Things That Make Me Happy

1. Lord of the Rings- I know, you're all shocked and surprised.  But these books mean a lot to me.
2. A Good Cup of Tea- This is probably one of the most relaxing things ever . . . other than a good shoulder massage.  It's perfect with a good book on a rainy or snowy day.
3. Comfortable Shoes- See my post about heels here.  There's something comforting about slipping your feet into a pair of broken-in sneakers.
4. New Journals- They're just so pretty!
5. A Good Book- I know this is similar to #1, but on a broader scale.  Lord of the Rings is a good book . . . a great book . . . but not all good books were written by Tolkien.  There are other great authors like Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, Shakespeare . . .
6. Hoodies- They're warm, soft and comfortable.  They're perfect for this time of year when it's too cold to just wear a T-shirt, but not cold enough for a coat.
7. Yarn- I bet you saw this one coming, too.  Sadly, I haven't had much time to play with this woolly substance lately, but some nice merino or alpaca can make my day.
8. Pillows- The fluffy ones.  Need I say more?  I didn't think so.
9. Cheesecake- I don't know what it is about this delightful dessert, but I find it hard to turn down good cheesecake.  Especially if it happens to be from the Cheesecake Factory.
10. Pens- Perhaps it's the writer in me, but I cherish a good pen that writes well and mourn it when it dies.

Please not that these are things . . . objects.  Since they are not objects, the people that make me happy don't make it onto this list.  Maybe they will get their own post sometime in the future; I don't know.  We'll have to see.

10 Random Facts About Coming Back to School

Once again, I find myself sitting at a college desk in a college dorm room with a massive load of homework hanging over my head.  I've been back on campus for almost two weeks now.  Classes started on Monday, so I've officially survived almost an entire week's-worth of classes (I have one class left tomorrow).  Then, I'm off home for Labor Day weekend.  It's such a weird feeling being back on campus after being home for a few months.  Here are some things I've realized over the course of moving back onto campus and once again dwelling in the dorms:

1. I realized how many people I actually know on campus.  
2. I've also realized how many people I don't know.
3. I forgot how much walking you do in a day while on campus.
4. The first day of classes the second time around isn't nearly as scary as the first time.
5. I love getting textbooks really cheap on Amazon.
6. Having an elevator in the building makes moving in so much easier.
7. English classes require a lot of reading.  So do history classes.
8. I love my cork board.  I don't know how I survived without it last year.
9. No matter how many times I check to make sure I brought everything, I still manage to leave something at home.
10. Did I mention that I have a lot of reading to do?

 So, those are my thoughts on the first week of my sophomore year.  Tune in next time to hear me ramble about . . . I don't even know yet.  Have a splendiferous Labor Day weekend, everyone! 

They Do Exist!

Ok, so . . . while exploring the wonders of the internets, I've stumbled upon a blog with an extremely interesting, unique, and entertaining topic.  Introducing Hot Guys Reading Books.  Yep.  It's a blog that features a different picture of a guy reading a book every day.  Because literature-loving guys always seem to be in short supply.  That's all I really had to say right now.  Honestly, I've had a few blog posts in my head over the course of the last month, but . . . whenever I went to write it, I was called to do something supposedly more "important."  By the time I got back to the computer, all of my brilliant thoughts were gone.  At the moment, I'm waiting to pack the car up with my family for a week-long trip to Myrtle Beach, so this post won't be very long or informative, unfortunately.  But stay tuned!

Of Following Dreams and Friendship

It's interesting how things can change.  I just finished reading The Friday Night Knitting Club by Kate Jacobs.  I borrowed it from my sister, who got it from a garage sale for $0.50.  She started reading it, but stopped because she didn't like it.  I started reading it yesterday because I was bored and wanted to read something.  And, as I finished the book a little while ago, I realized that my sister and I are in two different stages.  Before, and during, high school, I was obsessed with fantasy stories.  I was able to slip into that Renaissance Fair-type persona.  I mean, I was never as obsessed with fairy tales as my sister is, but I did enjoy them.  Now, I feel like I appreciate stories taking place in real-life places more.  Like Friday Night Knitting Club.  It's the story of a single mom who successfully starts her own business and gains a motley band of friends in the process.  The way the women stuck together in the novel makes me think of the friends that I have.  Everyone comes from a different background, but we've all come together to support each other in rough times.  I've encountered so many different personalities, attitudes, beliefs.  Stuff's happened.  Friends have been gained and lost, and that's alright.  I've had the opportunity to reconnect with high school friends after being separated for a school year.

There are plenty of things I didn't like about The Friday Night Knitting Club, but I feel like it clearly speaks about how life is what you make of it.  The choice is yours.  Either you can sit at home or in that job you hate wishing you followed that dream, or you can go out and make it happen.  It won't be easy, but I've heard that it's worth it.

The Call to be Frugal

In the May 2010 edition of The Reader's Digest, they feature an article highlighting some of the most frugal people in the United States and the difference between being frugal and being a cheapskate.  This made me think about myself and where I would fit on this scale of frugality.  I've been raised by parents who shop the sales and the thrift shops and my mother's prowess with the art of sale shopping is unparalleled.

Now, as you all probably know, I'm a college student.  I need every spare penny I can get.  I save change and look for the highest possible re-selling price on my used textbooks.  When it comes to knitting, is it wrong of me to go for the free patterns?  I save the links of patterns too pretty to be lost, but too expensive to be bought in addition to the already expensive yarn.  In the end, I always go for the free pattern that may not be exactly what I wanted, but close enough.  It's not for a lack of desire to support designers.  If I won a million dollars, I'd probably run to the yarn store after I finished paying for college, a car, and some savings.  (and for the record, the car would still be cheap.  I still need money for yarn!)

On a somewhat-related note, I'm almost done the lace part of my second sweater sleeve.  Hopefully, I'll have pictures soon.  We're moving into the warm-weather season where no one wants to be anywhere near worsted-weight wool.  I'm also planning to embark on several smaller projects.  I've realized that I really don't have any fun accessories for those rare days when I want to dress up.  More on that later, though.

The Conundrums of Life

It's reached that time of the year when it feels like everything should be winding down.  There are two and a half weeks left of the school year, three more classes and the final exam for my twice-a-week classes, and (relatively) sunny, spring-timey weather.  Yet . . . everything just seems to be speeding up.  Classes are coming to a close, which means final exams and final assignments.  English Club is having its final meetings, which means that elections are coming up (Am I running for an office?  Yes!!!)  The leaders for next fall's Getaway Weekend have been chosen, which means that we're meeting to get things organized for that.  Some jobs on campus are getting ready to hire people for next year, which means that I have an interview with the admissions department to become a tour guide.  Stress is high, energy is low . . . and the smells of summer vacation and a summer job are calling me home.  There's so much to do, yet all I really want to do is curl up with a novel and spend the afternoon being swept away by stories of knights and dragons and damsels in distress.  I mean, who wants to read about DNA and phonics in this kind of weather?

Books, books, books...

So, I was reading my friend Krysti's blog (krystiatcollege.blogspot.com) and she posted this list of books that, according to the BBC, most people have only read six of the one hundred books on this list.  I'm putting the books I've read in red. I'll put the ones that I started but didn't finish in blue and the ones that I want to read in green.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen


2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte

4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling

5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

6 The Bible

7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell

9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman

10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens

11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott

12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy

13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller

14 Complete Works of Shakespeare

15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien

17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk

18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger

19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger

20 Middlemarch - George Eliot

21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell

22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald

23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens

24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams

26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh

27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck

29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens

33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis

34 Emma - Jane Austen

35 Persuasion - Jane Austen

36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis

37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini

38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres

39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne

41 Animal Farm - George Orwell

42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown

43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving

45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins

46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery

47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy

48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood

49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding

50 Atonement - Ian McEwan

51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel

52 Dune - Frank Herbert

53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons

54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen

55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth

56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens

58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley

59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon

60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck

62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt

64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas

66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac

67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy

68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding

69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie

70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens

72 Dracula - Bram Stoker

73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett

74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson

75 Ulysses - James Joyce

76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome

78 Germinal - Emile Zola

79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray

80 Possession - AS Byatt

81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell

83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker

84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro

85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaube

86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry

87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White

88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom

89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton

91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks

94 Watership Down - Richard Adams

95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole

96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute

97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare

99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

So...that's 20 books that I've read, 8 that I've started but never finished for whatever reason, and 8 books that I want to read.  I think I need to get cracking... I really need to find a public library in this area... the reading selection at the school library stinks... it's all reference. I think we may be making a city excursion over the weekend, so we'll see how my reading goes from there.  At the moment, I'm working through The Hobbit again.  I've been wanting to re-read all of Tolkien's books... at least Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit.  I would like to read the Histories of Middle-Earth, too, if I ever have time.  Yay reading!

Random Lord of the Rings Quote of the Day

"I like that!" said Sam.  "I should like to learn it.  In Moria, in Khazad-dûm!  But it makes the darkness seem heavier, thinking of all those lamps.  Are there piles of jewls and gold lying about here still?"

I'm presently working my way back through The Lord of the Rings for probably the millionth time.  I wish more people were able to appreciate the amount of literary genius that went into the writing of that trilogy.  I've read it multiple times and I still find that there are details that I've missed.  I actually went and sat by the pond to read for a little while before dinner, but didn't get much reading done.  There's just so much general activity there, between the people walking by and the ducks and geese . . . It's ok, though.  I really just needed to get outside for a little while.  It was a beautiful day today and I spent 90% of it inside.  In class.  That seemed to last forever. 

Now on to Psych.  I can't wait until 12:00 tomorrow because it means that I will then be done for the weekend.