Final Update for 48 hour book challenge

I would be reading until my end time of 12:30 but for the past half hour I keep dozing off.  But I am listening to my audio book as I type up my final update :) Plus I need to get a few hours of sleep before I go to work tonight.  I work in the money room at an amusement park and have wacky hours 5 PM until generally when everything is completed.  Last night I clocked out at 1:06 AM and most weekend nights I tend to clock out between 2 to 4 am.

So with this being the first year that I participated in the reading challenge I think I did pretty well. Things I would do differently if I am able to participate next year.

• even though I can read at work sometimes schedule off for the weekend
• try to have the house to myself
• read shorter books 
• put in some more time social networking

I finished three books and at the last 1 and 1/2 I read I started 3 books

   finished 52 pages  

  finished 10 pages

  finished 4 pages 

The first two of these books I have every intention of finishing both are Printz honor books.  

Oh and my audio book I will finish in the next few days I am more than halfway through. 

Totals for the 48 hour book challenge
Time Reading: 20 hours 
Pages Read: 1040
Time Socializing: 58 minutes
Time Blogging: 14 minutes 

Audio (as of 12:04 PM):  5 hours and 8 minutes 

Total time on challenge: 26 hours and 20 minutes  

3rd book for 48 hour book challenge

Repossessed  by A. M. Jenkins 

Time to read the Book: 2 hours and 42 minutes

5 Reasons I enjoyed/read the book:

1.  Printz Honor book for 2008

2.  Explored the idea of humanity and life through the eyes of a fallen demon

3.  The book has an awesome and hysterical first chapter

4.  It was a short book.

5. I can see why teens would love this book and why it received the Printz.  

Totals for the 48 hour book challenge
Time Read: 18 hours 30 minutes  (only counting books finished at this point)
Pages Read: 974
Time Socializing: 58 minutes
Time Blogging: 14 minutes 

Book 2 for the 48 hour book challenge

So I have gone to work got to read for at least 3 hours or more and listened to an audio book to and from work.  Now I am determined to read/blog/socialize for my last 10 hours then sleep for three hours and then it is off to work.

At work I finished Dreamquake by Elizabeth Knox. book two in the Dreamhunter Duet and a Printz Honor book for 2008.  I enjoyed both books and I probably would recommend both books to anyone who enjoyed the Sabrial Trilogy by Garth Nix or Philip Pullman.  The books main focus is Laura Hame a new dreamhunter, who seems to be extremely powerfully compared to other dreamhunters.

Now a dreamhunter is a person who can cross a border into a Place where the dreamhunters capture dreams.  The dreams can then be shared with others to help them heal, for pleasure, and sadly even punishment.

Dreamquake literally picks up the story where dreamhunter left off. The thing that I have been contemplating is whether Dreamquake could stand alone or if the author should have combined both books so it would be just one.

Time to read this book:
8 hours and 43 minutes

Totals for the 48 hour book challenge
Time Read: 15 hours 48 hours (only counting books finished at this point)
Pages Read: 756
Time Socializing: 58 minutes
Time Blogging: 14 minutes 
Audio book The White Darkness. : 2 hours and 21 minutes (not sure how accurate this is hoping to finish the book by my end time and just count the length of it.  I am listening to it whenever I am blogging or on twitter.  Plus if I get tired in the next 9 and 1/2 hours I am going to go walking and listen to it.) 

Book 1 for the 48 hour book challenge.

Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox. It is the first book in a duet.
Time to Read the Book: 7 hours
Reasons why I want to read the next book.

1.  I want to know how it is going to end.
2. I want to see if a romance blooms between Laura and Sandy/Alexander
3. The writing in the book has been amazing
4. The idea of the plot is a concept I haven't read before.
5. The second book received a Printz Honor and well that is my goal for this year.

Totals for the 48 hour book challenge 
Time Read: 7 hours
Pages Read: 315 pages
Time Socializing: 58 minutes
Time Blogging: n/a I counted my last update as social network time but I am counting the minutes for this!

48hbc update number 1

got off to a rough start....sleepy at the beginning and I just wasted about 1 to 2 hours watching tv with my brother and sister-in-law.  But so far I have gotten in a total of 5 hours and 53 minutes of reading time. I am still reading Dreamhunter and thinking that I am going to start a different book then the second in the series.

48 Hour Book Challenge

    I have a stack of books lined up.  They are mainly printz award honor and award books with a few books from the top ten list of best books for young adults. I have decided that if I book isn't interesting to me then I am going to stop and start reading another book.  I also have one audio book lined up but I do not have it on my iPhone yet.  My goal is to get in at least 15 hours of reading.

My start time is going to be 12:30 EST and end time will be 12:30 EST time Sunday.  I am starting with Dreamhunter by Elizabeth Knox which is the book before Dreamquake which received a Printz Honor.

Weigh-in Wednesday May 26

Current Weight: 306.4
Time of Weigh-in: 11:36 am
Difference from last week: +1
Total from start of the project: -.2

Thoughts:  I am really not surprised. I am completely a grazer at work and with 8pm closes I run and get something to eat before work and then will often grab something when I get off because I am starving! Plus I need to wear my pedometer and make sure I am getting at least 7 to 10 thousand steps a day.

Weigh-in Wednesday: May 19

Current Weight: 305.4
Time of Weigh-in: 11:00 AMish
Difference from last weigh-in: -1.2
Total difference from the start of this: -1.2

Thoughts:

I first want to admit that I have been wearing my pedometer to work and because of my uber awesome vacation I am taking this summer I want to get into shape for it.  My fast food fast didn't go as I had planned.  I am also considering LAP-BAND surgery.

Made of Awesome

Ten words you need to stop misspelling  I just loved it for the spelling of weird. 

(via http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com)

Weigh-in Wednesday May 12

I know I am posting this late. But bear with me I only just decided to start this up again.

Current Weight: 306.6

Time of Weigh-In: 12:39 am Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning

Thoughts: Ee Gads things have got to change. Maybe doing a fast food fast....no fast food!!

What to really expect

As of right now I only plan on doing weigh-in Wednesday. Where I post my weight. If I have been good with using my pedometer posting numbers for that. I will more than likely do a brief update on what is going on in my life.

I might post other things now and then like links to awesome youtube videos. Links to other neat things. And as I get into the swing of things I will add other things too. I might also review a book or movie once in a while.

Something I wrote back in February

I am 24 and about to restart my life. I am going to be moving in with my brother and sister-in-law and returning back to school. I will be starting school full time in the fall. Studying what, I really do not know yet, I already have a BA in Education. I got two jobs in education teaching science and now with almost only one more querter to go in the school year, I am resigning my position. There are a lot of factors that went into this descision, that I will explain in a later post.

Another thing that I will be doing is focusing on losing weight. I weigh nearly 300 pounds and I am only 5'2. Meaning I am big round and fat. I have nearly always been overweight in my teens but never to this extreme. I have done some things to try to lose the weight. I even went to a camp where I lost 40 pounds but then I eventually regained it. Yet, because of the camp I know what I need to do in order to lose the weight. Even with those tools I am taking the steps to have lap band surgery. My first appointment is on March 5^th.

I have also become inactive in my church, I am a latter-day saint or better known as Mormon. It was a slow process with many factors. But with me starting over with school I plan to restart with church. I need to reaffrim my knowledge of the church and actually better practice it.

The one thing that has not changed is my love of literature. I read about anything. I have been keeping track of the books I read in a year since 2007. Each year I have read 100+ books. Now I did not read all of them, about half of them I listened, but I still consider listening to a book as being read. My goal this year is to read all of them Printz award and honor books. The Printz is an award given to the best of young adult litrature, given since 2001.

So what should be expected from this blog:

• Weigh in Wednesday: I will post my weight and hopefully how much I have lost.
  
• Thursday Review: I will post a review about a recent movie or book.
  
• Finish it Friday: I will be posting goals of projects that I want to finish over the weekend i.e. mainly Saturday and post the results on Monday.
  

For now that seems enough. That does not mean that every now and then I post something that I find or type up some of my rambling thoughts.

Weight Loss

I am currently attending a camp to lose weight. I will be here for the next 5 weeks. I will be trying to update everyday and write what I have eaten, and how many steps I took for the day. Also, every once in a while I will write a brief review about a book I have listened to while exercising.

Even though I have been at camp for 4-5 days I will be starting tomorrow.

Oh I Wish........

I were a wordier person. I am trying to write a 3 page paper done on two interviews I did for collaboration. I am barely getting 1 page right now. This is not the first time I have wished this. I blame Mr. Woolf for my non wordiness.

Mr. Woolf said that the wordier one is the studier you are. And in so many ways that is true. Just think about it. Nearly everyone has had a teacher that just keeps repeating themselves and nearly everyone will think that teacher an idiot.

Take to note my Intro to Africans professor. I hate her class. We will watch a movie and then she will take 30 minutes to explain what the movie was about. Seriously, I might as well skip the movie and then show up for the 30 min explaination. Though I think the movies are more interesting.

I also regret not taking more time to write on the blog because I have some amazing observations about the education system and in the education program. Plus life has been weird. So I am going to try to post on a regular basis Mon-Thrus.

The Day from Hell

Today is only the second day of classes and it can only go up from here.

My main problem is I generally have morning classes, I am not a morning person. I could not fall asleep last night until about 3-4 amish only to have to get up at 6:30ish to get to my first class.

My problem with falling asleep was I had something tickling the back of my throat and every time I put my head down I had to cough. Then only one of my nostrils was runny and well I was constantly sneezing.

The only plus about not being able to fall asleep I finished the book Mr. Darcy Presents his Bride: A Continuation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Helen Halstead. Now this was really the only first Pride and Prejudice continuation that was actually worth reading. My first attempt was a book called Pemberley: Or Pride and Prejudice Continued. Pemberley was truly one of the worst novels I have ever read. I could not even finish it. The characters that I have loved so much were all so wrong.

Now the book I finished last night was decent, not the greatest but better. I never really understood the concept that a novel only really develops the plot or the characterizations. To tell the truth I had only heard of this concept recently on NPR from Nancy Pearl the author of Book Lust. But Halstead was trying to do both. She tried to have a plot while developing the characters. At times the characterizations were great she stayed to the characters that Jane Austen and added her own little something. But during those time there was no plot. And then even though there was a plot and was a really weak plot. Also Halstead had one to many new characters that is was hard to keep track of all of them.

Now back to the day from Hell......

So I got a new phone, a stylish Blackberry Pearl and well I hate it, I cannot get it to do what I want it to do. I think I might change phones again. So because I was pissed at my phone I left it at home.

Only to have my tire go flat right when I am turning into campus. So I walked up to campus went to class, stats (please somebody kill me now). After class called campus police for some assistance and then I started changing my tire and have all these cars looking at me and about half way through changing a tire a guy stops and finishes the job. Then he is practically done putting the doughnut on, when the campus police come. Now I am off to my only night class.

Oh to top matters I went to Chipotle after my class and some how a fly landed in my juice.

Book Club

So much for my changing my class schedule so that I did not have a class on Fridays. Because of the change I now have a night class that is on Tuesday. My problem is that my book club I attend is on Tuesday nights, I have class on Tuesday night. Bugger bugger bugger.

Finshing a series

I have been listening to the The Lost Years of Merlin series by T. A. Baron. I have just recently finished the second book and I am not sure if I am going to finish the series. Not because it sucks because then it would be an easy decision. My problem is that my library only has the first three books in audio and not the last two.

Yes, I could read the last two books but there is something different about reading and listening to books. It is hard to explain but there is. If I get into a series by listening to the books it is nearly impossible to read the actual books.

So I might go ahead and listen to the third book and then wait for the far off future until I can get my hands onto the last two books on audio. But then I don't want to get anymore involved in the story because it will be a long time before I can listen to the last two books.

The series is good but I think I have finished with it.

The Darcy Debate

It is a truth universally acknowledge that Colin Firth is the ultimate Mr. Darcy. Firth played Mr. Darcy in the 1995 A & E version of P&P and then played Mark Darcy in the Morden day Pride and Prejudice, Bridget Jones Diary. Yet, because of the new Keira Knightly version of Pride and Prejudice, I beg to differ.

Firth is dark and forboding and delivers the lines excellently and everyone loves the pond scene. Yet, I find myself watching the Keira Knightly verison more then the 95 version, one because it is shorter and secondinly I like Matthew Macfedyen. For me Macfedyen protrays the fact that Darcy might be trying flirt early on in the aquantince.

So if I had to choose I would go with Macfedyen.

Speaking of P&P I went and saw Becoming Jane tonight with my sister. I enjoyed the movie and liked the fact that it kept to what really happend in Jane Austen's life and not giving her the guy in the end.

While at the movies I actually told a couple of older women sitting behind me, "to stop talking because it is kind of annoying". When they left the poured some water on my purse. So as a common curtious please do not comment on a movie while the movie is in progress.

The Start

I signed up for a blog because I wanted to start writing reviews, but I never started.

It Starts Now.

Though this start might not have a ton of reviews at the beginning and I might write about things or thoughts that are going on in my life. I am not that great of a writer but I enjoy it. I usually find it a nice way to vent, I do not intend for this blog to be emu style.

Plus, it might give me something to do to avoid the busy work.

So it is about 4:50 in the morning and I am finally going to bed. My job keeps me up late but I love it.