facing your giants

When I read this book's excerpt on Max Lucado's site, I thought "Who on earth can write a whole book about that battle between David and Goliath?" That battle, however famous, cannot fill a whole book.

... Or can it?

But turns out there were other giants beside Goliath David had to face! Want to know who they are? Read the book! ;)

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judge and jury

So I was doing this translation job for a friend. Judge and Jury by James Patterson. As I stepped into higher chapters I realized why this novel hasn't been translated into Indonesian language yet. It is because inside there are a lot of idioms we are not familiar with.

For example poker. There are hole cards, ante, fold, raise, chip, pot, flush, low pairs, etc. Crime: union tampering, mistrial. Chess: opening, pawn break, etc. How am I supposed to translate all of them, making my readers who are not familiar with poker or chess or American justice system understand what's going on in the novel?

In the end I didn't translate most of those words but did add some explanation in other sentences... I feel bad... What should a translator do in such case?

Anyway, the story is about mafia in New York. First time I received it from the customer I was always on my toes until I finished reading it. If you have time you should read it. It put me on suspense!

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toenails

Clipping my toenails feels good... My toes feel lighter and cooler afterwards. It's a pity I cannot do it more often, as toenails grow much slower than nails on my hands.

I believe there is an explanation of that difference of growth speed, maybe in books like Why Do Men Have Nipples? - Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask A Doctor After Your Third Martini. Those books' popularity proves that our people have high curiosity over trivial things, to the point that they are willing to pay a price for it.

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how to be a man

This morning I read a comic book titled 'How to be a Man'. A 17 years old girl has a love interest who is 7 years younger than her. Eventually they dated each other.

The author said: "If I write a story with common theme, it will be too easy for the readers to guess where the story goes." He also said, "... I don't want you to become such person that read a book because everybody is reading that book, or watch a movie because everyone else has watched it..."

Okay, but the boy is an elementary school student, do you really need to write such a story?

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the good guy

I always want to do things without people humming behind me, uttering how stupid my decisions are, how I should do other things instead of this silly little thing nobody would do.

I am always a reader. I want to read all books in the world. And when I watched The Good Guy, something inside me rebelled. This movie tells about a book club whose members are reading Lolita.

I know about Lolita. I have wanted so desperately to read it, but I declined and declined because it's an immoral story. Or so I'm told.

I will believe it no longer. Too many people open their mouth for things they don't know, or in this case, have passion about.

So... On the right side of this blog, I put a list of books i want to read. By any chance you live near me and have those books, be kind and tell me OK! I'll borrow them..

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