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The year in review, part II: best reads

This year was not a great year for books and movies. However, thanks to Good*reads, I have a great list of what I thought of all the books I read. Here are all the books I rated 4.5 stars or higher:

1.) The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (5 stars)
2.) Main Street Sinclair Lewis
3.) James Herriot's Dog Stories (5 stars)
4.) Unaccustomed Earth Jhumpa Lahiri
5.) All Creatures Great and Small James Herriot (5 stars)
6.) East of the Mountains David Guterson
7.) A Long Way Gone Ishmael Beah
8.) The Last Town on Earth Thomas Mullen
9.) Sub 4:00 Chris Lear
10.) A Thousand Splendid Suns Khaled Hosseni
11.) Alias Grace Margaret Atwood
12.) The English Patient Michael Ondaatje (5 stars)
13.) The Omnivore's Dilemma Michael Pollan (5 stars)

10:04 a.m. - Dec. 31, 2008

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the year in review, part I

Last year, I made the following resolutions:

1.) Run half marathon and beat my previous time (1:51)

I ran the half marathon, but I didn't beat my time. However, I ran 1:52 on a tough course on a windy day, so I'm not that disappointed. Without the goal of beating my time, I would have run slower. Still, I'm a bit disappointed.

2.) Break 21:30 in the 5K

Another failure. However, I did run a "Seat*tle PR" of 22:45 (beating my old Seat*tle PR of 22:57).

3.) Run at least 20 miles every month

Check.

4.) No more soda, except on planes or if socially necessary

Check. I only drank soda on planes (ginger ale), and occasionally had a sip from B's glass if I had nothing else to drink.

5.) Keep fast food to bare minimum (no more than 2x per month?

I'm not sure if I did this or not. I probably had fast food 2 to 4x per month, but I didn't keep track so it may have been less or more.

6.) Cut down on processed foods and eat more healthy stuff

I did drastically cut down on processed foods and paid a lot more attention to what I ate, so I'll give myself a pass on this one.

7.) Decide if I want to stay where I am and take action if not! Take concrete action to consider alternatives to aerospace.

Failure. I made some half-hearted efforts in this direction, but didn't really fulfill the spirit of this resolution.

8.) Take a real vacation

Failure, basically. I took lots of fun short vacations, but didn't do a "real" (week + 2 weekends or longer) vacation. Kind of pathetic.

9.) Stop biting my nails

Woo hoo! After biting my nails for more than half my life, I finally managed to stop doing it with the aid of some really foul tasting polish.

I give myself a 5.5/9 for my resolutions. Not too bad, but could be better.

10:03 a.m. - Dec. 31, 2008