Constance's blog

So apparently Vox created a PM system? The only way I found out is by getting spam messages. How do I turn it off?!

This is the part where I'm beginning to miss LJ-cut. Please bear with me. Book meme:

*Look at the list of books below.
*Bold the ones you’ve read.
*Italicize the ones you want to read.
*Leave blank the ones that you aren’t interested in.

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) And it was crap
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger) -- Started once; not interested
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky) -- Do the first two chapters count? Probably not.
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) -- Read almost half of it, but never finished :( Want to though.
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) -- So so.
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) 
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier) -- OMG, that was the most depressing story of all
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)
101. Jurassic Park
 

School is over, but as I am missing playing music, today I was learning a new song. The Happy Birthday song. I just looked through my notebook and that song caught my eye. I think it would be fun to play on someone's birthday. I guess I have till August to perfect it as that's the first birthday in our family that's coming up.

I've advanced far in my learning of music, but not far enough. I enjoy playing the music I've learned, but I can't yet play a lot. And my class is almost over; there's just a final exam. I've sent my teacher an email, asking what her recommendations would be in terms of the next steps I can take. I want to learn more.

I've been looking at some books on Amazon. There appears to be a sequel to my course-book (Alfred's Basic Adult Piano Course: Lesson Book, Level One), along with some accompanying books too. We didn't finish the entire book yet, so I'm not considering the "Level Two" book yet. But the parallel books look interesting:

Alfred's Basic Adult Christmas Piano Book Level 1

Willard A. Palmer

Alfred's Basic Adult Sacred Piano Book: Level 1

It's pretty cool. It has some music stored in it, and a feature that lets you learn to play them, among others. It also allows you to record what you are playing. I haven't advanced far in music yet, and I haven't looked into recording stuff yet. I'd also like to see what's on the CD that came with it. Some more music I think.

I don't even know what I'm doing here. Yet another throw-away account, I guess, unless I can find a purpose for it.It seems nice for organizing stuff together: pictures, books, music. Now music -- I'm going to be taking a music class this spring; perhaps I could use this blog to record myself and store shit. That might work.

How many languages can you speak?  Which languages can you read or understand?

I speak Russian and English. I used to speak Latvian, but I'm forgetting it through not using (where would I use it in the US?). I can still read Latvian, and if I think long enough I can compose sentences in it (with a dictionary). I studied French for half a year until my teacher was fired (for not passing the Latvian exam that's mandated by the Latvian government for all teachers). I may be able to read the most basic texts. I also studied German for a bit longer (around 2 years?) but I hated it, so I promtly forgotten it once out of school.

How many places have you lived in your life?

Many. Six-nine depending on how you count... For most of my life I lived in Riga, Latvia. I lived in Ukraine with my grandmother, aunt and cousin for about a year. I lived in Jelgava, Latvia with my dad and his new family for a bit and in the same city but with my other grandmother. I moved to Michigan, US, five years ago; and then moved to Iowa. Then to Indiana where I still am, even though for a year I lived in a different city from where I live now.

What time period would you have lived in, if you could have lived at any time?

What is your favorite children's movie?

"Never-ending story" is an excellent children's movie.

The NeverEnding Story

What was the last wedding you went to?  Were you in the wedding?

My step-brother's wedding. See pictures here.

Wow, I adore this new scheme "Ocean Whale", this is soo me. :) I usually pick the ocean/sea-type of a layout. My previous one was sea-greenish in color and classical look, that is to say simple, but with style. *looks up a name* Ah, "Weston Blue". But I adore this layout. It's perfect. The whales, the bubbles, the colors. I may even switch to it on LiveJournal when it's added. I don't know though, as I'm quite used to my custom Opal-based layout, and I don't want to have to re-do all the extra stuff I added, tinkering with it until it just right.