Trying to deal with Jamie Fraser withdrawal

“I feel… empty”

I couldn’t help myself to start this post with this Grey’s Anatomy quote from early season 2 :-) I’m a nerd that way, that I perfectly remember some dialogues, which probably has something to do with watching the episodes or favourite moments of it multiple times. But this line just came to my mind, when I thought how to write about the strange feeling I woke up to this morning. And no, it has nothing to do with being sick and throwing up *g*. Just with having said goodbye to some very lovely people, who I spent most of my spare time with during the last few days. Yes, I’ve finished reading “An Echo in the Bone” late last night, very late last night. Early this morning to be exact. I just couldn’t put it down and go to sleep not knowing what’s going to happen to the Frasers. And the MacKenzies. And of course Lord John and William Ransom. And now I know, or at least I know parts of it, because of course there were some cliffhangers and in fact I don’t know anything at all really. Which sucks a little. But I guess that’s the price you have to pay when you let yourself get sucked into this fictional world and get so so attached to all these wonderful characters.

This 7th novel of the Outlander series was just published last week so I’ll try to now give anything away and to not spoil anyone’s pleasure of reading it. Because it has been a tremendous pleasure. I know I’ve said it before, when I have spent almost two months this summer reading the first six novels in a row. But I really have to express my deepest thanks to Diana Gabaldon for creating these characters and to make them so loveable, that I couldn’t help but fall in love with them and care about their fate. Gabaldon has a wonderful way with words and she made these broad range of various characters with their different ways of living and their sense of honor and morality come alive, which is really fascinating.

Book Review: “The Art of Racing in the Rain” by Garth Stein (2008)

I’m not a dog person. And I’m not a fan of race car driving. Despite all that I spent several hours today reading about a race car driver and his dog and his family. And I LOVED it. So much, that I have to recommend this novel. This recommendation comes with a tissue warning though, because this story will make you cry. At least it made me cry so hard.

A couple of weeks ago I read or maybe even saw in a clip that Patrick Dempsey (a race car driver at heart himself) has bough the movie rights to this book. Or planning to buy the rights? Anyway, Paddy had read the book and loved it, which was reason enough for me to at least check what kind of story it was. And I liked the plot and the reviews and bought it a while ago. I haven’t found the time or wasn’t in the mood to read any novel during the last few weeks, but this morning I decided to take a book with me for the trainride to work. I choose this book, because it seemed a less complex story than most of the book on my Unread Books Shelf. With so many things on my mind, I can’t concentrate on complex drama or thrillers.

My Night With Edward & Benjamin…

I’m so exhausted. And I dread the next week, because it will be just as busy as this one. Which was partially my own fault. I could have used yesterday to chill and relax. But instead Hai_di and I went to Cologne and watched TWO movies in a row. Which was fun though and entertaining and I don’t regret it. We rarely have the chance to watch movies in the original (undubbed) version around here and a cinema in Cologne is showing the original versions of “Twilight” and “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” so we decided to watch both of the movies on one day. Due to my exhaustion these will be short reviews.

The Incredible Ingrid in Concert…

Maybe I should ask Santa for a time-turner *wonders* Until he will give one to me for christmas I should go on and use the few idle minutes I have left of this afternoon to write about the Ingrid Michaelson concert. I am sooooo happy I found out about that on time, even though I failed to notice the show announcement on Ingrid’s myspace site. But on twitter she talked about being in Germany and I checked her site again and only an hour later I had bought the ticket.
The concert took place in “Gebäude 9″, a really really small club in Cologne (@oceans77: direkt an der Messe, also falsche Rheinseite *g*), which I never have heard of before. But of course Bro2 knew it and has been there before. He has been to all of the regions’ tiny clubs for some kind of obscure concert, I’d guess.
There were about 150 – 200 people at the concert, probably closer to 150 than to 200, so it was small and intimate, which was really nice. Ingrid isn’t know in Germany at all yet, and from the conversations I listened to before the show started, I gathered that most of them knew her music via myspace, Grey’s Anatomy or her support on the Jason Mraz tour earlier this year. There were a lot of students and listen to all this talk about classes and lectures and finding roommates  made me feel sooo old.

Just Finished the Twilight Series

Wow! I can’t remember reading a complete novel series within just one week. And not a vacation week with nothing else on my agenda. There was work (busy, busy, busy work) and friends and politics and TV shows and all that stuff. But I finished “Breaking Dawn” just a few moments ago. During my afternoon coffee break at work :-) 

All in all I really enjoyed reading the whole series. The final book was different than the first three and I definitely hadn’t expect these events and development. Once I got over that and let go of my expecations I had fun reading it. But I think Stephanie Meyers got carried away with quite a few ideas. I don’t know, maybe I’m just still a bit disappointed that she didn’t predict MY expecations and wrote the story in the way I would have loved to read it…

Too tired to come up with a meaningful title…

I’m not falling in any kind. Not Apart and not in love, although I wouldn’t mind that, but that’s a different story.  To be honest I don’t even have any idea what I’m trying to say with the first two sentences. I just needed some sort of introduction to this post, in which I only wanted to write about two (new) songs which I really like at the moment and whose chorus lyrics include falling or to fall… I know it’s a really far-fetched connection and no reason at all to combine these songs in one post. But I’m feeling pretty drained right now after 3 days at work (which sucked for the most parts due to my coworker) and local politics meeting on Monday night and today and the prospect of work + another political evening meeting tomorrow night and an extra day at work on Friday. I need a vacation! [Absolutely unintentionally, I'm listening to another "falling" song while I'm writing this, I just thought I should mention it *g*]

A “Victim’s” report: The Killers concert in Cologne

I could mope about a couple of things that went wrong yesterday and beat myself up about the lack of motiviation to write my term paper, but I was going for more substantial stuff here, so I’ll confine myself to give you a concert review from last night. The Killers concert took place as part of the Vodafone music unlimited festival in Cologne. Outdoors directly in front of the cathedral, which is a cool location for any concert. (My cameraphone provides rather crappy pictures, sorry)

Batman – The Dark Knight

I think I might have watched the first Batman movie in the early 90s. Maybe not at the movies, but on video or TV later. I’m not sure though. But looking at the cast and the plotline I think I might remember it. I don’t really remember anything of any other Batman movie, so I guess I definitely haven’t watched those. Not on TV, DVD and certainly not at the movie theatre. I remember trailers and photos of the cast in their costumes like Catwoman, the Pinguin, Mr. Freeze, but they were all over the media, so I know about the movies without having seen them.
I probably would never have watched this new Batman movie if it hadn’t been for Heath Ledger. As the movie was already in the theatres in London I was determined to watch it there and I did, although the ticket prizes did shock me. Ok, it was Saturday but 14,50 £ (18,4 EUR / 13 $) for a movie ticket? And it wasn’t even the most expensive section. But it was the Odeon at Leicester Square. And it was a vacation, so who cares about the money?

Whiling Away Time with the Killers Top 10

I’m a master in whiling away my time. I planned to do a couple of things yesterday afternoon, but of course I just did a very few of them. Re-Reading “Lightning Strikes Twice” is just so time-consuming. And addictive and I guess it will be in the next couple of days as well.
I decided to not go to work today, because there is no way that the really loud re-construction in the building with my temp office will be finished already And it’s just impossible to work when there is loud screeching and or hammering from the drills and jackhammers all around the office. I can’t talk on the phone, I can’t concentrate and the apruptly stop and start of the noise is nervwrecking. At least my nerves were wrecked after only 20 minutes and a cellphone call I had to answer out on the yard, where there still was noise from some re-construction stuff on the other parts of the building. So I just set up call forwarding to my cellphone and left.
I definitely have to go in tomorrow though to check the mail before I leave for my short London trip. As there isn’t anything urgent to work on at the moment it’s not a big problem to stay at home and I could use the time at home to be productive and… well, if I didn’t have to restrain myself from compiling another “to-do-today” list and instead just start doing it!

Anyway at least finally is here my Killers Top10. And it took me about an hour to figure out the flash player / addblock conflict on my firefox. Talking about whiling away time….

Teach With Your Heart (Erin Gruwell, 2007)

I don’t know when this change happened. Maybe the touch-and-go with my mom at the end of last year triggered it. Maybe I was already getting so emotional even before that. I didn’t tear up that easily in my early or mid-twenties. At least I like to think I didn’t.
But lately I catch myself being touched and close to crying instantly over rather insignificant things. Like hearing a nation anthem. ANY national anthem. Ok, maybe not any anthem, but a lot. Or like reading this autobiography of Erin Gruwell, who is known for teaching and basically founding the “Freedom Writers”.
I saw the movie last year (of course, because Paddy was in it *g*) and I liked it and read the Freedom Writers diary earlier this year. I was already moved by the kids’ stories of their gruesome life. But reading Erin Gruwell’s version of everything that happened with and because of the Freedom Writers really, really, touched me. And I was close to tears a lot of times, about so many little things. Who they’ve met. What the’ve achieved. How many people volunteered to help them in so many different ways. How they managed to change their life and the lifes of so many others. And I guess I just have to accept that the change taht I’m sort of a cry-baby….