Quick Update for Week 18 of 2010

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I don’t have much time to blog the following weeks. What I’m going to do is give a few quick updates every week or so. These updates will probably be a bit more personal than my personal development posts. Here’s a quick update for week 18 of 2010 (05/03 – 05/09).

Tragic News

Let’s start with the tragic news this week. I visited my grandmother last night in the hospital. She was diagnosed with acute leukemia last summer and it’s a wonder she has held on for so long. But now it seems that it is coming to an end. She was getting new blood every 4 weeks, because there is too little oxygen in her own blood. Then it became every 2 weeks. Last week she got a new supply of blood, but only a few days later she was extremely tired again. They took her into the hospital and there it became clear that new blood will not help her anymore. Now we will just have to see how long she can go on without new blood. When I visited her last night, she was quite cheerful and talkative. This might have been the last time I have seen her. That makes me really sad. My grandmother is someone I almost take for granted. She has been a part of my life as long as I can remember and although I didn’t see her all that often, I knew she was there. But I’m glad I have seen her last night, while she is still the grandmother I know and love.

DVDs

Now for some other updates. I received a couple of new DVDs in the mail this week. Finally the Raw Food DVDs arrived. I’ve told you about Simply Raw before (click here for the blog post). Haven’t watched them yet, but will do so soon.

Another DVD that came in this week is Leap! The Movie. I heard about this one from Joe Vitale, who is in this movie/documentary. It’s in the same vein as The Secret and What the Bleep! and features experts and authors like Dan Millman, Joe Vitale and Gary Renard. The idea is that reality is just an illusion and if you can look beyond the illusion, you can make I giant leap forwards. I have watched the first hour or so and it’s full of great insights and inspiring quotes. I will write a separate blog post about my experience with this movie in a few weeks time. In the meantime you can watch the trailer below or, if you can’t wait for my full review, order the DVD here.

Books

My favorite books have already been listed in the following blogs posts: my favorite personal development books and fiction. But I still keep on reading new books of course. In these weekly updates I want to share with you the books I’m reading (fiction and personal development). Here are the books I’ve been reading this week:

• The Road by Cormac McCarthy – this post-apocalyptic novel by the author of No Country for Old Men is probably the most depressing book I’ve read, ever. But it was a great read nonetheless. The book has now been turned into a movie, starring Viggo Mortensen (IMDb). I will probably watch it a few months or years from now. In my experience the movie doesn’t get better if you watch it just after you’ve read the book. The book is too fresh in your memory and you are only spotting differences between the book and the movie script.
• Long Lost by Harlan Coben – this was yet again a book by Coben that I could not put away. A real pageturner with the familiar characters Myron Bolitar and Win.
• Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner  - somewhat similar to the books by Malcolm Gladwell, so full of interesting facts and constantly questioning conventional wisdom. Always fun to read. I’m looking for similar books and will probably write a blog post with a list of these books.
• Healthy at 100 by John Robbins – haven’t finished this book yet, but the first chapters look really promising. This book by the author of The Food Revolution is not only about reaching the age of 100, but also being healthy when you reach that age.

Berlin

In the introduction of this blog post I already mentioned that I will not have much time to blog the following weeks. One of the reasons is that on Thursday (Ascension Day) we will be taking the train to Berlin for a short 4-day vacation. I have never been to Berlin before, but several friends have told me how great this city is. Laura had already looked for vegan restaurants in Berlin and found a YouTube video from PETA.

This ends the, maybe not so quick, update for this week. You will hear from me again in about a week. If you want to keep up to date, you can follow me on Twitter.

Take care,

Gerber

Related posts:

1. Quick Update for Week 19 of 2010
2. My Favorite Books (Fiction)