This blog is weird

And I don't mean in terms of content, though it is true that that aspect of it is also a bit weird.
No, I think it's weird because...well, it's because it was/is an English blog originally. Which means that I know the people who could be reading it, even if they probably aren't, and that limits what can be spoken of on here.
But that's not the only reason this blog is weird. Because if it were just people from our school who I knew who were reading this, that'd be one thing. But the site tracker thing informs me that there are people reading this who are not only not from our school, they're from other countries. And that's...surreal would be the only appropriate word.

Anyway, for this week: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne and Julie and Julia by Julie Powell.
Both were good, and of course Julie and Julia was quite different from the movie. I have to say, in some ways I enjoyed the movie more, though the book definitely came off quite a bit more like real life.

In other news: concerning music, I am looking forward to our band's trip to New Orleans, and all the music I plan on stocking up on right before we leave. I tend to do this every year, usually right before camp; I'll save up around $40 and just buy a ton of music on iTunes. This year I'll probably be getting some Julia Nunes and ALL CAPS. I also usually do this with books too, but this year I think I'll have plenty from my TBR pile.

ZOMBIES.

The two books for this week: Lock and Key, by Sarah Dessen, which I finished in a day (...yeah) and The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. As I have probably mentioned, I love Sarah Dessen, and The Zombie Survival Guide is probably going to be one of my favorite books to reread. It was hilarious, and...ok, is it weird that when I read survival guides, I have this desire to go put the knowledge within the book to use? Like, I know hundreds of people would die, and I would most likely end up among them, but wouldn't it be cool to actually prepare for an outbreak? And survive one? Or not cool, as many of your neighbors, friends, and family would be dead, but...I don't know. It's like when you're little and you would pretend to be stranded on a desert island.

The Olympics

So, I've been watching the Olympics this year, something that has pretty much NEVER been done in my family; we usually only see the figure skating, and only parts of it.

All this means that it's the first year I saw the Opening Ceremonies (!!) and thus I have some observations and questions:

1. What is going on with Nordic Combined? Who thought to put those two separate events together? Unlike biathlon, which I have been told is probably based on some hunting thing, Nordic Combined would have very little basis in reality. So where did it come from?

2. I have successfully identified them using the score from three different movies thus far, which makes me really proud, and also makes me slightly nerdy, but whatever. (For interested parties, the scores were those of Coraline, Pirates of the Carribbean, and A Series of Unfortunate Events.)

3. SHAUN WHITE.



That's all for now folks!

(oh! wait! I almost forgot: finished The Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones, who I LOVE as an author, and you should definitely check out, and The Lightening Thief, the first in the Percy Jackson trilogy! So, two books for this week: check!)

Folding Chair

"Come and open up your folding chair next to me
My feet are buried in the sand
And there's a breeze."

-Regina Spektor

Success!

So, I did succeed in my challenge for this week, though not in the two books I had listed; while I did finish We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, which was about the genocide in Rwanda; however, instead of finishing Rebel Angels, I reread The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen.
We Wish to Inform You was absolutely fascinating, and definitely a book I think everyone should read. Seriously. Go check it out right now. (Okay, so maybe don't read it if you're really emotional and are going to have some serious, May-from-The-Secret-Life-of-Bees-esque trouble reading about genocide)
It was just...gaaah, it sounds really horrible and boring but informative. And horrifying, in some ways worse than the Holocaust. Because we all grew up with the Holocaust, you know? We know its story. But this was completely different, and new.

Anyway, the second book I just recently bought, and I love Sarah Dessen beause she writes stories with happy endings (usually) involving love. The only exceptions to this are Dreamland and Someone Like You. And possibly some others, which I haven't read...like her two most recent (although, they definitely look like they have a happy ending). And That Summer, which I'm kind of too scared to read for fear of an unhappy ending.
So The Truth About Forever is probably my favorite of her books, though This Lullaby and Just Listen are pretty good too...anyway, I cried, again, because that's what I do.

And the final news of the day: I went to the pharmacy beacause I needed construction paper for making Valentines, and as I was walking I was sort of going over what I want to say in my commentary, because I think better if I can walk and talk it out, and as I was crossing the street I looked up and some lady pushing a stroller was staring at me. So...yup, I am that crazy person who talks to themselves.

(A final ps. I don't know why, but I've noticed that I can't paste into Blogger when I'm editing. I can cut and copy, but when I try to paste it just doesn't work. It's getting to be quite annoying.)

New month, new challenge

So! New challenge time!

This one isn't going to be one that's all that interesting for the non-readers out there, because that's what it involves: reading. The goal would be to finish at least two books a week. I figure I need to shrink my To Be Read pile anyway, so why not make it an official challenge?
This week's books are two I'm already in the midst of: We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, and Rebel Angels by Libba Bray.
I'll be blogging at the end of every week to let you know how it goes!