For my 11 entry in my 12 Month Challenge I read Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen:

Pride and Prejudice is a story is about Elizabeth Bennet and her family. They live near the town of Meryton and are very prominent in their village but, they are considered to be on the lesser side of high society. Elizabeth has four sisters and no brothers which means, by law, when her father dies the land passes on to a cousin (Mr. Collins). Because of this, it is very important for the girls to marry well. Meaning, they should marry rich men if their family is to stay afloat when their father is gone.

So enters Mr. Bingley, who is new to the town and buys an estate called Netherfield. When Elizabeth’s mother, Mrs. Bennet, hears of this she is set immediately on having him marry one of her girls. At a local dance they all meet Bingley along with his sisters and one of his friends, a Mr. Darcy. When it became obvious that Mr. Darcy was unfriendly and standoffish everyone disliked him, including Mrs. Bennet, who was sometimes indiscrete with her disapproval of him. However, Bingley takes an interest in Elizabeth’s older sister, Jane.

Another character that plays a large part in this story is Mr. Wickham. He and Mr. Darcy grew up together but then there was a falling out between them. When Mr. Wickham comes to Meryton he tells his version of the circumstances between them which, coincidentally of course, sets him in a positive light and everyone even more against Mr. Darcy. Wickham befriends Elizabeth and shows a great interest in her and Elizabeth showed interest in him.

Pride and Prejudice is arguably one of the most well-known and weathered English novel. It has survived for over 200 years and is still going strong. There are multiple layers and surprising twists and it’s also the Jane Austen fashion to include humor and some lessons on decorum in her books. While this book isn’t necessarily a page turner I wouldn’t dismiss the book that easily. Yes, it is literature; it’s what you read to learn about good writing, reading comprehension and words in the English vocabulary that you don’t usually use. There are even words that you can’t even guess the meaning of. For example, ‘shire’ which was an administrative district of England, in which Wickham served as a military officer. And there are some other reading difficulties that come from the different punctuation standards in the 1800’s. But, amongst all this learning you get to have romance and humor along for the ride which makes the trip much more pleasant.

The story of Pride and Prejudice is really enjoyable. I was very pleased to find that once I was able to read Jane Austen, I did understand her characters. It’s not like they talk of virtues and traditions that mean nothing to you and nothing to anybody. They want to be accepted, want to be loved and want to be secure.

If reading Shakespeare is painful to you but you still want some quality reading, pick this book up. And if you are into the romance genre I totally encourage this read, you will not be disappointed. Some people call Jane Austen ‘too conservative’ but I think she caught onto polite individuals exactly right. There are no flying passions and insurmountable stresses in this story but that doesn’t mean Austen isn’t moving her audience. Filled with beautiful writing and an amazing quality that allows readers to relate to 200 year old characters, it’s no wonder that this book is able to endure the test of time.

And you know, I really thought I was going to a lake with a tiny drop off but, then my eyes widened when I saw what I saw. It was several different drop-offs, not just one, and to the right there was a rock with a rainbow over it. It was gourrrrgeous!

My favorite part of falls wasn’t the actual water falling down but the sound. It was such a deep and inviting roar, I know now that my dream house is probably going to be by a waterfall.

I’m glad with the way the pictures came out. I thought about my shots carefully. No, I’m not okay with the quality of the photo but they were taken with a cell phone that obviously needs a megapixel upgrade.

I did, but not really on purpose. I was resigned to go to bed when I got home from church because I didn’t feel like watching silly people bounce up and down on my tv screen. About the time the new year rolled in I think I was fishing for my cell phone. I had heard the T-Mobile ringer go off in church and was wondering if I could download it to my phone.

My attitude towards resolutions is even worse. If I’m going to do something I don’t need a list to tell me to do it. Plus for me, my ‘New Years’ is at my birthday, not January 1st. And I can definitely say I had some thoughts about what I wanted to change as a 17 year old then.

But, in this next year I do hope that the world can stop crashing and burning. I hope we can learn from all the bumps in the road from last year and not make the same mistakes. I hope people can be more tolerant of each other and that the truth gets a long run in future newscasts. I hope my report card sees all A’s and my website keeps growing.

Thanks to all who commented on my layout, I’m so glad that you all liked it so much.
For the record though, I did not code the slidedeck up there. I wish I had, that would be some kudos but it’s a WordPress plugin.

I served at church Christmas Eve as a traffic director. It has been over a year since I started directing traffic. My mom likes to say, “She can’t drive but she can direct traffic.” That embarrasses me a bit. Anyway, I go to a big church and with everyone coming out of the woodwork for this service there was a ton of people. We also aren’t in the most parking convenient location. The parking lot was full like fifteen minutes after we got out there.
And then when night fell we had these lights to direct with. People like to debate with me which way they should go. They will point and hold up traffic and I’m like, “Okaaaay.” But when night came I couldn’t see them behind their windshield so I didn’t know what they were saying so, they went my way. (Evil laugh) Not that it was bad, the way I directed them gets them out much faster. Somehow people forget that all streets connect and you can just turn the corner to get to the street you want.

My town had been hoping for snow this Christmas. For some reason it has been really dry over here, though it is cold. I live by a ski lift and they had to truck their snow in! We finally got snow two days after Christmas. It is mostly gone now, I think it started raining. And now we might have to go through a whole snow season, which, if it had started on time, we might already be halfway through. Weather!

On a final note: I have changed my layout. I hope you guys like it. It is a first in many things. I actually drew this layout up on an image before I started coding it. Making that teaser, from a couple of blogs ago, was a bad decision. It was so hard to recreate it. I ended up making a layout, before this one, that I basically just trashed because it wasn’t what I wanted. I’m also using percentages for the first time in years but I think it makes the reading a little harder for bigger screens. One line of text is so much longer. My favorite feature on this layout is the footer. When trying to find inspiration for this layout I looked at some footer examples and saw one where they had the ‘hill’ at the bottom of the footer. I am happy I was able to recreate it. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.

Mere Christianity is a book by the famous author and academic medievalist C.S. Lewis. The book was adapted from his three BBC radio broadcasts on the Christian life during World War II. In this book he defends and explains the mere Christian faith. He does so by applying logic and painting clear and simple illustrations. His goal was not to produce and exhaustive study on Christianity but to talk about what it essentially is, what its basis is.

I started reading through the intro and was marking down a lot of its lines. I was impressed with that fact because if this is just the introduction what will the rest of the book be like?

In a book about religion I prefer not to have someone forcing their beliefs on me. When someone is so worried that their beliefs aren’t compelling enough for you to believe it on your own, that is usually when they start yelling, right? On the other hand I’d rather not be lost in the moment that I lose all sense of discernment and have one pulled over me. Don’t try to take me into a shadowy room where I can’t see my purse; that kind of thing. C.S. Lewis does a good job of keeping the lights on and his conversation stays in ‘public areas.’ He’s not going into deep conversations about ‘mystical stuff’ that only he could know and you just have to trust him. He uses the tools everyone has to prove his points. Those tools are: observation, logic and nature. And not just the nature that Christians like to argue about: Evolution vs. Creation, but the nature of logic and the nature of good and evil. It would make sense that what really matters is the last thing we tend to think about, look at or even fight about.

C.S. Lewis’ dissertation of ‘Mere Christianity’ hinges on the simple understanding of what it means to be a human; being honest with our envies, our hate and our compassion, our love. He uses very striking comparisons and illustrations to help us understand his points. His communication is very clear and you don’t feel like he is a foreboding figure trying to intimidate you into believing Christianity but, he also doesn’t seem full of fake smiles, trying to get you to join his religion with syrupy promises piled on top. There is a way to write about your beliefs in a sincere manner without trying to totally encompass and control a reader’s own reasoning and without putting them down. I do believe that C.S. Lewis has achieved this in his writing.

I do have a word of caution though; this book makes a good use of vocabulary. If you don’t know what words like ‘acquiesce’ and ‘vice’ mean you might have a hard time understanding what Lewis is saying. As I alluded to before, this book isn’t a deep spiritual book that only people with doctorate degrees read, it was written for everyone; it just may use a bit more vocabulary the we are used to.

Mere Christianity is a take on the Christian life by C.S. Lewis and I dare say, it is best and most interesting take there ever was. This book is not supposed to be designed for the Christian but the non-Christian, to understand the Christian belief. Christians who read this book will have their eyes opened to things they didn’t understand but should’ve understood a long time ago. Those who want to share their Christian faith will also be able to pick up some ‘p’s and queue’s’ from this book about how to share their faith in a nice, intriguing and respectful manner.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYBODY!!!!

Today I’m celebrating being able to make a scratch/grunge mask. Yeah, I know, not the most important thing in the world or the hardest but I’ve been trying for months to get this effect.

This is my long awaited grunge:

And this is the image I made to go with it (possibly a preview to my next layout ):

I also made this birdie a couple of days ago:

I’ve been recently patting myself on the back because some things that I was never really getting or understanding are finally starting to click. Things like: my worth, who I am and my abilities. My saneness, most particularly. It’s all going well and I feel much better. But, even though I should say, “Good job Cami!” “Way to go!” I think I’ve been doing that too much lately. I should slow down and thank God for all he has done and will continue to do and then get back in the ‘gym.’ Because I still have a lot of work to do. And I’m starting to think that me, patting myself on my back, is part of what got me in my previous state in the first place.

I haven’t made any premade layouts in forever, partly because they weren’t that good and partly because no one was downloading them until recently. I’ve tried my hand at it again and made some new ones and really wouldn’t mind some feedback. In fact, I’d appreciate it.

I’ve known for awhile that while I can spell sometimes I can’t talk. I have a good vocabulary but I can’t use those words simply because I don’t know how to pronounce them. I actually say coo-operation when I talk because that is how I left myself a hint in my head on how to spell it.
I’ve been feeling more insecure about myself, which usually happens after a lengthy period of isolation. But this time it is different. I used to just feel bad about myself with seemingly no way out. Now I feel bad, but I know why. If I may say, never underestimate knowing the answers to questions. Too many questions without answers just get you down and you end up going nowhere.

So know I’m going to be paying attention to how to pronounce words and instead of saying esacaatsy I’ll say ecstasy.
I’ll be sitting up straight.
Not being sooooo eager to talk (which also happens after long periods of isolation)
Breathing with my mouth shut

I’m not going to be attacking these things as a list and then banging my head on the wall for not doing them. God knows I do enough that already. But I’m pretty sure things that take longer to get are things that last longer. So, I’m just going to try to look at those, sometimes painful, situations in my life, where I walked away knowing I had been goofy that night, and see what I can change.
I always thought it was everyone else just picking on me, but then I noticed the type of people I was hanging around. They weren’t the type to pick on me. So if I can seem offish to the nicer people in this world it may be good hint that I have some stuff that needs fixing.
I am thinking of myself as a project, I think of everything as a project. And I really like cleaning up. I can at least be credited with having some motivation even if everyone doesn’t agree with my motives or thinks my dislike for myself is all in my head.
And more on the subject of the nice people I think I offend, I won’t be going back (at least not on purpose) and trying again. I’ll try my improved manners in another circle. I still haven’t figured out the whole socializing thing and how I fit in or where I fit in, and I am pretty sure the computer screen isn’t my only source I just have to find something, somewhere.

All of this isn’t at all bad, I’m just changing from the twelve year old self that seemed to be walking around here all these years. I mean seriously if I were to list some the incidents that are painful for me to remember, those embarrassing moments would sound something like a twelve year old would do. Not that being twelve is bad, but I’m seventeen, I’m in more grown-up situations that require me to act my age.
There is such a thing as self-control of reining in your thoughts and selecting which ones to say. And I really like knowing that. Because I actually don’t want to say everything I think. But for some reason I thought it was bad to rein yourself in and you know where that might have come from? Thinking rules were bad when I was a kid. See I told you!

12/4/2011: Today I logged in and noticed I hadn’t received any of my WordPress backups in my email since Monday which is bad. Then I noticed my disk space had increased quite a bit. From a comment by Becca I looked around my account for any WordPress backups that weren’t being sent to my email but instead saved on my account. I found them and when I deleted the extra ones it was clear from the freed space that that had been the problem all along.

In other site news, I am finishing a website review, but it is a bit long and I wanted to make it easy to navigate. Of course I was just going to apply some anchor links but then I was like, I want the reader to be able to scroll back up easily. Of course this was next, “Is there a plugin for that?”
My first track was to get an anchor link plugin, but the one I really liked, that had smooth scrolling and a scroll to top feature, wouldn’t work on my version of WordPress. So I thought I was just going to have to settle for a smooth scroller plugin and manually insert the ‘back to top’ links myself. (Not good. ) But as I was downloading that plugin I saw a plugin called ‘scroll to top’. And I got what I wanted with the combination of two plugins.
Not that I should be applauded for this achievement. I should have known about the ‘scroll to top’ plugin.

Seven years before the events in the novel, Anne was in love with a naval officer, Captain Fredrick Wentworth. They were engaged for a short time but Lady Russell, a friend of Anne’s, persuaded her not to marry Fredrick. Hence the name of the book is ‘Persuasion.’

Persuasion is the story about Anne Elliot who is overlooked and put down by the rest of her family. She may not live in the attic like Cinderella but, nevertheless, her family makes her life miserable. Anne has a father and two sisters. Her mother had died and her father, Sir Walter Elliot, is a vain man who is very occupied by his own reflection in a looking glass. He looks down at other people, and judges them from their outward appearance. Anne’s two sisters are silly – to say the least – and consistent with Cinderella’s evil stepsisters. They both use Anne at their disposal for chores or sitting with them when they are sick.

Because of Sir Walter’s extravagant ways, they have reached a situation where they cannot afford their lifestyle any more. When Anne’s mother was alive she was able to keep him in check but with her died her restraint. The Elliot family had to ‘let out’ their estate. Basically, that means they had to rent it out and move somewhere else. It happened that they rented the house to Fredrick’s brother. After doing so, they moved to a town named Bath.

When Anne went to visit her younger sister, who was married and lived several miles away from Kellynch Hall, she met Fredrick – who was there to visit one of the families in that community – for the first time since their separation. Ever they had separated Anne had been down in spirits. She had ‘lost the bloom of her youth’ and while it was known that Fredrick was looking for a wife, he would not consider Anne because he was still mad at her for refusing to marry him.

Anne makes a bit of reconciliation between the reader and Lady Russell’s crime with this: It was good that she heeded and obeyed the authority over her and not married Fredrick even though the counsel was wrong. It was good that she was humble enough to obey. And as we can see at the end of the book their love was much sweeter after having gone through the trial, they were much surer of their love for each other.

If you know something of Jane Austen you will recognize the Bath reference. In Jane Austen’s life, her father moved the family to Bath but she preferred the country to town. Persuasion is known to be the most autobiographical of Jane Austen’s novels. She wrote in things that happened to her or reflected how she felt about a particular subject.

I find it’s hard to come up with marks against a Jane Austen novel. It is such a respected piece of literature, can you really criticize it? Black marks like the punctuation can be explained by looking at the date the book was written in. Not just the date though, the literary style. No, I will leave the criticizing to the experts. But, I can suggest what type of reading level you should have to understand this book.

One of the obvious problems is the writing style. You should have a strong vocabulary (in the United States we would say a twelfth grade vocabulary). You should also be used to old literature a little bit. Keep in mind this is a slow read. You can’t rush through the pages because there is a lot of information in each paragraph and sentence. For example, here is a quote from the book: “Sir Walter could not have borne the degradation of being known to design letting his house.”
If you don’t take the time to read each word and understand the passages you may finish the novel believing you wasted a lot of your time. But in fact, this is one the most brilliant, exciting and insightful looks into the world of literature.

There is one other thing to remember when reading this book. Austen does not repeat herself a lot. You will not often find her paraphrasing what she has already said in the book. Not even through the character’s dialogue. Rather, there will be a confirmation of certain facts and circumstances. Issues and appearances but no renewal of the first suppositions or telling. Austen is an efficient writer besides being very creative.

I found the read enjoyable. As always, Jane Austen is a gentle teacher about social decorum and the nature of love. The book can be easy to understand with its rich and colorful words that convey the emotions and point of the story in exactly the right way. The book is not completely predictable. Jane Austen does know how to throw a twist in the plot and of course, she is a master in delivering a happy ending.

I still go to the dances, I really like improving. (This way no one has an excuse not to dance with me based on my poor dancing skills.) But I also like to improve for myself. Usually when no one accepts me I run, so it’s nice to face the ‘opposition’ and still try.
I am relieved when the night is over but I figure my own insecurity can’t last forever. One day it won’t even matter whether I dance with someone or not. And truth be told it doesn’t, but when you are sitting there in between line dances, for what seems like forever, with no one to talk too, these thoughts just creep in.

I finally found some party clothes. I’m not looking for attention by my clothes but I know what I look like. I look like one of those clumsy girls that have yet to bloom. And that’s okay, I obviously need to learn how to dress and stand up straight. I don’t know why I don’t know this stuff, my mom is ‘well-bred (groomed).’ And you know, the past two times I’ve dressed ‘right’ I have gotten asked to dance once. So there may be some merit to me dressing better even though it’s perfectly the style to wear jeans to a country dance and that’s what most people do anyway.