The beginning of a new month turns many new leaves, including many Awareness months. Among the more interesting ones is National Popcorn Popping Month. Not National Popcorn Month, which would make more sense, but National Popcorn Popping Month. You can pop corn in the microwave, over a fire, and in a popcorn maker. Any other ways I missed that you can use to celebrate?
I do not have a car, and I live in a city that doesn’t have a wonderful public transportation system. Every morning I walk to the bus stop at end of my road, where the bus picks me up and transports me to the train station, turning a twenty-minute walk into a five-minute ride. Because my train stop is at the end of a line, the train sits for a given period of time before leaving for its next destination. This waiting is the longest part of my commute.
This morning one of my roommates offered me a ride to the station, as she was early to a meeting. I took her up on the offer, in part because the temperature dropped at least ten degrees in the past two days and in part because I was wearing heels. Despite leaving the house five minutes earlier than usual, I still arrived my end destination at the same time as usual, all because of the train’s dilly-dallying.
This brings up a question: when is it better to just walk? This chart provides one answer that based on my experience is reasonably accurate, assuming that the average person walks a fifteen- to twenty-minute mile. Other factors aren’t included and can’t be included in an objective chart, such as the kind of shoes you’re wearing or the surface you’re walking on. According to the chart I may be better off leaving the house a few minutes earlier in the morning and walking (at least I’d get some exercise); however, my current walk to the train station is hilly and without sidewalks in some parts, not a path for the ill-shoed or for someone wearing heels. That’s some foot pain I can do without.
Too bad the chart doesn’t take train dilly-dallying into account.
There is a report on the Guardian that one of Paul McCartney’s old essays was found. In itself, this is just something a hardcore McCartney fan would bid on at eBay. When historians examine the handwriting, compare the B’s in his essay to the B’s in the band’s drum skin, and release the news to the media, the whole world notices and begins examining handwriting a little more carefully.
WordPress refused to publish my original post through the dashboard, I’m choosing between two of showering, dishes, and writing a post for the day, and I’m not feeling well today. In lieu of a real post, I challenge you to read this poem aloud. If your throat gets sore, reading it aloud in your head is an acceptable substitute, but you must finish the poem. It’s harder than you think. When you’re finished, bask in the complexity of the English language, which was the topic of my original post.
This week is Banned Books Week in the US. I look over the list of frequently challenged books every year just to count how many of them I’ve read. While the answer is never as high as I’d like (I’m ashamed to say that I have read none of the ten most frequently challenged books of 2008), the lists are nevertheless interesting for the variety and the shock value. Seeing some of my childhood favorites on the list and remembering no major shock nor failed attempts from adults to “wait until you’re older” is a surprise every year.
This year the list of banned and challenged classics interests me. At least 42 of the Radcliffe Publishing Course’s 100 best novels of the 20th century have been challenged or banned. If these are in a particular order, then there appears to be a correlation between rank and challenge. If there were a way to obtain the number of challenges a given book has obtained, then one could see if there does exist a positive correlation. For now, though, all we can say is that it is possible.
My book of the week is The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini, which didn’t make the top ten list of frequently challenged books until 2008, five years after its 2003 release. I don’t know if it was challenged before 2008, but my guess is that the release of the movie gave the book more attention. A review will come after finishing.
If you’re having problems deciding what frequently challenged book you should read this week, let Hunch, a decision-making website, decide for you with this handy questionnaire. My top three were Brave New World, Animal Farm, and To Kill a Mockingbird, all of which are already favorites.