Friday, January 29, 2010

Weathering the Storm

Have you ever thought that you've got everything in control and that your life is going along as planned? Then all of a sudden, something occurs and your whole existence gets turned upside down.

I had that moment Tuesday. A friend called and told me that she was called for an interview to get onto the teaching supply list. I was thrilled for her because I know how hard she's been working. When I got off the phone with her the feelings of anxiety and depression I've been feeling about finding a job just started rising in me and all the months of supposedly positive thinking flew out the window. I had a really good cry for about a half an hour then gave myself a mental shake. I realize that I have been keeping negative thoughts below the supposed positive outlook that I show to everyone. I know that they are what have been keeping me from achieving the goal I thought I had set for myself.

"You need a plan of action" a voice deep inside me said. I am now setting about to set the goals that I want for myself and realize them into reality--does that make sense? Visualize what I want and where I want to be within the next year.

I have opened myself up to the possibility of moving from the only home I've ever known. That brings with it a lot of anxiety because of family responsibilities but I now know it's something that needs to be done.

Putting it out here helps it to be more real for me so to begin, within the next year I want:
1. To get a teaching contract in a high school for senior English. I'm taking a course right now that I just LOVE and I have vocalized to myself that this is what I want to do.
2. Get my house in order. Another blogger has been decluttering her life and that is exactly what I need to do--just start throwing out all the physical baggage along with the mental stuff.
3. Work at my spiritual and physical fulfillment. I've gained some weight back and I can now accept that it's because of the negative energy I've been holding within myself. I also need to spend more time in quiet contemplation, away from the noisy stresses of life.
4. Meet someone to share my life with. That is something I've avoided for quite some time and I'm not sure why. I have so much love that I want to share. I've kept it for my family and friends but I want to have that special someone there to hold my hand, give me a hug, let me give him one back--all the good and the bad. I'm really ready.

I know that I can fulfill all this and more and thank you all for reading this and sharing my new decade with me. I can't wait to start living!

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

BBC Book List--How Many Have You Read?

Thanks for sharing this MB!

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen X
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte X
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling X
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee X
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte X
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell X
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens X
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott X
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy X
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller X
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare X
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier X
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger X
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot X
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald X
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I tried--I really, really tried!)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck X
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy X
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens X
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen X
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen X (a favourite!)
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres X (read for a book club--hated it!)
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell X
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown X
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy X
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding X
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert X
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen X
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zifon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens X ("It is a far, far better thing...)
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck X
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas X
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy X
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker X
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett X
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson X (love Bill Bryson's travel books)
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray X
80 Possession - AS Byatt X
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens X
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White X
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad X
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare (they already have the complete works of Shakespeare above! 99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factoy - Roald Dahl X
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo X (LOVE THIS BOOK!)


I would also add "Dr. Zhivago" as a huge favourite of mine. So, I've read 42 out of 100. This was a list compiled of readers, by the way.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

My Birthday Already?

It's been a crazy few weeks. I came down with strep throat for the second time this winter (even though my doctor said that shouldn't happen after you've taken antibiotics!) and have been trying to kick this sore throat for over 2 weeks now. The strep is gone but the pain lives on!

I've been busy with my tutoring and those boys have made it hard for me NOT to raise my poor voice--such is life. I also started taking a course which will allow me to teach senior English at the highschool level. It is proving to be exhausting.

Tomorrow is my birthday, 42! and I'll be celebrating with friends over the next few days. I realize how fortunate I am to have them in my life and look forward to the new year to celebrate them too :)

Hoping that you're all well in your own worlds and that I can visit with you all soon at your blogs!