A confession

I was hanging out with some friends tonight and was privy to a confession done on behalf of all females. And I quote: "Really, we are so stupid." (In reference to girls finding ridiculous reasons to get mad at each other, and hold grudges over.)

Three words: I knew it!

Final-Freakin'-Ly

I have signed a contract for a place to live. It took 3 months of searching, and a fair bit of settling and compromising; but, come Friday, I will no longer be homeless.

Lacking conversation topics

So, I'd post another poem on here, but at the moment they're all packed away. So instead I'll just talk about the celestial events that I hope to observe this week:

Tuesday, 8/28/07: Total Lunar Eclipse:
I'll have to get up really early for this (mid-eclipse is 4:37 AM MDT), but it will be worth it. I haven't watched a total eclipse in many years now. Perhaps I'll even be able to convince a certain someone that they want to get up that early to watch too.

Saturday, 9/1/07: Alpha Aurigids Meteor Shower:
This one may or may not work out well for me. It's late (peak is 5:36 AM MDT) so if the sky starts getting too light I may not see anything much (Sunrise is 6:54 AM). I'm going to try anyways, so here's hoping. I'll probably start watching around 4-4:30 to try and see something.

Is GMail trying to send me a message?

Here's the ad I got on my GMail account this morning:




Is Google saying I should get married, or that it thinks I need a wedding dress?

Bored

Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored Bored..... Get the idea yet?

Homeless

So, for some reason I though I had until Saturday to move out of my place. I came home from visiting family last night (Sunday) to find that I needed to be out by Monday (today). So I started rapidly packing and moving things. Luckily, I have family in the area where I can store my stuff, as I still have no place to live. I don't like being homeless, it's not a lot of fun.

Increasing Readership

In an effort to increase my readership, and provide something interesting for people to come here for, I've decided to start posting more of my random poems. I write poems when the mood strikes, the styles change from theme to theme, but most of them contain a heavy influence from Robert Frost.

Here is one I wrote on March 25, 2007 after a trip to the Krishna Temple:

            Holi
Blue skies and green fields
   Surrounding the domed temple.
People filling the space around:
   Speaking, laughing, enjoying life.
The music stops, the fire glows;
   The witch erupts in flame.
As the past is burned
   the colors fly.
Caked in red, blue, yellow, green
   we celebrate a new life.
The rays of sunset pass
   through the festival of colors.

Hmm

3 AM, I woke up, couldn't go back to sleep. So I get up and eat a couple bowls of "Coco Roos" and browse through furniture on Ikea.com. As crappy as that seems, I actually really like my life right now.

Mount Timpanogos

This past Saturday (August 11) I had the opportunity to do a midnight hike of Mt. Timpanogos. It was very long and exhausting, but quite fun, not to mention that I got to spend the 14.4 miles in the company of a certain female whom I'm interested in. I was going to write a nice descriptive entry here describing the event, but I'm not feeling very literary at the moment, so instead you'll just get some pictures. Enjoy!

Book Review: Elantris - Brandon Sanderson

I just finished reading Brandon Sanderson's first novel: Elantris. As the dust jacket says, Sanderson is teaches for BYU, but the online directory simply says "Evening Class", so I'm unsure what subject. Knowing this connection one can find small hints of Mormon doctrine throughout the book. For example, the plainly stated idea that the destruction of one man is better than the loss of an entire nation as a religious principle. That's the most obvious one, though other, more subtle, allusions are made as well.

The story line was original and enthralling, successfully drawing the reader into the world that he created. I found myself accepting the many plot twists and turns, but remain bothered by one act at the end allowing for the happy conclusion. While it seemed that all of the intricate details had been linked together appropriately there was one that didn't seem like it fit correctly to me.

Being a first printing of a first edition there were the usual high number of typos. Sadly, a few of them are so terribly located that they break your entrancement with the reading and knock you flat out into reality again.

The story line progresses at a consistent pace for almost all of the 487 pages, but the last 40 pages fly by pushing a million events into less than a tenth of the book. I think this could have been lengthened some to allow for more detail and control of the happenings. Being the climax of the novel, one reads through these 40 pages extremely quickly, and pulling it out to say 80 at least would have been almost unnoticeable, but would have allowed for a more in depth depiction of the events. The final result of Hrathen's internal struggle is hardly explained to the reader satisfactorily. The intense battle sequences occurring could easily have contained more dramatic detail and lengthening. The end just felt very rushed. It had more of the feeling of you're reading faster and faster not because your in suspense and wanting to find out what the story is building up to, but because the story just keeps going faster and faster with less and less detail.

So, in spite of those criticisms, I did enjoy the read. It's not a long read by any means, I started it Monday, and finished Thursday afternoon, while also working, going camping, running a Karaoke night, going to the tumbling gym, etc...


Elantris by Brandon Sanderson receives CPM's seal of recommendation to Fantasy readers.