B-day Greetings

HAPPY 81st BIRTHDAY

to

LOLA NISA

'Why does God matter?'

via Brockport email:

“Why does God matter?” Author Christopher Hitchens to debate Rabbi David Wolpe

at The College at Brockport.

On December 02 at 9:15 pm, students, faculty and the public are invited to attend a wide-ranging debate centering on that very question at The College at Brockport. Christopher Hitchens, the New York Times best selling author of God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything will square off against Rabbi David Wolpe who has been rated the No. 1 Rabbi in America by Newsweek and is the author of Why Faith Matters: God and the New Atheism.

Lives and worldviews are sure to collide as Hitchens and Wolpe argue the timeless question. Tickets are available to the event at the Brockport Student Government Box Office beginning Tuesday, November 24. There is a limit of two tickets per recipient and the prices are as follows; Students with Brockport identification- $2, intercollegiate students with college identification - $10, faculty and staff - $10, and the general public - $10.

Brockport Student Government is sponsoring the debate. Hitchens and Wolpe have met once before in a similar exchange at the Temple Emanu-El, one of the world’s largest synagogues, in front of 1,500 attendants.

Chinese wins 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize

Chinese writer Su Tong won the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize.  Read report here.

Birthday Celebration!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

PAPA NITS

I LOVE YOU AND I MISS YOU SO MUCH!

                       -Manong Toto

'I was a virgin'

Man Asian Literary Prize 2009 Shortlist

From the Man Asian L:iterary Prize website press release:

Omair Ahmad, Siddharth Chowdhury, Eric Gamalinda, Nitasha Kaul and Su Tong are today announced as the shortlisted authors for the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize, the leading regional prize for novels unpublished in English.

The shortlist, chosen by an international judging panel, was announced at the Frankfurt Book Fair, where a display about the prize can be seen at the Hong Kong Government pavilion.

The five shortlisted books, chosen from a longlist of 24, are:
• Omair Ahmad, Jimmy the Terrorist
• Siddharth Chowdhury, Day Scholar
• Eric Gamalinda, The Descartes Highlands
• Nitasha Kaul, Residue
• Su Tong, The Boat to Redemption


Chair of the judging panel Colm Toibin, comments:
     “Reading these books was a fascinating experience because of the range of styles and subjects. The variety of ways in which voice and tone was used in these novels, the sense of commitment to story, the range in the methods of exploring both self and society, the interest in experimenting and making it new, made the time spent judging this prize rewarding and enlightening.”

The winner of the 2009 Man Asian Literary Prize will be announced on Monday, 16 November 2009 at a dinner at the Peninsula Hotel Hong Kong. The winning author will receive US$10,000 and can look forward to publication and wider recognition in the English-reading world.

A distinguished panel of judges selects a single work of fiction to be awarded the prize each year. Chaired by Irish novelist Colm Toibin, the 2009 judges include Chinese American author Gish Jen and Indian writer Pankaj Mishra who was also a judge of the 2008 Prize.

The Man Asian Literary Prize was established in 2006 to bring greater worldwide attention to Asian writing and authors. Works submitted for consideration must not yet have been published in English, although they may have been published in other languages. The Prize is jointly administered by representatives of the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

The inaugural prize was awarded in 2007 to Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, which was published in English to great acclaim in early 2008. Miguel Syjuco’s Illustrado won the 2008 prize and will be published in 2010.

Many of the short- and longlisted works from 2007 and 2008 have also been published.

Man Group plc is the sponsor of the Man Asian Literary Prize, in cooperation with Asian Literary Prize Ltd. Man Group also supports a variety of other programmes as well as charities aimed at furthering literature and literacy, including the Man Hong Kong International Literary Festival, a 10-day event that attracts authors from around the world and thousands of attendees. Separately, Man Group also sponsors the annual Man Booker Prize and the bi-annual Man Booker International Prize, in conjunction with the Booker Prize Foundation.

Man Group is a world-leading alternative investment management business. With a broad range of funds for institutional and private investors globally, it is known for its performance, innovative product design and investor service. Man Group manages about US$44 billion. Founded in 1783, today Man Group is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index with a market capitalisation of about £5 billion. Man Group is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the FTSE4Good Index.

Further information can be found at www.mangroupplc.com.

New Acquisitions

1. Everyman by Philip Roth
2. Great Stories by Chekhov (Edited by David H. Greene)
3. Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya
4. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
5. The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles (New Translation by Paul Roche)
    The complete texts of Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigon
6. The Waterfall by Margaret Drabble
7. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
8. The Odyssey of Homer (Translated into English prose by T. E. Shaw [Col. T. E. Lawrence])
9. Select Edition:
    Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis
    Very Valentine by Adriana Trigiani
    Chasing Darkness by Robert Crais
    Water, Stone, Heart by Will North

New Acquisitions

1. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
2. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
3. The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen
4. The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove by Christopher Moore

Note: I actually saw Meyer at Barnes and Noble here in Pittsford, NY months ago (or was it last year). She was in a gown. She was walking towards the table where she signed copies of her books. She actually smiled at me. I didn't know her then.

I Won!

I received news two days ago that I won a cardmaking contest I participated in last August. It was sponsored by Crafting Cottage, a craft store in Corning, New York. I entered a card for the August theme which is "Yipes Stripes!" I immediately came up with an idea of making a Christmas card. I incorporated fabric on my card and used ribbons as my stripes. It took me about three days to finish the card and the envelope.


Here's my card:

The envelope made from recycled paper used as a liner to separate individual Honey Mustard cups. The yard's called Lipstick color I bought at Walmart on sale.

The inside of the card. The cardstock, set of 15 papers, I bought at a bargain price of $.35 at Vietnam Vets.

I'm becoming a great garage sale shopper. I bought about four bags of buttons for $.25 a bag. Michael's sell a bag of buttons for $4.99.

New Acquisition

1. Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

New Acquisitions

1. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
2. Cancer Ward by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
3. The Millionaire Next Door: The Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy by Thomas Stanley and William Danko
4. The Green Mile: The Complete Serial Novel by Stephen King
5. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
6. The Paid Companion by Amanda Quick
7. Bug-Jargal by Victor Hugo
8. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (Cornell University Edition)
9. Listen to the Warm (poems) by Rod McKuen
10. Lonesone Cities (poems) by Rod McKuen

Monday 'Nightmare'

School opens again this Monday! And I have to finish posting my pictures from our last trip. Have to wake up early in the morning again. Classes start at 8:15 a.m. and I take the bus! Help!

The magnificent Luray Cavern

If there's one place I'd like to visit all over again it would be Luray Cavern in Virginia. I am awestruck by the beauty of the natural cave formation and the freshness of air. I kept on telling David that if the place is in the Philippines it would be filled with candles and other religious paraphernalia and people would sell the water from the cave and call it miraculous. Good thing Luray Cavern is a protected site and well-maintained by authorities.

The magnificent "Dream Lake".

The fish market.

The fried eggs!

Julia Child's kitchen at the Smithsonian Museum

I recently watched "Julie and Julia". Boy, was I glad that we wereable to see her kitchen at the Smithsonian Museum of American History when we were in Washington DC. I also watch repeats of Julia Child's cooking show over WXXI's HD channel 433 called "Baking with Julia". She had Martha Stewart last time. Julia Child is fun to watch. David would tell me stories about her and the way she delivered she lines. After watching "Julie and Julia" David rummaged through his garage if he still has Julia Child's cookbook. Sadly, he must have donated it to Vietnam Vets.

Smithsonian Museums Tour

Space and Aeronautics Museum:

Smithsonian Museum of American History:

Dorothy's ruby shoes!

Comparing the size of my hand to Lincoln's

Lincoln's pictures through the years.

Kids take notes for their summer history education.

First Ladies' fashions. The red ballgown is David's favorite.

This stunner is my favorite.

Smithsonian Museum of Natural History:

The longest captured squid.

The "elephant"!

The Hope diamond.

One of the featured insects at the Insect Zoo.

Changing of the Guards, Arlington Cemetery