Hey everyone! Here's my post for In My Mailbox this week!
Hope you like it! And also be sure to check out my previous two posts that have updates from my participation in BEDA!
Here's my BEDA post from Saturday:
So I have to get up way early tomorrow (6:40am) to go to Easter mass with my mom. But at least she's making waffles for breakfast afterward, so that's a plus.
Anyway, I'm just gonna do a quick post. I was listening to the audio book of 3 Willows by Ann Brashares on my way back home today (it's a 4 hour drive, made an hour longer due to traffic on 95N) and, while I haven't finished it (I'm not even close- I ended up putting some music on midway through the second disc), I have some thoughts on the story so far.
It's a good book. I love Ann's writing because it flows so well and it's so calm and everything. BUT what's bugging me is the constant references back to the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Now, I like it when authors who set a book in the same place as their previous novels make little references to other characters from those other novels (like Sarah Dessen does) but she's taking it a bit too far. Any time, and I do mean ANY time, a Sisterhood member is mentioned, there's a whole paragraph about that girl was part of the legendary Sisterhood. And I'm only on the second disc, so like 5 chapters in, and there's been about as many references, if not a few more, already. It detracts from the story and pulls me out from the novel, jarring my listening. I mean, I think perhaps one reference to the Sisterhood would be enough toward the beginning and then any time a member is referenced, it should be a subtle reference, hidden in the story for fans of Ann's previous books to find and enjoy, not boldly put out there which becomes annoying after a while.
So that's my take on it. Anybody else want to chime in?
Time for sleep now. See you all tomorrow!
Showing posts with label BEDA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label BEDA. Show all posts
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday Five- Slightly Extended Edition (i.e. More Photos!)
1) Finally finished Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Such an intense book- highly recommended. Simply a fantastic read! Am now going on to Freaked by J.T. Dutton and Just One Wish by Janette Rallison. I also started The Unlikely Disciple by Kevin Roose, which brings me to...
2) I got back from the signing a little over an hour ago and it was really fun. They did the signing part first- tons of people showed up and then his Talk/QnA. But since it took so long for that part to start (the event started at 7, the Talk started at 8:15), my friend Liz and I didn't stay too long. But he's doing another event here tomorrow so I may stop by for a bit and listen to him speak for a bit longer before heading home. I did get a couple pictures from the event. Here they are:
This is a picture of me burping with a murderous look in my eyes while we waited in line. I was not expecting this photo to be taken, though I had given my friend Liz free reign to take some practice shots. She also attempted to take one of just my eye, but it didn't turn out well so we deleted it.
This is a shot of Kevin Roose (the author) before we got up to his table. I think we were just a few people away from meeting him and my friend took a photo of him, lol. And now, we have...
the picture of me with Kevin Roose! This is one of my better pictures with an author, given that I don't look too horrible, but my one problem with that is that I'm not smiling enough and look like I don't want to be there. But of course maybe I was just too worried about keeping myself from falling over since I was squatting next to Kevin so I couldn't focus too much on the picture being taken.
Ah well.
I handled myself pretty well. I said some funny things, which is a step up from being mute like I was at the Ann Brashares signing. He asked us if we were Liberty students and we explained that we weren't, by which I mean I said we were Lynchburg College students. I didn't explain that I'd graduated and all that. Too complicated. He has a long line and like 1 minute with us- there's no need for all that.
3) As I said above, I'm going home tomorrow. I'm heading home for Easter. Will be leaving late tomorrow morning and then coming back Monday morning- should be a fun time. I got the 3 Willows by Ann Brashares audio book from the library so that'll be fun to listen to on the way there and the way back. I'll probably bring a music CD or two to break up the book a bit.
4) I got a call about this job here in Lynchburg from Spherion- they're a temp agency of sorts though they mainly try and get you in a career rather than a string of temp jobs. It's a clerk position for some company (I don't think the lady I chatted with ever told me who specifically I'd be working for) here in Lynchburg and it pays $10/hr. I had to do a couple online tests, which I did well on according to the lady from Spherion I talked to. Now it's just waiting to hear what the company says. I really hope I get an interview or, hey, even the job itself without an interview, though that's not as likely. Wish me luck!
5) I went to the LC Career Center this past Tuesday for an appointment I had. I met with Beverly Reid and she went over my resume, which looks better than it did when I went to her around this time last year. She said I should make a few slight changes that should help and she also showed me a couple sites to look at. She also told me that they could stage a mock interview for whenever I had an interview set up for somewhere, so that I could be prepared for it. It was a nice meeting. I then walked Becca to class, and hung out with Liz and Keavonnda for a bit. It was a fun day. :)
That's all for this week!
2) I got back from the signing a little over an hour ago and it was really fun. They did the signing part first- tons of people showed up and then his Talk/QnA. But since it took so long for that part to start (the event started at 7, the Talk started at 8:15), my friend Liz and I didn't stay too long. But he's doing another event here tomorrow so I may stop by for a bit and listen to him speak for a bit longer before heading home. I did get a couple pictures from the event. Here they are:
This is a picture of me burping with a murderous look in my eyes while we waited in line. I was not expecting this photo to be taken, though I had given my friend Liz free reign to take some practice shots. She also attempted to take one of just my eye, but it didn't turn out well so we deleted it.
This is a shot of Kevin Roose (the author) before we got up to his table. I think we were just a few people away from meeting him and my friend took a photo of him, lol. And now, we have...
the picture of me with Kevin Roose! This is one of my better pictures with an author, given that I don't look too horrible, but my one problem with that is that I'm not smiling enough and look like I don't want to be there. But of course maybe I was just too worried about keeping myself from falling over since I was squatting next to Kevin so I couldn't focus too much on the picture being taken.
Ah well.
I handled myself pretty well. I said some funny things, which is a step up from being mute like I was at the Ann Brashares signing. He asked us if we were Liberty students and we explained that we weren't, by which I mean I said we were Lynchburg College students. I didn't explain that I'd graduated and all that. Too complicated. He has a long line and like 1 minute with us- there's no need for all that.
3) As I said above, I'm going home tomorrow. I'm heading home for Easter. Will be leaving late tomorrow morning and then coming back Monday morning- should be a fun time. I got the 3 Willows by Ann Brashares audio book from the library so that'll be fun to listen to on the way there and the way back. I'll probably bring a music CD or two to break up the book a bit.
4) I got a call about this job here in Lynchburg from Spherion- they're a temp agency of sorts though they mainly try and get you in a career rather than a string of temp jobs. It's a clerk position for some company (I don't think the lady I chatted with ever told me who specifically I'd be working for) here in Lynchburg and it pays $10/hr. I had to do a couple online tests, which I did well on according to the lady from Spherion I talked to. Now it's just waiting to hear what the company says. I really hope I get an interview or, hey, even the job itself without an interview, though that's not as likely. Wish me luck!
5) I went to the LC Career Center this past Tuesday for an appointment I had. I met with Beverly Reid and she went over my resume, which looks better than it did when I went to her around this time last year. She said I should make a few slight changes that should help and she also showed me a couple sites to look at. She also told me that they could stage a mock interview for whenever I had an interview set up for somewhere, so that I could be prepared for it. It was a nice meeting. I then walked Becca to class, and hung out with Liz and Keavonnda for a bit. It was a fun day. :)
That's all for this week!
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Updates from Ning!
I have been sorely neglecting this blog for most of the week, so here's all my Ning updates so far.
First off, links for two of the blog posts this week. The first is to my Seven Book Babes vlog, which can be found here, and the second is my reviews of Something, Maybe and Wintergirls (yes, they're finally up, lol), which can be found here!
Now, as for the real blogs, here's what's going on so far:
From Monday- "So yet again, I post on the next day rather than on the right day. *sigh* And I'm not even doing much during the day! I just do some job hunting (being unemployed sucks), play some Wii (Mario Kart rocks), eat lunch, play around online (I check my email like 50 bajillion times a day), do some reading (still reading Wintergirls right now), and hang out with my roommate when she gets home from work. Tonight, we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, which she treated me to. It was quite good. However, we didn't leave until after 7, I think, because she had problems deciding a) if she should go out, as she's on a diet and b) where we should go to if we do go out.
Oh and on days like yesterday (Monday specifically, lol), I volunteer at my local library taking back checked out materials and answering questions that patrons have. I even sometimes know the right answer! It's fun to see what everyone reads and I also like seeing what people have on hold. One of the things I do to amuse myself (it doesn't take much, as you'll see in a moment) is to see if I can find all 4 Twilight books in the holds area and it doesn't matter if it's the actual book or the audiobook. There was even one time I think all 4 books in the series were on the same shelf! And no, they weren't all together for one person; they were definitely separate. Another thing I like to do is find books I like or at least know of, like today I saw that someone had put Evernight by Claudia Gray on hold. And someone returned Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.
So we didn't get back until 9pm, which is just too late to be coming back from dinner. Then we played some Mario Party. She went to go talk to her bf on the phone while I fed the cats and put my bed back together (I had washed everything earlier in the day)."
From Tuesday- "1) I was on my former college campus earlier today (graduated last May) and was chatting with a friend of mine as I walked her to class. She was telling me that our other friend (who's her roommate) had to print off something for her art teacher. Now, the art teacher's first name is Ursula, which always reminds me of Ursula from the movie "The Little Mermaid". And so I got this mental image of our friend standing at a printer, clearly scared and also cowering, while Ursula is next to her, glowering. It made me giggle.
2) My roommate and I were coming back from somewhere earlier tonight and she was flipping through her XM stations and came across the band name 3oh!3. We thought that was an odd band name. She continued on and one of the stations stated "No info" and I said "That's an odd band name." But really, it wouldn't be odd, it would be an AWESOME band name, lol.
3) I landed on a lucky space twice in one game of Mario Party 8 on the Goomba's Booty Boardwalk map! I ended up getting a total of 4 stars and winning the game after it was done (that's including bonus stars at the end).
4) Also, this didn't happen today, but the other day, Tobias answered my math question about why you can't divide by zero, so if you ever wondered, go here to find out!
5) Meg Cabot posted a link to a fun video interview with her in the Barnes and Noble studio. I loved it! Go here to watch the video!
And yay, I finally posted on time! How awesome is that! :)"
I will try and post my Friday Five from my LJ up here tomorrow so I don't have to do a long update like this again, lol.
First off, links for two of the blog posts this week. The first is to my Seven Book Babes vlog, which can be found here, and the second is my reviews of Something, Maybe and Wintergirls (yes, they're finally up, lol), which can be found here!
Now, as for the real blogs, here's what's going on so far:
From Monday- "So yet again, I post on the next day rather than on the right day. *sigh* And I'm not even doing much during the day! I just do some job hunting (being unemployed sucks), play some Wii (Mario Kart rocks), eat lunch, play around online (I check my email like 50 bajillion times a day), do some reading (still reading Wintergirls right now), and hang out with my roommate when she gets home from work. Tonight, we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, which she treated me to. It was quite good. However, we didn't leave until after 7, I think, because she had problems deciding a) if she should go out, as she's on a diet and b) where we should go to if we do go out.
Oh and on days like yesterday (Monday specifically, lol), I volunteer at my local library taking back checked out materials and answering questions that patrons have. I even sometimes know the right answer! It's fun to see what everyone reads and I also like seeing what people have on hold. One of the things I do to amuse myself (it doesn't take much, as you'll see in a moment) is to see if I can find all 4 Twilight books in the holds area and it doesn't matter if it's the actual book or the audiobook. There was even one time I think all 4 books in the series were on the same shelf! And no, they weren't all together for one person; they were definitely separate. Another thing I like to do is find books I like or at least know of, like today I saw that someone had put Evernight by Claudia Gray on hold. And someone returned Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.
So we didn't get back until 9pm, which is just too late to be coming back from dinner. Then we played some Mario Party. She went to go talk to her bf on the phone while I fed the cats and put my bed back together (I had washed everything earlier in the day)."
From Tuesday- "1) I was on my former college campus earlier today (graduated last May) and was chatting with a friend of mine as I walked her to class. She was telling me that our other friend (who's her roommate) had to print off something for her art teacher. Now, the art teacher's first name is Ursula, which always reminds me of Ursula from the movie "The Little Mermaid". And so I got this mental image of our friend standing at a printer, clearly scared and also cowering, while Ursula is next to her, glowering. It made me giggle.
2) My roommate and I were coming back from somewhere earlier tonight and she was flipping through her XM stations and came across the band name 3oh!3. We thought that was an odd band name. She continued on and one of the stations stated "No info" and I said "That's an odd band name." But really, it wouldn't be odd, it would be an AWESOME band name, lol.
3) I landed on a lucky space twice in one game of Mario Party 8 on the Goomba's Booty Boardwalk map! I ended up getting a total of 4 stars and winning the game after it was done (that's including bonus stars at the end).
4) Also, this didn't happen today, but the other day, Tobias answered my math question about why you can't divide by zero, so if you ever wondered, go here to find out!
5) Meg Cabot posted a link to a fun video interview with her in the Barnes and Noble studio. I loved it! Go here to watch the video!
And yay, I finally posted on time! How awesome is that! :)"
I will try and post my Friday Five from my LJ up here tomorrow so I don't have to do a long update like this again, lol.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Friday Five (from LJ) + Question
NEW QUESTION- Does anyone want to purchase a signed Meg Cabot book from me? I'm needing a bit of extra money and so am parting with my signed Queen of Babble in the Big City. Email me at bookchicclub-at-gmail-dot-com for more info.
Question for you all. Should I post everything here for BEDA or on the Ning? I was planning on using the Ning for everything being cross-posted to, but no one seems to be commenting there, save for a few awesome people. And I want comments, goshdarnit! lol. So let me know. Basically, the choice is either 1) all my entries will be posted on here and on the Ning or 2) everything cross-posted to the Ning and the usual stuff here (like I've been doing it). I'll make my decision Sunday night, probably about midnight EST.
Also, if you have Livejournal, feel free to add me. Here's the link to my LJ: http://boothyisawesome.livejournal.com/
1) So yes, I am posting every day, but not on here. On SEVERAL blogs, but all entries will be cross-posted onto the Ning that Maureen started. You can read the blogs (and vlogs) from the past few days as well as for the rest of the month. I will only be posting on this LJ every Friday. Here's the link to my Ning page: http://maureenjohnson.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=0989nysaq8p3k Hopefully that link will work for people not on Ning. If not, tell me and I'll list all the blogs I'll be posting on. It's only three different blogs, I think.
2) So my roomie and I have a Wii now!! We also recently got Mario Kart Wii, which is AWESOME. I also brought my Gamecube games from home, so I play those on the Wii occasionally. The Wii is awesomeness personified.
3) I did have a short temp job in December and January doing data entry for a company. But unfortunately, now I am unemployed and desperately searching for a job. It sucks. I am still waiting to hear back from Hampton Inns about a second interview. And of course I'm applying to lots of other places. Wish me luck please!!!
4) Our pet count has gone up. We now have two cats (a male and a female- don't worry, we keep them separate), a fish, and two male gerbils. In the past couple months, my roomie's bunny and other betta fish died (at different times- the bunny around Thanksgiving and the fish just a couple weeks ago).
5) My book review blog is still going pretty well. I've been neglecting it a bit lately and not posting as often, but I am still reading. Two big developments have been that an excerpt of one of my reviews is in the book Invisible Touch by Kelly Parra. The review is of her first book Graffiti Girl. The other development is that I'm in the acknowledgments of Fade by Lisa McMann. Like my whole name is there (middle name excluded). It's pretty awesome. At the moment, I'm finishing up Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott and am in the middle of reading Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
6) BONUS!! I am so excited about this. Earlier today, I got an email from a publicist at Penguin about recieving the book Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd. I have been wanting this book SO BADLY for like the past several months. Click on the title to see the Amazon page for more info about it. And I should be recieving it early next week!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! YAY!
So that's all for this week. If you want to know about anything else, let me know in the comments and I'll address it next week as I highly doubt I'll have 5 things to talk about every week, lol.
Question for you all. Should I post everything here for BEDA or on the Ning? I was planning on using the Ning for everything being cross-posted to, but no one seems to be commenting there, save for a few awesome people. And I want comments, goshdarnit! lol. So let me know. Basically, the choice is either 1) all my entries will be posted on here and on the Ning or 2) everything cross-posted to the Ning and the usual stuff here (like I've been doing it). I'll make my decision Sunday night, probably about midnight EST.
Also, if you have Livejournal, feel free to add me. Here's the link to my LJ: http://boothyisawesome.livejournal.com/
1) So yes, I am posting every day, but not on here. On SEVERAL blogs, but all entries will be cross-posted onto the Ning that Maureen started. You can read the blogs (and vlogs) from the past few days as well as for the rest of the month. I will only be posting on this LJ every Friday. Here's the link to my Ning page: http://maureenjohnson.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=0989nysaq8p3k Hopefully that link will work for people not on Ning. If not, tell me and I'll list all the blogs I'll be posting on. It's only three different blogs, I think.
2) So my roomie and I have a Wii now!! We also recently got Mario Kart Wii, which is AWESOME. I also brought my Gamecube games from home, so I play those on the Wii occasionally. The Wii is awesomeness personified.
3) I did have a short temp job in December and January doing data entry for a company. But unfortunately, now I am unemployed and desperately searching for a job. It sucks. I am still waiting to hear back from Hampton Inns about a second interview. And of course I'm applying to lots of other places. Wish me luck please!!!
4) Our pet count has gone up. We now have two cats (a male and a female- don't worry, we keep them separate), a fish, and two male gerbils. In the past couple months, my roomie's bunny and other betta fish died (at different times- the bunny around Thanksgiving and the fish just a couple weeks ago).
5) My book review blog is still going pretty well. I've been neglecting it a bit lately and not posting as often, but I am still reading. Two big developments have been that an excerpt of one of my reviews is in the book Invisible Touch by Kelly Parra. The review is of her first book Graffiti Girl. The other development is that I'm in the acknowledgments of Fade by Lisa McMann. Like my whole name is there (middle name excluded). It's pretty awesome. At the moment, I'm finishing up Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott and am in the middle of reading Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson.
6) BONUS!! I am so excited about this. Earlier today, I got an email from a publicist at Penguin about recieving the book Vast Fields of Ordinary by Nick Burd. I have been wanting this book SO BADLY for like the past several months. Click on the title to see the Amazon page for more info about it. And I should be recieving it early next week!! I AM SO EXCITED!!! YAY!
So that's all for this week. If you want to know about anything else, let me know in the comments and I'll address it next week as I highly doubt I'll have 5 things to talk about every week, lol.
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