30 Books Before I'm 30: Sophie's World

Sophie's World 

by Jostein Gaarder

"Dear Hilde, If the human brain was simple enough for us to understand, we would still be so stupid that we couldn't understand it. Love, Dad."

I put this book on my list because it seemed like everyone from my IHS program in high school had read it but me, and even at nearly 30 years old I still felt left out. Sophie's World is essentially non-fiction encased in fiction; the meat of the story is an intro to philosophy from the Greeks to the Absurdists and the fluff of the story is about a girl named Sophie who gets tutored about philosophy by an initially-unknown weirdo/philosopher named Alberto Knox. The rest of this review contains spoilers, so if you're planning to read this book then discontinue reading this post.

Okay? Here's what happens: the philosopher sends Sophie anonymous notes, brought by his dog Hermes, until the dog leads her to the philosopher's creepy cabin in the woods. There was also a whole subplot where Sophie kept finding postcards for some chick name Hilde from Hilde's father. Then Alberto kept talking about Hilde's dad as the creator of the world and Hermes the dog started talking like a person. We finally discover that Sophie and Alberto are actually characters in a book written for Hilde by her father, who is in Lebanon with the UN during Hilde's 15th birthday. Hilarity ensues.

Honestly, I only read this book right now because I can't read my kindle in the tub. This was really important.

What I Liked: I really think I would have liked this book more if I had read it in high school. It's an interesting way to introduce philosophy at a basic level. It made me nostalgic for high school when my brain had just developed the capacity for complex abstract thought and my friends and I would get together and excitedly discuss philosophy as though we had invented it. These conversations usually occurred late at night, sometimes took place at Dairy Queen or backstage during whatever play we were all in at the time, and were completely drug-free and hilarious (but you had to have been there).

Also, the initial mystery of who the philosopher could be kind of sucked me in at the beginning. 

What I Didn't Like: I took Intro to Philosophy my freshman year of college, and during the course of my 10 years of college (yes, with this term it's official), I have learned about everything in this book already. (That doesn't mean that I actually know anything, it just means that the philosophical concepts in this novel are very basic). I admit I skipped the section on Freud. I just couldn't do it again.

This Book Would be Best if Read: In the bathtub, obviously.

I Would Recommend This Book to: A high schooler interested in philosophy or someone who has never had a philosophy class who might like to learn.

If You Liked This Book, You Might Also Like: Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig

This Book Wins my Award for: Most use of my new least favorite word "bagatelle." Yuck.
P.S. For some reason I misplaced this book more often than any of the other 30 Books Before I'm 30. I think it took me so long to read it because half the time I couldn't even find it! It would have won my award for "Most Misplaced Book," except that the word "bagatelle" grated so much on my nerves.

In my Professional Psychological Opinion: (Note: This section is a joke and I would never officially diagnose a person, real or imagined, without an appropriate clinical interview.) I would diagnose Sophie and Alberto Knox with Shared Psychotic Disorder (or folie a deux) for believing that they are characters in a book who then break free and wander the earth as spirits.

Up Next: Wuthering Heights-- I'm already a quarter finished because I've been going to the gym more often and my kindle fits perfectly on both the elliptical machine and the treadmill.

Super Bowl Sunday Snacks

For the past year or so, Josh has been gifting cake and cupcake decorating books to me because, even though I'm not artistic, I strongly suspect that I would have been a great cake decorator had I not chosen to be a psychologist. But I never get a chance to decorate anything! So for the Super Bowl, my mom and I decided we would make special football player cupcakes in honor of the Packers. 

We started with yellow cake batter, frosted green and then dipped in green decorator sugar:

For the football player heads, we used vanilla wafer cookies, back-to-back and stuck together with frosting. Then I dipped them in green frosting and sprinkled them with green decorator sugar. My mom had the genius idea of propping them up in a wire cooling rack so that they could harden without smearing:

Then we used white chocolate-covered pretzels for the facemasks. It kind of ended up looking like all the players had beards, but I thought it was a cute idea.

Then I piped on some yellow stripes and numbers. I made Josh find out the numbers of the starters so we could have an accurate player representation. (Please ignore my scruffiness, I hadn't yet gotten ready for church).

 The finished product:

Eating while wearing my cheese head during the game: (I don't have a Packers sweatshirt so I wore my UWisconsin sweatshirt instead).

Josh also contributed by making tons of food (enchiladas, green chili, Spanish rice, and beans). He also cooks while wearing his jammies:

Spruce Goosed

This weekend we were lucky enough to get to hang out with the Hambeltons, who came up to go to the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum, eat doughnuts from Voodoo Too, and spend the night in Beaverton.

Evergreen ASM is the home of the infamous Spruce Goose:

(Bennett was a little mad because he wanted to go inside the tail and play with the beach balls)

Other things happened, like:

Josh piloted this fake helicopter

It involved getting this red ball on top of this mini toy

One of the docents, upon seeing Josh's prowess at getting the ball in that exact spot, said,
"If you're off somewhere and you need to safely hover in one spot,

THIS is the guy you want at the controls!"

I know we've left some stuff out

We've had a busy few months, so some of the stuff we ordinarily post about has gotten a little lost in the melee. First and foremost is the annual BNAT post. Josh is working on it, but has been super distracted lately (mostly watching football, but also actually working). I was also going to post about all the awesome food we ate in Phoenix, but it involves a lot of links, youtube clips, and possibly some clever puns so I haven't gotten around to it. I promise, these posts are coming eventually.

But I can tell you about our upcoming trip in March so you can look forward to even more posts we haven't written yet. Josh has been in the process of finalizing hotels, but we bought our plane tickets a few weeks ago for ROCHESTER, NEW YORK! Woot!

Okay, really we're going on a church history tour, driving from Palmyra to St. Louis in a week, stopping at temples (not in order: Palmyra, Toronto, Nauvoo, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis) and other church history spots. For our one reader who likes our posts about the temples we've visited, I know this is going to be exciting.

The Story of my Red Right Ankle

One of my new year's resolutions is to run a half marathon some time this year. To prepare, I'm planning to run a 5K, then a 10K, which involves a lot of preparation. Today, while I was practicing my running, this happened:

Pretty gross, right? Yeah, I thought so too. Josh is all impressed now because he thinks I'm super hardcore because I knew my sock wasn't covering my ankle correctly and I kept going anyway (for 4 miles.... though it's a lot easier when you're going so slowly, though maybe not because it meant my ankle was rubbing for almost an hour). 

Then Josh reminded me of one of the first picture texts I ever sent him, which was my leg after I had fallen over (trying to be funny), ripped my (favorite) jeans, and skinned myself so badly I was dripping blood. I was clearly not trying to impress anyone. True story.

30 Books Before I'm 30: Suite Francaise

Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

"She remembered the defeated soldiers of the French army who a year before had fled through the town, dirty, exhausted, dragging their combat boots in the dust. Oh, my God, so this is war... An enemy soldier never seemed to be alone-- one human being like any other-- but followed, crushed from all directions by innumerable ghosts, the missing and the dead. Speaking to him wasn't like speaking to a solitary man, but to an invisible multitude..."

"Suite" refers to an ordered set of orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert rather than as accompaniment. Nemirovsky planned to write a five-piece novel, but only finished the first two parts before she was detained in a concentration camp and killed. Previous to her death she was a successful writer in Paris. Her daughters kept her notebooks but they weren't read until 1998. 

This novel starts on the evening of the German occupation of Paris and follows a series of people whose lives intertwine. The first part ("Storm in June") is about the people leaving the city and coming back, and the second book ("Dolce") is about the German occupation of a small town. 

Things I Liked: I got into this book almost right away. It's short (okay, 367 pages but it felt short), quick, and offers a view of WWII that is very relatable in a way that stories about concentration camps are not for me. The terror and horror of a concentration camp-- the threat of being found (like The Diary of Anne Frank) or living in one (like a play I was in during college-- Playing for Time) is so blindingly scary, it's hard for me not to turn off immediately and not allow myself to be emotionally involved in the stories (additionally, I've been told more than once [and I am not kidding here] that I have a perfect Aryan face and would have survived the holocaust). But I can relate to this book. I can imagine myself fleeing from bombs, and while the characters were choosing which possessions to bring with them as they fled, I mentally listed the things that I, also, could not leave without (Josh, cats, pictures, maybe my good china). 

Things I Didn't Like: There are a lot of characters in this book. A lot. Some of them make multiple appearances, some of them are only meaningful for a couple of pages. I did a lot of flipping back to try to remember who did what and where (there's a particularly bad guy who I kept confusing with a different, similarly bad guy). The second part pretty much stays on the same people, though, and was a much more engaging read.

I also didn't like that the book is unfinished, but I guess I can blame the Nazis for that.

This Book Would be Best if Read: During a long car ride (if you don't get carsick), on a beach, before bed. The chapters are short, though if you take too long to read it you might forget some of the characters who make reappearances.

I Would Recommend this Book to: Anyone and everyone. I'm not sure how stereotypically "manly" it is, but there are plenty of soldiers, lots of action, and more than half the characters are male. There are a few "kind of" love stories that are slightly sappy, but it takes place during WWII, so you know there won't be a happy ending.

If You Liked This Book, You Might Also Like: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, The Invisible Bridge by Julie Orringer, the movie Swing Kids (yeah, I'm recommending it).

Up Next: I really have no idea what I'm going to read next. Does anyone have suggestions from this pre-selected list of books? 

I'm 11 down, with 19 and a little more than 6 months to go. Unfortunately, I've been sneaking in some books for pleasure, as well as dissertation articles and textbooks, so it's been going a lot slower than I thought it would. 

We took down our Christmas tree today...

... and it reminded me that I neglected to post about our new ornaments this year. Josh and I like to collect ornaments from the various places we visit, and then at the end of the year we get to reminisce about the fun trips we've taken during the year.

Since the last time we put up our tree, we have visited:

 Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX

The U.S.S. Texas (also in Houston)

NYC, NY

 Ellis Island

 The Empire State Building

 Salem, Mass.

 Pearl Harbor

 Disneyland

We also acquired some decorations:

 Last year, Christmas 2009, my sister Abby gave me these nativity ducks. SO CUTE!

We also got to hang out with my family at Hoodoo for NYE:

 with my nieces Alice and Katie

Josh showed up too

Everyone was being pretty freaking cute

There were also fireworks, which is my absolute favorite part of NYE. You can't beat fireworks over snow.