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A Mystery to Solve

The other day, I received a check in the mail. The letter said, “Thank you for your order, but….” It went on to say that they had received my order, but one of the items wasn’t available, so they were refunding me my money.

Except I hadn’t ordered anything. At Steve’s suggestion, I looked closely for any small print that said I was signing up for something if I actually cashed the check. There wasn’t any small print, but I haven’t cashed the check yet either.

And then I received a package. It was from Harlequin, and there were 7 books inside by Linda Lael Miller, but I never ordered them. The books were $7.99 each, which was the amount of the check I had received (plus $4 shipping).

I called the company and questioned the order. I indicated I hadn’t ordered anything, and the operator suggested it might have been a gift. If it is, no one has confessed to buying it. According to Harlequin, the books were paid for with a check, but they weren’t able to access the checking account information.

I don’t know who bought these books for me or why. They were shipped to my address and “L M Sherwood,” which is me. I have two guesses of who might have done it, but I haven’t asked those two people yet. My first guess is my mother. My second guess is Steve’s grandmother.

I don’t think I’ve read anything by Linda Lael Miller before. I hope she’s good….

Category: Life with Linda  Tags:  3 Comments

My friend wrote a book…

and it is in store’s now! See! This is the book in a bookstore in Saginaw, Mich. Go and find out more about the book at http://www.teribrownwrites.com and buy it! I did.

And you don’t even have to be a geek and take a picture of you and the book on the shelf before you do (although I did). And it isn’t easy taking a photo of yourself. Most of the pictures were blurry. This one wasn’t so bad.
lindawithterisbook.jpg

Category: Writing  Tags: ,  Comments off

Library Thing

I recently joined Library Thing, which is this online web site where you can log books you own and then compare your books to books owned by other people, as well as get recommendations. It’s kind of cool.

Part of joining LibraryThing is getting a widget to go on your blog that will randomly display books from your personal library. You will find mine if you scroll down, way down, all the way to the bottom of the right column.

I have not logged in every book I own, but I have logged in about 50 or so. Not all at once, by the way.

This post is brought to you by a grad student with a deadline who is procrastinating.

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Great Book Recommendation

May I just say Jodi Picoult is a phenomenal writer?

Right now I’m listening to My Sister’s Keeper on audio tape. Before school started I read The Tenth Circle. I also ordered the print version of Mercy, but that will have to wait until this semester ends.

The stories are spellbinding, and the talent is mindboggling. I am amazed at all of the different things I know she had to research to write these stories.

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I think therefore I whine…

Friday I went to CMU for the third time in a week. Normally I only go twice a week, but this time was special. John Grogan, author of Marley & Me (and a CMU journalism alum), was giving two talks taht I planned to attend. There were two reasons for this: 1) I liked his book and I love hearing author’s talk and 2) It could net me 5 percent extra credit in a class where I’ve received more B+ grades than I care to acknowledge.

(You know you need extra credit when the prof says to you after class something along the lines of, "Linda, you have such great comments in class. You obviously understand this stuff, but it’s not showing up in your writing…..")

In between Grogan talks, I met with my adviser to talk about next semester and my thesis work. Let me just say that little about what I planned to do for this has been possible. Ideally, I want to complete my thesis next semester and graduate in May. My professor told me December is more likely.

Why? Because of all the other things that go with thesis work. You have to be done by week 10 out of the 16-week semester in order to allow for your work to be read and defended. I could possible extend that into the summer, but the department is trying to end summer thesis work because it’s hard to locate people. That leaves me the December semester for graduation, 2007. No!!!

Keep in mind my thesis work is a nonfiction memoir I’ve been working on since last January. I just need to get it done, edited and etc. So I’m thinking I am going to try to write as much as I possibly can between now and January. I want to have just the editing to do for that 10 weeks. That would let me still graduate by May, but it sounds like my adviser isn’ t for that. We’ll see.

I also need to get people to agree to be on my thesis committee. I have the chair down, but I need to ask committee members. I have some people picked out and hopefully it works out. Why does it have to be so hard? Not the writing — the school stuff.

In other news, I am trying to keep up with my reading for classes and my grading for the classes I teach. Needless to say, I am reading more than I’ve ever read before and keep in mind I’ve always read a lot. For instance, this week I’m reading two 150-page books PLUS 40 portfolios from students. Not to mention another 40 impromtu essays. The books should be simple, but they are academic in nature and while I can read a normal book in 24 hours, I find myself falling asleep reading these. They aren’t boring, so much as reading them is mentally taxing. I can only take so much at a time.

Back to my reading. Thanks for playing.

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Category: GradLife  Tags: , , , ,  Comments off