"A Farewell to Arms"
-- by Ernest Hemingway
The only Hemingway book I had read until now was "Old Man and the Sea". Hemingway's dry, direct, terse style was on full display when I read the book back in 8th grade, but I never realized how powerful this style would be when used to narrate a tragedy. The inside cover for "A Farewell to Arms" calls the book "The most important novel to come out of World War I" with good reason. Reading through Hemingway's raw and very real portrait of the ecstacy and agony of a brutal and relentless war and the momentary respite from its grip was in simple terms, horrifying. The book is fiction, yet has an unmistakeable feeling of reality to it. The 'reality' of the book made me recognize my fortune of being born in an era of minimal combat exposure for the citizens of the developed world. At the same time, it helped remind me through my own senses and own imagination that warfare of any kind is pointless and horrifying for the individual soldier.
Current record: 4/4 weeks, 9 books
2. Write at least one (meaningful) blog post per week
No blogs written. I think everything starts with diligently sleeping early. It's the start to the day before the start of the day. This might not be the case for everyone, but at least for me, everything breaks down without an early bedtime. It's as if nothing has changed in the last 20 years.
Current record: 3/4 weeks.
3. Sleep before midnight
4 out of 7 days. I was sick for a few days and my sleep pattern was knocked off track as a result.
Current record: 28/32 days.
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edit: oops this should be update #4.
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