Peeps by Scott Westerfeld

     Recently I have gotten into watching a lot of Booktube (YouTube channels about all things books) and in a bunch of the videos I've watched I have heard the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld come up a lot. While I enjoy reading and am just getting really into it again I do not have the extra money to purchase books. I would get books from the library (I currently have 12 checked out and I'm not sure why because I'm not a fast reader) so I put all three of the Uglies series books on hold. It took me much longer to read the book then I would have like though it only has 284 pages. I think it's cause I'm just getting back into trying to read more frequently. Also it may have been the number of books I want to get through by the end of the month, which is now 10. Anyways when I went to the library to request them I saw Peeps and thought Id' give it a go since people seemed to really like him as a author, and I'm glad I picked it up.
     Peeps is a not so typical book about vampires, or as mentioned in the book 'peeps' which stands for 'parasite-positives'. The book starts off with our main character Cal Thompson "hunting" down his ex-girlfriend and they get into a struggle. It is his job as a member of the Night Watch to track down out of control peeps starting with his ex-girlfriends and then the person that infected him.
     I really like Cal and Lace (who comes a few chapters into the book). I like her "no bullshit" kind of attitude and think it really compliments Cals more conservative attitude. I also really enjoyed that every other chapter was like a mini lesson on a bunch of different parasites. I felt the facts of them helped me dive into the book even more. I felt like the book could be totally true.
     I gave this book a 4 of 5 stars.

My collection of squirrel pictures

     I don't know why or how I started to like Squirrels but I do. Here's a my small collection of squirrel photos. I originally intended to do a book review this week but I didn't finish the book in time. I'm reading Peeps by Scott Westerfeld and I have 100 pages left.

HG Mockingjay part 1 book/movie wrap-up

     I didn't read all three books in the Hunger Games series however I did read the last book titled Mockingjay. I read the last book because one Friday I decided to watch the first and second movie and it left me wanting to know what happened next so the next day I decided to spend all day reading the book. Needless to say it was phenomenal since I literally sat and read the whole book that day, only getting up to use the bathroom.
    Yesterday I went to the movies to see Ouija which was okay I'd give it 2.5 of 5 stars but anyways this isn't about that. I didn't plan on going to see HG Mockingjay because I don't like to see movies the day it come out because of crowds. After Ouija I saw Mockingjay because I was really excited and the person I was with thought it would be silly to wait since being that I was so excited.
     The movie added some details that weren't in the book like a back-story for characters and like all book-to-movie adaptations things were taken out. In this case the things that were taken out was small and didn't take away from the story being told. I think it was a pretty good adaptation for people like me who would like movie adaptations to be as close to the book as possible. For people who only watched the movie it may have seemed a bit unnecessary for it to have been broken up into two movies.
     While some people may not have liked part 1 because it did feel like watching a prologue and there wasn't as much action in it but I loved it. Being that I read the book I know part 2 is going to be a action packed, heart-breaking bowl of goodness.
     I give this movie and the book 5/5 stars.

Internship at Walgreens

     I passed the National Retail Federation test about two weeks ago. That means I now have a National Professional Certification in Customer Service. I was and still am very excited! As soon as the test was over I knew I passed because it told me right away. The week after that I started my internship at Walgreens. That means no more sitting in the classroom staring at walls! This internship is the second part of the customer service training I spoke about here and here. If you want more information about the OSY program then click here.

     Wednesday November 5th was my first day interning at Walgreens. My work schedule is Monday-Thursday from 10a.m. to 4p.m. On my first day the other intern and I stocked the shelves in the cosmetics aisle and helped customers. On our second day we were cleaning the shelves (wrong unfortunately) and I was able to help more customers without needing to get someone else to help me.
     This week I was stocking shelves. I can't remember which aisle I had Monday. On Tuesday I did price changes and stocked the food aisle. On Wednesday I stocked shelves in the medicine aisle. Lastly on Thursday I put together displays in the makeup aisle and then switched with the other intern and did price changes in the medicine aisle. All while helping customers find what they need.
     This coming week people from the OSY program will be stopping by to check on us. They will be see how we're handling ourselves and applying what we learned to our job. I think I've been doing well so I'm not too worried about it.

The Fault in Our Stars book/movie wrap-up

There may be small spoilers you can live with knowing but just in case you can't here is your warning!
     Last Saturday I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and then watched the movie. I loved the book and enjoyed the movie, I'm glad to have read the book first. The Fault in Our Stars(TFIOS) is "a book about cancer without it being a book about cancer"(Hazel quote). It's about a girl named Hazel Lancaster who has Thyroid cancer and a depression diagnosis her doctors tells her to start going to a cancer support group. At the support group she meets Augustus Waters and from there both of their lives change significantly over the course of the book.

     The views on life, death, love and gender roles were written in such elegant and thought provoking ways. TFIOS is a story that made me smile until my face hurt and made tears sting my eyes. Throughout the book I was on a roller-coaster of emotions -happy, sad, frustrated and angry -- and every moment of it was satisfying.
    Though the movie was good I didn't like it as much mainly because I read the book, books are always better, right? I liked the cute little details in the book like the quotes from An Imperial Affliction (which doesn't exist). There were some things that I just imagined different like the sculpture in the park. I imagined it coming out of the ground in a bending over stance (trying to be discrete to avoid small movie spoilers). Also while watching the movie I wished some of the scenes stayed the same like in chapter 2 pages 48-50 and chapter 23 pages 440-442 but those are just personal things that I thought would be a better fit to making the movie full.
   I give the book a 5/5 and the movie a 4/5.
     Next week I may put up two post a update on my customer service training and maybe a book review on Eleanor & Park (just finished reading it today by the way). If you like this sort of post let me know by commenting and +1. The book review post will hopefully motivate me to start reading more, at least one book a week is my goal.

Summer Haul

I know this post is late especially since I am posting it after my "Things I'm loving this fall" post, but I wanted to wait until I had everything I ordered during the summer. Which took much longer than expected thanks to my accidental decisions to order things from china markets, not to say they are bad but they take really long to get here from my experience. I did buy quite a few things (about 20 items most from online) hopefully I don't miss anything. I will have links to most of these items and to other blog post they are featured in.
      The first thing I brought were my messenger bag and a pair of sneakers for my friend. He told me he loves them.

The next thing I ordered were two pairs of pants. I thought the first one were going to be jeans but they were more like a combination of sweat pants and jeans. When I received them they were to small but it is my fault for buying a item with no customer reviews from Amazon. The second pair (from a different seller) fit nicely when I tried them on.

The next thing I ordered was one of those electric face cleaners with the brush attachment. I love this so much I honestly do not know how I went on in life without it. It came with five attachments and I only use two of them which is the brush and nail file. I don't really know how to use the others.

I also ordered a pair of platform sneakers hoping they would make me look taller. I liked them at first until I realized how cheaply made they are. The bottom sole came loose and sort of flaps when I walk.

The next thing I bought which was really just a repurchase was my Nutribullet blender. The first time I bought it I purchased it from Bed Bath & Beyond and I returned it because my smoothie weren't coming out very smooth and I realized I needed the money back anyways. I don't have anything bad to say about the blender because it's not its fault my smoothie making skills are terrible.

I ordered a cheap tripod from amazon. I have only used it a few times in my home and it hasn't broken yet. At its shortest it's the height of a couch. I haven't put my camera on it while it's completely extended because it seems almost flimsy in that state. It is said to extend to 50" though.

 I ordered my camera bag insert and a shutter release timer remote. I like the camera bag insert because it keeps me a bit more organized than usual especially when I don't have my camera. It would be better if I had a bag a bit smaller so the insert has no extra space to move around while I walk. As for the remote it stopped working with my camera after two uses because of what I assume (based on other reviews) was because of the cord that connected the remote to my camera. Checking it out again (Oct 26th) I found that the problem with it is that it doesn't focus but it still takes pictures.

I also ordered a 32gb Sandisk flash drive that I wanted to use to repair my laptop that I bought March 2013. I made a recovery drive but I couldn't fix it. Although I couldn't fix it I'm glad I made the recovery drive because two days later my working laptop messed up while trying to install the Windows 8.1 update so it was able to repair itself.

For my hair I bought a 12 ounce container of Cantu Shea Butter Coconut Curling Cream and Curlformer dupes called Vakind Hair Curler Magic Spiral Ringlets Former.

Something else I purchased for my camera was a set of five small microphones that you clip on your shirt. I planned to start a YouTube channel and thought they would be good for when I made videos with my friends and just to have better sound quality.

Three other things I ordered for my camera was the Canon 50mm f/1.8 and Opteka 85mm f/1.8 lenses that I spoke about in a post dedicated to that. With that I purchased Giottos AA1910 Medium Rocket Air Blaster which is used to blow dust from your camera lens.

The last thing that I ordered and never received was a 15 color concealer palette.
I placed the order for it on August 22 and waited patiently even though I thought the delivery time frame was ridiculous. When I didn't receive the product I contacted them and was given a refund on October 18th. October 24 I re-ordered it from a different seller hopefully I receive this one.

Things to do on Rainy Days

     It may have not been very rainy for the past two days where you live, but here in New York City it rained a lot. When I'm home on rainy days I feel like there isn't much to do so with the help of my friends I've compiled a list of somethings they like to do. The first five are things that I like to do on cold rainy days.

1.  Read a book.
2. Wear a comfy sweater or snuggle under a blanket.
3.  Watch YouTube videos.
4. Watch something on T.V.
5. Take a nap.
6. Talk on the phone.
7. Surf the internet.
8. Bother parents or siblings.
9. Play games.
10. Watch movies.
11. Eat.
12. Listen to music.
13. Write. (music, journal, blog or the essay you've been avoiding)
14. Do work. (House, school, job work)
15. One person dance party.

 

YouTube obsession

     So I haven't mentioned this  before but I'm obsessed with watching YouTubers. In a completely non-creepy way. I like watching YouTube videos. I am subscribed to so many different kind of people. I watch natural hair videos, Vlogs, pranks, beauty, travel, food and news. Some of the people I'm subscribed to include Anna Akana, Robin Moses Nail Art, Thread Banger, Misee Harris, NutribulletTime, LaciGreen, MayBaby, Alli, Kristen Sarah, Clintus tv, Improv Everywhere, CrazyRussianHacker, DigitalRev TV, SACCONEJOLYs, MoreZoella, FunForLouis and many more. (If you want to check any of them out just click the names and it will take you to their channel.) Instead of staying up to date I like to binge watch a different person everyday.
     Today I've been binge watching DudeLikeHELLA which is why this post is going up a bit late. I found his channel last night because his "COOLEST SOUND EVER" video was written about on aplus. (If you want to check out his channel, watch the whole video or read the article click the links.) He may be one of my new favorite YouTubers. He has an energy to him that just beams with love and happiness. He has such a wonderful excitement for life and looks at things in such a positive way, as he said he "lives his life for the people who lost there life early on" in his life, he also said something like "I want to live a thousand lives before I die. I don't want to live the same life I lived yesterday." His excitement for life just makes me want even more to go and explore and live my life to the fullest. Can't wait until I reach my money saved goal (which I haven't started yet) so I can start my Road Trip Adventure which will most likely be a long way from now. Who knows maybe I'll even drive to Alaska. (If you check him out you'll get it.)

Cory from DudeLikeHELLA.

Training schedule and a meeting with my case manager

     Training is four days a week from 10-3:30. We get a hour lunch break starting at around 12. Before lunch we have a guy teacher and as a class we read from a book discuss what we read and then we get a packet to answer questions based on what we learned. After lunch we do the same thing except we have a lady teacher and different material.

example of the material we read in class.

     On Thursday we met with our case managers to plan out a Cmap which I think (based on Google search) stands for concept map. During our meeting I was supposed to come up with one to three long/short-term goals that I wanted to reach and what I wanted to get from the program. I wanted to get a job from the program which would help me with my long-term goal of wanting to move out. I was told that I couldn't use the job as a goal because it's what the program assume we want since that's what we're there for. I thought "Okay that makes sense". Moving out has been my goal since I was 11 of course back then it was because I wanted to grow up, stay up all night and explore the world and now it's because I don't like to have to rely on people for things and it used to be frowned upon to still be living with your parents after you've been to college. So, obviously the next goal I had was to move out and get my own apartment but this goal wasn't a "priority" because I "don't need/have to move out at the moment" though it was a long term goal and I would have been almost 20 by the date I gave myself to complete it. So now I have a rescheduled meeting to come up with a more attainable/reasonable goal.
     There isn't anything else I can think of that I want from the program other than what's given, which is training and hopefully a certificate in customer service. Making something up won't be helpful to me because than I will get help for something I don't need or want. Hopefully during this week I can come up with something else for them to write on that paper but my ultimate goal will not change and will still be the main thing I work towards over the next year. Though I do want to go on a Road Trip so I think I should do that before moving out.

Firetrucks and a sad excuse for a late post

     So last night my dog went absolutely mad let me explain. I was laying down on the couch (because I like to sleep in my living room)watching Youtube videos and feeling absolutely shameful for not putting up a blog post. Then the next thing I know he started barking continuously for a good 20 minutes. I hadn't even heard the Firetrucks outside I assumed the lights coming through the window was from a patrolling cop car. My dog was in the room with my uncle, who was asleep until the dog woke him up. My uncle didn't let him out the room for a while because he thought they were just passing by but they weren't. They came in our building and I was a bit worried on the inside thinking "The building's burning down!" while still laying down and doing absolutely nothing. When I noticed that they hadn't knocked on any doors in the building I relaxed a bit and gathered the assumption that it was a false alarm or something else not life threatening. So after a few minutes went passed I got up to get something to drink and looked out the window and thought "wow the lights are so pretty I bet I can get some nice pictures for a blog post!". So here they are, not as good as they looked when I was tired.

     I know I'm a little late writing this post since I told myself i would upload blog post on Saturday at about 12 in the afternoon. I actually started writing the post that should have gone up yesterday which was my Summer Haul post about 2 weeks ago because I wanted to wait until everything had arrived. I'm literally only waiting for one makeup item to arrive in the mail that I accidentally purchased from a supplier in Hong Kong or somewhere. I don't say 'accidentally' because I don't like the venders or the products from there it just takes really long to get to me and I'm not very patient. Since I purchased so much over the summer I'm actually thinking about filming a haul video to help shorten the post a bit but I'm still undecided.
     I know I may have talked in circles but I just thought I would let you know that I haven't forgotten and I am starting to make better efforts in writing my blog.

Things I'm loving this fall

Okay, now that it is officially Fall (even though once school comes back around it's pretty much Fall)  one thing coming from my summer haul is a blanket that I purchased for my failed picnic. I purchased this blanket from Bed Bath & Beyond for $19.99 and I bought a second one during a sale for $13.99. One is a queen size and the other is a king size and they are a taupe color. I absolutely love them. I haven't used them on my bed yet because I haven't gotten the chance to change my room around yet but it's so comfy and fall-esque.

Another thing I am loving is my leather jacket and sweater combo. I got the leather jacket as a late graduation present Spring 2013. I use any sweater for this combo but the one I gravitate to more is a medium/light grey stripped sweater that I love. I've had it for a few years now and I think it was a gift from my aunt.

I'm also loving a makeup brush set purchased from Amazon and a 88 color eyeshadow palette that I purchased online from Tmart. The colors aren't very pigmented if anyone wanted to know that but at the price I paid I didn't expect much. I'm not even sure why I am including this considering I am completely clueless when it comes to makeup but I will try to get better with makeup.

Lastly I'm loving my Dakine bag that I purchased this summer with the intentions of using it as a camera bag. I even bought a camera bag insert from Amazon to use with it. (If you want to see a picture of the insert click the link.) I do use it as a camera bag when I hang out with my friends but i mainly use it as a day bag. I put my tablet and some other bits in it when I go out. I do however leave the camera bag insert in because it helps me stay organized plus it's a pain to remove.

Preparing to work in the field of Customer Service

     Since being a (summer) camp counselor isn't a year long job I'm in need of a new job. Before I started my summer job I applied for a training program that would equip me with a certification in customer service and prepare me to work in the field. It is a 14 week program split up in two phases. The first phase is four weeks of in class training and at the end you take a online test to get the certification. Assuming you pass the test the next ten weeks (Phase 2) is a internship at a retail store. It isn't a paid internship but you do get a stipend each week from the program. The first four weeks you get a $60 stipend and the the ten weeks you get a $110 stipend (weekly).
     I have been going back and forth to the place once a week for the past three weeks to sort everything I needed to do out. The first week I had to come in for them to explain to us what the program was going to be about (which I already knew). The following week I had to go back to take a TABE which stands for Test of Adult Basic Education which I thought was a trick at first because it looked identical to the standardized test I took back in 5th Grade. Afterwards it made me think about when I was in highschool and we (students) use to say "what are we learning this for not like we're ever going to use it again?!" when we had trigonometry.
     This past Wednesday when I had to go back there for a third time it was to speak with a case manager. She was going to be the person who--well I'm not quite sure what she said she would help me with. She however did tell me that I now--after my past two visits where nobody mentioned--will not only need to go to DMV and apply for a state ID but I also have to call my school to prove that I'm not in school. I went there two weeks in a row and now a week before I have to go to orientation I am told that I need to bring in other things.
     I'm not complaining but seriously that should have been on the check list or at least all the staff should have known because I was told that I was fine just using my former college ID. I also called my school by the way and was told I have to come in to get a letter stating I'm not enrolled because email is so old-school.
     Excuse my whiny tone I am still pretty psyched to start the program (if I am able to). I thought the certification would look nice on my resume and the extra cash wouldn't hurt either since I spent just about all my summer earnings (which is why I'm complaining about the back and fourth). Plus it would be nice to have some help with making my resume shine and getting a job.

A picnic fail and a creative "photoshoot"

Friday, August 22
      Me and a couple of friends hung out in battery park in Manhattan. My initial intention was for us to have a picnic which by the title you understand that it was a Fail. First of all I left the house without the blanket to lay on the grass. (I ended up buying another one that was luckily on sale.) It was more so my fault then anyone else because I tried to organize everything the morning of. I sent out text asking if they wanted to hang out and that I wanted to have a picnic. I told them each what to bring. I was of course going to provide the base of the picnic (sandwiches, grapes and carrots) because since it was last minute I didn't want to ask them for too much. I told my friend that was the only other girl to bring chips and one of the guys was suppose to bring cups and the other was supposed to bring juice. I already had grapes and carrots at home so I took them with me and I was going to get them meat and bread when everyone got to Manhattan so it wouldn't just be sitting in the heat. When I got with my friend that didn't bring the juice I realized I was going to have to buy it, so I did. One of my friends was already on her way and she had the chips. Which is good because she was the only person besides myself to bring there intended item. When my other friend got there without the cups I decided that we were going to just eat chips and drink juice because I didn't want to be the only one providing most of the food.
      After that failure of a picnic we (I) decided to take some pictures. I was shooting with my new lenses and since I'm not that familiar with them yet I missed out on some good pictures. The first idea they had was to do flips. I failed at this because I panned my camera way to fast and ended up getting shots of grass. The next idea they had was to do some more light trail pictures because they really liked that the first time we did it. We used a iPhone camera flashlight for all the pics. Our theme for these pics was Dragon Ball Z. If you know what it is then you should probably get the pictures and if you don't know what it is click here. If you scroll through the pictures you'll notice that in the fight scenes when they power up there is a burst of light and that's what we were trying to convey in our pictures. most of them are blurry because they couldn't stand still through the 10-15 second exposures because we kept laughing because they were making faces trying to get into character. Although the pictures didn't come out too great we had a blast trying. (These were all taken with my 50mm f/1.8 lens that I spoke about in a previous post.)

He wanted to take a "playing with fire pic."

New lenses for my camera

      As you may or may not know I have a Canon T3i. (The kit I bought is seemingly unavailable so I linked this one instead. It has more bang for the same buck.) Since my freshman year of high school I loved taking pictures. Not very good pictures because I didn't know anything about photography. They were really just snapshots and a billion selfies before the term was mainstream.
      Onto the subject matter, I purchased two new lenses from Amazon for my camera. I bought them together but first I will be discussing the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 (click the names for prices). I was very satisfied with my purchase before I got it because I knew I wouldn't regret it. At first I was a bit worried about buying it because the 50mm lens was a gray market item which meant I wouldn't be able to register it with canon for a US warranty. ("Gray market products are products purchase outside the US and then resold in the US. They do not come with US warranties, only international warranties" taken from the customer questions & answers section of the product.)

50mm f/1.8

      The other lens I purchased was the Opteka 85mm f/1.8 . I was very skeptical about this lens for two reasons. It is a fully manual lens which was a bit scary because I live by the "use auto-focus and tweak if needed" method that I had adapted. Also I liked being able to change the aperture on camera which isn't even a option because when this lens is attached my camera just says the aperture is 00. For a beginner that only using Auto I think that it would be a bit frustrating to learn but it won't take long to learn. My second reason for being skeptical was that I couldn't find any how-to or example videos on this lens. I like to do my research on tech related things for reference but I wouldn't say this was a huge reason. I just would have liked to find more than two videos on it. Although I didn't find the videos I was looking for I decided to buy it anyways. (SN: the thing on the top on the lens is a lens hood.)

85mm f/1.8

      In the two pictures of my lenses the DIY lighting I used was the light from my laptop (seen on the left side of each picture) and the light from my tablet which I held above and to the right of the lenses.

The Museum of Natural History and a random squirrel

Yesterday at camp we took a field trip to The Museum of Natural History. This was a trip for the whole camp. So we had groups 1-4 campers and staff. We used public transportation (two trains) to get to the museum. It took us a little over an hour to get there. When we got there the group leader for my group (G1A) split the kids up between our 4 staff members. I had five kids to look after and walk around the museum with. I didn't get to take any pictures because I wanted to be able to keep up with the kids.
The first section we went to was Natural Histories. It was a long hallway of pictures of a bunch of animals that used to exist. They thought some of them was cool but others were ugly. When I could keep there attention on one picture for more than three seconds I read to them the descriptions of the animals and insects.
The next section we went to was Northwest Coast Indians and saw the Indian men and women (still figures) working and preparing food. As we walked down the hall we saw a few masks and then the kids pretended to be one of the bird mask and tried to scare each other. When I got them to stop making faces and growling at each other we got to see some hand crafted swords. The boys were excited about them but the girls continued on to look at something else.
Then we went into the North American Forests section. The kids got to see animals in their different habitats. When they saw squirrels and snakes they pointed them out and called my name repeatedly to show me. That morning I coincidentally took a picture of a squirrel eating a granola bar and I showed it to them after the third fake squirrel. They also got to see what a mosquito looks like in an enlarged replica. I even got to introduce them to a few new insects like beetles and centipedes. They thought it was gross and all said "Ewwwww!".
The last section we went to was the Hall of Biodiversity. Not much about this part of our tour we just sat at the desks and watched a few videos on climate change and plants and animals. We more than anything used this section for resting since we'd been walking around for an hour. When they were paying attention to the videos and not pushing each other off the bench they seemed to be into it. They paid the most attention to a video about growing potatoes.
After we finished watching the videos I realized it was almost time to meet up with everyone so I took them to the bathroom. When they finished we went to the Cullman Hall of the Universe which is where everyone was to meet up. After waiting for 20 minutes for the rest of the groups to come we were then all able to make our way back to the school.

Squirrel eating a granola bar.

Squirrel now running away because I got to close.