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.