Tag Archives: The Vampire Diaries

Five Things Friday Plus One

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Oh Friday, you stroll back into my life like a smooth operator.

As is my life lately, this post encompasses absolutely no sense of order or reason, so I shall just begin.

1.  With the grace of God, a lot of praying, and a very welcomed offer, Dear Hubby and I have sold our car.  Our little Ford Focus has served us well both on St. Paul Island and in Michigan.  In the land of full-sized, diesel fueled 4X4s, our little car may have developed a slight Napoleon Complex.

The off-roading ability of a compact car certainly did give us a few fits when the harsh winds blew road-blocking snow drifts, but it was a mobile roof over our heads.

2.  Last night I went for a four-mile run.  I was planning on counting Thursday as my Rest Day of the week, but when my legs were itchin’ to be let loose, you gotta give the ladies what they want.

3.  I updated my Netflix DVD catalog, and changed over our mailing address from Alaska to Michigan.  I didn’t realize until after I was done and preparing this blog entry that I might be slightly preoccupied with handsome leading men.

 4.  Speaking of making cinematheque choices based exclusively on eye candy, I also added the first season of “the Vampire Diaries” to our Netflix list.

I have no idea what this show is about: reflective vampires?!?!

Since so much hype has been surrounding the potential actors who would play Christian Grey in a movie version of The Fifty Shades of Grey, and Ian Somerhalder’s name keeps popping up, I found it to be my responsibility and civic duty to be as knowledgeable of the candidates as possible.

Hair worthy of running an exasperated hand through? CHECK!

Piercing eyes? CHECK!

Twitchy palm? CHECK!

5.  May Reading Challenge Update!

I have set a goal for myself to read at least five novels in the month of May, and like my running mileage goal, I don’t think I’ll have any problem reaching it.  So far I have read the final two installments in the Fifty Shades series, Insurgent, and as of yesterday, The Fault in Our Stars.  I have two titles left to read, The Hate List and I,Iago, and because I was so moved by the writing style of John Green in The Fault in Our Stars, I decided to break out of my challenge boundaries and begin another Green title, Looking for Alaska.

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up – Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter’s adolescence has been one long nonevent – no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps,” he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL. His roommate, Chip, is a dirt-poor genius scholarship student with a Napoleon complex who lives to one-up the school’s rich preppies. Chip’s best friend is Alaska Young, with whom Miles and every other male in her orbit falls instantly in love. She is literate, articulate, and beautiful, and she exhibits a reckless combination of adventurous and self-destructive behavior. She and Chip teach Miles to drink, smoke, and plot elaborate pranks. Alaska’s story unfolds in all-night bull sessions, and the depth of her unhappiness becomes obvious. Green’s dialogue is crisp, especially between Miles and Chip. His descriptions and Miles’s inner monologues can be philosophically dense, but are well within the comprehension of sensitive teen readers. The chapters of the novel are headed by a number of days “before” and “after” what readers surmise is Alaska’s suicide. These placeholders sustain the mood of possibility and foreboding, and the story moves methodically to its ambiguous climax. The language and sexual situations are aptly and realistically drawn, but sophisticated in nature. Miles’s narration is alive with sweet, self-deprecating humor, and his obvious struggle to tell the story truthfully adds to his believability. Like Phineas in John Knowles’s A Separate Peace(S & S, 1960), Green draws Alaska so lovingly, in self-loathing darkness as well as energetic light, that readers mourn her loss along with her friends. - Johanna Lewis, New York Public Library

While I was looking for a photo of the cover of the novel, I came across a link that indicated that there is a film version of Miles Halter’s story.  It won’t be out until 2013, but I’m always excited when I’m on the bandwagon for a book-turned-movie LONG before the film is released.  One of the few times I feel part of the popular crowd.

Whatever.

6.  A bonus for us all!

Without going into any detail whatsoever, I just wanted to let you all know that I have my first in-person job interview in over four years scheduled.  Based upon on my present People Skills, I need to practice making appropriate, at-work small talk.