Two Books and a Movie

Seeing as how I used to write about the books I was reading, I figured I'd start that up again. I'll be rating and summarizing books and movies that I've read/watched in the last week.

First up:

I know in my last post I said I was reading this, so I kind of already talked about it, but I finished it this morning. I definitely give it 5/5 stars. Life of Pi is about a boy named Pi who grew up at a zoo that his father owned. They decide to move to Canada when he is sixteen. The boat they are traveling on sinks and he is the sole human survivor. He ends up spending over 200 days on a boat in the ocean with a tiger. The movie doesn't do this book justice. It really made me think about life and how my attitude is day to day. Also about how lucky I am in my life. It also talked about different religions, because he is Hindu, Muslim, and Christian, and made me think about my relationship with God. It does get pretty graphic with some things. I definitely wanted to throw up once or twice, also I teared up a few times. So many emotions in 100 (short) chapters.

Second is the movie I watched last night:

This movie is about a mom and her son. When Frankie, the son, was just a baby, his mother ran away with him from her abusive husband. They have been on the run for nine years. She didn't want Frankie to know what a horrible person his father is, so she has written him letters for nine years posing as his father out at sea for work. They find out that the boat his father is supposedly stationed on is porting in their town. Instead of telling Frankie about her writing the letters, she hires a stranger to pose as his father. Did I mention that Frankie is deaf? Also that the fake father is Gerard Butler? Also that you will fall in love with the family two seconds in? What more could you want in a movie? 4/5 stars, the ending could have been a little better, but I'm just upset because it's very vague in how things end up with Gerard and I like knowing for sure whether the love interests get together or not. The music was beautiful as well. I may or may not have shed a tear or two. When I watched it, my internet went out when I only had twenty minutes left. Needless to say, I was very upset. Good thing I have data on my phone (sorry mom if we go over this month, it was an emergency!). It is currently on Amazon Prime for free, so get out your mode of watching videos and put this one on. It is rated PG-13 for one F-word, so be prepared for that.

Thirdly is another book I finished about a week ago:

 

Sarah Dessen is one of my favorite YA authors, even if her books are cheesy and predictable. This on in particular is about a girl, Sydney, who's brother, Peyton, has been put in jail for paralyzing a boy while driving drunk. She the complete opposite of her brother, but her mom is worried that she'll go down the same path as he did and keeps a close eye on her herself, and by having Peyton's creepy friend close-by. Sydney switches schools when her parent's can't afford the private school any more and finds new friends who help her find out who she is and where she belongs. Also she finds her new romantic interest, Mac. I give it 3/5 stars. It wasn't her best one, but it was a good read. It does have a few swear words, but I don't think it has as many as some of her other books.

So there you have it. If you like to question everything in your life I would suggest Life of Pi. If you want to feel warm inside, listen to great accents, and cry a little I suggest Dear Frankie. If you like YA romances about girl's finding themselves I suggest Saint Anything. If you have anything to recommend to me please do in the comments!

                     

Long Time, No See

Wow, it has been a long time. Not much has changed in my life. I'm still going to school at SUU. This semester I am doing my practicum at Cedar High. For those who do not know, a practicum is where I go observe a class once a week. I absolutely love it! I got to teach semicolons to a few classes the other day and almost had a heart attack because of how nervous I was, but I lived. It was a great experience and I loved every minute of it. I can't wait to student teach next semester. I don't know where I'll be student teaching yet, but I asked to be placed up in Utah County so I can be closer to my friends and family. Cedar is great and all, but I'm ready to move on from here.

You may be wondering what I do with my life besides school. Here's the shortened version:

This summer I turned 22! My amazing friends kidnapped me and made me breakfast at midnight. It was the best birthday ever.

 

For Reals. 

 

I've watched 7 full TV shows in the last year (30 Rock, Lost, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, The Office, The IT Crowd, Parks and Rec, and Galavant) 

 I've avoided a lot of people (which doesn't really help my love life, but hey, you win some you lose some). Don't scorn me too badly for being antisocial, I have made really good friends within the last year.

 

I'm currently reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel. It's amazing and I suggest everyone read it. I was worried I wouldn't like it because the movie wasn't my favorite. I thought it was beautiful, but a bit slow and boring. I saw it again and liked it more, but that's not the point. The point is this book is great and you should go read it ASAP.

Most importantly I have learned this:

  

I really struggled this last few years loving myself. But with great support from friends and family I have learned what a great person I am. Now it sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm proud of who I am. Some days I acknowledge that I'm not the best person, but I still acknowledge that that's who I am. Sometimes I'm going to suck, and that's okay. What matters most is that I'm okay with that, which makes me great at the same time.

So that's the rundown. I've kind of missed blogging so maybe I'll take it back up again. Who knows.

Reading Update

A while ago, I said I wanted to see how many books I could read in the year. My goal was 50, I hope to still make it but to be honest, I don't think I will. I just finished number 31 tonight. That gives me about three months to read 19 books. We'll see if it happens with school going on and the unseen activities in the future.

31.

As it says on the cover, it is a Jane Eyre parody. Janie is a chocolate molder and owns a business of selling chocolate with her sister. She's in love with a man who comes in every week. He soon becomes her new neighbor and she soon makes friends with his daughter. She finds out that he is married and tries to suppress her feelings. But when danger turns up, she needs to make a decision about what to do. It is an LDS novel. 3/5 stars. I liked it, but I didn't love it. I'm planning on reading Jane Eyre next so I'll see how close it is to the original story.

32,

This is my third time reading this book, I just love it! It's a "proper romance". It's set in the 18th century, I believe. Marianne lives with her grandmother while her father is away in France. She gets invited to go stay with her mother's old friend at Edenbrooke, by her sister, Cecily. Cecily wants her help in getting the heir of Edenbrooke to fall in love with her. Marianne gets there before Cecily and becomes fast friends with Philip, one of the sons. Some things go wrong that could possibly keep her from finding true love! It's seriously one of my favorite books. I feel like I am Marianne. I think I'd give it a 4 or 4.5/5 stars. I almost cried reading it this time because I forgot how much I loved it.

33. 

This is one of the hardest books I've ever read. I loved the beginning and the end, the middle is the hard part. It's about a man named Ishmael who decides he wants to learn more about whaling and decides to go on a three year voyage to kill whales for money. Little does he know, he gets hired on a boat where the captain is crazy and only wants to kill one whale-Moby Dick. The whale had taken Captain Ahab's leg and Ahab has never forgotten it. But this is no ordinary whale. He's crazy! No one has been able to kill him, they can barely get their harpoon stuck in him. And he attacks people, while other whales usually leave the people alone. The beginning of the story is leading up to this, the middle has some other whale hunting stories, but is mostly lessons on what you use and do when whaling. The last like four chapters are when they actually get to Moby Dick. 3/5 stars. It wasn't horrible, but I probably won't read it again, at least not in the near future. If I did, I'd read the abridged version, but I feel so accomplished at reading the whole thing (okay, I listened to it as well while I got ready in the morning). It's a hard book, but I'm glad I read it, for now I have bragging rights. :)

34.

I read this book for my American Literature class. There are three version and we read the first one. The different versions go more in depth in his escaping slavery, because his first one couldn't. If it had, then it would have given the underground railroad away and people would have been caught for helping slaves. It was a very interesting read. I usually don't like nonfiction, but I really liked this. It wasn't very long, and it really opened my eyes to what slavery was really like. I'm really glad I read it. 4/5 stars. I only docked it because he didn't say how he escaped, even though it was for the best that he didn't. I guess I'll have to go read the later versions.

Day 3...A Week Later...

My idea of a perfect first date:
"I'd have to say April 25th. Because it's not to cold and not to hot. All you need is a light jacket" -Miss Congeniality. Go watch it if you haven't seen it.
I'm not very picky about what I do on a date. I don't care if the guy spends money at all, we could go for a hike and it would still be fun (if I liked the guy of course). It totally just depends on the guy. I feel like the zoo would be really fun. I love scavenger hunts so that might be fun, if it was a group date.
I'm really pretty much up for everything.

Day 2

If you look at the picture on the post below, day two's prompt is my favorite movie. Obviously you don't know me well enough if you don't know this...my favorite movie is The Lord of the Rings series. My favorite one is The Return of the King, then The Fellowship of the Ring, then The Two Towers. If you haven't seen these then we definitely cannot be friends until you watch it. And if you cannot appreciate it for the wonderful movie it is then we are most definitely not friends any more and you need to go back into the abyss that you came from (reference to the first movie). Also if you fall asleep while watching them I'm vastly disappointed in you and may not talk to you for a while. Another thing, I was having a conversation with a boy at work and he said Star Wars is better than The Lord of the Rings...that was a huge mistake. Lord of the Rings is sooo much better than Star Wars! Don't get me wrong, Star Wars is great, but obviously Lord of the Rings is better and if you can't see that, our friendship is going down hill.

If you have seen the regular versions, but not the extended, that's fine but you need to watch the extended soon because they are amazing! And after that, you need to watch them with the actor commentary because they are hilarious! They talk about inside jokes and what happened when they filmed it and they make jokes throughout the movie and it's just so funny and you feel like you're best friends with them. 

Sorry, I'll stop. I just love this series so much! So if you ever want me to hate you, you can tell me how much you hate LOTR. But if you want to be my best friend, talk to me about LOTR for hours about how fantastic it is.

30 Blog Challenge

So I know I haven't been a very good blogger and I'm trying to become good again (if I ever was) at writing more and I decided to type "30 days of blogging challenge" into Google and chose one to help me get the ball rolling again. Here's the list:

Since this is technically day one, I'll start with the first topic: my favorite song. I don't really have a favorite song. I really like Taylor Swift's song All Too Well on her album Red. One classic that I absolutely love is Holding out for a Hero by Bonnie Tyler. One of my favorite 'newer' songs is Skinny Love by Birdie. I just love music and can't pick a favorite...so sorry about that....

What does the T Bird say?