at the library…

writing essays.

Well one essay, but i was here writing one yesterday and I’m starting to hate this place.

Case in point…

I want time to stop so I can slack off without feeling guilty about not finishing work. I have things I want to do such as,

1. watch Gossip Girl from last night

2. watch 90210 from last night

3. read books that are non-school related

4. maybe, just maybe, catch up on readings for school

5. bake cookies and watch christmas movies

6. maybe play some mario kart wii

7. fly down to somewhere in the states so I can meet John and Hank Green

8. sleep a little

9. go shopping

10. complete my nerdfighterly duties so I can get the collab album.

Yeah that’s about it…

All of those things totally pwn writing essays…gahh.

Back to work now…

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READING IS SO AWESOME!

This past week, instead of doing work that I so desperately need to do, I read books. No, not school books. Just books. As you already know, Paper Towns was one of them, but this week I also read Let it Snow, John Green’s other new collab. novel with Maureen Johnson and Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. Really, this reading didn’t take up that much of my time: Let it Snow took a bus ride home to Toronto; Nick and Norah started as a quck read before bed at 11 and before I knew it, it was two in the morning and I was finished reading; and Paper Towns took me around 4 hours yesterday afternoon and another hour or so last night. The reading itself has taken up little of my life, but it’s the sheer awesome of the stories that keep me enthralled and distracted every hour of every day. 

Let it Snow, for instance, is clearly a book about Christmas and as a result is filled with love, happiness and togetherness. Also, Starbucks is a central figure in the stories (it consists of three, written by three different authors, but they are all connected in some way) so with all the Christmas goodness and Starbucks, clearly I’d be into it. So into it, in fact, that it had me listening to Christmas music and wanting to bake cookies and watch christmas music and drink eggnog lattes all weekend. Also, John Green is just so amazing because he can use phrases like, “asshat” and have teenagers running around in a huge snowstorm trying to get to a Waffle House in the middle of the night with a twister board to hang out with cheerleaders on one page, but then on the next he can have two characters fall in love and leave you with a thought like this, “I always had this idea that you should never give up a happy middle in the hopes of a happy ending, because there is no such thing as a happy ending… There is so much to lose.”  

Nick and Norah was one of those books that you love to read because it simply brings you into the world of these characters, shows you what’s going on for, like, 6 hours and spits you out wanting so badly to be someone’s five-minute boyfriend. I really enjoyed the book and everything it said about relationships and well, life. My favourite part (other than the hotel ice machine room…anyone who’s read it will know what i’m talking about 😉 ) was when Dev was talking to Nick and told him that the Beatles got it so right with their song, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” because when you’ve found that person you love and want to spend the rest of your life with, you’d be content with just holding their hand, forever. It’s an even better image in the book because Nick and Norah get into the sexual stuff pretty early on, but both realize that although they may want to, they don’t need to, at least not right away. I could go into book/movie comparisons (i saw the movie tonight, after i read the book, the book pwns) but I could seriously write a paper so I’m not going to. 

Paper Towns. Ahh, Paper Towns, how I love thee. I just love John Green. He’s an amazing author for one, and he’s pretty much the most awesome, kind, humble human being on the planet. I spent three hours today watching John sign books at a Borders in Indianapolis via BlogTV and seriously wasn’t bored. It made me so happy just to watch him sitting there because he was just so happy/excited and was so grateful to everyone who came to see him. When I say grateful, I mean grateful. He’s so genuine and awesome…he seriously makes my life. I wish I were the Yeti (nerdfighter joke…ignore me) *sigh*. But really, Paper Towns is incredible. I love that he can incorporate close readings of Walt Whitman and penis jokes on literally the same page and pull it off. Also, he seriously has a seemingly endless supply of metaphors – and good ones too. I’m convinced that he just thinks them up and keeps them all in a little notebook, making plans, crosshatched, like Margo Roth Speigelman. Speaking of which, his characterization skills are out of this world. His characters are complete mysteries, but through often crazy adventures and real, honest-to-god relationships, the characters start to unravel and through this unraveling the book and everything in it unfolds and makes complete and utter sense on an entirely different level. Also, particularly in this book, the mystery of Margo Roth Speigelman is extremely important because Paper Towns is really all about seeing someone as an idea of something great, but when really you should look at them as just person, like yourself. So I guess, John Green isn’t any more awesome than you or me, he may just show his awesome a little more. 

With all this reading it has inspired me to write. The other day I just sat down at my computer with an idea and wrote for a half an hour. In that half an hour i wrote 1500 words, probably a load of crap, but it was 1500 words, longer than most essays I have to write for school. This made me start thinking about school why it is that I can fall into a novel and read it in it’s entirity in a few hours, but when it comes to reading for school, even if it’s a novel, it’s a pain to even sit down and start reading? The same goes for writing: why is it that I can sit down and write 1500 words in 30 minutes but when it comes to writing a paper it takes me at least a day? I don’t understand it, to be honest. I mean, I love school, i would love to stay in school for the rest of my life, but I just don’t want the work that comes with it. 

Ah well, c’est la vie. School is school, leisure is leisure, work is work. I’d love, though, if the three would just combine and deadlines were eliminated. That would be great. Anyone know where I could contact the Dean? That’d be great, thanks.

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Paper Towns-Tacular

Best day EVER.

I finally got my hands on Paper Towns today. I tried to get it yesterday but Indigo said that although they suspected that they got them in, there was no way of checking for sure because boxes hadn’t been unpacked yet and their stocking system was down so they told me to call today and they’d let me know for sure. Clearly, they had received them so i skipped over to indigo to get my book. They hadn’t unpacked them yet and they didn’t know what box the books were in so I waited for 30 minutes for them to get my book from the bottom of some box. It was so exciting finally getting the book (not quite as exciting as Harry Potter but actually far surpasses Breaking Dawn…pretty much everything surpasses the Twilight series really…[wasn’t a fan of Breaking Dawn therefore my love has dwindled significantly…]). The lady who got the book for me was all curious about John Green and everything so I explained to her who he was, what he’s written and why he’d entirely made of awesome. 

Anywho…the book was amazing. I laughed, I cried and I questioned life. Seriously John Green’s books are the best YA books I’ve ever read. They follow a plot that is reminiscent of YA but the themes and philisophical questions that he poses in his books seriously make you question a whole bunch of seriously deep shit and honestly frightens the crap out of me…but i love it. 

I just wish him and Hank would come to Toronto so I could thank him in person for his amazing books and for being so f-ing awesome. 

     

 

p.s. I bought a sick necklace today that’s BASICALLY a pocket watch..but a necklace. How cool is that?

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19 = the greatest birthday ever.

I have really, really great friends. 

This whole past week I was feeling pretty down due to reasons that i don’t really want to go into right now (it deserves its own post, really…), but because I have freaking greatest friends ever and they made my 19th birthday one of the greatest days of my life, the shitty week really doesn’t seem that shitty anymore. 

Yesterday was so, so amazing. While my housemate, Lara, and I were out volunteering at Special O skating my other two housemates, Lynsie and Emily, decorated the apartment beautifully and so when I returned home it was like I was in birthday land. 

Later on that day my parents came up from Toronto and came over to the house to take my housemates and I out to lunch, but they showed up with one of my oldest and greatest friends in tow, Caitlin. I had no idea she was coming. It was pretty much the greatest surprise ever and it was so fun having her with me to celebrate. 

We shopped/just hung out for the rest of the day until my 3 housemates kicked me out of the kitchen/living room/dining room and cooked me a delicious dinner of pasta, salad and garlic bread. Our dinner was then topped off with a delicious ice cream cake from Dairy Queen (reese’s pieces blizzard cake…oh. my. god. it was so good). After dinner we all got dressed up to go out, made Sangria, blasted music and the party began. 

Around 9 some of my good friends from school came over – Kathleen, Melanie, Cat, Emily S and Alison – and we started partying. We played some Mario Kart Wii for a bit and then started a hilarious game of Boxhead before breaking to sing some musical theatre tunes and heading out to Ale for my first LEGAL NIGHT IN THE BAR!! At the bar my friends bought me around 5 shots, most of which i didn’t know, and still don’t know, what they were and we danced the night away. 

Now it’s Sunday, Caitlin’s gone home with my parents, the streamers are falling off the walls and it’s back to reality…and tons of homework. Shit…I should go do that.

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