BEDA

Well hello there. Happy April! So as some of you may know, this month is BEDA/VEDA month. In case you don't know what that means, let me inform you :)

BEDA: Blog Every Day in April
VEDA: Vlog Every Day in April

You're now informed. I've decided to take part in the BEDA challenge this year. I thought about trying to vlog every day and actually put something meaningful on my youtube channel, but I'm still having a lot of trouble learning to use iMovie (I know I'm stupid) and besides that, I honestly don't think I have the time. I mean, I'm not even sure I have the time to sit down and make sure I write a blog post every single day for an entire month. So as they say, I'm taking baby steps. I have decided however that I am going to work on my video making and video editing skills this summer, so maybe my channel will be watchable come Fall. We'll see.

Today is a pretty exciting day for me. Not only am I taking on this challenge, but it's also my first official weekend off from work. Well I guess I'm not really off. Instead, I'm officially a jobless college student. YIPPIE! Long story short, I was working at a restaurant in the town next to where I go to school and I absolutely hated it. I worked all weekend every weekend and it was starting to affect my schoolwork so right before Spring Break I quit.

So today was the first Friday that I didn't have to rush off to work right after class. So you know what I did with my day? Well first I went back to my room and called my mom to see how my sister is doing (she's been very sick this week), then I went over to the Student Union to hang out with some friends. Now, unfortunately, it's raining today, so I couldn't really just sit outside and enjoy life, so instead I came back to my room and sat down and finished my book. Which was very good by the way.

I then decided that I should probably go grab some dinner, so I stopped over at the dining hall to grab some food and then came back to my room to watch some Doctor Who and youtube videos.

In short, I relaxed. I got to do absolutely nothing and I loved it. I know it seems odd that I wanted to spend my first night off alone, but sometimes it's just necessary to get that alone time. It's really hard to constantly be running around and never have time for yourself, so even though my night may have been more eventful if I was hanging out with friends, it wouldn't have been the relaxation that I needed. I have to say it's been a pretty successful day.

Now honestly, if I do blog every day, it's probably not going to be all that exciting all the time. But there are some exciting things happening this month that I will make sure to write about. Sunday is this thing called STARS conference, which is a conference held on my campus for all the Hall Governments and it's going to be a ton of fun. I might even switch it up and post some pictures on here of the conference. Next weekend is Relay for Life...another exciting event. And the weekend after that I'll be visiting my family in Pennsylvania for a few days and hopefully we'll get to do some sight-seeing (which was supposed to happen last year) and I definitely need to take pictures of that. And then, if I'm lucky, at the end of the month Katherine and I (and maybe some of my other chapter members) will be going down to Brooklyn to help set up a library that The HPA is helping to build.

All in all, it should be a very exciting and eventful month. I hope that I'll be able to document it with words and pictures and maybe actually have something interesting on here. We'll see. :)

As a side note, I finished two books for the DAC, but I haven't written the reviews yet. Those two reviews are probably going to go up as part of this BEDA challenge, so I won't just be ranting about something random every day. I'll try and get those posted over the next few days.

Wish me luck and if your participating in either challenge this month then good luck! May the force be with you!

:)

How I'm Spending Spring Break

This week is Spring Break (woot woot!) so I'm back at home for the week. It's been really nice to be home, especially because I've gotten to spend so much time with my mom. However, I still had to bring home schoolwork...in fact I had to bring home a lot more schoolwork then I was originally planning to. See I was supposed to take all of my midterms and quizzes and such before spring break, but that didn't work out because professors got sick and things are the syllabus got changed last minute, so I had to bring home a bunch of crap to study. On top of that, because I was so behind in almost everything last week, I brought home all of that work to do too so that I could go back to school at least somewhat caught up.

Right now my big downer is this paper that I have to write for my English Lit class. It really wouldn't be too bad except for the fact that 1)I didn't too amazing on the last paper, 2)I was supposed to bring the professor an outline before spring break so she could help me, and 3)I missed the class where we did a close analysis of one of the poem's I have to write about and therefore don't know what points she thought were important.

Oops. So now I'm sitting here in the library at UNLV attempting to write a paper that I really have no idea how to write. I have absolutely no motivation to do this and can think of a billion things I'd rather be doing at this very moment. Which is in fact why I am writing this blog post. I also have to go put more quarters in the meter soon or else my car will get towed. That's not too great since I don't want to leave my stuff in this library and I have to be back here by 4:00pm to meet up with Karina (yay for best friends!).

I just realized that last sentence really had no flow and made no sense, but that's ok. At least I can recognize my horrible writing mistakes. Before I waste anymore time sitting in this library, I think I better get off the internet and actually accomplish something. Sadly I can only spend 2 more hours here before I have to get the car back home so I might as well take advantage it and get some work done.

Wish me luck and enjoy the lovely spring! :)

2011 Debuet Author Challenge UPDATE

So I recently went over the book list for the 2011 DAC and I pretty much changed my entire list. So here is a new, updated version of the books I'm planning to read (note: a lot of these have already come out but I haven't had the time to read them yet)

1)The Water Wars by Cameron Stracher
2)Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (already read)
3)XVI by Julia Karr
4)The Latte Rebellion by Sarah Jamila Stevenson
5)Warped by Maurissa Guibord
6)Those that Wake by Jesse Karp
7)In the Arms of Stone Angels by Jordan Dane
8)Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
9)Hourglass by Myra McEntire
10)Stracrossed by Josephine Angelini
11)Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari
12)Hereafter by Tara Hudson

Rant about School

It's official. I'm too busy to blog. What the heck? I don't know how this happened but it did. So where am I blogging to you from today? Well, I'm in front of the sandwich shop in my university's student union waiting for DA peeps to show up so we can eat dinner before we meet for the first time IN THE LAST THREE WEEKS OMG. That's right. It's happening tonight. We are meeting. FINALLY.

So why am I sitting in front of the sandwich shop you might ask? Nahh. I'm not going to answer that. It's a secret. Anyway...

Today's blog entry is going to be all about the fact that I HATE MY CLASSES THIS SEMESTER. Sorry. Lots of capitals for no reason. But it's true. The only classes I like this semester are French (which I hate half the time because of the workload) and English Lit II. That's it. My other three classes are torture and I'm at the point where I have to literally force myself to go each day. That's a horrible sign considering we are only in the 6th week of classes.

The sad thing is, I signed up for subjects that are interesting, but are just being taught by horrible professors. One ignores questions, another is just creepy, and another doesn't teach but stands in front of the class and blabs about all the work she's done over the years.

The point is, school is just uninteresting and unmotivating for me at the moment. And the workload is ridiculous. I'm pretty sure I haven't gone to bed before 2:00am in the last 2 weeks due to the insane amount of homework I have. I'm almost positive I did not have this much work last semester. I mean we aren't even at midterms yet.

Well that's enough ranting for the day.

I would say that I'll try to update soon, but that require having time to sit down and actually write a blog that means something.

Until next time. :)

Long Time, No Talk

I know I haven't blogged in a really really long time. I apologize. Life has been crazy. We just finished up the third week of the semester and already there is so much going on that I can barely keep track. But tonight's blog is not about that. Tonight's blog is honestly a rant, so if that's not your kind of thing, you should probably stop reading. There's just an issue that's really been bothering me and I need to get it out. So here it goes.

I'm starting to get really frustrated with some of my friends. I mean, usually you know you have real friends when they help you out in certain situations where most people would just be like, whatever. But these couple of people have just been ridiculous. And rude. Mostly rude, which is why I'm so frustrated. Not that this is complete news to me. I guess I've started to notice over the last few months. But I'm starting to realize more and more that this isn't just a phase. This is who they are. Which is making me really not want to hang out with them anymore.

Obviously, that's my choice to make. And it's a crappy one. No one wants to realize that their friends are turning into not cool people. It's sad. I don't want to lose those friendships because we've had some really great times together. But I'm also starting to lose a lot of respect for them. It's disappointing. But people change and that's just the way it is. That's life. And as they say, there are some who just pass through our life and some who stay forever. And at least I'm lucky enough to have some friends that I know will last forever.

theendthanksforreading. :)

Quick Update on Book List for 2011 DAC

So here's the updated list of books that I'm reading for the 2011 Debut Author Challenge. I changed it just a tad.

1)Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (already read)
2)Timeless by Alexandria Moir
3)Those That Wake by Jesse Karp
4)Ten Miles Past Normal by Frances O'Roark Dowell
5)Awaken by Katie Kacvinsky
6)Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari
7)Forgotten by Cat Patrick
8)Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard
9)Vicious Little Darlings by Katherine Easer
10)Lost Voices by Sarah Porter
11)Falling for Hamlet by Michelle Ray
12)Bestest. Ramadan. Ever. by Medeia Sharif

If you haven't already checked out my review for Unearthly, its the blog post right before this. It's my first book review so if I totally sucked at it please feel free to leave me suggestions. :)

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand (Review for 2011 DAC)

Unearthly tells the story of Clara Gardner, an angel-blood, who has been put on Earth to fulfill her purpose…her destiny. She struggles with trying to figure out her purpose while trying to live a normal teenage life, or at least as normal as she can.

I have to admit I loved this book from the moment I saw the word Nephilim from the quote right before the beginning of the book. I’ve recently become obsessed with Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments and even though this story has a totally different take on angels, it still made me excited.

There are two things I really loved about this book. I liked the idea of Clara having to find her purpose in life because I think about that a lot. It makes you wonder about your own life and questions whether or not we truly have a destiny or if we decide our own fates. But this question isn’t too heavy to the point where it’s overwhelming.

Secondly, I loved Tucker, one of Clara’s love interests. This is probably because he is exactly the kind of guy I would go for. I love their silly banter and their constant need to “hate on each other” but not really hating at all. The verbal teasing is hilarious.

As soon as I finished the book, I literally ran to my laptop to check Cynthia Hand’s website. I said to my friend Ben, who was waiting for me to go apartment hunting with him… “If there is no sequel to this book, I’m going to die.” A few minutes later… “Oh thank goodness. There’s a sequel. Phew!”

You know it’s a good book if it keeps you wanting more at the end. ☺