Curse & Compliment

me when I'm angry with you:

me when I'm happy with you:

May you never step on a lego

The Fire Has Caught

My thoughts are incoherent now.

I just spent two and a half hours in the theatre absolutely glued to that massive screen literally watching the contents of the second Hunger Games book play out. Yes, I have just finished watching Catching Fire.

There was so little deviation from the actual thing, I couldn't believe it. I must admit, I haven't read the book in a couple years and went into that cinema not really remembering the actual plot line at all. BUT I remembered as the movie progressed and man was it accurate. There may have been some things that were missed or changed and someone somewhere on the internet has probably pointed them out but they were not stupifyingly obvious so I'd cut the movie some slack.

So since it was exactly the book in movie picture format, we don't have to worry about the plot. Plot was amazing, and it still ended with a crazy cliffhanger so all the people who hadn't read the book in the theatre were all in shock about that. Guess what book's sales are going to suddenly skyrocket??

Finally, I really fell in love with the characters, all over again with the repeats and for the first time with the newcomers. Peeta and Gale man, both so selfless. And the character development that happened with Effie was phenomenal! She's beginning to realize how screwed up the system actually is. And I felt so much for all the victors that were reaped for the second time. They did not deserve that to happen to them. Johanna and Beetee were my favourites. They were just so cool to get to know, y'know?

I really needed to get all this out of my head and into words so that I could go back to enjoying regular life. It almost seems unfair that the world is still going and there isn't a mandatory recuperation time where there are no responsibilities to worry about after watching Catching Fire. That should definitely be a thing. 

Hey! A song from the Hunger Games soundtrack just started playing on my laptop! That's fitting.

Let me know if you already have or are planning on seeing Catching Fire and say what you think in the comments!

New-niversity

I am so pleased with that punny title. Let's all take a moment to appreciate it.

*appreciation*

A thing has happened in my life. I thought it would be a scary thing, but it's not as bad as I imagined. I might even like it!

Frosh Week: Couch Carry (I'm the blonde girl on the right)

My life as a first year mechanical engineering student started four weeks ago and so far it was been going great. I participated in frosh week and got to do weird things, met friends and even made it on the local news! I don't know how it is wherever you are but here, the engineers are crazy and slightly full of themselves. Our frosh leaders painted their entire bodies purple since purple is our unofficial colour throughout many universities and we got to do weird activities such as a picture scavenger hunt with a couch.

This whole experience is exponentially different than high school! For one, I have 5 classes per semester (0 electives though, engineering is that kind of course.), not 4, and they happen sporadically throughout the week with 2 hour and a half lectures plus an optional but super helpful at times discussion and then a three hour lab on top of that for some courses. Making my schedule almost made me cry. Seriously, it was so hard to fit everything in and not have like five hour gaps or super early or late classes. But I managed to have an average of three classes per day, which is a crazy amount, especially compared to literally all my friends who are in some kind of arts program (communications, psych, history, etc.) and complain about their one day with three classes.

Woah, tangent. Anywho, other differences are not having set hours for class. For example, I managed to get most of my classes to start at 11:30am which lets me sleep in to a wonderful time and also get things done in the morning hours. And then there's the thing of my place of education NOT being under 10 minutes away anymore. I used to literally roll out of bed half an hour before class started and get there on time but now I have to check the bus schedules and plan my life around that. The bus takes about half an hour to get to university which isn't actually that bad compared to other people that live at home as well.

Speaking as a shy person, I was immensely pleased with myself for how many friends I made! I think it helped that nobody knew each other; the pre-made cliques were non-existent. Still, I was a little worried since I wasn't living in residence that I wouldn't make any friends but I managed to prove myself wrong. You end up talking to the people around you in your classes, usually just about the teacher and stuff, but then you walk out of class together and realize you have a break together and suddenly you're always sitting together and have each others' numbers and bang: friendship. And before you ask, those phone numbers are pretty much all girl numbers. Just because there's way less girls in engineering doesn't mean that I'm suddenly a hot commodity.

So this concludes my happy post. I'm sure everything isn't going to be this easy going for my full five years but I really don't mind it being this nice right from the beginning.

Resolutions

Before we get down to the nitty gritty of me baring my fixable flaws before, can I say that I have never seen any jokes concerning picture resolution about New Year's resolutions. None. Whatsoever. It's weird cause they can't have all been invented this year. So here I am, laughing my head off at their sheer wit while all y'all are probably giving me hipster looks and telling me they've been around for ages. I must have figured out a way to avoid them until now because I am seriously not new to this whole internet deal.

This is the first time I've actually written something down for my New Year's resolutions, normally I just vaguely think something up. Here goes.

- Stay fit. Most people want to get fit but I am fit. I love sports and have high metabolism which both work to my advantage. But I won't have gym class anymore in university and I am not down to gain the freshman 15, thank you very much. So this is thinking long term to develop habits that'll help me come September.

- Learn a song on the bass each month. The bass is such a cool instrument to be able to play. I don't practice things very much so this might help me grow my repertoire.

- Do homework every night. Even if nothing is assigned. I am the queen of procrastination so this one is going to be a Herculean effort. That I will eventually fail at.

- Keep my room presentable. I am the worst at cleaning my own stuff. Other people's things I love to organize but my own things just get neglected. I've started keeping my bed made which actually makes a difference in how clean my room looks but I hope to get further along.


- Smile at one person I don't know a day. Because spreading happiness is fun. Because you never know how the person's day has been and what your actions do to contribute to it. Because what's the worst that could happen?

- Learn something new. I don't know what exactly but I want it to be a skill that takes time to acquire. Learn to write with my left hand? Take up handwriting analysis? Who knows! (You can tell I wrote the first draft of this by hand since both examples have to do with writing.)


- Be creative. My focus education-wise is all sciency and facts. I love that stuff to death but I really need to keep my brain entertained by creative things as well. So it may be making wall decorations or knitting something. Anything that lets me just release my creativity. (First on the list is find myself a synonym for "creative". I used it far too much in that paragraph.)


- Read 100 books. Easily accomplished seeing as I've done that for the past few years. But it's good to keep it as a goal.

I'm thinking at the end of the year we shall revisit this list and see how much progress I made on it!

ALSO: What do you think of my resolutions? Too ambitious? Too stereotypical? What are some resolutions you've made and do you think you'll be able to keep them?

The Christmas Haul

It's Christmas! Luckily, no one in my family is crazy and we all woke up at a reasonable enough hour this morning. I never see the point of getting up at 4am or something like that since you don't notice time go by while you're asleep. It's not like you're bored and doing nothing, you are completely unconscious and unaware that you are missing out on time. So that's my reasoning for getting a decent amount of sleep on Christmas morning.

But no one cares about that.

So here's an extensive list of what I received this Christmas along with any commentary necessary. Be happy for me, be weirded out by what kind of things I enjoy receiving, or be jealous, whatever you wish.

- Fuzzy socks. For those cold winter nights when my cat is hogging all the blankets.
- Multi-coloured socks. Something you should know: I don't ever wear matching socks but I do make sure that the colours and patterns go together. It's actually a lot of effort!
- A purple shirt.
- A sweater that looks like it's inside out BUT it's actually supposed to be that way. Bonus because the itchy side is on the outside.
- Chocolate. Our tradition is to have those chocolate oranges for Christmas every year but we couldn't find them this year. We remedied that by eating a clementine at the same time as the chocolate. Genius, right?

- The Journal of Awesome. Kind of like a DIY Book of Awesome. I will definitely be sharing some of my AWESOME things here.
- Ice cubes in the shape of guitars and basses. Don't worry, there's an actual reason, my family is not just crazy. This is to commemorate me learning the bass this summer, coupled with my love of ice cubes.
- A pack of assorted blue and green office supplies. You may think this is a boring present but it's NOT. I like those things.
- A notebook. I have dubbed it my beside table notebook to write down all those spur of the moment ideas I tend to have right before dropping off to sleep.
- Burt's Bees chapstick.
- A book called "The Christian World of The Hobbit". Really looking forward to reading this since The Hobbit is one of my favourite books and it'll be cool to see all the Christian elements hidden inside!
- A phone. I know, I'm in my last year of high school and I'm just getting a phone now? It has saved us a ton of money to not have one but now it's pretty necessary with all the extra-curriculars I do and university looming ahead.

I'm not very easy to shop for but "Santa" pulled through! I am extremely happy and plan on enjoying all these things to their full potential.

I'm surprised there was room under the tree for presents
since the cats decided to take up permanent residence there.

Job Update

I have amazing news! Remember a week ago when I talked about how I got my second interview at Chapters? Well, I got a call yesterday and it's official! I am now an employee at Chapters!

I literally could not stop smiling for the remainder of the day.

Right now I am filling out paperwork which should be boring but I don't even care because I am so happy that I can finally stop job hunting and that I work somewhere that I love.

Chapters, why must you play with my heart?

A little background info:
3 weeks ago today, I went in for an interview at Chapters. Working there is basically my dream job because books so I was super excited and had all my hopes up and everything. I felt that the interview went really well, I knew my stuff and didn't seem nervous on the outside. (Although on the inside it's a completely different story.) I figured I'd wait a week before actually expecting a callback since I went on the first day of a week full of interviews, according the the manager who spoke to me.
But, nothing. Eventually I accepted that I wouldn't get a callback and why did I get my hopes up so high since I'm not even an English major or anything so why would they pick me. (My thoughts are always run-on sentences. This is the most accurate I could make it.)

BUT THEN

THE MOST TWISTY PLOT TWIST OF ALL

it's a plot twist, ok?

I got a telephone call this afternoon. I thought nothing of it until I heard the voice of that very manager asking me to come back for my second interview in two days.

My reaction (after I had calmly answered in a calm and completely not uncalm fashion) was to start hyperventilating and smiling and just lay down on the floor for a while. Then I told everyone who would actually care and then I sent a quick thank you prayer up to God cause, seriously, those were some major strings he pulled.

I am literally so happy right now because I am one step closer to actually being employed and to boot it would hardly feel like work when it's basically helping people find awesome books and just shelving stuff. (Which I kind of enjoy.)

Me right now

The interview is on Wednesday so I shall keep you in the loop!