Po(sey) Sessions

My fourth semester back at university has ended. It has been the most successful school term of my life! My classes were mostly food focused and that did help me stay motivated. April was a successful reading month for me, even though I continue to be well behind my reading goal for the year. It may have been a pipe dream in the first place. BUT... I did finish SIX books this month and I do consider that an enormous achievement. 14. Liar and Spy 15. 15. The Omnivore's Dilemma 16. 365 Journal Writing Prompts 17. Stars So Sweet 18. Edible 19. The Circle The last two I finished since my most recent update and one was AMAZING and the other was really super pretty bad. One was about eating bugs and the other was about the evils of social media and the control of the internet. Considering my interest in dystopia, they both strike different parts of interest for me. The Circle was one of the worst books I have ever read, yet I found it still to be intriguing. It played very ...

Though my reading numbers haven't drastically increased, I am feeling particularly productive when it comes to reading. Partly it is knowing that the semester is ending soon and I will have lots of space and time to read whatever my heart desires. This semester has been very interesting and engaging for me. The entire semester who focused around food. The quantity of the things I was able to learn was astonishing, but I wasn't able to work on my own food related interests and projects because I had so much reading to do for my classes. I did finish a few books over the past week and that always motivates me. 15. The Omnivore's Dilemma 16. 365 Journal Writing Prompts 17. Stars So Sweet Currently Reading: Edible Sassafrass, Cypress & Indigo Save Me a Seat The Fireman Hope to Read Soon: The Unsettling of America The Vegetarian Mycophilia The Circle I have not picked up very many of the books I have hoped to read soon or have been in the middle of for a...

I have been thinking a lot about my experience as a blogger lately. Having a blog got me through some dark and lonely times. It is hard to remember the times before social media. The Sunday Salon was one of my favorite parts of the blogging ritual. I realize now that much of the community no longer blogs or no long participates. But I decided to write a salon post this week as homage to the memory of my active blogging days. On Sundays I would get up and leisurely work on my Salon post, taking the time to ponder about the topics I had read about since the last time I posted and see if there was something that I could really tease out and discuss. This week I am preparing for finals and they are weighing heavily on my mind. I find it interesting though not surprising how all consuming university can be. Especially the amount of interest and focus certain topics demand, that suddenly feel less important the moment the test is taken, the paper is written, or the semester i...

It may just be futile to do these reading logs because I do a few weeks and then never stick with it. But when I look back over the past years of my blog, these reading logs are some of the most helpful posts to remind me about events in my life and books that I read. When I met Mr. X, I know I was reading Elantris. And there are other events that I know are correlated with books I was reading. I think it might be weird to remember what book I was reading and not what year it was, but that is just the way my brain works. At my bookstore we do not have computerized inventory system. I keep most of the books and authors in my head. I also keep a lot of the customers' names in my head. Both first and last because we have a trade system that is filed by last name. We have not computerized our trade credit either, to the amazement of most. (And our cash drawer has a little bell that chimes when we open it.) Often people ask me how I can keep track of everything. I am far from perfe...

I have not made much reading progress over the past week. I have been jumping from book to book working on various research projects and chasing quotes. I managed to finish one more book for my yearly total. 14. Liar and Spy - Rebecca Stead Another great middle grade selection by Stead. I loved it and I was worried it could not compare to When You Reach Me. I am happy I had a few years between the two titles so I was less inclined to compare them. Currently Reading: I am still working on Omnivore's Dilemma the most because it has been assigned for school. The Ultimate Gullah Cookbook - I read this for my Festival of Excellence presentation. I have hauled it across the county a few times with the hopes of reading it. I am shocked at how much my own knowledge has transformed the experience of reading it. I restarted it from the first page.  I realized that I am in the middle of a bunch of cookbooks and pushing through them might bolster up my reading numbers so far this ...

Four semesters ago I returned to Souther Utah University to finish my undergraduate degree. I started on a new major. This time around I am a Sociology major and I am focusing on the topic of food whenever possible. Annually the school holds a conference where students can present the academic experience they have participated in. This year I had the opportunity to present on my work connected to a  series of trips I took to South Carolina. I chose to do a PechaKucha presentation to take advantage of the photos I took throughout my travels. What is a PechaKucha? It is a presentation style in which 20 slides are shown for 20 seconds each (6 minutes and 40 seconds in total). PechaKucha is a Japanese word that means chit-chat. The focus of this type of presentation is to simultaneously be less formal and present concise information. The hope is that a presentation like this can start a conversation. The following are the slides I used and the notes I wrote to accompany them....

My reading goals for 2017 were extremely lofty and somewhat unrealized so far. My goal: 100 Currently finished: 13 While 13 is not a shabby number, it is half of what I am expected to have done to meet my goal this year. Despite a number of changes in my life this year, one of which going back to school fully time, I am stubbornly hoping I will find the time to make up the numbers of books read. Perhaps over the summer? Books completed in 2017: 1. Sugar - Jewell Parker Rhodes 2. Sweetbitter - Stephanie Danler 3. Food, Genes, and Culture - Gary Nabhan 4. Chew, Vol. 5: Major League - John Layman 5. Ink - Amanda Sun 6. Underground Airlines - Ben Winters 7. The American Way of Eating - Tracie McMillan 8. Annihilation - Jeff VanderMeer 9. Authority - Jeff VanderMeer 10. Saving Seeds, Preserving Taste - Bill Best 11. Farmacology - Daphne Miller 12. Sleep Donation - Karen Russell 13. High on the Hog - Jessica Harris Currently reading: My Southern Journey - Rick Bragg V...