Tuesdays with Morrie

Time: 9:05pm
Mood: Tired as hell
Song of the moment: Travis - Flowers in the Window

So today I was sitting in the lab conducting experiments, and since these experiments required me to put in a sample and wait 5 min for the analysis, I was pretty much sitting bored. So I decided to pick myself up a book from the bookstore during my long awaited lunchbreak (I took lunch at 2).

I had no idea which book to get. So I browsed through the bestsellers sections because I figure, you can't go wrong with a bestseller. Most of the books were hard cover and were a bit too rich for my blood for a spur-of-the-moment book. I opted for a soft cover, cheap yet interesting looking book: Tuesdays with Morrie. It's by Mitch Albom, who's also the author of The Five People You Meet In Heaven, a book I really want to read. The only thing I've heard of about this book was that it was good.. I had no idea what it was about. I quickly bought the book and went back to the lab.

In the lab, I sat down and finally read the back, which was full of reviews and I began to realized the topic of this book was about death. I kind of froze. I have this slight fear of death, and I began to wonder if I had chosen a book that I'm not willing to read. But hell, it was better than reading the textbook on Clay Nanocomposites that I had brought into the lab with me. So I began to read it. And let me tell you.. what a great book. I'm completely hooked. It's a story about a professor, who is dying from Lou Gehrig's disease, and his reflections on life as he approaches his last days. It's interesting to see how death, whether you're near it or someone you love is near it, changes your whole perspective on life. One particular quote I find is pretty much a summary of the whole book, a point that is repeated throughout the book is this: "Once you learn how to die, you learn how to live". This book makes you look at things in a whole different light. I'm not quite done the book yet, but I'm pretty sure by the end of this evening I would have read the book, cover to cover. Truely a remarkable book... makes you remember the important things in life.

On a side note: Happy Birthday Jehnan! We'll see each other before the year is up ;)