Welcome to 2011!

This is just going to be a brief post.  I know most of you are probably more interested in reading about my trip to Thailand and no worries, that will come in a succession of posts over the next few days, but I figured I'd probably let my valued readers in on a new addition to this blog/maybe a new blog as well.  Some of you may remember that when I first came out to Korea I was in the middle of running through all the songs on my iPod in alphabetical order (much of the credit for this project goes to Dad who was doing the same thing, and as I've done many times before, decided that if it was working for Dad, it must be a half-decent idea, and did the same thing, with much of the same music as well).  Anyways, out here in Korea, the doldrums of winter have set in.  I had my first day of winter camp this morning, which went pretty well, but the afternoons = desk warming.  So, here I am, currently writing to all of you about my next little musically-influenced project.  Even after my GRE studying (don't worry parents, I am doing it.  You'd be happy to hear the book came with me on vacation and was opened and used.) I still have more time to use.  So, I've decided to go through each album on my iPod in alphabetical order and write a post for each album.  I'm thinking, now that I've gone through this post, that it's going to have to be a new post so after I set it up I'll post the link here.  That's all for now, look for the Thailand posts in the next few days! Also, thank you to Aunty Holly and Uncle Michael for the Badger trivia, I'm holding off looking at it for a little bit.  I finished reading Trinity while I was in Thailand and I guess here would be a better place for my short review than in another post so here it goes.

Trinity was a very well-written and intriguing novel based on the Irish struggle for independence from the UK that takes place just after the Great Potato Famine of 1846-47 and ends around 1917 with a short epilogue that stretches the timeline out to the early 1920s.  I'm guessing many of you have read Exodus, which is also by Leon Uris, and another great read.  As he does in Exodus, in Trinity, Uris is able to weave many characters and plots together while not straying from the historical facts and the events that he writes about are described as they actually took place.  He is able to craft a very enjoyable historical narrative and I definitely recommend this book to anyone that hasn't read it yet.

What I'm listening to: "(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher" by the Move (originally by Jackie Wilson)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7oUwPIWCYI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aXZDKb5fHw

New music blog link:  http://myazalbums.blogspot.com