soonforget

It took me about 8 days to get through the first half of the book. A little meandering, but then it really took off. And what a payoff. I finished the book in another 2 days, and can honestly say this is my favorite entry in the series. J.K. Rowling sets the bar for how a series should be written. It is said that she came up with an outline for the entire epic and after reading Deathly Hallows, I wholeheartedly agree. It’s amazing how things from the beginning of the series appear and fit in with the whole thing. And my favorite character of the series ends up coming through in the end, but I don’t want to tell you who because it will certainly spoil it. If you’ve read the book already, you should know who I’m talking about.

I started reading Harry Potter this year at the urging of my girlfriend. I read the first 6 books by August but had to promise I would wait till December to read book 7 when the Thai Translation became available for her to read. Needless to say, it was worth the wait, and I didn’t even hear how the book ended, surprisingly.

This was a great goal to achieve. I’ve never been so interested in reading books in my whole life. I kind of tapered off near the end of the year, but I plan on doing an alternate version of this goal next year after an uncertain amount of time of retirement from 43Things (I have to complete my Ultimate Goal of learning to surf before I can come back). Happy New Year everyone, good luck with your goals. See you next year!

The Best of Young American Novelists was a pretty good collection of entries from the newest young novelists in America. Some of the stories seemed a bit pretentious, and some were just interesting. But I would say the majority were somewhat entertaining. I liked the one about the Jewish foil to the assassination of Lincoln. Very good exposition and detail. The one about the Presidents reincarnated as horses was pretty original. Despised the last entry of the book, an actual chapter from this guy’s forthcoming novel.

Coming up…Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows—FINALLY!

This entry will complete my series on learning new words in Thai. I will continue to learn Thai but I am marking this goal as complete. My girlfriend wrote out a whole page full of words in addition to these that I have to learn, and now that it’s December, it’s time for my next test. I will also continue to have my girlfriend speak Thai to me everyday to help with my fluency.

Monday – Wan Jan (Monday)
Tuesday – Wan Ang Kan (Tuesday)
Wednesday – Wan Poot (Wednesday)
Thursday – Wan Pa Reu Hat (Thursday)
Friday – Wan Sook (Saturday)
Saturday – Mai Sabai (Sick, literal: not well) – I’ve had a terrible sinus infection so this was one that I learned along the way. My doggies have been sick too. It has cooled off quite a bit here recently, primarily at night.
Sunday – Lao Ngah (So what?) – The way you say the “ng” is kind of like a spanish n, or a combination of ny, said like “nyuh.” This is another one of my favorite things to say, often when my girlfriend and I are kidding around with each other.
...And now, on to the test.