Wishing joy and peace to everyone today, and to those celebrating, a very happy Easter!
Love in Christ,
Marian
Wishing joy and peace to everyone today, and to those celebrating, a very happy Easter!
Love in Christ,
Marian
This tag is making the rounds, so I thought I’d give it a go!
Do you have a certain place at home for reading?
I read in bed; it’s kind of a bad habit. 😆 Once I get my own place, I plan to have a proper reading corner with a tea tray and everything.
Can you stop reading anywhere, or do you have to stop after a chapter or certain number of pages?
Anywhere will do, but chapters or section breaks are best.
Bookmarks or random slips of paper?
Both. I like the paper slips that come with library holds; they’re thin and won’t impact the book in any way.
Multitasking: music or tv while reading?
Usually silence, and definitely not TV or YouTube. If I’m having trouble concentrating, sometimes I’ll listen to lo-fi (yes, lo-fi got me through A History of East Asia).
Do you eat or drink while reading?
If there’s any candy I’ll eat it on autopilot while reading, so I try not to snack at all. I’ll often drink tea.
Reading at home or everywhere?
All the places!
Do you read ahead or skip pages?
No, unless it’s something for work/studying, then I’ll skim.
Break the spine or keep it like new?
Break the spine? 😳 Nevar!
Do you write in your books?
Not usually; it bothers me greatly. I did check off some of the Kafka short stories as I was reading them, to keep track of what I’d read, but I did that with pencil.
Whom do you tag?
Anyone who wants to do it! 😀
In the spirit of the last post, I rediscovered another gem from long ago which I’d always intended to blog about: Victorian pseudonyms!
Back in 1880–1885, Lewis Carroll—author of the Alice books and real-life mathematician—wrote a series of math story problems for magazine readers to try to solve. Some participants mailed their answers to him using their real names or initials, but others were more creative. After giving them a chance to solve each puzzle, Carroll published the correct answer, calling out certain lucky (or unlucky) individuals by their pseudonyms. The collection of stories and solutions was later published under the title A Tangled Tale.
Below, in order of appearance, are some of the names readers chose for themselves. You can just picture them wielding those usernames on blogs or forums today… Bonus points if you can identify which ones come from classic stories!
Many years ago, I came across this fun artifact from the papers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, meant to blog about it, and never actually did. This is a “favorites” survey which Doyle filled out in 1899 – basically like a modern-day blog tag! He has pretty readable handwriting, but you can find a typed-up version of his answers here. (Is it just me or was he clearly bored when he filled it out? 😛 )
It has no title so I’ve dubbed it the (oh-so-creative) 1899 Questionnaire. I also thought it might be fun to fill it out, and if you’d like to as well, consider yourself tagged.
Honesty
Kindness and intuition
Wisdom and perseverance
Watching YouTube Writing 🙂
Thinking too much
A deep conversation (aka Solving World Problems™) with a family member or friend
Having no one to talk to
Favorite color is teal blue, favorite flowers are yellow roses
Something to do with music, probably an itinerant fiddler
Same as where I live now, or maybe further out, in the forest
Tolkien, Longfellow, and various lyricists like Adam Young
Painters: Monet, Caspar David Friedrich, Ivan Shishkin
Composers: Tchaikovsky, and so many more
I don’t really have heroes, but I admire anyone who speaks the truth even when it’s not expedient.
Same
Sherlock Holmes, half the characters from Lord of the Rings, and Deputy Ryker from The Virginian TV show
Tatyana Larina from Eugene Onegin, Marian Halcombe from The Woman in White, and Alice
Pretty much anything my mom makes. And Subway sandwiches. For drink: Swiss Miss hot cocoa with eggnog! It’s kind of a meal on its own, though.
I love old-fashioned names like Evelyn and Henry.
Random strangers who act creepy or ask personal questions.
The ones who tried to spread ideology or religion by force
Sheepish for staying up past midnight when I have to get up at 5:40
I’m not sure I would call it a fault exactly, but I have a lot of empathy for anyone who deals with extreme shyness and low self-esteem, having gone through that myself in the past.
“Live not by lies” – Alexander Solzhenitsyn