Books Books Books (and some bitching)

I've been on a little reading jag recently. I whipped through Parched by Heather King like some kind of possesssed maniac because it was such an engrossing story. First of all, she is a very good writer and a lot of the story is set here in the NH Seacoast area, my home turf too. I got to see her read in Portsmouth last month and would love to read about how she got from where she left off at the end of Parched to where she is now.
After finishing such a good read so quickly I was suffering from book withdrawal (and a good funk on the occasion of what would have been my fifteenth anniversary) and headed off to the library before I had the chance to consider the recommendations I received from some kind folks in their comments. I need to start a list of books to read and keep it in the little notebook I just bought to keep in my bag. I went without much of a plan other than the vague notion that I'd like to read John Irving's latest, knowing full well it wouldn't be sitting there on the New Books shelf waiting for me. Instead I found I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe waiting there for me. I'm about 100 pages into it and some of it screams of old man trying to write about a world he doesn't really know anymore, but it's still entertaining. His eye for detail seems to be most accurate when he writes about the rich and spoiled people, which is probably closest to the world he knows now. I don't know if young men walk around consciously thinking thoughts of entitlement and superiority like some of his young male characters do, but maybe that's something he knows more about than I do. Anyway, the book is helping me remember how clueless freshmen really are when school starts which is something I should keep in mind as this next semester approaches.
I also found a very little book titled On Bullshit written by some professor of philosophy. Apparently it stirred up some kind of hoopla when it came out but I missed all that. I read it in under an hour and my basic feelings about it were 1) I now remember why the only class I dropped out of and failed in my entire academic career was a philosophy class and 2) it was pretentious, pointless and basically reaffirms everything I hate about academia, academics and liberal arts.
Which brings me to my plan of escape from that world. I've decided I can't take it anymore. I don't want to live with the shitty pay and no benefits and full responsibilities of running a one woman show in my subject at that school anymore. So I now have a plan. My mother has commented to me before that I always have a plan and am happiest that way. She's right. My current plan involves making fuller use of my language abilities and going back to translation,this time with a specialization. When you specialize you can charge more and it becomes easier to do the work because you're familiar with the topic and spend less time in dictionaries and worrying about the correct way to word things in your own language. It means more money and less time on the job. I like that. To accomplish this, I am going to take an online paralegal course starting in September and use what I learn to specialize in Japanese to English legal translation. I figure I'll be able to make double what I'd make even if I had an instructorship at school (which I don't. I'm there on a per-course basis) and I'll be able to work from home and live the groovy freelancer lifestyle.
All I know is that being poor sucks and I make a third of what I used to make when I lived in Japan and I'm too stubborn and proud to ask the people around me for help too often, so if I'm going to be able to satisfy myself at all, I need to figure out how to make a decent living. And if the freelance translating doesn't work out the way I hope it will, I can always go get an office job with the education.

The Cure

I'm going to the library. I need a good book to lose myself in.

The Dog Days

It is very hot and humid once again today. I just dropped my girl and our dog back off at her father's house. Today would have been our fifteenth anniversary. I suppose it still is since the legal crap isn't finished yet. I don't even understand how I can be old enough to have been married that long. That's a big chunk of time.

Shades of Things to Come

My girl spends half her time with me and half with her father. It's not my ideal scenario but it was the best I could come up with when I had to and now it can't change until the court says it can. Even still, it starts to drive me a little crazy as summer wears on and she complains of boredom. So, I should be thrilled that a friend invited her to swim and play up in Waterville Valley for the day and both the friend and the friend's mom enjoyed my girl so much they invited her to spend the night with them (back here in town), as well. I should be pleased that my girl is so much fun and so pleasant that her friends and their parents find her a joy to have around. And I am pleased. Part of me is pleased. The other part is sitting here with the dog, about to kick back with a new book in peace and quiet and wondering if that's so wonderful why do I feel so conflicted. I also realize when I felt like I had to create a life I could live with and be happy with myself in a few years back, I wasn't wrong. She's going to grow up and move on with her own life. That means I have to have one that isn't all about her, too.

If I Wasn't Me

I've been approached about a translating job that I know some people would give up crucial bodily parts to get. It's translating manga. There seems to be a decent amount of (indecent) material and I'm being told it could develop into a steady gig. The thing is, I could really give a shit about manga. I don't particularly like manga, anime, RPGs, J-Pop or any other of that crap. Guess it'll boil down to the money. Kind of funny to think I'd rather work on translating contracts than comic books.

Hydrangeas

As I was driving around town today running errands I noticed hydrangeas are coming into bloom. That seems kind of funny to me. There are a lot of hydrangeas (ajisai) in Japan and they bloom throughout the rainy season, which runs from June until about mid-July. They start out blooming blue and then change colors as the weather gets damper and hotter. By the time they are a faded purple (or maybe it was pink) summer has hit with full force. So, it seems weird seeing that early blue hydrangea in July, smack in the middle of what is our short summer season. They just don't look quite right to me unless they are offset by a concrete block wall and the sound of rain on my umbrella.

Oh Well

Sometimes despite my best intentions life turns into an O. Henry story. Then again, "despite best intentions" tends to be what a lot of those plot twists are about. I just get so busy thinking about other things that I forget to pay attention to what's sitting right in front of my face.

Grammar, Anyone?

Am I being a prig for being disturbed that a column written by the chairman of the state university system Board of Trustees and published in the local paper is titled "Tuition increases unfortunately but necessary"?
That just sounds wrong. You can't mix an adverb and an adjective like that. It needs to either be "Tuition increases unfortunate but necessary" or "Tuition increases unfortunately but necessarily" (which in my opinion sounds sucky.) It also seems to be missing punctuation, a comma or an em dash or something. "Tuition increases-- unfortunate but necessary." Increases could be in the singular rather than the plural. I suppose I shouldn't let that kind of thing bother me, but it's just so sloppy.