It’s hard to not feel like you may be afflicted with some degree of ADD living in 21st century America; we’re so used to doing ten things at once that when we’re presented with one detailed task it’s hard to stay focused.

This thought came to me during one of my English classes; we had been assigned to read Madame Bovary over the summer and then complete a few assignments upon our return. Many of the students complained that the book was terribly boring because of the limitless detail (the novel is written in the style of ‘Realism‘) and that they found themselves quite often skimming over bunches of paragraphs because they couldn’t concentrate. In fact, the novel was extremely popular in its day (1850s) because it was filled with endless detail.

Personally, I enjoyed the book very much. The extreme attention to detail allowed me to “fall into” the book and not be aware of most of the things going on around me. I felt like I was truly a part of every scene.
However, does our “do-everything-at-once-and-in-10-seconds” lifestyle more of a curse or more of a blessing? Does it not allow us to appreciate the full potential of things, such as the novel I have just referenced?

I believe that although our fast-paced environment benefits many aspects of our society (a successful economy and the emergence of new technology every day due to non-stop research), I still think that it is very important to appreciate the smaller, simpler things in life.

“Simple pleasures are always the last refuge of the complex.” – Oscar Wilde

From BBC NEWS Magazine:

The only chore about receiving gifts is writing the thank you letters.

What to say is the easy bit. How to say it requires more thought. Writing a Christmas thank you letter requires rigorous attention to detail, especially if it’s to be grammatically correct.

Two years ago author Lynne Truss hit the Christmas best-seller list with the book Eats, Shoots and Leaves, subtitled “The zero-tolerance approach to punctuation”. The title alludes to how punctuation, or a lack of it, can utterly change the meaning of a sentence.

The Magazine, in association with the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP), challenged readers to write a thank you letter with two meanings. You had to use the same words – or words that sound the same – but change the punctuation.

Here are five of the best. All entries will now be sent to the SfEP, who will pick an overall winner.

Check out the most hilarious letter after the cut…

Keep reading this »

The past few days, I felt like my heart was lacking something. I didn’t know what it was, I didn’t know what was wrong. It didn’t make me feel depressed or anything, it was just the hanging gloom above me. Actually nothing of my outward appearance or mood to other people had changed, I just felt like something was wrong. It isn’t something I can explain, but maybe you’ve felt it before. You feel like you’re doing something wrong but your not. You feel like the worst part of your life has just set upon you, but not so drastic.

I thought of myself as silly, that I had just had a lack of sleep and was feeling down. I wasn’t even feeling depressed, just certain moments of the day were horrible.

So I was just sitting her and I clicked open iTunes because I had to read some of this book for English, and I put on a favorite classical piece of mine, and all of a sudden I felt amazing again. Music is what has been lacking from my mind the past few days. I’m not sure why I haven’t taken out my iPod and listened to some music to calm me, maybe I’ve been busy. But, an overwhelming feeling of happiness and peace came upon me, and I realized why I had felt the way I had.

Amazing how music can touch your soul, isn’t it?