Breakathon Readathon Review: The Hunger Games

So I sat down to start this book a few days ago when I was all set to start babysitting, but had twenty minutes to kill and a hankering for a coffee from Starbucks. I went to Starbucks (where they have started to recognize me...), got my coffee, sat down in a cozy armchair, and set an alarm. (I have learned to set alarms!) When my alarm went off, alerting me that it was time to leave  I was fifteen pages in and scowling. No! I didn't want to go babysit! I wanted to keep reading! Finally, when I had this free afternoon with which to do absolutely nothing (and having previously done some serious 'damage' to the Christmas knits), I put my cozy slippers on and went to town. Well, I easily read 75% of the book in one sitting (with the exception of a break to bake some Christmas cookies) and I have to say that the book was everything it promised to be. It's tough nowadays to pull that off, I think. There is so much overdone in any genre of fiction, and so I was very pleasantly surprised to find this book was both original and a story well-told. I was worried about two things, primarily. One, that the writing style wouldn't be great (because, well, look at how popular Twilight is, despite Meyer's style) and two, that it wouldn't be graphic enough. It's a Young Adult book - and I worried that it would be toned down. (Kind of like how I can't really forgive several of the Harry Potter movies for their PG ratings.) The story of the book is graphic (it's about a competition of 24 people fighting to the death - it kind of has to be!) In any case, both of my fears were never realized, as it is both extremely well-written and doesn't spare us the gory details. To be clear, I don't relish in violence or extremely vivid detail... I just prefer that the author do justice to their story. The last thing I have to say about the book is that the story itself was a lot more self-sufficient than I thought it would be. It left just enough of an inconclusive conclusion at the very end of the book to make me want to start off immediately and go buy the next one (or, let's face it, the next two. I won't be put in this position again!) but it wrapped up the individual story of the book very well. Kudos to Suzanne Collins!

Likelihood I will reread: 100%
Likelihood I will recommend to others: 100% (as I have already done so)

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Page count: 855

Breakathon Readathon Review: An Abundance of Katherines

I’ll be honest, it took me most of the book to properly get into the story - I was probably on page 150 (of 215) and that’s when I found that I didn’t want to leave the story! I love John Green’s voice, his characters, his sense of story and how he seems to know the best way a story should be told, but it was a little hard to follow for one specific reason: the interruptions. Let me explain - the premise of the story is that the main character, Colin, has only dated girls whose name is Katherine. He has just graduated from high school and has recently been dumped by Katherine XIX. To get some space and to try and get over her, he and his friend Hassan take off on a road trip and end up in Tennessee, where they befriend a girl named Lindsey, and her mother, Hollis, who offers them a job if they just stick around for a few weeks during their summer break. Colin is a bit of a prodigy, stuck in the idea that he has failed (in that he hasn’t met his parents’ crazy expectations that he do things like memorize 25 Latin verb conjugations a day, etc.) and he embarks on developing a mathematical formula that predicts the length of a relationship depending on all kinds of variables. Interspersed between the boys’ story in Tennessee is the history of Colin’s relationships with the Katherines (which vary from camp flings, to elementary school hand-holding, to full-blown nearly year-long relationships), and to be honest, the interruption was hard to get used to (because they’re, well, interruptions.) That said, I enjoyed the story itself, thought the characters were well-developed, the voices of the main characters distinct (which was important, because I’ve noticed that John Green tends to leave off the he said/she saids a lot!)

Likelihood I’ll read it again: 25% (Once seems to have done it well for me, but who knows?)

Likelihood I’ll recommend it to others: 30% 

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Page count: 471

Breakathon Readathon Review: Bossypants

What an absolutely hilarious read! I’ve noticed in the past that, when I obsess about something, I immediately go for the roots. With Lord of the Rings, it was learning everything I could about the history of Middle-Earth… with 30 Rock, it was reading this autobiography. Since reading Tolkien’s biography for my paper, I’ve been on a bit of a (auto)biography hunt, and certainly Tina Fey’s was everything that I hoped it would be, and more. I could hear her voice leap right out of the text. I laughed out loud many a time, (which is a big thing for me! I am a silent reader... Most of the time I am the idiot reading in public who is beaming like a ray of sunshine at the happy ending or pulling the same faces as the character in the story). Anyway, I got everything I wanted from this book - including some really great embarrassing photos, highly amusing anecdotes, and a generous dose of her trademark humor - and I recommend it very highly.

Likelihood it will be reread: 95%

Likelihood I will try to recommend it to others, so I can talk about it to them: 75%

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Page count: 288

Challenge: Breakathon Readathon

My roommate and I have a bit of a competition going on over the break. We call it: The Breakathon Readathon.

Rules:

1. No Harry Potter. Or Twilight, for that matter. 
2. No rereading things over the break (but you can reread books you have read before.)
3. Try to stay away from audiobooks, but they are allowed.

During our break from school, we are to read as much as possible. We're quantifying it by page number, so the idea is to just read, and read a lot. I am challenging myself to read as many books that I haven't read before, (with the exception of one or two, because it's been many years since I've read them!) For some added fun, I'll be writing reviews of the books I read, too. I'll give you an updated page count, too.

Interested in what's on my list? They cover a wide array of genres... Here's a list of the books I've pulled from my shelf:

• 13 Little Blue Envelopes, Maureen Johnson (I have to finish this one - I started it months ago!)
• The Last Little Blue Envelope, Maureen Johnson (Presumably I'll want to read it, as it's the sequel!)
• Name of the Star, Maureen Johnson (Because I got it months ago and it has been EATING AT ME that I haven't been able to read it yet!)
• An Abundance of Katherines, John Green (I've been meaning to read this for ages - I've loved his other books and this is just on my list.)
• Looking for Alaska, John Green (Same as the above reason!)
• The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (I have heard that this is an AMAZING read.)
• Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (Presumably, I will have to read this one, because it's the sequel to Hunger Games)
• Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (The last book in the Hunger Games trilogy... same reason as above)
• Lover Eternal, J.R. Ward (Because I read the first one and borrowed this from Ally months ago and should probably return it. Also, throwing in a romance novel seems like a good idea for a change of pace.)
• Lola and the Boy Next Door, Stephanie Perkins (I loved her first book, Anna and the French Kiss, so I picked this one up a few months ago and have been meaning to start)
• The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien (Because the movie is coming out next year, because I haven't read it since I was 14... because I just want to read it again, okay?) 
• All Wound Up, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee (The latest in the Yarn Harlot's collection of knitting-related books, so naturally it's on my list.)
• Bossypants, Tina Fey (Over Thanksgiving break, I watched all five seasons of 30 Rock, and since then I have been a teensy bit obsessed with Tina Fey...)
• Earth (The Book), Jon Stewart (Sort of linked to my obsession with Tina Fey, in that it's a book written by a comedian and looks hilarious!)

So that's the list right now, and by no means will I be sticking to the order! It will in all likelihood change! Any suggestions for books I should read?

Penultimate Day of Classes Blog

(Too bad I didn't write this blog yesterday, otherwise I would have gotten to use one of my favorite obscure words: Antepenultimate. The third to last in a series.)

I have some photographs to share - as is my way, is it not?

I've been trundling along the end of the semester - through the biannual Finals Cold (I always seem to get sick. Stress colds, I suppose.) This semester isn't so awful as previous ones - things are nice and spread out. I guess I'm just ready to be done with these classes.

Tomorrow, 12/2: Exam.
Monday, 12/5: Paper (15-20 pages)
Monday, 12/13: 3 Essays (2000 words, 750 words, 750 words)

On my way to work the other day, I saw a camel.

Yep, that's a camel.

It's part of a "living nativity" thing that this church at Bee Caves and MoPac do every year. Every year I forget about it, and so inevitably I drive through through the light thinking, "Was that a camel?!" I pointed it out to Emma after I'd picked her up, and she said, "I LOVE camels!"

She's a bright girl. She also saw the moon the other day and said, "The MOON. Isn't it BEAUTIFUL, Stefanie? Stefanie, the moon came out to say hello to you!"

How could anyone NOT like gratuitous pictures of Emma?

Also, Emma can recognize some letters now. My hart practically bursts every time I show her the letter E and she proudly says, "That's E. E for Emma!" And to show how SUPER smart she is, she also recognizes S. "S for Stefanie!"

My new current favorite picture of her. Emma LOVES to swing.

Every time I tell her it's bath time, she looks at me very seriously and sais, "This is Emma's last bath. No more baths."

And the other day, I was eating a snack with her and she looked directly at me, pointed her finger, and said (through a mouthful of banana), "Stefanie, chew."

Miss Emma also knows how to operate an iPad. She can unlock it, find her favorite TV shows, and start and stop episodes. All by herself. I watched her go through like six different Dora the Explorer episodes before she decided on which one she wanted. I knew Apple products were intuitive, but I guess I underestimate the toddler population! (She loves to play with the volume. I love to snuggle with her and read a book while she watches Dora.)

She's such a big girl. Look at her a year ago!

Miss Emma still can't eat yogurt without being messy. Not much changes, except now she has more hair. (And she can speak better this year. And she has more teeth. And she...)

Miss Emma will be THREE soon. Don't talk to me about it.

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I went to see my asthma doctor the other day. Ever the sample-giver, he gave me a sample of my favorite kind of inhaler. The usual number of doses in an inhaler is 206, but this one is MINI. It only has 65. AND IT'S MINI.

Really, it just supports my theory that everything is more awesome in its miniature form: muffins, sharpies, squashes (my roommate gave me a mini acorn squash the other day!) And now, inhalers.

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I have some thank you notes to send out for my birthday presents. Mom gave me these stickers last weekend (since her last name no longer begins with a P) and I thought it would be ULTRA CLASSY to put them on.

Don't they just SCREAM classy?

We also determined that I must be an adult if I send thank you cards with absolutely no prompting from her. 

Well, crap... 

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Also, tomorrow's my last day of classes. Where did the semester go?

Class Rings, (gratuitous pictures of) Emma, and the Best Class Ever

This week has been a happy interruption to the endless cycle of school work and real work in my life... I got some time off of work, I finally felt ready to begin writing my paper (which I am sure I will write about soon - it's kind of all I can talk about these days!), and I got my class ring! 

My mom and dad came to the ceremony on Wednesday evening, which was, predictably, mostly calling out names and posing for photographs.

I'm up there somewhere! See me?

The eyes of Texas are upon you, all the live long day...

We sang The Eyes of Texas, which has become my favorite song over the last few years here at UT.

And after the ceremony, I posed with my new ring. 

It's silly, but I keep looking at it. It's a visual representation of what I have done at UT. Even though I'll leave in a few months with little more than a slip of paper and what's in my brain (the latter is the most important, of course) it feels really good to have something shiny to show off. 

Isn't it beautiful? You can hold it if you ask me nicely!

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In other news, LOOK AT EMMA.

Next year, I won't be looking after her regularly because her mom will be on maternity leave. Of course, I will miss my Emma... but I'm getting my dose of her adorableness while I can! 

And lastly, a lifelong (okay, college-long) dream I've had is to have class at Starbucks. Well, I suggested it a few months ago in my Lexicography class and...

AT STARBUCKS!!

YESSSSSSSSSSS!

Thank you for my coffee, professor! Best class ever!

(We have a rather small class, and only seven or eight of us showed up that day anyway. Thank you, Professor!)

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I lied. That last one wasn't exactly the last lastly.

I'd like to say thank you to my mother for giving birth to me 22 years ago. 

Obviously not a picture of my birth. I'll spare you the gory details, and instead present you with the messy details of my first birthday.

And yes, I know I'm not actually 22 until 11:55pm.

"It's not my birthday without you reminding me of that!" I told her on facebook.

"It's hard for me to forget, you know," she replied.

(Touche.) 

A Knitterly Post

Last week was really stressful for me - I had my last short story for my creative writing class due, I had a test in my history class (and the first exam we had I didn't do as well as I had hoped I would, so I tried to study a lot more for this one) and I have been feeling a lot of pressure from my various and sundry occupations of babysitting and teaching that I felt like I might break by the end of the week.

Well, everything that I was fearing ended up passing like no big deal. I knew that I would be able to tackle everything I needed to (and less important things would fade to the background), but it was sure a big relief when I came out intact. I spent the weekend relaxing, cheering on UT on Saturday night (WHAT A GAME. 43-0 win!), and knitting.

I have been knitting so much stockinette and garter stitch lately (for you non-knitters - all just flat, plain, boring ole knitting, no fun things like cables or lace), that I literally exploded into a fingerless mitten pattern with all the cables I could want on Sunday afternoon. I knitted all afternoon, and even the finicky cables couldn't stop me from adoring the whole process.

(Pattern: Evenstar Gloves)

I've only knit the first one, and it was delightful - and I can't wait to knit the second one and wear them! Texas is giving us its version fall right now, where it's kind of moderately chilly in the morning and moderately warm in the afternoon. It feels a lot like Oxford did over the summer. Maybe someday I'll be able to wear a sweater in the morning AND the afternoon!

About a week ago, I also started a long-promised present for my stepsister Katie. Remember my Wealsey sweater? Well, she wants one too! Here is the beginning of that!

I'm going to try and knit the letter into hers as intarsia, instead of sewing it on as a double stitch after the fact. I figure that K is a lot easier to chart than S was. S was awful. S defeated me.

Emma's little sister's blanket is progressing, though I've taken a break from it for a while. I have edges and weaving in ends still to do. But I am super proud of it. :)

The other project I've been working on for a while is the Sunday Market Shawl, which I knit with some Malabrigo that I've had just laying around for a while.

It was a super easy knit, and I am definitely going to knit another one sometime! It's not so much a shawl (though it stretches out wider to be a kind of wrap) as a scarf, and I know I will be warm and toasty all winter (if winter ever comes!) with it!

I finally visited Gauge, the other yarn store in Austin, and that's where I bought the yarn for my mittens, and this baby. Because I simply couldn't help myself.

(Dizzylettuce, Peacock Bronze)

Oh baby - you're going to be 420 yards of something BEAUTIFUL.

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Now, it is off to class I go! My roommate woke me up this morning with a conversation that went something like this:

Leslie: "Stefanie! Stefanie! Wake up!"

Me: "What?"

Leslie: "I have a pumpkin spiced latte and I don't know what to do with it!"

I have the best roommate EVER. She brings me coffee. :D