First KNIFE review (from a complete stranger, that is)!

Imagine my delight when Google Alerts brought me this present:

hackwriters.com - Knife by R J Anderson - Reviewed by Sam North

*glee*

(Now I can remind myself of this when I get my first negative review from a stranger and tumble head-first into the Slough of Despond.)

"The central characters rock like a rocky thing."

OMG BOOKBAG.CO.UK REVIEW OF KNIFE.

They got it. They totally got it. Everything I was trying to do. I feel like kissing everybody in the British Isles right now.

Year-End Miscellany

First, my brother just sent me a link to this article in the Times Online by an atheist reflecting on the place Christianity has in Africa, and as the daughter of a former missionary to Uganda (and also since I've been researching African missionary work for Wayfarer), I found it very interesting.

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Second, and I can't believe I almost forgot to blog this, I discovered something about my oldest son yesterday. He'd been insisting for months that Grade 3 (which he's in right now) wasImage via Wikipedia "a girl's grade". I thought when he first said so that he was trying to disparage it and say that it was too easy, the way that little (and some not-so-little) boys contemptuously dismiss things that aren't interesting to them as "girly". I corrected him and told him that Grade 3 was harder than Grade 2, and he hadn't said that Grade 2 was a girl's grade, so what was he talking about? He looked at me like I was crazy and said, "Of course not. 2 is a boy."

Light began to dawn. I asked him to run through the numbers from 1 to 10 and tell me what gender they were. Without hesitation he told me that 1 and 2 were boys, 3 was a girl, 4 was a boy, and so on. Then I asked him, "What color is 8?" and he promptly replied, "Orange." 7 was blood red, 6 was beige, and 1 was a color he couldn't even describe and called "googleplexia" for lack of any better name.

Ladies and gentlemen, my oldest son is a synaesthete.

Not a very strong one, mind. We did the tests on the Synesthesia Battery and he only has color associations with a very few letters and musical notes (and some people's names). He has no taste associations, and sounds don't make him see shapes. It's mostly just that numbers have color and gender for him. But still, I am delighted.

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And finally, my best wishes to all my online friends for a peaceful, happy and successful 2009!