serious insanity: July 2014

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I Own The Most Books From

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

Most of the authors on my list are on there because they have a series or two that I follow. That, or they have a lot of stand-alones that I liked and owned.

Ten Authors I Own The Most Books From:

Ally Carter
Matsuri Hino
Cory Doctorow
Maria V. Snyder
Lisa McMann
Gayle Forman
Ellen Hopkins
James Patterson
Richelle Mead
Maggie Stiefvater

Monday, July 28, 2014

An overdue update in Snapchats

I actually haven't taken many Snapchats lately, but I figured an update was long overdue. A lot has happened recently in these past few weeks. If you've already seen all of my procrastination/regrets posts lately, then you know that I've been busy with classes since it was the last two weeks of classes and everything had to happen around the same time.

I actually got really bored and took a pic of the chandelier in the dining room where I do all of my homework and studying one night, lol. I took it directly beneath the chandelier just to see how the change in perspective was like. Then I messed around with all of the filters to see which looked best, and I still couldn't decide, lol.

But yeah, that's why I couldn't see the boyfriend that often during the week since I knew that he was going to be a distraction when I needed to memorize my speech and study for Macroecon. I only got to see him during the weekends when I had more free time, lol.

I actually hadn't planned on seeing him one Sunday since I was supposed to be working on my speech, but my mom had told me that she was going to stay the night at the farm, so I invited him over that night and we hungout until 3:30.

We ended up going to Steak 'n Shake around midnight since we were both hungry. Then, we went to Walmart to people watch since that's when all of the freaks come out at night, lol. We went to the paint aisle and tried to match our skin colors with paint swatches. XD

It's really weird, on my phone, it said that his skin color was Old Copper Kettle, but in real life, his skin color was more Toasted Toffee.

A couple of days later, I was hanging out with him again. We went to Taco Bell because I was hungry (I'm always hungry when I'm with him... -__-"), and while reading the messages on the sauce packets, we realized that they all kind of sounded like things a rapist would say. That's why we grabbed some more sauce packets and set them up so that it showed the stages of rape, lol.

We're terrible people, I know. XD

Then we went back to my house since my parents weren't home yet and proceeded to have another tickle fight that went on for the longest time since neither of us wanted to give up, lol. I may have ended up winning using my feminine wiles. XD I may have kissed up his arm until he admitted defeat, lol.

Afterwards, we were just lying around trying to catch our breathes when my mom and grandma (who, along with my grandpa, was staying with us for a while) came home. We freakin' panicked, lol. We were upstairs in my room while they were just downstairs in the kitchen, so we were quietly trying to figure out how to sneak him outside without them noticing.

And that was when he decided to ask if we were official, lol, the dork. The thing was that a couple of hours earlier, we had cleared up a miscommunication that Shena had instigated and that ended with me asking him why he hasn't asked me out yet. His answer was that he was going to walk out of the room for a minute and when he came back, we were going to talk about something different. Lol, he wanted to avoid the question because it was getting too awkward for him!

So when he asked if we were official after my mom came home, I was just like, you're asking this now?! But I said yeah anyway, lol. That was how we officially got together, and it never fails to amuse me whenever I tell people about it. XD

To finish the story, we basically spent the next 45 minutes in stressful agony waiting for both my mom and grandma to leave the kitchen so that he could escape since the stairs end in the kitchen, which is where the door to the garage is also at where his shoes and car were at.

We had a really close call because my mom came into my room at one point for some iPad troubleshooting. Luckily, David heard her footsteps at the top of the stairs and quickly ran into my closet before my mom came into my room, and I quickly redirected her back outside to the stairs as I tried to fix her iPad since she was originally aiming to sit on my bed, which would have blown our cover since you can see directly into my open closet wherever you sit on my bed. She also asked if I had a friend over since she saw his car, so I lied and said that my friend Daphne was over and that she was using the bathroom, which was why she wasn't in my room, lol.

But yeah, my mom eventually left to go to the store to buy some stuff for dinner. I went downstairs after I heard her drive away to check to see if the coast was clear, and David started following me down as well, which was a bad idea since I was halfway down the stairs when I saw my grandma sitting motionlessly on a stool in the kitchen, so I had to quickly turn around and push him back up the stairs before she noticed him. XD

We had to wait until she quit watching some show on my mom's iPad and decided to go take a walk in our backyard before getting my bro to call my mom to see if she was still at the store because it would have really sucked to think that we had successfully snuck him out only for him to run into my mom in the garage or driveway, lol. Luckily, she was still at the store, so he actually left undetected. Yeah, it's never boring when we hangout, lol.

Shelle also came home that weekend, and she ended up telling our mom a truth bomb so we figured that my news wouldn't be that big compared to hers. Wrong. She freaked out even more after she found out that he was a year younger than me, saying that we wouldn't last and that she didn't even want to meet him because of that.

Yeah, sometimes I regret telling her about him since I feel like she's even more suspicious about what I do and who I hangout with, but at the same time, idgaf anymore so I really don't care. :\ It's the freakin' summer. It's the time when I hangout with most of my friends anyway.

The next day, on Saturday, my whole family went out to eat at a China Buffet that we go to frequently since my dad was taking our grandparents back home to Florida the next day. This was my fortune cookie fortune that was hilarious when put into context, lol. I had to send it to all of my friends and David since I wasn't going to see him for the most of the next week since I would be busy with classes.

But actually, the next day, I saw him, his best friend, and his sis since we all went to Shena's birthday party that was at the temple we helped out at last time. It was interesting since we learned a lot of stuff and participated in the eating rituals and took notes and stuff. It was really embarrassing hearing Shena tell people about how David and I were together. -__-"

Oh yeah, I wasn't really sure how to tell Shena that we got together the other day, but I carpooled with Shena and her mom on the way to temple, and her mom basically gave me an opening, lol. After a few minutes in the car, her mom started telling me all of the good points that David had like she was trying to convince me to go out with him or something, so I told them that we became official a few days ago.

Then, this past week was busy with studying and memorizing since I had one last speech to give and my last Macroecon test to deal with. I only talked to David a few times throughout the week, enough to give him the reins to plan a date for us on Friday since I should have been done with classes by then (turns out that I had a hw assignment due on that Friday afternoon and a paper due this upcoming Tuesday).

So yeah, I refrained from shirking responsibilities and seeing him on Thursday since I technically did have free time after I had a job interview at KaMin LLC. Instead, I made plans and hungout with Cam and Jayson since they were both in Macon. We went apartment shopping since Cam wants to move out of his house he rented with his two lesbian roommates, lol.

Actually, because of another miscommunication, I didn't get to see him until Friday night, lol. The night before, he texted me and told me that we were going to get dinner, watch a movie, and go for a walk, so I figured that we were going to meet up at night-ish. But apparently, he thought that he was coming over in the afternoon since I told him that I was free after 12:30 and texted me to tell me that he was going to be an hour late.

Yeah, I had already made plans to hangout with Shena in the afternoon since she had texted me earlier that morning. -__-" We ended up eating lunch at home before going to the Riverside mall since Shena wanted to go to PeachMac to see if they could fix her phone and because I wanted to go to American Eagle to return a dress I bought two months ago. I had called David to see if he wanted to come with us but he was still out running errands so we just agreed to meet up later that night, lol.

So we went shopping and all I got was a green tea smoothie that was super delicious and some Benefit makeup. I hadn't really had a chance to hangout with Shena alone for a while now, so we had a lot of things to talk about, lol.

Afterwards, she dropped me off at home so I could get ready to go out with David since he was supposed to come in the next 15 minutes. And my mom was all ridiculous about it when she called me a few hours earlier to find out where I was at and to ask what I wanted for dinner since she wasn't cooking that night and I told her that I was hanging out with Shena and going on a date with David later at night. She was all, "I don't like that. He's not your boyfriend. He's just a friend!" and all this bullshit.

So when I was leaving to meet him in the driveway, she told me to come home early and I was just like, "yeah, whatever." :P I forgot to tell her that we were going to a movie afterwards though. Oops.

He had planned to take me out to Mikada, this expensive Japanese steakhouse that his older sis used to work out, which was also in Macon, so I ended up going to Macon twice that day, lol. Neither of us had been there before, which was why it was so funny that we ran into some of our Vietnamese friends working there.

Then, in our rush to leave since we had 20 minutes until The Purge: Anarchy started, we forgot our to-go box, lol. This is the second time that's happened to us. XD We made it to the movies just in time for the previews to start and held hands for the first half of the movie until David's arm fell asleep, lol.

During the previews, I noticed that my mom had called me, so I texted my bro and told him to tell her that I was at the movies so I couldn't call her back. After the movie was over, I saw that I had a text from my bro an hour ago saying that I needed to come home early or else she was locking the door, which made me so mad. Like, if she had really locked the door, I was just gonna go home with David. He had already told his parents about me earlier that week, and his mom was totally fine with it, which was surprising to the both of us since we thought our moms were pretty similar.

But yeah, instead of going for a walk, he just took me home because I didn't want to piss my parents off too much since I had found out the night before that they were going to Atlanta with my bro the next day for a dentist appointment and were going to hangout at a friend's house afterwards like they usually did, which was a good opportunity to hangout with David uninterrupted for the majority of the day.

So he got me home around 11, but he had parked in front of the house with his car lights off, which was out of view of my parents' rooms and windows, so we could talk a bit before I snuck inside. Only, we think that our neighbor from across the street thought that we were being suspicious since their living room lights suddenly turned on and we saw him walking around the house, so David parked in the driveway with his lights still off since I noticed that the lights were off in my mom's room so we were probably in the clear.

We talked for a bit more before we had our first real kiss, and I actually went inside. Yeah, I worried for nothing. My mom was already asleep, and neither of my parents said anything the next morning when my dad asked me if I wanted to go to Atlanta with them, which I lied and said that I couldn't since I was working on my paper.

So an hour after they left, I texted David and told him that the parentals had left, and he came over half an hour later. XD We hungout in my room for a bit before going out and doing some errands. I had to go to Shanice's house and see if her package came in since her and her family went to Florida to celebrate her and her dad's birthday in Disney World. Then we went to get some frozen yogurt since I wanted some. Then we went to Michaels since I figured I needed to buy some Thank You cards to send to my interviewers.

I texted Shelle for advice and she said that an email would suffice, so we just ended up goofing off around the whole store, lol. There was this beaded bracelet stand that we spent way too much time at putting all different sorts of styles and colors along David's left arm so that he basically had a whole sleeve of sparkly bracelets, lol.

Then we went to Books-A-Million because I love looking at books and lamenting on how I never have time to read them all, lol. Like I mentioned in the Weekly Haul yesterday, we spent the longest time in the YA and romance section using book titles as pickup lines. I wish I Snapchatted some of them! Some of them were were clever and awesome! :D

Then we went back home cuz we were tired and caught up on some Youtube subscriptions before continuing watching Kill La Kill, which we had started watching together a while ago. Yeah, we only got through two episodes before we needed a break, lol. It just seems like one of those anime where you can only watch it in chunks.

Then we had a tickle fight again, and I found out that neck kisses are super hilarious, lol. He had pinned me down and was trying to kiss or bite my neck (because that's just one of things we do in our fights -__-") and his stubble was rubbing against my neck, which kept on making me laugh. Yeah, I think I like neck kisses, lol.

Afterwards, we decided to go get dinner since we were both hungry earlier, and I was like, let's go to Wok n Roll since I have yet to visit Jackie at work ever since she started working there two or three years ago! Lol, she was happy to see us.

I didn't know when my parents were coming home so we just ate at the restaurant, so we decided to sit facing Jackie since she works at the register so that we could look at her and wiggle our eyebrows and make creepy faces at her, lol.

Apparently, she took a Snapchat of us while we were there, which was ironic since we were creeping on her the whole time we were there. XD

Even before we were offically bf/gf, when we were just starting dating, Jackie was like, "I ship it! I ship you guys!" >__< So that's become her phrase whenever she likes something that we do together that she hears about, lol. She's pretty ridiculous, but that's why I love her. :3

So yeah, that's what's been happening recently. This upcoming week is going to be pretty busy too since I've already made plans for half of the week, so we'll see how it goes, lol. Hopefully, I'll take more pics for that update. :P

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Weekly Haul (85)

I went to Books-a-Million yesterday with David and ended up going through the YA and romance section using book titles as pickup lines, which was super hilarious and fun. I ended up buying a shirt for Lauren's birthday, and at the checkout, they gave me free books and stuff. I need to go to BAM more often! :)

Bought:
Grumpy Cat Shirt
The Book Was Better button

Free:
Batman Detective Comics #27
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson

Thursday, July 24, 2014

I'm alive...barely

I'm still here! This week has just been super busy since I procrastinated too much last week and everything just piled up. -__-" Plus, it's my last week of classes, so there were tests and speeches and papers due. ;__; And I have a job interview today! D:

It's in two hours, and I still need to get ready. :o

Wish me luck!

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Cover Lover 40

I'm still here, lol. Just been so busy with classes and procrastinating and hanging out with people that I haven't had any time to blog. -__-"

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Book Review: Arcadia Awakens (Arkadien #1) by Kai Meyer

Title: Arcadia Awakens (Arkadien #1)
Author: Kai Meyer
Pages: 452
Publication: February 14, 2012
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Summary taken from goodreads:

To New Yorker Rosa Alcantara, the exotic world of Sicily, with its network of Mafia families and its reputation for murder and intrigue, is just that—exotic, and wholly unknown. But when tragedy strikes, she must travel there, to her family’s ancestral home, where her sister and aunt have built their lives and where centuries of family secrets await her. Once there, Rosa wastes no time falling head over heels for Alessandro Carnevare, the son of a Sicilian Mafia family, whose handsome looks and savage grace both intrigue and unsettle her. But their families are sworn enemies, and her aunt and sister believe Alessandro is only using Rosa to infiltrate the Alcantara clan. And when Rosa encounters a tiger one night—a tiger with very familiar eyes—she can no longer deny that neither the Carnevares nor the Alcantaras are what they seem.

Ancient myths brought to life in the Sicilian countryside, dangerous beasts roaming the hills, and a long history of familial bloodlust prove to Rosa that she can’t trust anyone—not even her own family. Torn between loyalty to her aunt and love for her family’s mortal enemy, Rosa must make the hardest decision of her life: stay in Sicily with her new love . . . or run as far and as fast as she can.

3 STARS - I LIKED IT ENOUGH

MY REVIEW:

It was pretty slow in the beginning, and I didn't really see how their romance really developed, especially enough for him to tell her that he would die for her after knowing her for a few weeks at the most. But the pace finally picked up after the first 150 pages, and it became much more exciting and intriguing as more clues are revealed and new threats arrive.

And Rosa is a pretty awesome character. She's not a total badass but neither is she a helpless little girl. She's stubborn and willful, and she has difficulty trusting people because of her past which continues to haunt her.

I just wished that the other characters could have been more fleshed out, especially Alessandro. Then again, he was made out to be all mysterious in the beginning, so I knew that it'd be unlikely to ever see his true motives.

As for the writing, it wasn't bad. Meyer described Sicily beautifully and provided lots of details when describing scenes. However, there were many times when there would be long info dumps in the form of conversations explaining to Rosa the history of certain events and families, which got boring very quickly, especially since many of them took place in the beginning of the book.

Overall, ARCADIA AWAKENS wasn't a bad first book in a trilogy. It didn't end with a huge cliffhanger like most series/trilogies, but it also didn't leave me that engaged enough to want to go read the sequel.

Also, when I first saw the cover for the US version of the book, I instantly loved it because it was so unusual and dark. Then I read the book and found out that Rosa has blond hair. Could they have changed the cover to actually fit the book's description for once?

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday: Favorite TV Shows

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

If you couldn't tell, I like to watch a lot of supernatural types of shows with the occasional detective show thrown in. XD

Top Eight Favorite TV Shows:

Teen Wolf
Supernatural
White Collar
Elementary
Avatar: The Last Airbender
Sleepy Hollow
Sherlock
Once Upon a Time

Monday, July 14, 2014

Help, I've fallen and I can't get up XD

I think I'm really starting to fall for him, lol. We hungout until 3:30 this morning because my mom wasn't home and I didn't want to think about all of my responsibilities that I should have been doing because I've been procrastinating and wouldn't be able to see him until the end of the week. So instead of being totally productive yesterday, like I should have been, I invited him over around 7:30 to hangout since I wouldn't be able to see him until Thursday or Saturday.

So yeah, I haven't been able to stop thinking about him in between trying to motivate myself to work on my speech and be productive. Even before last night, I haven't been able to stop thinking about him since last Friday, when he also came over. -__-" And smiling whenever I remember all of the stuff we talked about and did.

I think this crush is getting a little out of hand, lol. I looked up the words "crush tumblr" on Google images, and I found a couple pics that described what's been going on with us, lol.

I really like to tease him because it's so easy to do so, lol. Whenever we're play-fighting, I just have to say "ow" and he gives up. When he playfully threatens to do something mean to me, I just say, "No, you won't! You like me too much to do that," and he just gives up and says that I'm too smart, lol. I'm a menace. XD

So I'm his weakness, but he's also mine, lol. Because even though I'm mentally stronger than him, he's still physically stronger than me, and it's unfair just how much he's distracting me even when he's not around! D:

He also smelt really good. I don't know if he was wearing cologne or not because it was it was really subtle and I forgot to ask. I'm pretty sure I only smelt it because we were laying next to each other, lol. I hope he wears it again the next time I see him. >__<

A lot of the pics were more romantic or pining than anything I ever felt with him though, but all crushes are different, I guess. And I guess it's different when you already know that he likes you; there's definitely less uncertainty to deal with. Not gonna lie, I just use that as a weapon as well, lol. He'll call me ridiculous or weird, and I'm just like, "You like me anyway!" and he's just defeated. XD

Saw this and kind of want to send it to him to fill out. XD

I don't really care about 3 or 5, but it's still really cute.

Friday, July 11, 2014

Have some poetry

Found this poem on Twitter the other day. I really liked it.

You should definitely check out Poems Porn in general. They tweet a lot of really awesome poems.

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Procrastination and Unproductivity: My Life

My life is a spiral of unproductivity. D:

I should be updating my resume and work on an awesome writing sample so that I can potentially get an internship pretty soon or at least applying online for the new McDonald's that just opened up a few weeks ago while they're still looking for more workers and while I still know people who are already working there. D:

At the least, I should be working on my stupid speech, who's rough draft I completely wrote last minute with plenty of distractions because of David (It's really more my fault for not realizing that it was due the day that I was hanging out with him. -__-"). Or I should at least be reading the last three chapters from Macroecon because I totally spaced out in class this week and have no idea what's going on.

This is just not a good time for me and my unproductivity. ;__;

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Top Ten Tuesday: Blogging Confessions

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

This is a day late, but I really wanted to do this post, so I'm gonna! :P There wasn't much time to even think about blogging yesterday since I had last minute homework to do and got totally distracted by hanging out with David, lol.

Top Five Blogging Confessions:

I schedule my posts sometimes when I know that I won't have time to write up a post or get on my laptop the next day or few days and already have ideas on what to blog about. Like, most of last week's posts were scheduled because I was too busy cramming or on the road to blog about anything, so in a fit of procrastination, I quickly wrote up four posts and published ahead of time.
I haven't really looked at any other blogs for the past year. I've been really getting out of my book blogging phase for the past year or two, which saddens me. :/
Most of the time when I blog now is when I'm procrastinating on doing other important things like studying or homework or replying to emails. -__-" I feel like this is really obvious since I'm always talking about how I need to go and actually be productive at the end of many posts, lol.
I tried to apply for the Google AdSense thing a while ago to make money off of my blog, but I got disapproved, lol. Guess I didn't have enough viewers and was niched enough.
I generally keep my blog a secret. I've only told a few people about it over the years. Even though it's public, I still don't feel comfortable with having people I actually know read it. :\

Friday, July 4, 2014

Going on a mini-vacation

Happy Independence Day!

I'm gonna be in DC with my family all weekend and won't be coming back until Monday, so I probably won't be able to post anything until Tuesday.

I don't know what we're gonna be doing--my dad just wanted to take us to DC since the last and only time we went as a family, we were only little kids--but I hope there's wifi because my parents and bro used most of the data while they were in Hawaii, and I really want to get on Tumblr today just to see all of the patriotic parodies on there, lol.

I mean, look at these two:

So yeah, I'll be on a little hiatus for now, but I haven't really been posting much on weekends lately anyway, so I doubt you'll miss me. :P

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to read a bunch of chapters and take an online quiz for class since I won't be able to do it before I come back and hangout with Lauren for a bit before I leave tomorrow. XD