Review of the year 2011

This photo is of my family taken just last week for Xmas.

Merry Xmas and Happy New Years

Well, as you can see, I barely wrote anything on this blog this year.
Wait. Thats not true. I wrote tons of stuff this year. I just didn't write on this blog.

As per a post I wrote on this blog back in January, I got hooked on Squidoo. A year later - my first year anniversary is tomorrow - and I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have written 170 lenses (or pages) in my first year. I still read a few books, but I write the reviews on Squidoo instead of writing them here.

I do apologise for not keeping up with this blog. I barely managed 25 posts this year. Gasp, That is just so bad!!! But I guess 4 years is pretty good to keep a blog going. Most people would have stopped blogging long before now.

Anyway, as I said, I am still hooked on Squidoo. I have found some great friends there. So for the year 2012, you can expect to find me there and not here. My profile page is here under the name of Serenia.

My family have gotten through the madness that is Christmas. We are now coming up to New Years.

The state of the world and politics is getting worse. I fully expect World War 3 to break out in 2012. I am also wondering if this is what the Mayans meant when they claimed the end of the age (world) will happen in December 2012. 

That is what the world is building up to, simply because certain  governments will NOT step back and think rationally and logically about how their actions are affecting the majority of people on this planet. These governments are just too greedy to get what they want - and they dont care about the rest of the people either. This was shown by the Occupy Wall Street protest movement that started up in September of this year. It represented the 99% (the majority of the populations) protesting against the financial institutes and the banks (the very wealthy and greedy 1%)  for destroying the economy.

Today as the new year is about to tick over - most of those OWS protests have been evicted by city councils. In New York, in Oakland (California) and in Toronto. Some of the protesters have been in battles against the police. People have been injured - some seriously. Most other protests have given up because of the Xmas Holidays and/or Winter (Dunedin, New Zealand). Other protests are still trying to stay in their place of occupation and are fighting their municipal councils (Auckland, New Zealand).

The western world is in a major Depression. The economy has gone way past a Recession. So far inflation is running at around 3% (at least here in Canada it is). But wages (for those few who are still employed) are either frozen or rising at only 1%. Thus making the prices of food, gas and other items too expensive. People are being laid off from their jobs, they are unable to pay their mortages and their homes are being foreclosed by the banks. So many families are being forced out of their homes, it is not funny.

I graduated from my college in 2009 and have not been able to find work. I did seriously look during 2010 but I didnt look quite so much in 2011. I guess you can say I have given up looking - but shhh, dont tell my son. He is not at all happy with me not working. He wants me to work, so I can bring in more money for the family - purely to buy him more toys!!!!

We did make one major purchase this year. We purchased another computer. We now have 3 computers - one for each member of the family. 

The very old one is running on Windows XP and is 6 years old.
The not so old one runs on Windows Vista and is 3 years old.
The brand new computer has Windows 7 but is not yet hooked up to our little network.

We are currently waiting for a 2 Terabyte (that is 2048 Gigabyte)  harddrive to arrive from Hong Kong - in order to be able to save everything as we move stuff from one computer to another. We had to purchase this harddrive from HongKong. It was a lot cheaper. Only cost us $50 plus shipping. A brand new 2 Terabyte harddrive in Canada costs over $200!!!

Anyway, this is my review of the year 2011. I do still hope to get a part time job in 2012. I will still be looking, but I wont be making it a full time job.

So I wish all my readers a safe and happy New Years and a peaceful year in 2012.

Ciao!!

Nineteen Minutes - Book Review

Nineteen Minutes
by Jodi Picoult
Atria Books 2007
Website

This book revolves around 4 characters. Alex Cormier and her daughter Josie. Lacy Houghton and her son Peter. It is also about school violence and why it happens.



Alex is a lawyer and has just been promoted to the superior court of New Hampshire after spending 5 years as a district court judge. Alex is a single mother with just the one daughter Josie.

Lacy is an OB/GYN and she delivers babies. Lacy and her husband Lewis used to have 2 boys. Joe the older son had been killed by a drunk driver the previous year. Peter the younger son was withdrawn and depressed. Joe had been the favourite son, the smart one, the sports jock and the social butterfly.

Peter was always a very quiet kid, and fron the day he started kindergarten, he had been bullied by his school mates. Peter never said anything about being bullied. Peter was always being told by his teachers and his parents - Why can't you be more like Joe? But Joe was not perfect either. Joe had also teased Peter at school.

When Joe died the parents had both grieved over the loss of their smart son and they pretty much left Peter to his own devices.

Peter had only one friend - Josie Cormier. they hads been good friends in the lower grades. But when Josie had started making new friends, she was pressured by these new friends to stop being friends with the weird guy Peter. So she did. By the time they reached high school they had drifted apart.

This was the scene for the violent massacre at the local high school. Ten kids were killed and dozens wounded.

The first half of this novel was about Josie and Peters early lives when they were friends. The second half of the book is taken up with Peter's trial - as the state and the town of Sterling (New Hampshire) tried to understand why Peter Houghton had gone on a killing spree.

This was Jodi's first book to debut at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list.

I know what it is like to be bullied. When I was 8 and 9, I was bullied by a kid who was from a different school than mine. But I had to walk past his home every day going to and from my school. He owned this big huge dog (possibly a german shephard). Every day he would have this dog, crouch and jump up on me and then stop me from walking forwards, and sometimes the dog was even told to push me into the road, in front of oncomimg traffic

When I was 10 I got my first bike and was allowed to ride to school. So while I still passed his home, I was going too fast for him or his dog to catch me.

To this day I am terrified of large dogs (german shephards, labradors, huskies) and I am terrified of any large dog is running around free where I am, because they might attack me.

There is one large labrador dog in my apartment building who is so quiet and so well behaved that I know he wont hurt me. I have never heard him bark in all the 7 years I have lived in this building.