Things That Keep Me Up All Night: Catching Fire Edition

This is super trivial but I guess that's just how my brain works.

As you know, I saw Catching Fire a couple weeks ago. But seeing it reminded me of something I had wondered after reading the book. Namely, what were the remaining sections of the clock arena??

According to the Hunger Games wiki, the known sections were: lightning storm, blood rain, poisonous fog, monkey mutts, jabberjays, beast, giant wave, insects. That leaves 4 mystery sections.

More were mentioned in the book than in the movie but we still don't know the full 12 and will most likely never know. And it is completely unimportant to everything but some little part of me really wants to know what the gamemaker would have put.

What do you guys think? What things would have been horrendous enough to be included in the clock arena?

While we're on this topic, I need to get something else off my chest. I never fully understood how the arena could be controlled so well from so far away. How in the world do you control a poisonous gas so that it doesn't infiltrate another sector? And how do you make it dissipate so quickly. I get that it's a futuristic society but some sort of logic would be helpful. For example, the blood rain could come from sprinklers set into the trees. The monkeys have been mutated and could have hardware programming when to go bananas if you'll pardon my pun.

Reactions

As you all may or may not know, I am a girl in mechanical engineering. I'm not making myself to be special or superior to any other person in any other program but it's just a fact of life that you don't see that every day.

When you meet people, you obviously have to go through the small talk of school and what program you're studying. It's inevitable. I think asking people what book they're currently reading is a much more interesting form of small talk. I am going to make that a thing. But of course, when I tell people what I'm studying, I get THE BEST reactions. They're usually extreme and there's always the typical ones but I've gotten some pretty atypical ones. Since I get a kick out of them, I figured you dudes might too and this is what the rest of this post entails.

1. Wide eyes. This is usually when they're trying to mask the fact that they had a reaction altogether and go on to regular answer like "Oh, are you liking it?" and "Are you living in residence?"

2. "I'm so glad there are people like you..." This comes from people who can't believe anyone would want to continue doing math voluntarily. They kind of make a joke where they're thankful that "people like me" exist because if it were up to them to do what I will be doing once
I graduate the world would start crumbling in on itself.

3. Genuine questions. There are people who know a few things about the classes I'm taking and ask how I'm finding them and all that. I like giving them feedback.

4. The future-thinkers. These are the same people that always asked what you were going to major in back when you were in high school. Now that you've got that pretty much cemented in, they move on to the next big milestone: your career. You are asked what you plan to do with your degree and where you'd like to live and basically all the questions that make you want to go back to kindergarten where everything was safe and certain.

It's always the creepy old people too

5. BOYS. WINK. This reaction is by far the creepiest and kind of the most insulting. This is where they point out that engineering is mostly filled with people with XY chromosomes. They ask for ratios of girls to guys in your classes, and, inevitably, talk about how easy it will be for me to find a boyfriend. Like whoa, who has time for a love life when you're taking these kinds of classes. That is definitely not my number one priority.

6. Doom predictors. These people know of other people who also decided that they could handle becoming an engineer but ended up doing really badly or dropping out or switching to a different program and on the outside I'm all like cool story bro but on the inside I freak out because it's not like I was a child prodigy or anything I've had to work hard and what if it's not enough and my entire life falls to pieces before my eyes.

Your turn! Tell me about the funniest or most insulting or best reactions to whatever you're doing with your life!

But What If I Like Math?

"If money wasn't an issue, what would you do with your life?"

^This is usually the opening line for people to start conversations about not being boxed in to what society wants you to do with your life, to be free and do what it is you really want to do deep down inside like paint pictures of pandas all day.

I really hate this line because it makes me feel bad about liking what I do. I'm a math and science person. I love logic and using my brain and concrete facts. Open-ended questions, like the ones you get all the time in English class, scare me. This obviously doesn't mean I am a robot. I love reading and writing and being creative quite a bit, but not enough to interest me in a whole career centered around that.

Just because I want to go into a field that does make a respectable amount of money doesn't mean that I'm selling my soul for material wealth and not actually doing what I really love. What if the thought of using formulas to solve problems actually makes me happy?

I'm not hating on anyone who's dream it is to be an artist or dancer or anything of that sort. I'm just saying that it's not for me and I feel kind of judged for it.

Fun at Work

If you actually care about me and this blog at all, you'll have noticed that I haven't posted anything in about forever. I have just been super bogged down with life and school and work and the future and people in general. But I'm still alive! And I still have no time to write a whole big post so I will leave you with pictures of what I do when I'm bored at work.

Yes, they're sorted by colour

And so are these

NO ONE can resist Darth Vader in a Groovy Girls bed

Prodigy: a Review

Goodreads says:

June and Day arrive in Vegas just as the unthinkable happens: the Elector Primo dies, and his son Anden takes his place. With the Republic edging closer to chaos, the two join a group of Patriot rebels eager to help Day rescue his brother and offer passage to the Colonies. They have only one request—June and Day must assassinate the new Elector.

It’s their chance to change the nation, to give voice to a people silenced for too long.

But as June realizes this Elector is nothing like his father, she’s haunted by the choice ahead. What if Anden is a new beginning? What if revolution must be more than loss and vengeance, anger and blood—what if the Patriots are wrong?

I say:

Ok, so Prodigy is the sequel to the book Legend by Marie Lu. I loved Legend so I had high expectations for this next installement.

And I have to say, it did not disappoint! You see, usually in these trilogy books, the middle one is a little boring and/or pointless because you already know everyone and the premise has been introduced but it's not quite time for the big showdown at the end where all is resolved and you can happily stop wondering every second what is going to happen next while you wait for the next publication date. Also, for some reason, a second love interest comes into play (they're starting to introduce him earlier on but back in my day you met him once the second book rolled around.) and that gets really annoying. ANYWAY, all that was to explain why second books usually don't tend to be good and why it's awesome that Prodigy didn't turn out that way.

This book could've been its own story aside from the fact that you wouldn't really know how they got to the part where it starts off.

I really liked how you got both perspectives from the main characters, June and Day. Not even just to get more storyline when they're in two different places but to know what they're thinking of their situation and of each other. Segueing from that, I also liked how their relationship was real. It wasn't love at first sight, they're getting to know each other better, having doubts but still trying. It's not perfect at all times but what relationship is? That was awesome to see instead of one where there is only instant attraction from some helpless female and a mysterious dude. (QUESTION: What was the first book that popped into your head when I said that?)

The secondary characters were great, it was nice to get to know some, like Kaede and Tess, better.

As for the plot, I never know how much to give away since I hate having things ruined for me personally but I still need something to talk about. I guess I'll stay within whatever Goodreads says as the description. They inevitably team up with the Patriots since both are against the Republic. It was kind of random that the Elector just dies but since this story is happening in a book and not in real life, it's ok for things like that to happen because it makes for a better story. I just like how it turned out, with each of them learning more about how people and places have more than one side, including ones you never saw coming. (Major twist near the end, props if you saw it coming cause it's sure blindsided me!)

Overall, conclusionary statement that I'm not very good at making: This book was tres tres good. Legend was a wee bit better, but then again, Legend was earth-shatteringly good so what do you expect. June and Day are both strong characters that can both be fine without the other but also depend on each other if that makes any sense at all. The plot is fast-paced and riveting so don't be starting with a massive deadline looming.

No Biggie

I have only realized that I have failed to share a pretty major milestone in my life. Seriously, it's all any conversation I have with an adult I slightly know or am just meeting is about. I need to go sit in the corner of shame for a while and think about what I've done. But first, the news.

As you can probably infer from when I straight up tell you I'm in my last year of high school, I'm in my last year of high school. That means I'm headed off for university next year which is a both terrifying and exciting thought. Terrifying in that everything will be new and you have to fend for yourself. I've heard many horror stories about how your prof doesn't care about you and that your final will be worth most of your marks. And then all the what ifs of me not being able to handle it and not finding a group of people that doesn't want to only party at all times going through my head doesn't help at all.

First though, you gotta apply. I sent in my applications about two weeks after we got our pins from OUAC, which is the website Ontarians apply through. No little than three days later, I got my first two acceptances, both from OttawaU. Maybe two or three days later, Carleton called in with news of acceptance as well! I actually worked hard in grade 11 so they liked what they saw I guess.

Here's a summary of what I got myself into: At OttawaU, I got in for mechanical engineering and physics while at Carleton I was accepted for engineering physics (I see a pattern here.) Both universities gave me a $3000 per year entrance scholarship (that's 12,000 bucks ladies and gents. Super helpful!) and Carleton threw in a $2000 eng. phys scholarship cause they like me. My final decision is to go to OttawaU for mechanical engineering and do coop because I hate the feeling of being in debt plus who can say no to a little on-the-job experience? Staying home is much cheaper so I went with that even though my dream school is the University of Waterloo where math and science are really big.


I'm glad I finally got it over with and have a destination post-high school. I'm still wavering over whether I made the right choice between engineering and physics since I enjoy my physics classes very much but haven't actually had the chance to try out mechanical engineering, I only know what I've heard. I REALLY don't want to be stuck with something that I don't enjoy doing. I guess it all has to be taken one step at a time.

One AWESOME thing that has come out of all this (besides getting in and getting scholarships) is that I finally have something concrete to tell people when they ask me what I'm thinking of doing next year. No vague answers, I can tell them what I'm going into and where and let them draw their own conclusions!

Brainstorm

I just made a brainstorm on future topics for this blog.

Here's the list:
Socks: matching or unmatching?
Reasons it's good to be *blank* (insert short, blond, quiet, etc.)
Useless skills I have
Embarrassing story
Where I'll be at seventy-three
Useless skills I want to learn

I know, real deep and thought-provoking.

While we're on the topic actually, what do you want me to ramble about? Book reviews? My life? My thoughts and opinions?

Potato

I've noticed that while I'm fully comfortable with teachers and random people on the internet reading what I write, I am completely uncool with anyone in my immediate family with doing so.

I have absolutely no explanation to why. It should be the opposite, shouldn't it? I act like my true self around them that doesn't come out at school or in public. Well, I guess school is public but I like having multiple examples so whatever. So it should make sense that whatever I write down will be taken the same way as I act with my family.

But I just can't. My mom will read the same essay that my teacher just read over and thoroughly destroyed with the red pen (cause even though I've got a blog that I like to write in, English is not my strongest subject. My theory is that I'm way to funny in writing for my teachers to handle.) and I'll feel all apprehensive and all these other emotions I didn't whilst handing the essay in for class.

I don't actually know where I'm going with this, I've just noticed and decided to share. You can over-analyse me if you'd like and tell me about it in THE COMMENTS. Cause they exist. And you could totally post there. And make me feel better about myself.

Oh gosh, when I am a super popular blogger that gets ARC to review I'm going to look back on these first posts and be like "Wow, I used to have to beg people to comment on stuff. I was so pathetic."