Book Review: Brain by Robin Cook

Brain by Robin Cook
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Let me begin by stating that I did enjoy this book significantly. I for some reason had a preconceived notion that the story would be much trashier than it turned out to be, which might have influenced my opinion in a positive way; I was pleasantly surprised, ergo inclined toward a kinder review. My grievances are, in the end, minor ones, even though they did affect my reading experience negatively.

'Tis My Second Vlog (Finally)

Sunset Variations

Most of these photos look nothing like they did in their raw form. Truth be told, I couldn't get them to resemble the originals while fiddling in UFRaw, so I started experimenting with colour settings instead. I kind of like the results; especially the blue one is rather... magical.

 

Celestia Image Captures, Part I

Feast your eyes on these lovely sights. More will come in small doses every now and then.

The Name of My Blog

No one has asked, because the readership of this blog is extremely tiny and they're all on some level of friendship with me. However, I am going to tell you where the name comes from: this poem here.


The Timid Fancy

Here is the ideal:

I will surrender my heart
and love you as ever only imagined
in dreams of starlit ballads;

in your hands confide
all my aching wounds,
old love-battle scars; and

lay at your feet the keys
to hidden corners of my self.

All of this, through the prism of emotion,
is beautiful to you—not beyond compare
for I was never so foolish—but
more than enough to make you stay.

The reality
is never made of silk or velvet. It is not soft
like dawn or a misted rain, but sharp,
edged as winter's wind.

Here, then, is the hope:

My jagged edges will
line up with yours—click into place
like pieces of a puzzle—
and if not, the hope is still this:

We will not become the shards of our selves
and injure each other
while pulling the pieces apart.  



Like many of my poems, this is a love poem. I wrote it in the autumn of 2010, back when J and I were beginning our relationship and I had no bloody clue how it would all go but was really quite hopeful that it would, at the very least, not end in tears and misery. 

Our story is still very much open-ended. I have arrived at a point where I think it might all just work out, although my blind faith in the existence of happily ever afters has pretty much diminished to nothing. That's neither here nor there and so not the point of this post.

As you may notice, the fourth line of the poem features the words familiar from my blog title. Truth is, I fell in love with that line and wanted to use it. That happens sometimes, and it feels perhaps a little bit egotistical, but the thing is... Occasionally I come up with some pretty darn good lines. This happened to be one of them.

Background and Its Source

My blog has a new background, huzzah! J used Celestia and some Photoshop magic to fashion it for me. Then, after some problems with viewing, he added a line of CSS and made it work on smaller screens as well—which is a relief, because it really is such a pretty image.

I have a feeling I'll take some Celestia captures and post them in the future. There are a few already, in fact... but indeed, that is for another entry.

I Have a New Skill! (& Two New Addictions...)

 A couple of days ago, I watched this video tutorial on how to make animated GIFs. There were some photos from late June I had wanted to make into a GIF from pretty much the moment I went through them, and now I finally learned how!

The two I have made are fairly small, but I guess I'll put together some bigger ones soon. Here they are: one of Jussi making funny faces at the camera (which is the one I procrastinated on), and one of me standing on some rocks, looking at the sunset.

  

I also have two new addictions, the first one being Robot Unicorn Attack, a brilliant game which is occupying an unhealthy amount of my leisure time. The second one is watching videos by Hank and John Green on their vlogbrothers channel. It has, in fact, led me to neglecting Pewds. The horror! I can't help it; they're just too funny.

No but seriously. I need to do uni stuff. Hopefully I'll be able to be at least a little bit productive in the midst of all this shiny distraction.


Speaking of shiny...