Science (non) Fiction

Well, my list this year isn’t as long as 2007’s. But considering that I wrote and defended a 120-something-page thesis this year, I guess its still acceptable. I really enjoyed keeping track of my reading last year, and it helped keep me focused on finding good books. I wanted to read more non-fiction this year, and I don’t quite think I did, but I probably didn’t read less, at least. (We read more non-fiction for book club, so that helped) There’s a list of all the books with brief synopses here.

1. Just Imagine by Susan Elizabeth Phillips
2. Love over Scotland by Alexander McCall Smith
3. The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith
4. The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
5. The Summer of my Southern Discomfort by Stephanie Gayle
6. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen
7. On Beauty by Zadie Smith
8. Friends, Lovers, Chocolate by Alexander McCall Smith
9. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
10. History of Love by Nicole Krauss
11. The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
12. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
13. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
14. Darwin’s Radio by Greg Bear
15. The 5th Horseman by James Patterson
16. Belong to Me by Marisa de los Santos
17. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
18. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
19. Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
20. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
21. The 6th Target by James Patterson
22. The Know-it-all by AJ Jacobs
23. Another Fine Myth by Robert Asprin
24. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson
25. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
26. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
27. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
28. A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
29. The Abstinence Teacher by Tom Perrotta
30. A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
31. Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers
32. Have His Carcase by Dorothy Sayers
33. Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
34. Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers
35. Middlesex by Jeffery Eugenides
36. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
37. Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
38. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
39. The Shack by William Young
40. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier
41. Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
42. Girl Meets God by Lauren Winner
43. Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
44. The Other Side of the Sun by Madeleine L’Engle
45. The Finishing School by Gail Godwin
46. When Madeline Was Young by Jane Hamilton
47. A Live Coal in the Sea by Madeleine L’Engle
48. Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
49. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
50. The Right Attitude to Rain by Alexander McCall Smith
51. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith
52. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling
53. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by JK Rowling
54. The World According to Bertie by Alexander McCall Smith
55. The Comforts of a Muddy Sunday by Alexander McCall Smith
56. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling
57. The Tales of Beedle the Bard by JK Rowling
58. Paper Towns by John Green
59. The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
60. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by JK Rowling

Best Fiction: Prayer for Owen Meany or The Book Thief (there are a couple more)
Best Non-fiction: The Glass Castle (only new-to-me non-fiction I liked, and it generated good discussion)
Best Comfort Reads: The Right Attitude to Rain or Love over Scotland (or any of AMS’s books, really)
Best YA Fiction: Paper Towns
Least Favorite Fiction: A Fine Balance (do.not.want.)

So what did you read this year? What are you looking forward to reading in the new year? Anything you’d recommend?

I know its been a while since I wrote last, and I’m not going to make any promises about writing more regularly, though I hope to in the new year. But I just wanted to share some of my favorite lines about Christmas, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of our Savior as a tiny baby. Feel free to share your favorites, from songs or books or poems or whatever.

But it’s true
Kingdoms and crowns
The God who came down
To find you

It’s true
Angels on high
Sing through the night
Hallelujah

You’ve heard it told
You think it’s odd
The whole thing fraught with complication
The play begins with baby God
And all his blessed implications
~It’s True by Sara Groves (from her new Christmas album O Holy Night)

But the baby in her womb
He was the maker of the moon
He was the Author of the faith
That could make the mountains move
~Labor of Love by Andrew Peterson

A little Child will lead them, the prophets said of old
In storm and tempest heed Him until the bell is tolled
~Cradle in Bethlehem by Sara Groves

So it came to pass that Joseph was the noblest of men
With a woman on a donkey on their way to Bethlehem
And I wonder whether either was aware enough that day
To know the child would bring a Kingdom
and the old would come to pass away
~It Came to Pass by Andrew Peterson

Will he be a king on a throne
Full of power with a sword in his fist?
Prophet, tell us will there be another king like this?
Full of wisdom, full of strength,
The hearts of the people are his
Prophet, tell us will there be
another king like this?

‘He’ll bear no beauty or glory
Rejected, despised
A man of such sorrow
We’ll cover our eyes

He’ll take up our sickness
Carry our tears
For his people
He will be pierced

He’ll be crushed for our evils
Our punishment feel
By his wounds
We will be healed.’

‘From you, O Bethlehem
Small among Judah
A ruler will come
Ancient and strong.’
~So Long, Moses by Andrew Peterson

He is Mercy’s incarnation
Marvel at this miracle!
For the Virgin gently holds
the Glorious Impossible.

Praise the wisdom of the Father
Who has spoken through his Son.
Speaking still, He calls us to
the Glorious Impossible.
~Glorious Impossible by Gaither Vocal Band

And in despair I bowed my head:
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
~In the Bleak Midwinter modified from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Merry Christmas to you all!

So, it’s official. I have been granted my Doctor of Philosophy degree in Microbiology and Immunology from Wake Forest University! I am a real doctor, though not the kind that help people. I will officially be a December 2008 graduate (missed the August deadline by 2 weeks!), though I won’t walk in graduation and be hooded until May 2009. But the degree is finished, and it feels like an enormous weight has been lifted from my shoulders in the last 24 hours.

I will now be making some revisions of the thesis document, and finishing up some experiments, and breaking into my new role as professor. I want to thank those of you who have been such an incredible source of support and comfort over the past several years, who have listened to the complaining and freaking out and stressful conversations, who have prayed for me over the years and lightened the load. This experience would have been much less fun and incredibly more difficult without all of you. So thank you. Very much.

With the roomie defending her thesis this Monday, we decided to have a big blow-out party next Saturday the 23rd at 2pm. If you haven’t gotten an invitation and want to come, let me know and I’ll add you to the list! We’d love to see you there!

So. I have been delaying updating here until I could say something real. And I now can. I will be defending my PhD dissertation this coming Thursday August 14th at 2pm, starting with an open seminar (feel free to come if you’d like!) and then a closed session with my thesis committee. I don’t think I can accurately describe what it feels like to be here, finally at this point I’ve been striving for for 6 years. It’s been a long time coming, and yet sometimes seems to have flown by at warp speed. There’s a strong sense of inevitability now that it’s less than a week away, now that the countdown has begun. I’m also nervous, and proud, and amazed, and exhausted, and a million other things right now. I will be beyond happy to receive my PhD, but also I suspect will feel an intense sense of relief, that this time of constant questioning will be over.

As far as details go, I will be sticking around Winston Salem for this coming academic year. I’ll be working in the lab through the end of September to finish up a couple more papers before the boss leaves. But starting on August 18th, I’ll be teaching my first college class at a local liberal arts college, an introductory class for biology majors. I am very excited (and nervous) about this new opportunity, and the experience it will bring that will make me a more attractive candidate for a faculty position in the near future.

So. There you go. An update, finally. I will try to keep up better now that the big news is out, but given what September is looking like, that might be a tall order. We’ll see. I’ll be sure to let you know how things go this week. Unless the biochemistry kills me first.

I stole this from Kari, who was not exactly sure what this list is, but it has something to do with the National Endowment for the Arts’ Big Read program, though she couldn’t find this list on their website to verify that claim. Apparently the NEA estimates that the average adult has only read six of these books. At least, that is the statistic that is bandied about the internet. So, basically, this is a random unverified list with a random unverified statistic attached to it. But let’s see how I do anyway, shall we? (Hint: more than six.)

Here’s how it works:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Mark in red the books you LOVE.
4) Reprint this list in your blog

And I think I’ll stick with Kari on this one and not mark things red - I’ll note on the side if I loved it.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - One of my all time favorites.
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien - I’ve read the first 1.5 books. I should finish.
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - I could re-read this every single year.
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling - I think you probably know how I feel about these.
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - I admit to never reading this yet.
6 The Bible - I read through the whole thing in a year sometime in college.
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte - Hate.Hate.Hate. Have tried too many times.
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman - I enjoyed them, despite the controversy.
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens - I am not, in general, a fan of Dickens.

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - One of my favorites growing up.
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - I haven’t read it since high school.
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger - I do love this book.
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot - I’ve started this one, but never finished.

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens - Again, not a huge fan of Dickens.
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams - I always want to read this after I see the movie.
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh - I wish I’d read it in time to see the movie.
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - Haven’t read it, don’t plan on it.
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll - Love this growing up.
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy - I want to re-read it as an adult.
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen - Another favorite.
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen - I love me some Jane.
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis - The one I’ve re-read most often.
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini - Hard to forget.
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez - I doubt that I will ever try this one.
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving - One of my favorites from this current year.
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins - I went through a Wilkie Collins phase.
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - The whole series.
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy - I have read some Hardy. I liked The Mayor of Casterbridge.
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood - Strange.
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding - I never had to read this one.
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan - Really powerful.

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons - I’ve always wanted to read this.
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen - This is tied with P&P for first place.
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - Again, I’ve tried several times and failed miserably.
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 Do.not.like.

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold - This one was ok.
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas - Very good.
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac - Started it, hated it.
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens - One of the few I enjoy. (maybe because of the musical - hehe)
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - I grew up loving this.
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens - The only one of his I really enjoy.
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 - So depressing.
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery - I’ve read parts in French too.
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 - I love me some Dumas. (and the movie is good, too)
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare - Why have the whole collection and separate works on here?
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - I’ve actually never read any of his stuff, I think.
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo - I have tried many times. One day I will succeed.

So that’s 43. Not bad, I guess. I do love book lists. And that several book club books made it on the list. How many have you read?

I know, it’s been forever.

I will do a real update soon, but in the meantime, I wanted to let anybody who is still reading this about a fun new website called NoiseTrade. It’s a website where musicians can get the word out about their music, and you can get cheap (or even free) music downloads! I’ve gotten lots of new music to try out, and found some artists that I really like already. It’s a great way to try out some new artists, and get the word out to your friends about musicians you already like. Check it out!

https://www.noisetrade.com/index.aspx

Just some good things happening in my life right now (or now-ish):

~ Good, deep conversations with friends about important (and some not-so-important) things

~ Knowing that going to see WICKED is only ONE MONTH AWAY!!!!! (SO excited!)

~ When experiments actually work correctly reproducibly, and move my work forward instead of backwards

~ The fact that LOST and How I Met Your Mother is back on TV regularly, and many of my other favorites will be back shortly (April 10th for The Office!)

~ Broadway musical soundtracks (Lately it’s been old favorites that I’m revisiting like Les Mis and Into the Woods, plus Wicked of course)

~ Long, fun voicemail messages from friends and family about cat’s brains or cute coworkers

~ The fact that my birthday is exactly two weeks away!

I will not post the accompanying crappy things that are going on, as the good things generally outweigh them right now.

So what’s going well in your life right now?

OK, I know it’s been forever since I’ve posted. I kept waiting and waiting and waiting til I had some solid answers about the future, but as it seems my life will stay in a state of semi-chaos for a while longer, I figure it’s time to catch y’all up with the goings-on.

First of all, in case you’ve forgotten, in my absence, what I look like:

And, even though I posted since then, I don’t think I’ve actually said that Rebecca and I have moved into a cute little house in Ardmore just over a mile from school and less than that from church:

We love it - it’s been really nice to be close to school again (not that I was that far before, but it’s still nice to be closer), and to have enough space to have people over regularly (despite having a couple issues with neighbors), and Dinah appreciates having more people to regularly love her.

Also, this has been my life recently:

I’ve been running gels like mad, trying to get things wrapped up so I can finish this thesis and graduate in the near future - for those counting, it will likely be either May or June, so stay tuned in for the last-minute thesis issues that I’m sure will be coming along shortly. I’m looking for jobs in the area, as I’d love to stay here, but I might end up looking farther afield, but still in the state at least. Let me know if you hear of any good teaching jobs (preferably small, liberal arts colleges, but I can be flexible).

The brother is still doing well out in Cali:

Well, he doesn’t look like he’s doing well there, but he just wasn’t pleased with all of my picture-taking at Christmas. He’s working at Sony, doing some writing, and looking for a good production job now that things are gearing back up after the strike. Dad got to fly out and visit him this past week, so I’m very jealous. Maybe when I have a real, grown-up job…

Mom is still adjusting to her new job and schedule - and she and Dad are having to make some tough decisions in the next little bit. I’m going home tonight to celebrate Dad’s belated birthday, so that will be good.

Hopefully I can keep this more updated than it’s been lately - entering the home stretch may make that difficult, but I will try.

Sorry I’ve been so absent lately. But to distract you from the pain caused by my lack of blogging, I present you with more excellent LOLcats.

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

moar funny pictures

and my current favorite:

moar funny pictures

I submit the following photo for your viewing pleasure. Mom brought back these shirts from her trip to Disney World last year (without us, I might add), and we finally got around to taking a picture of us in them this Christmas while Matthew was home from Cali for the holidays. Enjoy!