Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

I'm eager to finish "Emma" so I can start watching the YouTube series Emma Approved. I loved loved loved the Lizzie Bennet Diaries and am now in the oh-so-pleasant thrall of The Autobiography of Jane Eyre and Anne of Green Gables Fables.

I know this is a weird idea, but it occurred to me that although much harder to realize, it might be kind of cool to take modern books and make 'historical' adaptations of them. Wacky notion, right? Think about it though. So many stories have been modernized. Why not do that in reverse just for the heck of it?

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Chips!

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

My Goodreads "Want to Read" list is possibly more extensive (and expensive) than some of my Pinterest boards. If you are active on Pinterest, I don't need to explain more. If you're not, Heaven bless you. Stay outside enjoying the fresh air and face-to-face interaction humans were intended to have. Ahem. Kidding. Come on in, it's great.

ANYWAY...Thank God for the option of getting books online because it is very difficult to get books in English here.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?

This is my first time to properly participate. I signed up last year but unfortunately did not get to dedicate myself to 'readathoning' as much as I would have liked. I love any excuse for burying myself in a book and getting to ignore the world. 

I'm going to give a try to reading LOTR in French too. As a bookworm extraordinaire who is struggling to learn her *cough cough* "mother tongue" I've found that picking a book I know extremely well and reading it in the language I'm trying to learn is a FUN challenge and does an excellent job of keeping my interest.

By the way, I HIGHLY recommend Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series for staying awake. You don't doze off when you're laughing so hard!

It's so so great to be a part of Dewey's 24 Hour Readathon with all of you!

Bunches of hugs!

"WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT HEALTH PROBLEM FACING YOUTH IN THE WORLD TODAY, AND WHY?"

This is an essay I submitted (minus the picture which is courtesy of www.someecards.com) to the 2014 Akili Youth Health Post-2015 Essay Competition. Note to self: be more focused next time!

Below it is an extra paragraph from Matt Walsh's blog that I consider a particularly eloquent and touching expression of what I took 500 words say (it was SO hard to shave it down to that. 700 would have been much easier!). I feel fortunate to have found someone more articulate and thoughtful than myself who feels the same way as I do on this issue.

"WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT HEALTH PROBLEM FACING YOUTH IN THE WORLD TODAY, AND WHY?"

By Esther Christina Walburg, age 25, Dutch, currently residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina

A few months ago I was chatting with a friend on Gmail when he told me that he has Borderline Personality Disorder. Some research into BPD and similar mental disorders brought to the forefront an issue that I'd been tossing around in my mind: do we sometimes perceive ordinary life experiences as certifiable reasons to be declared mentally ill and then get pumped full of prescription drugs?

I could make this essay very long by listing all the OCD driven acts, or CDO as I like to call them (that's OCD, but with the letters in alphabetical order – AS THEY SHOULD BE), I compulsively perform each day. I won't though, because much as I joke otherwise, these quirks do not add up to a medical condition.
Most teenagers are, at some point of their adolescence or another, rambunctious, angsty, and volatile. That's been noted ever since teenagers were teenagers. Nowadays, with the enormous breakthroughs in neuroscience, medicine and psychology, are we taking the notion that “everything is curable given the correct drug“ too far?
I'm thinking of all the chemicals that young people are required to swallow because their doctors, therapists and parents wish to “calm them“, “keep them out of depression“, “stabilize them“, etc.
Are we too quick to categorize behavior that is anything other than placid, docile and quietly cheerful as “aggression“? Or someone who steers clear of crowds and social activities as “emotionally withdrawn“? Could it be that they are just being “teens“?Perhaps we would benefit more from finding personalized solutions within ourselves with the help of our loved ones rather than via raising and lowering our hormones artificially.
In this age of individualism, where everyone is encouraged to express themselves freely without fear of judgment, should we not also focus on acknowledging that WE can overcome our personality flaws and weaknesses OURSELVES by making choices that are healthy and wise both physically and mentally?
Perhaps we should be less impulsive about dashing to our therapist or our doctor over highs and lows that maybe aren't as high or low they seem to be at that moment considering that there are statistics such as:

• Anti-depressants are basically useless for the vast majority of people who take them.
• Prescription drugs can cause helplessness, apathy, aggression, and sedation.[1]

I regularly assist someone who was diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder last year. She takes a number of drugs to enable her to be “herself“ – the communicative, affectionate, outdoorsy person she was before this disorder turned her life upside down. So I'm not deriding behavioral drugs as a whole. I recognize their value and their contribution to enabling afflicted people to lead “normal“ lives. I simply think we should take a little longer to consider whether we could not achieve the same or better than what they promise via more time spent outdoors, with friends who uplift us, and with more wholesome food choices.

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[1] Dr. Peter Lind  http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/stress-and-health-dr-lind/2012/dec/20/drugs-you-take-mood-altering-drugs/ (Accessed March 2014) 

  

We’ve done a horrible thing by turning every shortcoming and every personal failure into a “clinical” issue, or a “disease” that requires surgery and medication. When we attempt to pawn our flaws off by pretending we are the victim — rather than the cause — of them, we severely diminish ourselves. We diminish ourselves by rejecting our own potential and dismissing the power of our own will. We, as human beings, possess a profound and utterly unique ability to transform and change and improve and achieve and conquer. Modern wisdom would have us reject this entirely, and when we buy into this poisonous and reductive philosophy, we reject our very humanity and spit on the essence of life itself. But we also diminish everyone around us.

We also insult the Lord Himself.

-Matt Walsh

http://themattwalshblog.com/2014/01/31/inspiring-message-of-the-day-obesity-is-not-a-disease-and-you-do-have-free-will/