Booking it Foreign

“That is the circus of American Idol . We go for the very, very best and the very, very worst. It's the boring people that we don't want to see on television.” - Nigel Lythgoe

It's that time again!

Booking Through Thursday

I had an idea for a BTT question when I was taking a peek at one of my bookcases yesterday and spotted my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin sitting there. Maybe this question has already been done—but if not… Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

This one is easy: NO. I used to speak and read French pretty well, but never had the desire to expand into foreign language fiction. I read for pleasure -- and that would've been more like work. The shame is that Americans typically aren't taught to be fluent in another language as a matter of rote. That's too bad.

On a side note, this made me think of spelling. While teaching DD spelling I keep coming across all the exceptions to spelling rules. We now have this: "I before E, except after C and when it sounds like "AY" as in neighbor and weigh, and science and foreign." I can't help but wonder what other words I'll tack on to the end

So... I'm not giving up my coffee. Melissa, the problem with my chocolate soy milk isn't the "milk" part, but the evaporated cane juice used to sweeten it. Though it isn't technically "refined" sugar, it's still sugarish, and given the book author's feelings on fruit juice I can only imagine how he'd feel about this.

I decided coffee with chocolate soy milk was the deal breaker for me. I did go shopping yesterday and spent $67 on fresh produce (oh... minus $9.98 for two packs of organic, nitrite free hot dogs for the DD). SIXTY-SEVEN DOLLARS. I didn't buy that much: two heads of romaine, one of iceberg, 5 lb carrots, a pack of baby bellas, five bananas, 3 lb apples, 4 green peppers, 2 english cucumbers, some grapes, 2 lb strawberries, 3 tomatoes, 2 pints grape tomatoes. That's it. Yeah, a lot, but ... not really.

"They" want us to each better and bemoan the obesity epidemic in America (I'm more likely to bemoan the cancer epidemic, but that's a topic I won't get into here), but then price healthy food so high that many people can't afford to eat properly and fall back on ramen noodles.

Anyway...

I did get some more revising done on my short story, "Pregnancy Cravings". I have them nearly finished (the first round, anyhow) and will send it back to the editor this week. I wonder what will happen first: my story will be sent to production OR it will actually show up on my author page as "coming soon".

If you don't know what happened on "American Idol", don't read any further.

So, for my QOTD:

If you're an American Idol fan, what did you think of this years show?

I'm happy Jordin won. I wanted her to win from about the middle of the top twelve. I LOVED Melinda... she was my absolute favorite because she could sing absolutely anything, never hit a wrong note and always surprised me. She wasn't *so* great during Bee Gees week, but no one was.

When she was voted out last week, I have to admit to being furious. A finale with Jordin and Melinda would have been amazing. I would have taped that to watch over and over and over. I always believed that Jordin would make a better "American Idol" -- she's young and cute and bubbly. But I always believed Melinda was the better singer.

Blake? He was my third fave. When they hit the top three, it was exactly as I had hoped. But he wasn't consistent. When he was good, he was GREAT. But when he was bad, he was utterly horrid.

I still haven't watched Tuesday's show. Nor have I seen last nights. I got my info on the winner from the online news page. I'm not sure I WILL watch the finale. I'll watch Wednesday's show because of all the guests, but ... I'm still mad about Melinda.

You? Or are you not an AI fan?

Have a lovely day!