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Tuesday, September 30, 2008

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I love fall and I love hot apple cider. The two just seem to fit. There is a Tim Hortons (an eastern fast food chain) at the hospital and lately some of us on the floor have been craving it. However, the machine has been broken for over a month. To make matters worse, they won't take apple cider down from the menu so I get my hopes up every time I work. Last Friday one of the other nurses who loves the cider equally as much suggested we write Tim Hortons an email on their website to make them aware of the problem (the "apple cider campaign"). I sent in a nice email asking them to fix the machine and left my work phone number. Monday I got a phone call at work from someone in the customer service department who told me they would look into the matter and see what they could do. Today I enjoyed hot apple cider. I sent Tim's a thank you email today as I sipped my delightful beverage.

What did I learn? First, hot apple cider is as delicious as I remembered. Second, filling out comment cards [sometimes] leads to big results. Go buy Tim Hortons.

Monday, September 8, 2008

Breaking Dawn: 9 hours of my life I'll never get back

**If you haven't finished reading Breaking Dawn, you might want to stop reading this because I will discuss what happens.**

Let me start at the beginning. I read Twilight last fall after friends raved about it. I was intrigued at first. I did read a good chunk of the book in a 5 hour span one Saturday afternoon. I wasn't really enjoying it, but for some reason I couldn't put it down. After I finished though, I realized what a waste of my time it was. I tried reading the second book (for several months), but couldn't finish it. The author, Mrs. Meyer, writes about the same conflicts over and over again:
1. Who loves who more? Edward or Bella? (I stopped caring).
2. Does Bella love Edward, her soul mate, or Jacob, her best friend? (Strange conflict considering conflict #1).
3. Should Bella be a vampire? (Yes, so this series will end).

I guess I shouldn't be surprised at the lack of serious plot and conversation considering this is written towards young adults. I just felt she could eliminate half of the novels by eliminating the repetitive dialog. Anyway, so Breaking Dawn came out a month ago. I was at work shortly after the book release and saw the book. The woman who owned it was about 10 years older than myself, had just finished it, raved about it, and gave it to me to read. I thought, 'why not, maybe the series turns out good.' (You can stop judging me for skipping the middle two books. I don't feel guilty and I had no trouble understanding the last book).

I had several issues with the book. First (and this is probably just the "scientist" in me), if Edward is a vampire, and vampires have no blood/bodily fluids etc, how exactly did he get Bella pregnant (who at the time was human)?

Second, Jacob the pedophile. Was I the only one disturbed by this? Jacob "imprinted"(fell in love at first sight) with Bella's baby who was only minutes old at the time. What? I just couldn't get past how creepy this was. I understand the author needed a way to keep Jacob connected to Bella, but this is too much. It might be one thing if he came back years later, saw Bella's child as an "adult" (as a vampire-human hybrid she would be full grown by 7 years) and then fell in love with her, but as a "newborn?" Gross. Not to mention that until recently Jacob was in love with Bella. How quickly he changes his mind. Bella and Jacob have kissed too, and now Jacob is going to one day marry Bella's child. Will Bella give her daughter kissing tips about Jacob?

Third, I was tired of reading about Edward and Bella having sex (after they were married, of course). I felt like I was reading one of those Harlequin romance novels and couldn't help but laugh at it. Here are a few gems:

'I heard the fabric tearing under our hands, and I was glad my clothes, at least, were already destroyed. It was too late for his. It felt almost rude to ignore the pretty white bed, but we weren't going to make it that far.'

'I couldn't speak anymore. I lifted my head and kissed him with a passion that might possibly set the forest on fire.'

'"Precisely. So the answer is no. I am purely full of joy, because I am missing nothing. No one has more than I do now."
I was about to inform him of the one exception to his statement, but my lips were suddenly very busy.'

'We laughed together, and the motion of our laughter did interesting things to the way our bodies connected, effectively ending that conversation.'

Wow! The above excerpts were in only one chapter. You can imagine how much more of the same she writes in 750+ pages. I get it: Bella and Edward have great sex. Move on.

Lastly, the length of the book. Bella became a vampire before page 400. What would she write about in the remaining 350 pages? I really don't know. It seems to be a blur of unnecessary dialog and plot. I wanted a good fight scene, perhaps a death or two on the "good-teams" side, something more suspenseful. When the last chapter is entitled, "The happily ever after," you can only imagine how the story will end and how much conflict there will be in the book. Mrs. Meyer has said she couldn't envision the series in only three books. Really? It's called editing. Thankfully the series is over, and I won't have to be tempted by my sometimes misguided curiosity to waste any more time.