"new" blog format, and today's book

I have finally decided that I will stop putting the "Did you know that ..." and the "Well, now you know!" before and after every post. The difference may be minuscule, but it indicates a change in my philosophy, if you wish to call it that. Before, I was always trying too hard. I tried to find interesting things to blog about to draw readers to my blog. But you know what? The point of blogging is not to "draw readers" or to "inform the world" ... at least, probably not for me. Rather, the purpose of my blog is to:

1. give me a place to practice my english / writing skills
2. have a place for me to put down a "diary" of sorts for when I grow old and actually care / want to remember all this stuff

So away with the "serving the masses"! Now I blog for me, myself, and I. If you happen to read this, then great, I'm an interesting person / I've finally managed to write about ordinary things in an interesting manner. If not, then at least my mom will read this (maybe). However, I will keep those did-you-know phrases at the beginning and ends of my posts from before, just for a record. For example, I only started those phrases in my 3rd post. However, for the purposes of consistency and perfection, I changed the previous 2 entries to match entry 3 and beyond. This time though, I will leave them there as a record / memory of what came before and try to (mightily) resist the temptation to change all the ones that came before. Not to mention I now have too many posts to tediously go through and change them one by one ... :) Now, on with the post!

Today, I read The Life Murder of Bindy Mackenzie by Jaclyn Moriarty. She is also the author of The Year of Secret Assignments, though I haven't actually read that book yet. You can find more information about Jaclyn Moriarty on this (pretty nicely designed) site ... or, you could just Google it :) Once I figure out how to post spoilers without revealing everything (without changing the textcolor to match the background color ... that's cheating ... I was thinking more of a javascript or something that you can click on to reveal the stuff underneath), I'll probably post summaries / commentary / recollections on future books / posts. Wish me luck!