It's been about 9 months since my personal reading renaissance I started reading again (EDIT: i'm no da vinci). It started when I discontinued my two Arts units in the second semester of 2008 to pursue a double major in Commerce instead.
I found myself with too much time on my hands, so instead of studying and investing more time in the remaining two Commerce units (...), I spent a bit of my time wandering into Angus & Robertson, Borders and Dymocks every so often to buy books faster than I could read them.
Starting with buying Animal Farm from Angus & Robertson back then, Classics and Literature quickly became my favourite genres by far. And whenever I finished another book, it went into the same pile on the desk in my room.
Here it is:
The pile actually starts at Animal Farm though, cause Volume #1 of Ranma and the 'The Lord of the Rings' trilogy were already there to begin with. So here are the books that I've devoured over the last ~9 months in chronological order.
- Animal Farm - George Orwell (short, but.. grand.)
- The Book Thief - Marcus Zusak (nothing great. too easy.)
- Lord of the Flies - William Golding (David still has it.)
- Catch-22 - Joseph Heller (one of my all-time favourites.)
- Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (didn't live up to the hype, I preferred '1984', maybe I should reread it though.)
- Farenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury (pretty good, dystopian story again, but not as good as '1984' either imo.)
- Lolita - Vladmir Nobokov (bloody good. somewhat explicit at times, but what an engaging novel.)
- The Wind-up Bird Chronicle - Haruki Murakami (not a classic! and did I say 'Lolita' was explicit? well, this trumps it. but it's pretty much Murakami's style and it works so I can't criticize him for it.)
- Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami (this guy again? yup, also pretty explicit, probably a bit more. but moving and thoughtful.)
- The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad (this. took. way. too. long. to. read. it wasn't even long only about 300 pages iirc. but it's Conrad, so yeah it was good just a bit hard to read.)
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain (i recommend reading this before 'Tom Sawyer', even though this is the sequel.)
- The Master and Margarita - Mikhail Bulgakov (careful when reading this, keep in mind it's fiction... so good though! wish it were longer but unfortunately the writer died before he could finish it and his wife actually had to tie it up. oh, Mikhail, what could've been...)
- A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess (lived up to the hype and then some. quite short, definitely worth the read.)
- Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami (not as sexually explicit as Norwegian Wood but it's still there. typical Murakami novel, you'll know what you're getting yourself into when you read this if you're familiar with his works. NB: he wrote Norwegian, then Wind-up, then Kafka, and you can clearly see his writing style progress.)
Reading through some of Franz Kafka's short stories too, they're also pretty good. And finished 'A Christmas Carol' by Charles Dickens but it doesn't fit in the pile and I can't remember when I finished it.
So that's it! Best reads of those 14? Um.... 'Animal Farm', 'Catch-22', and 'Lolita' I reckon. Get cracking!
(Oh! But what about all the books I bought and didn't read or didn't/haven't finish... well, there's Moby Dick, The Odyssey, Atlas Shrugged is still going cause it's the biggest book I've ever seen, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, and Great Expectations to name a few off the top of my head...)
PS: Yes, that's a bulbasaur.
No suprise im blogging when exams are comming around, this is of course what we do. Blog when we don't have time and when we do we don't blog at all, ahah.
So recently i've had a few experiences with totally random people and hey i love random people they are cool, you know nothing about them so theres no friendship contract yet (haha i jokee friendship isn't a contract :p). But i got to say sometimes things can become weird.. really weird and awkward and yehh. And sometimes it's a little sad because you meet someone really cool and awesome for just a short time and then realise you'll never see that person again and yeah, ohh well.
anyways i'd like to share some random people stories with you guys that has happend over the last few weeks.
So yeh lets start with the ASEAN ball, which i'll kinda update you on now i suppose but i'll keep it short. I really liked it, and if u speak to a lot of people everyone has their own judgement on the whole event but i personally thought it was much better then last years.
Positives:
+ well for instance i went with my bestesttt friend catherineee!
+ The venue was at docklands really nice!
+ inside was decorated better then last years and the atmosphere was great
+ awesome company! seriously everyone i enjoy hanging around with was there it was awesome!
+ bar and service was really good
+ entertaiment was proo! (they had pro hip hop dancers performing in the middle of the night)
Negatives:
- food was terrible
- dance floor wasn't as big as it could of been
- the music was poor, i think the guy needs more experience..
- it was slightly more expensive then last years
well yeh anyways overall, i liked it =) but anyways back to the random people story. At the asean ball i was at the bar with a friend yeh and we were going to get drinks and she was like i think more towards the bar and i was standing back because i didn't want to overcrowd the place but yeh soo weird these like international japanese guys just like stand next to each other and full on like start talking in japanese just staring at me o.o! and im like... wow... any more obviouse? and soo it was getting quite awkward and then my japanese friend (aya) she comes across like a few tables because she sees the whole situation and she wanted to listen in to what they were saying but when she came they like suddenly stopped .. hmm.. odd.. i wasn't angry or anything but come on thats like a little rude yeh? but then after i took my shot i had like i don't know extra confidence so i went up to them and said, u know 'hello, hi im tim and this is aya, whats ur name?' and at first it was awkward cause i didn't know like if they knew english or not but like after a while they are like oh hey im rah rah rah rah rah rah (i forgot.. but seriously maybe the alcho was effecting me) all i remember was that i think one of them was called Shin? Shinji? oh i don't know.. and that they are international fobs taking a gap year and going to go to melbourne next year or something.. and the rest is a blur. and GRR... stupid japss never did find out what they were saying.
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so yeh another random moment was that on my way back from uni one day i was on the bus and you know those chairs near the back with 2 chairs facing another 2 chairs to make like 4 chairs in a square kinda thing? well anyways i was sitting there with Jenny (eng one), her friend .. im sorry i forgot his name lol and this random guy was sitting on the last one yeh, his name was JASON! LOL (linggggs got a brother ^^) nahh nah he was korean yeh and it was awkward because somehow the topic got on about Koreans and korea and stuff, and we kinda said some things that might be slightly offensive?? but we were joking and stuff. i don't know and then i didn't know he was korean at the time because i wasn't looking at him, but the more i looked at him i was like ... oh shitt.. soo like i had to say something yeh? so all i did was say 'hi??... your korean aren't you? ohh noo im sooo sorryyy' LOL! HAHA AWKWARDDDDDDD haha. but he was a cool guy, didn't take it too seriously he was just laughing most of the time.
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my final story with a random is just damn embarrassing, lol. i was like at the candybar buying popcorn and things for a movie and the girl was really really really cute! adorable lol and then after we brought stuff and was walking up the stairs i was like to my friend 'oh my goshhh shes soo cute i wonder what time she finishes her shift we should ask her to join us!' LOL and like it was a bit loud.. and i turned back to look at her and she was just smiling and i was like thinkinggg... ohhh shittt.. i just want to hidee now LOL! ahahh.
Soo yehh those are just a few of my many experiences with randoms.. haha, although looking back it seems quite awkward to begin with it's quite comical and sometimes when just like doing nothing these stupid memories come back lol. So i've concluded that although strange and weird and awkward at the start, talking to strangers isn't soo bad like well no one has really blown me off and been cold and just given me the piss off vibe before. Soo im just trying to say if you ever have the confidence one day, maybe actually talk to a random, it might be the funniest thing that makes your day ahha.