Thoughts on Books

Two years ago, while sitting on a bunk bed in a hostel in Mexico City, I saw one of my fellow travellers reading a book with a topless (possibly naked) guy on the cover. This book has been highly memorable to me, and since then I've seen it a number of times. My sister read it. Our friends read it. They all talked about it, but nothing really inspired me to read it.

I know it's not really fair to turn your back on an entire genre. I'm just not naturally disposed to like fantasy novels. Harry Potter being an exception. Dragons and fairies and magic just doesn't excite me as a reader.
It was probably because of this that I halted reading City of Bones for so long. My idea of the book was so off. I had judged it too harshly. The picture I had in my head was of demon hunter people (true enough), on some sort of quest to save the world. If you've read the book, you know that my image of it was a little askew. Yes they hunt demons, and yes they sort of in a very vague way, go on a quest, but I had envision it wrong. Bad Alex. No more judging books based on genre again.

But the thing is, it's nearly impossible for me not to judge a book based on genre. As much as I try to be open minded, I can't just pick up a sci-fi novel and start reading. It's different.

I'm just going to give me thoughts on the trilogy now. I'm trying to be spoiler free.

City of Bones
The first book in the Mortal Instruments certainly had a gripping start. You are introduced to Clary and Simon, who are immediately endearing and relatable. Slowly and carefully the author informs the reader of Shadowhunters, mysterious demon hunters and everything starts to fit together, with tons of missing pieces to keep you reading. You meet Jace, sexy, cynical, sarcastic and charming, and watch the emotional and physical stuggles of Clary slowly discovering her past.

I'm usually weary of any person who thinks that you have to know who your parents are to know who YOU are. I just don't believe you have to know who your father is to truly discover yourself. However, I was not irritated by Clary's want for information. I loved this book; it was so full of plot twists and secrets, it kept your interest throughout. Plus there are tons of hilarious lines, worth reading again and again.

City of Ashes
The second installment in the Mortal Instruments trilogy was equally intriguing. Unfortunately I read all the books extremely fast, and therefore they all blend together in my mind to an extent. I remember it was an emotional roller coaster with tons of twists and turns and unexpected drops (sorry for that cheesy metaphor, but it's true). The series itself is filled with so many secrets that the reader can't help but devour the book chapters at a time.

City of Glass
At this point in my reading frenzy, I just wanted to get to the end of the book so I could finally see all the secrets unravelled. I regret reading it a little too fast, but I'll just have to read it a second time to get more out of the experience a little later.

A few charming new characters are introduced as Clary continues to struggle to save her mother and discover the secrets of her past (some things can't NOT be corny). Her battle against her feelings is startleingly realistic. The end of this series was nail-biting, tense, and satisfying. It was fulfilling to finally discover the truth about everything, and see how it all ended.
***
After you've read something like Twilight, it's a relief to grab onto something with round and believable characters. I thought Clary was a beautiful, understandable, complex character. It marks an incredible romance when you can actually understand why the characters fell in love with each other. It makes it so much more real when you can see the attraction and believe it.

I loved these books. They were page turning, intriguing, well written and comical. Some of the lines are just so funny, and the dialogue is intensely realistic. I don't know how much more I can rave about the series without exploding so I'll end here. I would recommend these books to anyone, regardless of past relations with the genre. You won't be disapointed.

Solutions!

I have come up with a solid plan for this blog. I will continue to post to Raving Persuasions on Thursday and Sunday, and if I feel the need to blog on any other day, I will post here. I know, it kind of feels like this blog is being shoved to the back burner, but at least the stove is still on, right?

I think you'll mostly be seeing the odd journal-like posting here, because I'll be saving most of my interesting content for RP. I'm sorry A2A1 (according2alex1), but that's just the way things are. I wrote the following to kill time with no intent to blog it, but it seemed like worthy material at the time, so forgive the rambling and topic-less nature of it. If you're still reading that is. Because usually I like to fill this blog with what I'm thinking, because that seems much more interesting than what's actually happening. What here it is, my thoughts on my ACTUAL LIFE...

It’s 10:59pm, and mom is sleeping in my bed so that Rachel and Maddy can watch Hellboy, so I get to stay up until the movie ends so I can sleep on the couch. My other option is to attempt to fall asleep with the movie on, but seeing as I can’t even focus on my book, with the background noise and other distractions, I don’t think that option is the best one.

As I said above, I can’t really focus on reading, and Jane Eyre requires constant attention. I often do this thing when reading, where my mind starts to wander off, and I don’t notice until my eyes reach the bottom of a page and I can’t recall what I just read. This is a problem if you're actually attempting to follow the book's plot. 

I really like Jane Eyre; it isn’t completely riveting and gripping, but I’m invested enough in the story that I want to continue reading. The writing is good, and I like the character of Jane, for some reason. She seems like a good person, and reasonably talented.

But I can’t focus. Why is that? The book is captivating; I guess it’s more me that is failing to be captivated. Typing works, too, as entertainment.

I really don’t understand the appeal of movies like Hellboy and The Hulk. It is definitely not because there are good-looking male leads, but I guess it must have some appeal, otherwise my sisters would not be watching it at this moment, and I would not be typing here.

My birthday is in two days. I’ll be fifteen on Sunday, which also happens to be Mother’s Day. Today, when my mother asked me what I would like on the menu, I had an innovative idea. Normally in our family, on a person’s birthday, that person gets to decide what we eat, when we eat it, what we do, &. But for a few reasons, such as I don’t feel like deciding such things and it feels a little repetitive, I have asked my mom and sisters to come up with the menu and other events for the day. It’s going to be a surprise for one said birthday girl.

I have to say I’m quite impressed with my plan. Not only do I have no decisions to make, but it’s going to be interesting seeing what my sisters think I want to eat and do. It’ll be a kind of test, to see who knows what my favourite cake is, and also very enjoyable for me, the surprisee (I just added that the the MS Word dictionary—WIN!).

I guess we survived the week without mom and Rachel. We deviated from the menu for most of the time, but we survived (mostly due to the Special K). Everyone made it to all their activities promptly, and I think we had fun. We had fun, right?

Last night was actually a lot of fun. My dad came home from his soccer game, feeling extremely sore, with a craving for pizza. We hurried out the door to the car, before we could lose our nerve, and drove to Safeway, to see if it was open at 10:30pm. It was--apparently the establishment closes at 12am. After wandering the aisles for a while, we came out with a Delissio pizza, some bulk candy, Miss Vicky’s and a box of Fudgesicles. Talk about epic success. 

Driving home we debated what movie we could watch and headed in the door to pop in Hot Fuzz. Unfortunately, at about midnight, we were all too tired to go on. We turned off the movie about half-way through and all stumbled off to bed, sugar laced, but sufficiently tired. What a night... 

That is all, hope it wasn't to boring, and if it was, well, there's not a lot I can do about it. That is my life. Deal with it.

Conundrum

I have a bit of a problem here, reader. You see I've started up this Made of Awesome group blog with my BEDA buddies, which I am supposed to post blogs bi-weekly on Thursdays and Sundays.

That, however, is not the problem. The blog itself, Raving Persuasions, is completely awesome and I'm really excited about it. The problem is, that I don't know what is going to happen to this blog. I don't know if I want to post my blogs on both of the blogs, but I might do that anyway.

I've had this blog for so long, I started it in March of 2008. That's a year and a bit. How long have you ever kept writing something for a year? 

I want to bring back some memories from those days of blogging, simply because 1. I need to prove how much my blog skills have improved and 2. I need to show you how much things change (namely my obsession with Twilight).

This is an excerpt from my first ever blog post:

So what else is there? Right, books. I love to read. Reading is the best, you can go anywhere with books and I try to explore different genres though my favourites are vampire romances. Well just one favourite. Three words: The Twilight Saga. One word: Love. If you havn't read Twilight or it's sequels I order you to stp reading this right now.... I mean right now..... stop reading. Go read Twilight by Stephenie Meyer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm going to stop writing now so you can read it. Get it from your library or buy it! Trust me it's worth it!!!!

Look at all those exclamation points. I write like an insanely deranged and obsessive teenage girl. Which I suppose I was at the time. Back in that time, I used to end my blog posts with "Alex loves you!!" and write about things like America's Next Top Model (how lame it was--I wasn't a completely different person) and how hot Robert Pattinson was and about how I met Avril Lavign's drummer (which I actually didn't, he was some creeper PRETENDING to be Avril Lavign's drummer). The amount of sentences ended like this!!! is astounding.

I wrote about some noteworthy things, like global warming when I had just seen An Inconvenient Truth, and my issues with Girl Guide cookies, but most of it was about Twilight. I know, it's sad.

One thing I did notice, is that the month I blogged the most in last year was April. There were 17 blogs written by me in April, and though they weren't as long as the ones I wrote for BEDA, it was still significantly more blogs than I wrote any other month. I guess I was in training or something. Haha. BEDA training ;)

I have to stop reading my old blogs because I pass out due to the inferiority of my past writing. If you're interested in a laugh or seeing how much things change I recommend you check out the archives of my blog. I just have to say, I've come a long way since March 17, 2008.

Another charming blog finish:

Signing out! -Edward's water bottle (aka Alex)

The Bone Thief

I feel like blogging. I have a story I have been meaniing to tell. I can't tell if it's as funny as I seem to think, but I guess you can decide after you've heard it. 

I have a joint-ish backyard with my neighbours. There's this huge yard and we both have sliding glass doors, which we usually leave open in warm weather.

My neighbours have a dog. He is a keeshound (if you're into that kind of thing) and extremely fluffy. I have never seen this dog when he was wet, but I'm sure he would be a third of the size he normally is, if he were soaked the the skin. He is a fluffy hairball of a dog, and this may be irrelevent information to the coming story, but he is quite unattractive. Oh and his name is Willy. Or Willie, I'm not entirely sure.

Anyway, sometimes when the door is open, Willy will sit outside the glass door, looking all sad and pathetic. He sits there and sometimes he comes in and looks around. He usually keeps his head down but if you look up at him and he sees you staring at him, he'll leave, like he knows he shouldn't be in there. You don't even need to tell him. He KNOWS.

We have these red containers that we keep the dog's food in. One for kibble, one for doggie bone treats. After restocking the bones we had so many in there we couldn't put the lid back on. But that was okay, because Maggie wouldn't take more than one per day. It was like a self reward system. She's very intelligent, that dog.

One day, the weather was nice, and we left the door open. I was sitting in the living room, when I saw Willy walk into the house, head straight towards the dog treat containers, grab one, and walk out the door. As soon as he was out the glass door he sat down looked right at me and started eating his stolen bone.

It was so odd, I just started to laugh. He had known exactly where the treats were kept, like he'd been watching us all this time, and had finally caught on to our routine. Seriously who does this dog think he is?

Summary of April

Today is April 30th. Which means that tomorrow is May 1st. Which means that my birthday is in ten days. Which means that I will be fifteen soonish.

Being April 30th today also means that it is the last day of BEDA.* As I said yesterday, I don't really have an fantastic ideas for blogging today. This is my 29th day of blogging in a row, which is quite a feat, in my book. The thing is, I feel like today is special, because it's the last day, and so I don't want to prattle on about something meaningless like I would on any ordinary day. Because today is far from ordinary. Today is extraordinary.

Instead I'm going to recreate some of the blogging tactics I have used this month. Some of which include listing, ranting, rambling and having no idea what I'm doing. Today is going to be a huge wrap up of everything. When I read a book, I like a clean ending, which I what I will TRY and provide here. Screw that, no one likes clean endings; as I have said before, life is MESSY. So scrap that, this blog is going to be as messy as any of my others. I think that's enough of an intro

What I have blogged about in April (A summary of my wonderings):

• Elections, violence and STV
• Birthdays (beachy, liquor filled, and glamourousness)
• Books (my insane* reading list; Jane Eyre, Jane Austen, etc. reading=awesome)
• Road use and the scary thought of driving
• Ranting from the view of random objects
• Promiscuous women and Harry Potter
• Bowling, dishes and noun labels
• Lots of other fun stuff.

One thing that I can really appreciate about this "experience" (I'm really beginning HATE that word) is that I have a lovely record of the things I did and thought about for the month of April 2009. Blogs seem sort of eternal, more so than journals even, and I like the fact that I'm be able to check back and read this in the future.

Which transitions me (a little more smoothly than usual) into my next subject. Time is a peculiar thing. It's so variable and diverse and ever-changing. For instance, it's moving right now. And you can never touch it, or change it, or have more of it. You just take what you get. I think about time a lot. I don't like it when people say something is a "waste of time", because obviously, if it were, the person wouldn't be doing it. Can we really waste something that is never ending? Wasting implies some sort of negativeness. Am I wasting my time right here, blogging? What's the point anyway? What am I getting out of this? 

Are we wasting time all the time, whatever we do? Our lives are centered so much on the future. We go to school so we can get a job, and we work at our job to make money, what are we really trying to do? What is the purpose of us? I used to ask myself that a lot when I was a kid. It's crazy to think of an 8-year-old thinking "why am I here, on this planet?" "what's the point of everything?", but it's true, I was thinking those things.

Blogging every day has become a habit, part of routine and my life. It seems like I've been doing it forever, but it's only been 29 days. It's mind numbing. Sometimes time flies and sometimes it goes so slowly. Does time even exhist? Or is it just now, the present, that ever matters?

I'm going to leave this here, even though time is on my mind still. 

I have no rant. I'm just happy, and anything that is irritating to me write now is either hiding, or just staying out of my way.

Vita's question:

Rena's questions:

Do ninjas have day jobs? What profession are the people you consider to be most ninja-y?

Yes, ninjas have day jobs. Have you ever met one of those people, perhaps in an antique store, that seems to be everywhere are once, watching everything, at the same time? Ninjas are great at their jobs, always on top of everything and able to cope with difficult situations. They're EVERYWHERE! Watching you...

You have one wish. Use it. No wishing for more wishes, no wishing for world peace/cures/end world hunger ect... it's cliche.

I always have the hardest time with wishes. Birthday cakes, those lame-o chain emails (maybe I'll rant about how LAME those are sometimes soon), whatever. I'm a bad wisher. I never know if I should wish for something big (for instance, um, winning the lottery), because I could be wasting it, or for something smaller (ex. that I will find some change on the ground and buy some gum). What's the point of wishing anyway (NOT going to get into that)? I'll wish for... damn it, I can't think of anything I want that doesn't seem too shallow. Okay I'll wish that the goddess of cleaning will be with my this week while my mother and older sister (primary house keepers--that was not meant in any offensive way, btw) go away on vacation. I need you cleaning goddess to guide me safely through this perilous seven days.

QUESTION: What is the weirdest thing you have ever done in public, or alternatively, what is the weirdest thing you have ever seen anyone do in public?

This question was a bit more troubling than the wish question for me. I feel like I never see any extremely insane acts being executed in public. Sure, I sometimes do some dancing to that strange music outside the mall exits, or skip down the road and do that thing where you hit your heels together, but nothing truly drastically odd. From this day on, I vow to do more strange things, to rectify this situation. We need to see more weirdos in public, so that more people will feel comfortable coming out of their shells. I will tell you a funny thing I saw some people  *coughmysisterscough* do in public. My sister's embarrassing story:

One day we were walking home from the mall and we saw a vehicle that looked EXACTLY like our dad's drive down the street. We watched him go and were convinced it was our dad, he was wearing the same sunglasses and everything. So when he pulled into a parking lot we had to go over and say hi. Two people who will not be named ran up to the car and started doing that -gross- thing where you stick your mouth up to the window and blow air, so you look really stupid (I can't really describe it). So there they were, making out with the window and then a second later, they realized that (you guessed it) it WASN'T my dad in the car. It was some random dude who looked exactly like him.

I could stop laughing at them the rest of the way home. The guy in the car had started laughing and then they ran away. I followed, also laughing. It was amazing. 

Oh a quick random thing I did that I just remembered: last October I learned and danced the routine from Micheal Jackson's Thriller video as part of a worldwide effort to break a Guinness World Record in front of city fall. That was pretty exciting.

I will be doing more crazy and public stuff, and will let you know my amazing stories once they have come about.

This is it for April. I'm debating whether I will blog tomorrow. I feel like I shouldn't, because then the significance of BEDA is gone. So I won't. Maybe the next day. 

It isn't really an end. I hope you keep reading this, but I don't really care THAT much. I'll still keep writing, regardless if there's anyone out there who's interested enough to listen to me. I don't blame the people who don't care (although according to the window: hell is waiting for you, sinner). It's been good. I'll "see" you guys around.

*Unless we go with Rena's version of days in April in which tomorrow is the last day, with it being April 31st ;)

Sign Waving

Sign waving makes you feel official. It's not exactly a huge act, but when you're standing out there, holding up your sign and waving at passing vehicles, you kind of feel like part of something. I'm not trying to get all cheesy on you, just stating the facts, something I try to do whenever possible on this blog.

We had a lot of people ignore us, but there were a bunch that waved back and some who honked. The honking is a bit strange, because honking in general sounds like an obnoxious and negative sounds. It's how you let other drivers know to get out of the way. So standing on the sidewalk and being honked at might not seem like the most positive response in the world, but at least it was SOME response.

Sometimes, thought, I have to say it gets a little disappointing. I mean, really, what are the chances that one of the people that saw us is going to actually go to stv.ca and do that research and then possibly vote for BC-STV in the referendum? I don't mean to get all doom and gloom pessimist girl, but sometimes you can't help but let these evil thoughts eat at your brain.

It was still fun thought, regardless of the fact that, at times, we felt like crazy girls holding signs and dancing at the side of the road.

This blog is going to be pretty unexciting from this point on. It took me a while to get this out of my fingers and into the keyboard, and so I'm not really sure where this is going. I couldn't really think of a topic, and so the thought I had a few days ago that I've been getting better at blogging as the months goes on, seems a little silly. But I'm starting to realize something about blogging, and that is that it's not all about what you write about, or how much you write about it, or if you have any witty remarks or anything else. I'm not sure what blogging is about, but I'm trying to think up an answer for that, because tomorrow is the last day of April and thus, BEDA.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do on the blog tomorrow. My buddies are apparently doing something exciting and special, but I can't really think of an idea that sounds good. I still have until tomorrow though, so I may surprise you.

I am going to stop before I start saying goodbye, because I need something to say tomorrow, and it's not really goodbye at all. I'm still going to keep blogging, and April comes around once a year, so with any luck I'll be back here next year, digging up topics daily. Stopping.

The Soothing Answers

Vita, my darling buddy, I enjoyed your blog where you took questions from crazythoughts.com (awesome website) and answered them, so I am doing the same! Yay. Here are the soothing answers to your burning questions...

How come you never see a billboard being put up by the highway? The reason for this is because billboards are put up be invisible super ninjas and they have the art of the billboard change down to such a fast-paced art that they can do it in broad daylight and no one ever notices. Drivers are exceptionally unobservant and won't even notice if a billboard they are looking at magically changes in another. 

Do the English people eat English muffins, or are they just called muffins? For this question, I have a question: in other countries, do Canadians/Americans have a food? Is it McDonald's because that's just sad. Anyway to answer the first question English people don't eat English muffins. They're way to awesome for that.

In some books, why do they have blank pages at the very end? Publishers are very smart people. They realize that not everyone is going to like or agree with the end of a book. So they leave you some blank pages so you can write your own ending. Either that or it's incase the author changes they mind about the end of the both and decides to rewrite it. 

Why do people never say "it's only a game" when they're winning? I have lots of theories about this. You see, humans are naturally competetive. Everyone suffers from this on a scale, some have extreme competetivness others suffer minimally. When we are losing at Monopoly, or Chinese checkers or Sorry (which by the way is a huge oxy-moron), we naturally want to tell ourselves it's not really that bad, sure we're losing, but this has nothing to do with anything, it's just a game. As opposed to accepting the fact that it sucks and you feel really bad at losing. This is also a tactic to try and bring down the winner. By saying "it's only a game", you're telling the winner that it doesn't really matter that they're doing better than you, in the end it doesn't mean anything. Humans are highly capable at lying to ourselves to feel better.

Why do we sing "Rock a bye baby" to lull a baby to sleep when the song is about putting your baby in a tree and letting the wind crash the cradle on the ground? We are sadists who revel in the fact that the baby may dream of crashing to the ground from great heights.

Why does the Easter bunny carry eggs? Rabbits don't lay eggs. Not regular rabits, no. But Easter rabbits are actually magical creatures, and magical creatures do not listen to the regular rules of life. East bunnies do whatever they want. They hop, they hide your eggs, they eat radioactively large carrots. "Rules are for little people", of which group the abnormally large rabbits of Easter do not adhere to.

At a movie theater which arm rest is yours? Both! If you want the armrest you have to fight for it. Either than or half of each is yours and you should promise to share and be a friend.

-----

All this talk of things people didn't know too much about until now got me thinking of the Laundry Fairy. I know you've all thought about those socks that go missing in the wash. I'll let you in on a secret: they don't actually go missing; they get stolen. By the Laundry Fairy. The LF is a very mischeivous and devious fairy not unlike the Tooth Fairy, who teaches kids it's okay to sell body parts. The LF also has a knack for strange collections, instead of teeth she collects socks and leaves change at the bottom of your washer. She enjoys seeing the pain of people trying to match socks are realizing that they are missing too many.

I know what you're thinking: I'm doomed! I'm eventually going to lose all of my socks to this crazy fairy. But fear not, reader, there is a way to thwart the LF. You have to wear mis-matched socks. Dobby the House Elf was a very smart guy, and he was in on this trick. If you wear two different socks the fairy will realize that you don't really care if you're missing one, because you will find a way, regardless. Did you hear that LF? I'm on to you! And I'm teaching everyone else how to deal with your annoying ways too! Take that.

Yes I just sent a message to a fairy. Deal with it and move on.