The Jennifer Blogs

I just finished reading the book, "The Alchemist," by Paulo Coelho. This will definitely go down as one of my favorite books ever. First I want to share some of my favorite quotes with you:

When you know that language, it's easy to believe that someone in the world awaits you, whether it's in the middle of the desert or in some great city… without such love, one's dreams would have no meaning.

Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity.

The world's greatest lie: At a certain point in our lives we lose control of what's happening to us and our lives become controlled by fate.

Every blessing ignored becomes a curse. I don't want anything else in life. But you are forcing me to look at wealth and at horizons I have never known. Now that I have seen them, and now that I see how immense my possibilities are, I'm going to feel worse than I did before you arrived. Because I know the things I should be able to accomplish, and I don't want to do so.

Everyone, when they are young, knows what their destiny is. At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives.

Because I don't live in either my past or my future. I'm interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man... Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we're living right now.

I think of this book as a love story, among other things. But the way Coelho talks about the love the boy has for Fatima is simply beautiful. I actually cried when I read the unfolding of their love story.

The story is all about the boy going after his dreams. There is definitely a theme in there of chasing your dreams, and being the romantic that I am, I also equate that with love. All that most people in this world want is to find their one true soul mate and to spend the rest of their lives with him/her. Sometimes we meet that person when we are children. Other times it’s not until later in life. No matter when it is, it’s scary. It’s a huge step not to be taken lightly. Sometimes fear stops us from being with the person we love, though. That’s what I like about the second quote above.

I really love how the story ends. To me, it could mean a few things, but going back to my theme of love, I think the author could be saying that the person you are looking for has been there all along. You dream of bigger things. You leave home. You experience the world. But the treasure you have been seeking was always right there where you started.

One of the nice things about living in Singapore is that it's pretty much disaster-proof. There are no typhoons or hurricanes. There are no blizzards or tornadoes. Singapore doesn't have monsoons or tidal waves. And there aren't even earthquakes.



But, just because there are no earthquakes doesn't mean you don't occasionally feel the earth move.



In fact, before we moved here, there were some huge earthquakes moving the ground in Indonesia. My husband was in Singapore on a business trip at the time and said he could feel the hotel swaying. He was high up on something like the 30th floor and everything just sort of tilted one way, then back again. I can only imagine what they felt in Thailand if here in Singapore --a whole other country, for crying out loud-- there were skyscrapers leaning to and fro.



Anyway, he's fast asleep (and snoring so loud I want to beat him with a shoe), and I'm catching up on my blog-reading. The poor guy woke up cuz he thought there was an earthquake. I was laughing so hard at Jen Lancaster's blog about ant killer that I was shaking the bed. But the thing is, it wasn't one of those laugh-out-loud-HAR-HAR-HAR kind of laughs. I was stifling it so as not to wake him up. (Okay, I may have snorted a couple of times, but they were quiet snorts.) Because I worked so hard to stifle the laughter, I ended up shaking the bed twice as hard as if I'd just opened up my gut and busted out the laugh.



No honey, it's not an earthquake. Go back to sleep. And quit snoring.

I feel like the past few days I've had a lot to blog about, but not a lot to say about each individual thing, so thought I could put it all together in one neat little blog and tie it with a bow, then deliver it straight to your computer. How's that sound? Splendid! Let's get started!



BOOK STUFF:

 I recently finished reading the book 19 Minutes by Jodi Picoult. It's the first time I've read any of her books and I am hooked! I don't know if they're all this good, but I chose this book based on the story, not on the author. It's about a school shooting, which my kids think is very morbid -- that Mom can't stop talking about a book she loves that deals with a school shooting. Anyway, it's a great book. You always get to hear what the victims and their families go through, but this one also lets you see inside the shooter's family. The parents -- so distraught -- wondering what went wrong. The shooter himself -- bullied from his first day of kindergarten through the day of the shooting. This is a book I won't forget for a very long time. And I actually hope I never forget the way I felt after finishing the last word. The things we say and do really matter. You have two choices in every situation in which you deal with others - treat them kindly, or don't. Period. If you treat them kindly you may just make someone's day. If you don't, you could be the one to push them over the edge. And maybe neither, but won't you feel a lot better knowing that you treated them kindly anyway?




GEEK STUFF: 
Speaking of the book I just read, it's the second one I finished on my Kindle. I'm so in love with this wonderful electronic gadget! I am currently reading "Size 12 Is Not Fat" on the Kindle, and "Life of Pi" on paperback. I still have a lot of paperbacks that my mom sent me from the US from before I had my Kindle. Books are just so expensive over here. And with the Kindle I don't have to worry about taking up room trying to find places to store them all. I also downloaded The Renaissance Soul on the Kindle. Can't wait to delve into that one! Oh yeah, and Bitter is the New Black.
I'm only a few chapters in to "Life of Pi," by the way, but it's *very* good!




RADIO STUFF:
 I've been reading out loud a lot lately -- practicing, I tell the kids and my husband. I hope to get a job (or two, or a thousand) reading for books on tape, so I want to make sure I can read well. It's not as easy as it seems.
My friend Robin sent me a job ages ago with information on how to apply for a job reading for books on tape - someone was looking for demos. I didn't have my studio here at the time -- it was still on its way from Japan -- and then things got busy and I never did submit anything. I did, however, finally finish recording a short demo of me reading from a book and put it up on the website yesterday.
Oh yeah, the website. It's no longer up at www.jenniferpagemedia.com, but it will be again one day. For now it's on a back site. I'm designing this one myself so I can update it whenever I want to. That's important to me -- to try to keep my demos fresh and the page looking current. So if you want to see what I've done so far -- keep in mind it's STILL under construction -- it's at web.mac.com/radiojen/JPM.




SINGAPORE STUFF: 
I'm meeting a friend Monday at the Bird Park. She's got two kids close in ages to my two. I've only met Nicky once, but we've corresponded by email a lot since before I moved here. I really like her. She's normal. I like normal. You don't find a lot of that here. Nicky is going back to the US next week, so it'll probably be the last time I see her until after summer.
Alicia has been busy with a friend in town and then will be going back to the US soon. That kind of bums me out, cuz who will I hang out with? Who will get me into trouble, and then get me out of it? 
Marso & I were supposed to meet with some of Don's friends here in Singapore. They'll only be here like another month and then are going back to the US for a year. They're missionaries, and are very busy with some training they're conducting before heading back to Florida. We've missed out on seeing them twice, and I'm kind of bummed about it. I cannot begin to tell you how homesick I've been (off and on) for the past couple of months. Seeing some people who know my dear friends back in the US was supposed to make me feel a little closer to home. I hope I get to see them before they leave.




US STUFF: 
Speaking of the US, I got a nice letter today from my friend Melanie and a package in the mail yesterday from Mom. Mom sent microwave popcorn, a sarong, a couple of tank tops, a t-shirt, some pictures and some American candy. Nothing beats letters and goodies from home. 



I just finished reading the book "The Next Thing on My List" by Jill Smolinski. It's about this girl, Jane, who has a "List of Things to Complete By My 25th Birthday." Thing is, it's not her list. She's completing it for a girl who recently died. In the process, she learns a lot about herself. I won't spoil it in case you decide to read the book. (It's fiction - completely made up - chick lit.)

Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the first to start my own list after reading this book. I did feel compelled to start writing my List of Things to Complete By My 25th Birthday. *sigh* Wishful thinking. By my 40th birthday. Granted, that's still a few years away, but I'm going with more than 20 items since List of Things To Complete By My 37th Birthday not only doesn't give me a whole lotta time, and it doesn't sound nearly as glamorous.



So far, I've got things like: sing karaoke (God only knows why cuz I have a horrible voice and I'm petrified, so I guess maybe this is one of those face your fears of humiliation things), learn to play one song on the guitar, learn CPR, give up a bad habit, pick up a good habit, write a book, take a Girl's Trip, walk in a fashion show, go back to San Diego.



I'm just like the character in this book. In fact, from near the beginning of the book I began to identify with her. I'm a world-class procrastinator. I don't know when it all started. All I know is I'm very, very good at it. That's why I'll be counting on friends and family to help me complete my list. I can say I'm very glad that my karaoke-singing friends in Florida are too far away to force me into karaoke night with them and my friend Alicia here in Singapore doesn't read my blogs (I don't think). So I may not be forced into doing that one til I've been able to practice a bit.



If you've got a list - or if you feel compelled to write one - I'd love to know what kind of stuff is on it. Maybe I can steal a few of yours for my list too.

Since I've had so many emails and comments about it, I figured I'd blog about my Kindle. I've had it just for a couple of days, but I'm already madly in love with my Kindle. Granted, there are a couple of features I cannot use since I'm living overseas, but it's still worth it to me! Yes, it's expensive. Of course, just days after we dropped $399 on this little bugger, Amazon decided to lower the price by $40 bucks. Oh well. It was bound to happen, I guess. And quite honestly, this beautiful little piece of technology will be paid for very quickly.



Books in Singapore are expensive. And not just a little bit expensive. One of the books I bought here when we came to scout out places to live cost me $39 Singaporean dollars. That's $28.50 American dollars. For a paperback. That's not the average cost, but it's not uncommon. Most of the books I'm interested in reading are between $19 and $29 Singaporean dollars, or $14 to $21 American dollars. I'm reading more here than I ever have, and I just can't see paying those kinds of prices for books. Yes, there are used book stores here, but they're not easy to find and they're still expensive. Well, they're probably about on par with what new books cost in the US. Only for used books. No thanks.



For anyone who follows me on Good Reads, you know I've been reading up a storm. Can you imagine what it would cost me to buy all those books new over here? At $18 American dollars each (the average of what most of the books I'm interested in reading cost), that's only 22 books til the Kindle is paid off. I can read 22 books in about four months. Maybe five months. But the Kindle does so much more! It has a built-in dictionary. So if I come across a word I'm not familiar with (which happened a lot in a book I recently read), I can easily look it up. Kindle has free access to WikiPedia. This is one of those features I can't use. Amazon's free Internet service (WhisperNet) isn't available outside the US. But when I get home, I'll be able to use it.



Kindle also offers free email. I'm not sure what my email address is (something that ends in @kindle.com I think). Again, this is something I can't use overseas anyway. You can send documents to your Kindle - like .pdfs, .docs, or other files that you need to take with you. Only this way you don't have to carry papers.



It's also got built-in speakers or a headphone jack if you want to listen to music while you're Kindling. You can upload mp3 files to it easily by attaching it with a USB cord to your computer.



Oh yeah, and you can listen to books on tape if you want. You can buy them from Amazon or Audible. It will play either format.



The Kindle is so small and so lightweight too. Marso and the kids were amazed when they saw how compact it is. It really is thinner than the paperback I am currently reading, and it's much lighter. The screen is so easy to read - even outside by the pool. No glare!



Yes, definitely add it to your Amazon Wish List and pray your hubby is as generous as mine is! :-)

Last Sunday was Mother's Day. It was also my 7th anniversary. Since it was a double-whammy, my husband really did it up. He bought me a Kindle! Well, he ordered it. It's on its way to me right now.



The kids noticed Daddy didn't hand Mommy a present Sunday morning, so later in the week they wanted to know what Daddy got for me. I told them he bought me a Kindle. D'Ette said, "Nuh uh!" Jean-Luc said, "You're spoiled."

I'm really enjoying this book I'm reading - A Girl Named Zippy. It's a memoir from a person you don't know. A person I don't know. Still, I'm enjoying her stories. She paints very vivid pictures, and makes me recall my own life growing up in Small Town, NY. (No, it's not really called "Small Town.")



I remember our kitchen smelling like apples. My mom used to look forward to the fall because that's when she would go to Roger Marris' apple orchard and ask if she could pick apples. She worked a regular job as a Lab Technologist at the hospital, but there was something about picking stuff that my mom loved. She would pick whatever was in season, and she loved it. Not for the money, mind you. She just loved pickin' stuff. And I do believe apple season was her favorite. (Is it offensive to anyone that I believe my mom should have been born Mexican?)



One of the perks of picking apples is that at the end of the day, before she came down from the ladder one last time, Mom would fill her basket with apples to bring home. I learned at a young age how to tell the difference between Red Delicious and Empire and Golden Delicious and Granny Smith. I knew what all the apples were called, and I knew what they all tasted like. And I loved the way they made our kitchen smell!



Now in Tokyo I look out the windows and I see the leaves turning gold and red and orange, and I watch them fall off the trees. If I open the door and feel the cold air, I can sometimes in my memory also smell those apples.