Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Random Recommendations

Yesterday I read The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Rereading will have to come after improvements in literature sophistication. Despite its short length, it has a long grasp. (Or is it because of it? just like The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway and The Pearl by Steinbeck, although the books are vastly different.) But my impression of Dorian's most unforgivable crime wasn't his delight in indulgences or his impassiveness of tragedies from his influence, but his belief that he was beyond repentance and grace.

Last weekend I started volunteering as an assistant in the Humane Society clinic to its vet techs. It was amazing and gross at the same time to play orderly for cats with upper respiratory disease. My cat care experience elevated to a whole new level as I dumped diarrhea litter and wiped snot off cage ceilings. So exciting. The vet techs told me about the PetSmart Charities website with its webinars. Perhaps I'd finally be motivated to seek a second degree.

Through a chance email I heard about PhD comics. Quite interesting, and #808 is my favorite so far. But Achewood still takes first place webcomic in my heart for its brilliant original storylines and wit. And it's about cats and teddy bears and and a baby otter.

I'd also like to recommend Hikaru no Go, but it should merit its own post.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congrats on the new volunteer work. A friend of mine also did that... but later she said she hated it because it wasn't very gratifying. Me and her are more into fighting for human rights. ;)

About the comics... I didn't understand very well. I guess I'm absolutely ignorant when it comes to Manga or Comics in general. Seriously. And even anime... although I try really hard to be updated... it seems that everyone else is one step ahead of me.

And finally, about the book, I loved it when I read it. There are just some books that leave you breathless because they are so well written. If you ever do get around to read Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones", I'd love to discuss it with you.

jomiel said...

Wow I totally forgot to write back after I read your comment...

Fighting for human rights sound great! Update us on how it turns out :D

As for comics, I'll be making a post soon about my favorite ones! And for anime, the vast majority of things published are pretty crappy, so don't worry too much about not being up with it. It's not worth your time and energy to be up with it, really.

I think I have that book around the house somewhere...