The Bibliophiles discussion
General Discussion Topics
>
Chit Chat
Mod
That's awesome you wanted to be one too haha. I still would love to study at least some of it one day!
I wish I'd win the lottery sometimes, just so I'd never have to work and can study all the subjects I like for the rest of my life. English, literature, art, biology and chemistry, history and maybe even maths. Sadly, no can do.
Mod
Yes! Yes yes yes! Even if the world would end and humanity has to start over I want to watch it. If I ever got a wish I'd wish to be a true shape shifter. I'd live out my live, then turn myself into a baby, maybe one of a different culture or something, and start over. I'm a shapeshifter so I'd also be immune to sicknesses of every type I chose and heal all wounds and broken bones. I'd learn new things, languages, study different subjects and how they change over time. I'd hide things away for centuries and then dig them up as found artefacts and live of what I make by selling them. I have the same feeling for vampires as you do, too. I don't want immortality per se, but I want time. Lots and lots of time. To read, to travel, to learn. Not to shag Bella Swan >-<
Mod
Have you read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August? In it a man lives, dies, then is born again by the same parents on the same day in the same way. But knows everything from his past lives. So he got lots of time but only from the early 1900s to the early 2000s. He too runs away as a child a lot because having to relearn his ABCs is just so damn tedious. He becomes a professor of some sort in most of his lives. In others he travels and learns new languages or explores religions and philosophies. He even meets a man at some point who likes the thrill of war and joins in in every conflikt on the globe in one side or another. Fighting on the losing side (he already knows how every conflict ends) is just another challenge. He does not need to win. Just likes fighting and politics.I'd like something like that too. But I'd like to be able to pick where in time and space I end up so I can live among the first cultures of human kind and even the later ones. The ancient egyptians. The native Americans before half of europe showed up. The Australian aboridginee and the Maori of new zeeland. I'd like to know what it is like to live as a nobel(wo)man in the middelages or as a poor farmer. I want to live in this era so I can read all the great fiction written in this century. I don't wanna change anything, I just wanna observe, learn. Oh why is my life so short! 80-ish years is just not enough. If I even make it that far.
As much as I would love to experience how others live, and see every place possible, I don;t think I would want extended life. I think it would grow tedious. I guess if you were guaranteed good health it might be ok, but that seems almost impossible. I've been caring for my elderly father-in-law for the last 8 months and it has really made me rethink life.I only want to live as long as I can really live and not be dependent or a burden on anyone else.
Mod
Kandice, I do see your point of view too, especially with what you've been going through with your father-in-law. I can't tell you how awesome that is of you. People like you are so amazing to me because I can't even imagine the emotional pain you go through seeing the way a life can end. You are an amazing person in my book.
Kandice wrote: "As much as I would love to experience how others live, and see every place possible, I don;t think I would want extended life. I think it would grow tedious. I guess if you were guaranteed good hea..."Hence the shapeshifting. :) No point in getting old (though I'd live out my lives till my legs would not bare me no more) if I don't have the physical freedom to learn new skills and knowledge with relative ease. Other people though... I guess having kids would be terribly unwise. Most people I know and care about will die before me regardless of my hypothetical immortality. Although, my mom used to say that I would get killed one day, way before my time, by being sarcastic at the wrong moment.
Lisa: I told a friend about the idea and he pointed out that if that were possible, it would mean the timeline is fixed and that means there is no such thing as a free wilk. Not sure if I like that idea. He also said he'd like to travel to the 1920ties and bribe the artschool Hitler did not get into to take him on anyway. I don't want to change anything but I get the sentiment. Would have been a lot better then the mess the war turned out to be. :)
Thanks Lisa.The other thing is what Jenny said about everyone you care for and love dying. If anyone watches Doctor Who that is a plot line through every Doctor. Everyone he loves just fades away and he is left. Sad.
Yeah. Though I think I'd last quite long before the depression dragged me down. I could befriend other "immortals" and we would study the world together. :D
So this morning we had a pancake breakfast as a thank you to the parents of the children in the school (I'm acting Director at the moment) to thank them for participation in our fundraiser. We had about 120 people there and I just tallied up the fundraiser. We MADE over $1300! We only have 75 students, so that's pretty impressive!We were also collecting donation in boxes on the tables for PizzaIDF for a Chanukah program they are doing and we collected enough to send a company sufganyot (Jewish jelly doughnuts).
This was a red letter day!
Sooo... you got the day off? (Röda dagar, red days are swedish national holidays)
Mod
I definitely did NOT get the day off. I was here at 6:30 a.m. and will leave about 4.
Mod
Awww no day off! But productive days are cool too. What are the funds you raised going to be used for?
Our graduating students are going to a Museum of Tolerance for a field trip. I want to get a bus, their tickets and tours and buy them all a nice dinner in Los Angeles.
Yes! Road trip! They will totally enjoy that!
Does anyone know what the average amount of books is for the completed goodreads book challenges? Not just the average amount of books pledged per challenge. Because I'm pretty curious to how much the average goodreads user with an active account reads per year.
Does anyone know what the average amount of books is for the completed goodreads book challenges? Not just the average amount of books pledged per challenge but the average of books pledged for each completed one?
Mod
That is a very interesting question. I really have no idea haha. I guess that would really involve going to some of the big challenges and looking through what all the people have read and everything. I'm not aware of any specific place that will tell you the average amount of books someone has read for a challenge. I can look into it and see if I'm able to find anything out for ya though!
Cool, thanks :) And I'm talking about the big-big-read-X-amount-of-books-this-year-challenge. Goodreads gives the average of books pledged per challenge but not books per completed one and somehow I kinda hoped I'd missed a statistic somewhere. I have pledged 70 books, the average is 55 but most of them don't get finished. ... i just like stats ^,^
Mod
Participants 1,707,897
Books Pledged 94,263,408
Books Finished 25,755,000
Avg. Books Pledged 55
Challenges Completed 6,953
Time Left 36 days, 11 hours
I'm still digging around to see what I can find but let me know if this at least a little of what you were interested in!
Ah these I was able to find. But lists only the average amount of pledged books per challenge, regardless if these are finished challenges or not. I wanna know the average amount of read books of all finished goodreads challengers. T.T I need to satisfy my curiosity!
Diane, there are two schools in the facility where I work and we have, literally, hundreds of small lizards every day. I often catch them for the kids. They love them.
We have alligator lizards and some that look like geckos, but I don't know if they really are. They have more rounded heads and feet. The gecko looking ones are sometimes tiny and so, so cute! Alligator lizards are just kind of blah.We have a lot of snakes, but none like you are describing. I wonder what that is? Weird. This summer they actually found a rattlesnake in the sand box so now we cover it tightly at the end of each school day.
I just got slowworms who winter in the stone wall around my garden. They come out all at once the moment the weather gets nice in spring. They are harmless lil snake-lizards and so cute :)
I just looked slowworms up having never heard of them. I don't think they're cute -_-, but I also wouldn't be afraid of them. Strange little animal.
Mod
Jenny, I've never heard of those slow worms either! They are kinda cute in a weird way. I love lizards and amphibians. I just think they are so cute! I've been wanting to get a chameleon for years now haha.
I hope everyone had a great weekend! Sorry I was a bit MIA. We got some bad storms and so we were unable to go out of town and see family as planned for the holiday and ended up staying in for the last 4 days. It turned out very good though because we all got a lot of family time with just the 3 of us and got Christmas decorations up and I even got enough sleep to finally kick that cold I had for weeks. We were also able to finally get everything set up for our Geek Room. We have a third bedroom in the house that was a computer/storage room area and we'd been wanting to turn into more of a game room/den type thing for so long now and this long weekend indoors gave us the chance to deep clean it and reorganize everything. Thanks to Black Friday we were able to get a nice tv on sale online along with a tv stand that will be for gaming and movie nights. We're going to put in a bookshelf and do a lot of geeky decorating as well. We are super excited. I'll have to post a pic once it's all completed!
Lisa, I'm glad you finally kicked the cold. Sometimes forced inside time is the best time, especially when it's just your family. :)Diane, brave girl!
Mod
Diane, brave girl!"
Thank you! I am so glad it's finally over!
I can't remember where I posted it, but we went on an Escapism last night and it was so, so much fun! We didn't escape in the allotted 60 minutes, but they let us continue and it only took an extra four minutes. There were only 4 in our group and the room is set up for an ideal party of 8 so I don't feel like that was a fail at all!
Mod
Ooohh yes please tell. I have no clue what escapeism is either but it sounds fun. Is it something you can do online or is it a board game or what?
A group of people is locked into a room and you have 60 minutes to solve puzzles and unlock “things” to get the eventual key that will unlock the room and allow you to leave. There ended up being 12 keys we needed to find to eventually unlock the door. There are word games and puzzles and clues all over. Even finding the puzzles is a trick. I’ll try to find a link to an explanation. There’s a link to the actual location we visited, but it doesn’t really explain.
Mod
Wow that sounds like a lot of fun! I have never even heard of anything like this! I need to get some people together to do something like this!
There seem to be a ton of groupons for these encounters right now no matter where you live. It is completely worth full price, but why not take advantage of a deal?
Sometimes I'm glad live in nothern europe because we have very vew things here that can kill you. :) Having potentially poisoness snakes indoors with the pets? Brrr no thanks man!
Mod
Kandice, I will definitely have to look into this and get a few friends together that would want to do it with me. I have some people that I play Dungeons and Dragons with among other table top games and I bet they would be interested! Thanks for the info!
Lisa, have you ever played Munchkin? It's sort of like D&D lite. I play with my sons and their friends. It's good for groups that change and can't get together regularly like us When I grew up in WVA there were a TON of snakes everywhere, from harmless garters, black snakes, etc. to copperheads and water moccasins. When we would swim someone would have to cannonball in the water first to get the snakes out and everyone would watch them slither out before the rest of us jumped in. I was nominated more often than anyone else, but I'd never do it now.
Mod
That's crazy! I don't know if I would be brave enough to be the first to jump into snake infested waters. That being said, I was usually in charge of stomping around when me and my brother were waking through the fields on the farm to scare off any snakes who were possibly nearby haha.
Munchkin packs are on my Christmas shopping list! It's so fun, silly and entertaining.Like I said, I did it as a kid. I wouldn't now! Too chicken in my older age.
Mod
Oh gosh. I'm still in my 20ties! I want to keep living without fear for the dark or snakes or even wasps. Even though a couple of wasp stings can kill me I'd have to stay inside all summer being afraid if I'd start to care. The things that truely scare me are that I am to stupid to ever hold a real job and will always have to rely on others financially and that my only talent, arts, is going to prove my demise. Why can't I be good at maths or economics or something? *crawls in a ball and shivers* I can't be afraid of the dark if I'll live under a bridge when I hit my mid 30ties!
Mod
Oh don't think like that! You've got talent and smarts and even if it's hard, you're the kind of person that will always pick yourself up and keep on keepin' on! There are a lot of people that don't have that drive. Just keep your head up, keep working and you'll get there in some way! I am young still but having a kid when you've just barely turned 20 really pushes your life forward a few years. We had days where my husband and I had nothing to eat because the only food we had was given to our child, we had days where we had to decide whether the water or electricity would be shut off because we didn't have the money to pay for both. We've been pretty low over the years but we always kept fighting and now we may not be well off or even middle class but we're at place now where we're comfortable and have food on the table and all the bills paid, and I have money for books! Things work out as long as you're willing to put in the work and I know that you most definitely are!!
Jenny wrote: "Oh gosh. I'm still in my 20ties! I want to keep living without fear for the dark or snakes or even wasps. Even though a couple of wasp stings can kill me I'd have to stay inside all summer being af..."Again, you seem to be channeling my oldest son! O_o
Your oldest son is sectretly my long lost twin!Also, thanks Lisa :) *hugs* Gotta stay positive. If I do end up under a bridge I'll atleast have running water xD
Mod
The Bibliophiles
Books mentioned in this topic
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things (other topics)Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things (other topics)
Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things (other topics)
Dad Is Fat (other topics)
Storm Front (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Jenny Lawson (other topics)Jenny Lawson (other topics)
Jenny Lawson (other topics)
Jim Gaffigan (other topics)
Jim Butcher (other topics)
More...
I wanted to be an archaeologist when I was a child!!!!!!