And the final countdown begins

*cue the final countdown music*

Day #6

How it all began:

It was a TV Spot that changed everything. I think it was the TV spot below in fact, because I vaguely remember laughing at Ron's response to Professor McGonagall transforming into a cat, and this was the only spot I found with that scene in it.

My brother and I turned on the TV on a November night after working on what seemed like countless hours of homework. My dad just happened to walk in as soon as the spot started running, and watching it together, all three of us got amused with the various complications the characters were getting into in it (someone blew up a feather!). My dad especially liked the graphics in the McGonagall transforming part, so as soon as the spot ended, he immediately asked us if we wanted to see it. We answered with a yes, as eagerly as a 7 year old and a little 5 year old could.

So off to the movie theater we went a couple days later and I walked out of the matinee show blown away. Three best friends! Harry! Ron! Hermione! Magic! A mysterious school! Weird teachers! Hagrid! Dragons! Evil villain! It was my first foray into a fantasy world and I was delighted in every bit of it.

Then I got the real book for Christmas, which changed everything once again. JK Rowling became my author hero and the world of Hogwarts and the magic became real. (....And Dan, Emma, and Rupert became my favorite actors in the whole entire universe for portraying my literary heroes onscreen.)

It's strange to think it's been a decade from that point, but it has been a wonderful decade. :)

If you're a Harry Potter fan, how did you first get started on the series? Or...if you're not much of HP fan, where did you first hear about it? :D

Gallivanting through Florida, Part 2 {Misadventures in Universal}

Sooo...I'm not exactly what you would call a thrill seeker (I'm not one for surprises) and I have a huge fear of heights. (Would my boggart be a high diving board or something? Maybe.)Because of the two aforementioned qualities of my personality, I don't particularly enjoy roller coasters much to the dismay of my friends. But because I didn't want to be a party pooper and ruin everyone's mood, I put on my brave face and calmly stood in line for the rides with everyone else.

If Sam can bravely carry Frodo up Mt. Doom, then gosh darn it, I can bravely get on a one minute roller coaster ride

Something went really strange that day because it seemed like we got stuck on almost every ride we went on! Getting stuck on a ride was not, to put it simply, fun, especially for someone like me who doesn't particularly enjoy dangling around 100 ft (or higher) in the air like others for long stretches of time, but looking back on it, our escapades in Universal wouldn't have been half as memorable if the rides didn't stop every now and then.

The best rides we got stuck on:

1) Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls: The electricity shut off right before we were about to fall off on the drop. And then it started right before we could say anything and we plunged down quicker than on any water ride I've ever been on before (I don't think we were supposed to fall). I screamed like I never screamed before.

2) The Hulk: Technically I didn't get stuck on it, but my group members did! I didn't go because my brave-Sam-on-Mt-Doom-face fell off as soon as someone suggested going on this:

...and I couldn't muster enough courage to put it back on, so my advisors and I ended up sitting in a cafe nearby and enjoyed some nice lemonade while waiting for everyone else...FOR OVER ONE HOUR. It was on a Wednesday morning, so there was no one there at the park so we realized that something was fishy when my friends didn't come back in ten minutes. When we went back to the ride to see what was up, the ride attendants were telling nearby questioners that some of the riders were stuck and there was no way to get them down. HAHAHA. So we had to wait for another half an hour until the ride started properly moving again.

3) Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey: We were speeding through the castle, and then suddenly, everything- the video they were playing, our carts, lights-shut off. We were in the complete dark and I could hear some startled screams and voices. A couple minutes later we heard an announcement from the ride attendants apologizing for the inconveniences. Then our carts started bobbing up and down. Up and down. In the dark. For a long time. More startled screams ensued. The ride started up again soon, and we did end up seeing the familiar faces of Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson on the screen again much to everyone's relief.

Butterbeer!! I liked it very much.

I could not get some Fish & Chips at the Three Broomsticks. :(

Spiderman waved at me right before I snapped this picture. I also got a very awesome picture with the Green Goblin (not pictured). His smile was the epitome of EVIL (as usual).

Universal Globe!! No matter where we went that day, I had to make sure we got at least one picture in front of the globe because you know...it's The Globe or as I knew it when I was a little girl, the globe that always spins around before every Jurassic Park movie. It's every bit as sentimental to me as Disney's Castle.

Universal was our last theme park during our visit. The next day, we woke up early, and sadly said good-bye to the 95 degree weather and the greenery we rarely have up north during the month of May. *tear*

I did some catching up with the world done on the bus ride back to airport:

Moral of the post: Fear of anything can become overcome if you put on a brave face doing it, unless you're scared of roller coasters that can make you feel like your face is melting off. Fake it till you make it, some people say. That and...deep breathing really helps.

Gallivanting through Florida, Part 1 {Running Around Disney}

Hello. :) Long time no see, eh? How's summer been for you? I hope all of you are doing fine. I've just narrowly survived junior year of high school, and I've used this first weekend of summer to put together bits and pieces of myself I've lost these past few stress-inducing weeks. :)

I've hit a road block with blogging. I've read no books in the past three weeks, nor have I seen movies worth writing about. The linkage I've created a long time ago is now outdated (I mean, every Hunger Games fan knows that Donald Sutherland (!) is going to be Pres. Snow right?) For that reason, it seems I've no other idea than to talk about the most exciting thing that's happened to me this past month: Orlando, Florida! (Disney's at least a little fun to talk about and hear about, right?)

In the first week of May, I've had a lucky opportunity to go to Orlando, Florida with a school team for a national competition and it was GREAT. Meeting and becoming friends with students from all over the country was interesting and eye-opening just seeing how different people are in other regions of the country. I've never spoken to that many people with different accents before (or had that many people point out my mid-western "accent").

Just some pictures and my narration:

Flying over the evergreens. At this time, my friend and I were discussing whether or not we'll ever see an alligator during the course of the trip (we didn't).

No one was actually smiling for being in Orlando when this bus pulled up because this was outside the airport when we had been waiting for our bus to come for over 2 hours already. Being the good friend I am, I tried cheering my friends up as soon as I saw the bus (not ours) but no one cracked a smile. I did end up comforting our travel agent, who was a bit frantic at the time seeing as her clients were very UNHAPPY though she didn't know I was smiling and goofing off because of the Orlando board.

The fact that I started laughing as soon as I saw those two panels just shows that it doesn't take much to make me laugh. :P We went shopping right away at Downtown Disney as soon as we finally reached our hotel and unpacked. The comics strips shown above were in stores all around Downtown.

And so we went shopping for the whole day basically and ate a lot of divine Ghiradelli ice cream.

And...

STORYTIME! When I was holding a Mickey Mouse Stars Wars light-saber in a store and started to wave it around, this random boy, who couldn't be older than eight, came up to me and started hitting my light-saber with his and said something about battling against evil (I'm really not making this up). WELL, since I couldn't just walk away (the boy was getting very into his Jedi role), I started hitting back (softly of course!).

And so there we two were- me, a sixteen year old girl, and an eight-year-old kid having an all out battle between good and evil in the middle of a Disney store. At the end of our battle, the kid later complimented me on my Jedi fighting skills and skipped gleefully away. Yes, I apparently have mad Jedi skillz. Fear me!

We spent the second evening in the Disney Hollywood Studios. Guess where the real buildings stop and where the set starts!

(We were competitive, networking students by day, Orlando tourists by night- we only went to the parks after 5 everyday)

Hollywood studios was absolute heaven because it has a bunch of filmmaking events. Because my advisor knew I liked seeing all behind-the-scenes shows, she took our group to the Indiana Jones stunt show where we saw how they did the camera work, produced stunts, etc. I would've ran down onto the set pieces if they allowed people to down and particularly asked the cinematographer guy to let me sit in his chair, work with the camera, and revel in doing so...but of course I couldn't.

Since this was my first time in Disneyworld and one of my friend's also, we both plotted to get a picture with all the Disney characters. Alas, we ended up taking pictures with no characters at all because by the time we went to the parks everyday, it ended up being too late. But, in Epcot (another Disney Park which was just as amazing as Hollywood studios) the next evening, we did get to see...

college guy in an Aladdin suit working for a summer job

ALADDIN!!!

His bodyguard lady kicked my friend and I out of his line (to get a picture) because he had to go on break. So sadly, he ended up being the only Disney character we got within 10 ft. of, and the

song Prince Ali ended up getting stuck in my head for the rest of the evening (though the

latter's not necessarily a bad thing :D).

Lots and lots of ducks galore.

And...the final Disney event of the trip, Disney's Electrical Parade which was its own magical experience in itself!

One of the dwarves totally waved at me, yo.

So Disney was thrilling. It's such a happy-making place though I've never heard that many crying babies in my entire life. Of course, if Disney was a bit overwhelming for me, it must've definitely been too much for the poor toddlers. My advisor gave my friend and I tours around Disney since we were the only two in our group who haven't been down south before, and we made sure to hit all the classic Disney rides such as the Spinning Tea-Cups and Dumbo, and ate omg-totally-delicious-mouthwatering-scrumptious funnel cakes all throughout.

Part 2 of Orlando coming tomorrow!! Muhahwahaha. What? You think I'm going to leave you with just Disney? There's still Universal to go through! We got stuck on A LOT of rides which was pure torture for me because 1) I hate heights and 2) I have an intense dislike of roller coasters in general. So yes, tomorrow = Universal, but for now, I'll just leave you this:

:)

The Beginning of the End. Or Probably Not.

I'm pretty sure the whole world knows about the Borders-filing-Chapter-11-bankruptcy right now. For my town (which has three Borders bookstores), there are some good news because of it and some bad news. The good news is that there will still be two Borders standing. The bad news is that one will be closing, and unfortunately, the one that's closing is mine (great, huh?).

Truthfully, when I first read the article about the closing in my town's newspaper, I was okay with it. Of course I was upset, but it all seemed gradual. Everyone knew that it had to happen one day or another. (I think I was still in denial- How can Borders (especially my Borders) close?! They're bookstores! They're educational! They help improve literacy! They apparently serve great hot chocolate and have an awesome Jane Austen/Charlotte Bronte collection!)

After finally going to visit the store, the news hit me. My Borders is closing. This is what I saw when I first walked in:

Isn't that just plain scary?

And then I turned around and saw HP and the Order of the Phoenix on a nearby shelf. Right there I realized that this is where I bought all the last three Harry Potter books. This was where my family, friends, and I stood eagerly in line until 4:00 in the morning of July 21st, 2007 to get Deathly Hallows in our hands. This was where I bought all my Percy Jackson books, the Hunger Games trilogy, and basically where I bought all the books I cherish deeply today (and also where a saleswomen first introduced Twilight to me- before it become a phenomenon), and now it's closing?

I don't know what else to say now; the denial's gone, but the truth is still settling in. There are only two things (entertainment-wise) I really need to function well in my life: a bookstore and a movie theater. Sadly, both seem to have unpredictable futures ahead of them. As we can see, the movie industry is suffering huge losses as well. Theaters are shutting down, studios are filing for bankruptcy, and Hollywood is facing uncertainty, just like the publishing industry has been from what's been happening to books and bookstores. There'll be unemployment now, and according to Shannon Hale, an estimation of 10% decrease in sales of books.

Does the bankruptcy of Borders signal what's going to happen to other bookstores in the future like Barnes & Nobles and indie bookstores because they can't keep up with online retail stores sales like Amazon? *cough cough* It better NOT. Because just like what Shannon Hale (again) wrote about the bankruptcy, brick-and-mortar stores still matter enormously.

This is wishful thinking but I'm 98% sure that bookstores will continue to thrive (as long as they sell e-books and e-readers now just like B&N), and so will movie theaters because one day movies will become reasonably priced again so theaters will be able to show them and people will be able to view them! And really, I like going to bookstores. To browse, and to find the books I really want to read. I especially love going over when there's a brand new release to see the excitement within everyone, and to see people quickly running over to the shelves to go get the shiny, new books before anyone else, or to stand in line to receive the book and break into a huge smile when the book finally lands into their hands.

It's just like how I love going to movie theaters during opening weekend to see everyone walk quickly into the theaters to grab the best seats, and to hear a hush fall over the crowd when the opening titles come on. Sometimes if the movie is really popular (as in the case of Harry Potter or Toy Story 3), roaring claps and cheers come on instead of the hush, and because I'm sentimental and weird, I start tearing up and start thinking about how amazing it is to be able to enjoy and celebrate something together (Yeah, like I said, I'm weird).

And I guess that's what they do, bookstores and movie theaters. They bring communities together, and I don't think we can survive without them. Well, I can't at least, so I'm hoping they're here to stay. *fingers crossed*

- Nonie

About the Bouche de Noel...

It's always been a dream of mine ever since I started French, to bake a perfect Bouche de Noel for Christmastime...

So I did make one this year. It didn't look at all like my ideal logs, but hey, it looks okay :-D (but please don't laugh when you see the pictures) -

A very chocolatey filling...

It turned out to be real tiny (about 6 inches in length to be exact). Why? Well, for some strange, mysterious reason unbeknownst to me, 2/3's of the cake got burnt and turned charcoal black. The sight of my beloved cake left me in anguish and completely shattered (seriously), but fortunately, it didn't do the same to my mom who just quickly salvaged the edible 1/3.

The frosting part didn't turn out so well either because the cake broke into pieces as soon as I started rolling it up to start spreading the cream, so then I had to turn to my trusty home-made chocolate filling to glue them all together again.

And call me weird, but despite all these mishaps, I'm quite proud of how the Bouche turned out to look almost like a real log with real tree bark, layers and all (see last picture), even though yes, I know the cake's not supposed to be like that. And...it didn't taste bad. A little too chocolatey perhaps because of the extra frosting I had to use for gluing, but overall I liked it. :D

Anyway, after the whole incident, I resolved to just write a letter to Santa in French next year for extra credit. I'm still a little burned out from all that cooking...

-Nonie

I Made Up A New Word ( Or Meeting Scott Westerfeld)

So, I got this amazing opportunity to see Scott Westerfeld last Friday. I have proof:

First slide of his presentation!

The event started at 7, but since I got just a little paranoid about not finding seats, my brother and I went there a half hour early. (And it turns out, there were seats!) We quickly sat in the front row, but then my seating dilemma started. Did I want to sit in the very front row, right in front of the podium where he was going to talk, or did I want to sit a little in the back so I could take better pictures? Well, I couldn't make up my mind, and the introductions started before I could move, so we ended up having to stay in the seats right in front of his podium. Heh heh.

(So...I guess that explains the lack of good pictures. Sorry!)

Oh yes, before I forget, here's that new word I talked about in the title: authorstruck.

All right, so it's not very original...or new. I'm sure tons of people have already used that word in their writing, but it's exactly how I felt when I saw him.

Scott Westerfeld is hilarious, witty, and very, very knowledgeable. You can just tell that about him by reading his blog, but hearing him for real reaffirmed it. The way he explained everything was entertaining, and there was just so much to learn. :D He started off by telling us about his inspiration for Uglies, thinking about the science involved in it, and how the Uglies series led to Leviathan, and continued from there. Here are some tidbits from his talk:

• When his friend moved to Los Angeles, and first visited a dentist there, the dentist pulled him aside after the appointment and asked him if he wanted a 5-year-plan to perfect his teeth (and make them look like Tom Cruise's). That got Scott thinking about the role perfection and beauty in our lives, and Uglies started from there.
• It was the Japanese version of Uglies that made him start thinking about illustrations in books.
• Apparently, the Uglies is full of Japanese and Australian slang. I knew that adding wa or la at the end of everyone's names in the books was sort of a nod to Japanese custom, but I didn't know that adding -ies to the end of words was Australian. :D
• He doesn't have anything against characters whose names start with a Z. ;)
• If he feels that the story is slowing down, he makes his characters jump off of something (so true!).
• He had always wanted to write a story about a girl dressing up as a boy to do something cool, so he used Leviathan as an excuse to write about a character like that.
• He named the jellyfish creature in Leviathan a Huxley, because one of Darwin's good friends (and critic) was Thomas Huxley, a man who studied invertebrates (especially jellyfish).
• Justine Larbalestier (his wife and author, who was also there!) pointed out that Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves is one of Scott's new favorite books (out of the ones he read recently), when Scott was asked by someone about books he recommends.
• For you NaNoer's: They talked about NaNo for a while and gave a couple of tips, and told us that they have a bunch of NaNo tips on their blogs. (Scott and Justine wrote tips on alternate days last November-Scott's tips start here, and Justine's tips start here.)

When it was time to sign books, we got in line by rows, so I ended up being person #3 in line. This being my first actual book signing, I totally forgot that we actually got to talk to the author, and being #3, I had no time at all to think of anything cool to say to him, and this is what ensued:

Scott Westerfeld (as I approach him nervously): Hello!

Me: Um, hi!

Scott Westerfeld: How are you doing?

Me: Good...how are you doing?

Scott: Great! *starts signing Leviathan* So, do you have a question?

Me: Ummm....nooo?

Scott Westerfeld: *laughs*

Me: Errr...

Later, however, after he gave me my books back, I gave him a little spiel about what a history geek I was and how fascinated I am by the WWI era, and because of that I totally geeked out when I heard what Leviathan was about. We ended up talking for a couple minutes about WWI, how it started a new era technology and a way of living, and how it's not fair to WWI that WWII always steals the spotlight all the time in literature and basically everything else. (In retrospect, I wish I didn't use the words geek or geeked, but hey, I was being honest. :P)

I thanked him afterwards, and walked away with my books, definitely authorstruck.

----

The funny thing is, until a couple months ago, I never liked Mr. Westerfeld much. Or, I didn't know if I liked him, because I never read his books. Back when I was in 8th grade, my English teacher, who's a big fan of Scott Westerfeld, introduced his books to us in the beginning of the school year (she was also at the event last friday, yay!). After that, Uglies became the Twilight of my school, before well, the real Twilight became popular. Everyone read it- my friends, girls especially and boys too (to my surprise), and I even saw other teachers carrying the books around. After seeing everyone with his books, I guess I got rebellious and decided to go against the status quo, so I opted to read Markus Zusak and Jerry Spinelli books instead. ;)

Now my friends are all laughing at me, as I wait for my library's copy of Uglies to get here, so I can finally read it, years after they have. Three years ago, I rebelled against Mr. Westerfeld's books and ardently refused to read them, but just a week ago, I sat in the front row during his presentation, sitting forward in my seat, trying to catch his every word and stood in line, eagerly waiting nervously and excitedly in line to say hi to him. Life is full of irony sometimes. :D

----

After I got home, I saw a tweet from another person who was there, saying that anyone who lives within a one hour driving distance of Mr. Westerfeld's events should go because it's totally worth it. I learned about writing, cat parasites, manga, women revolutionaries, and loads more, so I have to say that I totally concur with his tweet. :)

I just had to take a picture of this slide during his presentation, seeing as two of my favorite characters are on it. I adore Alek and Deryn. :)

The end.

P.S. Justine Larbalestier is so right about Leviathan signings. There were just a couple of teenage girls and boys. The rest, I noticed, were all adults..

Oh, hello October

Nonie's advice of the day: If you have to film something for a project or something, remember not to shoot in a portrait format! Let's just say that the process of flipping everything back is not pretty and very tiring. Don't say I didn't warn you...

With that said, it's October now, so I changed the layout (yet again) to suit the wonderful season of Fall. :)

With that proclamation, here's some quick thoughts/news:

- Junior year is hard. When I first got my class schedule, the first thought that entered my head was, Haha. With no math and no French, this term is going to be so easy...muhahahahaha!

And...I can truthfully tell you that, sadly, it's not. But I shall conquer Junior year! Muahahaha!

- Everyday as I walk into Government, I think about how much I miss studying US History. I miss hearing lectures on Benjamin Franklin and the importance of barbed wire. I really do.

- Doesn't Megamind look hilarious? It's coming out November 4th, and I don't think I'm going to see it, but it looks like it'll be great!

- I've been rereading Leviathan (or trying to read is probably a better way to put it) to catch up on the whole story for the release of Behemoth. There's no one like Count Volger to cheer you up when you're feeling dreadful. :P (He's one of my favorite mentor/wise teacher characters in literature. :D)

- Speaking of Leviathan, here's nice, little excerpt* from Behemoth I found on the Simon & Schusters site (eeeeeek!). If it came out yesterday or today, it would've been perfect, but alas, it's releasing next Tuesday, so we have to wait three more days (unlike some lucky people who've already gotten it)! Even then, I won't be able to read it until next weekend or maybe even a couple of weeks after that. Oh well. At least we know that Behemoth will have more of Keith Thompson's gorgeous art!

* If you want to hear Alan Cumming's version of the excerpt (which, like Scott Westerfeld said, is made up of awesomesauce), here's the link. :)

In which I apologize again...

...for the severe lack of posts, but I promise a more profound posts soon! For now, I thought I would direct you all to some fun things this wonderful Friday evening until I do so. :)

First off all Scott Westerfeld showed us an amusing video today, in which he disturbs Alan Cumming's recording to talk about the audiobook of Behemoth and the Leviathan series itself in this delightful, little interview. :D

My favorite part?

[Alan C: Will there be a happy ending, Scott? :0

Scott W: (pauses) Of course, Alan.

Alan C: Yay! :D ]

I loved how they were trying to be serious in the beginning but failing miserably at it. Alan Cumming's so cool in Spy Kids. Seriously. And he made a fantastic Mr. Elton in Emma. :D Oh, did I mention that I like his glasses too? :P (I need to get my hands on a audiobook of Leviathan soon!)

On a whole different note, Leah Cypress wrote a guest post for Confessions of a Bookaholic about why the epilogue worked for Mockingjay and the whole Hunger Games series a couple days ago. I thought it was interesting to see to see what an author had to say about. Hehe, I personally thought it was perfect. (Yes, I understand that I'm in the minority about this. :P)

Speaking of the Hunger Games, a couple of freshmen and sophomores in my homeroom this year are huge fans of it! Last Wednesday, we had this hour long talk about the whole series, and what worked about it and what didn't. It made me so happy because I don't know a lot people that read the Hunger Games, so finally being able to talk about it freely was truly amazing. :D Next week, we're planning to have a full discussion for Mockingjay. Yay! I've been waiting for a chance to debate about it since forever (aka right after I finished it..). ;)

I also changed the layout for this blog. Thoughts or suggestions? I still can't decide on whether the title should be white or orange. (For some reason I'm not able to let go of the orange. Hmm.) Oh, and I'm sorry if the blog description is hard to read. (There are some weird technical issues with Blogger Draft. Argh.)

Hee hee, so as usual, I will end this post promising more profound posts. Er, hopefully, they will be profound. I have a few ideas in mind for a couple of posts but...hmmmm. Well, ciao for now. Have a nice weekend everyone. If you're a student, I hope the first few weeks of school have been going well for you! :D

7 Things Right Now

1. As I'm writing this, I'm watching a Star Wars marathon with my brother. The movie playing now is the Empire Strikes Back. I'm not much of a Star Wars fan (I rarely watch or read anything sci-fi) but...

2. I have to go to school tomorrow (and for the next couple of days) early in the morning, to train for something I signed up for last year, and I'm nervous. In retrospect I wish I didn't sign up for it, but at least I'll be getting some experience. But now as I am nervous, I feel like indulging myself in something I wouldn't normally indulge in (like watching a Star Wars marathon), and you know what? It's working...sort of. :) Yay for Star Wars, and George Lucas, and Anakin Skywalker, and Hans Solo, and of course, C3PO, but...

3. I was so nervous during the day that I couldn't even read, didn't want to take a walk, didn't feel like listening to any music, or do anything at all. For that reason, I put the Fellowship of the Ring down, and agreed to watch the marathon with my brother.

4. It's funny. People don't watch movie adaptions of books because they don't want the movie to ruin the wonderful story the book presents, but I was reluctant to pick up the Lord of the Rings books until now for the exact opposite reason. I love the LOTR movies so much that I didn't want to get disappointed to see if the filmmakers ruined the book. Thankfully though, they haven't. They just took out a lot of scenes, but they didn't change anything. Phew! But did you know that Frodo is 50 when they start on their journey to Mordor?! (Let's just say that it took me a couple of days to accept that fact.)

5. I think Paper Towns would be a brilliant movie, if made by the right people, of course. The last scene in the book would be amazing to film. :D If I filmed the last scene, I would have Q's narration playing in the background, because I really liked what he had to say then.

6. I've been having a bit of writers/bloggers block, so I want to ask you, the readers, what do you want to see on the Flying Scribble?

7. It's now 10:20 PM, and the Star Wars marathon nearly ended an hour ago. I started this post nearly two hours ago, and during the two hours, the Empire Strikes Back ended (poor Anakin), I ate some late dinner, and started getting butterflies in my stomach again thinking about tomorrow and this week. Gah.

Well, as Obi-Wan and Yoda would say when they depart with others, may the Force be with you. And in my typical style, I say, have a fabulous week everyone. :)

Edit: As soon as I posted this, I checked Google Reader and I saw that Sarah Beth Durst also posted about Star Wars. Hehe. She watched the marathon too! :D

Just so you know...

To celebrate the release of Mockingjay (and you know, pass the time until Aug. 24th), the awesome Heather, at The Secret Adventures of WriterGirl, created the YA Fantasy Showdown, where some of the best-known YA characters are pitted against each other in battle, and guess what? We, the readers, get to pick the winner, by reading the stats and mock battles written by the Showdown team, and casting our vote for who you think has the skills to move to the next round.

Just for you to get a sense of how cool this is, there's Edward Cullen going against Katsa from Graceling (Katsa's going to win definitely :P), Percy Jackson fighting Sam Templeton (Percy!!!), and Westley vs. Eugenides (Whoever chose to pit Westley against Gen is a genius. Two of my absolute favorite characters, EVER, fighting against each other...I don't know who to choose!)

See? Even a couple authors are joining in on the fun and working to advocate their characters. So, what are you waiting for?! Go on, and cast your votes! It's going to be amazing, and I wonder who's going to be the ultimate winner (probably... Katniss) :D

today's a good day to be happy

In other words, things that are making me smile (or laugh, because I'm definitely more of a laughing person) right now are:

- At last, a day with a cloudless (or almost cloudless sky) and the sun. And, today's one of those days where it's not too hot and not too cold. It's just a nice, peaceful summer day. :)

- The past few days have been filled with thunderstorms, mini power outages (or as my brother kindly reminds me the correct term each time- brownouts), and overall a very gloomy atmosphere, although...the storms did provide for some good sunset photo-ops. :P



- Spending a couple of hours on a Saturday evening reading Only the Good Spy Young and finishing up Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Dog Days. The last few pages of Dog Days are pure gold. If I wasn't in a bookstore at the time, surrounded by other people, I wouldn't have had to restrain my laughter so much (which was very hard, by the way)...


- Reading old essays, journal entries, and the like. Those are always fun to read. ;)


- Almost finishing up with my AP English homework, and starting with my AP Government homework. Reading through the entire Constitution is not as tiring as one may think, though it is very hard to concentrate when the sun is shining, and just *calling* you to run outside.

- While cleaning out my room, I found not one, but three $5 fine forgiveness coupons for my library, so now I have $15 to waive fines with! Yippee! I mean...*cough*cough* Me? Need fine forgiveness coupons for the library?! That's preposterous! Why would I need them in the first place? *cough*cough*I always turn my books in on time *cough*cough*


- Speaking of the library, I just checked a couple minutes ago, and I have this book waiting for me to pick up! For some reason, I feel really really really excited to read this book. So excited, that I'm literally bouncing as I'm typing this. I haven't felt this excited about going to the library to pick up a book since well...a very long time, and I have absolutely no idea why I'm sooo eager about this book as I am right now. Maybe it's the luscious cover? Or maybe because it involves candy?! Or maybe, it's just because it looks just plain old fun.


- Reading Shannon Hale's old interview with Brandon Mull. That picture on the bottom of that post is very, er, priceless. :D

- Seeing old elementary school friends who I haven't seen in 5 years!

- And, of course, reading through this post is certainly making me smile (and laugh along the way). :)

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So what's been making you smile lately? :D

July Revelations/Thoughts

- Though this summer has been enjoyable, something felt wrong about it, and then two nights ago, I realized why! I didn't make a summer to-do list. Hehe. As an organized/ OCD person, I can't live without planning and lists. I have 21 things to do, and if I don't get them done, I'll turn insane. But I'm just so glad I figured what was wrong because that weird feeling was really getting to me.

- So it took 3 days to download Illustrator, and gah! I think it might be my favorite graphics application! And OMG, the new iMovie is simply awesome too!!!!!!! (<----- You can tell that I'm really excited about it when I'm using waay too many exclamation marks than necessary!) Since I don't need my brother to teach me iMovie like he had to with Illustrator, it's so much more fun. I feel like myself with iMovie again. Yes, I am a technology geek. :)

- I'm reading Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater (about time, eh? :P), and I love Sam. He's interesting to read about, and my, all the attention and admiration the prose got is well deserved! It's gorgeous and enchanting. The only problem *ducks from all the shoes that will be thrown at me* is that Grace's life is diminishing little by little with each page since she's soo caught up with Sam, but since this is a romancish novel, it's excusable...

- On Sunday, 2:30 Eastern time, the Soccer game between the Netherlands and Spain will start! I'm so fired up for the match because Soccer is the only sport I watch, and it's the final game for the World Cup championship! Eep! I was so sure that Germany was going to take the cake this year (I mean, they beat Argentina 4-0...), but this is okay I guess, since I don't exactly have a team I'm rooting for. The match should be very interesting, and may the best man, er, team, win! If you're watching the World Cup, what do you think about the game at this point?

- And, before I forget, I created a blogroll. Tell me if I missed anyone!

The Case of the Mysterious Footprints

Last night, I looked out my window to find these in my backyard:

Footprints! Very un-human-like footprints! They started from the side of my house, and went into my backyard. Well, they definitely didn't come from humans. There's my footprint right next to it to prove it.

Judging from this picture, it looks like it came from a dog-

The only problem with that was that is that the footprints were quite large, and all the dogs on my street are tiny. The picture below raises the possibility that the animal either has claws, or hoofs...maybe...

The real creepy thing is that...the creature only has two legs. Well, that's we think because when I went outside and checked, there was only one pair of footprints. If the animal had four-legs, there would've been two pairs. *Shudders* And it's strange how it looks as if the animal was placing one foot directly in front of the other. The footprints are in a straight line (my footprints are on the left)-

They stop abruptly in the middle of my backyard, but my dad just said the snow probably covered the rest up (and I'm pretty sure he's right about that).

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Umm...so, does anyone know any two-legged, hoofed and/or clawed animal? Well, whatever that creature was, I hope it's long gone from my neighborhood. *Shudders again*

An Epic Fail (as some people would say)

Today was crazy. Probably one of the craziest day of the school year yet. No, not crazy. It was disappointing. Upsetting. Frustrating. Self- confidence-diminishing. Sad. About a month ago, my friends and I in our business class decided to team up for a University business plan competition that high school students can enter in. We started it, but our idea was huge, and we needed permission from certain groups of people, and a lot of financial and other legal documents. So over winter break, we decided to forfeit this year, research more, become experts on our plan, and work on our business plan little by little each month this year, and get it finished and polished for next year's competition.

The day we came back from break, we told our business teacher, who was also our very supportive advisor for the whole thing, about taking our time with the plan, and entering next year. She agreed with us, and emailed the man in charge of the competition about taking our our names. The guy, emailed back, and told us that we should enter even if our plan is horrible, because (as he said) "we have nothing to loose." So there we were, staying after school everyday, getting the permission from the group we needed, looking up all the financial aspects of the business, trying to finish all that we needed, and with that, there also were tears, fights, staying up until midnight sometimes, and getting distracted by tongue twisters on the internet involved.

We didn't finish. We were so close too. I guess my friends and I knew that we never would, even when we agreed with our teacher, when she told us that we could still enter the competition. She became enthusiastic with our idea, and helped us as much as possible this past week. See, that's the problem. We didn't care that we didn't finish. It was just that, in the end, we disappointed our teacher. Our teacher, who stayed after school every day and finish, trusted us, and helped us get everything we needed. Maybe we didn't disappoint her, but her face fell, when she came over to us this morning to ask us about our business plan entry and my partner told her that there was no way that we could turn it in this evening.

I almost burst into tears when I saw her look change from hopefulness to sadness when my partner told her our news. It was worse than we could bare. I know that we really did have no chance of finishing, but I hate failing, or disappointing people. Especially people who work so hard to help. And at the end, I ended up doing what I hated.

Life can get so weird sometimes.

A moment with irony

On Wednesday, we were supposed to have the first snowday of the year. According to weather.com, it was supposed to snow all night, and have around 6-7 inches. So Wednesday night, I come home, eat some fruit snacks, and start working. A couple of hours later, my mind starts thinking about the snowday. If we were going to have the day off, why finish all of our homework right then? I finished all my major homework; I only had a few worksheets left that could be finished in 30 minutes, so I could wake up at seven, finish everything by 8, and enjoy the rest of the day. So that's the schedule I decided to follow. I put my schoolbooks away, and start watching TV.

Turns out, we didn't have a snowday. There was only about two inches of snow on the ground, and two inches of snow is not a reason to close school (at least not in Michigan). With a little bit of groaning, my brother and I go back to school, and return to our regular schedule. During lunch, one of my friend admits he didn't do any of his homework because of the supposed-to-happen-snowday. Laughing, everyone at our table admits that there was some homework that each of us didn't do, and we take whatever we had to have done out, and finish it during lunch.

Later that evening in church, another friend of mine told me she stayed up until 11:30 doing her homework Tuesday night. I told her I did most of my homework, but confessed that there were a few worksheets that I slacked off on. She laughed, teased me, and took a bite of some carrot cake that we were eating at that time. Thursday morning, I find out that her school got the day off because some power failure (and her school is only about two minutes away from mine), and our school, was the one of only buildings in the area that managed to get electricity that day. Yay for us. :P

Lesson learned: Even if a snowday is expected for tomorrow, finish all your homework, just in case the weatherman is wrong, and maybe when you do all your homework when a snowday is expected, God will reward you with a lot of snow. ;)

( P.S. But usually, when a snowday is predicted, it ends up being a snowday. One day last year, where we had this suprise blizzard in the middle of April, and we got the day off. Now, that, was weird. )

Adventures in this week

This week I:

• Played Badminton in my friend's backyard. It was my friend Grace and I against her brother. Grace and I were talking throughout the game so sometimes we didn't notice when the birdie came on our side. :)


• Studied for my health and wellness exam- My exam is on July 16th. Nine more days until the test...I'll be so glad when it's over! Then I can finally stop writing reports and reading about fitness. Reading all these things about health problems are causing me to be a health freak. Now I'm being really careful about what I'm eating (not that that's a bad thing, but sometimes I really want to indulge in sweet stuff without thinking about the serving size and how many grams of fat it has).


• Watched Hoot, the movie adaption of the book Hoot by Carl Haissen- I watched it because it had Logan Lerman in it. He's playing Percy in the The Lightning Thief movie, so I just wanted to see if he was any good. He was good, and the movie wasn't as boring as I thought it would be! Some parts were funny, some parts were cute, and the last scene where they stop the bad guy from bulldozing where the owls were was kind of touching.


• Watched National Treasure II: Book Of Secrets- I liked National Treasure better. This one was just like the first movie, except it had different villains, and a sort-of different plot. But did you ever realize that Riley knows something that Ben or Abigail don't know in both movies? The twist in the story comes from his knowledge. In the first movie, he knew about the daylight savings time and in this movie he knew about the Book of Secrets.


• Joined Goodreads! Yay! I joined it so I can keep track of all my books and I also get the cool widget that I can put on this blog. Now you can see the ratings I give my books, if you want. Here's my goodreads profile.


• Found out from Ally Carter's blog that there's a perfectly-to-scale replica of the Parthenon in Nashville, Tenessee!!! Now that's on my "future destinations" list. If I never get to go to Athens to see the real Parthenon, at least there'll be a Plan B! :-D