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07/29/2007
144th, and Proud!
I saw a book that I'm interested in reading, called Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. It only came out this year, so normally my instinct would be to buy it and read it. However, I'm trying to curb my spending on things like books which I generally only read once. Option #2 would be to look for it at a second hand shop, but for a book so new, it's unlikely I'll find it there for a while yet. Option #3 is to wait for it to come out in paperback, so it's cheaper, but that still doesn't solve the problem of spending money and then having the book sit on the bookshelf because its value depreciated to basically nothing as soon as it's bought. So, I went with Option #4: Borrow from the library. Or, Option 4a in this case: Request it from the library and wait. I'm the 144th person in line waiting to read this book!! I've never put a hold on a library book with so many people waiting, but... there you go. In any case, my to-read pile is still tall enough to occupy me until my name comes up for this book. I'm not sure how long it will take to go through that many people in the request list, but judging from the number of copies in the system and the 3-week borrowing system, I expect I should get it sometime between October and Christmas. With any luck!
So that was my money-saving venture of the day. The non-money saving venture of the day was a shopping trip to the local mall, which was a flop basically. ("Un nul", as I'd generally call it.) All I can say is that I really, really can't stand the current retro 80s fashion! The 80s were a bad enough fashion disaster the first time, so I can't believe it's making a comeback. What are people thinking? This is totally the sort of thing where we'll be looking back at today's photos 10 years from now and going, holy smokes, we were utterly colourblind and hopeless at picking flattering cuts for the human body. Is that a fluorescent pink potato sack she's wearing? Did she get dressed in the dark, when she put her polka-dot sweatshirt over her psychedelic-print shirt? Hopefully when I'm in Europe in the next couple of weeks, there'll be something classier for sale that I can pick up, even if I do have to pay in pounds sterling (yikes).
I sold my violin a couple of weeks ago (yay!), but now I'm already itching to buy a new one! There are a few criteria this time around:
1. It has to be playable.
2. It has to be reasonably-priced.
3. It has to sound good.
#2 and #3 tend to conflict with each other, so it could be interesting. Ultimately though, I don't need a violin. What I really want to do is learn to fiddle -- on my cello. In other words, since I already know how to make a good sound out of a cello, I want to then learn, stylistically, how to fiddle in the Irish tradition (and I want to try for a Donegal regional style, if only because that's about my closest connection to Ireland!). Trouble is, there aren't exactly very many Irish cello fiddle teachers floating around. Soooo, either I'll have to learn on a fiddle and translate that to cello, or find a teacher daring enough to show me the general idea on a fiddle, and have me copy it on a cello. We'll see! The other problem too is the time factor. Basically, I have none. :-) Or, I should say, I have some now, but when orchestra and dance class start back up in September, I won't have any time anymore. We'll see what happens. Hopefully when I go to Ireland shortly I can pick up a whole bunch of interesting CDs and, with any luck, catch a couple of shows. I can't wait!!
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