I'm A Student! Again!

I am so excited! Today was my Advising Day at my new school. I start Graduate School at the end of January, and I am thrilled to get back into taking classes, taking notes, blah blah blah. I love taking tests, but not so much the writing papers part. Especially since in Grad school you're supposed to be smart... Oops. I don't really like homework that much, but I think it will be different now because it's all information that I literally do not know. When I don't know something, but I really want to, it's a whole other story than my usual "yeah, yeah, it's school, I get A's, yeah, yeah" type attitude. Not that I am flaunting that, because it's a terrible attitude to have, but in all honesty, school has been really easy for me (for the most part). I am pretty sure I will be in for a rude awakening in January.

In other news, I am halfway through the second Harry Potter book. It's taken me a while to really get into it because I have been moving all week. The new apartment is great so far, with more rooms and space than the old one, but with less closet space. Which is kind of sucky, but it's manageable. The book is alright so far, just a lot of repetition about incidents from the first book. I am curious to see how the Lockhart story develops, since he's way too annoying and fake. I love Hagrid though, and the Weasley boys (besides Percy). I'll let you know how this continues.

I'm not really sure what else to talk about. I've been really slacking with both reading and writing lately. NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday, which I have always wanted to do, but never really commit to doing it. I have always wanted to write a story, whether it's fiction or my own story, but I can never buckle down and do it. Maybe someday I will write 50,000 words in a month, heck even that much in a year would be great. But for now.. slackerdom is going to have to do.

Anyways, I think that's all for today, I will try and finish HP book 2 soon and give my review of it.

P.S.

I should also mention that since all of my books are packed up, and I mean ALL, I probably won't have any reading updates until the middle of next week. I'm hoping to get them all unpacked and put back on their proper bookcases by then!

Wish me luck! This whole moving thing is obnoxious!

Packing & Slacking

Today Mike and I went out and bought boxes and packing tape for our move on Sunday. I don't think we actually got enough boxes, but I'm hoping we can work out so we don't have to spend any more money. We have 10 "big" boxes and 5 "small" boxes. So far, all of my books are packed up, as well as our DVDs and video games. Assorted pillows and blankets are in those boxes too to offset the weight of the books.

I have about 4 or 5 trash bags full of clothes to donate and still have our hall closet to go through, which has the most incredibly random stuff in it, including, but not limited to, a play house for my cat (that doesn't live here), my old psych text books, my American Girls Christmas tree, a vacuum, and a box full of arts and crafts. So I have to dive into that mess now and figure out what stuff I don't care about so I can throw some of it out. Not sure if I should toss Ollie's play house or give it to my parents so he can play in it again. I mean, it's just a kitty toy so it's not that big a deal, but maybe he'd like to have it back? Do cats think like that?

Also, this morning I woke up after having a dream in which I was skating in Boston with my former coach, and she was yelling at me because I, for some reason, was having a tremendous amount of difficulty doing a half-lutz (ridiculous!), and my knee was killing me. So all morning my right knee was throbbing. And then I'm sitting on the floor looking through bags of junk, when I try to get up and somehow manage to bang my left knee-cap on the door frame to our closet. SO now both of my knees are in rough shape. Fun!

But tonight is Wednesday, which means ANTM tonight with both Mikes! Hopefully TOMike (yay for John Green references!) isn't intimidated by the many boxes that are crowding our living room. If he is... oh well. Hopefully I can still convince him to buy me dinner!

Now for the "Slacking" part of the title. After I banged my left knee on the door frame, I've been sitting on the couch reading random blogs and checking my facebook every 3.5 minutes. It's been about 2 and a half hours now, so I think I should get my butt back into gear and tackle those closets before Mike starts getting huffy!

I love Prince Brigan

Fire was just as amazing as Graceling was. Kristin Cashore is just a fantastic writer, and I am proud to have been accepted to the same Graduate School that she attended, although for different programs. Fire was a more adult character than Katsa was, and the themes in Fire dealt more with adult emotions and relationships. I think this was really good, because it really made the two books very separate, though they take place in the same "world."

I just started the second Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. So far, the beginning is very boring and contains a lot of review of the previous book. I hear the third book does this a bit in the beginning too, so I'll just have to slug through it to get to the good parts! Dobby the house-elf is rather annoying so far, but I am glad that the Weasley's came to Harry's rescue to break him out of the Dursley's house! I can't imagine being caged up in a room without much food or anything fun to do.

This post will have to be kept short, since I am at work and really shouldn't be writing!

Harry Potter, Fire, and Friendship

I am so excited to read the rest of the Harry Potter books. The first one was great, though very young sounding, which I expected. I know that not every character lives, because that wouldn't be realistic, but I am going to be very sad to find out who doesn't make it through til the end of the series.

I'm about 3/4 of the way through Fire by Kristin Cashore now. I love Cashore's writing, she's extremely talented, and I can't wait for her third book to come out! Fire is a lot more grown up than Graceling was, which is nice because it shows that Cashore is able to do different voices and themes. Fire, Brigan, and Hanna are such great characters, I love the way their bond is forming. I have no idea how the story will end, there aren't many pages left and there is an impending war!

I never used to enjoy or even read fantasy or sci-fi books. But now, with these books and The Hunger Games books, I am definitely more appreciative of the genres.

In non-book news, this weekend I am excited to have a sort of girly-weekend with one of my best friends. I think we're going to have marathons of really awful tv shows, like Melrose Place and Gossip Girls, since she has them all DVRed and hasn't watched any of them. I shamefully admit that I love Melrose Place, mostly because it's really bad and thoroughly amusing, but also because I want to know who killed Sydney!

I am really in need of a good, fun weekend, as there have been a lot of not-so-fun things going on. My aunt (my mother's sister) passed away earlier this week from cancer. And while it's very saddening, it is also very angering because if she had been going to her yearly doctor's appointments they could have caught the cancer when it was new and hadn't had a chance to spread throughout her body. Like my aunt's memory, this knowledge will stay with me the rest of my life.

My apologies for the depressing tone to this post, I promise I will be more upbeat after I finish Fire, start Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and enjoy my girly-fun weekend!

It's October.

So... it's definitely October now, and it has definitely been a very long time since I last wrote. I'm sorry for that, really, but I've been insanely busy since the skating season started and my new schedule is allll over the place. I really have no idea what day it is half the time.

Yesterday, Friday, I thought it was Monday for the majority of the day, so it's a good thing that my Friday and Monday schedules are almost identical.. at least I go to the same rink on those days so I didn't end up in the completely wrong place.

I'm in the middle of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. So far I really like it, though everyone tells me they get better as they go on because the first three books are more "young" feeling and the later ones get more intense. I'm excited to read them all. It helps when I listen to The Parselmouths & The Moaning Myrtles in my car on repeat.

Yesterday I bought Fire by Kristin Cashore, which is in the same sort of world as Graceling but at a different time and in a different kingdom, or something to that affect. I can't wait to read it, so it's motivating me to get HP Book 1 finished quicker. I also got Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, Love is the Higher Law by David Levithan, and Once Was Lost by Sara Zarr. My plan is to read a Harry Potter book, then a non-HP book, and so on and so on, until I am done with Book 7. I am going to try to watch the corresponding movies after each book (at least, for the ones that are out). I think it's a good plan.

In other news, there is going to be some family stuff going on for a bit, so I'm not sure how frequently or cheerily this will be updated over the next month or so. I'll definitely write when I finish books, but possibly not during the in-between time. We'll see.