I even added Victoire AND Teddy!! And Crookshanks. And Arnold, Ginny's Pigmy Puffskein.
Oh. My. Goodness.
(Totally random, but that's what my face looked like when I finished. And when I watched #Bones)
Friday, January 13, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Kathy Reichs is literally The Best Writer Ever.
I just recently noticed all my obsessions are inter-connected in one way or another. For example, my Bones obsession started after I realized Emily Deschanel was Zooey Deschanel's sister. And my obsession with (someday) becoming an anthropologist was fueled by the show and my long-time fascination with Egyptian mummies and Ancient Greeks, and of course Kathy Reichs.
I had been watching the show for about two years (actually we watched several episodes a night almost every single night!!) before my parents finally agreed to let me read her novels. I think they worried I would begin to identify with Brennan more than I already did, which was a lot. So, I went to the public library and asked the librarian to help me find Deja Dead, and she looked at me like I was crazy. I'm sure she thought I was crazy. She looked at me asking silently "Why would a middle school kid want to read books about murder?" and "Wouldn't you much rather read something mindless like Twilight?" frankly, (this might make me sound both psycho and weird) I find books and shows about murders quite fascinating. Bones, Cold Case, Forensic Files, 20/20 and Nightline are my favourite shows. Also, I'm a bit of a science nerd, and I had read that Kathy's books went a bit further into the scientific stuff than Bones or any of the other shows did. So, obviously I just had to read her books.
I finished Deja Dead in a little less than a week, and then Death du Jour and the rest of the novels in the following weeks. I honestly loved them. I loved the fact that the characters are realistic. And that Temperance Brennan is a tough cookie. And I also loved the fact that she has a cat.(Everyone knows Awesome people + awesome cats (like Birdie)= Extreme Awesomeness.) And even my parents loved them (despite the fact that my dad has only read a couple of chapters on Flash and Bones) because I learned a lot of things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. For example, where else would I have found out about kerf marks and false starts on bones? I don't think we're even going all that in-depth into bones in Bio class. And where else would I have learned about NASCAR? probably from my dad, but even after whatever explanation he might have given me I still would have thought of it as the "sport where all they do is make left turns." And perhaps the best parts of the books are the "Notes from the files of Dr. Kathy Reichs" which I love reading. As I mentioned above, I am a bit of a news junkie, so looking at those is a good deal of fun.
[If you haven't read any of her books you most definetly should. If you like things along the lines of Mary Higgins Clark and I guess Agatha Christie then you will probably love her Temperance Brennan novels. If you're fonder of the whole YA SCI/FAN thing, then Virals and Seizure will be great for you!!]
I <3 Dr. Kathy Reichs. and don't forget to check out her awesome website.
I had been watching the show for about two years (actually we watched several episodes a night almost every single night!!) before my parents finally agreed to let me read her novels. I think they worried I would begin to identify with Brennan more than I already did, which was a lot. So, I went to the public library and asked the librarian to help me find Deja Dead, and she looked at me like I was crazy. I'm sure she thought I was crazy. She looked at me asking silently "Why would a middle school kid want to read books about murder?" and "Wouldn't you much rather read something mindless like Twilight?" frankly, (this might make me sound both psycho and weird) I find books and shows about murders quite fascinating. Bones, Cold Case, Forensic Files, 20/20 and Nightline are my favourite shows. Also, I'm a bit of a science nerd, and I had read that Kathy's books went a bit further into the scientific stuff than Bones or any of the other shows did. So, obviously I just had to read her books.
I finished Deja Dead in a little less than a week, and then Death du Jour and the rest of the novels in the following weeks. I honestly loved them. I loved the fact that the characters are realistic. And that Temperance Brennan is a tough cookie. And I also loved the fact that she has a cat.(Everyone knows Awesome people + awesome cats (like Birdie)= Extreme Awesomeness.) And even my parents loved them (despite the fact that my dad has only read a couple of chapters on Flash and Bones) because I learned a lot of things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. For example, where else would I have found out about kerf marks and false starts on bones? I don't think we're even going all that in-depth into bones in Bio class. And where else would I have learned about NASCAR? probably from my dad, but even after whatever explanation he might have given me I still would have thought of it as the "sport where all they do is make left turns." And perhaps the best parts of the books are the "Notes from the files of Dr. Kathy Reichs" which I love reading. As I mentioned above, I am a bit of a news junkie, so looking at those is a good deal of fun.
[If you haven't read any of her books you most definetly should. If you like things along the lines of Mary Higgins Clark and I guess Agatha Christie then you will probably love her Temperance Brennan novels. If you're fonder of the whole YA SCI/FAN thing, then Virals and Seizure will be great for you!!]
I <3 Dr. Kathy Reichs. and don't forget to check out her awesome website.
Monday, January 9, 2012
The Joys of Being a Homebody
Often, my parents refer to me as an old lady. That would be an accurate description if I were 70. But I'm not. I'm 15.
Often, I will turn down invitations to go out with friends (which really isn't all that often...) because I would much rather stay at home with my warm Smurfette pajama pants.
Sometimes, I will sit on the couch and watch The Food Network until midnight and go to bed dreaming about whatever it is I just saw.
Sometimes, I will act like your crazy great-grandmother and be irritable and stubborn just for the sake of it.
Often, I will turn down invitations to go out with friends (which really isn't all that often...) because I would much rather stay at home with my warm Smurfette pajama pants.
Sometimes, I will sit on the couch and watch The Food Network until midnight and go to bed dreaming about whatever it is I just saw.
Sometimes, I will act like your crazy great-grandmother and be irritable and stubborn just for the sake of it.
Trust, Gym Class and Harnesses
As the title of this post implies yes, I will be talking about doing trust exercises in Gym class. And yes, they do involve harnesses. And since they involve harnesses, it does mean we are not going to be on the ground the whole time.
My school is a bit weird, because for a quarter of the year in both Freshman and Sophomore years we get to do something called Project Adventure. In this class we get to climb the rock walls in the gym as well as the one on the side of the building, and we get to jump off beams and platforms on the ceiling. Supposedly these are meant to be team-building activities that will help each one of us to 'be comfortable in leadership roles'.
Last week, for example, we had to stand on a 3 ft. box and fall backwards, while a team of six-8 people caught us. I will admit I was scared of doing it. The teacher said this might be caused by trust issues. No kidding. Why would I trust a bunch of 9th graders to catch me? If it were oh, I don't know, David Boreanaz or some athlete type I would have had no problem. However, the kids in my class are all skinny and have an average height of 5'5. Mr. Quirk said if I didn't do it my grade would go down, so I did. And it wasn't all that bad, really.
After trust-falls, he had the whole class pull a person up on the rope, to show us that our own hand-knotted harnesses would actually hold. And they did. It was actually fun. Except for the part where the douche-bags in my class would run full-speed while pulling the rope and then plant their feet on the floor and shake the rope. Honestly, I would have been terrified if I had been twenty feet in the air while these idiots were keeping me up there.
And now we're doing actual climbing. Today we learned how to do the balleying (or however you spell it). Apparently there's a certain way you hold the rope while pulling the climber up/down. And you have to have someone hold on to the back of your harness so the bigger climber doesn't pull you up if they fall. That's called being a Creep. No joke. The actual job is called 'being a creep'.
My school is a bit weird, because for a quarter of the year in both Freshman and Sophomore years we get to do something called Project Adventure. In this class we get to climb the rock walls in the gym as well as the one on the side of the building, and we get to jump off beams and platforms on the ceiling. Supposedly these are meant to be team-building activities that will help each one of us to 'be comfortable in leadership roles'.
Last week, for example, we had to stand on a 3 ft. box and fall backwards, while a team of six-8 people caught us. I will admit I was scared of doing it. The teacher said this might be caused by trust issues. No kidding. Why would I trust a bunch of 9th graders to catch me? If it were oh, I don't know, David Boreanaz or some athlete type I would have had no problem. However, the kids in my class are all skinny and have an average height of 5'5. Mr. Quirk said if I didn't do it my grade would go down, so I did. And it wasn't all that bad, really.
After trust-falls, he had the whole class pull a person up on the rope, to show us that our own hand-knotted harnesses would actually hold. And they did. It was actually fun. Except for the part where the douche-bags in my class would run full-speed while pulling the rope and then plant their feet on the floor and shake the rope. Honestly, I would have been terrified if I had been twenty feet in the air while these idiots were keeping me up there.
And now we're doing actual climbing. Today we learned how to do the balleying (or however you spell it). Apparently there's a certain way you hold the rope while pulling the climber up/down. And you have to have someone hold on to the back of your harness so the bigger climber doesn't pull you up if they fall. That's called being a Creep. No joke. The actual job is called 'being a creep'.
The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins
This was actually something I had seen and heard about before but never really bothered to read until my Dad gave them to me as a Christmas Present. I had read the summary before in sites such as GoodReads.com and the online library catalougue, but for some reason they seemed too fantasy-ish for my taste.
I started reading them as soon as my younger sister finished them in a couple of days, which is impressive considering she rarely reads. I have to admit I was instantly hooked. The setting, the characters, the plot; it was all just so engaging and so real. Obviously, since it takes place sometime in the near-ish future, it had to be somewhat realistic, but I could find parallels between the book and what I have learned in History class which really made me incredibly happy. Another thing that really caught me was the fact that the main character is a girl. A GIRL. A FEMALE HUMAN BEING. AND SHE WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER. She wasn't somebody's BFF, or someone's girlfriend or sidekick. THIS BOOK HAD A STRONG, INDEPENDENT FEMALE AS THE LEAD and it helped set it apart from other YA SCI/FAN books I have read like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and The Olympians and Artemis Fowl. I mean, I love those books because they are fantastic, but whatever female characters exist are placed in a sidekick kind of role. The only other series in this category (YA SCI/FAN) with a strong female lead, that I have read, is Virals by Kathy Reichs.
The Hunger Games Trilogy has it all: adventure, drama, romance, and even the right amount of that teen angst we so crave. It's also quite graphic in some parts, but if you can handle CSI and Bones and Law & Order and all of those shows, you can probably handle the intensity.
If you still haven't read these books, please do and tell me what you think in comments below!!
I started reading them as soon as my younger sister finished them in a couple of days, which is impressive considering she rarely reads. I have to admit I was instantly hooked. The setting, the characters, the plot; it was all just so engaging and so real. Obviously, since it takes place sometime in the near-ish future, it had to be somewhat realistic, but I could find parallels between the book and what I have learned in History class which really made me incredibly happy. Another thing that really caught me was the fact that the main character is a girl. A GIRL. A FEMALE HUMAN BEING. AND SHE WAS THE MAIN CHARACTER. She wasn't somebody's BFF, or someone's girlfriend or sidekick. THIS BOOK HAD A STRONG, INDEPENDENT FEMALE AS THE LEAD and it helped set it apart from other YA SCI/FAN books I have read like Harry Potter or Percy Jackson and The Olympians and Artemis Fowl. I mean, I love those books because they are fantastic, but whatever female characters exist are placed in a sidekick kind of role. The only other series in this category (YA SCI/FAN) with a strong female lead, that I have read, is Virals by Kathy Reichs.
The Hunger Games Trilogy has it all: adventure, drama, romance, and even the right amount of that teen angst we so crave. It's also quite graphic in some parts, but if you can handle CSI and Bones and Law & Order and all of those shows, you can probably handle the intensity.
If you still haven't read these books, please do and tell me what you think in comments below!!
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