Happy New Years Eve!

I wish I could be doing something awesome like this to celebrate the new year, but right now, I'm okay with lying in bed watching American Horror Story on Netflix, lol. Maybe I'll actually do something next year. :P

Anyway, 2012 was a great year. So many things happened that I never expected. I had a brief crush, went to prom, rode a limo, graduated high school, had an overnight trip to Six Flags with my friends, went to Graphic Design camp, started college, started living with roommates, managed to make straight A's for my first semester, went to a bar, got pulled over by a cop, had a house party/birthday party for my roommate, made new Kpop friends, got two cats, found out that my dog had puppies while we were on a cruise in Mexico, reconnected with old friends, and so many other things.

I've grown a lot this past year and experienced so many things, and I only hope that next year will also be the same.

See ya next year~

Top Ten Tuesdays: Top Books I Read in 2012

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by the Broke and Bookish.

Lol, I totally forgot about posting this a few weeks ago. Figured I'd post it anyways since I had already drafted it up. :P

I've raved about these books enough this year; I don't think I need to explain myself anymore. :P

Top Ten Books I Read In 2012:

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga  |  Saving June by Hannah Harrington  |  Zom-B by Darren Shan

The Probability of Miracles by Wendy Wunder  |  Being Friends with Boys by Terra Elan McVoy

The Drowned Cities by Paolo Bacigalupi  |  Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

Dengeki Daisy by Kyousuke Motomi  |  Allison Hewitt is Trapped by Madeleine Roux

DJ Rising by Love Maia

Weekly Haul (66)

My last Weekly Haul for the year. :L

Bought:

King of the Screwups by K.L. Going

Chew On This by Eric Schlosser & Charles Wilson

Dusty Reads: Little Blog on the Prairie by Cathleen Davitt Bell

Dusty Reads is a weekly post featuring a book that has been sitting unread on my home shelf for some time.

Title: Little Blog on the Prairie
Author: Cathleen Davitt Bell
Pages: 288
Publication: May 11, 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Summary taken from goodreads:

Gen's family is more comfortable spending time apart than together. Then Gen's mom signs them up for Camp Frontier—a vacation that promises the "thrill" of living like 1890s pioneers. Forced to give up all of her modern possessions, Gen nevertheless manages to email her friends back home about life at "Little Hell on the Prairie," as she's renamed the camp. It turns out frontier life isn't without its good points—like the cute boy who lives in the next clearing. And when her friends turn her emails into a blog, Gen is happily surprised by the fanbase that springs up. But just when it seems Gen and family might pull through the summer, disaster strikes as a TV crew descends on the camp, intent on discovering the girl behind the nationwide blogging sensation—and perhaps ruining the best vacation Gen has ever had.

Um, it's about blogging. I can never turn down books that includes blogging in it! 

A couple of months ago, I was losing my blogging/reading vibe, so I feel like this book could have made me remember how much I like blogging. Or it could have done the opposite, lol. And I'm not too sure if it would have helped me get back into my reading mood though, since I've really lost my motivation to read anything but fanfiction...

Eh. If it happens, it'll happen. However, I don't think I'll have to worry too much since I managed to read a whole lot during this break. :)

Merry Christmas!

The world didn't end, so there's plenty of reason to enjoy the holidays with family and friends. :P

I am back~

Back from the cruise! It's both fun and annoying to be around my family for such long periods of time, especially squished in the car ride to and back from Florida, so yeah... I'm glad that we went and did a lot of things, but I'm also glad to be back home where I do not have to constantly help my parents get around and find things to do on a boat. :P

Also, I managed to read three books during the whole trip, so I feel quite accomplished. :D

We didn't do much different than when we were on a cruise over the summer, except that we had our cousins' family with us this time, so there isn't much to say. 

Here's some pictures I took on my phone as we were leaving Florida in the beginning of the trip. 

Gotta go! Got much to catch up on! :P

pointy.star

Some TV shows I'm watching: Beauty and the Beast & Elementary

Finished watching:

Raising Hope

My roommates started watching this a few weeks ago on Netflix, and I ended up getting addicted to it too by the end of the first season. (I even made a website for it for my Doc & Webdesign class, lol.) The whole family is hilarious! After watching finishing the second season, we were disappointed to find out that we couldn't watch the third season since it was currently ongoing, so now we have to wait for basically, forever for it to be put on Netflix, lol.

Once Upon a Time

My roommate and I wanted to watch something quick for a break before we started studying/doing our homework, and we ended up watching this because I had been meaning to watch it for a while now and because she had watched the first few episodes of the series before forgetting about it. Big mistake. We started watching it a few days before it was finals week, so we were always wanting to quit studying (or not even begin studying, lol) to watch the show. Luckily, we had a few days and the weekend to stay up til three or four watching the show after we finished studying around midnight. Then, on Deidra's last day of finals, we finished the first season since I only had to finish writing one paper due on Saturday, and oh man! That cliffhanger! Now we have to wait forever for the second season to get on Netflix before finally finding out what happens!

To the Beautiful You

My sis and I started watching this drama last Thursday night when we were in the midst of finishing up finals week, and oh my God, I finally remembered why I hardly ever watched Idol Kdramas: they are so stupid! We watched the first episode on Thursday night, and I don't even know how many times I said, "You are an idiot." or "You're so stupid!" or something of the like and facepalming myself every 10 minutes. The first few episodes are always really dumb and ridiculous while setting up the plot. -__-" But yeah, we still continued to watch it because of Minho and the guy who plays Eun Gyul and all of the artists that we recognize, lol. Lol, ever since the break ended, we've been staying up til three or four in the morning watching the drama, and we finally finished it last night.

Currently Watching:

Beauty and the Beast

It was actually kind of ironic on how I started watching this show. I was in the library, on the computer, about to start working on reading some articles to get quotes from for my upcoming Gendered Lives test, when I remembered about this tv show and how I never even knew what it was about other than the fact that it was a new adaptation of the fairy tale, so I went onto the website and found out that you could watch the videos online. So I ended up watching the first episode and doing my work on the commercial breaks, lol. I thought that it was interesting enough, so I ended up watching the second episode and not getting very far in my reading before I decided to go home and hoping to actually get some real work done. -__-" But yeah, I like the series enough, but I never have the time or remember to actually watch it on tv every week, so I always end up catching up on the episodes online when I'm not busy since it's still ongoing right now, and I'd rather wait a week or two and watch two episodes than wait every week and be annoyed by a cliffhanger, lol.

Elementary

I actually watched the first episode of Elementary on tv when it premiered because I've always been interested in Sherlock Holmes adaptions ever since I watched the movies and then hearing about how the BBC show, Sherlock, is full of misogyny made me not want to ever watch that series, so Elementary felt like a nice, new beginning for Sherlock Holmes adaptations. I liked the first episode enough, but I forgot all about the series until I started following thequeenofattolia on tumblr because she reblogged scenes from the show occasionally. So, after watching Beauty and the Beast online, I checked out Elementary and found out that it also showed all of its past episodes online, so I started watching it too. So now I catch up on it and Beauty and the Beast when I have time--which I don't have a lot of right now apparently; I need to finish packing for the cruise that we're going to tomorrow. :\

What will I do after we finish catching up online of the two shows? Maybe catch up on sleep? Maybe read a book or two? :P

We'll see. Hopefully I'll be able to do both on the cruise. I'm going to be on a boat in the middle of the ocean when the world supposedly ends. We shall see. :P But yeah, I won't be back until the 23rd, and I'll prolly be too tired and lazy to do anything for a day or two, so peace out until then!

pointy.star

A Fancy Schmancy Get Together

Today, I got to see my close friends from high school! I made a Facebook event last week to get gather everyone together to meet up today, and it was really nice seeing everyone again. 

When I talked to Meethu and Emily earlier in the year, they were complaining about how they had so many nice dresses that they had no reason to where to, so I figured that it would be a good idea to kill two birds with one stone by having a get together after all of our semesters were over and have a fancy dress code. 

Mia came wearing jeans and a nice button-up shirt and sweater, but she went back home to change into a dress because she wasn't sure about how fancy we were being, lol. And Shanice came wearing a sweater over a button-up shirt and jeans too, but she had left all of her dresses at her dorm, so she had nothing to change into. Everyone else came in wearing dresses and looking really nice. :D

So yeah! We met up at my house around 12 since it's our usual meeting place and caught up with each other until everyone was there around one. Then we went to Cheddar's since it's become our usual eating out place and ate and chatted for an hour or two. Then we went to Target because Mia wanted to find something for her boyfriend since today is also their sixth month anniversary. We found a lot of different things there, but nothing for Devon, lol.

After that, Krista left since she had to go to her brothers place to watch his dog while he was away, and we went back to my place since Emily needed to leave soon and get her stuff. We stayed there for a while until Emily changed and had to leave around four, and then we went to Pets Mart to get stuff for Shanice's new puppy that she's getting tomorrow. Meethu ran into a lady that she new at the cash register, and we ran into two of our classmates from high school at the register, too. Small world, lol.

We ended up going to Wal-Mart since it was nearby and because we thought that the cages there would be cheaper--they weren't. We went back to Pets Mart and got the cages and ended up seeing a girl from my Econ class last year.

Then we went home because it was getting dark, and we were getting tired from walking around all day. Being in college, we never went shopping for that long, lol. 

So yeah, today was really fun. I hung out with my friends for around six and a half hours and made plans to hang out again after Christmas. We're planning on watching Les Mis! :D And we'll probably have a dress like a bum dress code this time, lol.

However, being my introverted self, after spending so much time out and with so many people, I need some alone time for the rest of the night, so I'm going to finish reading this manga and laze around. Maybe I'll finally get around to reading a book. :P

Later~

pointy.star

Weekly Haul (65)

The books that are not pictured are because they have already been wrapped for my little bro's Christmas presents. :P

Bought: 

When Things Come Back by John Corey Whaley

It's Kind of a Funny Story by Ned Vizzini

Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale 

Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Ultimate Guide by Rick Riordan [not pictured]

The Flame of Olympus by Kate O'Hearn [not pictured]

From Harlequin Teen: 

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Bracelet

Movie Review: Red Dawn

Title: Red Dawn
Running time: 114
Release date: November 21, 2012
Rated: PG-13
Summary taken from imdb:

A group of teenagers look to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers.

4.5 STARS - IT WAS AMAZING

MY REVIEW:

If you've been on my blog long enough, you'd know about my absolute love of Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden, both the book and the movie. When the movie first came out, many people compared it to being the Australian version of Red Dawn (1984). Ever since I heard about the movie, I had been meaning to watch it, but I never had the chance to since it's pretty old and not on Netflix.

Then I found out that they were doing a remake of Red Dawn, and it was like fate. I had high expectations for it ever since I saw the trailer, and I was not disappointed. It had everything that I love: a great plot, awesome characters, amazing action scenes, and an unforgettable ending.

It's a pretty simple plot: enemy country takes over the U.S., and a group of teens try to defend their town using guerrilla warfare. But the action and characters and side-stories flesh it out and make it amazing.

Before I get into that, I have to get this off my chest first: I found it unbelievable that North Korea could have been able to take over the U.S., because it's so tiny in both size and amount of weaponry. I heard that the enemy was originally supposed to be the Chinese, but they changed it at the last second using CGI. I dunno if it's true or not, but China would have been infinitely easier to believe capable of doing such a thing.

Let's talk about how awesome the characters are. Besides Jed, the rest of the group are just a bunch of high schoolers, and when they realize that they're town's being taken over, they're scared and confused and they just want to rescue their family. And like the rest of the world, they realize that the only way to get their town back, they have to fight back, and it's nothing like they've ever been prepared for, training how to fight, how to use guns, how to survive while the North Koreans have total control of the town, while also dealing with loss and betrayal. And they all have their own flaws, and watching Jed and Matt's rocky sibling relationship grow is one of the best parts of the movie.

And you can't forget the amazing cast who brought the characters to life. There's Chris Helmsworth playing the tough and charismatic Jed, Josh Peck playing Jed's younger--stubborn--brother, Matt, and Josh Hutcherson playing Robert, a sweet kid who still maintains a sense of innocence and justice after everything that they've been through. There's also Adrianne Palicki playing the sensible but infatuated Toni, and Isabel Lucas playing as Erica, Matt's girlfriend.

The action was great. There were parts near the first half of the movie that was too sped up, but it made sense since it was just the group learning how to fight; there's not enough time in a movie to show every detail of their training. But when it came to fighting the soldiers and retaliation and the ending fight, the camera was pretty much spot-on in capturing the hurried, chaotic atmosphere of fighting.

And that ending. I knew that it was going to happen--you don't have war movies without people dying--but this movie had so many deaths that I felt so much sadness as the group kept on losing members. But that last scene, with Matt, was great. It was the perfect ending for a time when resistance is still alive and powerful.

I definitely recommend this movie. And if you have Netflix, I definitely recommend that you watch Tomorrow, When the War Began too. Both are so awesome and moving and even though they have similar plots, you won't get tired of watching either of them.

I am a burrito of sadness.

It's finally gotten cold--but who knows how long that'll last--and since we're poor college students, we decided to hardly ever use the heater to conserve energy and therefore pay less for our electric bill, so we're all swaddled in blankets and stuff as we study. 

It was really bad yesterday, lol. But it was fun since everyone was in the living room studying and looking ridiculous together. XD

And I really should be working on my two essays so that I can get it out of the way before Saturday, but I had my Calc final this morning, which actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be (but this worries me even more since I usually don't do well when I think that I did okay) and ever since, I have been procrastinating and being generally unproductive. 

My roommates and I even went on a smoothie break since we had coupons and didn't want to study/do work two hours ago, lol. We went to Smoothie King, and I got this green tea smoothie! It's actually pretty good! 

So yeah. That, and not getting much sleep lately has been adding up and making me go crazy and tired and loopy. :\ (I'm exaggerating a little; I've only lost one or two hours of sleep every day, lol.)

...I should go work on those essays now. :(

Ta~

pointy.star

Cover Lover 26

I have my Calc final tomorrow morning. D:

I am in no way prepared. D:

And I still need to write my essays for my Gendered Lives final. D:

OTL