How will you use your gifts? What choices will you make? Will inertia be your guide, or will you follow your passions? Will you follow dogma, or will you be original? Will you choose a life of ease, or a life of service and adventure? Will you wilt under criticism, or will you follow your convictions? Will you bluff it out when you’re wrong, or will you apologize? Will you guard your heart against rejection, or will you act when you fall in love? Will you play it safe, or will you be a little bit swashbuckling? When it’s tough, will you give up, or will you be relentless? Will you be a cynic, or will you be a builder? Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?

Rainy Day References

From 1970 until his death in 1984, from January to March of each year except 1977, Foucault gave a course of public lectures and seminars weekly at the College de France as the condition of his tenure as professor there. All these lectures were tape-recorded, and Foucault's transcripts also survive. In 1997 these lectures began to be published in French with eight volumes having appeared so far. So far, seven sets of lectures have appeared in English: Psychiatric Power 1973–1974, Abnormal 1974–1975, Society Must Be Defended 1975–1976,Security, Territory, Population 1977–1978, The Hermeneutics of the Subject 1981–1982, The Birth of Biopolitics 1978-1979 and The Government of Self and Others 1982-1983. Society Must Be Defended and Security, Territory, Population pursued an analysis of the broader relationship between security and biopolitics, explicitly politicizing the question of the birth of man raised in The Order of Things. In Security, Territory, Population, Foucault outlines his theory of governmentality, and demonstrates the distinction between sovereignty discipline, and governmentality as distinct modalities of state power. He argues that governmental state power can be genealogically linked to the 17th century state philosophy of raison d'etat and, ultimately, to the medieval Christian 'pastoral' concept of power. Notes of some of Foucault's lectures from University of California, Berkeley in 1983 have also appeared as Fearless Speech.

AND

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Genealogy_of_Morality

Books That I Intend To Read

I always seem to stumble upon a review or an advertisement of a book that catches my attention but am struck with the predicament of lacking the time to actually pick it up.
This summer I've managed to achieve the extent of around 2 chapters of Not Dead Yet by Julia Neuberger and a couple of pages from The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.
I would have loved to have delved into a book and returned from the few disappointingly dreary 'summer' months with a sense of fulfilment, having managed to tick another book off of my hypothetical list of literary goals. But no. Instead I've been watching countless episodes of Friends and Desperate Housewives and spending my money, which is disintegrating quite rapidly, on pointless amenities and culinary treats.

This is why I have decided to write a list. A list to include all of the books that I will read at one point in my life. The purpose of the list is multi-fold.
1. It will help me to remember every book that I've ever looked at and thought, 'Ooh. I should read that one day to deepen my understanding or broaden my interest.'
2. It will provide a manifesto of how I should be spending my time and give me some actual goals to work towards.
3. I like having the excuse to write another blog.
4. Ticking off each book will be more exciting than I can imagine.
5. This will compel me to actually begin my book trail.

So, without much further ado, here is my list:
(bolded titles are of greater priority)


- The Lucifer Effect: Philip Zimbardo (I recently 'lost' this whilst borrowing it from the library, but it is taking a lot of effort to work through)
- Not Dead Yet: Julia Neuberger (I attempted to read this in the summer but had other things on my mind. It is more a book for those periods where you have little else to think about)
- The Diary of Anne Frank: Anne Frank (An amazing and absolutely essential read. Got through it in 3-4 days. It has a sobering effect on you - how can you possibly complain about the state of your life when you read a page of her diary listing the day's chores and the luxury of boiled cabbage and rotten potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner?)
- To Kill A Mockingbird: Harper Lee
- Nineteen Eighty-Four: George Orwell
- Crime and Punishment: Dostoevsky (Got so far as taking out and renewing this for 6 weeks, but it never ventured further than the bottom of my pile of books that idly sits on my desk)
- Lady Chatterley's Lover: D. H. Lawrence
- Tess Of The D'Urbervilles: Thomas Hardy
- Animal Farm: George Orwell
- A People's Tragedy: Orlando Figes (I have had this in my cupboard for over a year. Still haven't found the time to begin such an epic quest)
- Child 44: Tom Rob Smith (I found this in a charity shop recently and it now sits on the pile patiently waiting its turn)
- The Gargoyle: Andrew Davidson
- The Cellist of Sarajevo: Steven Galloway
- The Secret Scripture: Sebastian Barry
- Shit Magnet: Jim Goad (I used to own this, and have somehow misplaced it. Hopefully it will turn up on a day that I am in the right mood for it)
- Educating Rita: Willy Russell

- Outsiders: Howard Becker (I began reading this during school, but found it so very intricate that I could not devote enough interest at the time, and it has thus become redundant like the many others)

- Becoming a Marijuana User (Essay): Howard Becker (Hooray. One that I can tick off! Most probably because it was only 3 pages long. I found it online and printed it out. It was not as compelling as I had thought it would be. The theory behind it intrigued me, but the whole body of the essay did not compel me to read it and recommend it.)

- Doing the business: Entrepeneurship, The Working Class and Detectives in the East End of London: Dick Hobbs

- Metaphors We Live By: George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Another one that was borrowed from the library for several weeks and yet was never introduced to daylight)

- Folk Devils and Moral Panics: Stanley Cohen

- Someday This Pain Will Be Useful To You: Peter Cameron (I read the book in about 3 days. It was easy to follow and interesting, but had an extremely disappointing ending! Which is ultimately unforgivable. And so I had to conclude that this was merely an 'ok' read.)

- The Elegance of the Hedgehog: Muriel Barbery

- Memories That Smell Like Gasoline: David Wojnarowicz

- Everything Is Illuminated: Jonathan Safran Foer

- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Jonathan Safran Foer (This was an incredible read. I did not put it down for a second. Everything about it is wonderful. Just such a beautiful perspective on everything. And I've heard that there is a film being produced around it, so I look forward to seeing that!)

- The Book Thief: Mark Zusak (A quick read for such a long book actually. I enjoyed the different layout of it, it always kept your attention because it added little extras onto the page, whether it was a bit of commentary from Death or a picture drawn by the basement Jew. Interesting, but not something I would read over and over. Eye opening perspective of WW2 though - a German's experiences.)

- The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat: Oliver Sacks

- Nausea: Jean-Paul Sartre

- Existentialism and Humanism: Jean-Paul Sartre

- Looking for Alaska: John Green

- Slaughterhouse Five: Kurt Vonnegut

you know..

but sometimes you don't.

just because tragedies could have been prevented, or always have a root cause, doesn't mean there is always someone to blame.

i think a lot of people have forgotten the definition of 'accident'.

sure, the things that have been somebody's responsibility need to be dealt with correctly, but it has to be realised that there isn't always a clear explanation.

Nightmares by the Sea

I've been listening to Jeff Buckley for a while now, I love his song 'We All Fall In Love Sometimes'. He has a really odd but really really nice voice.


Anyway, I was reading up on him and discovered that he died at the premature age of 30.

His death was so tragic; he was swimming with a Roadie friend one night, and while his roadie friend was on the shore he turned around to put a guitar aside, and turned back to see that Jeff was gone. A couple of days later they pulled his body out of the river and declared it an 'accidental drowning'.

Such an awful fate.

Just another one of those things that makes you stop and think about how incredibly lucky you are.

Optimistic

OK so upon reviewing my last few posts I realised that they were a little too... depressing

So here I am... presenting you with a ray of sunshine in the form of a blog.

:)

p.s. Happy Birthday Your Majesty....

...

What do you do when somebody threatens to kill themselves?

And they've done it before, twice, but not succeeded.

You can sympathise with their situation, but you think that they're no longer serious about the suicide, they just want the attention.

What do you do?

Do you call 999 when they say they've taken an overdose?

Do you believe them?

Or do you have to ignore it so that they realise that they need help, and need to find another way of solving things.

How do you deal with it?

It is tearing me apart.

Hello 2010

The first time I talk to you in 2010 you lie to me.

Gah!

Why waste a blog on you?

I won't.

I'm here to say happy mother's day. and to recognise that it has now been 1 year since Jade Goody lost her battle with cervical cancer. she was such a brave woman, and the rare sunshine that we have been graced with today symbolises the warmth of her soul. i hope that her boys are alright today. ♥