Nina Lewis

Archive for February, 2009

At work today, my students challenged me to get my hair braided in corn rows when I go to Jamaica tomorrow. They even took up a collection of money to pay for it.

A professor donated to the fund.

In a meeting this afternoon, my supervisor mentioned the collection and encouraged my co-workers to donate. Got money there. One co-worker even volunteered to pay for the whole thing if I would get it done.

Oh my . . . what have I gotten myself into?

What do you think of my latest portrait? Charming, eh?

I stumbled across a site based upon a moving that will be coming out this week.  The movie, Coraline, is an animation for children. Supposedly.  I’m not sure if I would take my wee ones to see it.

Our youngest son, Tyler, historically has had nightmares from scary movies and has climbed into bed with us in the middle of the night to be calmed and soothed.  He might be old enough now to see scary movies.  Maybe.  I’ll have to check with his wife . . .

This fairy tale frightmare is directed by the same fellow who did The Nightmare Before Christmas and James and the Giant Peach.  It is about a little girl who discovers an alternate version of her world.  Parents might not want to take their small children to it because of the scary factor — plus fact that the safety and security of “home” and “parental love” are turned upside down and could be confusing to small tots.

On the other hand, there is a site that appealed to my macabre side.  On this site, you can take a picture of yourself and add button eyes.  (Hence my new portrait.)  There are myriad styles of buttons and picture frames to choose from.  You can download, print, or e-mail your picture.  Even send them to My Space or Facebook.  Folks have even uploaded some to Flickr.

Might be a movie to see on Friday the 13th coming up in March . . .

I just finished reading the forty-second book since I started riding the UTA bus in mid-April 2008.  I’ve averaged a book a week.  That’s pretty good if you ask me.

Flyboys has been on my list for some time.  I read Flags of Our Fathers by the same author several years ago and enjoyed his writing style.  He made history come alive.  In fact, reading that book was a turning point in my reading diet.  Previously, I read mostly fiction.  I didn’t particularly care for history nor historical books.  I didn’t care for biographies.  And, most certainly, I didn’t care to read books about economics.  Because I enjoyed Flags of Our Fathers so much, I realized several things:

• The historical books I had previously read were textbooks.  Textbooks are not compelling reading.  Not even!
• Authors of textbooks are not concerned about the craft of writing.  In fact, word smithing is nonexistent in textbooks.
• Biographies from yesteryear (the dark ages of my childhood) were not compelling reading either.
• The writing of historical and biographical books have matured.
• So have I.

I decided I needed to branch out.  I’m glad I have.  I have read some of the most fascinating books.  And Flyboys is one of those.

Flyboys is about a group of U.S. pilots that were shot down during their mission to bomb two radio towers on the island of Chichi Jima.  It explains what happened to them.  But a whole lot more was included.  I learned:

• about Japanese history and culture
• about the foundational meaning of kamikaze and how it evolved into suicidal kamikaze pilots
• why the Japanese were so cruel and vicious to prisoners of war
• about the development of the airplane for fighting
• that in some ways America was just as barbaric as Japan
• that I don’t respect General MacArthur as much as I used to
• that deciding whom to prosecute for war crimes after WW II was quite a farce

I would highly recommend this book.  It was a fascinating read.  But, you have to have a strong stomach as you read about the horror of what happened.

As you all know, I’m kinda into technology.  Kinda

Thought I’d try something new.  I have heard about Hub Pages and wanted to know more.  Wanted to know how it worked.  To do that, I had to sign up.  Had to write a few hub pages.  Here’s a recent post that I made: Great Widgets to Use.

Let me know what you think.

Dear Granddaughter-Yet-To-Be-Born,

I have thought of you.  Hoped for you.  And, last night, have now shopped for you.

As Grandpa and I were shopping last night at Deseret Industries (our mid-week fun with a vengence aactivity), I saw this pair of shoes.  I knew IMMEDIATELY that I just had to get them for you.  I know that you will love to wear them as dress up shoes when you play with the dress up clothes when you come for a visit.  They are so . . . so . . . well, so ‘dress up!’  (I can’t imagine anybody wearing them intentionally and on purpose for something other than playing dress up!)

I don’t know when (or even if) you will be born into our family.  I sure hope so.  Grandmothers deserve at least one little granddaughter.

Until then,
Grandma Lewis

P.S. Your cousin, Spencer, will be absolutely delighted with the fantastic cowboy hat (that Uncle Tyler used to wear), Grandpa’s old army shirts, and the medical scrubs that I have waiting for him in the dress up closet when he’s big enough.  He’s just gotta learn how to walk first . . .