The Selection

When I picked up Kiera Cass's novel The Selection on a spontaneous visit to Half Price Books (that just happened to be during their big 20% off sale), I looked at the cover, read the small blurb at the top "35 girls. 1 crown. The competition of a lifetime," looked at my best friend Hannah and told her that it sounded interesting so I was going to get it, along with the other 3 books I had in my hands.

I wasn't planning on starting The Selection right away because I'm currently 40% of the way through Diana Galbadon's Outlander. While at Half Price Books, I saw the other two books on the shelf, but being the broke college student that I am, I decided to hold off on buying them. Well, I got bored watching The Tudors and what else could possibly be sitting right next to me, but The Selection. I finished it in 3 hours. I skipped eating dinner because I was so enthralled (and because no one was home to remind me that it was dinner time) but reading my brilliant-book-find so quickly turned out to be a huge mistake. It was Sunday night, Half Price Books was closed, and Monday was Memorial Day so I didn't know if the store was open (luckily, it was!) I haven't been so anxious to read the next book in a series that I didn't have since Harry Potter. I seriously considered sitting outside of HPB like I used to wait for midnight book releases!

Needless to say, I convinced my dad to stop at the store before going to a family cookout, and I had The Elite finished by the end of the evening. I finished The One last night. Luckily, it didn't have a very disappointing ending (although it was still a little sad.) I guess I should explain what the Selection series is about, shouldn't I? Without giving too much away, it takes place in a very different, future America, now called Illea, which is ruled by a monarchy and caste system. When a prince comes of age, there is a "selection" of random women, one of whom the prince will marry. Throw in feisty lead woman America Singer, handsome Prince Maxon, and dangerous King Clarkson, and there's the formula for a really great trilogy. (Anthony Head from Merlin would make a great King Clarkson, btw)

I'm now left awaiting my next paycheck so I can buy Cass's short Selection novellas, The Prince and The Guard. I'm sure I'll eat those up in about a day as soon as I have them. I'll be left waiting until December, when a prequel, The Queen, is released. Until then I guess I'll just have to imagine the rest of my dream cast for the inevitable Selection movies (or tv show, I guess.) *sigh*

This is a great series to add to the top of your summer reading list! If you're anything like me, you'll get through them all very quickly!

My First Lecture

I recently finished reading The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, Professor of Computer Science, for my Expository and Critical Writing class. Pausch was asked by Carnegie Mellon to present for a lecture series in which the idea is "if you only have time to give one last lecture, what would it be about?" Shortly after being asked to present, Pausch discovered he had pancreatic cancer and was given a diagnosis of 4 months of good health left, meaning this would likely be his actual last lecture. 

After reading and listening to Pausch's lecture, we were given the assignment of writing our own First Lecture. I can't described to you how much I struggled with this assignment. I honestly felt and still feel that I am too young to try and give any advice to my classmates, who I had to present my lecture to. After struggling for about 3 weeks with a topic, I finally decided to give my lecture on responsibility. I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out.

My professor told me that reading Pausch's book would give us inspiration for writing our own lecture, but it took me long time to find mine. It was when I remembered the moment in The Last Lecture when Pausch gives a small piece of advice: “We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand,” that I found my inspiration.

I realized that by saying we can only change how we play the hand, we really mean we must take responsibility for our decisions. For me, responsibility can be owning up to mistakes and finding solutions for them, making difficult decisions when no one else will, or making the best of every opportunity that comes your way. 

Well, I made the best of my small spark of inspiration and wrote my lecture. It turned out pretty well, though it was only about 3 minutes long. I think it's actually better at the length I left it at. After all, I don't have much more to say about responsibility because I'm only 21 years old. I still have a lot to learn about the topic myself.  

Schedules and Hounds

Do you know how difficult it is to stay on a schedule when you're really not thinking about the schedule you set up for yourself? That's how I really feel about blogging sometimes. I don't remember until a couple days later that I totally missed a day, which makes me think I should switch some things around. Or maybe not. I don't know. It's like keeping on a reading schedule for class.

There are some days I'm reading that I get really into a book and read past what I'm supposed to, which creates the problem of knowing what's coming when everyone else in the class doesn't. Then there's the days, like this past Monday, where I just can't get into the book I'm reading (currently The Hounds of the Baskervilles. I know, I know. That's Doyle's best Sherlock novel, but still). I just can't get into that book and I don't quite hit the reading mark and then everyone else knows what's going on and I don't. Everyone has those days, right?

Really, to me, The Hounds of the Baskervilles is disappointing. I'm seven chapters in and I feel like nothing is happening. Some guy is getting his shoes stolen one at a time, and another guy is pretending to be Sherlock Holmes to throw the real Sherlock off the trail. That is honestly the only interesting thing that has happened so far, I think. Well, besides this creepy supernatural dog that just happens to be running around killing people. Oh, and the place in the moor that's sucking ponies up. That's pretty crazy. 

I was told by a couple other people that it gets a lot better. I really should trust them since it's their second time reading the novel, but still. I just don't get where this is going. I know it's bad to compare a book to a tv show, especially the BBC production Sherlock because it's so modernized, but it's hard not to. "The Hounds of Baskerville" is intense! Right away there's a great mystery that seems like Sherlock is finally going to have to face the supernatural. Somehow I don't see that happening at the end of the novel. I guess I'll just have to wait and see.