when it’s very clearly NOT that.

It is an interesting twist that while Elinor is the sensible one, she ends up marrying for love (even if he’s a poopy guy). Meanwhile Marianne makes the financially smart decision to marry Colonel Brandan who has buckets of money he doesn’t know what to do with.

Money, money, money, must be funny, in the rich man’s world ~ABBA

Let’s return to the fundamental importance of money in Sense and Sensibility. While Elinor and Marianne would like to believe that money isn’t the be-all, end-all, it is for other characters. Lucy and Willoughby are driven by the need to acquire more money and marry the best possible candidate for it. While they’re not honest about it, I think it highlights the privileged life that the main characters are living.

Elinor and Marianne spend the whole novel socializing with people. It got to be pretty boring at certain parts because they waited around, got invited somewhere, had people to talk to, and then waited around some more. They claim they’re not super wealthy. But they’re able to afford servants and don’t think much of it.

“Her wisdom too limited the number of their servants to three; two maids and a man, with whom they were speedily provided from amongst those who had formed their establishment at Norland.”

Said servants have maybe three whole speaking lines in the whole novel. Their work is never mentioned, nor are they every discussed.

Final Thoughts: TL;DR

Ella’s making the expression for how I feel about the guys

Ultimately, I think this book had some interesting points about money and life to make, but it was just so long to get through, and I didn’t find any of the characters all that likeable. All the other older women in the novel seemed to be talking about guys for the most part, and they all seemed very interchangeable. The romance was disappointing.

Naming conventions (and a small one called Mittens)

Part of my book goals this year was to diverge from my usual haunt of YA fantasy, YA romance, YA sci fi… and every other iteration of YA that exists. This also includes the offshoot NA, and honestly I kind of consider urban fantasy [romance] included in this category (because rarely does one find an urban fantasy that doesn’t feature a kick-ass/sassy/dare-I-say-selfish-or-mean heroine in a relationship with a dude. It’s basically just a smuttier YA with no fade to black).

But anyways, I might as well try to clean up my to-be-read list by starting chronologically, so here I am making my way through Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen. Does anyone get super tempted to cheat and just watch the movie? There’s one on Netflix that I swear never popped up in my feed until I started reading it. Our devices are definitely listening to us

Mini-non-review: I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve been reading Sense and Sensibility on my breaks and on the commute home, but I’ve been getting super confused with the names. I’m not sure if it’s because the writing style is older (obviously, the book came out in 1811), but I keep getting the characters confused. The author will refer to characters as both Mr. LastName and other times as FirstName, but also the father as Mr. LastName… ok maybe that’s not that confusing. I think I should just accept that this is not a commute kind of book, but a sit-and-become-one-with-the-couch kind of book.

Anyone have more understanding on old naming conventions that could enlighten me? Like there’s this moment where Elinor is surprised that Mr. Willoughby uses Marianne’s Christian name, which I thought he had been using the whole time. My understanding is that this is significant because they’re supposed to maintain a certain level of formality. Also, the writing made it sound like her Christian name was different from her actual name, but if she was baptised as a baby, her Christian name would have always been her regular First Name? No?

Also, there should be some kind of rule that two characters can’t have very similar names, like Margaret and Marianne are just too close to one another for me to tell them apart when I’m tired and reading. The number of times I’ve read “Mar” and assumed it’s one or the other is getting a little (a lot!!) ridiculous.

Also, this morning I woke up to this guy:

where Mittens claims his spot from the terrible, wet dishes

Happy Monday Funday! (it’s Family day, so no commute today, yay!)

And the journey begins (in which I use too many parentheses)

Here we are, a couple (a lot, jeez, where did the time go?) of months after graduating university, and now I’m feeling a little lost in the world. Like there are so many things I want to be accomplishing, and planning it all has been so much fun (there are maps and arrows and lines all over the place).

After spending a couple of hours in ChatTime, then moving over to Second Cup with some friends, it turns out that the longer you wait to do something and the more you think about it, the less inclined you are to actually doing it. It’s easy not to notice time slipping by until your friends are off doing fabulous things like getting their dream job or planning their next amazing trip abroad, and you’re sitting there like… um yeah I learned how to cook soup? And do other basic skills like care for my cats? I can now trim their nails!

So now we’ve come to the part of actually DOING. Yes, actually getting things done, instead of dreaming it all (and hoping that’ll be enough to make it real).

I’ve always wanted to blog (does reblogging on Tumblr all the time count?) but never stuck with it beyond a couple of bad poems…anyways. Here we are, in a space where I can discuss my love of reading and other little parts of my life.

So I realize from all the parentheses that if I could figure out how to use footnotes in blogging, my posts would be full of them. Since I don’t know yet… well they’ll just have to be left in for now, because my mind veers in way too many directions.