Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen


My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A very entertaining read. I liked learning about circuses, especially given the author's note, which talks about all the research that was used in writing the story. There were some parts that didn't sit quite right---although I usually like the flashback method of story-telling, I overall did not like how the beginning passage was nearly identical, but also not identical to one of the last passages in the story. As I read it, I knew I had read it in the beginning, but there were also parts that I knew I hadn't read, so then I flipped back and forth to see what was added. I get that Gruen needed to come back to that scene, I just wish it didn't involve repeating the exact same passages.




The twists at the end were clever, but I think because of the whole flashback issue, it ruined some of that for me.




Overall, I still enjoyed it.




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Nups and Pups

The past two-ish weeks have been wedding-tastic.

 First, Linz n' Luke tied the knot. And their matching names weren't even the best part of the wedding. If I had to give a prize, it would be a tie between the "help" the groom received when it came time to kiss the bride (stepladder, please?) and the Royal Couple wedding snapshot, photo-shopped with L&L's faces. Loving the humor---it wouldn't have been a Murl/Stiger wedding without it.

I also have to say this is the first wedding ceremony I have attended where, instead of the lovey-dovey romantic heart-melting, I felt instead this strange "you-two-really-have-no-idea-how-hard-this-thing-is-gonna-be" feeling. Probably because my own husband and I spent the 80 minute drive to the ceremony engaged in a heated argument. The kind where neither of us speaks because the tension is too thick and we are both so determined that we are right that we can't bear to be the one to show weakness and admit our own sinful hearts.

And, of course, it was over an issue that we have been arguing about for YEARS! Considering that we only recently added the "s" to year in terms of the length of our marriage, that is a long time to argue over the same thing, again and again---just when I think we have worked something out and made progress, BAM! It hits again. This time from the left. And behind the knee. Taking out a leg. And I'm on the floor, defenseless, wondering, Didn't we get rid of your sometime last August?

This past weekend was more wedding-ness. My sister Bekah is getting married in 42 days, and my sisters and I threw her a bridal shower last Saturday. The shower was tons of  fun; between the setting up, the cooking, the decorating, the slideshowing, the picture-taking, the gameshowing (and the special bonus round), I was pleased to find out just how well my sisters and I complement one another when it comes to planning parties. With lots and lots of help from generous aunts and family friends.  Later on Saturday evening, my future brother-in-law, Trenton, asked me if the first year of marriage for Casey and I was easier or harder than we expected.

Casey and I have already had this conversation: Hands down, our first year was easy-peasy-squeasy. Even the second year was a breeze. Now, the beginning of the third---another story entirely. In just the last three months, I finally (begin to) understand what people are talking about when they speak of "difficult times" in reference to marriage. I had always envisioned it as a period of such challenge that both parties are constantly miserable and perhaps second-guessing those vows.

But that's not it at all. What never gets mentioned in all the talk of those first "challenging" years of marriage is that in between the arguing and the frustration and the moodiness and the misunderstanding (no matter how many times a day they may come) are periods as satisfying as the others are dissatisfying. That even though it's hard, it's still good. I still love Casey. And he still loves me. (And thankfully, last weekend, we worked out our differences between the ceremony and the reception. And had a GREAT evening together.)

For us, the hard-ness has come with increased stress. This week, the stress has come in the shape of our pup. We found out this week that Trekker has elevated levels of calcium in his blood. It's a pretty serious condition. We have ruled out many of the minor illnesses that could be the culprit. Now we are left with two.

The first: hyperparathyroidism. Treatable by removing the parathyroids. And with good results. Post-surgery, Trekker will once again become the happy, healthy dog that we know and love.

The second: lymphoma. Treatable, but only temporarily. Most dogs who get treatment only go into remission for months. A year at most.

We won't find out until next week the results of the lab work. People keep asking what we are going to do, but we can't even plan to do something because we won't know what questions to ask until we start to get some more definitive answers.

Until then, Trekker burrows his head into my side a little further as he sleeps on the bed next to me. Am I breaking the rules? You bet. ;)

24 Hours

I gave my students an assignment this past weekend to try to go 24 (consecutive) hours without technology; that is, without television/movies, video games, Internet, and texting. To clarify, they were allowed to make phone CALLS on their cell phones and they were allowed to use the computer, given that it was offline and not a video game.

Of approximately 85 students, only 7 were successful in their quest. Of those who were not, a few lasted 16-20 hours, while many others lasted fewer than 10 hours (during most and/or all of which they were sleeping). Granted, a few didn't even make the attempt...

They each had to write a paragraph about their experience, successful or otherwise. For those who were successful, the assignment was to write about what they did instead to fill the time that would have been spent involved in aforementioned activities. For those not, they were to write about the moment they broke. And what the last straw was. And how they felt.

It sparked a very interesting discussion in class today. Some students felt bad about not being able to last 24 hours, while others were proud of the fact. Some saw themselves as powerless to avoid what they have been bombarded with from their infancy. Others found it refreshingly peaceful to interact with reality--go outside, get fresh air, talk to people in person rather than via words on a screen.

And some insightful conclusions. Like how maybe we need to be more aware of how technology is controlling us. And how aware we need to be of the information we make public, however flippant, light-hearted, or humorous it may seem in the moment.

As a whole, students were able to come to the conclusion that the point of the assignment was not to prove technology a force of evil, but rather to see it as a tool, to become more aware of the ways in which we interact with computers as opposed to humans, and to recognize that our dependence on it has both positive AND negative impacts.

More so than most lessons, I think it really made a lot of students think. I had more voluntary participation with this discussion than any previously.

If you are interested, the homework assignment was prompted by a short story by Ray Bradbury called The Pedestrian. Oh, and to give proper accolades, I didn't come up with the assignment either. I borrowed it from my pal, JT. 5 stars! :)