Suzanne’s Comments (group member since Aug 13, 2015)

Suzanne’s comments from the Nothing But Reading Challenges group.

DQs Day 1
Chapters 1 - 6

1. Can you even imagine losing a 10 million dollar anything?! Have you ever lost something and felt as Ray is portrayed in chapter 1...constantly retracing your steps over and over? What are your thoughts on other security precautions, if any, that should have been in place?
I cannot imagine having a 10 million dollar anything to lose! It makes sense to me though because Ray had his violin with him everywhere, so it's familiar - this routine, familiar things are easier to lose! They mentioned YoYo-Ma and his cello - I totally remember reading about that. For me, putting things in the same place is the only way I don't lose them.

2. At this point in the book, when/where do you think the Stradivarius was taken?
I feel like it had to be from the hotel room, but I have no idea about who stole it.

3. Money can be a keen motivator...the ransom note leads us to believe it's all about the money...do you think it's possible it's about something else? It makes sense it would be all about the money. I can't think of anything else at this point.

4. It's eluded to that Ray is about to make history because of his race with the upcoming competition in Russia. His family sure doesn't seem to be proud or supportive. Should Ray be proud of this accomplishment or is putting the focus on race poor form by everyone concerned? No matter his race, Ray should be super proud of being eligible for the upcoming competition. I cannot believe his family! I think making the focus on race is in one way, diminishing the accomplishment. But in most ways, Ray making it to that point is even more incredible because some people would put up stumbling blocks because of his race.

That's probably going to be normal this round. It's a trick finding books with ANY letters to use.

Wow - we are going to rock Vuvuzela! Weirdly, I was lying down listening to a book and they said "I even heard a vuvuzela". It's a good sign!

I bet they haven't read my messages to them yet. I'll bug them again in a couple of days if they don't reach out.

You guys made me cry grateful tears. Thank you so much for all the things!

And thanks Amanda for stepping up, and requesting access. Between the three of us, I suspect we will have perfect check-ins these last two rounds.

Thanks ladies! It was another rather sleepless night, but at least I have drugs now. And have learned that they work for about 4 hours and take a bit to kick in :) But I sure appreciate all of you. You know how it is when you can't sleep - I kept repeating in my brain "this too shall pass" and thinking I was extremely funny.

But yes - on to round 4! Let's all read hard and see what happens. I guess we are like the kid who fell on the third lap of the race but got up and ran hard. And really our third round even without the last day's books was pretty amazing.

I sure appreciate all of you - whether I am drugged or not. :)

Yeah thank goodness for drugs. Although they don't quite dull my challenge frustration.
And thanks for volunteering as tribute Amanda. I told them you'd be requesting spreadsheet access, and gave them your user id to invite you to the captains group.

Luckily I set up the round 4 stuff yesterday, so we're good to go as far as updating. But bah - hopefully between the three of us for rounds 4 and 5 we will be 100% perfect. And who knows, maybe now we'll be one of those teams that gets extra bonuses.

But I feel horrible. You ladies don't deserve this! I guess we can add the missing points in our heads and know if we would have won at the end :( And who knows, maybe we still will.

Anyway, I am going to go to bed for now, but sorry again!

Thanks Amanda - I don't remember childbirth very well (thank goodness) but I'd say this was worse. No cute baby at the end either. I'll see about getting you on the list. It would be good to have a third updater, because clearly emergencies happen. I swear - I've enjoyed updating every morning, then today of all days....

I think for the primary spreadsheet, just request edit permissions, and the mods should grant them.

I told the mods what happened. I had a kidney stone - didn't even take my phone, so couldn't contact anyone, not that it really crossed my mind anyway. Came in and was going to lie down and remembered - rushed to the computer and 30 minutes too late.

Anyway - if someone wants to take over as captain or be put in as co-captain or something - just speak up. I'm so sorry that happened!

I think it would be fine - we can use nicknames.

BUT crap - you guys - I had a trip to the hospital at 3 a.m. - didn't get home til just now - and because of the stress I totally forgot about updating or messaging - walked in the door, remembered the update, but it was too late. I'm pretty sure there are no exceptions, but I am SOOOO sorry.
I'll try to read like a fiend these next two rounds - and maybe we can get yet another co-captain or if someone wants to captain - I'm such a fail!

That's a lovely green book! I'm sure glad we have a great bunch of planners!

Does tin eye add the "grey" of his shirt and face and come up with more than 50%? His shirt looks green to me too. I'm not positive the cover is over 50% green though? What do others think?

I stuck those on the spreadsheet so people would know what we have.

Wow Amanda - nice finds! You as well Janine!

I found 3 in books that I'm already planning to read this coming round, and then I stopped looking :) So I have Polka, Baroque, and Motown covered. On is "A" (but has a green cover) and the others are U and V. Score!

I do have the round 4 planning sheet up - I'll try to get the pulldown menu for the above genres sometime today (but it's a busy day so we'll see!)

The tricky part is finding the words in books that can be used for VUVUZELA.

Here is the bonus for the upcoming round:
It's time to explore the many varied musical forms from around the world.

Find these musical genres in your books! You need to find the exact word (see below and yodelling caveat), and you need to find ten different genres.

Each genre you find in the text will earn an additional 5 bonus points. Only one bonus word per book and a maximum of 10 bonus words.

Genres
[Baroque
Bhangra
Bluegrass
Calypso
Electronica
Fado
Folk
Grunge
K-Pop
Mambo
Mariachi
Merengue
Motown
Noh
Polka
Rautalanka
Reggae
Salsa
Shashmaqam
Ska
Spiritual
Sufi
Tango
Yodeling (or Jodeling) (Note: either English or US ll / l variant acceptable)
Zydeco

Note: you must find the words exactly (so you can't find "electronic" - it has to have the -a ending), but if you find an exact match that isn't talking about the music genre (e.g. "he was a spiritual person" you can still claim it). And yes, we mean you can't use plurals, possessives or verb ending changes (bad luck if you find "he yodels" but no yodelling!)

Thank you LaurLa - I'll update everything soon!

I found I have a bunch of V and U books, so I'll focus on those.

And - I updated the spreadsheet and we are tied for first place! That doesn't happen often with all the randomness of points. Anyway - well done readers!