Finally!

Here are the long-awaited Florida pictures! I took a few hundred but these are just some of my favorites, especially the Flagler Beach one. If you click on the image you should be able to see a larger picture. I figured these would be great to look at after all the snow we've had! I don't know about you but I've been craving some warmth and sunshine, I guess these pictures will just have to do for a few months. Hope y'all are staying safe and having a great weekend!

Snowpocalypse, Take Two

Our power just came back on, yay! It was out for about an hour and a half, and we were a little worried that we wouldn't get any power back for a while. Hopefully we'll have power for the rest of the storm now. I'm very glad to be at home for this one, because a few weeks ago in that really awful blizzard my family and I got caught on the road and had to make an emergency stop at a hotel for the night. Thankfully, we were lucky to hitch a ride the next day with someone who had a Jeep, but it was very scary for a while there. If any of you guys are also experiencing the storm, I hope you're staying safe and warm!

Je suis fatigué!

Oh boy, well so far this week I have taken/will take FOUR quizzes. That's right, four quizzes in the second week of school. I'm pretty sure they're trying to take out the entire student body one sad, overworked soul at a time. I'm taking 3/5 classes this semester (five if you count lab classes separately from lecture, which I do) and they are all very time intensive.

French should be easy for me, and I did very well on the first quiz, but since I skipped a class I'm having to scramble and catch up so there is still a lot of work to be done, and I probably have more homework in that class than any of the others, which is saying a lot.

Microbiology is...interesting. My lab instructor is a little scary, I normally love sarcastic people, but not when I am living in constant fear of mockery. But he's good, and my microbiology lecture instructor is nice too, but having the class at 7-8:30 at night does NOT help with concentration...it's probably better than the 8:30 A.M. class though.

And then there's A+P. This is the second class in the duo, and it looks like there's going to be a lot more work in this section than there was in the first one. And we have to dissect cats! Poor kitties...when I came home after the last lab my kitty wouldn't stop talking to me for at least a half an hour, I think she knew what I had done :(

So yeah, thought some of you might be interested to read what's going on in my life at the moment. Again, I'm sorry that I won't be able to post as frequently anymore, but I am thinking about all of you! Hope you have a great day!

I'm Alive!

I'm so sorry for not posting anything this week, starting classes has been even more hectic than I had thought it would be. I apologize that this post is a little rushed, but I will try to be better about posting now that the initial frenzy is over.

This week I thought I would write about something that is very near to my heart: gay rights. I spent a long time trying to come up with my thoughts on the subject, but my words seem to be failing me tonight. So instead I'll just talk about what brought this post on...or rather, who. Cindy McCain has thrown her support of overturning proposition 8 into the ring, posing for a campaign with NOH8.Image from Adam Bouska and the NO H8 campaign


I think anyone who adds their face to this cause is amazing, but Cindy McCain just floored me with her support. There are so many things to love about this, I don't even know where to start. I think most importantly is that she is now making a huge impact on what people think it means to be a republican. I'm a libertarian, but anything we can do to make this issue one about basic rights and not partisan politics is a step in the right direction, and I applaud Cindy McCain (and daughter Meghan too) for such a courageous move.

Thanks for reading, and I promise next week I will try to post much more!

Books!

Hey everyone! I'll be posting pictures from Florida soon, but I wanted to get these book reviews out. I'm starting a new semester tomorrow, so this week is going to be a little hectic but hopefully I'll get through it!

The first book I read was Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles. You could read it in a night if you really felt like it, and it was pretty entertaining. It was interesting to compare the Holmes from the book to the one in the old shows and now Robert Downey Jr.'s interpretation. To be honest, the "book Holmes" seemed a lot more condescending and frankly annoying than any other ones. Maybe something picks up in the translation from text to film. Anyway, it was fun to read and as one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most recognizable works it's probably important to be familiar with it from a purely cultural standpoint.

My sister gave my mom the second book, and then she gave it to me. It was When You Are Engulfed in Flames, but David Sedaris. It's a collection of comedic personal essays and they are hilarious! I told my mom afterward that I would never be able to write anecdotal essays because I would have to admit to the world what an amazingly awful person I am...and I would probably end up alienating every family member, friend and aquantance I have ever had. But I am perfectly content to laugh at/with other people braver than I. I would definitely reccomend this book to anyone interested in the genre, and even though it is pretty large I finished it in two days because it is so hard to put down.

The last book was The Road, by Cormac McCarthy. What a depressing book. If your idea of a good time is giving up all hope in humanity and spending the rest of your night curled up crying in the fetal position in the loneliest corner of your room, then this book was made for you. It was...good, though, if that's really the right word. I saw that they had made a movie based on the book last year, so I'll probably end up being sad and masochistic and see it. I guess I would say it was tough to read but worth it in the end...probably.

Hope you all have a great night!

I'm Back!

Hey everyone! I'm back home finally, all safe and sound. I'll be writing a much larger post tomorrow but I just wanted to say hi really quick. Florida was pretty nice, a little cold though. I took a lot of great pictures, and got a few antiques for my room. I'll be posting pictures tomorrow along with a few book reviews. I have lots of catching up to do, hope you all had a great week!

Greetings From Fort Jackson!

Hey y'all! After a seven hour drive, we finally made it to Fort Jackson, in South Carolina. Another six hours tomorrow should get us to Palm Coast. We're in an officer's cabin on the lake on post, and it is gorgeous! I wish it were warmer so I could take a walk around the lake, but it's been in the mid-30's all day. Oh well, there's a fun window seat in my room so I'm happy to curl up with a book for tonight. I'm crossing my fingers for some great Florida weather!

Oh, and I finished Sun Storm last night. The Amazon link to it is in my sidebar, and you can also find any of the books that I talk about/read on that list. If you're a fan of thrillers, you'll probably enjoy this book. Åsa is a great writer, and the book was filled with very subtle plot manipulations and quite a few interesting characters. It was a little difficult for me to read at points though, I should know by now that whenever a book or movie puts a dog into the mix it won't be ending well. If any of you ever write a novel that has a dog in it, let it survive for me, please?