Books that Make me Look Forward to Driving

I drive approximately two hours a day - one to work, one back. Two years ago I took Amazon up on their offer of $100 off an iPod if I subscribed to Audible for a year... and I have haven't look back.

I used to spend those two hours listening to the news - and often getting angry - - or worse dissecting my day and agonizing over conversations and other things that I couldn't change anyways. Now, I allow myself to be enveloped into books.

This was especially wonderful while I was finishing college, because there was no time for pleasure reading. Instead of two wasted hours a day, I could "read" books - something I LOVE to do anyways.

So as I was reaching the end of my latest novel, I got to thinking about how several of the books I've "read" over the past two years actually had me looking forward to my commute and I thought I'd share them with you.

First, since it's freshest in my mind, is The Passage by Justin Cronin. Wow, this was an incredible book. It's the first of a trilogy, and I can't wait for the others. This novel had me dying to know what was going to happen next, while simultaneously dreading it ending. His characters are interesting and very memorable. The story is believable - frighteningly so, since it's about the end of the world as we know it. You could call it a vampire novel, but that hardly does it justice.

Along the same lines - end of the world as we know it, not vampires - are Daemon and Freedom by Daniel Suarez. A computer genius unleashes a computer virus upon his death that dismantles the world as we know it. Daemon will horrify you, but Freedom, the sequel, will leave you inspired. These books left me begging my friends to read them so I'd have someone to talk to them about. Amazing books. They're pretty high-tech, but every technology Suarez put in the book exists today.

Innocent Traitor is the story of Lady Jane Grey. Even if you don't recall her history (she was briefly the Queen of England) the book begins with her final hours. This is a poignant and mostly historically accurate book. Alison Weir has a reputation for bringing her historical heroines to life and she certainly does with Jane. By the end you're hoping it will end differently, but you know it won't - yet you'll listen to every last word.

The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger was very well written, and read. The audiobook is read by both a man and a woman, back and forth. I'd have to say that all of these books were even better because they were read aloud to me, but this one was one of the best. Again, I was dying to know what was going to happen next, while dreading the end. I watched the movie and it did very little justice to the book.

Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, The DaVinci Code and The Lost Symbol. All were really good books, I'd already read the first two in print. They were all mesmerizing. But heck, hasn't everyone read these by now? Hardly worth mentioning. :)

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris was hilariously funny, if somewhat short. Read by the author. Very enjoyable.

The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. I've read them all, some several times, but listening to Claire (Davina Porter) was incredible. It's a crying shame that two of the books are only available abridged and are read by a different person - and thus I refused to buy them. I recommend Gabaldon's books to just about anyone. She writes so vividly that you can hear the horses and smell the dust.

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Again with the end of the world, but this book is hilarious! I'd read it years ago and highly recommend it. An Angel and Demon bungle the Apocolypse, everyone has lost track of the Anti-Christ (he's 11) and Agnes predicted it all ages ago, if people would just listen.

And last, but certainly not least, The Dexter series by Jeff Lindsay is well written and well narrated. If you've watched the Showtime series, you really should read the books that inspired it. The two deviate early on, but the books give you a much better understanding of our Dear Dexter.

So if you see me dashing to my car at the end of the day or sitting with the engine idling when I pull in, ask me what book I'm "reading", chances are it's a good one.

A New Normal

As most of you know, I am a breast cancer survivor – almost three and a half years now. Last year I attended the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Kick-Off Breakfast, intending to be Sundt’s Team Leader for the walk, and was seated with two other survivors. One of them was a young lady, about 24, who had just finished chemo and whose hair was just beginning to grow back. She was very quiet for the first part of the breakfast, listening to us share our stories, but after about 20 minutes she leaned over to me, grabbed my hand to pull me in closer to her and asked me, in a somewhat desperate voice “Wendy, when will I feel normal again?” I can still hear her voice and it still brings tears to my eyes. “I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to learn a new normal now,” I told her. And it’s true – I know I’ll never be the same, in both good and bad ways. A few days later I received an email from her – the vertigo she’d been suffering was the result of the cancer spreading to her brain. I wrote her back, of course, but I’ve never heard from her again.

I didn’t walk the walk last year. On the advice of my Oncologist I have avoided breast cancer related activities for the past year, because honestly I just couldn’t handle it. This year I’m working up the courage to walk again. How silly, right? Well the truth is that that conversation brought it all back for me – the fear, the pain, the side effects, the fatigue that still haunts me, the loss of feeling in my hands and feet due to the chemo, the radiation burns… all of it, in one big rush and I just couldn’t handle it.

So where was I? Oh yes, so this year I’m going to join the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk with my friends and my daughter, Angelina, whom I pray never has to live through what I have. My mother had breast cancer, and I hope that the legacy stops with me. So please join with us to support the cause so I don’t have to tell Angie some day that she too will have to learn a new normal.

If you'd like to support me in the American Cancer Society's Making Strides Against Breast Cancer Walk, click here. Thanks!!

My Group Project Rant

Group projects are dreaded by many A-seeking, hard working college students. Invariably there’s at least one member that you simply never hear from, another who does the bare minimum, often there’s one that just doesn’t understand the assignment and turns in work that’s unusable and then there’s the team leader who, because good grades are important to him or her, ends up doing the bulk of the work herself, or with the help of one other like-minded team member. Perhaps one of the most frustrating things about these group assignments is that they really don’t teach people how to work in groups in a work environment. That appears to be the point, but the concept falls short in many ways.

For some, getting a “C” and coasting through college putting in the bare minimum of effort is fine; they’ll still get the same degree with all “C” as they would with all “A”s. In a work environment a team member can try to coast through, but his performance is not tied to a grade letter, it’s tied to a performance evaluation, raises and even continued employment; and continued employment means paying your bills. So while there are “slackers” in a work setting, the rewards and punishments for poor work are completely different. If anything, group assignments in college teach bad behaviors, primarily that if one doesn’t put forth any real effort, someone else likely will and you’ll still get a good grade. I would argue that it even pulls down the “A” students and makes them question whether putting forth the effort so that others can coast through is worth it or fair. It’s de-motivating and demoralizing, and teaches not cohesive group behavior, but that the only person you can count on is yourself.

In a school environment there is no “boss” and the only recourse the other team members have are peer evaluations, if they’re even used. Some people realize early on that if they don’t do the work others will. Different things motivate different people, and a good manager understands and capitalizes on that, in a work environment. He also understands that some people work very well in a team environment, and others don’t; successful managers know their people. So if there’s anything to be learned from group assignments in college, perhaps it’s that team projects don’t always work out the way they should, and sometimes people get left behind, and that’s ok. You reap what you sow.

Good to Great - on a global scale

The world is getting smaller every day as technology brings us closer together, gives us the ability to communicate better and makes international travel easier than ever before. However, as the world gets smaller we have come to depend upon, and we affect, each other more – as our recent worldwide recession has shown us. No longer is each country encapsulated and insulated from what’s happening in the rest of the world; it’s become clear that we’re all in this together. OK, so where do we go from here? Is it even plausible that we might work together as an international community? Perhaps, but where do we start?

The concept of one currency, on the surface, seems to have great appeal and many benefits, but a single currency is an end result, not a starting point. Before a single currency can even be considered we have to look at why it wouldn’t work and remedy those issues. One of the biggest problems is that some countries are very poor while others are very rich. There is a huge disparity between our countries – let’s start there. Let’s build teams of people from around the world to help poor nations build infrastructures which would ensure clean drinking water, irrigation, electricity and sewage. Build schools, working with locals to preserve their heritage while teaching their youth skills that they can use to get their families out of poverty.

The funding to bring third-world nations into the 21st century would come from contributions from the world’s richer countries. Each country would also be able to hire people onto this international team, so that no one nation is controlling, or paying for, these efforts. If the world is going to strive towards being an international community, first we must ensure that we all share the same basic standard of living. This will take us many years to accomplish and will likely start off with a lot of quarreling over who will do what, how much it will cost and perhaps even overcoming resistance from countries that may not want their quality of living improved to our standards. One very important point to consider as we begin this endeavor is that it’s for the benefit of the world as a whole and that there is no hidden agenda. Perhaps a portion of the military budgets for the world’s countries could be channeled to this effort.

Let’s say, for example, that the world as a whole were to come to a crisis – like an alien invasion – it’s highly probable that we, as a world, would come together and present a united front against a global enemy. So why can’t we work together now? Perhaps the answer is that we’re not threatened and have no crystal clear common goal. So let’s task the United Nations with determining just what our common goals are; to determine the best course of action for our world as a whole, because surely there are several. We’ll solicit the advice of top minds from around the world on topics from the global economy to health and wellness to agriculture and far beyond.

As Jim Collins in his book Good to Great suggest, we need to confront “the brutal facts, yet never lose faith” (Collins, 2001). If we look at the world as a large corporation that has various profit centers, or silos, that sometimes compete, perhaps it’ll make this process seem a bit more manageable. As the global community becomes goal oriented in the same direction, issues like trade and capital flows, exchange rates and international disagreements will begin to lose effect.

There has to be a happy medium that we can all agree to, a basic standard of living and level of tolerance that will work for us all, because in the end regardless of religion, color, heritage, political views and agendas we’re all human, we all share the same Earth and we all have the same basic needs for food, shelter and security. A determined melding of technologies, research, resources and finances could have limitless potential for good for all of humankind. As a world we should improve education, and perhaps offer incentives for students to attend colleges in other countries and learn other languages, and through that education break down some of the barriers related to misunderstandings or intolerance to other cultures.

It seems that the world is slowly coming to this conclusion, but is it fast enough? Will we learn our lesson from this global recession and make determined steps towards ensuring that it doesn’t happen again? Let’s hope so. And eventually, through much trial and tribulation, perhaps the world can also move from Good to Great.

Blogs

I read one of the most raw and heartbreaking blogs the other day. It was so beautifully written and so overwhelmingly pained that I found myself reading it several times. The author had closed comments, although honestly I'd not have known what to tell her anyways. I don't know her and I forget now how I even came across her blog in the first place, but she touched me. Today I followed up to find that things are better in her world, and again I am touched and happy for her - a total stranger.

A few weeks ago I was talking with a young friend who wanted to start her own blog. One of the reasons she cited was basically to be part of something bigger than herself. She mentioned a blogger who had suffered some great tragedy and of the blogging community that sprang into action to help her. She was fascinated and wanted to be part of that culture.

I wonder if that blogger was NieNie. Nie was in a terrible private plane crash with her husband about a year and a half ago. She suffered burns over 80% of her body and spent several months in a coma. She is blogging again about her incredible journey and the four children she and her husband have. Her blog is also heartbreaking and very raw.

It's incredible how people we haven't met, and likely never will meet, can touch our lives. Some in passing and others in deep and lasting ways.

This just the beginning my friends, 10 years ago we didn't have blogs or facebook or Twitter. Where will we be in 10 more years?