Showing posts with label ballroom. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ballroom. Show all posts

Thursday, March 14, 2013

I'm Back?

My goodness, I used to be really good at keeping a blog. So many things have changed since my last post.
For starters, I'm engaged!! To the most wonderful man that could possibly have been made for me. Our wedding is April 27th of this year. We got engaged in June of last year, so it's been a while. Mormon engagements are a little different. We don't shack up together and go ho-hum until we feel like getting married. So, the tension and stress is a little more heightened. But we couldn't avoid it, family comes first, so we moved the date from December to April. But I would recommend keeping it to four months from engagement to wedding.

Even though we've had more than enough time to plan, it's still incredibly stressful! I'm taking the minimum of 12 credits at BYU, only two ballroom classes and several science classes, and I'm still flopping around like a beached whale. Quite literally. Because I've cut back on dance, I think I've gained at least 20 pounds since the summer. I've never felt my sides touch when I bent over, or felt my thighs, butt, arms or back jiggle when I ran. It's infuriating and a blow to my self-esteem.

And here I will list the many wonderful qualities of one Kent Pimentel (skip to spare yourself the sap):
Kent is kind and patient. There have been countless times when I have broke down crying from stress, from sadness, or for no good reason at all, and he's been there for me with the perfect response. He's helped me prioritize, comforted me with hugs and little kisses on the cheek and forehead. He dances with me in the kitchen when no one is around. He dances with me at the supermarket. He dances with me in the street. He tells me all the time that I am the most beautiful girl in the world, and it's funny because he's the only one I believe. He makes me feel beautiful, with compliments and smiles and so many little things. "I would still love you," he says, "even if you looked like a truck. But you don't look like a truck. You're more of a Ferrari."  He doesn't get upset when I'm sulky, he just tries to love me back to happiness. Anyone else I know would be exasperated and say "oh come on enough already." Not him. He is a total nerd, in a good way. We both love Sci-Fi shows. I introduced him to Doctor Who, he introduced me to Stargate. He appreciates art, politics, music, dance, geeky computer stuff, philosophy, history, everything! His passion for life is amazing. He makes friends so easily and is so outgoing.

tl;dr Kent is awesome and I'm terribly lucky to be marrying his face.

I suppose I should sleep maybe. But I could get so many things done in these early hours... Perhaps next time I'll list details about the wedding and receptions!

1434

Thursday, September 8, 2011

The Trouble With Nice People & One of My Greatest Fears

The trouble with nice people is they are nice to everyone and you can't really tell when they are being sincere or if you are special to them. I've been on both sides of this. I try to be a nice person, and I try to treat everyone I meet with kindness and respect. Some people, when I am kind to them and listen to them and take the time to get to know them, mistake my friendship and reaching out for flirting. Then they feel hurt when they realize that I was only trying to befriend them and I had no intention of attracting them romantically. On the flip side, I have also been hurt in this way. It hurts to know that the little niceties and affections you receive do not make you special to someone, but are merely a result of the other person's good nature and desire to be liked. I know how good it feels to make someone feel loved and included, but I also know how much it hurts to know that you're nothing special. That is why one of my goals is to be more sincere with others. I still want to reach out to other people, but I want my actions and motives to be clear so I don't hurt anyone.

One of my greatest fears is disappointing people by not meeting their expectations of me. Today I let my ballroom partner down. I honestly thought he said we were practicing at 9, but he actually said that we were practicing at 8 and we could practice at 9 if we needed to. He waited 40 minutes for me to show up, but I was taking a nap and didn't hear him calling until 8:45. I feel awful, especially because we only practiced for half an hour (due to lack of space, sleep, and patience), and we were going to go through all our routines today. To make up for it, I'm going to get there half an hour early, practice spinning, and go over our routines by myself until he arrives. He deserves better. I also talked to another ballroom friend, who did basically the same thing I did. I think it's because we're all trying to adjust to our new schedules, and we're finding we need more sleep than we could get by on a few weeks ago. We're tired, frustrated, and napping through our commitments. Solution: earlier bedtime and making time to practice more and warm up.

Friday, September 2, 2011

Let the Weekend Begin

School is still going swimmingly. It's nice to have my schedule set. It feel so good to have a plan for the day and to be able to fit little things in between so cleanly. It makes my life so much less stressful. And when I don't stress and get things done as they need to be, inspiration comes to me quicker than I can write it down.

I love making friends and keeping them. It's a wonderful feeling to be walking between classes and see a friend from two years ago and still be interested in each others' lives. Many of my guy friends got back from their missions a few weeks ago, and it's so wonderful to know that they are the same people I knew, but stronger and wiser. I'm so grateful to have friends that exemplify the values they believe in. It's such an affirmation of my own faith, and it gives me hope that I too can be strong and incredible.

Team is going to be awesome. Betsy, our 2 O'Clock Team coach, is going to be choreographing the new Lindy-Hop for the Homecoming Parade in October. The routine hasn't been changed since 2005, so this will be fun. I'm so flippin excited for this year! And my ballroom partner and I got a new Cha Cha routine from Brent. It's crazy, but fantastic. Like our samba routine.

I finally saw Kung Fu Panda 2 and drooled a little bit at the gorgeousness of it all. The character design...and the colors...and the action sequences...and the animation... *speechless*


Watermelon Juice

My goodness I love microbiology. We prepared agar plates today - it's like nerdy cooking class, except it's food for bacteria. And I learned that my professor used to live in Zimbabwe. He's white, older, and has that awesome South African accent. He asked me where in Scotland my family is from and I was blown away! No one I've met knows that the spelling of my last name is Scottish. Apparently he had some friends in Zimbabwe that moved there from Scotland who had my same last name. Genealogy time!

Among other awesome things we discussed, he brought up Schrodiger's Riddle: What is Life? and the interesting fact that just as Adam was commanded to name all the creatures he could find, we are still naming living organisms today (just in a highly organized, latin-based way).

Tonight were the ballroom auditions for the BYU Ballroom Dance Company. I went to help out and dance with the guys auditioning. Thankfully, both the guys I danced with got called back, so at least my shaky memory of social dance steps didn't hurt their chances! I'm really excited to see who got put on our team tomorrow :) Several of my friends from Summer Team got on. I think this will be a fantastic year.

I should mention that fresh-squeezed, chilled watermelon juice is an excellent beverage.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

College is Hard

Another busy "first day" of school. I had another MMBio class this morning. It's an intro to Mircobiology class, but there are mostly seniors in it. I love the teacher so far - he says he's a big softie when it comes to grading, but his main objective is to get us to think and discuss things. I love that. It excites me when teachers want students to really stretch their necks out and go deeper.
But my Chem 107 class, a lab, is terribly disorganized. Two of the TA's don't speak very good English and for the first fifteen minutes, my labmates and I just stared at each other and our tables like "what do we do now?" So frustrating, but I'll do what I can to make it less complicated for myself.
I got into Gold I Standard Ballroom! I'm so excited, I haven't been in a standard class for two years. Since my latin partner has a particular love of standard and smooth, and my team coach does as well, I figured I would return to standard and brush up on the technique. I do love quickstep and tango :D
I also had my first meeting with my new bishop. I'm gonna love this ward! More details next week.
Aaaaand I decided to join a fresh produce food co-op with some people from Blues. I am SO excited, you have no idea. You only have to pay once, and the cost is split between us. Basically, tons of fresh, delicious fruits and veggies and meat every other week for the rest of the season. My mind is swirling with tasty dinner ideas. [nomnom]

Monday, August 29, 2011

Back into the Fray

This summer has been a marvelous experience for me. I took Spring and Summer terms at BYU which kept me delightfully busy. I now have a Latin Ballroom competition partner, and we've been having fun practicing, competing, and having various adventures (like breaking down in Vegas). My family got to visit Utah last week, and it was so wonderful to see and be with them! We went to Bear Lake and went tubing and soaked up some sunshine. I also got to go to several fantastic concerts this summer (Owl City, We the Kings, Ludo among others). Lots of my friends from freshman year just got back from their missions. Just so much awesome packed in to four months.
I have made some rather exciting personal discoveries. My mom brought me my copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens from when I was in high school. I love that book. Maybe someday I'll read the grown-up version that Sean Covey's dad wrote. But it has so much good advice and uplifting, motivational stories. The friends that I have surrounded myself with this summer have been amazing; just being with them and watching them live their lives encourages me to be more than I am, that I can be more.I am living for the pure joy of life. It's hard work, but that makes it better. I have more confidence in myself and my ability to accomplish what I set out to do. It is such an empowering feeling.
First day of classes at BYU went well. I'm a Microbiology major for good. I had my first MMBio class today and Pearl of Great Price, as well as plenty of ballroom class auditions. I'll know tomorrow at 4 which ones I got into (crosses fingers). Probably doing Betsy's team again this year. Can't wait for homecoming! The Lindy Hop routine we do around campus is so much fun.

And here's a crazy, beautiful song by Imogen Heap that just makes me want to skip around

Friday, October 15, 2010

Awesome Week: Part III

Friday

My dad recently informed me that my beloved car Shelly is being shipped on Monday! I love my car, and have been wanting her with me in Utah since I started school at BYU. She is a green-blue 1998 Ford Escort. She's pretty old school, with her manual windows and cassette player. She still has a couple of dents from when my dear blind Gramma refused to give her up. But I love her ever so much. She's my freedom. And now with her in Utah, I can visit my Grammie anytime I want, or go get groceries for dinner super quick, or drive up into the mountains with some friends for some peace and quiet. I'm so flippin excited!! :D

My lovely Shelly (taken a few years ago)

In other dance-related news, Sam and I practiced Thriller for two hours today. We have it down solid. It's so fun to learn new choreography and master it. Later in the night, I went on a group date with Justin from my ballroom team and his roommates. We went to the Haunted Forest in American Fork. I'm really not one to like getting scared, but I had a great time! I did discover, however, that I simply cannot handle chainsaws or Freddy Krueger. I think I clawed Justin up a bit...oops. While we were waiting in line to enter the Mansion section of the hauntedness, they played the Thriller music video, so I got to show off some of my skills :) Also, Ghostbusters. 'Nuff said.
The Ghostbusters Mobile. There were three guys fully dressed as Ghostbusters, but I didn't get a chance to take pictures of them :'(

Saturday

After going to bed at 2 AM after a wonderful night of creepiness and hot chocolate, I woke up at 6 AM the next morning to stand (or sleep) in line for BYU's annual Lost and Found Sale. It's pretty amazing how many people are honest enough to turn things into the lost & found here. But it's also amazing some of the stuff people never pick up. So the Lost and Found sale has some awesome stuff for dirt cheap. This year, I got about 14 things for $20. I got some black dance warmup pants, a latin skirt, a shirt that I'll use for a painting smock, two necklaces, a pair of earrings, a bracelet, a pair of Skullcandy earbuds with great bass quality, a headset I'll use for Skype, a pair of fingerless gloves, a hat, a nice black umbrella, and some other fancy cheap stuff. I didn't participate in the auction, but they had iPods, iTouches, a Dell projector, digital cameras and more. And all the money goes back to the students.
Later in the evening, I went to the Haunted Forest again on a different date, this time with a group from the Tour Team. Oh my. Those kids are ca-ray-zee. You'd never tell from how focused and motivated they are in school. It was actually kindof interesting - my date was my silver latin TA last fall, and one of the girls was my teacher for the same class. Seeing them all be ridiculous was quite enlightening and refreshing. By the end of the night when we were at Coldstone, the boys were just slapping each other around and generally being ridiculous. I love dancers. They have the best personalities. :)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

BYU Homecoming!

After a couple weeks of exams and pain, we had Homecoming week at BYU.

This is my third year at BYU, and this is the most involved I've been with campus events. Homecoming here always starts with an opening ceremony on Tuesday with tons of presentations and a keynote speaker. Homecoming is always themed after an important person in BYU history, and this year it was Harvey Fletcher, the father of stereophonic sound. So homecoming was very science-themed. Apparently, BYU has one of the biggest Homecoming celebrations in the country. I believe it; there is always something going on homecoming week! Free cookouts during lunchtime at the Student Center, alumni reunions, True Blue Football (everyone gets covered in blue foam), Light the Y (people go up to the big white Y on the mountain and screw in lightbulbs that light up at night), the BYU Spectacular (basically a huge variety show of all the choral, dance, and acting groups), and all sorts of fancy dances.


Practicing our routine before the parade started - Jordan and I are in the middle back

This year, I got to be in the parade on Saturday morning. The BYU Ballroom Dance Company always does a lindy routine down the entire route, and since I got on team this year I got to participate! Our Tour team went to Blackpool, England this year (and won again, of course) so they got to show off and be awesome while we shook our tail feathers. Iting. But we had such a blast. It was a two-minute Lindy Hop routine with charleston, lifts, jumps and dips. The video link is from last year, but we did the same routine. Which we repeated over and over again for three miles. But we were laughing so hard trying to run and catch up with the truck, and high-fiving the little kids on the sidelines. We were so pumped with adrenaline by the end that we were just bouncing off the walls at the social. People were still dancing to the party music and goofing around. I love being on the ballroom team :) I love the people, the energy, the chance to perform and share my love of dance.

((brief side note: after the parade, I ran and beasted by MMBio exam. Booyah))

I then went to my first homecoming dance :3 We went as a double date, and got in free because we helped with the BYU Swing Kids charleston demonstration. So much dancing, my legs were dead the next day. It was super fun though! It was Dancing Through the Ages themed, so it started with 20s music and dance, and then went through every decade until the present with hip hop. People were dressed from all the different decades too. I had an amazing time. It was definitely a good day.

And the football team finally won another game. Thank goodness.


Sunday, September 26, 2010

Back at BYU

Well, it's only a few weeks into the semester, and a lot has happened, both good and bad. Due to the more recent events, I've been really upset and I realized I'm not nearly as happy as I was at the beginning of last school year. I'm on a mission to get that Me back. It was that Me that attracted friends and made other people happy, and that made me happy. I was funny, silly, always found with a smile and something to talk about. Always ready for some new adventure, whether that was late-night park games or splashing in puddles with equally ridiculous friends. Now I want to find the balance of happy-friendly-fun Me and productive-scholarly Me. I know it's possible. I'm also trying to be better spiritually. I haven't been doing some of the basic things I know I should, like praying and reading my scriptures, not with real intent.

Maybe I'll be blessed with that artistic inspiration I've been missing for so long.

*So as not to seem so bleak, one of the awesome bits of news is that I got onto the 10 o'clock BYU Ballroom Team! It's an entry-level team, so we compete with each other to move up to the higher teams. BYU has five teams within the Ballroom Company, so there is plenty of room for improvement.

Friday, May 14, 2010

AAAH so much sushi.


Okay okay. I kinda went crazy.
Here we have four different types of yumminess. The nigiri around the plate are prosciutto, tofu, and sweet potato. In the middle there are sweet potato and tuna sushi. I shared with the family. The tuna was everyone's favorite.

Dad came home last night! It's so nice to have him back ^_^ He's always going to Saudi every few weeks for work. Here's the blog he sometimes updates about his adventures.

Tonight was a standard ballroom group lesson for waltz. It was great! I haven't done any standard ballroom in like, two months. And I got to wear my new fancy standard shoes. Hee.

All considered though, I'm kinda bummed. It's pretty lonely out here. There aren't many people who are interested in dating socially, and most of my friends from high school are still in school, so they can't play. I've been keeping myself busy, of course; ballroom three hours a night, blues on Thursdays, driving my sisters around to ballet, and making sushi. I still haven't found a job, so I feel a little useless. But soon, friends will be done with finals and come back to Suds, and I will find a way to make some money! And being home is pretty wonderful. I missed the trees and greenery, hanging out and rockin to rad car jamz with my sisters, talking to my dad, and having breakfast every morning with my mom.

Determination!

As one of my friends told me, "If you give up, I'll never dance with you again."
Dance-related threats work on me, I guess.

PS. I really want a Toothless figurine. Maybe I'll make one...

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Misomisosambaaa

I made homemade miso soup today! It was ever so tasty ^_^ This is the recipe I used:


Ingredients:

4 cups water

1/3 cup miso paste

3 green onions, chopped

1 tbsp shredded nori or wakame (seaweed)

1/2 block firm silken tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes

Dash soy sauce

1/2 teaspoon sesame oil

Bring water to a slow simmer and add seaweed. Simmer for 5-6 minutes, or more depending on your preferences. The seaweed will taste less salty/fishy if you simmer it longer. Reduce heat to very low and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir until miso is well dissolved. It is best not to boil the miso, because it will lose some of its nutritional value and the soup will taste different.


It was kinda rainy and cold today, so it was pretty much the perfect thing. Nice and warm and salty asian goodness.
Ballroom tonight was painful but productive. The first hour was a group samba technique class, and we did a full hour of crusado walks. SO much technique in my poor little brain and for my body to pick up. Practice makes near-perfect, I suppose. Then the next latin class was rumba. I had such a hard time with the spin turn to aida(sp?). Good thing I have all summer to practice!

My new favorite quote: "I don't practice until I get it right, I practice until I can't get it wrong!" (stolen from my friend on the BYU ballroom tour team)

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Sushi!

Today was crazzy! It was the day of mad-dash sushi! It's kinda hard to make sushi for three hungry girls in an hour and a half before rushing off to ballet and ballroom. But we did it! We ate it on the drive over.

left to right: sweet potato & avocado cucumber sushi w/ roe (fish eggs),
salmon nigiri, plain sweet potato sticks

It was incredibly tasty, and the nigiri turned out perfect. I got the sushi salmon from Whole Foods, and it was perfect.

The rest of the night I did salsa and worked on cha cha with Ray, my partner for the Am-Am comp at Yankee Classic on January 20th. I forgot how very bad I am ^_^; He gave me CD of some rad swing/blues guitar by Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can see how John Mayer got his inspiration from this guy, his singing style is very similar. I want to see how it works as dance music.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Summer 2010: Week 1

Tuesday, April 27th:

Mokay. So this morning, I awoke to my phone buzzing from several txts from my sisters telling me to wake up and get my butt over to the high school, so I went and gave them their presents (Lise got a BYU sweatshirt like mine, Sasha got the first book in the Wheel of Time series called The Eye of the World), talked to my old science and calc teachers (below are the doodles I drew on Dr. Pegram's board), and then drove my sisters home (with much car jamz). Then I took them to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes (DELICIOUS italian thin crust pizza with crazy awesome tomato sauce), then to ballet. While they were at ballet, I went and hung out with my ballroom teachers. Everyone was super excited to see me, and I talked to Ray for a while. He knows some awesome lindy and blues places, so I'll be going this week. ^_^Then drove my sisters home, screaming lyrics all the way, making people look at us weird. Came home. Kinda worried about finding a job. The end of day 1 home.

Wednesday, April 28th:
Today I was going to do a lot of stuff (like laundry, visit more teachers, talk to students about college, etc) but no. I was lazy. SO I ended up visiting my awesome friend Steph after I dropped my dad off at the bus station on his way to Saudi :'( . We made tortilla soup. It turned out SO GOOD. I don't even know how, we didn't follow the recipe. We just threw stuff in we thought would taste good, like black beans and corn and peppers and chicken. It was so so fun. After that, I drove over to my sisters' ballet studio in Newton. My old ballet teacher was there and she was so excited to see me! Ms. Busch was so nice, and she let me come in and watch the class. My sisters have gotten so incredibly good. I'm really amazed. I do miss ballet a lot, but not quite enough to go through the pain again ;) Turf Toe once is good enough for me. So then I went to dinner at Lam's with my mom (really good Vietnamese food). I got tofu vegetable red curry with summer rolls and coconut juice. It was so amazing. The guy next to us had a ridiculous accent and was really loud about how awesome he was. He and his date(?) even started singing some hokey song at one point. It was all we could do not to laugh out loud. I could barely contain myself. After our lovely dinner (and me being interrogated on various points of my life), I drove off to ballroom for the group lessons. Everyone was so happy to see me, but I can't believe how out of shape I've gotten after only a few weeks! I'm going to be there so much this summer. It's gonna rock. BYU ballroom team, here I come.

Thursday, April 29th
Today was pretty dang sweet. I took apart my mom's MacBook (because the hard drive died) and went Blues dancing. It was pretty cool because there's basically a clone of every blues dancer I know in Provo. But now my toe is acting up again. Joy.

Friday April 30th:
Ordered the harddrive for the Macbook. I plan on taking apart our other two MUCH older computers for kicks. I went to ballet (took the Tahoe, man that thing is a monster) with my mom and sisters. I helped weed and water the ballet garden, which was quite nice given the uncharacteristic warm sunny weather. Then when my sisters got out of ballet, we went to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Karoun with my relatives from Alaska. I also discovered, while I was chatting with some of the ballet people, that Mr. Anderson has a huge thing for ravens! I think I might make something raveny for him, like a tribal raven painting or something.

Saturday, May 1:
LOBSTER DINNERRRR that I have been dying to have for YEARS. We had lobster and mussels and clams and oysters on the half shell. I've never had them on the half shell, so it was a pretty fun experience. And I've heard that they are an aphrodisiac? I'll have to test that out one day in the distant future :P Must be the zinc.


Lobsterrrrr. He's looking at you.
Lise...you're doing it wrong.

Sunday, May 2nd:
Drove my sisters to
Snow White rehearsal. Then Mom, Lise, Sasha, and the Alaskans went to theCoach Grill for dinner. Whoa-expensive, but really tasty.


Left to right: Granny, Grumps, Lise, Me, Sasha, Mom, Roz
in front of the picture we were talking about all night

Monday, May 3rd:
Basically lazed around the house all day. Cleaned up a bit, did laundry. Alaska people left on a plane today.
The hdd I ordered Friday for my mom's broken MacBook came around 4 pm. I didn't have the proper screwdriver for extracting the old hard drive from its protective little metal home. So my friend David ran over with a Torx driver. Installed it beautifully. Then we went on a Best Buy adventure to find the Mac OS X Snow Leopard. The hunt for the snow leopard was a success. After a bit of confusion formatting the new hdd, it's now installing smoothly and happily. I'm actually really glad about this because now I can just put all my music on the mac for my sisters to use! The hdd I bought off NewEgg is 320 Gb, so it has more than enough room for what my mom/sisters need it for. Happiness!!

Until next week ~ Me.

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

In Which Marina Exemplifies ADD

Another week of stress-induced mayhem!


I took the physics test last week, and miraculously got a 78% overall! Huzzah! Since the class as a whole didn't do very well, he's offering a makeup test to get half our points back, and I'm definitely taking advantage of that opportunity. Today I took a Book of Mormon exam, and tomorrow I have a calculus exam and a quiz.


Last night was really wonderful! I went to Dance Lab, which was basically a huge dance in the ballroom specifically for Social Dance students. It was amazing! I've learned Foxtrot and Cha-Cha, and a little bit of swing and waltz in my class so far. My favorite by far is Cha-Cha. The whole attitude and social interaction (aka flirting) of the dance is so exciting. 

Halloween is tomorrow! I'm wearing my costume from two years ago, Jemima from the musical CATS. I'm going to wear it aaaall day. I'm really excited! I'll definitely post pictures.

 And as of now, I have three days left of my childhood before I officially become an adult. Aaah! It's a weird thought...


Randomness time!


First spotlight: Last.fm

This is an amazing site where you can make an account, and then favorite lots of artists, composers, groups, and songs you like. You can listen to full tracks up to three times. Your library of favorites becomes your own "radio station" and you can listen to all of your favorites on random as much as you want! I absolutely love it. I like to leave it on when I'm doing homework, and I've found a few new groups that I really like. For example: 

Your Vegas. This group, to me, sounds like the grandchild of Coldplay, and the child of Keane. The smooth height of the singer's voice reminds me a lot of Keane, and the calm, catchy beats in their songs are similar to Coldplay.  A few of my favorite songs are "In My Head", "Up Until the Lights Go Out", and "Troubled Times".

Another group I've discovered is Phantom Planet. I just like 'em. :3

While we're on the same note (haw haw), if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you should do so right away. Click the the link that says "watch it right now". Give yourself about 45 minutes to watch it. It's an amazing little comedic-tragedy musical that was written during the writers' strike. They wanted to make something professionally made, while still being very low budget. The songs are very catchy and funny! *sings* "With my freeze ray I will stop! the world..."


In the world of literature: 

John Green, a young adult writer, is still on his tour for his most recent novel Paper Towns. I read his other two books, An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska. I absolutely love his writing style. He expects a lot from his readers (who are generally Nerdfighters), in that he expects them to think critically and analytically about the symbolism and messages he is trying to convey. Basically, he likes his audience to be active readers. Paper Towns was #5 in the New York Times Bestselling list, and is #6 this week, in a large part due to the huge population of Nerdfighters who watch him and his brother, Hank, on their YouTube vlog Brotherhood 2.0. I'm looking forward to when I can escape campus to Borders and buy a copy! (I think I'll get one with happy Margo on it...)


DeviantArt spot!

Visit the amazing art gallery of Leonidafremov! His stunningly gorgeous work is done in oil paint in a style that he has created and practically perfected. He uses strong, bright colors in scenes that dazzle the eye and warm the heart. 

And that concludes my spazzy ramble!

Best wishes!


M Scribble