Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing's Nobel speech is now available. This link will connect you to all the Nobel Prize Winners in Literature http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/
Click a name and you'll be linked to their nobel lecture, the interview and an example of writing.

And if you want to watch a video that gives you real hope, watch Mairead Corrigan's nobel peace prize interview. She truly radiates something special as she talks about the troubles in Northern Ireland and the marches that followed.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1976/corrigan-interview.html

Reading Level of Blogs

I've been checking out UWO alumni blogs.
http://carolyne-stuff.blogspot.com has a post with something to measure the reading level required to understand your own personal blog. She questions the criteria used and frankly so do I. Her blog which includes chemistry librarian technical things requires a high school reading level. My blog, on the other hand, can only be read by geniuses. Look at her blog compared it to mine and take a shot at guessing the rating criteria. Total mystery to me.

While there, look at the video clip of Blogs in Plain English. Now that looks so great. Being a lonely child, my childhood friends were paper dolls. Well there was a bit of diversity. Add to that stuffed animals, dolls, dogs and kittens. I could so get into explaining the world with little paper figures.

Actually my roaming also took me to a powerpoint presentation of finger art, where someone created all these characters by drawing features and adding different head covering and costuming to her index finger. I so get it. Talk about friends you can always count on being there for you. And I watched a pretty funny video where a purple condom explains safe sex to a couple of clueless little boys. Can't link you there because it had some comments about the Pope that dismissed any advice on sex given by men with funny hats wearing robes. Don't want to offend the Anglican hierachy. Granted I'm shoddily dressed compared to the Amish, but wow if you haven't seen a procession of Bishops and Archbishops in the last 20 years, you will be dazzled by the current splendour. Church needlework guilds have amazing talent and devotion to their craft.

Blogger Buzz

I'm so excited about this feature. I love youtube and have been wondering how to put youtube stuff on my blog. There's so much I don't know about blogging and I really, really, really want to get better at this. Whether there are millions of other bloggers out there and even if not a single person in world reads mine, I think it's worthwhile. I'm the type that absorbs, absorbs, absorbs. Sometimes you have to release a bit of it. I read today that parents are checking out their kids' potential college roommates on facebook. All I can say is WOW, didn't think about that one. Of course, when I was a college kid, nobody knew about identity theft and my most valuable possession was a portable typewriter. Although I did have the weird experience of someone stealing my university number and writing a test in my name. I wouldn't have known if he hadn't told me after the fact. It was a science-type who wanted to see what mark he could get in a subject he knew nothing about. Fortunately for me, it was a course where one test didn't count and I had decided I wasn't going for that particular test score.

Email Backlog

Languishing in my inbox are 1500 email messages going back to September. The quick, easy and most important stuff got processed and deleted promptly so who knows what the total would have been otherwise. It would be easy to just delete the whole thing but I'm actually interested in the content - this isn't spam. Thank God the spam goes to my husband's email box and not mine. Guess I'm not the target audience for viagara ads or scams from Nigeria. So I guess my gift to myself for Christmas is a period of space to deal with the backlog.

First Christmas Party

Went to the first Christmas party of the season tonight - supper, Christmas carolling and a gift exchange. Then I came home and tried to figure out some stuff on the computer without much success. Anyone know how to do a tabbed list with leaders? And how about inserting a picture with the text beside it in a text box? I've looked through the textbook without much luck so guess I'll be looking around the house for other computer reference books.

Advent

I'm an Advent/Lent person as opposed to a Christmas/Easter person. Christmas/Easter people shop, bake, entertain, decorate, etc. The economy really, really loves Christmas/Easter people. I leave that stuff to the kids. Advent/Lent people pray, meditate and anticipate. The Christian calendar was invented for me. Four weeks of Advent, Forty Days of Lent.

Holidailies at Home

I'm committing to updating my blog every day in the month of December. If you're interested in joining the challenge go to http://www.holidailies.org Remember when we turned 30, and discovered that we weren't exactly God's gift to humanity - that we had definite limitations to how much we could achieve this lifetime. Well the big news at 55, is that we will never be able to keep up with our 20 something selves again. I pulled a couple of all nighters this week and all I can say is never again. I can't begin to describe how brutal that was. Let's see - I'm pretty sure my days of lifting adults are over and don't even fantasize about seeing me in a pair of high heels ever again. Oh and by the way, menopausal zest is a concept right up there with a calm mind creates a painless childbirth. Nursing textbooks are like the internet - lots of misinformation out there.