Lots & Lots of Summer Reading

 Timber!!

Yay!  Summertime!  I haven't been this excited since I was a kid for summer to be upon me.  Grad school is insane.  I'm not taking any summer classes because I don't need to and because it's too expensive.  So here I am working as much as I can, trying to reconnect with everyone I've been ignoring while in school (which is all my friends that I don't go to school with) and reading as many "fun" books (as opposed to required school reading) as I can.  It's absolutely wonderful.

Before I finished my spring quarter I did get to read a "fun" book at night before I went to bed.  It was really good, called "Sarah's Key" by Tatiana De Rosnay.  I gave it to my Mom to read too and she loved it as well.  She noticed a few weeks ago that they made a movie and that it's coming out in theatres in another week.  She's so excited about the movie, which is awesome because I want to see it to.  We'll go see it in the next few weeks, which should be a really fun afternoon.

As you can tell by the video above, I went to Tahoe for a mini vacation after finishing my first year.  Boy did I need a vacation!  It was so nice.  I guess some of the trees up there get a disease, I think from a beetle or bug or something.  Rather than it rotting, they cut them down, I think to ensure that they will not fall.  It was really riveting watching them cut down these trees.  I think I sat outside with my camera for over an hour watching them cut them down and then slice them.  Pretty amazing stuff.  Plus the guy cutting them down was training this other guy on how to do it, so I was enthralled listening to him tell the other guy how it's done.  There really is a science to it.

I also read my first Kindle book.  I bought my Kindle in November as I was getting annoyed with all my school readings.  I have trouble reading them on my laptop and was spending way too much money printing them, plus the bulk of all them printed was sooo much to carry around.  I splurged on myself and invested in a Kindle.  It's been an amazing piece of technology.  I put all of my school readings on it (for free!) and then can even highlight and make notes on it.  I found out that Lisa See has a new book entitled, "Dreams of Joy" (a sequel to "Shanghai Girls") and decided to buy it on my Kindle.  It is really cool to read a book on it.  And the book was really good.  You can tell that Lisa See does a lot of research before writing her books and this one was really amazing.  The story and characters are fiction, but the time and some of the events are historical.  She paints a picture of everything so beautifully that you can tell that she did her homework in order to make it as realistic as possible.

Then I read the "Hunger Games" trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Wow.  They were really great.  Apparently the movie is coming out next year with the girl from "Winter's Bone" as the main character.  I think the movies will be just as good as the books.  It was a great story.  A distopian post-apocalypse futuristic society.  A female teenager as the heroine.  Really great.

Now I'm on a kick of girly books.  I'm reading all 5 of the Emily Giffin books.  I have read "Something Borrowed" and it's sequel "Something Blue", which were really good.  Now I want to see that movie.  I just finished yesterday, "Baby Proof" and have started "Love the One you're With".  I have one more after that.  I still also have a bunch of books piled up to read, so I am in no need for more, but somehow I still keep adding to my pile and book list.

And I found out that the newest and latest Haruki Murakami book comes out on October 25.  I may have to pre-order that one as another gift to myself.  :)  I love his books and can't wait for this new one.  I also really want to read the new Ann Patchett book as it's about the Amazon and I am pretty much obsessed with books about the Amazon.

I've also found a new obsession with Antarctica.  For my spring quarter I had to read a book about Shackleton and the ship the Endurance, which was really great.  Right before I read that I was reading a book about famous feuds through the ages and one of them was Scott vs. Amundsen.  It was really fitting, finding out who got to Antarctica first and all and knowing a little bit about Scott and Amundsen before reading about Shackleton.  I also watch and love a show on Animal Planet called "Whale Wars".  The show documents these guys who are trying to foil the Japanese whaling ships' whaling activities.  On last night's episode one of the whale war ships went out on a distress call because they were closest to where these guys were lost.  There was a really crazy storm and these Norwegian guys were going out to commemorate the anniversary of Amundsen being out there.  It was heart breaking as they found the life raft but with no one in it.  It ended with the only 2 out of the 5 guys being found.  It was so sad and the whale wars guys were so upset and hoping that they would be able to find them.  I think I want to read more about missions to Antarctica.  This is how it starts with me!  My Amazon obsession started with Candace Millard's book "River of Doubt" about Roosevelt on the Amazon.  Now that one is a really great read too!  And I've read my fair share of maritime books with Nathanial Philbrick' "In the Heart of the Sea", which I'm sure I've written about before.

I'm off to Skype with my brother and niece!
Hope you are all reading great books too.

Watching the World Go By from the Comfort of my balcony

Grr watching the world from our balcony

I finished "You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know" by Heather Sellers sometime ago.  It was a great book and I am really intrigued by this neurological disorder of prosopagnocia.  It's very odd and I have to admit that I'm glad I don't have it.  How weird would it be to not recognize faces?  I suppose if I was born with it like Heather Sellers I wouldn't know any different and would've come up with ways to differentiate people like she did, but I'm glad I don't have to deal with that.

I also read and loved "The Giver" by Lois Lowry.  I remember reading "Number The Stars" when I was younger and loved it, so I had to read this one.  It was really good.  Very reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's famous novel "Brave New World".  I'm now reading "The Search" by Nora Roberts.  I've never read any of her books before and I have to say I'm enjoying it.  It's a lot of fun.  No thinking involved, but just a fun read.  I'm about halfway through it, which is pretty good since it's about 500 pages.

Do you remember that Friends episode where Phoebe runs all weird and Rachel is really ashamed to be seen running with her at first until Phoebe explains, she just likes running that way?  Well when I'm in my spinning classes and really tired, I have to admit that I feel like my legs are moving like that.  I think it's kinda funny.  At least it gives me a smile while I'm sweating profusely.

I'm almost to the end of my second quarter at school and the quarter system sucks.  It's too short and fast for graduate school for me.  I feel like I have no time to breathe.  In fact, I should be reading and writing right now but am pretty burnt out.  It's not good since I have huge papers to write over the next few weeks and have one more quarter for the year which starts only a week after this one ends.  Graduate school is awesome, don't get me wrong and my program is amazing.  I mean I never thought I'd learn this much.  But do I really have to write this many lengthy papers?  Ugh, it's pretty lame.

I've gotten very annoyed with Pandora, and have switched to Grooveshark. I'm loving this music website.  No commercials and I have found almost every song I want to listen too, pretty awesome.  I also ordered some more CDs from my favorite place, Newbury Comics.  This place is in Massachusetts and although I've only been there once, years after I even found them and started ordering CDs, they have the best selection for a decent price and ship relatively quickly.

This blog post was really just another way for me to procrastinate doing homework, so I'm going to go face the music (and maybe find some other distracting ways to procrastinate).  Ah, I love holidays...

Another Year Down

 

Grr and her Ari

In the past few months I read "The Girls" by Lori Lansens.  It's a strange story, but well written and very good about conjoined twins.  I also finished "A Dangerous Fortune" by Ken Follett.  It was great.  I can't wait for his new trilogy to be all written so I can read those.  I love his books.  And the mini-series that was done of "Pillars of the Earth" was fabulous, but of course the book was much better.  The sequel, "At Worlds End" is amazing too, maybe they will make a miniseries on that one too.  They are long books, but so good.  I got this memoir for Xmas and am already halfway through it called "You Don't Look Like Anyone I Know" by Heather Sellers.  It's really good.  I've never heard of face blindness before, but it's super interesting.  I am so happy I don't have it or know anyone who does.  The disorder is called prosopagnosia.  Apparently Jane Goodall suffered from it, amongst some other famous people.  

I start back at school tomorrow.  Ugh.  My vacation wasn't long enough.  At least I got to work quite a bit and earn a little money.  I love working part time.  If only I could figure out how to live on that, I'd totally work part time for the rest of my life.  I love the hours and the time to do my own stuff.  Just running errands and cleaning take so much time.  But now I have to buckle up for another 2 quarters, with just a week off in between.  This is going to be rough.  I already have a bunch of reading to finish for Wednesday and already finished my reading for my class tomorrow.  Although I have 2 classes back to back (with an hour break in between for lunch I suppose).

My holiday was nice.  I got to relax and even went and saw the new Harry Potter and the movie The Fighter.  Both were great.  I didn't hang out with as many people as I wanted or even call all the ones I wanted to, but at least I had a break.  But I did some cleaning, got to see some family members and had a nice time.  I wish I had more to report, but truthfully my life is a little dull right now.  School takes up so much of me, that not much is left.  Only 5 quarters left!