Run Between the Raindrops

What is most amazing to me is the way that--seemingly--all the good titles for novels have been taken up by usually crappy books. One example is the novel that I am reading now. Mind you, I am re-reading it because it was one of the few books I actually read in high school, but it is definitely not a classic of the 20th Century literary canon. Another example: "The Sum of All Fears." A great title "wasted" on a beach novel. So, I am being opinionated today, I am sorry. Perhaps I should stick to the book. The Marines just entered Hue City in the story and casualties are mounting. What is most difficult for me is reading the narrative style Dale Dye employs. There are a lot of fragment sentences one after another. I guess he tries to capture spoken dialogue even when its just the narrator's mental meandering. Here's an example: "Staring through the mist at a pristine field of grass. Some two hundred yards from the railroad bridge that connected the two sides of the city. Grass field formed a well-manicured flank for one of Hue's most popular war attractions. Cercle Sportif. Laid out in concentric circles. Remnants of French colonial days. Picturesque fountain located at its center." And so forth and on. :-) There are some really gruesome scenes that are well written and make a clear picture in the reader's mind. They go to collect recon on a television station that fell on enemy hands. There they look for the remains of a soldier they knew. And find him they did... executed and decomposed, etc. Too terrible for details so please don't mind me changing the topic.

Today I finally learned how to create form pages on html to collect information on my course website. So now I can give students online examinations. I struggled to understand how to do this for a while, so I do feel like I accomplished a great deal. Tomorrow is the last day of final examinations. Thursday is the beginning of the new semester. Cheers.