I am on a mission. In order to explain this mission, I have to give you a little background, which consists of two basic facts:
1) For the past two years, I've made the best effort I possibly could have made to be the biggest nerd in the world and make my (first secondary, now tertiary) education my life.
2) I love collecting books. Before Australia went and destroyed my dreams of ever working at a bookstore by somehow managing to drive two of the major booksellers and hence about 75% of the country's bookstores into closing, I could never resist walking into one and just browsing the shelves. I could seldom resist buying a book, either, if it looked interesting. And other than that, there's a certain giddy feeling I get when looking at my bookshelves, stocked with all these lovely stories, or just holding and leafing through a book, that I don't think that I can explain to someone who has never had it before.
Now, when you combine fact number 2 and fact number 1, you end up with a backlog of books that you have no time, brainspace (a finite resource, to be sure) or real desire to read. Having recently realised that there are other things in this world that may be more or equally important to good grades, I decided that it was finally time to do something about this backlog. And to do that, I have begun what I call my Epic Reading Quest.
The Epic Reading Quest is my combined effort of generally getting back into reading and of attempting to read all the books in my bookshelf that I never got around into completing, or the ones that I have bought in that two-year span in which I wasn't reading at all. The Quest consists of a list of (currently; the final list hasn't been decided on yet, and I keep on changing the order of books and adding them as I fancy) over 50 books, some of which are old friends and favourites, and some of which are less liked or completely new.
As of now, the completed items on my list include Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (I read the rest of the books as well, but only this one made it on the list, since I had the idea when I was already partially through this book) and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, excluding The Fellowship of the Ring, for I had finished that one before I began my list. They are all old friends, but I thought that those would be the best to start with, since I know I like them -- maybe they would motivate me to continue. So far, it seems to have worked just as I had planned. Currently, I'm about half-way through The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and am waiting for a shipment from bookdepository.co.uk -- which is an absolutely magical site, by the way; an extremely large selection, very decent prices and free shipping to almost every corner of the world -- for its sequel, The Wise Man's Fear. Though I won't write any particularly specific book review right now, I've got to say that going from Tolkien to Rothfuss definitely wasn't much of a step down in quality. He is very, very good.
Since my list isn't complete quite yet (and it might never be), I'm not going to post it in its entirety. However, if you wish to follow my progress through this Epic Reading Quest, keep coming back to this site and watch for its tag; otherwise, find me on goodreads.com (the nick, as always, is Silbena), and I'll probably get around to posting the extensive list of what I'm going to read when I'm really, really bored or procrastinating studying for exams in a few weeks.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Obligatory introductions
I've run a lot of blogs over the past few years.
Not all at once, of course, because that would just be madness and I can barely keep one of them going at a time, since I'm just so great at procrastinating. The one thing I have trouble with, every time I start a new one, is that I can have the clearest idea of what I want to post about, it's just actually getting to it that's the problem. What do you tell the internet about yourself, when you're just another budding blogger? How can you sell yourself and make yourself appear interesting next to the other five million people (note: I totally made this figure up) who talk about their mildly interesting lives and the brand of toast they had that morning? I guess I could mention that I had to fight an alien robot from outer space to actually have breakfast this morning, but that would be lying. It would also be lying to say that I even had toast. I had a donut for breakfast today, because I'm just that awesome. Or a stereotypical cop. You take your pick.
It's hard to introduce yourself in any conclusive manner when you're in that part of your life where every day, you seem to have a different idea of who you are and what you want to do with your life (current ambition: become the world's first sentient mushroom). That's actually exactly why I started this blog. I've always been a bit of an overachiever and a nerd (more about that in a later post when I whinge about the fact that Pottermore put me in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw), and I guess I've always been a bit of a geek too, what with my love for videogames and the fact that I went through pretty much the entire fantasy section of my local library as a child. And now, since I'm studying science on a tertiary level, I guess it's time and appropriate to start endorsing those qualities again. That, and I just really get bored a lot and like to geek out every now and then.
A few warnings before I get started: I don't know much about technology. I mean, I know how my computer works and I know when it doesn't work (key indicator: nothing happens when you press the power button) and I know how to use Windows and Mac OS's and various bunches of related software adequately, but don't expect me to start spewing technical jargon and get really excited when the next greatest gadget comes out. You never know, I might get into that sort of stuff at some point in my life, but right now, as long as it looks shiny and does what I want it to do, that's good enough for me.
I have also never seen Star Wars, or followed Star Trek extensively. Yes, yes, I know, I'm an absolutely horrific person and should have been stoned to death and/or strapped to a chair and forced to watch all of it in one sitting a long time ago, but somehow I've managed to avoid it, and I'm becoming so sick of everyone getting all shocked about it. I don't act that way when you tell me you haven't read Lord of the Rings, so you should have the courtesy not to do that to me! And chill out, I'm going to do it eventually. It's just not the most important thing in my life.
Lastly, I love writing. I write (and talk, as my significant other would point out) a LOT. I don't always have anything specific to say, but I just keep typing out of the sheer joy of churning out some words that mean some things. That's just the type of person I am. If you came here expecting two pictures for every hundred words, I'm sorry, but you're in the wrong place (at least until I manage to procure a reasonable camera to document every moment of my life with, mwah). Go read a magazine or something.
Oh, and I have a habit of abusing brackets.
So there you have it: this is who I am and this is what I am here to do. If you haven't dozed off somewhere between paragraphs, this might actually be a place you would want to come back to and check out more often. We can go on an adventure into my crazy little mind together, and when we come out at the other end of the tunnel, we can compare notes, decide conclusively that I am most definitely crazy and then maybe go on a journey into your mind.
I'll bring a camera, promise.
Not all at once, of course, because that would just be madness and I can barely keep one of them going at a time, since I'm just so great at procrastinating. The one thing I have trouble with, every time I start a new one, is that I can have the clearest idea of what I want to post about, it's just actually getting to it that's the problem. What do you tell the internet about yourself, when you're just another budding blogger? How can you sell yourself and make yourself appear interesting next to the other five million people (note: I totally made this figure up) who talk about their mildly interesting lives and the brand of toast they had that morning? I guess I could mention that I had to fight an alien robot from outer space to actually have breakfast this morning, but that would be lying. It would also be lying to say that I even had toast. I had a donut for breakfast today, because I'm just that awesome. Or a stereotypical cop. You take your pick.
It's hard to introduce yourself in any conclusive manner when you're in that part of your life where every day, you seem to have a different idea of who you are and what you want to do with your life (current ambition: become the world's first sentient mushroom). That's actually exactly why I started this blog. I've always been a bit of an overachiever and a nerd (more about that in a later post when I whinge about the fact that Pottermore put me in Gryffindor instead of Ravenclaw), and I guess I've always been a bit of a geek too, what with my love for videogames and the fact that I went through pretty much the entire fantasy section of my local library as a child. And now, since I'm studying science on a tertiary level, I guess it's time and appropriate to start endorsing those qualities again. That, and I just really get bored a lot and like to geek out every now and then.
A few warnings before I get started: I don't know much about technology. I mean, I know how my computer works and I know when it doesn't work (key indicator: nothing happens when you press the power button) and I know how to use Windows and Mac OS's and various bunches of related software adequately, but don't expect me to start spewing technical jargon and get really excited when the next greatest gadget comes out. You never know, I might get into that sort of stuff at some point in my life, but right now, as long as it looks shiny and does what I want it to do, that's good enough for me.
I have also never seen Star Wars, or followed Star Trek extensively. Yes, yes, I know, I'm an absolutely horrific person and should have been stoned to death and/or strapped to a chair and forced to watch all of it in one sitting a long time ago, but somehow I've managed to avoid it, and I'm becoming so sick of everyone getting all shocked about it. I don't act that way when you tell me you haven't read Lord of the Rings, so you should have the courtesy not to do that to me! And chill out, I'm going to do it eventually. It's just not the most important thing in my life.
Lastly, I love writing. I write (and talk, as my significant other would point out) a LOT. I don't always have anything specific to say, but I just keep typing out of the sheer joy of churning out some words that mean some things. That's just the type of person I am. If you came here expecting two pictures for every hundred words, I'm sorry, but you're in the wrong place (at least until I manage to procure a reasonable camera to document every moment of my life with, mwah). Go read a magazine or something.
Oh, and I have a habit of abusing brackets.
So there you have it: this is who I am and this is what I am here to do. If you haven't dozed off somewhere between paragraphs, this might actually be a place you would want to come back to and check out more often. We can go on an adventure into my crazy little mind together, and when we come out at the other end of the tunnel, we can compare notes, decide conclusively that I am most definitely crazy and then maybe go on a journey into your mind.
I'll bring a camera, promise.
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