To be nobody but yourself, in a world which is doing its best, day and night, to make you everybody else¡K
¡Kmeans to fight the hardest battle, which any human being can fight¡K
¡Kand never stop fighting.
Uncategorized
-
You're doing OK, but you're
definitely not making the most of the REAL YOU!
According to our scientific analysis you are currently tapping into:
47%
of your self-esteem potential.
That means that you have 53% left to discover...
Your self-esteem is something that you carry with you every minute of every day, hence it is having a constant and profound effect on your state of happiness and sense of emotional well being.
When your self-esteem is in good shape you feel great and life seems fantastic. But when your self-esteem is low you start to struggle with yourself and use up a lot of emotional energy - and your quality of life ALWAYS suffers as a consequence.
So, just imagine how you would feel if you tapped into ALL of your self-esteem potential and made the most of the REAL YOU. Imagine holding your head up high every day, feeling confident and self-assured in every social situation, managing to cope with anything that life throws at you - and still having enough energy left to enjoy life to the full!
You would like to find an enjoyable way to get reasonably fit and stay that way.
You would like to worry less and feel the sense of relief that comes with knowing that everything is OK and that you can cope pretty well with whatever life throws at you.
You don't want to spend hours and hours thinking about money matters but you know that you'd be better off if you got on top of your financial situation and started to manage your money more effectively.
You want to reduce the feelings of loneliness from your life and develop an emotional support structure around you that helps you to feel more loved and secure.
You would like to be able to open your wardrobe and feel confident about finding something fantastic to wear - whatever the occasion!
You wish that you could make decisions and feel free to act the way YOU want without needing to seek approval from others first. The thought of doing things your way and potentially meeting with disapproval from others can feel scary to you sometimes but living in a self-imposed cage isn't much fun either. You know that it's time to move on, and you wish that you knew how.
You would like to develop close relationships with people who are connected, warm, sensuous, secure in themselves, joyful, beautiful, and loving. And you would like to avoid interactions with people who leave you feeling embarrassed, ashamed, humiliated, rejected, or betrayed.
You would like to be able to command attention effortlessly in social/work situations and enjoy talking to a wide variety of people without worrying constantly about the impression you are making upon them.
You are feeling pretty hopeless about some aspects of your life. You don't want to feel like this, you want to feel able to dream again and believe that things can turn out well for you. You would like someone or something to spark you up again!
-
The Slippery Slope: Book the Tenth (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
Lemony Snicket lovers, it's unfortunate, but it's true: Book the Tenth is here, and it's as chillingly cheerless as ever! Picking up where Book the Ninth left off, Violet and Klaus are stuck in the rolling caravan and are desperate to rescue their sister, Sunny. Thankfully, they roll to safety by the skin of their sad teeth, but little do they realize that their trek into the Mortmain Mountains will bring them face to face with a horde of stinging snow gnats, a group of bizarre snow scouts, and eventually Count Olaf himself. But Snicket's installment isn't as hopeless as it may sound -- there are many juicy hints inside as to the mystery of V.F.D., the fate of the Baudelaire parents, and even how Snicket himself fits into the whole series. The slippery author's tenth entry includes surprises at every turn -- particularly when a long-forgotten character turns up -- and fans will be aching to find out what happens next in this alpine-themed cliff-hanger that's an important piece of Snicket's puzzle. -
Currently Reading:
The Carnivorous Carnival: Book the Ninth (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
For fans of that slippery author Lemony Snicket, Book the Ninth is here, and it's completely (but wonderfully) dreadful.
When the Baudelaire Orphans finally make it out of Count Olaf's car trunk (from Book the Eighth), they wind up at the horribly perilous Caligari Carnival. Trying to avoid capture but desperate to find out more information about a possible surviving parent, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny pose as circus freaks, only to be humiliated in front of visitors and pushed to the brink of consumption by lions. Fortunately, though, the three discover a few surprises about fortune-telling Madame Lulu, who offers a faint clue about V.F.D. and even the Snicket family itself.
Snicket fans will be in Ninth Heaven. Again, it's a sad state of affairs for the Baudelaires, but there are some fascinating morsels of hope, plus a few small surprises that might help link it all together. With riveting suspense, wicked intentions, and gullible freaks, The Carnivorous Carnival is definitely an installment that can't be missed.
-
The Hostile Hospital: Book the Eighth (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
The unluckiest children in the world face their toughest challenges yet in The Hostile Hospital, the eighth book in Lemony Snicket's delightfully disastrous tales, A Series of Unfortunate Events. The three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, began their string of bad luck when they were orphaned in a house fire. Ever since, they have been forced to move from one disastrous guardian situation to another, trailed the whole way by their greedy relative, Count Olaf, who always has yet another diabolical scheme to get his hands on their fortune.
At the end of the preceding book, The Vile Village, the children found themselves branded as murderers and on the run. Now, desperate to escape, they use the only opportunity they can find, hiding themselves amidst a group of bizarrely happy hospital volunteers whose initials -- V.F.D.: Volunteers for Fighting Disease -- will be familiar to readers of previous adventures. As a result, the children land smack in the middle of a strange hospital that is hardly made for healing. It comes as no surprise that Olaf manages to finagle his way into the facility, wearing a costume that hides his trademark eye-shaped tattoo and singular eyebrow -- a disguise that fools everyone except the children. And now that he's realized he only needs one of the Baudelaire children alive, Olaf's scheme is more heinous than ever. He intends to perform a cranioectomy (a term which here means getting her head sawed off) on Violet. Somehow Sunny and Klaus must save her, but with luck like theirs, it won't be easy.
The level of violence (though generally only implied) seems to mount with each installment of this unique series, but so does the absurdity and humor, making these woeful tales seem safely farcical. Not since the Brothers Grimm has misery been this much fun.
-
The Vile Village: Book the Seventh (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
Misery loves company. If you doubt the truth behind this aphorism, just delve into Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, which follows the hair-raising adventures of the unlucky Baudelaire orphans. In the seventh book in this series, The Vile Village, the beleaguered Baudelaires are branded as murderers, as they strive to survive and rescue their kidnapped friends, the two surviving Quagmire triplets.
After crossing miles of flat, desolate land, the Baudelaires end up in a village that is led by a tribal council of elders and governed by thousands of crows, who fly back and forth from one end of the town to the other. Forced to perform all the village chores, the children soon come across evidence that their friends, the Quagmires, are being hidden somewhere in town. Violet's inventing skills and Klaus's recall of all he has read will be put to their greatest tests yet, as they solve the puzzles hidden in a series of mysterious communications from the Quagmires. And little Sunny, whose vocabulary is growing along with the sharpness of her teeth, plays a more pivotal role than ever before.
The village becomes even more ominous when the children learn of its bazillion rules -- the breaking of any of which is punished by being burned at the stake. When a man believed to be Olaf is found murdered, the Baudelaire children are fingered for the crime and imprisoned. When Count Olaf appears in yet another of his adult-fooling disguises and informs the children that he has come to realize he only needs one of them alive to carry out his plans for stealing their family fortune, the future looks grim indeed. The children must use their wits and God-given talents to escape, and given what we know about their abominable luck, it's a given that getting out of one scrape merely means getting into another. Lucky for us that the Baudelaires are so unlucky.
-
The Ersatz Elevator (Series of Unfortunate Events Series #6)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
ABOUT THE BOOK
The Ersatz Elevator (Series of Unfortunate Events Series #6)
The perils of the Baudelaire children continue unabated in The Ersatz Elevator, Book Six in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. These delightfully doomed siblings -- whose string of horrible luck began with a house fire that destroyed their belongings and left them orphaned -- continue their efforts to escape the clutches of their determinedly greedy and dastardly relative, Count Olaf.
After working their way through several potential guardians and surviving a boarding school debacle, the Baudelaire orphans -- 14-year-old Violet, 12-year-old Klaus, and baby Sunny -- are adopted by a wealthy couple who take them on primarily because orphans are currently considered "in" in a world that is highly subject to the dictates of fashion. When the children discover that their new guardians live in the penthouse suite at 667 Dark Avenue, they think maybe their luck is finally changing. But then they discover that the 71-bedroom apartment is on either the 48th or 84th floor, and because elevators aren't currently "in," they must climb the stairs to get there.
Then there's their new guardian, Esme Squalor, the city's sixth most important financial adviser and a cold, haughty woman whose primary concern is staying in vogue. Her husband, Jerome, is kindhearted and caring, but his determination to avoid an argument makes him a poor ally for the children. And of course there's yet another visit from the dreaded Count Olaf and his gang of cronies, who kidnapped the Baudelaire's only friends, the two Quagmire triplets, in the last book.
The humor in these tales is sly and dark and the action occasionally violent, but the slapstick silliness helps to keep the events safely nonthreatening. This time out, the fun factor is heightened by the addition of some puzzle-solving elements, as well as a few more hints about the author's life and the fate of the mysterious Beatrice. (Beth Amos)
-
The Austere Academy: Book the Fifth (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
Lemony Snicket, Brett Helquist (Illustrator)
The Austere Academy: Book the Fifth (A Series of Unfortunate Events)
For the calamitous Baudelaire orphans, bad luck is the only luck they know. And fortunately for young readers, a mysterious writer named Lemony Snicket is determined to share with everyone just how bad that luck can be. New perils lurk in The Austere Academy, the fifth book in the collection known as A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Since they've already gone through several potential caregivers with disastrous results, Violet, Klaus, and baby Sunny are now being sent to the Prufrock Preparatory School, where they will meet some of the most boring and tedious teachers to be found anywhere. First there's vice principal Nero, whose two loves in life are playing the violin (though he is excruciatingly bad) and mimicking what others say. Klaus's teacher, Mrs. Bass, is fixated on measuring things, while Violet's teacher, Mr. Remora, tells boring stories and then tests his students on the details. Baby Sunny, who is too young for school, is instead put to work as Nero's administrative assistant.
The teachers aren't the only problem. None of the students are very friendly, and the cottage the children are assigned to is infested with toe-pinching crabs and a drippy ceiling fungus. But the Baudelaires do manage to make two new friends: the Quagmire Triplets, fellow orphans who are actually only twins at this point since one of the siblings died. Of course, life for the Baudelaires wouldn't be complete without the devious machinations of Count Olaf, who shows up disguised as a gym teacher. His scheme this time, which involves a rigorous workout called S.O.R.E., is far subtler than his past efforts. And by the time Violet, Klaus, and Sunny figure it out, their newfound friends will be added to Olaf's list of victims.
As in prior books, there are several intriguing references to the narrator's life, including more details regarding the death of Beatrice, to whom each book thus far has been bluntly, but amusingly dedicated. These books are written for kids aged nine and up, but the sly humor leads to some adult fun as well. (Beth Amos)
Recent Comments