I think I might have to suspend Sunday Sundries activities for a little while, since yet again I really have nothing interesting to share, it's just 'work, NaNoWriMo, work (I basically did three full days this week which was MENTAL for me, but annoyingly made everyone go 'welcome to full time work heh heh heh)' etc, except that this week I also sobbed myself to DEATH over 50/50 (review to come... sometime) and rolled my eyes about 50,000 times at the new James Bond film, which, actually, I enjoy doing (actively hating things is fun!)So that's about it. But then also I like doing my Sunday Sundries because it makes me think and write and think some more about something to write, and these are all very useful things, I believe. Which sort of brings me onto the thing I want to talk about this week.
See, when I started blogging, I was almost crippled by doubt about my writing ability, and wanting to share the words I wrote with THE WORLD (or, you know, the no people who read my blog those first few months, THANKS GUYS) and for the first... Good amount of time, I literally cringed every time I clicked publish. I mean, seriously, those were my BRAIN THOUGHTS, in writing, going out into the world! What would happen? Would anything happen? WHAT IF EVERYONE HATED ME AND MY BRAIN THOUGHTS?
It's weird because I've never really given much of a shit what people think of me (I know everyone says this, but I really really don't... I've never untagged photos of myself on facebook, if that means anything, which it does to me!) but somehow putting things down in writing and sending them out into the world really scared me, but still I did it anyway. And it got easier, as things do, and it got even easier when I made this whole awesome group of blogging friends who seemed to think I was funny, or interesting or something and who wouldn't, like, correct my grammar or tell me I was being an idiot unless, you know, I was being an actual idiot. Which does happen. And now I barely even think about what I'm doing, in the sense of I just type these things, and hit publish, and rather than it feeling scary, it just feels natural. Right. Warm fuzzies and all that.
And so. Writing fiction. It's totally scary. And honestly? I can't really write fiction. But the thing is, I can physically write fiction, and not cringe at every word I put down, not only because NO ONE IS GOING TO READ IT (this is really a very good thing. You don't want to read the No I Wri-ed.) but because I've become so practiced at writing my thoughts down that it doesn't feel so awkward, or forced, to be writing things that I'm just making up. I guess what I'm saying is, this is another one of those unforeseen side-effects of blogging, like the friends, and the readalongs, and oh sweet lord the conversations in the comments. The confidence to write things and be ok with it? That's a big plus for me.
So basically, in conclusion, all I have said is 'practicing at something makes you better at it/less scared to do it' and 'yay blogging!' all of which is ground breaking stuff, I realise, but please, hold your applause!
No, no, stop, I don't deserve this! Really. It's just embarrassing now.
Ahem. Happy Sunday everyone! I'll be spending mine having a pseudo-birthday for my cousin, at which there will be glittery cake (that, of course, I have made. And failed to take a picture of for you. Whoops?) How about you?
If there's anything this year has taught me, it's that Japanese books and films can be extremely dark. I've read a fair bit of Murakami, not one bit of which has brought me joy in that normal, actually happy, way, and I've also watched Battle Royale, which is so excellent (much better than The Hunger Games, if you ask me) but so very very dark. Having been a lot better equipped to handle Norwegian Wood than basically all the people I read it with (I don't necessarily mind being sad...), I thought I could handle anything depressing that Japan had to throw at me.
when, if they took this into account more, they'd have a lot more empathy and everything would be ok. Maybe.
"Every now and then, when your life gets complicated and the weasels start closing in, the only cure is to load upon heinous chemicals and then drive like a bastard from Hollywood to Las Vegas... With the music at full volume and at least a pint of ether."
Hey, so remember this week when the internet went CRAZY with thankful people and I just sat at work ALL DAY Thursday with a sore throat and probably a temperature and NO ONE brought me pie? Well, to counteract my misery at not having had a four day weekend, here are some things I'm thankful for this week* and always:
Imagine being a 13 year old African American boy living in Chicago with your aunt during WWII while your father is away in the Air Force. Imagine further that one morning, out of the blue, your aunt tells you it is time for you to see your father again and that afternoon, without even saying good-bye to your best friend, you find yourself on a train heading to Camp Mackall in North Carolina. Sounds pretty harsh, doesn't it?
I was telling a friend of my about a 1941 ad I found in which Ocean Spray had offered a red plastic turkey shaped cranberry cutter that could be gotten with only a label and a dime. She started laughing heartily. Her grandmother had apparently sent in the required label and dime, and had received her cranberry cutter. Many years later, the cutter had been passed on to her mother and it became my friend's job every Thanksgiving to cut out the cranberry turkeys - year after year.
Amazingly, despite shortages, the cranberry turkey cutter was offered again in 1943, but this time with a difference. Metal was needed for the war effort, so the familiar cranberry can was replaced with a glass jar, but not just any glass jar. By now, Ocean Spray, like every other company in the US, had caught Victory fever and so its new glass jar was a victory glass jar, with the same cranberry contents as before, but also with many reuses. 
I have had Rose Blanche sitting on my bookshelves for years, but I have avoided writing about it for the same reason The Boy in the Striped Pajamas hasn't shown up here - they are both problematic texts with good intentions.
Second problem - Rose's story is just not historical reality. Her actions just couldn't, wouldn't happen. It is just not feasible to think that Rose could get away with following, finding, and bringing food to the children in the concentration camp. Nazi soldiers were simply not that unobservant. And why doesn't her mother notice the missing food at a time when food was so very scarce?
And so it is left to the adult reading with the child to fill in the explanations - who are the soldiers? who are the children? why are they taken away? etc. Which makes this a good classroom/homeschool book for introducing the Holocaust to school-age children. But this also makes Rose Blanche a story that should not willy-nilly be given to a child to read on their own, it is way too graphic for younger picture book readers. 
Eddy Okubo, 16, may have parents who were born in Japan, but he was born in Hawaii and considers himself strictly American. Eddy is a smart kid and has already graduated from high school. So far, though, all has been doing is helping his father out with his boat building business, not really know what he wants to do in life.
