The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

To live in the world without becoming aware of the meaning of the world is like wandering about in a great library without touching the books.

This book was my read in June last year.  I love Dan Brown books.  Maybe because I'm always fascinated with fictions that interlace with facts, history and religion.  I know there are plenty of books out there with the same genre but let just say I'm sort of loyal.

I was planning to visit a girlfriend in Washington last year so reading this book was aptly and I also plan to take the book tour.  So there I was busy jotting down all the must-not-miss places to see from the book.  Alas the visit didn't materialized due to my work commitment but finished the book I did.  Perhaps, one day.

Back to the book.  Although it was fast paced for me but it didn't capture my interest as much as I thought it would be.  I have high hopes for this book, perhaps that was the reason.  Nevertheless, I like all the quotes and captions I found thru out the book - as usual.

p58 We all fear what we do not understand
me: like other religion and culture

p112 Knowledge is a tool.  And like all tools, its impact is in the hands of the user

p143 Alcohol came from an Arabic word al-kuhl

p537 Avrah Ka Dabra = abacadabra = I create as I speak
me: magic ^_^

p596 Albert Pike - what we have done for ourselves alone, dies with us.  What we have done for others and the world, remains and is immortal.

At one point, the book sort of lost me and I couldn't care much about how the story ends but I did enjoy all the many infos especially the history behind the words and monuments in DC.  All are saved for my 'perhaps one day' visit to Washington.

Without wax
me

The Ten Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer

I really want to like this book even before I read it.  I can anticipate myself making a connection to at least one out of the four female protagonists or even to all four.  After all, I am inspire to be a housewife one fine day.  Yup, you read me right.

The book is about 4 women who leave their careers to embrace motherhood and before you knew it 10 years had lapsed. What was meant to be temporary dragged to a decade ...

It's like the snooze in an alarm clock.  No matter how many times, the alarm screams at us, we can always find time for 5 min more (or in my case 9 min more) of sleep.  I'm not surprise that motherhood and marriage can make a decade of time flew off just like that.  

Alas, it didn't happened.  I mean the connection, that I hoped for between the characters and me.  

I like the idea of the story but it didn't engage me.  I found the story to be too narrative and sometimes too real for me to enjoy.  And at the end I struggled to finish the book.  But thanks to a short holiday to the island of Tioman where I purposely took only this book with me so I can finish it.  Limited access to internet on the island helps too.

ps/finished reading the book on June 9, 2011

Scent of a Woman - Korean Drama

After Secret Garden and subsequently World's Within mainly due to Hyun Bin the actor, I don't have much options of any interesting drama to watch.  But it was better that way bcos I'm easily influenced.
Anyways, I found about this drama and was hooked on it.  Storyline is not out of the ordinary.  Its pretty straight forward or rather common but I guess that why it works.  This time the writer stick to the original sappy story.  Rich, about to be engage (to a gorgeous, mean girl) guy fell for an ordinary girl who happened to be his ex-employee and he doesn't know that she has only 5 months to live.  And how their path crossed is because she has a bucket list to fulfill.  The drama is called Scent of a Woman because it followed the Hollywood movie with the same title whereby there was a tango scene by Al Pacino.  And of cos our terminally sick girl wants to learn to dance the sexy dance of tango as one of her bucket list.

What can I say, I'm a sucker for all this melodramatic, romantic, love story.  So since I can't wait for the episodes to be shown on tv plus I usually don't get the tv remote at the said time so I have to turn to the internet.  Bless the www.

The two main actors came down to KL to promote the drama recently which was how I got to know about it.  The famous OST for the drama is You Are So Beautiful sang by Kim Junsu from the band TVXQ who also made a cameo in this drama but I prefer this track.  I just learned that the singer is Kim Dong Wook and it is aptly titled Bucket List.

Until the next drama. 

A Thousand Years by Christina Perry

Happy 2012 people!!

Hope you enjoyed your new year eve. I didn't do anything special but family and I had supper at 1am at our favorite 'mamak stall'. So today is a late new year for the whole household.

Opening the blog for the first day of 2012 is this haunting tune. I have yet to watch Breaking Dawn the 4th sequel to the Twilight series. I'm gonna get the DVD. Soon I hope.

So here's wishing 2012 to be the best year yet for everybody. Enjoy the song.

 

The blog that use to be known as

Confession of a thirty something.
Hah, I wish!  Last I checked I was no longer thirty-something in August this year ^_^
So the change of the blog title is inevitable.  And since I'm changing the title, why not change the whole layout right?  So here I am after more than 2 hours trying to figure out Blogger's new dashboard layout and how do I make these changes, so pls, pls, bear with me if you encounter a half cook blog here.  I'm doing my best.  So here's hoping you stick with me and I see you around.  Soon. I hope.
PS/ apparently you can choose how you want to view my blog from the drop down menu (on the left).  So the choice is in your finger or mouse.

From Russia xoxo

Okay I'm still in the getting use to mode of using my Mac, so pls excuse me if the arrangement of the photos are somehow all over the place.  Maybe it will stay this way for all the entries to come.  Its hard to teach an old dog new tricks.

Anyways, hubby went to Moscow and St. Petersburg for yet another company's incentive trip last October (and yes I was green with envy) but I got all these magnets.  My favorite will have to be the St. Basel Red Square.

I also 'forced' hubby to make sure to get me the Matryoshka dolls.  Aren't they cute especially the babies ^_^

So the magnets are now totaling 123 and counting ...

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Okay so it's been a while since I update my readings.  Excuses to that can be several blog entries so I safe you the agony and proceed to this book.
At this point I'm still unsure on how to upload the photo of the book from my iPhoto into this new spanking MacBook Air of mine but I hope I'll figure it out soon so I can paste the book pic here.

But first thing first before I'm bogged down by other things in real life, my Apr-May reading.  Can you believe it that I'm only updating this now? I can't either.  Let me see, where's my note...

Okay I have several David Mitchell's books.  This is my first attempt to read him.  It's a combination of several short stories where one or two characters from each story will somehow interlink or with the other story very briefly.  Sometimes you have to really pay attention to your reading in order to notice that.

Chapter Tokyo
pp44  Then one of them asked why Japanese kids try to ape American kids? The clothes, the rap music, the skateboards, the hair.  I wanted to say it's not America they're aping, it's the Japan of their parents that they're rejecting.  It's not American culture exploiting us.  It's us exploiting them.
Hmm, thought provoking.

Conversation between two friends pp49
Koji: Do you believe in love at first sight?
Satoru: I believe in lust at first sight.
Koji: Seriously
Satoru: Well, love has to be based on knowledge, hasn't it?  You have to know someone intimately to be able to love them.  So love at fist sight is a contradiction in terms.  Unless in that first sight there's some sort of mystical gigabyte downloading of information from one mind into the other.  That doesn't sound too likely does it?
Are you smiling yet?

Chapter Hong Kong
It's about a corrupt financial lawyer.  I don't know what to make of it.  Don't quite like it but not totally disliking it either.

Chapter Holy Mountain
p146 I think my father was Emperor Chi seen shit.  Finding virtue in him was harder than finding a needle in the Yangtze river.  He never spoke a word of kindness or thanks to me and he sold my chastity for two tea bowls.  But, he was my father and the souls of the ancestors are the responsibility of the descendants.

An old woman who lives at the foot of a holy mountain all her life made her pilgrimage to the summit of holy mountain only to find - it was not holy anymore.  This is a tragic story but it has a justified ending.

Chapter Mongolia
This is my favorite chapter thus far.  One word, magical.

Chapter Petersburg
This one took me longer than expected.  But the last 10 pages were fast but story was not to my liking.

Chapter London
pp271 Question: Why do you exist?  Answer: Rugged lust and ruptured rubber?
LOL
pp285 I don't believe in an afterlife.  I consider the idea of God to be a childish prank and worst, a sick joke probably pulled by the devil.  And oh yes, you can have one without the other ...
London is about a guy who has to convince himself that he can make a commitment to marry the mother of his child.  I think ...

Chapter Clear Island
Scientist with a conscience, a fugitive, a woman - a page turner for me.  My favorite chapter thus taking over the previously liking above.

Chapter Night Train
This one completely baffled my mind.  I couldn't phantom who is whom etc.  Confused BUT the story is intriguing and clever for me to keep ploughing through. To sum up, a page turner with clever dialogues and complicated plot.

Chapter Underground
Epilogue of Okinawa.  The closure of the first chapter.

So I finished the book, more than a month later.  I think its an acquired taste, to read Mitchell that is.  I don't really enjoyed my first attempt.  But I can't strike it off entirely bcos com'on people this is THE David Mitchell we talking about and not to mention that I have 3 other titles that belongs to him which I bought and have yet to read!!!  Don't ask how come?  All I can say, not all recommendations out there works for you.  But read you must of anything you fancy.

Note: at this moment I have yet to figure out how to download the book's pic so I may have to post this without the book cover.