1.) I actually followed through on my idea from last time on making a Youtube channel. I only have on video up so far, and it doesn't look like much, but I'm having a lot of fun and learning a lot--like how wiggly my eyebrows are?
* I found an actual video camera so I will be moving on from crappy webcam video :)
2.) Speaking of social media, I started a twitter account! I don't really understand the appeal of Twitter, but it seems really handy for book and blogging news.
3.) My copies of The Golem and the Jinni, Little Failure, and The Life of God all came and I am overjoyed. I need to finish reading Nabokov so I can start them!
4.) Poetry Out Loud is finally over! I had a lot of fun, but in my opinion it was way too drawn out. I mean, we had like four weeks to memorize and prepare and honestly I could have done it over a weekend and I thought we wasted a lot of class time. Anyways, I read "The Blues Don't Change" by Al Young.
5.) Right now is sort of an amazing time at school. It's the start of the new semester, so some of our classes are a bit different and everything feels fresh. All the tests and reports and unfinished homework from the first semester are forgotten, and we're at that moment where we're learning new things in each class but aren't so advanced as to be tested on them or have projects, so I'm sort of coasting and relaxing, because I know everything will get a lot harder soon.
6.) I'm pretty obsessed with the acoustic version of "Only Ones Who Know" by Arctic Monkeys. I couldn't tell you how many times I've played it in the last two days.
7.) We're starting a poetry unit in English which I would be excited for, but my English class is a total bore. My teacher has zero passion for the subject and I couldn't tell you one thing I've learned the whole year. It's really starting to get on my nerves-- I would much prefer a hard class to an easy one. Anyways, we had to answer who our favorite and least favorite poets are, which made me realize how little poetry I've read. For favorite I said Langston Hughes; I've found there's something about African American poetry that's so appealing- it has great rhythm. For least favorite I said Allen Ginsberg; I never enjoy reading his work and he's just a little too abstract in my opinion.
8.) I FINALLY STARTED WRITING AGAIN! I'm sure I've mentioned it before but I've had writer's block basically since eighth grade AND IT KILLS ME INSIDE so I ventured into the dusty recesses of my attic and dug out my elementary school copy of Gale Carson Levine's Writing Magic. It's actually extremely helpful to give you a strong punt in the right direction- once you start writing it becomes a mindset you're always in. Anyways, I wrote a poem last night that I posted right before this post, called "Waiting to Fall". It's sort of strange for me since it's really free-form and abstract-- I usually just write about the seasons or beautiful things. But maybe my writing style is moving in a different direction?
9.) I'm getting a little tired of winter at this point. Can Spring just get here already?
I think writing a story about cancer, especially cancer in young adults, is one of the hardest endeavors for an author. Cancer is no doubt very prevalent in our world today, and most people know someone affected by it, but to adress it from an artistic viewpoint, as of an author or film maker, I don't think cancer can be the subject of the work. Sure, you can write a story about a kid who has cancer, but what's the point? Without some kind of underlying idea-which the movie is really about- it's just a very depressing "Ok, but so what?"
Having read John Green's acclaimed The Fault In Our Stars before watching this movie, I already had some ideas about what works in a cancer story and what doesn't, and I think being able to compare the two stories gave me a better understanding of how I felt about each. In my opinion, Bianca Come Il Latte, Rossa Come Il Sangue worked much better as a cancer love story that The Fault In Our Stars.
Bianca Come Il Latte is an Italian movie directed by Giacomo Campiotti, starring Filippo Scicchitano as Leo, the free-spirited tenth grader that falls in love with the beautiful red-haired eleventh-grade Beatrice (Gaia Weiss). The movie was adapted from the book by the same name, written by Alessandro D'Avenia. Leo is a bit of a rebel, playing truant and biking around Turin, where the movie takes place. His best friends are Niko and Silvia, Silvia being the brains of the operation. At the beginning of the story, Leo is in the midst of an obsession with the eleventh-grader Beatrice, who moved from France. She's gorgeous, mysterious, and he's trying to work up the nerve to talk to her. The first time he says hello is in a movie theater he followed her to, where he trips over her bag in the isle and she smiles and says she'll see him at school. The problem is she doesn't come back to school. He finds out she has cancer, and that she's ended up in the hospital being treated with chemotherapy. If she doesn't get a bone marrow donor she'll die, but no one is compatible. When she comes home from the hospital Leo starts visiting her, and they form a friendship he hopes will turn into something more, while at the same time desperately wishing for her to get better.
I'm not quite sure why the way to go about addressing cancer is with a love story- it was the same in The Fault In Our Stars. I would imagine being sick is a very internal struggle- that if you knew you may die soon there would be a lot of deep thought going on inside, trying to sort out your beliefs before you don't have any time left. But considering that it was a love story, the relationship between Leo and Bea was written very charmingly but also in a touching and realistic way.
Bea knows right from the start how Leo feels about her- he doesn't try to hide it. Although it feels like she perhaps doesn't reciprocate quite those same sentiments, she's very gentle and nice to Leo, and really values his friendship. He makes her smile when she's in a tough situation, and he wants to listen to her when she talks about her struggles and emotions. But even though Bea is the sick one, she actually helps Leo. In her he finds a passion for something, a will to do good, that he didn't really have before. He donates bone marrow even when he finds out she isn't a match, because he genuinely wants to help someone else out there.
Silvia, Leo's best friend, has had a crush on him since eighth grade, and Bea knows this. Because she truly cares about Leo, she wants him to end up with the person he really loves, and she can sense that even though he is enamored of her, Silvia is the one who is really important to him. Bea isn't bitter- she helps sort things out between them. I liked that the author/director didn't use a love triangle as a source of drama in the story. Instead he dealt with it in a very caring and understanding way, where all the characters seemed to have a real sense of what was going on. I also appreciate that Leo was allowed to love someone other than the cancer patient. Their friendship was touching, but Bea having cancer didn't change how Leo felt about Silvia. I feel like this gave a certain amount of respect to Bea's character- having cancer was only a part of her character, and it didn't make Leo love her more than he already did.
I sort of had to roll my eyes at the teacher. It's become such an archetype by now; the language teacher that becomes a friend and inspiration(see: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Dead Poet's Society) It wasn't really an original character, and I didn't think he had too much of an impact on the story. However, I did like that instead of talking to Leo about his problems he boxed with him- it was an acknowledgement to the fact that meaningful quotes and metaphors can't fix too many problems in real life- they're a luxury those without problems can afford.
It was a good move to tell the story from Leo's perspective. It worked to show how cancer affects everyone, both the patients and the people that they might not even know would be affected. In the end, a really positive message was able to be pulled from the story- live for today, love for today, because things like sickness strike without warning and you'll end up wishing you had acted on all the dreams you dreamt.
The movie definitely made more of an impact on me that TFIOS book did. It wasn't an incredibly artistic or creative movie, but it provided two hours of insight into the effects of the sickness of one girl and connected lives of those around her. I'm thinking of ordering the original book in Italian- although I'm only just learning to speak Italian, I'm sure with some work I could translate it.
I have news everyone! Gather round gather round gather round. The date is January 23, 2014, and it is New Years.
Apparently.
So basically, this is what always happens to me. I'm sort of a failure at doing the whole New Years resolution thing, because although I can be as critical as I want about books and films, I'm pretty bad at looking at my own life and seeing what needs to be changed. So today, I got home after finishing midterms (FINALLY), and I logged onto my blog. And I was like,
this is depressing.
I mean I got stuck in this *book-blogging* rut where my background was cream and I typed cute little reviews for everything I read and it was SO. ENTIRELY. BOOOORING.
See, it's so easy to succumb to a persona you've given yourself. That's the problem. I was like, this is what a book blogger is, I will be a book blogger. And I didn't even realize how bland and impersonal everything had gotten until it was too late.
BUT SEE
I'm an annoying high school girl.
I should act like one.
I mean for god's sake, five more years and poof I'll have to be an adult (god forbid) so I might as well make the most of the excuse of teenagerhood, right?
So here we go, I changed my blog around, and yes I KNOW changing the URL will like, make me lose all my followers and all but the reality is that I didn't even have many followers in the first place, and this is like a clean slate for me.
So I'm going to start my blogging career over.
I'm going to blog about whatever I want to, be it books or film or music or MY BAD POETRY because why the hell not. Can I get an amen?
And why the rambling imp? 1.) because I cannot for the life of my write a concise review of something I love and 2.) I don't know people have told me I'm impish.
But fun fact: someone had the URL theramblingimp already. Like, what? I just, I feel like I need to be friends with them.
Ok, well, we'll see how this goes. Bear with me, fellow humans.
1.) I'M FINALLY DONE WITH MIDTERMS!! They were incredibly dragged out due to two snowstorms, but they're finally over and I couldn't be happier to get back to normal life.
2.)There was a big ol' snowstorm yesterday and there's still snow all over everything, so I took a two-hour walk around my village this afternoon and took a few pictures (example above)
3.) I finally got around to watching Ginger and Rosa last night (instead of studying for my french midterm) and it was one of the best films I've seen in awhile. And Elle Fanning was incredible. And then of course I had to write a super long gushing review (instead of studying for my french midterm). Anyways I'll definitely be looking into more of Sally Potter's work.
4.) THE HANNIBAL SEASON TWO TRAILER IS OUT! It made me feel a lot better about having finished Sherlock season 3. In my excitement I dug out my copy of Red Dragon I had gotten at a library book sale a few months ago, and read it in basically one go. I'm still feeling a little too disturbed about it to write a review. I will say that I think the show is a lot better.
5.) Okay, so this is a really random idea but.... I'm thinking of starting a Youtube channel? I just discovered this massive network of Booktubers, and they're all so interesting and smart and hilarious, and I think it could be a lot of fun. I have no idea how to act in front of a camera, and in reality I would probably be an awkward mess, but *insert irony* YOLO, amarite? Anyways, I'm thinking of getting more into film, and if anything it could be a good learning experience with editing and all that. What do you guys think?
6.) Back to Ginger and Rosa, the soundtrack was FLAWLESS. We're talking jazz standards left and right. It was so cool to look up the song list and be like, wow, I played half of these. I made a youtube playlist with my favorites here.
7.) I sort of went on a shopping spree on Amazon and ordered The Golem and The Jinni, Little Failure, and The Life of God (As Told By Himself. I'm really excited to read them when they come: I've heard good things about them all. Have you read any of these? What did you think?
Well, that's all I have for this week. Midterms sort of sucked what little life I have outside of school all away. I'm looking forward to relaxing and reading all weekend!
London, 1962. Two teenage girls – Ginger and Rosa - are inseparable; they play truant together, discuss religion, politics and hairstyles, and dream of lives bigger than their mothers’ frustrated domesticity.
But, as the Cold War meets the sexual revolution, and the threat of nuclear holocaust escalates, the lifelong friendship of the two girls is shattered - by the clash of desire and the determination to survive.
Ginger & Rosa, directed by Sally Potter, stars Elle Fanning, Alessandro Nivola, Christina Hendricks, Timothy Spall, Jodhi May, Annette Bening and Alice Englert. The film premiered at Toronto Film Festival and was also shown at the 56th BFI London Film Festival.
Ginger and Rosa is the kind of film that leaves you completely sapped -mentally and emotionally- after watching, all in the most beautiful way. The lasting message of the film is in fact a very positive one, but delivering that message and making it stick is a painful affair.
This was my first time seeing one of Sally Potter's films, but what was immediately apparent was how well she understood the emotions and thoughts of a teenage girl. The character of Ginger was so real, from her stringy hair to her random bursts of laughter with her best friend. I have a feeling Sally Potter wrote a little of herself- at least her seventeen year-old self- into the main character. I've completely fallen for Elle Fanning as an actress- her face is just strange enough that you're completely mesmerized by all it's expressions, and she emotes so well that when she feels uncomfortable or sad or listless or frustrated, you can feel it too, twisting your stomach in every which way. The interactions between characters were given to extended bouts of silence, sometimes comfortable, sometimes because the characters didn't know what to say, but when people did speak, it felt so entirely natural. There are some scripts that feel like scripts- the characters know how to respond right away, and they know what to say. But in Potter's film, it felt like you were right there in the conversations, and the silences gave you time to think about what was being said, and if the case was, not being said.
All of the characters, supporting or main, were brought to life in the movie. No matter how much time you were given with them, you somehow were able to understand their struggles, and why they were the way they were. The way that Ginger and Rosa played off each other developed their characters that much better. I found myself identifying with Ginger so easily, but being able to understand Rosa too. Ginger seemed very childish sometimes, not in that she was necessarily immature, but just that she saw the world in such a bright and new light. She was hopeful and wanted to change things on a grand scale, philosophical in that dizzying way that only young people can be, soaking everything in. Rosa was struggling to be an adult, and only really wanted to help one person-- Ginger's dad.
The most appealing aspect of this film for me was how it approached the idea of depth in a person. It's hard to really define depth, or nail down who has it and who doesn't. It's strange, because I've always considered myself to have a measure of depth-- I read, I write, I take things in and think about them. And then I found out people who hadn't gotten to know me, or even who had, considered me to be pretty shallow. Not in a negative way, but still, it made me wonder what makes someone deep or shallow? How can we know from the self they show to the outside world? Ginger was the poet. She read, she wrote, she talked about ideas such as autonomy of thought and went to activist meetings. Rosa was the realist. She wanted to appeal to guys and spent her time reading what to do to get them to like her. She didn't really care about Ginger's causes. But while one would automatically jump to define Ginger as deep and Rosa as shallow, Sally Potter makes you wait and reconsider. It seems almost as though Ginger has all these ideas and truths that she knows about but doesn't understand, and desperately wants to understand, while at the same time her life is light, she's still a child and has the luxury of thinking of these things because she doesn't have her own problems to deal with. She protests and gets involved in these movements as a way to avoid dealing with the issues she sees around her- it's just a way to distance herself. Rosa is aware of all her own problems, and she seems to understand the things that Ginger wants to understand, but she herself doesn't want to understand them, which is why she tries to think and live on a shallower level. She wants to save Ginger's dad because she wants to save herself, and she sees herself in him. I visualize it as if she's inside a big semi-transparent orb, desperately wanting to live on the outside of it, while Ginger is on the outside trying to get in. *That doesn't make sense sorry but this is a really hard concept for me to try to explain* Really if you just watch the scene where Ginger and Rosa are in the cafe and Ginger asks if Rosa even cares about the future anymore, you'll get what Sally Potter is pointing out.
Ginger's dad is a quite clear example of Potter's focus on depth and immaturity. Roland has never let him call her Dad- he says because it sounds like a bourgeoisie trap and looks like slippers by the fire. He's been separated from Ginger's mom multiple times, and it's insinuated that he has had multiple affairs. But there's something about his attitude of free thought and autonomy and philosophy that draws you in, and you find yourself justifying him through his own reasoning. Only later in the film, when you start to see the repercussions of his lifestyle do you realize how truly immature he is. He hides this in the disguise of radical thought and the refusal to conform, but it's just how he avoids facing his own problems. Rosa's not wrong when she says he's wounded, but at a certain point you lose sympathy for him, because, well, he's a grown man and he thinks just because he's a philosopher he can hurt as many people as he wants. What I actually really appreciated was how Sally Potter addressed his relationship with Rosa. No one really berated him for how young Rosa was- the word pedophile was never said, or even inferred, because with that we have our own moral definitions and ideas of what kinds of person that is. Potter wanted the audience to see the relationship for what it was, not as a preconceived idea in our minds.
I was like "Hey, it's Joan!" when I saw the Mad Men actress playing the mother. She was so good in the role, and you felt bad for her while at the same time feeling the same frustration Ginger felt towards her- why didn't she paint anymore, why didn't she care about anything going on in the world?? It's easy for an idealistic daughter with nothing pinning her down to ask, and I myself have said the same things as Ginger to my mother countless times. Nat serves to mark the other end of the spectrum from Roland. She had to grow up too fast, and because there is so much to deal with in her own life, so many real problems, she doesn't have the luxury of being "deep".
What Potter seems to be saying through her characters is that there's a direct link between maturity and the ability to be deep and idealistic. Both sides are unhealthy, and the key is finding a balance in the middle- the right amount of mature and deep.
I loved the little support crew- Mark, Mark 2, and Bella. They were like the controls in an experiment- the calibrated ones that showed what the right balance was, so you could compare the test subjects--like Roland and Nat-- to something. I especially loved Bella's voice for some reason. It was immediately calming.
The cinematography in the movie was really beautiful at times. My favorite moments were when Elle Fanning's profile was outlined in light, and the rest of her face was dark, which was done a few times. But the lighting was so beautiful and clear throughout the movie, and the way especially the characters were shot drew out the beauty in them. The settings were all atmospheric and reminiscent of the time period- it was very believable that it was set in London in the sixties, and some places, like the father's apartment, I really wished I lived in.
Through the movie, Ginger had the habit of listening to music when she was upset, which drew attention to a wonderful soundtrack of jazz standards, with appearances from Django, Count Basie, Thelonius, and many other great names. For me, this really matched the feel of the movie. Jazz is a very atmospheric genre, but I find that it never tends to be so sad or so happy-- a lot of the time it stands apart from emotions, being more abstract and falling in the realm of thought. Having jazz was a pleasant background to the happenings in the movie, playing off them so well because they were already saturated in emotion.
Overall, the film was pretty taxing but extremely enjoyable to watch, and I know it's good because I want to keep talking about it but don't even know what to say. I think the all you really have to listen to is Ginger's poem, though.
Caro Diario is the three-part film memoir of Italian director and actor Nanni Moretti. In part one, Vespa, the camera follows Nanni around Rome on his Vespa, with panning shots of buildings and Nanni stopping to speak with random people on the street, including an encounter with Jennifer Beals. Part two, Isole, follows Nanni and his friend from island to island, trying to find the perfect spot to sit down and work. The film concludes with Medici, documenting Nanni as he gets diagnosed with cancer.
From what I've heard, this is one of the films that Moretti is best known for. Called the Woody Allen of Italy, he definitely is a bit strange, but in my opinion not very appealing. The film had the opportunity to be very beautiful, but instead the colors were dingy and the places, especially the buildings, pretty rough on the eyes. I found the music to be annoying, except for this song, and there wasn't quite enough offbeat humor to make the whole thing worthwhile. I felt some Wes Anderson vibes from it, but it didn't have the strong aesthetic that Wes Anderson has. The first two parts felt sort of pointless, and the last was TMI. Overall I was mildly bored by the whole thing, and I don't really understand why this film has gotten so much praise. Perhaps I'm missing something.
I do, however, like the idea of a sort of travelogue, inner-narration type thing. I was thinking of experimenting making one when I went to France this summer-- I like the idea of getting into filmmaking. Originally I thought Caro Diario would be sort of like the book Spotted In France, which follows a man around on his Vespa in the south of France with his Dalmatian, which was thoroughly enjoyable.
"At the center of Franco Ferrucci's inspired novel is a tender, troubled God. In the beginning is God's solitude, and because God is lonely he creates the world. He falls in love with earth, plunges into the oceans, lives as plant and reptile and bird. His every thought and mood serve to populate the planet, with consequences that run away from him—sometimes delightfully, sometimes unfortunately.
When a new arrival emerges from the apes, God believes he has finally found the companion he needs to help him make sense of his unruly creation. Yet, as the centuries pass, God feels more and more out of place in the world he has created; by the close of his memoir, he is packing his bags.
Highly praised and widely reviewed, The Life of God is a playful, wondrous, and irresistible book, recounting thousands of years of religious and philosophical thought."
I found this book by browsing around on Abebooks. I'm a sucker for books discussing religion and philosophy, and the point of view of this book seems really interesting. It sort of reminded me of this video:
Plus it's written by an Italian author, so of course I feel obligated to read it. One day I hope I can read the original version in Italian.
Have any of you read this book? What did you think? I'd love to hear in the comments!
Recently I've been spending quite a bit of time on Flavorwire, and this book has been mentioned a couple times as a January release to look forward to. Not gonna lie, the title made me giggle, and it just sounds like the sort of book that would be fun to read. I think it would be an interesting contrast after I finish Speak, Memory-both about Russian immigrants, but I'm sure the two accounts would be incredibly different. I don't really like memoirs or autobiographies unless they're funny or bring up relevant ideas- Nabokov's book being the latter and Gary's being the former. Plus, who could resist reading a book that has a trailer where the author is gay married to James Franco and they sport matching pink bathrobes?
This review is likely to be extremely biased considering that:
1.) It is Italian.
2.)I am Italian.
In La Grande Bellezza, director Paolo Sorrentino returns to Italy to tell the story of the aging king of Roman high-society, Jep Gambardella. We are introduced to Jep on his 65th birthday, a huge, Gatsby-style bash on a rooftop overlooking Rome, with people of all ages shimmying to synthetic club beats. (I'd just like to say, Jep's entrance to the movie is perfection, as seen below)
Jep is a renowned journalist and one-time author. He wrote The Human Apparatus in his youth, which received much acclaim, but never wrote another novel. He's spent the rest of his life searching for "la grande bellezza", or a great beauty, that would inspire him to write another work, but he has never found it.
Sorrentino tells his story in a very non-linear fashion. The scenes jump from place to place and time to time without much context or explanation, and it's up to the audience to figure out what's happening, so that in some places I got a little lost. But the juxtaposition between scenes is so well done: a booming, electrifying party scene will cut to a slow, quiet, beautifully shot scene like that, without any kind of transition, but it works, and it highlights the pace of Jep's life.
The aspect that was so striking about this movie were the moments of such pure beauty that would appear unexpectedly, and disappear just as fast. In Jep's words, "The haggard, inconsistent splashes of beauty." These were moments of the great beauty that Jep was looking for, and yet he could not see them as he lived them, only we, the audience, the tourists of the movie, would notice them.
Part of the charm of the movie for me was the Italian personality it had. There was just an atmosphere to it that was incredibly different than American movies. The pace was so relaxed, the scenes not contrived, the humor, the characters, it felt so foreign, but good. There was something about reading the subtitles but having the Italian voices behind them; Italians speak with such passion and rhythm and expression, it really enhanced the lines. The actor, Toni Servillo, who played Jep, was genius. His face, all lined and old but still so expressive, it was really disarming. He was almost like a philosophical Italian Bill Murray.
The soundtrack to this movie is still stuck in my head; it oscillates between heavy dance beats and ethereal violin and choral pieces, again reflecting the tone of the movie. My favorite tracks:
To be honest, I'm finding it so hard to review this movie because 1.) I loved it so much and I can't quite put why into words, and 2.) I didn't really understand it. It's not the sort of movie you really get the first time through, because it's so purely about life, and in the same vein, not really about anything. The whole package just creates this ineffable feel to the movie, of beauty and relaxation and pulsing life everywhere you look, of timelessness. It was my favorite movie of the year, and I plan on watching it many more times. All I can say is that if you have patience and an open mind, this movie is something you NEED to watch. I couldn't even stop watching during the credits, when the camera simulated a boat ride down the Tiber river as violin music played and names scrolled past. It was beautiful in every aspect of the word, and abstract at the same time.
10 Bookish (and not so bookish) Thoughts is a weekly blogging event hosted by Christine at Bookishly Boisterous.
1.)SHERLOCK just omfg. Just just just omfg I can't. I really really don't want to spoil the season three premiere for anyone who hasn't watched it yet, but it was definitely the best episode yet. Everything that I wanted the writers to work on happened and it was pure perfection and I'm still trying to just breathe.
2.) I'm currently obsessed with all things Korean. It's turning into a problem. My friend introduced me to Exo-K's Mamaand ever since I've been chasing a music video high. My favorite band is definitely Big Bang, but I like Super Junior's music a lot, too. I've also been marathoning Pretty Man, which is without a doubt the most absurd and cheesiest thing ever created- I love it. I've caught up to the current episode and now I have nothing to do with my life while I wait for the next episode.
3.) For Christmas my brother gave me his vintage record player and a stack of classical records. I've been listening to it nonstop. There's something about records that just makes the music feel more special- there's a ritual to playing it, and you have to take care of the equipment. It feels real, not just a name on a computer screen.
4.) I finally read John Green's The Fault in our Stars....and I didn't like it at all. *pause for horrified gasps* My review is right below this post, if you want to know why.
5.) Today was supposed to be the first day back at school after winter break, but it was cancelled due to Hercules. Tomorrow's cancelled, too, so I've ended up with four more days of break. What do I even do??
6.) My New Year's Resolution was to be a better blogger, which means posting more often, expanding my blog, and working on getting more involved in the blogosphere. If anyone has any blogging tips I'd love to hear in the comments below!
7.) I'm looking for more writing opportunities- contests, submissions, collabs, etc. to keep me writing more, so if anyone has info on those share share share! :)
8.) I'm starting to make travel plans for the coming year, and I'm feeling really optimistic about it. I feel like I've gotten to the age where I can start traveling comfortably on my own and finding travel opportunities for myself. I'm going to Spain for spring break with my school, and June and July I'll be in France (hopefully!) I'd love to do one of the NatGeo photography and filmmaking expeditions, but they're so expensive! (Related, if I start traveling, should I do a travel blog or travel extension to this blog?? What do you think?)
9.) I've developed a craving for a well-written page-turner. I stopped reading YA books, but after reading Samantha Shannon's The Bone Season I'm finding it hard to go back to reading dense, slow-paced adult books. I want to find a well-written book that I don't have to think too much about and can get absorbed in, but I don't know what that would be. I'll have to do some research.
10.) I'm building bookshelves in my bedroom, so I was thinking about my current collection of books. There are a lot of leftovers from my YA phase a couple years ago that I don't see myself picking up again (e.g. every Sarah Dessen book ever written), and I was thinking what to do with them. Would people be interested in a giveaway? I haven't done anything like that before but it might be fun.
