DIY + Accidental Fake Bruises

I accidentally gave myself a fake bruise. I was trying to draw a black arrow on my arm because of reasons, (Allison Argent, if I must be specific.) and then realized my mom would freak if she saw it. I sighed and started rubbing it off. I ended up with a blurred line of black down my wrist. It was smudged and light and barely noticeable. But still. Now it looks like I have a gigantic bruise on my wrist.

Anyways, that is not the topic of this post. The topic is the DIY project I completed yesterday using paint, a paintbrush, scissors, glue, and a tissue paper roll. (You didn't see the last one coming, did you?) I'd read a lot about making cool flowers/snowflake thingies with toilet paper rolls on Pinterest, but thought nothing of it until I finally looked it up and saw how cool the product was.

Here's the completed project:

Light(ish) blue on the outside, dark blue on the inside.

I only started working on this one since it was really late. Light purple on the outside, gonna be drk. purple on the inside, maybe white.

They are super simple to make (and really tiny and adorable). You only need three, fairly thin, strips of the toilet paper roll (or, if you want, a paper towel role) to make these. Of course, if you want to make a more complicated flower type one, or one for wall art, like this one:

Not mine.

You'll need a lot more. The snowflakes only take a few minutes each. I was surprised by how easy it was to make them.

(Also, quick apology for not posting sooner. I've been really busy with school and just haven't had the time. As a warning, I probably will be taking hiatuses quite a lot.)

Later,

Tansie G.

Reviewing: Catching Fire *Movie

This is not a spoiler free review.

Let me tell you a thing: Catching Fire was beyond amazing. In my opinion, it was ten times better than The Hunger Games. It was even better than Thor: The Dark World. And you know how much I loved that one.

The movie opens with Katniss kneeling before a lake. She has her staple bow and arrows, and she looks epic.

To stop this post from being as long as the review for Thor: The Dark World, I'm just going to make a list of my top heart-stopping moments.

1. How epic Katniss and Peeta look when they make their first appearance at the Capitol. I gaped at the screen for a full ten minutes.

2. Katniss' dress transformation at her interview with Caeser Flickerman.

THE WINGS, PEOPLE. THE WINGS.

3. When the arena makes its first appearance.

This moment wasn't heart-stopping from pure awe. This was from shock and just the general causes of heart failure.

This was no place for a Girl on Fire.

4. The baboons and poisonous smoke.

I almost had a heart-attack when this happened.

5. The revolution!

"I burn fires to feel joy." ~ Pitch Perfect

To be completely honest, there were so many more heart-stopping moments. Actually-- the whole movie was heart-stopping. I could barely function when the movie was over. 

Also, my dad's opinion on the Peeta/Katniss relationship is this: He does not want them together. He thinks Katniss is giving Peeta false hope and she should stop leading him on. Peeta is sincere. Katniss is not. Truth has been spoken and she needs to leave him alone.

I think he actually got mad.

My sister, on the other hand, sounded like she was having a panic attack near the end of the movie. She might have been. I wasn't paying attention.

All-in-all, this movie was epic and I need to own it. 

Rated all the stars in the sky.

Later,

Tansie G.

Retelling: Romeo and Juliet

So, basically, I'm reading Romeo and Juliet for school, and this evening my sister and I were just hanging out in the living room with my little brother, and I lunged to my feet, grabbed her by her shoulders, and yelled, "Romeo, oh Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"

And she yelled back. "Right here!" (Which I guess is her equivalent to "Herefore I art!")

And then we acted out Romeo and Juliet, with a few plot twists here and there, with them dying way more times than they actually did. It all started when Romeo (my sister) and Juliet (me) started yelling at each other about Romeo's cloak. (By the way, my lil bro plays Benvolio)

Romeo: *swirls cape* I have climbed the balcony to see thine fair face!
Juliet: *fearfully* If they see thee they will kill thee! *grabs Romeo's cloak and yanks out of his hands* You must go!
Romeo: Nay! My love for thee is too strong! (As is my love for my cloak!)
Juliet: *shrieks* Leave! Leave! *beats Romeo with the cloak* Leave, you fool!
Romeo: *yelling* Why does't thou beatest me with mine cloak as if I am a dog?
Juliet: *still shrieking* Because thou art a lovesick puppy!
Me: (I'm saying me because I fall completely out of character) *starts cackling* *continues cackling for the next century*
Romeo: *incoherent yelling*
(I couldn't hear was she was saying because I was laughing too hard)

As you can see we veered slightly from the original storyline. It was a beautiful mistake.

The fight over the cloak ends in Romeo killing Juliet, screaming that she is an evil, crazed woman. She became undead. She chased him to his room. He continuously screamed while trying to block her out. He killed her with an electric taser. She came back as a ghost.

Romeo: *moaning* Oh, Juliet, what have I done to make you haunt me so?
Juliet: You killed me twice.
Romeo: ...Oh.

In this quote, Juliet is still a ghost. The two are arguing. Romeo calls her a crazed female, she yells back that he is cheap. 

Romeo: *yelling* You call me cheap? You see-est my cloaks? They are from Venice!

Juliet: *yelling back* Yes, the patchwork is lovely!

Ghost Juliet beats Romeo with his cloak (not sure if that's possible but whatever). He ends up dying.

Juliet: Benvolio, my love!

Romeo: *rises from the dead* What? How darest thou cheatest on me! 

Juliet: You are dead!

Romeo: As art thou!

And that was pretty much how it went until we both got tired of yelling at each other and stomped away. (Still in character, of course.) We are now sitting in my room on our computers. 

Later,

Tansie G.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted at Breaking the Spine, talking about books that aren't yet published, but highly anticipated (at least, by you).

Rebel (Reboot #2) by Amy Tintera

Publication Date: May 13, 2014

After coming back from death as Reboots and being trained by HARC as soldiers, Wren and Callum have finally escaped north, where they hope to find a life of freedom. But when they arrive at the Reboot Reservation, it isn't what they expected. Under the rule of a bloodthirsty leader, Micah, the Reboots are about to wage an all-out war on the humans. Although Wren's instincts are telling her to set off into the wilderness on their own and leave the battle far behind, Callum is unwilling to let his human family be murdered. When Micah commits the ultimate betrayal, the choice is made for them. But Micah has also made a fatal mistake . . . he's underestimated Wren and Callum.

The explosive finale to the Reboot duology is full of riveting action and steamy love scenes as Wren and Callum become rebels against their own kind.

DOES THIS NOT SOUND AMAZING. (Hint: It does.)

This is probably one of my most-anticipated books of 2014 (but then again I have tons, so...). After reading Reboot and absolutely loving it, you can imagine my joy when I found out it had a sequel. Since I loved Reboot so much, I'm making a list of things it had that I hope continues in the sequel.

1. Wren and Callum. They're perfect together.
2. Wren being kick-butt. Wren facing her fears. Pretty much everything about Wren.
3. The rebellion, obviously. I like how the author addresses that there is evil in everyone, not just a specific group. 
4. I love how realistic this book is about human emotions. You can't really get rid of all of them-- as long as you're living, you're going to feel something, even if it's not much.

Later,

Tansie G.

Reviewing: Thor: The Dark World *Movie

(I downloaded so many GIFs from this movie, oh my word)

Okay. To get this started, I would just like to let you know that this is not a spoiler-free review. There are going to be lots of spoilers, actually, from both Thor the First and Thor the Second.

So, the movie starts in Thor's world. Backstory-- like with Thor the First. It tells you all about the Dark Elves (which seem to be equivalent to the Frost Giants in Thor 1; all they want is to see Asgard [and all the other planets, for that matter] burn to nothingness, until, as their name hints at, there is nothing but darkness]). They also had a feud with one of Thor's ancestors, and although Odin continuously tells Thor that the Dark Elves are completely wiped out, you quickly find out that (of course) they are not.

I loved so many things about this movie, and I was gasping/shrieking with anger, shock, and joy throughout the whole entire thing. (Also, I think I'm in love with Loki and Darcy. They are hilarious.) And the plot twists were so brilliant. I never saw any of the things that happened coming.

Anyways, after you are tossed around in the Dark Elves' backstory, the movie shows the now, where they are crushing the last of the Dark Elves' population.

So we see Lady Sif and the Warriors Three all looking awesome as they go on fighting.

Example:

And then Thor shows up-- making a huge entrance, of course.

She's saying, "I've got this completely under control!"

(he gets his face smashed in the ground by a Dark Elf hehee)

And then the Dark Elves summon this gigantic rock beast. Sif goes, "All yours," and Thor walks up to the Giant Rock Beast. He says "Hello,". The Rock Beast roars in his face. Thor says, "Very well, I accept your surrender." The Dark Elves laugh at him. The Rock Beast prepares to smash Thor. Thor spins his hammer. Hammer flies up. Rock Beast flies into a million little-ish rocks.  (As you might've guessed, the Dark Elves are no longer laughing.) And so Thor goes...

To which I was like...

Of course he was.

So after Thor and his friends win the war, they go home to Asgard and celebrate with drinking and dancing. But Thor doesn't want to party. Thor wants Jane. After Odin practically shoves the fact that human lives are nothing and Sif is obviously the better choice in Thor's face, Thor walks off, still wanting Jane. (Good Thor.)

The movie then moves on to show Jane. On a date. Well... trying to be on a date. Darcy shows up and starts eating Jane's food.

The point is, there are readings on Jane's device incredibly similar to when Thor arrived on Earth two years ago. (Talk about a long-distance relationship.) So Jane tries to ignore Darcy and continue on with her date. She cannot. She's still crazy about Thor. She leaps up and chases off after Darcy. Turns out, Darcy, Jane's intern, has an intern, named Ian. (Ian is British and Ian is funny.) Anyways, they race off to an abandoned old factory-like building. There seem to be portals, invisible ones. (Apparently, these are affects of the planets lining up, which was discussed near the beginning of the movie.) Jane goes through one. AND MEETS THE AETHER. It's evil and red and it goes inside of Jane. The energy of it is too much, so if she doesn't get it out soon, she's going to die. 

Apparently, when Jane went through that portal, the Golden-Eyed-Man (I'm calling him that because I can't remember his name at the moment) couldn't see her. Thor gets worried. Thor goes to find her.

He shows up like this...

Jane slaps him.

Twice.

So a lot of stuff happens-- Jane blows up a few police cars by accident, and Thor takes Jane to Asgard. It's all very sudden.

 

So then the Dark Elves are drawn to the Aether's power, and go to Asgard. (I feel bad saying this but their ships were so amazing.) They destroy buildings and kill a lot of guards. (The glowing swords reminded me of Star Wars.)

And so Thor makes a plan. One that involves treason. One that involves Loki.

And even longer line than that, when you think about this:

You guys are gonna have to wait. Hawk Eye got dibs.

So Loki was AWESOME. My favorite of his quotes was when he turned into Captain America.

I'm not gonna lie. I laughed especially hard at that part.

But that wasn't it when it came to humor! When Loki and Thor are attempting to make their way out of Asgard, they make quite a few jabs at each other.

The ending was the best part. 

It was the biggest plot twist of all time, and I'm not exaggerating in the least when I say Thor: The Dark World, was way awesomer than Thor the First. (At least in my opinion.) 

That being said, I cannot wait for Avengers: Age of Ultron (evidently, I will have to wait, since it comes out in 2015). Loki will not be present, but there's going to be a brother-sister duo that will hopefully be just as great.

Rated 5 stars. ANOTHER!!!!

Later,

Tansie G.

(Also, I just realized how huge this post was. And I might've gone a bit overboard on the GIF usage. Oops.)

One Almost First-Draft, One Campus Tour, and Two Birthdays

There were five sort've-major events that happened recently. Or just three, depending on how you look at it.

1. It was my sister's birthday! 
2. It was also my mom's birthday! 
3. I went on a university tour with my dad and sis, checking out the campus and sitting in a 30 minute meeting/conference/thingy. My mom took care of my brother the whole time, and told me to pay very careful attention, because what my sis was doing would be me one day. (It was all very terrifying.)
4. I've almost reached 70,000 words on my first draft in one of my WIPs! (The scary part of this is that there's still so much of the story to tell.)
5. I saw Thor: The Dark World!!!! (finally)

On Major Event 1, the whole thing was super professional. I had to sneak photos when no one else was looking because it'd be incredibly awkward if they happened to be standing in front of me when I took it.

It also dawned upon me how horribly short I am. Every time I walked through a doorway near some guy, my eyes nearly bugged out of my head because I felt like I was about to be squashed. (But it's not my fault! Both of them were all athletic and sportsy. And one of them had a really low voice. It was weird.)

The cathedral at this school was amazing. I took a picture, but it was all blurry and there was half of the top of someone's head in it (yes, it was one of the guys. I was standing directly behind him and I couldn't see anything but his back, the ceiling, and the parts of the room beside and around me). My dad and I snuck out for about fifteen minutes because we were early, and I got most of my pics then. The reason why one of these is blurry, is because I couldn't take my eyes off of my little brother for a second before he was racing off into the middle of the road. I don't think he realizes cars/trucks/pretty much any vehicle could squash him flat.

Otey Hall. Yes. That's its real name.

Part of the Quad. There's one side missing, so students have taken to calling it "Truad" or sth.

This is the absolutely gorgeous (and delicious, might I add) all chocolate cake that we had for my mom's and sister's birthday. (Which actually happened quite a bit before the campus tour and such.)

We went to an Italian restaurant beforehand. It was also incredibly good. I gave my mom her present (a butterfly necklace-- I found both the pendant and the necklace itself at Michael's. trust me when I say it's really hard to hide things from the person paying for them. also, this is the only present for her I've ever been almost positive she would like/love) and then, a few days afterwards, my sister's presents finally arrived in the mail!! I was so pumped because I would get to tantalize/torture her with them because I knew she would absolutely love them.

 

I was, of course, correct. She squealed and hugged me and said "thank you" a million times. I was very pleased with myself. 

And for my WIP, I'm extremely excited with how it's been coming along. It's the size of a real book, and I just keep on giggling as I think about having an actual copy in my hands one day. (I also realized that since I started it almost two years ago, it needs serious work. Some of it is very cringe-worthy.)

And I will be talking about Thor: The Dark World, soon. Probably alongside a book review of Save the Enemy, by Arin Greenwood (whenever I get around to reading it).

Later,

Tansie G.