Latest reads

I've been reading My Life in France by Julia Child for a while and finished it last Thursday. On Friday, I started Julie and Julia and finished it in the same day (I was flying to Cincinnati for my JVC community member Carin's wedding and was stuck in an airport for a couple of hours, plus two almost two hour plane rides). I did enjoy My Life in France. You could really sense Julia Child's exuberance about what was going on and her excitement and frustration over writing Mastering the Art of French Cooking. The movie Julie and Julia pretty much accurately described her experiences and lifted them right from the book. Of course, there are certain elements that they didn't describe in the movie, including what happened after the cookbooks were published, but I liked it. A lot.

As for Julie and Julia, I didn't enjoy that as much. I actually couldn't help but think of Amy Adams whining the entire time I was reading it. It certainly was good, and it was good to read as a companion piece to My Life in France, but I certainly wouldn't pick it up on my own to read without having read the other book first.

I also read Eat, Pray, Love. I started that on Friday and finished it today. When I read a book, if I am into it, and I have nothing else to do, I will devour it. I LOVED that book. It basically was poetry and I loved how Elizabeth Gilbert broke up her experiences into different stories, but still made them flow together in a way that made sense. I, of course, enjoyed it far more than from the movie, and didn't picture Julia Roberts the entire time, which was good. I like Julia Roberts as an actress, but I think that since the book wasn't a narrative like Julie and Julia was, it was easier just to take it for face value.

Updating the focus of this

It really isn't going to be so much of a change, but I figure that I could add a couple of more things to the mix.

I start school again on Thursday. The good news is, I'm only in school one day a week (Thursdays). However, I need to do a large scale research project during the fall semester and during the spring semester, I need to finish that off and maybe present it (I'm not 100% sure). However, I am planning on doing a thesis in place of the final research project. It gets me out of taking the class and I just need to periodically meet with a professor about what I am doing for guidance. Last semester, I wrote a research project on different educational programs for children with autism, so I am going to continue with that, except probably focus on a couple of specific programs and weigh the benefits, as well as the minuses, of both. It will be an undertaking, but it will also free up my time so that I can work more. I need a new car in the next couple of years, so I need to start saving up for that. In addition, I don't always want to be living in my apartment, and I do want to get married and start a family at some point, so I need to start saving up for a house (I've already got some money put away for that).

That being said, I'm probably going to lose my mind at some point this year with reading nothing but journal articles and books about educational programs. I do intend to try to read for enjoyment as often as possible so while I am going to continue to use this as my platform to vent and just talk about what is on my mind, I am also going to blog about the books I read. It will help keep me sane and it will also help me keep track of what I read.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

I cannot say enough of this book. It is about a Hmong girl and her family who immigrated to the United States from Laos (well the girl's family did...she was was born in the US). The girl, named Lia Lee, is diagnosed with severe epilepsy and the book revolves around her family, their beliefs, and the American doctors who try to treat her. Among the Hmong, having epilepsy and suffering from seizures is seen as a good thing. Shamans in the culture often have seizures because they believe that when one has a seizure, a spirit is entering into their body and is being a host to heal others. Over the course of the book, Lia's condition worsens because of the miscommunication between her parents and the doctors, who do not want to learn about the Hmong culture and do not understand the incredible strength network that the Lees have.

I'm currently writing a paper on this book for my practice class for grad school. The focus of it is to look at incidents that happened over the course of the book that had consequences on Lia and her family. I had already read this in undergrad during the first semester of my senior year for my multicultural class that I had to take for my major. Basically, I credit this book for changing my life. At that point, I did not know what I wanted to do when I graduated. I was a Public Service major in college, with a concentration in Community Health Policy. I knew that I wanted to work in health care in some capacity but was not sure what exactly (certainly not a doctor...I hate blood and needles). When I read this book, and learned about the cultural competency and the social worker's role in it, I was incredibly moved and felt empowered. The class also was based out of the Social Work department at my school. From that, I realized that I wanted to be a Social Worker. Maybe I would not work in the capacity that the social worker in the book did, but I certainly wanted to do something like that and advocate for people and try to make a change.

I know it is cheesy to say, but this book literally changed my life. Nothing like realizing your second semester senior year of undergrad where you wanted to go with your life - after many people told you that you should be a social work major. I should have listened. I could probably have had advanced standing and been done with school sooner...