One Year Older!: 2021

BOOK: Notes on Grief by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

My Review: A great explanation on grief and how you don't ever get over it, it's like a slow burn. A bit of over kill with descriptive explanations sometimes but over all a good book. Short audio book.

'Grief is a cruel kind of education. You learn how ungentle mourning can be, how full of anger. You learn how glib condolences can feel. You learn how much grief is about language, the failure of language and the grasping for language'

On 10 June 2020, the scholar James Nwoye Adichie died suddenly in Nigeria.

In this tender and powerful essay, expanded from the original New Yorker text, his daughter, a self-confessed daddy's girl, remembers her beloved father. Notes on Grief is at once a tribute to a long life of grace and wisdom, the story of a daughter'

BOOK: Homebody by Rupi Kaur

My Review: I love this book.
I love all this ladies writing's.

Rupi Kaur constantly embraces growth, and in home body, she walks readers through a reflective and intimate journey visiting the past, the present, and the potential of the self. home body is a collection of raw, honest conversations with oneself – reminding readers to fill up on love, acceptance, community, family, and embrace change. Illustrated by the author, themes of nature and nurture, light and dark, rest here.

I dive into the well of my body
and end up in another world
everything I need
already exists in me
there’s no need
to look anywhere else
– home

BOOK: The Target Committee by Paul Ham

My Review: This book was great and very informative but made me angry at the same time. Everyone knows the almighty damage nuclear weapons can do and yet here we have a group of men picking and choosing which cities to destroy first, not even a thinking about the millions of innocent people that died or had a painful health effects many years after, their is never going to be any justification for that.

How did America choose the targets for the atomic bomb?

What made Hiroshima preferable over Kyoto or Tokyo?

Critical to the mission to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki were a series of meetings set up in mid-1945 and comprising America’s most powerful military, political and scientific chiefs.

The committee men would decide where and how the first nuclear weapons would be used in anger.

In this absorbing and provocative narrative, historian Paul Ham shines a torch on their arguments to reveal the thinking behind the atomic destruction of two cities and how the Target Committee justified it at the time.

Quotes from The Target Committee:

‘The ideal target city for an atomic bomb should possess sentimental value to the Japanese so its destruction would adversely affect the will of the people to continue the war’ – Major General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project

‘Kyoto lies in the form of a cup and thus would be exceptionally vulnerable, It is exclusively a place of homes and art and shrines’ - Henry Stimson, US War Secretary

BOOK: The Sun And Her Flowers by Rupi Kaur

From Rupi Kaur, A vibrant and transcendent journey about growth and healing. Ancestry and honouring one’s roots.

Expatriation and rising up to find a home within yourself.
Divided into five chapters and illustrated by Kaur, the sun and her flowers is a journey of wilting, falling, rooting, rising, and blooming. A celebration of love in all its forms.

this is the recipe of life
said my mother
as she held me in her arms as i wept
think of those flowers you plant
in the garden each year
they will teach you
that people too
must wilt
fall
root
rise
in order to bloom

BOOKS: Forces of Nature by Brian Cox

Sunday Times Bestseller A breath-taking and beautiful exploration of our planet, this ground-breaking book accompanies the BBC One TV series, providing the deepest answers to the simplest questions. How did life on Earth begin? What is the nature of space and time? What are the chances that we will discover life on other worlds? Forces of Nature takes you from the mid-Atlantic ridge in Iceland, the volcanoes of Indonesia and the precipitous cliffs in Nepal, to the manatees off the coast of Florida and the northern lights of the Arctic, in search of the fundamental laws that govern our world. These universal laws shape everything, from the structure of snowflakes to the elegant spirals of the galaxies. By seeking to understand the everyday world - the colours, structure, behaviour and history of our home - we can step beyond the everyday and approach the Universe beyond. Think you know our planet? Think again.

Website

Authors Page

My Review: This was a great book.

The science teacher in me was nodding along with most of this book, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Brian Cox (Physicist)

Cox studied physics at the University of Manchester during his music career. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree with first-class honours. After D:Ream disbanded in 1997, he completed his Doctor of Philosophy degree in high-energy particle physics at the University of Manchester. His thesis, Double Diffraction Dissociation at Large Momentum Transfer, was supervised by Robin Marshall and based on research he did on the H1 experiment at the Hadron Elektron Ring Anlage (HERA) particle accelerator at the DESY laboratory in Hamburg, Germany.

Cox has appeared in many science programmes for BBC radio and television, including In Einstein's Shadow, the BBC Horizon series, ("The Six Billion Dollar Experiment", "What on Earth is Wrong with Gravity?", "Do You Know What Time It Is?", and "Can we Make a Star on Earth?") and as a voice-over for the BBC's Bitesize revision programmes. He presented the five-part BBC Two television series Wonders of the Solar System in early 2010 and a follow up four-part series, Wonders of the Universe, which began on 6 March 2011. Wonders of Life, which he describes as "a physicist's take on life/natural history", was broadcast in 2013. He co-presents Space Hoppers and has also featured in Dani's House on CBBC.

Cox also presented a three-part BBC series called Science Britannica which sees him explore the contribution of British scientists over the last 350 years, as well as the relationship between British science and the public perception thereof.

BBC Two commissioned Cox to co-present Stargazing Live, a three-day live astronomy series in January 2011 – co-presented with physicist-turned-comedian Dara Ó Brian and featuring chat show host Jonathan Ross – linked to events across the United Kingdom. A second and a third series featuring a variety of guests ran in January 2012 and January 2013.

Book Review: Wild Swans by Jung Chang

Blending the intimacy of memoir and the panoramic sweep of eyewitness history, Wild Swans has become a bestselling classic in thirty languages, with more than ten million copies sold. The story of three generations in twentieth-century China, it is an engrossing record of Mao's impact on China, an unusual window on the female experience in the modern world, and an inspiring tale of courage and love.

Jung Chang describes the life of her grandmother, a warlord's concubine; her mother's struggles as a young idealistic Communist; and her parents' experience as members of the Communist elite and their ordeal during the Cultural Revolution. Chang was a Red Guard briefly at the age of fourteen, then worked as a peasant, a "barefoot doctor," a steelworker, and an electrician. As the story of each generation unfolds, Chang captures in gripping, moving -- and ultimately uplifting -- detail the cycles of violent drama visited on her own family and millions of others caught in the whirlwind of history.

As an adapted version of Wild Swans finally reaches the London stage, the book itself, which has sold more than 13 million copies worldwide, is still banned in China.

Red Sister, Ching Ling married Sun Yat Sen, considered the ‘father’ of the Chinese republic; Little Sister May Ling became the first lady of pre-Communist China, while Big Sister, Ei Ling became a political advisor – each had a lasting effect on Chinese politics.

“It goes without saying that this book is going to be banned. A lot of Chinese publishers thought my first book, the Empress Dowager, may not be banned because she’s a historical figure and died in 1908, she’s harmless to the party.

She said that publishers had contacted her and asked her permission to market the book in China. “Then they went back and asked their bosses and they all invariably said no. So it’s going to be banned too.”

“It’s me that is being banned because if the book does well, and by association my other books do well, particularly the biography of Mao, it will make people interested.”

BOOK: Lord Of The Rings

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them

In ancient times the Rings of Power were crafted by the Elven-smiths, and Sauron, The Dark Lord, forged the One Ring, filling it with his own power so that he could rule all others. But the One Ring was taken from him, and though he sought it throughout Middle-earth, it remained lost to him. After many ages it fell into the hands of Bilbo Baggins, as told in The Hobbit.

In a sleepy village in the Shire, young Frodo Baggins finds himself faced with an immense task, as his elderly cousin Bilbo entrusts the Ring to his care. Frodo must leave his home and make a perilous journey across Middle-earth to the Cracks of Doom, there to destroy the Ring and foil the Dark Lord in his evil purpose

REVIEW: Finally after 10 years I have finished the Lord Of The Rings books and they are great with outstanding characters and a passion for story telling.

At time's a tad confusing with so many characters but generally a fantastic journey all round.

My heart and love will forever belong to Samwise Gamgee, the ever faithful best friend and travel companion.

(Now I am just sat here crying while listening to the sound track)

#lordoftherings #bilbobaggins #frodobaggins #samwisethebrave #elves #dwarfs #kingsandqueens #bagend #theshire #rivendale #thegreatadventure #fellowshipofthering #returnoftheking #thehobbit #merrybrandybuck #pippin #peterjackson #reading #endofera #books #gandalf

Frodo and his Companions of the Ring have been beset by danger during their quest to prevent the Ruling Ring from falling into the hands of the Dark Lord by destroying it in the Cracks of Doom. They have lost the wizard, Gandalf, in a battle in the Mines of Moria. And Boromir, seduced by the power of the Ring, tried to seize it by force. While Frodo and Sam made their escape, the rest of the company was attacked by Orcs. Now they continue the journey alone down the great River Anduin—alone, that is, save for the mysterious creeping figure that follows wherever they go.

In the third volume of The Lord of the Rings trilogy the good and evil forces join battle, and we see that the triumph of good is not absolute. The Third Age of Middle-earth ends, and the age of the dominion of Men begins.

Review: Nair Hair Removal Face Cream

First of all your going to get my rant! I am fucking fuming. My face is on fire, it is red, blotchy and swollen. So I put this product on my face for the duration of a song that was just under 3 minutes my face is burned, hot and hurting also very sensitive.

When I was wiping it off it felt like a you where scraping sand over something and it was painful so I kept dabbing a very cold flannel on my face which made it feel better but it was too late my face had been burned and I slavered Aloe Vera on it every four hours.

It will be a few days before it calms down, it doesn't look like any long lasting damage will be done but I will never use this product ever again.

*It took 1 week for my face too stop burning, i was putting aloe vera on 3 times a day and washing with cold water*

LGBTQ Book Recommendations Part 2

In Love Stories, Jonathan Ned Katz presents stories of men's intimacies with men during the nineteenth century—including those of Abraham Lincoln—drawing flesh-and-blood portraits of intimate friendships and the ways in which men struggled to name, define, and defend their sexual feelings for one another. In a world before "gay" and "straight" referred to sexuality, men like Walt Whitman and John Addington Symonds created new ways to name and conceive of their erotic relationships with other men. Katz, diving into history through diaries, letters, newspapers, and poems, offers us a clearer picture than ever before of how men navigated the uncharted territory of male-male desire.

28th April 1870. Fanny and Stella, the flamboyantly dressed Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton, are causing a stir in the Strand Theatre. All eyes are riveted upon their lascivious ogling's of the gentlemen in the stalls. Moments later they are led away by the police. What followed was a scandal that shocked and titillated Victorian England in equal measure.

It turned out that the alluring Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton were no ordinary young women. Far from it. In fact, 'Boulton and Park' were young men who liked to dress as women. When the Metropolitan Police launched a secret campaign to bring about their downfall, they were arrested and subjected to a sensational show trial in Westminster Hall.

As the trial of 'the Young Men in Women's Clothes' unfolded, Fanny and Stella's extraordinary lives as wives and daughters, actresses and whores were revealed to an incredulous public.

With a cast of peers, politicians and prostitutes, drag queens, doctors and detectives, Fanny and Stella is a Victorian peepshow, exposing the startling underbelly of nineteenth-century London. By turns tragic and comic, meticulously researched and dazzlingly written, Fanny and Stella is an enthralling tour-de-force.

LGBTQ Book's Recommendations Part 1

From drag queens and discos, to black holes and monsters, these stories and poems wrestle with love and loneliness and the fight to be seen. By turns serious and fantastical, hilarious and confrontational, We Were Always Here addresses the fears, mysteries, wonders and variety of experience that binds our community together.

We Were Always Here is a snapshot of current LGBTI+ writing and a showcase of queer talent.

Contributors: Alice Tarbuck, Andrés Ordorica, April Hill, AR Crow, Bibi June, BD Owens, Callum Harper, Christina Neuwirth, Ciara Maguire, Elaine Gallagher, Elva Hills, Eris Young, Etzali Hernández, Felicity Anderson-Nathan, Freddie Alexander, Garry Mac, Gray Crosbie, Harry Josephine Giles, Heather Parry, Heather Valentine, Jack Bigglestone, Jane Flett, Jay G Ying, Jay Whittaker, Jonathan Bay, Jo Clifford, Kirsty Logan, Laura Waddell, Lori England, MJ Brocklebank, Rachel Plummer, Ross Jamieson, Sandra Alland, Shane Strachan, Zoe Storrie.

Written 12 years before Teleny by Saul, this account of Victorian cross-dressing and rent-boys is a legend all its own. Based on the true story of a male brothel in Cleveland Street (later shut down).
Subtitled: "The Recollections of a Mary-Ann", the "Cities of the Plain" are of course Sodom and Gomorrah.
One of the first exclusively homosexual works of pornographic literature published in English. It has been suggested that it was largely written by James Campbell Reddie and the painter Simeon Solomon, who had been convicted of public indecency in 1873 and disgraced.

Happy Pride 2021 - Books

Hello to all you beautiful LGBTQ people around the world.

I hope you are all having a happy and safe pride so far, over the next couple of days I will be posting queer books I have read/ currently reading and recommendations, just because I can. #HappyPride2021

Outlaw Marriages by Rodger Streitmatter

For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other “for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health” for periods of thirty or forty—sometimes as many as fifty—years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife.

In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.

Red Azalea by Anchee Min

Red Azalea is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. As a child, she was asked to publicly humiliate a teacher; at seventeen, she was sent to work at a labour collective. Forbidden to speak, dress, read, write, or love as she pleased, she found a lifeline in a secret love affair with another woman. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight. Then Chairman Mao suddenly died, taking with him an entire world. A revelatory and disturbing portrait of China.

March 28, 1983: Chol Soo Lee - Asian History

March 28, 1983: Chol Soo Lee’s release from San Quentin’s Death Row

Chol Soo Lee was a Korean American immigrant who was wrongfully convicted for the 1973 murder of Yip Yee Tak, a San Francisco Chinatown gang leader, and sentenced to life in prison. While in prison, he was sentenced to death for the killing of another prisoner, Morrison Needham, though Chol Soo claimed self-defence. Chol Soo served ten years of his sentence for the killing of Yip Yee Tak of which he was later acquitted, eight of those on death row. Investigative reporting by K. W. Lee sparked the formation of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defence Committee, which spurred a national pan-Asian movement. Chol Soo finally won his freedom in 1983 through the help of the Free Chol Soo Lee Defence Committee.

San Joaquin County Superior Court Judge Peter Saiers ordered Chol Soo Lee to be released on March 28, 1983, after Lee's supporters pledged property worth twice the amount of the $250,000 bail. However, the prosecution moved to retry Lee on the prison killing charge. Lee's co-counsels were able to plea bargain on the Needham case. Lee, who had served nearly ten years in prison, was given credit for time served and freed from prison.

In June 1974, Chol Soo Lee, a young Korean immigrant, was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for a San Francisco Chinatown murder. While serving his life sentence in state prison, Lee was convicted and sentenced to death in May 1979 on a first-degree murder charge for defending himself during an armed prison-yard assault by an Aryan Brotherhood gang member. Two years earlier in 1977, Sacramento Union investigative reporter K.W. Lee began to shed light on a problematic police investigation and subsequent trial for the San Francisco Chinatown murder. His investigative series generated widespread support for a remarkable grassroots social movement, known as the Free Chol Soo Lee movement, which brought together diverse groups of immigrant and American-born Asians in a common cause of justice and freedom for Lee. The efforts of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement eventually led to a retrial of the San Francisco Chinatown murder case, in which a jury acquitted Lee in September 1982. Despite this acquittal, Lee remained on Death Row in San Quentin due to his first-degree murder conviction for the prison-yard killing, which was also set for a retrial. However, faced with the prospect of high legal expenses and the uncertainty of yet another trial, Lee agreed to a downgraded second-degree murder charge without admission of guilt in the deadly prison-yard altercation and was released from San Quentin’s Death Row on March 28, 1983, based on time served.

There are many reasons why this pivotal movement has been largely forgotten, but one is that the life of Chol Soo Lee, who unexpectedly passed away in 2014, problematizes idealized norms of moral virtue often expected of those who are symbols of racial justice movements, especially as Lee continued to experience significant trauma after serving nearly ten years in state prison. Yet, the Free Chol Soo Lee movement also highlights the politicization and empowerment of young people who formed the backbone of this incredible pan-Asian movement. Many of these young activists went on to distinguished public service careers guided by an enduring vision of social change and justice. The history of the Free Chol Soo Lee movement thus provides us with valuable lessons in imagining new and different possibilities for our present and future, particularly in relation to contemporary social movements, coalition building, and the criminal justice system in the United States.

—Richard S. Kim, Professor of Asian American Studies at UC Davis

1854: People v. Hall - Asian History

1854: People v. Hall determines that Chinese people cannot testify against white defendants

With hate crimes against Asian Americans skyrocketing during the pandemic, many choose the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act as a historic marker for how they are treated in the U.S. Rather, in 1854 California Supreme Court case of People v Hall. George Hall had been convicted of murder through the testimony of three Chinese eyewitnesses.

On appeal, the court disqualified the testimony.

California banned specific groups (“Negros, blacks, Indians, and mullatoes”) from testifying against whites, but “Chinese” was not included.

This judge became legislator by interpreting, through his convoluted logic, that the Chinese were “Indian” and/or “Black.” The opinion spewed vile racism citing the eminent threat that if Chinese people can testify against whites, they would become full equal citizens. This marks the beginning of how discrimination against Asians became the norm.

Hall got away with murder.

People v Hall

RAANTHAI PACKAGE REVIEW

*TAKEN FROM THE WEBSITE*

RaanThai offers Europe's largest online selection of fresh, frozen and packaged Thai food and other Oriental foodstuffs, with next-working-day delivery available to your home or business. Thousands of products are available, and more are added weekly.

They are based in the UK (thank mother nature for that). When it comes to ordering you have to spend over £20 which I think is good and you can easily do that, I always do because they have a wide range of foreign food from Thailand, Philippines, Japan, Korea, Malaya, Indonesia and China. Postage is £5.58 plus tax.

RaanThai Oriental Supermarket

Unit A2, North Cheshire Trading Estate

Preston, Merseyside, CH43 3DU

RAANTHAI FOOD PACKAGE REVIEW

Hello!

During the first lockdown I found myself wanting oriental food and instant noodles just went cutting it so I scoured the internet for places I could get a wide range/ variety of foreign food and I found the most amazing place called RaanThai. Website Here

My favourites are red bean mochi so tasty! with my first order I bought my bestie some sake he was very pleased.

Here's my first order I reviewed last year if you want to check it out feel free to. Just be a wear I am in my jammies!

*TAKEN FROM THE WEBSITE*

RaanThai Oriental Supermarket

Unit A2, North Cheshire Trading Estate

Prenton, Merseyside, CH43 3DU

The steps from lockdown - Hopefully

Step-by-step lockdown roadmap

Step 1

From 8 March: All schools will open with outdoor after-school sports and activities allowed. Socialising in an outdoor public spaces – such as a park – will be allowed between two people
From 29 March: Return of the “Rule of Six”: Groups of larger than six from a maximum of two households will also be allowed to meet. Outdoor sport and leisure facilities, such as golf courses and tennis courts, will be allowed to reopen, and organised outdoor sport can resume for children and adults

Step 2 – From 12 April

All non-essential retail can reopen
Pubs, restaurants and cafes can reopen, with outdoor seating only
Gyms and other indoor leisure can reopen (limited to household groups)
Hairdressers and other personal care businesses can open again
Domestic holidays can resume (limited to household groups)
Outdoor attractions like zoos and theme parks can reopen
Weddings and wakes can have up to 15 people
Libraries and community centres can reopen
All children’s activities can resume, including indoor parent and children groups with up to 15 parents
Tests will be conducted for larger events

Step 3 – From 17 May

Rules of Six will come into effect indoors (subject to review)
Indoor seating can resume in pubs and restaurants
Indoor entertainment venues like cinemas and theatres can reopen
Domestic overnight stays can resume
Organised indoor adult sport can start again
Weddings and other “significant life events” can include up to 30 people
Remaining outdoor entertainment, such as performances, can resume
Remaining accommodation can reopen

Step 4 – From 21 June

Larger events can resume
Night clubs can reopen
No legal limits on social contact

Life Update 15th March 2021

Hello you beautiful people on the internet (cheesy wave) Well a little life update if you all have time?

I am almost finished my second year of university the course i am doing is bloody hard but need it if i want to be a teacher!

I must endure and persist....

My assignments are still going in by the skin on my teeth, i really must learn time management.

The bad news -

Like everybody else in March i was placed on furlough with my two jobs.

The pub where i worked decided to shut permanently so in June 2020 i was made redundant. Then in October the convenience store i worked at informed me i was going to be made redundant again, when i heard that i was devastated i loved that job.

Luckily my old boss from the pub passed my name on to a supermarket and they phoned me in November so i started working in a store in town and i have been there ever since, i am grateful for my old boss and his wife.

Good news -

i have passed my online TEFL certificate with additional Advanced Grammar, which means now i can teach abroad and online.

Even more and more good news i am now registered with a Education Agency and i am finally getting some classroom experience in which i love, i love, i love! I lost my placement in 2020 thanks to the pandemic.

Teaching Assistant/ Cover Supervisor is what i am doing at the moment i love it, i love it, i love it! Wish me luck 🙏

Stay safe

Wear a mask

Wash your hands

Use your common sense

Stay blessed.