I'M LATE,I'M SORRY! (:P)

GEMINI AUGUST HOROSCOPE BY SUSAN MILLER

You'll be in a highly social mood, ready to meet and greet others, but there will be obstacles to fun and love, particularly during the first half of August. Don't try too hard, for if you do, your frustrations will multiply. It might be better to beg off social obligations and new opportunities to meet potential romantic partners in the first two weeks.


Venus and Mars, now in Libra, will light your fifth house of love, a lovely place for these two romantic planets to be - but heavy-duty Saturn will be in that house too, in close proximity. Saturn could, unfortunately, spoil the pudding. Saturn wants you to work, not play, and will make conditions difficult until you cave in to work-related demands and pare down your social schedule. Worse, with Uranus stirring the pot too, you may have confrontations with friends, or a serious disagreement with one. Alas, sometimes life is that way. Be cheerful though, for your love life will go far easier in the second half of August, so you won't miss too much.


Do your best to make plans to travel to a new setting before summer slips away. The new moon August 9 will allow you to find the ideal location that offers a chic experience but is also affordable luxury. The fact that Neptune will be prominent suggests a locale near water would be ideal, and being there will inspire your creative side, too. You may even get an invitation from a wealthy friend to spend time at her cottage - accept!


This month, travel really does bring you all sorts of fortunate possibilities in addition to the chance to wind down. Mercury will be retrograde from August 20 to September 12, and because this planet is your ruler, you won't find anything too pressing going on at home, so you can safely duck out.


Your career will get a mighty boost from Uranus' move back to Pisces on August 14 though January 22 - this is fantastic news, for it means your work will come to light and be appreciated. Uranus is soon to link to good fortune Jupiter, a lovely cosmic coincidence that will certainly raise your profile.


Yet you won't have to wait until Jupiter enters Pisces in September to see some exciting developments. This could happen at the full moon August 24, so plan to be back from your journeys then. Lots of pretty fireworks will light up your professional sector ruling reputation and applause, and you'll want to enjoy all the fuss about you that comes your way. You may be finishing up a long-term project or reaching the end of a negotiation for a new job that comes with great responsibility and power. Whatever occurs, you'll be ready to tell the world.


Neptune will be close to that full moon, so if you are in a creative field, you'll show the full range of your talents near that full moon August 24. Pluto, now in a financial house, will beam excellent support, so you are likely to be very pleased with the financial rewards that this full moon delivers too, most likely in terms of a bonus, fee, commission, court settlement, or other one-time chunk of cash. This full moon could easily mark a watershed moment in your career, so start now to make it a special moment by interviewing for a new job, going after publicity, or by taking another assertive, but judicious, risk.

'SAY YOU'RE ONE OF THEM'- ONLARDAN BIRI OLDUGUNU SOYLE Uwem Akpan

I have just finished reading that book. To be frank, it wasn't 'the book of my life' (!)

I often get this feeling when I read best sellers. There must be something wrong with me,or the critics.. Simply... I didn't like it and hardly finished it..

BUT...... Of course,I will let you read some different reviews from Amazon..

By A. O. AKEMU


Before I bought Say You're One of Them, I had heard the hype about the book. It was supposed to the work of an original voice from Nigeria, a Catholic priest, who weaved stories of the continent's ills and grace, with the dexterity of a traditional basket maker. After reading the book, I am left wondering what all the hype was about.

To be sure, there are some good stories. I liked the eponymous short story, Say You're One of Them. It is told from the perspective of a ten-year old middle-class Rwandan girl, whose father is Hutu and mother Tutsi. The little girl notices her mother dressing up for an evening out--without her father. After mother disappears into the night, her paternal Hutu relatives storm the house looking for her mother. One of the assailants almost rapes the girl. In time, they discover that mother had dressed up only to hide in the ceiling. In the presence of the little girl, Hutu father is forced to kill his Tutsi wife--with one blow of a machete. The scene is thoroughly macabre. Finally, the little girl's life is spared. She is let out onto the streets with the admonition from her father, "if they [resumably the Hutu] ask who you are, say you are one of them".

However, I was disappointed with the longest story in the book, Luxurious Hearses (a play on the word, Luxurious Bus, which, in Nigeria, connotes buses used to ferry passengers on long intercity trips). The story is about Jubril, a Muslim boy with an identity crisis. His mother is from the Muslim north of Nigeria and his father from the Christian South. Jubril, along with other passengers on the bus, is fleeing religious riots in northern Nigeria. On the bus, Jubril's parochial conception of the world is challenged by his experience of the kindness of southern Christian Nigerian strangers (mostly women, to Jubril's alarm). His trip is cut short when he reveals his religion: the passengers kill him by slitting his throat.

The author introduces various passengers into the bus to give multiple perspectives on Nigeria's toxic religious milieu: an animist chief, an atheist army captain, and a Roman Catholic market woman. This device is so transparent that I almost choked with disbelief. The characters are hopelessly one-dimensional; thoroughly unbelievable.

Jubril's village companions (almajiris) are the most unbelievable of them all. They are supposed to be barely literate, fundamentalist Muslims, yet they have a commanding grasp of regional politics and even articulate their grievances with Jubril in English and the local patois. As a Nigerian, who lived in northern Nigeria for six years, I think that Uwen Akpan stretches the English vocabulary of the almajiris. While they seethe with riotous religious zeal against the infidel, I find it difficult to see how they can be as articulate as Uwen Akpan portrays.

Say You're One of Them makes for interesting reading, but don't go away thinking that he has captured the 'compelling reality of Africa's children', as one reviewer put it. Such hyperbole is unjustified. I would recommend that you read and enjoy it for what it is: entertainment.



By Ms. Hilary Truscott "sista-h" (london)

This book is a collection of stories all written from the point of view of a child-whatever happens in these stories is seen ,witnessed experienced from total innocence and it is shocking emotional and yet hopefull too.It made me think how children experience all kinds of situations from a purely innocent perspective and it is the adults in the world who inflict such horrendous experiences on them -for what?- greed- power-self gratification-.Just because the events in these stories take place in Africa does not mean that we in the west are somehow exempt from this or that this only happens 'over there'--we have similar horrendous things that the youth here go through too i.e sexual physical and emotional abuse glue sniffing drug taking alchoholism etc.etc. The writing is honest and this book will open your heart and hopefully enable us all to see that we all need to treat each other with more love and respect and we must care for all the children in our lives with respect, honour and dignity and LOVE .Read this book -it will change you!!!!!!!

IN SUMMER THE SONG SINGS ITSELF...

HOLIDAY !

Hi All,

Don't you worry.. I'm not dead.. I was just on holiday.. (I still am though) So, here's what I did during the 'Çeşme' part of my holiday...

ON HOLIDAY.. Where I've been..

ÇEŞME.. ÇEŞME.. ÇEŞME... My favorite place,the place where I want to live for the rest of my life... I spent my holiday with my family at my husband's family's summerhome.. Our summerhome is in Ildırı,Çeşme.

Ildiri, a quiet seaside village 20 km. northeast of Cesme, was ancient Erythrai. Those who climb up to the Acropolis at dusk are rewarded with beautiful views as the sun sinks over the bay and islands.

Çeşme lies (~ 80 Km) west of Izmir on Turkey's Aegean coast, it is within easy reach of Izmir or Adnan Mendres International Airport (via a modern 6 lane highway) and can also be reached by ferry from the Italian port of Brindisi, or the Greek Island of Chios (in Turkish called Sakiz) The name Çeşme (“Cheshme” derived from the Turkish word for Fountain) has always been a popular summer resort for the residents of nearby Izmir and over recent years the “secrets” of Çeşme have been discovered by an ever growing number of European tourists. The region is a combination of rich agricultural land enclosing unspoiled turquoise bays with beaches of fine white sand and (as its name suggests) natural hot water springs.

ON HOLIDAY.. WHAT I'VE READ..

My holiday book was 'A Fraction of the Whole' . It was a beautifully written novel which takes you to one place from another like a squash ball. I loved it..

Let's have a look at some other comments from Google;

A Fraction of the Whole is narrated by Jasper Dean who is telling the story of his father, Martin, and his uncle, Terry. Their stories begin in Australia, where Martin was in a coma for four years as a boy and remembered every word read to him while comatose, and Terry was a criminal who achieved folk hero status for taking his revenge on a bribe-taking cricket team. Martin and Terry longed for the same woman, and as Martin became obsessed with rising above his brother's shadow. Martin's inspired lunacy led Jasper and him to different parts of the world as each of his schemes led through unexpected twists and turns to become another adventure where Martin was determined to impart all of his offbeat wisdom to his son. Steve Toltz's debut novel has received positive reviews with the Seattle Times saying, "The real pleasure in reading this book is the pace and the language. While there is a narrative thread, what Toltz has done masterfully is have his way with every aspect of modern life. He racks 'em up and knocks 'em down with a laser wit, a fine turn of phrase and a devastatingly funny outlook on everything human."