Tag: reading

An Exploration of Introversion

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I know I have already covered the topic of introversion/extroversion once, in my review of Susan Cain’s book. But since this is my blog, if I want to talk about it more, there’s no one stopping me, haha. There are just a lot of thoughts I have on this subject which I feel need to be said. Firstly, both introverts and extroverts have their own strengths and qualities. Introverts have a harder time because their strengths are less obvious. We all know that extroverts are great speakers. But introverts are good listeners. And if everyone is talking, who’s doing the listening?…

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The Pursuit of Knowledge: An Education Manifesto

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I’m working my way through this fascinating book by Michael Ward, Planet Narnia. It is an attempt to give the Chronicles of Narnia a coherent unity, focus, and theme by arguing that C.S. based each book from the mythical personality of one of the medieval planets. For instance, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is inspired by Jupiter or Jove, the god of happiness, celebration, and so forth. I’m greatly simplifying the scope of this book, which not only explores the medieval mythology in the Narniad but also in his sci-fi series, Out of the Silent Planet, and his…

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Why I Read

Apparently I’m on this quest to analyze everything I do.  The next post will be titled “Why I Breathe.” Won’t that be profound? But I got to thinking about the different reasons for reading. I see two extremes in the approach to reading. The first extreme is to read for purely intellectual reasons. Enter Eustace Scrubb who read books with “pictures of grain elevators or fat foreign children doing exercises in model schools,” as C.S. Lewis said. Eustace was the kind of kid who made himself so dreadfully snobbish everyone who met him had a longing to punch him, or…

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Randomness

Well, I wanted to make this a more coherent post, but I couldn’t think of how to make it that way. I haven’t finished any books recently, so I can’t do a book review. And I can’t think of some controversial subject I need to argue about, haha. So instead I’ll just talk about some of the things I’ve been doing and learning recently… I was a little shocked to discover that in my Khan Geometry course I was expected to do algebra! I thought I had left x far behind, but sadly, not. So…I had to do a ton of…

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Book Review: Living for God’s Glory by Joel Beeke

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I heard Joel Beeke for the first time at the Ligonier National Conference in March of 2012 and of course since all the books there were at such an incredible discount, I couldn’t resist purchasing this one. I eventually got around to reading it a few months later. Overall, I really liked the idea of the book. I find that people sometimes think Calvinism can be reduced down to the 5 points or TULIP, and as long as your church affirms salvation by faith alone through Christ alone then you are Calvinistic. Well, maybe that’s true, but TULIP fits into…

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Book Review: What I Learned in Narnia

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Contrary to what I suspected, I actually had quite a bit of reading time on vacation. My family wanted me to make sure everyone was aware that they were not so cruel as to deprive me of my reading/quiet/alone time even while on vacation. So while everyone else was hanging out at the pool I was wandering around until I found a secluded spot by the lake to read. It was really, really nice. So one of the books I got to read was Douglas Wilson’s What I Learned in Narnia. This book intrigued me for several reasons: 1) I…

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Home Again

So my vacation is over and I’m trying to get back into real life. Although some in our group (mainly my little sisters) seemed quite upset that vacations don’t last forever, I was pretty happy by the end of it to just be home again and actually be productive. I’ll be starting on Bleak House this week (yay!), trying to fix my passport photo which Walgreens messed up, maybe getting to The Epic of Gilgamesh, and a few other random projects. I have a few blog subjects rattling around in my head so hopefully I’ll get around to more writing…

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Quiet

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I got a little carried away with myself this week and ordered about 10 books off Amazon. On some completely random topics. LIke books of poetry, books about writing, a book about Narnia, a collection of ancient Egyptian literature, a book on physics/science, and then the one on introverts. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain. I started reading that one at the library before I had actually received the book, so that was the first one I read  when my long-awaited package came. Ok, a disclaimer. I had to wait about…

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Imagine

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I guess this post title was inevitable, considering that I’m listening to John Lennon’s Imagine as I type, and considering that the book I will be reviewing is called Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer, haha. I’m sorry it is so unoriginal, but I guess I’m not being very imaginative tonight. Warning: This isn’t going to be a completely proper book review (maybe that statement isn’t necessary since I don’t ever do proper book reviews anyways, haha). (Edit: As it turned out, I hardly even mentioned the book Imagine, so this post turned out to be even less of…

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Strangely Silent

So I haven’t been posting much on here for the last few days. That is not because I can’t think of anything to say, I actually have a list of about 6 topics I want to blog about. The problem is that I simply don’t have the time. Why? You’re probably thinking “yeah right, she’s just lazy and doesn’t feel like doing anything.” Actually… I’ve watched about 6 chemistry videos from Khan Academy. Any videos I watch take a long time because I keep pausing the video to take notes. I also really like the format of the Khan videos,…

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