| Dull Boy by Sarah Cross |
[Jun. 18th, 2009|08:52 am] |
Dull Boy arrived at work a week after it was released and I bought it straight away (thanks to Kynan’s birthday gift voucher!).
I couldn’t read it, until all of my assessment was done though! How terrible! But this weekend I had to go away to my grandparent’s farm, and my assessment was over. I needed something to distract me from the relatives so I grabbed Dull Boy from the top of my to-be-read pile of books, and off I went! My grandparents’ house was as irritating as expected, so some escapism was great! I wish I could have got a picture of me reading while grandma and granddad butchered one of their sheep, how cool would that have been? Our camera was out of batteries, so no such luck.
( Cut for major spoilers )
In summery this picture:
Go Buy Dull Boy! |
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| A real uni student |
[Jun. 2nd, 2009|07:23 pm] |
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I feel like a real uni student, I just spent two hours at the libray and actualy got somthing productive done! Woo! Go me! Now to go home and shower and then run to pubquiz. |
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| Assesment, assesment..... |
[May. 27th, 2009|10:13 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | uni | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | I'll make a man out of you -Mulan | ] |
Girl Underground and Tales From Outer Suburbia both subvert and perpetuate commonly held ideologies about suburban lifestyle in different ways and both have a positive effect on children’s development and respect of diversity.
That’s right.
I totally can do this Uni stuff.....
*goes and curls up at the bottom of wardrobe with Thy*
Ow! She scratched me! Back to the essay it is. |
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| The Demon's Lexicon |
[May. 20th, 2009|10:56 am] |
It arrived in the post yesterday. I came home to get my laptop charger, checked the mail, and found a brown post bag. Was it something I ordered on eBay or something much, much better?
Much, much, much better
I called Amanda, Rhiannon, and I texted Louisa. To share the awesome news (and also gloat a little) It is sighed. With my name! Also theirs! How awesome!
And then I was worried. I read once, on the blurb of The Book of Lost Books a quote that rang true with me
“The lost book… becomes infinitely more alluring simply because it can be perfect only in the imagination”
Or in my words:
The best book is one you haven't read yet. It has all the promise, and wonder you have built it up in your mind to be. And actually reading it can make it disappointing compared to what you imagined
I was worried that I had built the Demons Lexicon up too much. Should I read it? Would I be disappointed?
Having read it the answer is No!
Sarah created a story that had wonderful three dimensional characters, and I don’t think there was every the risk of her people being bland. She had the perfect mix of showing us and telling us how the characters felt. I was not disappointed. It was shorter than I had thought.
( Cut for possible Spoilers )
Because I did love the Demons Lexicon
In June you should all go out and buy it! |
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| Unwind by Neal Shusterman |
[May. 17th, 2009|05:47 pm] |
Unwind
Neal Shusterman
As three teens from different walks of life become fugitives from the government who is determined to harvest them for body parts. I really like the different circumstances behind the three kid’s reasons for flight. Connor’s parents registered him to be unwound because he hasn’t done well at school and keeps getting into fights, the most common reason for kids being unwound. Risa has grown up in a state operated house her whole life, and now at the age of 16 they don’t think her chosen career of concert pianist is good enough. Lev knew he would be an unwind his whole life. His parents conceived him to be a donation to the greater good, a religious donation; he has spent his life looking forward to it.
I also really like the society’s view of unwinding. It’s not killing the unwanted children, as every part of them is used and kept alive; they are just moving on to be alive in another form. I also liked that the reason why unwinding was started because of a civil war in the US, between pro-life and pro-choice camps. They were both so absolute in their beliefs that they wouldn;t compromise, until unwinding begun. Unwanted children are not killed, (to satisfy pro-lifers) but they also don’t exist to be a burden on their parents (to satisfy the pro-choicers). There a few other interesting laws in this country. If you don’t want a child, once you give birth you can leave it on a door step, a tradition called storking. The new family legally have to keep the child, unless they catch the person leaving the baby.
I really enjoyed it; you don’t find many young adult sci-fis that are really well imagined.and carried through. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 17th, 2009|02:01 pm] |
SO I turned 21 about a month ago, and I had a party, with lots of family and friends. It was in the courtyard of the church (because I felt weired having my party in the main church, it’s so big it would dwarf us. Unfortunately it was raining, but the court yard is (mostly) covered so no one got (too) wet.
We had purple and red helium balloons, in bunches around the edge, and tables with red table cloths, and purple table runners. I had wrangled some damaged books set to be chucked from work, and Dad drilled holes in them so they were candle holders.
It was a literary trivia night, and I asked everyone to come dressed as book characters.
I was Cherry Ames, a Nurse who solves crimes. The books were written around WWII (in fact Cherry was an army nurse for a while) Here is me
( More Pictures )
And there was a bunch more of awesome costumes. It was great fun! |
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| squee |
[May. 8th, 2009|05:54 pm] |
So I enterd a compation to win a sighned copy of The Demons Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brenan AKA ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) sarahtales, and i completely didn't expect to win, because posting to auratlia take extra effort than say, posting to England, but look! LOOK! I won!
Without lying too!
whoda thunk it?
I'm very excited, and the winner was picked by the lady herself *beams*
http://www.culch.ie/2009/05/07/winner-of-the-demons-lexicon/ |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 3rd, 2009|03:47 pm] |
some random quiz i found, when i was putting off doing my essay
Your result for The Harry Potter Wand Test...
9", Willow, Phoenix
A willow wand signifies that you care deeply about emotions, art, and intuition, and that you have a particular knack for charms. The phoenix tail feather as your core means that you have the capability to be an extremely powerful wizard or witch and that you will defend those you love at all costs.
Take The Harry Potter Wand Test at HelloQuizzy
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| Alexander of Tirragen |
[Apr. 28th, 2009|03:18 pm] |
I have been rereading the Song of the Lioness Quartet again recently, and I have been thinking. It was the first Tammy Pierce I ever read (In the Hands of the Goddess on my way home from Newcastle after visiting my relatives, a five hour drive) and as soon as we got back to Canberra I demanded mum should take me to the library At Once.
(Coral-“But Chelsea, its past 5:30, It will be Closed” Chelsea-“Mum its open till 8 on Thursdays! We have half an hour! Go!” Coral-“You memorised the libraries opening hours? …..What did I do wrong?”)
I proceeded to devour all the Tamora Pierce in the library, bought them all, and have read them all several times since.
With all the thinking I have been doing lately on the nature of what makes a good story, good character development, styles of writing and other such things (thanks to sarahtales and uni) my rereading of Alana has thrown up something I want to discuss.
Alex.
( Alex of Tirragen )
Tell me what you think! Let me know if their are charicters like this in your favorite books! |
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| A Bush Fairytale |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|10:00 pm] |
I was looking at a compation on http://cyn2write.livejournal.com/132554.html to win a ARC of a book. The book looks realy cool, its a fairy tale style thing, and i decided to enter (thats what the promotional link in my previous post is). One of the ways you can enter, is by writing a fairytale starring your self, so i stared, Saying to myself You can so do somthing quick, and easy, and awesome.
Two hours later, this is the intorduction. It still needs work, and i haven't finished my adventures yet, but what do you think? The cool thing is that (except the talking animals, and granting wishes thing) the story is mostly true. My dad found a Joey, caught in barbed wire, and then he swapped it with the vet for a wombat. When the wombat was older, they gave it too a woman who had a propety full of tame(ish) wombats. And then they had ME! :D So here is part one
( A Bush Fairy Tale- The Child of Fire, and the Child of Plants, and how They came to be Conceived )
I'm not Crazy. I Swear. |
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| Juggling while educated |
[Feb. 24th, 2009|11:56 pm] |
Today I had one of the best lectures I have ever been to. It was an hour and a half, and I didn’t care. Normally I get bored in one hour lectures, but I was disappointed when this one ended. The lecture was inspiring, and passionate. He really got into the subject matter and you could tell he wanted to make us good teachers.
So he gave a demonstration of teaching. He got three volunteers, and took them up to the front of the theater. We weren’t sure what to he was going to do, and I was expecting some sort of role play. It was a role play in a way, but better. He chucked them all a beanbag, and proceeded to spend the next fifteen minutes teaching them to juggle. He went from one bag to two, and then up to three, until the volunteers were juggling.
Not well, but they were juggling.
It was the cleverest way to teach teaching I have seen so far, and I think I’m really going to enjoy this unit. The material it basic stuff, that’s all fascinating (to me) and it’s amazing what a difference a good teacher can really be.
It didn’t hurt that he was good looking either :P
In other news Kath gave me the manuscript for City of Bones, and I’m getting it bound tomorrow. How Exciting! |
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| Reps |
[Feb. 23rd, 2009|08:10 pm] |
So as you all probably know, I work in a bookshop! How exciting!
At a bookshop we have these magical people called reps (representatives) who work for all the publishing houses. Every so often (once a month for big publishers like Random, Allen & Unwin and Pearson, less for smaller ones like Thames, Wiley etc) The reps come with a list of their forthcoming titles things they want to convince our bosses to buy. They work really hard at this as they are paid on commission. No sales= no money. They get to know the staff, and then try to get us excited about a book, so we will make our bosses buy them (also they are mostly nice people who like talking about books).
One way of making staff in a bookstore excited about a book is *drum roll * giving them free books.
So reps often give us Advance Reading Copies (ARC), and we love them for it. We can review them, talk them up to customers, and otherwise make our bosses buy more books (thus increasing the reps commissions!) Jim (the random rep) gave me a reading copy for Jackie Daydream way back, and I also have been given the reading copy for the new Skullduggery Pleasant.
Kath (who works out the back at work) was sent the manuscript for City Of Glass by Cassandra Claire, and I glared and grumbled at her for days.
I recommended Cassandra Claire to her, and I have been reading it from the beginning, and Kath got it first! It’s not fair. I should have got it! Its my right!
*Trails off into grumbling*
But it’s OK because Kath is giving me City Of Glass tomorrow, and all will be well in the world again!
Now I have to ambush the Simon & Schuster rep Graham, and trick him into giving me an ARC of Demons Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brenan. If I don’t win the completion on Marmalade Fish that is…. |
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| Another dream |
[Jan. 11th, 2009|09:44 am] |
I went out clubbing with Brendan and Tahlesin, and when we got back they were arguing about everything, and they were quite tipsy. We were all sleeping at Tahlesin’s house, so we changed into sleep clothes and went to sleep. I had church the next morning, and I had set an alarm on my phone, but I woke up and it was the time church starts. So I panicked and got ready really, really quickly. In the dream I was moving incredibly slowly and this seemed to take forever, however when I checked my watch it was only ten minutes later. So I ran out of the house and I was at Jamison center, and there was mum, Teneal, grandma and granddad sitting around a table eating a roast chicken. Mum called out to me that I had to
“Come be polite to your grandparents”
So I sat down, and we were eating the chicken, and I got a wing. When Teneal and I are with granddad, he doesn’t talk a lot, so we ask him questions like”what’s your favorite colour? “ or “what’s your favorite animal?” Silly pointless questions to make him talk. So while eating this chicken I asked granddad
“What’s your favorite meat?” Granddad was pulling apart a bone that looked to be the size of a leg of lamb bone, but apparently it was the drumstick.
“Chicken” he replied. I was surprised, but explained to him that Teneal mum and I have chicken almost every day so we are sick of it. Then granddad started telling me about a problem with red meat. He showed me the bone he was eating and pulled a string off the surface.
“That’s a tendon, and is the best eating bit. All animals have it, but with everything but chicken it gets burnt off in the cooking process.”
I nodded and looked sympathetic, but I asked
“I have had lamb with that, and beef. Why would it happen sometimes and not others?”
“Because for it to stay strong and not burn off it need a type of parasite living in the animal. And we don’t have that in Victoria.”
I thought that he and grandma just were making up silly sudo-science as an excuse for the fact they can’t cook very well.
Then I realized I still had to go to church and I looked at my watch. It was now half an hour since church had started, and I was panicking, but mum wouldn’t drive me. She kept making excuses until it was an hour and a half later and there was no way I could go to church. I was very annoyed.
I went inside to buy something at the bakery, and I saw Kay Distel. She is a woman who “helped” Teneal and me with our dyslexia and we don’t like her at all. In the dream she was riding a hands free bike. I went back outside and sat down in a huff at mum, so she said she would drive us home, but she drove me to Kay Distel's house (a place that is in a lot of my dreams). She has video cameras over all of it, except the back yard so you have to sneak around carefully if you want to avoid her. I was sitting in a green area under lots of trees with Charlie, and it became night. There was a lot of noise, and we realized there was a white tiger that had been stolen from the zoo leaving her chicken coup, so she must have stolen it. Charlie barked a warning to all the other dogs around, and they and all the cats herded it back to me, so that I could catch it and return it to the zoo. |
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| coriander |
[Jan. 5th, 2009|04:33 pm] |
Coriander is my favorite herb. Its delicious, i love the smell, and one of my favorite foods is tomato coriander and lemon chopped up together.
Its delicous. but most people don't apricieate it. Whenever i try to cook something for my dinners and add coriander people protest. why don't they apreciate it? its awesome! What do you think? |
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| (no subject) |
[Jan. 3rd, 2009|11:22 pm] |
I can't tell where the drit begins, and the tan ends. my hair hasn't been washed in 9 day (however it HAS been full imssered in water everyday)my feet have soles so stong i can walk on spikey painful gravel easily. I have read 6 book in a week.
yes i have been camping since Christmas.
And while it was awesome, and the best week of my year, i am also glad to be back.
I am going to unpack, and bathe.
CRAP Teneal left the shampoo conditioner and soap at dads house. |
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| Floods and BBQ's |
[Nov. 2nd, 2008|11:39 am] |
On Wednesday night I was cooking dinner, and as I was attempting to steam the vegetables in the microwave discovered that the microwave was broken. The lights would go on, the plate would spin, but even if you put food in for 20 minutes it wouldn’t heat up at all. So I steamed the vegetables on the stove, no big deal. Mum put a load of clothes in the washing machine, and took Charlie for a walk. When she got back she started swearing, and I asked what was wrong but she just said “I’ll tell you two over dinner” So Teneal and I were eating dinner and mum starts crying.
Teneal and I are like “WTF? What’s going on?” and mum tells us
The washing machine flooded the hallway, and the carpet is 2cms deep in water. It’s gotten into the underlay so it feels like walking on a marsh, or sponge. Teneal and mum's clothes for work the next day were in there, and they are all coated in soap flakes.
“We should take the load to Dad’s house and wash them in his machine” Teneal suggested
“But we were meant to clean the back yard tonight, for Teneal’s party” sobbed Mum
“Ok so we will quickly clear the yard, while it’s still light and then go around to dads” Teneal said
So I went to call Dad to check that was OK (he was in Sydney and Natasha was the only one home.) While mum and Teneal made a start on the back yard.
After the phone call I came back to find Teneal and mum bent over the BBQ discussing how to turn it on.
Do you see where this is going?
I go to carrying rubbish to the trailer while mum switches on the gas. I want no part in this after our luck so far this night, and after spending 30 seconds asking Teneal if it’s working and establishing that the gas is running. Mum then gets Teneal to light a match...
I heard a WHOOF noise, and Turn around to see Teneal with her hair on fire. She is running around and it goes out pretty quickly. Then Teneal and I are screaming at mum to turn off the gas on the BBQ, and it seems to take her ages.
Teneal Bursts into tears, and begins wailing for her fringe that was... well... crisped. Mum hovers saying useless things like “We will fix it, we will make it longer” and “we can trim it a bit and it will be fine” while Teneal sobs (having run into her room to look in the mirror).
I went back to cleaning up, trying not to laugh, and thinking about what a great story this would make. : P
(I hope i told it OK) |
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