Whoot!

I'm super excited this week because I start my new painting and drawing summer course! It's really cool! You go in for 3 hours a session and learn how to draw professionally :D I've already gone to the first session, which was really fun, a bit backbreaking though, since I tend to crouch over the drawing pad :P Here's a couple of drawing I did that session:

I'm a long way from Picasso but I'm so proud that they're all identical to the actual pictures the teach made us copy. We had to measure the pictures we were copying with the end of the pencil :P very time consuming but the end effect is pretty cool! I know the pics aren't that clear, the teacher wouldn't let us use a lot of pressure (AKA barely any)..so these look nearly that faint in real life too, it's also partly because I took the pics with my webcam, which makes them seem even fainter than they actually are.

On another note, I finished reading the last book of The Gallaghers of Ardmore trilogy which was pretty nice! The ending was a bit too short but still very cute. To be perfectly honest the main characters in this book, Darcy and Trevor, were the least likeable of the Gallagher gang..but thats a good thing I think, since it makes them seem more real and less Mary-Sue-ish. The characters with the least personality and the most perfection were Aidan and Jude, the first novel...I don't like perfect characters, and these had barely any problems that anyone can relate to (there were some, but most of the time..not). My absolute favorite set were Shawn and Brenna (book 2), they were just so CUTE! And they actually behave and talk like real people and they were still very likeable.

Anyways, I'm starting Hush, Hush now..which is supposed to be a very good book, I really hope it is..I don't always like this type of book..since it has to do with angels and probably mentions death somewhere in the novel...well I'll start tonight and we'll see if its good :)

Ever yours~

The Know-it-all

The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

I started reading this trilogy by Nora Roberts a while ago. Finished the absolutely wonderful first two books and now nearly through with the third. I came looking for a nice piece of historical fiction, action and romance are my favorite combination, lots of knights and sword fights and so on and so forth. I got the books on a friends recommendation but I didn't know that they were actually set in modern day. I started reading anyways and discovered that there was a hint of fantasy in them as well, with faeries and curses and charms, another favorite of mine! Here's my joined review of the series.

Blurbs:

Book 1: Jewels of the Sun:

GoodReads.com:

With her life in turmoil after a failed marriage and growing disappointment over her career, Jude Murray sets off on a journey to Ireland. To her grandmother's cottage on a faerie hill in Ardmore. There she hopes she will be able to find herself again.

But the mystic charm of Ardmore grows on Jude - as does the handsome and kind pub owner, Aidan Gallagher. She soon finds herself caught up in the charm and fantasy of the land and people around her, challenging her beliefs and all that she thought she wanted out of life

Book 2: Tears of the Moon:

Shelfari.com

A talented songwriter, Shawn Gallagher spends his days lost in reverie and wonder, oblivious to the wiles of women and the ways of the world. He claims that he's content with his life, but his music tells a different story--one of loneliness and desperate longing...

No one understands why Shawn doesn't put his musical gift to profitable use--least of all Brenna O'Toole, a fiercely independent tomboy who has been secretly in love with him for years. But it is only when Shawn gives in to the mysteries of magic that he gets the chance to fulfill his destiny as a man and a musician--as the song in his head keeps time with the beating of a woman's heart...

Book 3: Heart of the Sea:

Shelfari:com

Darcy Gallagher has always believed in the pull of fate, the magic of legend ... and the importance of money. She longs to find a rich man who will sweep her away--into a world filled with glamour and adventure, and the exotic life that is her destiny...

A wealthy businessman with Irish blood, Trevor Magee has come to Ardmore to build a theater--and uncover the secrets hidden in his family's past. He thought he had given up on love long ago, but Darcy Gallagher tempts him like no woman ever has. She's gorgeous, intelligent, and she knows what she wants--and he's more than willing to give i1 to her. But as their mutual attraction flares into passion, they look into their hearts-and find out what happens when you truly believe...

My Review of the Series:

The books are set in modern day Ireland, in a charming village by the sea called Ardmore. The books follow the three Gallagher siblings' stories, as they gain wisdom and fall in love... fulfilling the requirements to break a curse the prince of faeries cast upon himself and his love. Wonderfully sprinkled with little tid-bits of gaelic and historical monuments in Ireland. Very cute series :) I loved how we got to hear from both sides of the story and how the entire family changed in the end, they all became better people together and it was oh so sweet reading about how they got together..I liked it :D better than I thought I would, since I don't like modern much..but it had faeries and magic in it as well so that made it all better! I do wish that for once, the ending wasn't so predictable! I once read a historical romance called "Whitney, my love" which is one of my absolute favorites, the main character has about five suitors who she all seems to like equally, you dont find out who she'll be with at the end until the end! These books, as with most romance books, have a dusty predictability about them which I don't like :( Oh, well, onto some other, more interesting novel!

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Operation Get my Retainer to fit again!

I took off my braces a couple of years ago and got a retainer..which I wore for about a week and promptly discarded because it made me talk weird and drooly and gross. its been about two years since I dumped it in a drawer somewhere and forgot about it..now my friend is getting braces and was asking for advice, when she should get them, whether they hurt, etc. and was surprised when I spoke up, because she couldn't tell that I'd had braces. :( as in my teeth had obvious spaces and my front teeth were obviously trying to fly away.

My teeth have moved a bit, not that much, and they're no where near as bad as they looked before..but it got me thinking, I've got a whole summer ahead, and lots of alone time stuck at home, so why not try to make my retainer a habit again? It hasn't fit for most of the time it's been lost, so I googled "how to make my retainer fit again" and discovered that it is, in fact, possible, if you don't mind the pain, which I don't really mind, teeth-wise. As long as I can force the thing in, it'll start to do it's job. But my front teeth have moved forward a bit, it fits in the back but the two front teeth are too far forward, I can sort of fit the wire over them and move it back, so there's pressure. I'm planning a step-by-step moulding of my teeth, first, I'll keep trying to push the front teeth back, then see if it actually fits when they're close enough, even tightly, and then continue wearing it in 30 minute intervals until my teeth move back...I just hope this works!

Fluffernutter!!

Today I had my very first fluffernutter sandwich. I'd never heard of this thing until sometime last year, when I read about it in a Taylor Swift tweet and googled it ( :P yeah, I know how random that is, but seriously I'd never heard of it before that) I discovered the existence of marshmallow fluff on the same day..no I am not living in a cave somewhere, I'm just surrounded by people who have no culinary curiosity. I have a bit too much, I think, not many other people would attempt the combination of vanilla ice-cream and ketchup after reading that it was a characters favorite food (what can I say, I was a handful as a 7 year old, also the taste wasn't really that bad, it was pretty nice, but I preferred the ice-cream solo in the end )

This culinary curiosity, as I like to call it has developed a bit since then..now I try to make everything (and I do mean everything) from scratch just for the heck of it. I like being able to say that I've made marshmallows from scratch, and white bread, and mayonnaise, and indian naan, and those tasty cheese crisps, and pasta (as in the dough, rolled out and sliced into strips)...and hard candy lollipops (which turned out surprisingly good, strawberry flavor) It's sort of an extension of my baking hobby, a random-rarely-home-made-food-product-making hobby :D

Here's a pic of my fluffernutter sandwich :) and yes it was delicious

Freeze Tag by Caroline B. Cooney

This is a bit of a short novel, one I wouldn't normally give a second glance, the only reason I picked this book up is the author. I have a trilogy by Caroline B. Cooney called "Losing Christina" which is a really awesome creepy trilogy with psycho sadist arsonist and a very cool heroine who manages to defeat them without any help or support. I loved this series enough that I've re-read it a couple of times so when I saw her name on the cover I bought it without a second thought.

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

When Meghan and West first played Freeze Tag with Lannie, it was no ordinary game. Because when Lannie tagged someone, they really froze. Icy blue and cold. Like death.Now Meghan, West, and Lannie are in high school, and Meghan and West are in love. They're the perfect couple. But Lannie is determined to have West for her very own... and if she doesn't get her way, she'll freeze Meghan... to death.

The Summary:

I'm not usually into creepy books, I can never sleep at night when I finish an especially creepy book, but I really like Caroline B. Cooney's books for some reason, even though all four that I've read so far have been creepy and about victimized children (which should make it worse but for some reason it doesn't). In this book Lannie is (or seems to me to be) a sort of cursed witchy immortal with freezing powers. The main character Meghan is a bit too wussy but I think that might be because she's been scared of Lannie since she was a kid, she doesn't do anything to defend herself and depends on others to deal with Lannie. Lannie forces West to leave Meghan and date her, threatening to freeze his younger sister Tuesday, West agrees just to placate her and continues seeing Meghan without telling her...but she knows and catches them together. So the story continues with them trying to resist her and her always knowing when they don't follow her commands...see creepy. Anyways, I discovered that this book is different than the ones I like in a different way...since this book is aimed at a slightly younger age group (I'm guessing from the way it's written, pre-teen maybe) and still has the moral-at-the-end-of-the-story thing going on...which was weird and made for a ending that was, well, not happy exactly..It wasn't a sad ending, It just wasn't the HEA I was expecting from a pre-teen book..it was more of a coming-of-age maturity book in the end, although it was harder to notice during the book.

The Verdict:

I don't like creepy books, but as a creepy book (and I mean creepy, because this isn't nearly enough to be considered horror) it drew me in enough that I wanted to finish. I did not like the ending, I generally don't like books where the entire book was just for the hero/heroine to learn a lesson and nothing good happens at the end. In conclusion, if you want a slightly creepy book to try out, this is fine, but its just too childish for anything else. Losing Christina trilogy was way better.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Blog with an Identity Crisis

So I've been looking through my posts and I realized that my blog doesn't really have a single theme that I stick to, I basically just blurt out whatever has been going on in my head recently. The main things I blog about are my interests and random things that might happen to me that I think are blog-worthy (These might be totally worthless and boring to some but its whats going on in my head)

I'm not going to stick to one thing because I'm not overly obsessed with only one thing of my life all of my hobbies are a part of my life and I don't know that if I chose one to blog about, I'd be able to keep the rest from flowing into my writing (AKA I don't know if i could help it if I wanted to write about something else)

So just to clarify: I'll be posting stuff about my hobbies mostly either books I've read that I want to review, or something I've written that I really like, or (and these will probably be much rarer than the others) recipes for random dishes I try to make, and lastly crochet or arts and crafts related posts.

In conclusion, I hope my random-ness isn't that annoying :P I know I can go in a dozen directions at once.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Corn Dogs!

Mmm...Hotdogs, covered in a yummy, sweet cornflour batter and fried to perfection. I was introduced to my first corn dog pretty recently and both my sister and I love them. So today I decided to look for a recipe and try making them at home...It was a total mess! The batter was too low in the bowl so we had to use a spoon to cover the corn dogs properly. Then when I tried to fry them the batter would pool to the bottom of the hot dog and leave the top nearly empty! The taste was perfect though!

Here's a picture of one of the more held-together ones:

It took less than half an hour to make and used so few ingredients that I think, with a bit more practice, It'll be a favorite at home :)

Here's the recipe for anyone who's interested:

Ingredients

• 1 cup yellow cornmeal

• 1 cup all-purpose flour

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/8 teaspoon black pepper

• 1/4 cup white sugar

• 4 teaspoons baking powder

• 1 egg

• 1 cup milk

• 1 quart vegetable oil for frying

• 2 (16 ounce) packages beef frankfurters

• 16 wooden skewers

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, salt, pepper, sugar and baking powder. Stir in eggs and milk.

2. Preheat oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat. Insert wooden skewers into frankfurters. Roll frankfurters in batter until well coated.

3. Fry 2 or 3 corn dogs at a time until lightly browned, about 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

I'd advise using mini hotdogs, they'll be easier to coat as well as fry, My frying pan could only hold two dogs at a time and even then it was pretty hard to flip them. Also, and I'm not sure if this would work, but you could fry the coated dogs before adding the skewer, because my skewers were being fried along with the corn dogs and turned black and oily :( Oh well, experience for next time i suppose.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Fang: A Maximum Ride Novel

My cousin recently came back from vacationing in malaysia and brought back the latest Maximum Ride novel with her. She introduced me to the series about flying mutant kids a few years back and we're both hooked. I'm usually not into the sci-fi, aliens, mad-scientist books but this one was way more than that, the author combined a lot of different themes into one series. The main focus is action, which is okay with me, but it also has humor, drama, and a bit of romance thrown in towards the end.

Quick Summary of the Series:

The main character is Maximum, or Max, who is a winged teenager who is always on the run from evil scientists trying to trap and experiment on her and her flock. There's Fang, who's her "right-hand man", Iggy who is the cook (also blind which is good since that makes his reflexes better than the rest of the flock), Nudge the 11 year old fashion crazed pre-teen, Gazzy "The Gasman" who is the demolitions expert, and last but not least Angel, the baby of the flock at 6 years old, she reads minds, sends telepathic messages, can use mind control, breathe underwater and talk to fish. It seems that with every book that comes out Angel acquires a new super-talent.

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

Being a kid with wings--constantly on the run--has never been easy, and Max and her flock are getting tenser than ever. First, on a trip to Africa, they meet a mysterious billionaire whose intense scrutiny of the Flock makes her fear the worst. And as if an impending apocalypse weren't bad enough, canny birdkid Angel makes a dire prophecy about Max's soul mate: Fang will be the first to die. Max's desperate desire to protect Fang brings the two closer than ever. But can the team weather the storm, or will the turmoil rip them apart for the last time?

This Book:

This book was mostly about, you guessed it! Fang! The taciturn teenager who has a love-connection with Max starts off the book as his usual self. But when Angel predicts that he will be the first to die out of the flock and that his death will be soon he starts to spend more and more time with Max, making the rest of the flock resent the new situation. Tempers heat up and quite a few changes take place for the flock to adjust to. If you leave out the ending, I think this one is the best maximum ride books out yet. The writing style, which I have never been fond of, has slightly improved in Fang...no glaringly obvious weird sentences that can take the fun out of reading the book like *some* of his other books have. I wont spoil anything for anyone, but I will say that if you're willing to wait for "Angel" to come out, it'd be less of a cliff-hanger for you to read both at once. Of course I don't know if the ending to Angel will be an even bigger cliff-hanger...

The Verdict:

It wasn't my favorite of the series but I liked it all the same. Easy to read, flows nicely, quite a few scenes for all you Fax supporters, the book is kind of focused on how their relationship makes Max a worse leader. Pretty loud hints that a love triangle is coming soon, not really looking forward to sludging through that in the next book.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Shelfari!

Okay, so for all you book fanatics out there, this website is one of my absolute favorite websites ever. Its called shelfari and it helps you organize your books and keep track of things.You can add tags to books you want to read, have read, and tag which ones you actually own. You can also add comments to each book and rate it on a scale of 1-5 stars. I don't know about you guys but usually when I shop for books i buy 'em in BULK, like 10-15 books at a time.

Then I make a huge mess of my nightstand, like so:

Needless to say it takes ages to find a particular book after I've set it down, let alone find my place (my bookmarks, of which there are few, usually fall out, or i forget to put them in to begin with) which brings us to the usefulness of shelfari!

The comments are for you and your shelfari friends to peruse so I just add the page i got to as a note, just in case i lose track of where i am. The website also helps me pick out books to read, since I can't seem to find a place that suggests good books anywhere. I just look at the most popular young adult books or the top rated ones and pick out the ones I think sound nice (They have the summary of each book on a separate page, as well as a page for the author with a list of all the books he/she has written) Everything is in one place!

You can check out my profile here and the list of top teen books here.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

No, I am not Dead.

Hey, everyone! I've decided to revive my blog, I know its been ages, over a year in fact, but I'm back. It's been a busy year, I graduated from high school last may, and was so busy applying to universities and spending as much time as i could with friends who were moving away. The good news is that I'm quite behind on my reading so loads of books to read and blog about :P I'll also be posting loads of random stuff I think are worth spreading around :)

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

I'm still alive

I know I havent posted in a loooooong time. I've just been busy with school and whatnot. I'm going to be a senior soon and I've had loads of work to do! whew I have barely had time to breathe this summer let alone time to sit around on the computer. In general I'm not a very active person, most of my favorite activities involve sitting around, but I've been forced to change all that this summer. My mom enrolled me into 5 summer-camp-like things and a part-time job so for the past two months i've been running non-stop.

For the past month and a half I've been working at the local scientific research centre as an assistant sort of thing. Its almost like school, theres a bunch of us high-schoolers going there and we spend our lunch whining and talking and gossiping about the proffessors there. Most of the time though, we're running around the lab trying to get everything up to par for the guy in charge of us.

I'm also doing a Crocheting course, its nice to learn new things. So mornings i'm at the research centre and afternoons I'm at the crochet course and nights I'm reading or baking or something..usually i fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow...I don't know exactly when I'll be able to blog steadily but I hope its sometime soon!

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

My hatred of the twilight series

Although most teenage girls are huge fans of Stephanie Meyer's book I can't stand them. The only one I found passably entertaining was The Host, which everyone else hated. I don't know who is the weird one, me or all the other girls. I mean romances are all well and good but her book is...ugh!! Bella, the main charater is soooo shallow. The plot is Stupid. The characters are indesisive, I mean Ed you either stay or leave, which is it gonna be?? At least in The host the book has an underlying plot, whereas in Twilight the only thing that underlies the story is how much Bella and Edward want to get into bed with each other. I mean for god's sake she MARRIED him just to sleep with him!!!!!!! Is that stupid or what?? As of this moment I am publically proclaiming my extreme hatred for The Twilight Series and Bella.

I plan on posting an elaborate list of reasons the twilight series is inferior to all others..thats how annoying this subject is to me.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

My class ring

Okay, so the other day at school, they pulled us out of our classes and into the auditorium. Surprise Surprise, we're getting our class rings in advance. The school picked out this (apparently, since i have no expertise in this matter I asked my classmates) awful, overpriced, shitty company to do our rings. So the girls took matters into their own hands and ordered from this other company (much better than afore-mentioned shitty company) By the name of Jostens, So I am now ordering my ring online ( a new experience since my parents don't trust monetary transfers online) instead of through the school as originally planned, their rings turned out to be way better than the ones the school was offering so I got the website off of one of the other girls. By the way if anyone wants to see the website is Jostens.com, their creativity shines through doesn't it?

A Treatise on Magic and the Occult

Here's the "Treatise" I promised..I know that my writing can sometimes be positively boring but I'm hoping that this is an exception:

Magic, the paranormal, that which cannot be explained. During the 90's interest in magic and the occult flourished. While it had been viewed as a sadistic and harmful interest previously, it now became the most popular hobby to have. This sudden change in society’s view of magic is, in my opinion, due to a great number of factors which appeared at the time.

Books and other written materials were one of the greatest factors to affect the idea of magic. This was when J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series came out and when the T.V. show “Sabrina the teenage witch” became very popular. The publishing of the Harry Potter series and other magic related books increased interest in magic and wizardry. In my opinion this was the pivotal point in time after which interest in magic became more acceptable in society.

People interested in magic began forming groups or cults and when no one objected they kept growing in numbers and strength. Today, more and more magic practicing cults are around and still very few people notice or care whereas in the pre-90’s a single event would have been all over the news. Nowadays it is common knowledge that groups of self-proclaimed witches, ghost-whisperers and fortune tellers are around, taking advantage of those who actually believe them for charging for “services rendered.”

Since magic was first introduced over a thousand years ago, all religious organizations were very opposed to it. In all religions, the Christian church, the Muslim mosque, or the Jewish synagogue would be the place in which the most resistance towards magic could be found. This is because in most religions magic, both in practice or knowledge of it, is seen as a sin and while that fact remains unchanged, less people care – they are interested in it anyways.If you look backa couple of hundred years ago and compare the way they found and treated people interested in magic to the way they are treated today you would see a very big difference. One of the most famous incidents involving magic in the old days is the Salem Witch Trials. A lot of people they charged were just mistrusted or suspected and yet they were convicted and killed nonetheless. Nowadays people who practice magic are everywhere and are usually quite public about their abnormal activities and yet, while sme may think that they are weird and avoid them, no real action is taken.

Magic is something that is becoming more and more acceptable in society and while it is not considered a very good thing it is considered a very small, if at all existent, threat. |Magic is a curious thing, it is the embodiment of one of the biggest temptations of mankind, the ability to control the uncontrollable, effortless influence. If you think about it, magic takes advantage of mankind’s Achilles heel, our greatest weakness: the thirst for power.

I know i tend to drone on a bit..hope it wasn't too bad though. I get so absorbed in the subject, especially when i get to choose, I get all excited and don't notice when it starts to all blur together.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Picture Day

Picture Day is tomorrow at my school..wish me luck will you? I absoloutely hate picture days, I am one of those people whose picture always looks horrible, every single year. Since the first grade I have to have at least one thing wrong with my photo..ugh. The School is forcing all the girls to do the PSAT on the day after picture day which just makes tomorrow suck even more. I am still working on the girls school thing I am also planning on posting my english essay entitled "A Treatise on Magic and the occult" Its pretty interesting..more later

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

The Mother

My mom can sometimes be unexpectedly evil.

Of course when I try to get sombody to believe me about it they go "Oh yeah right, I bet MY parents are way worse than your sweet little mother!!"
Well anyways the latest torture she has organized for me is not being allowed to use the computer or the internet. Today though the internet is on and the house is free of my mother so I'm taking advantage of this chance to tell you all of the latest addition to my site. My friend is going to join me as the author of the blog, at least till I get computer priviledges again. So I'm still gonna be posting stuff, but in the voice of my friend so, that is coming soon, just to let everyone know that I'm not abandoning my blog, at least not completely. I have also decided to start writing a sort of treatise of behavior in girls-only private schools. It is proving to be interesting enough, I hope you all will like it. Thats all for now.. more soon..hopefully.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Big Boned

I just finished reading Big Boned. I usually love any of Meg Cabot's creations and I was pretty much expecting the same from Big Boned. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. I mean it's a great book and all but there were too many flaws in the story.

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

Life is reasonably rosy for plus-size ex-pop star turned Assistant Dormitory Director and sometime sleuth Heather Wells. Her freeloading ex-con dad is finally moving out. She still yearns for her hot landlord, Cooper Cartwright, but her relationship with "rebound beau," vigorous vegan math professor Tad Tocco, is more than satisfactory. Best of all, nobody has died lately in "Death Dorm," the aptly nicknamed student residence that Heather assistant-directs. Of course every silver lining ultimately has some black cloud attached. And when the latest murdered corpse to clutter up her jurisdiction turns out to be her exceedingly unlovable boss, Heather finds herself on the shortlist of prime suspects, along with the rabble-rousing boyfriend of her high-strung student assistant and an indecently handsome young campus minister who's been accused of taking liberties with certain girls' choir members.

With fame beckoning her back into show business (as the star of a new kids' show!) it's a really bad time to get wrapped up in another homicide. Plus Tad's been working himself up to ask her a Big Question, which Heather's not sure she has an answer for . . .

Quick Summary of the Series:

Heather Wells, former teen pop sensation has changed a lot since her fall from fame. Her mom and her agent ran away together, stealing all of her money and leaving her to fend for herself. She moves in with her ex-boyfriends hottie brother Cooper Cartwright, gets a job as an assistant resident hall director at Fischer Hall of New York College. Fischer Hall is known to most of the students as "Death Dorm" because of the number of murders and mysterious deaths that happen there, and Heather is the one who solves them, usually making a mess of things at one point and requiring the aid of knight-in-shining-armor Cooper. Very funny series, worth every minute, a few gory scenes describing the murder victims, but not too gruesome.

The Summary:

The heroine of the book, Heather Wells, former teen pop star who now works as assistant residence hall director at Fischer Hall of New york College a.k.a Death Dorm. When Heather's stick-in-the-mud boss Owen Veatch is shot in the head while at work Heather can't help but try to find out who did it. The book is great but only to a certain point. The book ended too soon and quite abruptly, the ending reeked of being rushed as a result of a speedily approaching deadline. The ending came before it should have, you know? I mean there were dozens of unresolved issues hanging around. I sincerely hope that she's planning a fourth book (edit: she isn't ): )to clear up all those loose ends because the series is way too good to end now and so inadequately.

The Verdict:

My final verdict is that the book was great but the ending, yeah, not so much. To anyone who was planning on reading the book I say go ahead but don't put your hopes up for a masterpiece, this one has flaws. The end was too rushed and leaves you wanting an epilogue of some sort, just to tie everything together and finish properly. Otherwise, its another one of Meg Cabots amazing books.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

The Devil wears Jeans.

This isn't particularly useful or , just me wondering why some people go out of their way to be bitchy...

My old english teacher was a real pain in the you-know-where so everyone in the whole school used to call her devil-spawn. She's a really "save-the-whales" kind of person, generally I have nothing against saving whales and you know feeding people in Zimbabwe but its not something you talk about everyday right? Once she failed this girl on a pop-quiz on "Comparisons using "as" and "like" (actual title of the pop-quiz) The girl answered a question in what the teacher dubbed a racist comment. I would totally understand if it was Ms.Devils race we're talking about and she was insulted, the thing is that the girl wasn't saying anything degrading, actually she was comparing the beauty of something or other to the beauty of a japanese eye. Our teacher isn't Japanese, or even asian. The poor girl was just trying to get through the pop-quiz and technically her grammar was spot on in the sentence she used but that doesn't matter to devil-spawn...

Schools have rules about appropriate and inappropriate comments and behavior, most teachers follow these rules in their classrooms and manage to still be considered a nice teacher, a teacher who doesn't go out of their way to count the seconds after the bell rings just to hand out tardies to everyone. Then there are the teachers that are considered evil, the ones everyone knows wont give you a second chance, who is supremely strict and make the exam longer just because you complain that 18 pages is too long. There are also chameleon teachers, those who morph from one to the other as easily as changing clothes. They practically change personalities in front of your eyes. I have met two of these teachers so far, and one of them simply morphed from a regular strict teacher (to the tenth graders) into a friendly chatty doesnt-require-any-work-whatsoever to us! It wasn't a bad change from where i was sitting so i'm not complaining. But isnt it just the slightest bit weird for them to do that? Switch from being strict and a stickler for the rules to being about as strict as a substitute? I suppose you get used to it, depending on the faces you see and the attitudes that go with them. I'm not really concerned her because a) Its an elective class and b) She's going from bad to good so thats a pro for me. No complaints here.

The other teacher with what i've decided to call the teacher chameleon syndrome wasn't quite as harmless as the previous one. This teacher taught me both this year and the last. Last year she was a new teacher, she had taught all over the world and told us that in her other schools she didn't give tests because she was allowed to forgo them and because she "doesn't believe in tests." Our school has a minimum number of tests, quizzes and chapters we have to cover each quarter, so she couldn't do whatever she wanted about testing without permission from the principal (which was not granted by the way) So instead of canceling tests altogether she gave us the answers beforehand so the test was more like a worksheet than a test. This was her way of "getting back at the system" and teaching in her own unique way. I'm not one of those students who try to steal the exam or buy it, but i'm no rat either. I wasn't complaining about the circumstances but i can't say i've ever been through that before and to be completely honest I wouldn't want to repeat the experience. We went through the entire year like this, including the final exam without the principal or anyone else realizing anything was off. This past year however, she turned over a completely new leaf, apparently she now fears the system too much to be normal. I mean she didn't just stop being a give-away-the-answers teacher, she became a full-on monster, she had a timer on her desk for tardies and would take every opportunity to chop off a bit of your grade that she could, complete about-face! To say that we were all shocked would be an understatement. This went on all year, with her getting stricter and stricter...i just dont get how someone who is giving away answers one minute can flip 360 degrees so easily!

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

My Newest books

Ok, so I was browsing the racks the other day and I found a couple of books that I liked so I'm posting the details up here:




Ok this one is called "The blue girl" by Charles de Lint






Another one I really liked was "Big Boned" which is the third book in Meg Cabot's Series "Heather Wells Mysteries" Heres the Cover:

Yet another one is "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan it is the second in the series.







I know, I know. This book is like for sixth graders but hey! I really like it. I mean the plot is great and Riordans way of writing is both humorous and very interesting. So heres the cover:









The Separate Reviews are coming up in a couple of days, I'm halfway through Big Boned now and am hoping to be able to put up my review this weekend.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Learn to tie your shoes!

I know, I know when was the last time you heard that being said to you? In KG or the first grade? That was my initial reaction to getting an email of the same title but boy did that change quickly when I saw how cute the pics actually were, so I'm posting 'em up here for all who want to learn how to tie their shoes! My fave styles are Lattice and checkerboard.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all