Posting Fail

I've been so busy with homework and Bookworm Boulevard that I'm afraid I've kind of neglected The Word Nerd. I'm really sorry, guys! If I'm totally, bluntly honest...it's kind of a pain to keep up with two separate blogs. It's just difficult trying to make sure I keep up with all the book stuff on the other one and still find interesting things to post about and the time/motivation to post frequently here.

I'll still try to post from time to time, i.e. if I have something really interesting to post about, but I don't think it's going to be very often. I will still be updating BB frequently and you can definitely find me there.

Meanwhile, go listen to the songs "Head Over Feet" by Alanis Morissette and "At Full Speed" by Jack's Mannequin. Because they're awesome.

~Bex

Why I Will Never Be An Economist

One of my summer assignments is to read a book called Naked Economics and do a double-entry journal with at least three responses per chapter (the class requiring this is AP Government and Macroeconomics, so it's not too weird). Naked Economics is not a bad book; actually, in a lot of places it's quite funny, and some of it even makes sense.

But the thing is...even the parts that make sense confuse me. The chapter I just finished contained lots of discussion about why it is good to be a mohair farmer even though there is no need for mohair. Then the author said that programs like that should not exist because they make people angry, then he said that everyone has the mohair advantage in some way.

I followed it, mostly. I understood the analogies and I understand how the stuff he's talking about fits into our economic system. But when I think about it as a whole, I still have no idea what he's talking about. I get it...but I don't get it. Which, of course, makes no sense at all.

Hopefully taking a class in economics will clear some of this up. But in the meantime, this book has taught me one very important thing: I should never be an economist.

Love,
Bex

College Searching: William & Mary and University of Richmond

Sooo over the last few days, I was in Virginia to visit colleges: the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg and the University of Richmond, which is located, predictably, in Richmond. It was a lovely trip: I really, really liked William & Mary, and UR was very nice too. So nice to have a college that I'm really excited about! I am definitely planning to apply to W&M. It felt very home-like, and the atmosphere there was just great. Everyone was so friendly and welcoming, and I got the sense that academics are really important there - studies do matter - but that everyone has other things that they're involved in as well. I really like that.

UR was a nice school too - just as beautiful was Williamsburg but in a totally different way. I can definitely understand why a lot of people really liked it. I probably won't end up applying there - it wasn't really me - but it's a very nice place.

In other news, my cat decided to wake me up this morning around five by throwing up on my bed. Welcome home, Becky.

Off now to get some summer work done. I can't believe there are only 18 days until school starts back. I am running out of time to get stuff done and still spend as much time as possible reading... O.o

Love,
Bex

A Movie You Simply MUST See

So, as my dear friend SP reminded me just a moment ago, I totally fail at recommending awesome things to you guys, because I didn't tell you that you absolutely HAVE to go see the new Christopher Nolan film Inception.

(Okay, so he was a bit nicer about it than that. He said "I'm surprised you didn't blog about Inception." And once he mentioned it, so was I! I think it was the fact that I was up until, uh, 6a.m. the night I saw it.)

But I digress. Inception is this totally awesome sci-fi kinda movie starring Leo DiCaprio and Ellen Page and some other very talented actors, and it's about a technology that lets you get into other people's dreams. Dom Cobb and his team, including new architect Ariadne, are on a mission that might let Cobb finally go home: they have to infiltrate the dreams of a businessman's son and plant an idea there, a process called inception. (Normally, dream invading is just used to steal secrets - extraction.) Also there are ghosts from Cobb's past, namely, his dead wife; really awesome fight scenes involving antigravity hotels and tanks in the snow; a noticeable lack of sex scenes (finally, a movie that isn't just a sham of a plot and a torrid love affair); and most of all, it makes you THINK.

I loved loved loved Inception. You totally have to see it. It is so, so, so awesome.

~Bex

Book Rec + Quotes

So, you guys, you need to read The Demon's Covenant. Because it was amazing.

HOWEVER, it is a SEQUEL. Yes, that means there is a book that comes before this one. And yes, you do need to read The Demon's Lexicon first because otherwise The Demon's Covenant will make no sense whatsoever.

But that's okay, because The Demon's Lexicon is also awesome.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from TDC:

" 'Well, that sounds ominously nonspecific,' Jamie remarked. 'How could I refuse?' "

" 'I cook better than you,' Nick corrected absently. 'I think monkeys can probably be taught to cook better than you.'
'I'd like to have a monkey that cooked for me,' said Jamie. 'I would pay him in bananas. His name would be Alphonse.' "

"That was not a shriek. It was a husky masculine cry of terror." -Jamie

" 'Don't be sad, Mae,' Jamie said. 'This will be good training for when we are ninjas.'
'Ninjas often get distracted by plants, do they?' Mae smirked."

My review of TDC is here. And you should check it out and stuff. Because guys, this series is awesome.

Assorted Things on Thursday

1. I got books in the mail today! I won a contest on Elizabeth Scott's blog and received an ARC of The Replacement (which I really really really wanna read) and a copy of Only the Good Spy Young (which is a totally awesome book).

2. Sorry I'm so slack about the blog lately! I think trying to post every day or every other day is just rather a bit much, especially in summer when there is nothing going on and I'm working on thesis and college-searching and summer homework and not doing anything. So don't look for daily posts (I'm making an effort to have a life, too - we'll see how that goes XD), but I'll still try to keep up pretty regularly.

3. I hate having to annotate books. I don't like the idea of writing in books, it feels almost sacrilegious, and also it distracts me while I'm reading. I would much rather read a thought-provoking book and then discuss it or talk about it without all the "make sure you WRITE DOWN everything you think while you're reading it!!!" And I mean, I like to write. *sigh* Stupid summer homework.

4. If you don't know the song "Lift Us Up to Fall" by Tenth Avenue North, you should go listen to it, because it's awesome.

5. I really like round numbers, so I had to add an item #5 to this list so I wouldn't drive myself crazy. Have a wonderful remainder-of-July/summer!

College Searching

I spent my first day back from Georgia sorting through piles and piles of college mail. I've been getting college letters in the mail for ages, and I never quite know what to do with it, so it's all gone into a pair of canvas bags and sat there for (days, weeks, months). Today, I sorted it all out. Well, all of it that I kept, anyway. So, here, have some random statistics:

-Number of states represented: 30, plus Washington, D.C.

-States with largest number of colleges represented: South Carolina (13), Georgia (12), and New York (12)

-State whose colleges sent me the most mail: South Carolina (45 pieces of mail)

-State whose colleges sent me the most mail, excluding SC: New York (25 pieces of mail)

-Colleges who sent me the most mail: Carleton College (10) and University of Chicago (9)

That's all I'm coming up with, statistics-wise, right now. More later.

Love,
Bex

Hello Goodbye

Hi guys, sorry to have been so mysteriously absent lately. Lots of stuff has been going on, including several "repairs" to our faulty internet service. It just got worse after the first time they tried to fix it, but it seems to be better now, so hopefully I'll be able to post without getting cut off every two minutes.

I've also been doing a lot of research about colleges, trying to find somewhere not-huge, reasonably affordable, coed, with a good English department and some film/theater production courses that look interesting, and not too far from South Carolina. Much easier said than done.

Of course, as of right now, I'm also supposed to be packing. Leaving tomorrow morning for a brief trip to Georgia, off to the Dark and Mysterious Lands of No-Wireless-Internet. So, there'll be another couple of postless days coming up. But as of Monday, I should be back and posting again.

Until then,
Bex

Linger

Hey guys, LINGER comes out today.

Yes, LINGER, as in the book by Maggie Stiefvater, the sequel to SHIVER, the second book of Grace and Sam and Isabel and Cole and the Wolves of Mercy Falls.

It comes out today.

So go to a bookstore. And get a copy. Because Maggie is awesome, and her books are AMAZING.

Ohmygosh you guys, I love this series. I love this book. Read them. They are made of awesome.

Love,

Bex

Comatose

No, I am not in a coma. No, I do not know anyone who has recently fallen into or come out of a coma. "Comatose" is the name of a very awesome song by Skillet that you should go listen to.

I started humming it to myself last night around bedtime, and I couldn't figure out what it was. And then I did figure out what it was, and then I had to go listen to it, a lot. It's great.

"I hate living without You, dead wrong to ever doubt You, but my demons lay in waiting, tempting me away. Oh, how I adore You, oh, how I thirst for You, oh, how I need You. Comatose, I'll never wake up without an overdose of You..."

Love,
Bex

Technology Strikes Again

Wanna know something that's quite irksome?

Trying to [check your Facebook, post a review to your blog/LibraryThing/Shelfari/Goodreads, find Spanish newspaper articles, have an IM conversation with your friends, read xkcd, browse baby name websites for a good character name -- take your pick] when the internet is determined not to work for more than four or five seconds at a time.

When you think about it, it's a little frightening how much stuff we entrust to technology that's so finicky.

Love,
Bex

Writing vs. Blogging

Earlier today, Jami at YA Addict posted a discussion about whether or not aspiring writers should be book blogging. The idea was that if you give someone a negative review, you're burning bridges in the publishing industry before you even get to them. I hadn't even thought about that as being an issue. Writing is a huge part of who I am, and so is reading. Most writers say that if you're going to write well, you have to read a lot - the two are related. So why would it be a problem to write and blog about books? Asking me to choose between the two would be like saying "Okay, you can cut off your right arm, or you can cut off your left arm. Ready, go."

If I had to choose between ever being a published author and continuing to blog about books, I'd choose being an author in a heartbeat. I blog about books because I love reading and I want to share the books I read with other people, but I can share books with friends even without a blog; maybe I'd only be sharing them with a few people that I talk to regularly in the "real world," but it's better than not being able to talk about them with anyone. But if I had to stop writing...that would be like cutting out a part of my soul.

What I don't get is why anyone should have to choose. I understand that no author likes seeing a negative review of his or her book, and most likely the publishers/editors/agents don't either - a huge number of people put a huge amount of time into that book, and then somebody has the nerve to go and say they didn't like it? It makes sense - I would be unhappy too. But the fact of the matter is, not everybody is going to like every single book. If everybody liked the same things, that would be...well, really weird. Very Brave New World. Scary. Not cool. If you have an opinion, there's going to be people who agree with you AND people who don't agree with you. That's how the world works.

Personally, I think that as long even the negative reviews are polite, there shouldn't be a problem. I for one don't like writing negative reviews; I wish I could enjoy every book I read and always be able to say "Yes! You should absolutely read this one too! It's excellent!" But that doesn't always happen. So my policy on that is going to be that unless I've specifically agreed to review a certain book and I end up disliking it, I won't review books that I don't like. And if I do have to post a negative review, I'll be as nice as I can about it. Just because I wasn't the biggest fan of a book doesn't mean that I can't understand why somebody else would be.

So that's my spiel for the day. It rather popped my "happy bubble" when I saw that maybe people who like to write shouldn't be blogging about books, I will admit. I was all excited because I've wanted to create something like Bookworm Boulevard for ages and ages and ages, and then somebody says "...you know that by doing this thing you love, you may be ruining your chances to do this other thing that you love." But I read something just the other day about a book blogger turned author, and I'm going to hold to the idea that the same is going to be possible for me someday.

I guess this has been rather more serious than most of my posts. But this is something that matters to me. What do y'all think?

~Bex

Insanity: A List

I have composed a list of several things that are insane. Enjoy.

1. My family. Spend an hour - no, half an hour - no, ten minutes around any of them and you'll know what I mean.

2. Summer homework. There's so much of it. There is no point.

3. Senior thesis. I've fallen behind, and I thought I'd never be able to catch up, but provided I keep up with the schedule I made the other day, I'll be able to catch up and have plenty of time for other things. (Of course, "other things" may in this case mean "struggling through the assigned summer reading books so that I can get to my very awesome stack of library books" or, more likely, "ignoring the assigned summer reading books and spending way too much time in the blogosphere.")

4. The number of books that I really really really want to read.

5. Me. Ask AF how many times a day I say something to the general effect of "I'm so weird." And "weird" only begins to cover it.

Love,
Bex

I'm an AP Student

...especially if AP stands for Advanced Procrastination. Over the next six weeks, I have to do...well, more schoolwork than I'm going to list here. I'm very behind. I have so much left to do, lots of which I was supposed to get done today but haven't yet, but am I working on schoolwork?

Absolutely not.

Instead I'm setting up my account on Goodreads and perusing reviewer blogs and author blogs. Oh, and I keep checking Bookworm Boulevard to see if I have any new comments/followers/etc., even though I realize that's probably not gonna happen until the site's been around for considerably longer than a day and a half. It's new. I'll calm down once the novelty wears off. Maybe.

It's just that books (especially fun ones) are so much more entertaining and, in my humble opinion, much more educational than schoolwork.

So three cheers for AP students. Advanced Placement AND Advanced Procrastination.

Oh, and if you need a song to listen to, check out "You Make Me Smile" by Blue October. It's a little odd at first, but it grows on you. And also, it's totally stuck in my head right now.

Love,
Bex

Bookworm Boulevard

Guysguysguys I have some really exciting news.

So, remember how I said I really wanted to make a book site? (Or, at least, I mentioned the possibility. I may not have let my enthusiasm and excitement creep through onto the internet.)

Well, it's here. And it's called Bookworm Boulevard.

The URL: http://bookwormboulevard.blogspot.com. It's still somewhat under construction; I'll be adding sidebar links and stuff like that over the next couple of days, and I hope to post the first review later on tonight. You should check it out! And if you like it, become a follower.

I hope you guys like it. I realize there's not much there to like just yet, but there will be. Soon. Promise.

Love,
Bex

P.S. Don't worry! The fact that Bookworm Boulevard is now officially in operation does not mean that I'll stop posting here. It just means that this is going to be more of a personal blog, while BB is all about books and a  lot less about me.

Some Stuff

Hello all!

I hope all of my readers in America had a great Independence Day - picnics, cookouts, fireworks, pools, all that jazz. And to my international readers (*coughcoughCHcoughcough*), I hope you had a lovely non-holiday mid-summer Sunday!

I spent most of today working on two things:

1. AP Spanish summer work. I've now done four of the requisite twelve grammar tests through StudySpanish.com. I think. Unless I did it wrong. Given the lack of precise instructions, that's entirely possible.

2. Blog design. I think I may have possibly mentioned (or not mentioned; I honestly don't remember) a blog/website thing dedicated solely to books. Reviews, interviews, etc. I'll still keep up with the Word Nerd over here as my personal blog and I'll probably post book recs here too, but once I get the other site up, it'll be a not-so-personal YA Books site.

And speaking of books, I reread Gayle Forman's IF I STAY last night. It is so, so, so good. It made me cry, it made me smile, it's just...fantastic. Basically, the premise is that Mia's family gets into a car wreck. Mia's parents are killed instantly, and a comatose Mia has a sort of out-of-body experience, watching her friends and family -- and herself -- in the hospital as she tries to decide whether or not to go on living. Such a sweet book. Definitely, definitely read it. (I especially love that Mia's relationship with her boyfriend is not perfect - it's nice but unfortunately rare to have a touch of realism in the romances anymore.)

That's it for tonight, folks. Much love,
Bex

Mini-Mini-Blog: Contest Link

Hey guys --

Alexa over at Hooked on YA Books is having a book-giveaway contest. Head over to her blog to enter and maybe win some really cool books! Click here for details.

--Bex

P.S. This doesn't count as an extra July 2 post, but I'm also not entirely sure it's going to count as the July 3 post. Depends how much I get done tomorrow. Er, today.

This Greenhouse Grows Humans

More reading material for you folks out there. A little while ago (I would've blogged sooner, but I lacked the time to write a coherent review), I read THE GARDENER by S.A. Bodeen. Science fiction + global warming + eco-cyborgs = a pretty intense mix of stuff.

The only connection Mason has ever had to is father is a DVD of the man, shoulders-down, reading The Runaway Bunny. So when a comatose girl at the hospital where his mother works suddenly wakes up when she hears the story on the DVD and begs to leave, Mason - who has a bit of a hero complex - rescues her.

The girl only remembers bits and pieces of who she is and what has happened to her, but Mason can tell that she's anything but normal. The circular scars covering her legs only add to the mystery of the girl's past. Add in that there's a tattoo on her arm that matches the one on Mason's father on the DVD and the fact that the least official police force Mason has ever encountered is chasing the girl he rescued. There's mystery and adventure brewing, and Mason may not like what he discovers.

This novel takes a real, present-day scientific crisis and gives it an impossible solution with just enough scientific backing that it just might happen. Add in two teenagers who are trying to figure out the truth behind the science and the mystery of the girl's past, and you've got THE GARDENER. I will say that I figured out the end well before I got there, but it was one of those books that was worth reading anyway. Not the best book I've ever read, but still definitely worth my time. I'm glad I read it. You should check it out too.

Love,
Bex

Happy July

As it is now July 1 (and I've been slacking on blogging again, I'm sorry), I have composed a list of exciting things that happen in July:

-July 4th celebrations. Fireworks and picnics. Yay!

-The release of LINGER, the sequel to SHIVER, by Maggie Stiefvater. I had the good fortune to get an ARC and I can tell you that it is totally amazing and you should definitely get a copy ASAP.

-Harry Potter's birthday is July 31. (Relevant because of the somewhat Harry Potter-themed sleepover I'm going to tonight. (Why yes, my friends and I are nerds, why do you ask?))

-Family vacation! Not really sure where my family is going yet, but we're going somewhere and it should be fun.

-More birthdays: two of my cousins, JR and KA, as well as my dear friend RF. 

Of course, there's also the thesis monster. But that doesn't count. Because that's not a YAY thing, that's an eekscary thing.

Anyway, I must go. Happy July, internetpeople!

Love,

Bex

Radio Silence

I would like to apologize for the unexplained, unexpected, and entirely unintentional several-day lack-of-posting. I've been busy. VBS has started at my church (and it's a lot of fun - I love working with kids - but keeping up with ten hyper second- and third-graders can be rather exhausting), so Sunday and today were both spent working VBS and catching up on sleep.

And then there's thesis. Which I'm so behind on it's not funny. I've been a lot busier than I expected and stuff has just come up - and, okay, I've been reading. Which makes it my own fault that I'm not where I'd like to be on thesis.

Oh, and there's college. Still researching all sorts of different schools. Still haven't found anywhere that really screams "come here!" But I'm looking. So we'll see.

And I know this has been a very brief post after several days of posts-so-brief-they're-really-not-there-at-all, but I do not have the energy (or the concentration) to write more right now. So, more later.

Also, I just finished watching the last episode of Firefly. It's an amazing show, you guys, everyone should watch it. Not kidding. It's spectacular. You'll love it.

Love,
Bex