The Last Lecture

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get this book get it. I'm serious it'll change your life!

Randy Pausch : an American professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania delivered his "Last Lecture" speech titled [Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams] on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon.

He conceived the lecture after he learned that his previously known pancreatic cancer was terminal.

The talk was later released as a book with the same title, which became a New York Times best-seller.

In this book he summed up his 47 years of life story in 206 pages.

He wrote what he wanted his kids to know about their old man, he wrote what he expected for them, what he wanted his life partner Jai to know.

He talked about their preparation of resuming life after his death, how he made sure he provided beautiful memory for each kid on his own of their father.

My favorite part of the book was when he wrote his life lessons. what his father taught him, his mom, his soccer coach. what he learned from each person he met in certain points of his life.
I marked a lot of passages from this one I hardly kept page unmarked!
and there was particularly one page titled "Don't Obsess Over What People Think" I thought it was dedicated to me or something IT WAS ALL I NEEDED TO HEAR! (page 141)

Favorite Passage:

"I know you're smart. But everyone here is smart. Smart isn't enough. The kind of people I want on my research team are those who will help everyone else feel happy to be there."

The fact that such person completed his studies to turn out as the great computer science professor he is gave me huge push to hold on with my major ( i study MIS and for long time wasn't convinced it was the right thing for me ).

If you wanted to read more of him I checked on-line and found his Updated Journal in which he kept a follow-up record of his case until the day he dies.

Professor Randy Pausch died at July 25th, 2008, (that's 3 months after launching the book)

more book reviews.

Reviewing books is really something for me to look forward to do .. for just writing down what I have to say seems to ease me bit. Those are books which kept me company during the last couple of months.. seems silly but I miss them already.
I will always cherish the great memories during the time I read each one of them, each memory I recall is related to certain novel I started at the time. Therefore they're very special to me and I 'd like to remember what they were all about later,

here it goes :

1-Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

I didn't ask for this. I received it as a gift. of course I couldn't believe my luck when I first laid my eyes on the cover and started reading like the mad bookaholic I am.

Twilight fans everywhere had gone crazy over Breaking Dawn and how it ended this way. Some felt it was unfair and sorta "cliche'" closure for the series they loved the most and demanded Smeyer to re-write it all over again. (WTF right?)

But as for me.. I had no problems with it at all. I made my peace with it long time ago and had grown to accept it eventually..

Yes yes I admit it was shocker to me in certain parts especially *spoiler*

when Bella started transforming..I seriously had to put the book down and take a break for at least 3 days so i could absorb the whole thing! not that i didn't see it coming but it is huge for someone who loved Bella and wanted her to stay human. I kinda was hoping she'll stay fragile so that Jacob and bloodsucker would stay to protect her for good. (I see how stupid it sounds now that I wrote it) *spoiler end*

my favorite passage:

[the most one i liked, it was from Book Jacob of course!]

"And I was all alone with my hatred and the pain that was so bad it was like being tortured. Like being dragged slowly across a bed of razor blades. Pain so bad you'd take death with a smile just to get away from it."

2-The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

The Perks was inspired at first place from the great classic Catcher in The Rye (my all-time fave book) it was first released on 1999.

I heard about this book from most of Catcher fans and it had topped my To Read List ever since then.
The whole concept of the book is about this boy named Charlie.. throughout the entire book you won't find out anything about Charlie's last name Nor where he lives not even whom he's writing letters to.

You'll know one thing that he's Charlie and he's confused!

I loved the book it was very sincere and sweet, and i missed Charlie so much after i finished the book.

The spirit of Holden Caulfield (main character from Catcher) was present in every page, of course it doesn't top Catcher in my opinion but it captures your attention from the first letter and the novel is considered as an uplifting book for people who find themselves alone and strangers amongst their households. it got marvelous quotes in it aside from the story too! sometimes i check 'em out just for the heck of it.

my favorite passage:

"Have you ever done that? You feel really bad, and then it goes away, and you don't know why. I try to remind myself when I feel great like this that there will be another terrible week coming someday, so I should store up as many great details as I can, so during the next terrible week, I can remember those details and believe that I'll feel great again. It doesn't work a lot, but I think it's very important to try."

3-Rule of the Bone by Russell Banks

I picked this book because I read a review on its cover that says

"A magnificent book ... Bone will stay with me for the rest of my life"

And it sucked hard!! I remember getting the reader's block in the middle of it. The story made sense through half of the pages up until "Bones" followed African fellow..from there it never got better til maybe the last chapters when the author made up for his lack of logic in the latest few pages.

my favorite passage:

[they're just two I picked the shortest]

"He liked to repeat himself, probably because he was
used to talking to people who didn't get it in first time"

4-Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

(I just finished it right before writing this entry). Very well written sad story. If you wanna weep your heart out you should definitely go with this one cuz there isn't the slightest notion of happy ending in it. talks about memories, friend loss, childhood, abandon hood.
The novel's title comes from a song on an American cassette tape called Songs After Dark by fictional singer Judy Bridgewater. the funny part though is that I believed she's real and started looking for her song so I could relate to the main character. found out later it's all made up.

I found a song with the same title once but it was country. changed my mind didn't wanna listen to the song after that

favorite passage

"I'd had this notion there were two quite separate Ruths. This was the Ruth I wasn't pleased with, the Ruth who did the slap-on-the-elbow gesture. But the Ruth who sat beside me in my little attic room at the day's close, legs outstretched over the edge of my mattress, her steaming mug held in both her hands, that was the Ruth from Hailsham, and whatever had been happening during the day,I could just pick up with her where we'd left off the last time we'd sat together like that."

Romance, madness and complete blackness

Today i'll share with you some of the favorite passages and also my thoughts from books i recently enjoyed ..

from Gone With The Wind by Margaret Mitchell :

"She wanted Tara with the desperate desire of a frightened child frantic for the only haven it had ever known.

Home! The sprawling white house with fluttering white curtains at the windows, the thick clover on the lawn with the bees busy in it, the little black boy on the front steps shooing the ducks and turkeys from the flower beds, the serene red fields and the miles and miles of cotton turning white in the sun! Home!"

Upon its publication in 1936, Gone with the Wind became an immediate best-seller. ... To date it has outsold every other book except the Bible.I enjoyed reading this american classic ...so much that i won't mind reading it all-over again. Most of the characters feels like your friend your neighbor or yourself sometimes. Honeslty the 950 pages were totally worth the read! I loved the ending as well as the remainder of it, i thought it was perfect and fair to the main character 'Scarlet'.

from Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho: I was kinda looking forward to start this one earlier than the other two, but it was not quite what i expected to tell you the truth. Mad little world was created throughout the whole story but again not expecting the story line is way better than seeing the end of it!

"She gave all her friends the impression that she was a woman to be envied, and she expended most of her energy in trying to behave in accordance with the image she had created for herself.

Because of that, she had never had enough energy to be herself, a person who, like everyone else in the world, needed other people in order to be happy. But other people where so difficult."

And finally there was a book called In the Land of the Unknown by Tarek Al-Duaij;

First when i saw it what caught my attention was its cover, i grabbed the book and to my shock it was Kuwaiti writer's work . i knew i must read it at that instant to support local talent least of it!

But well, the book was a new experiment to me.. i'm not used to that kind of reads. let me put it this way :

It explains the cover so well!

No favorite parts.

P.S: if you haven't watched Gone With The Wind the movie yet there's still a good chance you might catch it tonight at 22:00 KSA p.m. Dubai one TV *yeah they paid me to promote this shit*.

Seriously take a day off from whatever you do...turn off your phone and make sure you have enough food with you in your living room and watch it...it is an amazing movie!!

Into The Wild [film review]

"Plot Summary:
This fact-based drama concerns Christopher McCandless (Emile Hirsch), a bright 22-year-old man with a promising future. But shortly after graduating from Atlanta's Emory University, the freedom-loving adventure seeker decides to give up his privileged life and go to live in the wilderness. He donates his $24,000 savings account to charity, changes his name to Alexander Supertramp and hitchhikes to Alaska, wearing only a thin coat and having neither compass
nor map. Four months later, the man is found dead... "

the storyline according to zml.com

Now the movie was originally based on the national bestseller novel back in 1997 by author Jon Krakauer when he decided to write the true story that took place in 92 of a guy who had everything and abandoned it for no convincing reason. the story ended up with McCandless's body found dead by moose hunter.

people and critics suggested two different opinions since then,

the first side acclaimed that Chris McCandless was portrayed by media and novel writer as a hero which is not true because any one could do what he did. throw yourself into deadly inhospitable environments, starve to death and after 2 years write a novel about what you've been through and you're the new Chris McCandless!

the other group considered this as a new way to view life . life free of any attachments any restraints or use of guidance and therefore respected Chris's decision choosing to abandon civilized society, changing his identity to pursue his passion and discover what's better than he knew ,us humans knew... but when he chose to do that he did it in his own way..in the wild.

the other interesting part is that some of those 'inspired' people actually followed his path and decided to finish what Chris couldn't, the real mission though was to realize what it's been like for him.

I was tremendously moved by this story that i wanted to watch it for two reasons: 1-because of that same controversy happening 2-being based on bestselling novel and i planned to get the book but couldn't for i had so many haven't read yet and the movie was available.

despite of my opinion about him and whether he was a martyr or nut job I believe what wild had taught Chris McCandless was greater than any other lesson society could serve.

this guy he saw happiness by living freely instead of seeing it in money.
I also saw the pure beauty of the entire film on the end of it, you realize true meaning in lots of confusing acts he did at the very beginning only it was too late for him. Into The Wild definitely will remain as one of my favorite for long time to come .