"A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, all the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half deserved"
"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."
Mr. Darcy and Miss Bingly on an accomplished woman. "Pride and Prejudice", by Jane Austin

Whenever I delve into a book such as Pride and Prejudice, I always lament the fact that my life cannot be idly spent reading books, studying languages, and working to make myself all the more accomplished. Instead, my study of languages is interrupted by work, where Italian and Spanish are confused and nothing but a little laugh and an English answer seems able to come from my mouth. Dancing, at least at the level and intensity I practiced at when I was younger, takes too much time and money for this economy.

But books -- there is always a half hour somewhere for a good book. Yesterday I was pleased to find myself with 3 hours of (mostly) uninterrupted reading during the course of the day, and finished Pride and Prejudice, a project of mine which had been interrupted for some time now. The other works of Jane Austin sit on my shelves, waiting to be opened, but must wait until Madam Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is finished.

Reading has always been a great passion of mine, and now that I am finished with school, am pursuing books with greater delight than I had been able to for 4 years. In looking for recommendations, or lists of great books to read, I came across a Wikipedia article, quoting Mortimer Alder's opinion on what makes a great book, well, great.

1: the book has contemporary significance; that is, it has relevance to the problems and issues of our times;
2: the book is inexhaustible; it can be read again and again with benefit;
3: the book is relevant to a large number of the great ideas and great issues that have occupied the minds of thinking individuals for the last 25 centuries.

I suppose my guilty pleasure, The Princess Diaries series, doesn't really fall into this category, but it's good for a giggle anyway.

In any case, I am now developing a list of books that are to be read. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated! Below is the list of books I intend on reading, perhaps not all this year, but steadily over time.

"Madame Bovary", Gustave Flaubert
"Anna Karenina", Leo Tolstoy
"Emma", "Sense and Sensibility", "Mansfield Park", "Northanger Abbey", "Persuasion", Jane Austin
"The Faerie Queene", Edmund Spenser (One of my favorites in British Literature, but we unfortunately only covered the first book)
"Captain Corelli's Mandolin", Louis de Bernieres
"Don Juan", Lord Byron
"Tess of the D'Ubervilles", Thomas Hardy
"Paradise Lost", John Milton
"The Canterbury Tales", Geoffrey Chaucer (some were covered in British Literature classes -- will find a list of entire works and go from there)
"The Decameron", Giovanni Boccaccio
"Purgatory", "Paradise", Dante Alighieri.

Excuses

Do we make the excuses in life? Or do our excuses make us?

I could tell you that the reason I've been MIA for so long is that my memory card that goes into my camera also doubles as the memory card for my phone. That's the truth, but only sheer laziness could have prevented me from swapping the card between devices for a quick photo shoot.

I could tell you that work has just been too overwhelming for me. With 6 hour work days for countless weeks now, that is also true... but I could always take pictures on Saturdays (my only guaranteed day off).

I'm just not creative enough to find a new subject every day. This wasn't giving me the insight into my creative being that I expected. I have other things I'd rather be doing.

Which way do you see it? I made these excuses up -- in my mind, at the time, they were legitimate reasons to stop my daily photography. But these excuses made me. They made me break one of my New Year's resolutions after only a week. They made me change my focus, they made me give up on myself.

There are much worse things to give up than daily photography, but the fact still remains that these excuses, as benign as they are, change the way we think about our lives. How many things in your life have you given up because of an excuse or two? Language pursuit ("I'm just not good at languages")? A good book ("I don't have time")? A diet ("I just can't do this, I like food too much")?

Don't let your excuses make you who you are. If you want something, go for it. Stomp out that little voice that tells you all the reason why you can't achieve something, and just dive head-on into it. Do not fail.

Days Five through Seven

Work and life have been killing me lately -- but I was still taking pictures! It's still hard to remember some days, but this project is starting to become something I think about. I do hope my pictures will become less random and have more of a theme to them eventually, but I guess I have to cut myself some slack. It's only been 1 week!

Day 5:



Mom and I are doing SparkPeople's Body Bootcamp, and to help encourage ourselves we splurged on some new exercise equipment! Well, ok, I splurged... most of that is for me. Hey, I really needed a pink exercise ball!

Day 6:



I really don't remember who drew that picture -- it's been hanging in the laundry room for years now. It's much more cheerful than the picture we found in my boyfriend's laundry room a few days after he moved into his new house. It depicted a backwards American flag, nazi symbols, and a man with a scar on his face saying "Nazi America". I much prefer rainbows. In any case, this is the view through my dryer. I'm not going to lie, I almost forgot to take a picture today. I just snapped this one quickly late at night as I put my uniform for the next day into the dryer.

Day 7:



Does anyone else have a body lotion addiction? I really don't like wearing outright perfume, but I do like the subtle scent of a nice body lotion. From right to left, we have Amber Romance, Te' Bianco (the body lotion I bought in Florence. Italian water made my skin feel really dry!), Irresistible Apple, Warm Vanilla Sugar, Mary Kay's Lotus and Bamboo, and Frozen Daiquiri. In the center is my Mary Kay heart I won. It has a tiny golden ruler in it, to remind us to use the Golden Rule in our daily lives. :)

I will try to update more frequently, but don't be too concerned if I don't post for a few days. I probably haven't fallen down any stairs.

Day Four

It's a pretty common thing for students to bring a pencil into a test. When you are unsure about something, or hope for the chance to take back a mistake, it is best to write in pencil.

I once had someone write something for me using a pencil. I now wish I had asked him to write with a permanent marker.



I sleep under this reminder every night, and wake up to it in the morning. Sometimes, I don't even realize it is there -- it's been part of my bed for so long that, while its sentimental value hasn't decreased, it occasionally escapes my notice until I find myself unable to sleep. I believe that is why it was written to begin with. Not to serve as a daily substitute for hearing the words, but as a reminder when the words aren't available.

Sorry this post is so late, but I was taking a midnight drive around the beaches in my area. I could have snapped a picture out there, but it was too cold to get out of the car, and this picture seemed more fitting for today.

Day Three

It won't stop snowing. It just won't. This is our Christmas tree, which is outside on our back balcony because of an unfortunate allergic reaction. My camera wouldn't turn on today, and I'm not sure why, so the bad picture quality is due to my cell phone camera.

The Second Day

Today was even harder than the first. I found a wonderful photo opportunity early this morning, but was without my camera. I definitely have to get used to bringing it with me. I didn't get back home until almost 11 tonight, but managed to snap this picture just before midnight.

My youngest sister, who will be 6 in a few weeks, loves printing out coloring sheets from the computer, coloring them, and having them cut out to be paper dolls. Here, mom is helping her cut around the difficult corners of a dress, while the two keep warm underneath yet another beautiful, warm blanket knit by my Nana. I sense a recurring theme thus far.

The First Day

Happy New Year, everyone. Today is the first day of Project 365 for 2010. I almost forgot about it. When I remembered this evening after a long day at work, I was frustratingly short of ideas. I had predicted this project to be easy -- my first picture capturing the very essence of a stranger's soul, or something equally difficult to do without getting shot or otherwise accused of being a creeper. Instead of attacking the public, I decided to start small and describe myself to you.



This first picture is, essentially, me. However, before we get on to talking about me, let me describe my blog title.

I did not attend school until I was 16 years old. My family's loosely structured form of home schooling, titled Unschooling, led me to become an Autodidact at a young age. That is not to say that my parents left me to sink or swim in this world, but rather that they gave me the tools I needed to go forth and find information for myself. This alternate form of schooling has taught me how to make informed decisions about my education while still schooling at home, as well as helped me get into college early (my first day of school at 16 was at a local community college -- I have since studied abroad twice in short-term programs, and have transferred to and graduated from a 4 year University). I assure you, I was never an uneducated, friendless loser -- I had many friends, read nearly half the day away, taught myself foreign languages, wrote stories, and even studied math (gasp!).

So, let me talk to you now about myself. First, please admire the beautiful warm blanket beneath my display. My grandma knit it for me. Autodidacts can't teach themselves everything, so when I wanted to learn to knit I searched my resources. Hence the partial black hat you see. Nana taught me the basic steps, and I figured out how to knit on double-pointed needles as time went on.

I love to read and write (I am an English major, after all), and as you can see my display is a bit heavy on books. I am currently reading Tim Ferriss' "The 4 Hour Work Week" as a way to help me focus my life, and expand and improve my business. "Madame Bovary", "Pride and Prejudice" and "Tess of the D'Ubervilles" are also in process.

"No Plot? No Problem!" is a wonderful guide to writing, focusing on quantity over quality. If you have not yet heard of National Novel Writing Month, you simply must visit their website. NaNoWriMo is a challenge I am determined to win this year.

Yes, my handwriting can sometimes be that messy. What you see on the notebook was a hasty attempt to catch a poem before it left my mind. I succeeded.

As I mentioned above, I have studied foreign languages in the past. Italian is, so far, my favorite and the one I have progressed farthest with. My original picture idea for today was to take a picture of all my Italian study guides and books (including all of Dante's Divine Comedy, "Pride and Prejudice", and "The Cat in the Hat"), in an attempt to portray my New Year's resolution of working on fluency. I figured my bed wasn't big enough for all the books.

Briefly -- "Second Hand Lions" is the best movie ever.

The picture of a woman giving a massage is simply a representation of how broad my interests can get. I picked up a deck of cards one day, each depicting a different massage technique. In addition to wanting to be a writer, teacher, ornithologist and animal trainer for movies, I also wanted to be a massage therapist for a while.

If you're looking past my main display, you can also see a sideways picture of Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus" (my favorite painting), and my black work pants which need to get washed, as soon as I finish this post.

This was much longer than I expected it to be, but I hope you are still intrigued. Check back tomorrow for my next adventure! Or perhaps it should be considered my first, as I haven't left my bed since the picture was taken.