bfg on 37%

I just got out of the bath. Like, really... I stood up, wrapped my big purple towel around me, flopped on my bed, opened my computer and the fake M&Ms I got from Muji and started this.

I took my first bath today probably since I was a kid. It is possible friends may have stuck me in a bath during an evening of drunken stupper but that doesn't count as I do not remember a thing.

It was wonderful. I got some fruity bubble bath from my friend for my birthday and I put that in. It felt like I was a Duchess or something. New white tub. Fruity water. An awesome manga to read in the bath... Divine.

Confession: I lasted ten minutes. By then, the idea of just sitting somewhere doing nothing gave me such anxiety I had to get out. Am I really that Japanese?

My skin is still tickling and my cramps have really subsided so I can understand why the Japanese say they don't feel "clean" with just a shower. Except needing to end it early, it was really nice and may be the thing I needed to get over my nervousness and go to an onsen. Actually, now that I am writing this maybe not. So it goes in Vanessa land.

Busy day but awesome. I tutored my little Miko-chan this morning. We invented a skipping rope spelling game which rocked. We played cards and learnt new words... the great thing about one-on-one teaching is how I can shift gears suddenly and turn everything into a learning experience. Even jump rope. It is something I want to do in my class but I like the skill and experience. I have been in classes with teachers like that but I don't know how to do it. I am a list woman. I write a list, I cross it off and I love every minute of it. (In case you are wondering, yes I am tutoring her on the side but she is a family friend so I am doing it for free. On JET you are not supposed to accept any more moneys and as tempted as I would be in Shizuoka everyone knows everyone. And if they don't, they soon will!)

I missed my bus but still made it to the library on time. I volunteered at the local library to  read in English (or French or Italian) to little kids. No other word for that than great. Sometimes when I read the FB status' of my friends teaching in younger level schools I am a little jealous at the "oh so genki" remarks. Do not get me wrong - I am not made for elementary school but I do like the squealing and running around in hour doses. About 10 kids came today and it was great. The were super into the the book about Casey and Barney the dogs who ran in the snow. The giggled and clapped and yelled "Omoshiroi!" about a hundred times. And god, Japanese kids are so dam cute. I loved how at the end even the old lady who was listening came up to us and said, "Tanoshi!" I couldn't help but giggle and for those thirty minutes I really forgot about my to-do list. It was more relaxing than my bath! Me drowning in the excitement of six year olds. Not to mention books.

After that I helped my friend plan her Christmas party for the 12 kids she tutors. We are going to write letters to Santa Clause and bake cookies. So cute! It will be my one Christmas party and I am excited about it since it will probably be the closest thing to an actual Christmas Celebration for me this year.

And then - yes the day is not yet over - off to MUJI where I bought the nephew, the bf and my students some Christmas presents. That is when I saw it... the chair.

Back home I have Neal, my Reading Chair. I found his Japanese twin brother in Muji the first time I went there. But 10 000 Yen plus 1500 yen for shipping made it not worth it. But today - everything was 10 % off. It was like almost free! I bought the chair, pens and the presents I kinda mentioned above. The sibling arrives on November 28th along with my Disney tickets. Bliss.

List of trips I am planning: Vietnam in March, Montreal early May and Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Tokyo early August. My treats if my 3K word count blossums into 20K and I actually pass. Oh, post-masters life is going to be so ... different!

*

That said I was tagged to do this on Facebook but thought here would be more appropriate. Learning someones reading list is a sure way of getting to know them. heehee

Have you read more than 6 of these books? The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books listed here. (BBC, Guardian, whatever)

Instructions: Bold those books you've read in their entirety. Italicize the ones you started but didn't finish or read only an excerpt. 

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen

2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien - I read up to Half way threw Return of the King. My favourite is book 2.

3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee

6 The Bible: My parents were so scared when I told them I wanted to read the Bible. And I did it. hahaha. Book of Amos is my favourite.

7 Wuthering Heights --Emily Bronte: I own several copies at home though.

8 Nineteen Eighty Four – George Orwell: my shame. Dark stain on my book list.

9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman: and I plan on going to Oxford in 2012 to visit my friend and reread the series. Sigh of pleasure.

10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa May Alcott: Yeah. I am still super pissed she didn't end up with the neighbour. That never made sense.

12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier: But I am dying to! Birthday present!?

16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien: I don't think I can. Never liked his writing style just his ideas.

17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks

18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller's Wife – Audrey Niffenegger: meh.

20 Middlemarch – George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell: in High School. I met my best friend there because we were reading it at the same time.

22 The Great Gatsby -- F Scott Fitzgerald: three times in one day the first time. I love this book.

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: my ONLY austen unread. ANOTHER BLACK STAIN

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 Berniere

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - William Golden: And I never will. What retard put this here?

40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne

41 Animal Farm – George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown: In one day.

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabrial Garcia Marquez: Yes, unfortunately I read this piece of garbage.

44 A Prayer for Owen Meany – John Irving: and every time I think of it I think of my friend Cathy Humes!

45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery: and all the other nine

47 Far from the Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaids Tale - Margaret Atwood: fuck you atwood. This is SF. Face it.

49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding: love it.

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan: God. English at its best.

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martell

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: better but still bleh

61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov: amazing.

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas: YES YES YES. 

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 - Charles Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker: I just bought it and wrote a paper on it but haven't read it HAHAHA.

84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert

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: YES twice. Better the second time.

92 The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint Exupery: In English and French

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John  Kennedy Toole: I could not finish this horrible book.

96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare

99 Charlie & the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

Comments:

= 37% read. Glass half full.

This list sucks. I was scared there would be no Dumas. There is no list without that man's name on it. 

Memoirs of a Geisha though? Confederacy of Dunces...? Really? 

I really need to catch up on my Dickens. Shame.