My attempt at the 2009 100+ Reading Challenge starts here.
Fate has brought you to this sketchbook - a slice of life behind the eyes of a seventeen-year-old Filipina residing in sunny England.
So today I finally realized why my housemate Adam goes the long way to get to his room. I mean, his room is just right next to the front staircase but he always (always!) chooses to use the back staircase.
And if you’re wondering why I know this, well, let’s just say I ususally know what time everyone comes home. I mean, everyone’s my family now, are they not? :]
Okay. Right to the point. My mum asked me to find the hoover. Our hoover is called Henry (because that’s its brand name - not that we wanted to call it otherwise). Henry has been missing for quite some time now and, really, our kitchen carpet needs some hoover action.
This was a great opportunity for me to investigate the house. Lol. Did I just say investigate? ^_^ We’ve been living in this house for about a year already but it still feels mysterious to me. And we live at the ground floor so nothing much happens here.
So yeah, I used the front staircase. And I saw that it was dark and the halls were creepy. Lol. Down the hall, people had their bedroom doors open and I can feel why. It’s super hot here in Britain that you won’t even believe it’s Britain.
I reached the other side and saw Henry there, alone in the landing. Then I got him back to our kitchen. I used the back staircase this time and oh-em-gee. The view was great. And this time I’m not saying it ironically. Seriously. The trees that you can see from the bay windows have pink leaves! :] This staircase is actually a million times brighter than the front one - I could practically stay there all day. Lol ^_^
So yeah. I guess I’ve solved the puzzle. Or whatever it is that I get puzzled about.
Hey, blog. Pardon my unblogging-ness this month, whatever that word means.
I’ve been very productive today that I can’t really believe it’s all me. I’ve been working on my ICT coursework non-stop and I’m finally finally finally getting there. To the year-ender, that is. It’s stupid how I usually put things off for later. But the thing is, when I try and work my socks off all night, I just can’t stop. Which is a good thing probably. But the bags! The bags are humongous. Maybe even more humongous than the eye socket itself.
Oh, the joys of sixth form college.
I’ve accepted the University offer for BSc Pharmacology as my firm choice last night. My insurance one was for BSc Chemical and Pharmaceutical Science, which I don’t really care much about anyway. I don’t know how I got myself into this whole Pharmacology shenanigan. Maybe it’s fate. Or maybe I still just don’t know where I’m meant to head to.
Oh, the joys of going to University.
I’ve been reading a lot of travel blogs and photo-blogs lately. I’ve come across two today (this and this). Reminded me of how much I’m missing the outside world. Where art thou, summer?
I don’t know what got into me but I’ve also been reading children’s literature these past few days. Fairy stuff and all. Lol :] I’m still a kid, am I not? And, to be honest, everyone really should read children’s books once in a while to escape from the world’s madness.
On another note, or a similar one - I’m not really sure, my mum has gone bonkers for thinking it’s swan flu that’s taken over the world. Swan? Swine?
Title: Spies and Lies (from the Girl Writer series)
Author: Ros Asquith
Rating: 3/5
Book 10 of 100: (The 100+ Reading Challenge)
Cordelia Arbuthnott desperately wants to be a successful writer. She’s hard at work on her latest novel, The Girl with the Golden Pun - a spy story about Jane Bond. As always, Cordelia’s life is a source of inspiration for her novel. A new boy in her class, Vladimir Vyshinsky, or Vlad the Lad as he becomes known, has all the girls swooning. But this mysterious Russian raises Cordelia’s suspicions with his strange behaviour.
After reading The Time Traveler’s Wife, I opted for a lighter and shorter read. What better place to look than the children’s section? :] Spies and Lies is a fun and easy book to follow, not only because it’s for children ages ten and such, but also because I could really relate to it. When I was little, I had this thing about writing (which I think I have lost recently. The world is cruel about following your dreams, don’t you think?). I don’t even compare now to the writer I was years ago. =/
This book is filled with tips for the budding writer. Along with the story on Cordelia’s daily adventures comes her novel, The Girl with the Golden Pun which lays parallel to it. The things that happen in her life eventually get tailored into her writing, which I think is nice. Every writer, to start with, has to write about what he or she knows, am I correct?
The friendship she forms with Vlad was a good turning point. And what was she thinking when she assumed Vlad was a terrorist? :]
I do think this book is read-worthy although predictable (for my age, anyway). I have not read any books of the Girl Writer series before but I didn’t feel I needed to read the first two in order to understand what goes on in Spies and Lies, the third book.
Title: The Time Traveler’s Wife
Author: Audrey Niffenegger
Rating: 5/5
Book 9 of 100: (The 100+ Reading Challenge)
This is the extraordinary love story of Clare and Henry who met when Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry suffers from a rare condition where his genetic clock periodically resets and he finds himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. In the face of this force they can neither prevent nor control, Henry and Clare’s struggle to lead normal lives is both intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
If the rating I’ve typed in above isn’t obvious enough, I’d say it again - The Time Traveler’s Wife is definitely one of the most wonderful books I’ve read in my lifetime. It’s very absorbing in the sense that the reader, not only Henry, a chronologically-displaced person, is pulled into this chaos called time.
It was pretty hard for me to juggle Chemistry homework and getting lost in this book. But I’d ditch anything for Niffenegger’s creativity, hands down. ^_^
This is the kind of read which convinces you in an instant - no matter how much you see fiction in it, you should still feel a tinge of reality. Time traveling may be hard to believe and harder to understand but, then again, what isn’t?
The way in which the story flows is not linear. The dates and Clare and Henry’s ages written just before each time frame comes in handy, though. In a nutshell, this is a story of two people whose past is another’s future. When they finally meet in the present, two and two still do not get put together as there are some things unknown and cannot be changed.
I was amused by the fact (uh, fact?) that whenever Henry time travels, he unintentionally leaves everything behind - his clothes and even his dental fillings. It must be horrible ending up somewhere public without any clothes on - horrible still when prison awaits you due to the previous statement. Clare’s wait must be the longest one I’ve heard of. She truly deserves her title, Wife, because she waits patiently for him to return without even knowing when or if he really will.
Quoting Clare:
With Henry, I can see everything laid out, like a map, past and future, everything at once, like an angel… I can reach into him and touch time…
The ending did not leave me hanging. It was just as beautiful. Henry’s death made me weep while reading about it, however, I couldn’t help but smile on the part when Clare was already old and Henry still got to visit her, despite death. Despite time.
I’m looking forward to the film adaptation to be released this year. I’m hoping it’s just as good :]
Amy Kuney ft Tim Myers - All Downhill From Here
Maybe if I blog about something now, it’ll get me all fired up to blog more often.
As if. Giving it a try, though. I don’t really want this blog to go to waste.
And maybe I just need to write something, anything, to dissolve today’s feeling of fook.
Felt like fook when I woke up this morning. And, no, it wasn’t the weather. Sure, it did rain but it was something else.
You know how when someone likes you but you don’t like them the same way and when they eventually get to like someone else, you feel so stupid for not liking them back and you end up not liking anyone and anything anymore? That’s today’s drama.
And you know how girlfriends are one step higher than bestfriends most of the time when it should be the other way around? Another one of today’s drama. The thing about jealousy is that you’re not allowed to feel it when you’re just a bestfriend. So, yeah, maybe you’re allowed to, but no matter how much you turn green and curse the person at the other end of the line, your efforts are still ignored. Because you’re simply just a bestfriend. And nothing more.
No, I’m not jealous. Wounded, that’s all. But how would I know the difference between jealousy and being wounded when, in the end, there really isn’t anything to be jealous of or feel wounded about? If I could make sense of this blog entry, I’d feel a lot happier. But right now I just feel like fook.
I bet you don’t even know what fook is. Or what it feels like.
The Feeling - I Love It When You Call
I’m tagged! By Ate Cleo. Lol :]
Okay - she didn’t tag me exactly. But she said anyone could do it so here I am doing it.
People don’t get on my nerves that much, really. Pasensyosa at mabuting bata kasi ako - or so I think. Lol :] No, seriously, I get pissed off sometimes. And here’s fifteen reasons why…
1. Feeling Foreigner - I mean, is it that hard to recall how to speak in your native tongue? You go to a foreign country and a few days later you’re already bulol with Tagalog. Or trying to be. Lol :] It really annoys me when I talk to Filipinos my age in Tagalog and they talk back in English (when they know perfectly well how to speak in Filipino and can understand it just as much). What annoys me even more is when they talk in Tagalog but have that pseudo-American accent to it - but when you hear them talking to their parents, eh magaling naman pala mag-Tagalog.
2. The Uninvited - People sometimes turn up on my doorstep uninvited. Seriously - and I hate that. I’m no goody-goody when it comes to surprises so I really don’t appreciate the unexpected visitor. And (and!) you know those people who knock on your door but you don’t really want to let them in because the person they want isn’t home (gawin ka pang entertainer, eh noh)? At pinagpipilitan pa nilang pumasok? Aargh - manigas ka diyan sa labas. Lol :]
3. Excess Helium - Yeah, the ones with annoyingly loud and witchy laughs. Lol :] Agawan pa ng eksena si Ursula?
4. Rong spilleng and grammers - Okay, I admit that the way I spell things or construct a sentence can be wrong sometimes. But to see other people guessing where an apostrophe should be included can be a little funny. In addition, ‘a’ and ‘an’ are used for singular nouns - am I right or am I right?
5. Photocopiers - It’s bad enough that people copy your ideas - worse when you don’t get any credit for it. There’s a certain boundary between being inspired and plagiarism. I usually get ‘photocopied’ in my ICT class. One minute I’m working on a design, the next minute it’s already on another girl’s screen. Annoying still, they don’t even tweak whatever they’ve copied to show at least that they’ve got a mind of their own.
6-15. As mentioned earlier, isa akong mabuting bata kaya hindi ako masyadong naiirita sa mundo. Lol :] I really can’t think of other kinds of people who annoy me so I’ll just leave it at this (or maybe my creativity, whatever creativity, is not at its productive stage at the moment so I just can’t seem to think of anything sensible to write).
I tag whoever is reading this. Go on, it’s fun ^_^ (Fun is the new term for heart-attack-inducing).
My birthday blog entry is pending. I’m really just busy with school at the moment. I have a lot of updating to do.
