Things That Make Me Happy

1. Lord of the Rings- I know, you're all shocked and surprised.  But these books mean a lot to me.
2. A Good Cup of Tea- This is probably one of the most relaxing things ever . . . other than a good shoulder massage.  It's perfect with a good book on a rainy or snowy day.
3. Comfortable Shoes- See my post about heels here.  There's something comforting about slipping your feet into a pair of broken-in sneakers.
4. New Journals- They're just so pretty!
5. A Good Book- I know this is similar to #1, but on a broader scale.  Lord of the Rings is a good book . . . a great book . . . but not all good books were written by Tolkien.  There are other great authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare . . .
6. Hoodies- They're warm, soft and comfortable.  They're perfect for this time of year when it's too cold to just wear a T-shirt, but not cold enough for a coat.
7. Yarn- I bet you saw this one coming, too.  Sadly, I haven't had much time to play with this woolly substance lately, but some nice merino or alpaca can make my day.
8. Pillows- The fluffy ones.  Need I say more?  I didn't think so.
9. Cheesecake- I don't know what it is about this delightful dessert, but I find it hard to turn down good cheesecake.  Especially if it happens to be from the Cheesecake Factory.
10. Pens- Perhaps it's the writer in me, but I cherish a good pen that writes well and mourn it when it dies.

Please not that these are things . . . objects.  Since they are not objects, the people that make me happy don't make it onto this list.  Maybe they will get their own post sometime in the future; I don't know.  We'll have to see.

A Reflection on Friendship

Friends are such an important part of life.  I think a lot of hardships would be almost impossible to get through without the help of a good friend.  It doesn't matter where you are or when the last time you saw that person was.  A true friend is always there.  While watching Lord of the Rings recently, it struck me how Gandalf and Aragorn were really true friends.  In the story, I always think of Sam and Frodo, Merry and Pippin, and Legolas and Gimli.  But, really,  the books allude to how Gandalf and Aragorn have worked together for many dangerous missions.  Aragorn expressed concern for Gandalf during a discussion on whether they should go through the mines of Moria or not.  At another point, Tolkien implies that Gandalf encouraged Aragorn to return to Gondor and claim his right as king.  Both voice their trust in each other on several occasions.  And that's what friendship is all about, isn't it?  They were frequently separated for long periods of time, but they trust each other implicitly.  I think this is an aspect of friendship that isn't thought of today.  Shouldn't we work towards helping our friends rather than looking at what they can do for us?

Random Tolkein Quote of the Day

"I have chosen Mr. Baggins and that ought to be enough for all of you.  If I say he is a Burglar, a Burglar he is, or will be when the time comes.  There is a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself." -Gandalf, The Hobbit

Last week, I found out that I get to be involved in an awesome weekend for freshmen again next year as a leader.  As a result, I've been thinking a lot about  the qualities of a leader and how I can become a good leader lately.  Then, I was on a bus to New York City on Saturday, and I was reading The Hobbit again.  It occurred to me that Gandalf, Thorin, and even Bilbo are leaders in one way or another.  I think Gandalf and Thorin are kind of obvious, but Bilbo grows a lot over the course of The Hobbit, and takes the lead when other characters start to lose faith in themselves.

But, Gandalf is one of the more obvious characters who shows leadership qualities in Tolkien's novels.  I love the faith that Gandalf puts in the characters he interacts with.  Throughout both The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he sees the potential for growth in other characters; and, he's not afraid to tell them when they fail to meet up with his expectations.   He frequently mocks or ridicules for errors they make.  Though his comments may come off as harsh or mean-hearted, I think it can really be interpreted as tough love.  In the quotation above, Gandalf stands up for Bilbo when the dwarves question his abilities.  Although he implies that Bilbo may not quite be the "burglar" they need at the moment, Gandalf expresses confidence in Bilbo's ability to grow into that role.  According to Gandalf, Bilbo has "a lot more in him than you guess, and a deal more than he has any idea of himself" (19).  The truth is, we all need someone to see the potential.  Everyone has some aspect of their life that is in need of improvement.  To have the ability to see the potential in others, no matter how obscure or undeveloped, is an admirable quality and one that will lead to success in whatever endeavor the group is working to achieve.

That's all I have to say on the topic for the time being, folks.  I'm thinking about making another blog where I can discuss Lord of the Rings and Tolkien exclusively.  What do you all think?

Books, books, books...

So, I was reading my friend Krysti's blog (krystiatcollege.blogspot.com) and she posted this list of books that, according to the BBC, most people have only read six of the one hundred books on this list.  I'm putting the books I've read in red. I'll put the ones that I started but didn't finish in blue and the ones that I want to read in green.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen


2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaube

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So...that's 20 books that I've read, 8 that I've started but never finished for whatever reason, and 8 books that I want to read.  I think I need to get cracking... I really need to find a public library in this area... the reading selection at the school library stinks... it's all reference. I think we may be making a city excursion over the weekend, so we'll see how my reading goes from there.  At the moment, I'm working through The Hobbit again.  I've been wanting to re-read all of Tolkien's books... at least Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  I would like to read the Histories of Middle-Earth, too, if I ever have time.  Yay reading!